HCDisk 2.0 - PC utility for Sinclair Spectrum computer file transfer. George Chirtoaca, 2014 - 2022, george.chirtoaca@gmail.com
- What is it?
- What can it do?
- What are the usage scenarios?
- Where does the name come from?
- What commands are available?
- What about the source code?
- What features are planned?
HCDisk is a tool able to transfer files to and from several file systems and interfaces specific to the Sinclair Spectrum computer and clones.
It can understand these file systems:
-
Generic CPM - Spectrum +3 and various clones (HC, CoBra)
-
+3 BASIC (CPM based)
-
Betadisk TR-DOS (read only)
-
Miles Gordon Technologies +D (read only)
-
Opus Discovery (read only)
-
ICE Felix HC BASIC (Romanian clone, CPM based)
-
ICTI CoBra Devil FS (Romanian clone) (read only)
-
Electronica CIP-04 (Spectrum +3 clone from Romania, with 3.5 disk drive) File systems based on CPM are read-write, the others are read only (for now).
Can also send TAP and TZX (including copy protected ones) files over to a Spectrum computer via audio output of PC. Can also send TAP/TZX (standard blocks) to a Spectrum computer with IF1 interface via the PC RS-232 serial COM port.
Several disk/tape image formats are supported:
-
Physical disks inserted into the PC floppy drive (any format) or USB floppy drive (for CP/M formats only)
-
RAW, including TRD, MGT, OPD
-
DSK/EDSK - CPCEMU
-
CQM (read only) - Copy QM by Sydex
-
SCL (read only) - Russian emulators
-
TD0 - Teledisk by Sydex (read only)
-
Tape images: TAP, TZX
Note: For accessing floppy disks in physical drive for all supported formats, you need Simon Owen's fdrawcmd driver: http://simonowen.com/fdrawcmd/ . For standard geometries supported by Windows, the standard Windows driver is now used (added in January 2022). This also works with USB floppy drives for modern computers without a floppy controller. The geometries supported by Windows are using sector size of 512 bytes and also 40 and 80 tracks, with 8, 9, 15 and 18 sectors per track, single or dual sided. The USB floppy drives only support 80x2x9 DD and 80x2x18 HD TxHxS.
It also includes file conversion for Spectrum Specific files, to be viewed on PC:
-
converts Spectrum BASIC programs to BASIC source code
-
converts Spectrum SCREEN$ files to animated GIFs
-
includes a disassembler for CODE files
-
includes a hex viewer
- browse and view files from physical disks, disk images or tape images; an extended file catalog is displayed (read text documents from CPM disks, browse your old BASIC programs, etc)
- transfer physical disks into disk images for preservation or use on emulators
- export and import files between different file systems (Spectrum +3 to MGT +D, Opus to Tape, etc)
- disk to tape and tape to disk conversion, now including BASIC loader automatic conversion
- tape image to sound signal conversion or WAV file (for use on a Spectrum without disk)
- disk image conversion between formats (RAW to DSK, CQM to RAW, etc)
- create physical disks from downloaded disk images, to be used on the real machines
- send TAP/TZX files to Spectrum via audio
- send TAP/TZX/DSK files to Spectrum via COM port
| PC | Transfer method | Spectrum |
|---|---|---|
| Audio out jack | PC plays TAP/TZX | Loading from ear in |
| Floppy disk drive | Read/Write disks | Read/write floppy disks |
| USB floppy disk | Read/Write disks | Read/write CP/M floppy disks |
| Disk images | PC reads/writes disks | Read/write floppy disks |
| Disk images | PC reads/writes images | GoTek emulator reads/writes disk images |
| COM port | PC Upload/download files | Read/write files using IF1 COM port |
HC is the name of a Sinclair Spectrum compatible computer series manufactured in Romania by the I.C.E. Felix factory. I had one as my first computer.
The first version of HCDisk only understood the file system specific to HC, but I kept the name, even if now it can process file systems for several other clones and add-ons. Not by coincidence, HC is also an acronym for Home Computer. So this tool applies to home computers.
