File: UPDATES, for version 2.21 and below: ------------------------------------------ MDOS VERSION 2.21 released November 11, 1994 Changes made for MDOS 2.20/2.21: 1) MDOS now contains an imbedded CRC. The value is stored in MDOS using the CRaCkit installation program, run by 9640*News before distribution Using CRaCkit version 2.0, MDOS can be verified internally. If any changes have been made, either by sector editing or errors during a transfer, CRaCkit will inform you of the problem. More information is available in the doc file (included). 2) Memory pages >C0 through >EF will be treated as FAST RAM if available for system usage. 3) The REMAP table has been changed. Please find the REMAP_TXT file which contains a list of the devices. Device 20 - PFM Flashdisk #1 Device 21 - reserved for flashdisk #2 4) If you have not obtained EXEC 2.11 from Tim Tesch, it would be wise to obtain this program, which includes enhancements such as rompage support, supercart support, video fixes, and more. Programs such as MDM5 and Spell-It! can be used from MDOS without using the WDS support (TI ON/OFF). 5) RS232 detect routine modified to be DSR independent thanks to Jeff White. 6) Keyscan modification (same one made to GPL and EXEC 2.11) - COPY command may still exhibit problems; cause still unknown. - FORMAT command may fail when both a Myarc floppy controller and Myarc HFDC are in the system. If you experience this problem, the best remedy is to turn your system OFF for 20-30 seconds. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- v2.00 CRaCkit Value B74C (unsupported in Crackit 2.0) The value above is the CRC value calculated with Tim Tesch's CRaCkit Utility. If you run CRaCkit and do not observe this same value, you have a modified or corrupted version of MDOS. Note: There is one "bug" left in MDOS that has been present all the way back to MDOS 1.14 and possibly earlier. MDOS opens/closes files different than the 4A system and returns file parameters back if there is insufficient space for a file. Due to this, few programs perform all the necessary error detection. When copying files, use Clint Pulley's Directory Manager for MDOS mode and you should never experience the problem. Future updates to MDOS will be available on GEnie in the TI and Orphans RT (page 575) and the 9640 News BBS (1-901-368-0112 at 300 to 14.4K baud). MDOS Support headquarters are on GEnie. Added support for 3.2MB Horizon Ramdisks using HRD formatting program by James Schroeder. Added support for 1.44MB floppy drives. See attached document. Added new switch to FORMAT command per wish of Jonathan Leslie The new switch is /N The command when /N is used disables the floppy verification of all sectors on the disk. Floppy formatting is MUCH MUCH quicker. Modified Powerup routine while in GPL mode. Elimates lockup when using ROMPAGE/OLDDSR utilities and exit GPL improperly, thanks Tim Tesch Added command to H version of MDOS per wish of Dan Eicher HARD OFF Turns off HFDC access HARD ON Restores HFDC access (default) The MODES file has been changed. New items are: (tt) 1) MODE 60 --> Graphics Mode SIX activated 2) MODE 90 --> TEXT mode II, 26 line mode activated Scroll-Back Buffer (tt) 1) Changes to the SCROLL BACK buffer. PAGEUP now works properly 2) When finished looking at the buffer, the screen is returned to the previous state. 3) Changes were made to accomodate the MODE 90 command; buffer now can be reviewed in 26-line mode 4) Bug fixed, 40 column scrollback now works properly 5) Graphics mode trap added. Scrollback only works in the TEXT modes. 6) CTRL-C deactivated while in the scroll-back routine 7) All screen reads/writes are TTYOUT independent 8) Tested with VDP wait states on/off - no ill results 9) SCREEN DUMP ADDED - Pressing "P" dumps the current screen to the printer. MDOS CLI COMMAND TYPE (tt) 1) High ASCII is no longer masked - DV80 files with IBM graphics will be displayed; a file to define the high-ascii will be made) available. 2) DF128 files are displayed without any MDOS interpretation. PC text files with CR/LF combinations will display properly 3) The MORE function "/M" has been changed. a) works in 24 and 26 line modes b) the prompt is now: "Press any key, (A)bort, or (N)onstop..." this works equally well with DV80 and DF128 files 4) file-closing problems were eliminated. Certain files would exit the TYPE routine, leaving a file open. Enough of them caused sytstem failure. New Command to CLI (tt) Code for a new command, DISK1 or DISK1 was added. This will effectively turn on or off the HDS1.DSK1. emulation, so users may choose whether files are accessed on that subdirectory while in GPL mode. V1.53 Noted that EXEC will no longer run My-Word on stock memory systems unless TIMODE is active. If you have extended memory, TIMODE is not necessary. Use the modified Myword loader available from Tim Tesch. V1.52(F/H) Note: Users wishing to use the WDS ON capability as described later in this article must