ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 1988. THIS SOFTWARE IS PUBLIC DOMAIN AND AVAILABLE FROM THE LIMA USER GROUP. ^^^^^^^^ PLATO^CATALOG^XB^ROUTINE^DOCUMENTATION ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Mike Richardson ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Lima Ohio User Group GENERAL COMMENTS: Trying to catalog a Plato disk by conventional techniques is futile since the file descriptor index is at sector >0167. You can copy this sector to sector >0001, and then catalog the disk. However, the file names returned are not very meaningful. (If anyone knows what the names mean I would appreciate a note.) I wrote an a/l routine that actually catalogs the Plato disk by reading the information in the TIMENU and DISKMENU files. To use my routine you need extended basic, 32K, and a disk system with TWO drives or one drive and a ramdisk. LOADING: This program is a combination of XBASIC and assembly language, and loads directly from XBASIC with OLD DSK1.PLATO. Before you RUN the program, you need to put an initialized disk in Drive #2. The program expects to find the Plato disk in drive #1 and you are prompted to insert the PLATO disk. Press rather than "N" at the flashing "N" prompt. Don't attempt to edit the XBASIC protion of the program. If you do, things probably won't work properly. Once loaded, you can invoke the routine from XB command mode with ^^^^^Call Link("PLATO",TIMENU$(),TI,DISKMENU$(),DSK).^^^^^^^^ After invoking the routine the TIMENU$ string array contains information on the curriculum, subject, and program while the TI numeric variable tells us how many strings were passed back in the string array. Likewise the DISKMENU$ array has information on the specific titles of the Plato programs and DSK specifies the number of string variables passed back. PROGRAM EXECUTION: The program creates a file D/V80 file called PLATOCAT on the data disk in DSK2. You are asked to give each plato disk your own code name. You might, for example, give them consecutive numbers. For each disk, PLATOCAT gives your special name, CURRICULUM name (such as High School Skills), SUBJECT name (such as Biology), PROGRAM PACKAGE (such as Biology 4), and the names of the files that appear on the disk's table of contents (such as Health tutorial, Health drill). PLATOCAT is added to as you catalog subsequent PLATO disks, and can be read and printed with Funnelweb or TI Writer. This plato catalog routine does not itself read PLATOCAT to the screen. Remember to press every time the flashing "N" prompt appears. ERRORS: If the a/l routine encounters an error, it traps the error code and passes the code back to XB. LIMITATIONS: Not all Plato disk have TIMENU and DISKMENU files. Consequently this program cannot catalog these disk. It will seach all 359 sectors looking for these file names. This was a compromise on my part as I didn't feel it was necessary to step the drive heads out to sector >0167 to read the file descriptor index each and every time. ACKNOWLEGEMENTS: I used Barry Boones Systex program to hybridize the a/l routine and a DSRLNK routine from John Clulow. Mike Richardson 12/12/87 927 N. Canal St. Delphos, Ohio 45833 216-456-0478 EDITOR'S NOTE: User Groups (not individuals) may obtain a copy of this program by sending a disk and mailer to the Lima User Group, P.O. Box 647, Venedocia OH 45894. Below is a sample printout of a small PLATOCAT file. .PL 1