Note command argument convention notation: - means mandatory argument [argument] - means optional argument arguments start with minus sign value follows the argument
help ? - Command list, this message
- [command]: Show help only for the specified command.
fsinfo - Display the known file systems
Displays the known file systems, with details, from the program help (geometry, block size, block count, directory capacity, boot track count):
| Idx/Name | Geometry | Bl.Sz. | Bl.Cnt | Dir | Boot | Writable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. HC BASIC 5.25" | 40x2x16x256 | 2048 | 160 | 128 | 0 | yes |
| 2. HC BASIC 3.5" | 80x2x16x256 | 2048 | 320 | 128 | 0 | yes |
| 3. GENERIC CP/M 2.2 5.25" | 40x2x9x512 | 2048 | 175 | 64 | 2 | yes |
| 4. GENERIC CP/M 2.2 3.5" | 80x2x9x512 | 2048 | 351 | 128 | 4 | yes |
| 5. Spectrum +3 BASIC 180K | 40x1x9x512 | 1024 | 175 | 64 | 1 | yes |
| 6. Spectrum +3 BASIC 203K | 42x1x10x512 | 1024 | 205 | 64 | 1 | yes |
| 7. Spectrum +3 BASIC 720K | 80x2x9x512 | 2048 | 357 | 256 | 1 | yes |
| 8. Spectrum +3 BASIC PCW | 40x2x9x512 | 2048 | 175 | 64 | 1 | yes |
| 9. Spectrum +3 CP/M SSDD | 40x1x9x512 | 1024 | 175 | 64 | 1 | yes |
| 10. Spectrum +3 CP/M DSDD | 80x2x9x512 | 2048 | 357 | 256 | 1 | yes |
| 11. TRDOS DS 3.5" | 80x2x16x256 | 256 | 2544 | 128 | 1 | no |
| 12. TRDOS DS 5.25" | 40x2x16x256 | 256 | 1264 | 128 | 1 | no |
| 13. TRDOS SS 3.5" | 80x1x16x256 | 256 | 1264 | 128 | 1 | no |
| 14. TRDOS SS 5.25" | 40x1x16x256 | 256 | 624 | 128 | 1 | no |
| 15. Opus Discovery 40T SS | 40x1x18x256 | 256 | 720 | 112 | 0 | no |
| 16. Opus Discovery 40T DS | 40x2x18x256 | 256 | 1440 | 112 | 0 | no |
| 17. Opus Discovery 80T SS | 80x1x18x256 | 256 | 2880 | 112 | 0 | no |
| 18. Opus Discovery 80T DS | 80x2x18x256 | 256 | 5760 | 112 | 0 | no |
| 19. MGT +D | 80x2x10x512 | 512 | 3125 | 80 | 0 | no |
| 20. CoBra Devil | 80x2x18x256 | 9216 | 77 | 108 | 0 | no |
| 21. Electronica CIP-04 | 80x1x9x512 | 1024 | 355 | 64 | 1 | yes |
Known containers:
- A:/B: - PHYSICAL DISK (RW)
- RAW - DISK IMAGE (RW)
- DSK - CPCEMU DISK IMAGE (RW)
- EDSK - CPCEMU DISK IMAGE (RW)
- TRD - TR-DOS DISK IMAGE
- SCL - TR-DOS DISK IMAGE
- CQM - Sydex COPYQM DISK IMAGE
- OPD - OPUS Discovery DISK IMAGE
- MGT - Miles Gordon Tech DISK IMAGE
- TAP - TAPE IMAGE (RW)
- TZX - TAPE IMAGE (RW)
- TD0 - Sydex Teledisk DISK IMAGE
stat - Display the current file system parameters: (total/free blocks, total/free space, disk geometry, disk type, etc) Example for HC BASIC:
HC BASIC 3.5">stat
Container : EDSK - CPCEMU DISK IMAGE (RW)
File system : HC BASIC 3.5"
Path : $ULTIMELE.DSK
Disk geometry : 80T x 2H x 16S x 256B/S
Hard sector skew : 0
Raw Size : 640 KB
Block size : 2.00 KB
Blocks free/max : 6/320
Disk free/max KB : 12/640 = 1.88% free
Catalog free/max : 76/128 = 59.38% free
File system features : Sinclair Spectrum, File attributes, File folders, Case sensitive names,
File name structure : 11.0 (name.extension)
open - Open disk or disk image
- <drive|image>: The disk/image to open
- [-t] x: The number of file system type to use - optionaly, auto select the type from the list The program tries to auto detect the file system based on disk geometry. If several matches are found, a list is displayed for the user to pick one. TRDos is the only file system that has a signature that can be check, otherwise there's no easy way to detect if the selection is valid, and errors can occur, like strange, unreadable file names.