either use just a Myarc HFDC as their floppy controller, or use a CorComp Disk Controller. Attempts to use WDS at CRU >1200 on the Myarc HFDC with a TI or Myarc Disk controller present will cause lockups. The TI and Myarc Disk controller card DSR's would require modification to allow this support. - Added new command that must be used in an AUTOEXEC file that can be used with hard drives. The command provides support to recover hard drive data in the event a cylinder 0 or bitmap crash occurs. The use of the command is as follows: MIRROR 1 Stores bitmap of hard drive #1 MIRROR 2 Stores bitmap of hard drive #2 Note: MIRROR 3 is not available as the HFDC hard drive #3 permits reading from that drive only. Note 1: This command copies sectors >00->1F to sectors >20->3F of the hard drive. In the event of a cylinder 0 failure on your hard drive, then one may use a sector editor (SECTORONE for MDOS) to copy sectors >20 to >3F back to >00 to >1F returning the system to the last successful use of MIRROR. Note 2: MDM5 permits formatting the hard drive using 32 sectors per cylinder. CFORM has extended the capabilities of the HFDC to make use of 33/34 sectors per cylinder. In the event you choose to format 33/34 sectors per cylinder with CFORM (instead of 32), then reformatting cylinder 0 of your drive in the event of a failure will invalidate the use of MIRROR. Note 3: If you reliably use MIRROR and format your hard drive to 32 sectors/cylinder, your chances of recovering data from cylinder 0 failures is much greater. Following a cylinder 0 failure, you MUST only format ONE cylinder. Do not format the entire hard drive or you will overwrite the information that MIRROR stored. Following the restoration of the backup sectors (copying >20->35 to >00->1F), it is possible that a DIR command will abort if files were deleted or if illegal filenames now exist. In they event that they do, you should still be able to use the CHDIR command to access other subdirectories. Access to the root directory and other subdirectories depends upon the deletions or modifications of files that took place following the last use of MIRROR. After having restored the hard drive and recovering any files that you need to recover, it is HIGHLY recommended that you then do a complete reformat of your hard drive. Do not ever save any files to the hard drive following a restoration. You further risk corrupting additional bitmaps. - Modified the Geneve Internal Ramdisk "RAMDISK" command to be universal in all memory configurations. In a warm boot or cold boot of the operating system, the RAMDISK will reinitialize if TIMODE is enabled. One may disable the TIMODE in a redirected autoexec file ("&filename") if the ramdisk is kept the same size without losing the disk contents. This was required to solve TIMODE/RAMDISK memory conflicts in systems with no expanded memory on their Geneve. - Modified Drive decrements in file L8\SECT2-P so that whatever drive assignments you set from AUTOEXEC, they carry forward to GPL mode. Now, GPL mode will not offset drive sequencing as previous versions from 0.97H to 1.50H which were caused when EMULATE drives were active. - Fixed usage problems a user found with LABEL command. Problem was actually a bug with BREAD/BWRITE on sector 0 i/o buffering as the Geneve (and TI-99/4A) can not determine when a drive door has been opened. - Modified file redirection to use DV80 files instead of DF1 files. (thanks Clint) - Removed VIDEO command. Too many users were using VIDEO ON in occassions where MDOS programs were incompatible and they thought MDOS was the problem. Programmers must implement these commands if they want the extra speed. I would also at this time like to thank the following individuals for their assistance in the MDOS programming effort: James Schroeder, Clint Pulley, Alan Beard, Barry Boone, John Johnson, Tim Tesch, Jeff White, and finally all the contributors that made the MDOS purchase possible. THANK ALL OF YOU VERY MUCH!!! Beery Miller / 9640 News ================================================================================ V1.50 **** NOTE: TI ON/OFF command for WDS support discussed in WDS_TXT - Fixed problem with formatting floppies attached to the HFDC from the CLI. - Clint has modified hchar/vchar printing routines resulting in screen writes taking 3.5 seconds versus 6.7 seconds in previous graphic screen writes. - Fixed conflicts the mouse driver and CLI hooks were having as a result of table overwrites when defining character definitions higher than 128. - JJ found, Clint fixed a bug with character definitions in certain bitmap modes when reading patterns from the screen. - Modified TIME/DATE function to not query for input if in batch mode by Al Beard - Re-modified character set to MDOS original by Beery Miller. - Added CASE ON/OFF, will convert lowercase filename to uppercase filename automatically if name is passed through the parser routine. Default is to accept lowercase