close - Close disk or disk image
ls dir - List directory
-
[<>file spec.]: filespec: *.com or 1*, etc - folder for CPM can be specified with back slash
-
[-sn|-ss|-st]: Sort by name|size|type
-
[-ne]: Don't show extended info, faster - doesn't access the file header, and it's faster for physical disks
-
[-del]: Include deleted files in listing.
Example of HC BASIC disk catalog. Other file systems for Spectrum look similar. Information displayed is: file index, file folder (for CPM), file name and extension, file size on disk, file attributes (if available for the file system). For BASIC file systems, there's also specific info displayed: file type, code start address/program start line, and lenght.
HCDisk 2.0 by George Chirtoaca, compiled on Apr 24 2024 09:31:11. Container : EDSK - CPCEMU DISK IMAGE (RW). File system : HC BASIC 3.5". HC BASIC 3.5">dir IDX Folder Name Size(KB) Attr Type Start BasLen VarLen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01 0 Saboteur2 2.00 --- Program 10 176 0 02 0 sab2scr 8.00 --- Bytes 40000 6912 03 0 sab2code 40.00 --- Bytes 25100 40436 04 0 sab1scr 8.00 --- Bytes 40000 6912 05 0 Saboteur1 2.00 --- Program 10 157 0 06 0 Serpenti 2.00 --- Program 10 94 0 07 0 sab1code 40.00 --- Bytes 25200 40336 08 0 serpcode 26.00 --- Bytes 32768 25000 09 0 Turtles 2.00 --- Program 10 188 0 10 0 turt_scr 8.00 --- Bytes 40000 6912 11 0 turt_c1 40.00 --- Bytes 25000 40535 12 0 turt_c2 8.00 --- Bytes 40000 6912 13 0 TurboEspr. 2.00 --- Program 10 203 0 14 0 te1 8.00 --- Bytes 40000 7168 15 0 te2 38.00 --- Bytes 26731 38351 16 0 Video Pool 2.00 --- Program 10 116 0 17 0 vp_code 26.00 --- Bytes 32768 25000 18 0 run 2.00 --- Program 1 775 47 19 0 zx_test 2.00 --- Program 10 68 0 20 0 zxtestcode 6.00 --- Bytes 40000 4800 21 0 Harrier 2.00 --- Program 1 254 0 22 0 har_scr 8.00 --- Bytes 30000 6912 23 0 har_code 8.00 --- Bytes 40000 6385 24 0 manic1.p 2.00 --- Program 10 166 0 25 0 manic1_1.c 2.00 --- Bytes 32768 256 26 0 manic1_2.c 34.00 --- Bytes 32768 32767 27 0 manic2.p 2.00 --- Program 10 76 0 28 0 manic2.c 34.00 --- Bytes 32000 33536 29 0 manic3.p 2.00 --- Program 10 237 0 30 0 manic3.$ 4.00 --- Bytes 30000 4022 31 0 manic3.c 20.00 --- Bytes 32768 18943 32 0 manic4.p 2.00 --- Program 10 191 0 33 0 manic4.c 18.00 --- Bytes 32768 16628 34 0 intro.p 2.00 --- Program 8000 695 31 35 0 catalog.1 2.00 --- Chr.Arr F 236 36 0 intro1.$ 8.00 --- Bytes 40000 6912 37 0 intro2.$ 8.00 --- Bytes 50000 6912 38 0 intro.c 2.00 --- Bytes 65000 536 39 0 mons4.c 8.00 --- Bytes 32768 6528 40 0 gens4.c 12.00 --- Bytes 32768 10880 41 0 service.p 2.00 --- Program 1 1880 84 42 0 gens4.p 2.00 --- Program 10 71 0 43 0 mons4.p 2.00 --- Program 1 71 0 44 0 chuckie.p 2.00 --- Program 10 161 0 45 0 chuckie.c 20.00 --- Bytes 33300 18900 46 0 loderun.p 2.00 --- Program 10 101 5 47 0 loderun.