filename and convert to uppercase automatically by John Johnson. - Modified Horizon ramdisk support to "force" users to use the proper REMAP configuration if they are using a 16 bit Ramdisk with >256K by James Schroeder. - Clint fixed Paul Charlton's high speed disk i/o transfer routines Use hard driver interlace of 7 for optimum speed. Floppy i/o will also be speeded up under certain conditions. FIX LIST V1.23 - Unless new bug reports come about, this will be the last 358 sector version of MDOS (F). All subsequent releases will be hard drive compatible and will not fit on a SS/SD disk. - A major bug using files in update mode has been fixed (thanks Clint Pulley) that were on the HFDC. Now, TI-BASE, FirstBase, Telco's TOS/PHONE files, and others work properly. If your system presently has files that may be "bad", copying to Geneve Internal Ramdisk or other floppy device with Clint's Directory Manager will prompt you to repair any files that are bad. Symptoms included opening a database file, accessing a record partial way but not at the end. When the file was closed, it would close wherever the last record was accessed losing everything beyond that point. This bug existed in only the H version of MDOS when working with files stored on the hard drive. - Fixed the default table for floppy only systems (F&H MDOS) that that allows DSK9 be be a >1600 CRU 16 bit HRD card. - Removed code that interfered with Mode 40/80 usage when used with composite monitors versus monochrome monitors. - Updated MODE/Printer problem that was caused with a fix to 1.21 that was not compatible with quite a bit of software (sorry folks for the "bug"). TPA should now print properly. - Forgot to add some notes to version 1.21. MDOS now has a variable reserved FDR capability. Now, 720K disks can store all filenames on the initial 128 sectors, while 90K disks will maintain the TI original number of reserved sectors. Intermediate size disks have varying reserved sector count. - Use of Hoddie Eprom with Horizon Ramdisk is not recommended as supporting various 8/16 bit Horizons causes support problems. Replace Hoddie Eprom with original Horizon 8K Ram chip and use Jim Schroeder's Format utility. - New command for MDOS 1.21 was not discussed in UPDATE docs. The Command is VERIFY ON or VERIFY OFF that can be issued from batch file or MDOS Command line. Default is VERIFY ON which is how MDOS was written. Using VERIFY OFF, MDOS will not verify disk writes (TI-99/4A style) and will allow speedier floppy access. Recognized problems still with V1.23 ____________________________________ - Have recognized problem with 5 MB removable syquest hard drives with MDOS >1.14. Fixes have not been found yet but are believed to be tied to multiple hard drive sector reads or errors reading sectors >40 to >7F reported as protected. A temporary solution has been found and requires sector editing on the hard drive. Basically, you must remove access of sectors >40 to >81. This will include mapping out the bit map sectors and sector 0 being modified to mark the new location of the FDR. FIX LIST V1.21 - Fixes to text screen mode 26.5 * 80. Not all tables were "full" of data to handle all conditions. - Jim Schroeder fixed Horizon Ramdisk support for 8/16 bit to use at CRU >1400 and CRU >1600. Drives DSK6, DSK7, DSK8, DSK9 set for these options as DEFAULT. ** NOTE: REMAPS now discussed in REMAP_TXT 10.31.94 tat ** NOTE: SETDISK now discussed in SETDSK_TXT 10.31.94 tat ** NOTE: VIDEO ON/OFF removed version 1.50 - Added a new high speed video command to the CLI. Turns the Geneve video wait states on/off. Default is left to wait states enabled. Usage: VIDEO ON turns video wait to high speed (0 wait states) VIDEO OFF turns video wait to normal speed (1 wait state) VIDEO displays current CLI setting. Note: Usage of GPL will reset this value and will require resetting to VIDEO ON, despite the speed it displays as GPL is "external" to MDOS. Also, if using GENMOD and 0 wait MEMEX, some applications will run too fast and will require setting VIDEO OFF to not lose video display data as the 9938 Video Processor can not keep up with our fast CPU. - Revised XOP >11 by: correcting coding errors. clearing the VDP EQ bit in R#46. optimizing low level operations. - Rerevised Memory management to be once again compatible with the Myarc 512K card and allow normal memory acqusition. - initial mod in V1.20 was incorrect for the Myarc 512K card. Due to no way of positively identifying memory speed since switches can be manipulated, all memory cards with >1.0 MB will have pages >40 to >7F, and >C0 to >FF be 0 wait state (original Charlton concept). - solves HyperCopy timing problems and other "random" errors seen by people using the Myarc 512K card. FIXES V1.20 - Applied KSCAN mode 8 fix to KEY1S - Revised VID XOP'S >12 to >15. - Modified XOP >35 to do range check on VDP register #. - Modified Memory management to properly identify memory >1.0MB to be 0 wait state