$ 8.00 --- Bytes 32768 6912 48 0 loderun.c 42.00 --- Bytes 24576 40959 49 0 bignose.p 2.00 --- Program 1 107 0 50 0 bignose.$ 8.00 --- Bytes 32768 6912 51 0 bignose.c 40.00 --- Bytes 25344 40192 52 0 dip.p 2.00 --- Program 10 721 0 53 0 dip.c 4.00 --- Bytes 24832 2816 54 0 ed.p 2.00 --- Program 1 1094 25 55 0 du.p 2.00 --- Program 10 179 0 56 0 du.c 6.00 --- Bytes 49152 4706 57 0 t2d.p 2.00 --- Program 10 202 0 58 0 t2d.c 2.00 --- Bytes 16384 1568 59 0 voice.p 2.00 --- Program 8000 928 0 60 0 voice.c 2.00 --- Bytes 60000 801 61 0 menu.old 4.00 --- Program 2753 62 0 catalog.2 2.00 --- Chr.Arr N 446 63 0 menu.p 4.00 --- Program 1 2457 848 Space free/filled/total : 020/620/640 KB
get - Copy file(s) to PC
- <["]filespec["]>: * or *.com or readme.txt, "1 2", etc - names with spaces are supported, but must be enclosed in quotes
- [-t]: Copy as text - only display printable chars, usefull for Tasword files
- [-n newName]: Set the PC file name, default: original name
Examples:
- get run - will copy from the current disk to PC the file named 'run'.
- get "Dizzy ?" - will copy from the current disk to PC all files named like "Dizzy 1", "Dizzy 2", "Dizzy 3", etc.
- get "A B C" -n "ABC" - will copy from the current disk to PC the file named "A B C" but will set the PC file name to "ABC".
type cat - Display file
- <file spec.>: * or *.com or readme.txt, etc
- [-h]: display as hex
- [-t]: display as text
- [-d]: display as Z80 assembler
Examples:
-
type run - will list program 'run' as BASIC code
-
type 1.asm -t - will list text file as text
-
type 1.bin -h - will list binary file as hex
-
type 1.bin -d - will list binary file as Z80 assembler
BASIC programs are decoded into source code. Numeric values are displayed, but only if are different from the textual representations. Also, embedded attributes are displayed (as text). The program variables values are displayed, if saved with the program, as it is the case when saving a program after being run, without first CLEARing the memory. SCREEN$ files are displayed as animated GIF files. Code files are disassembled. Any file can also be displayed as hexadecimal.
copydisk - Copy current disk to another disk or image
- <destination>: destination disk/image - if writing to physical a disk, that disk must be properly formatted
- [-f]: format destination disk while copying
Examples:
- open A: : copydisk image.dsk -f - will copy current disk (A:) to image file; destination image file must exist and must be formatted with the same format as source OR - f argument will create and format the destination disk or image file.
- copydisk B: - will copy the image file to physical disk in drive B:
- format hc.dsk -t 2 : open A: : copydisk hc.dsk - will copy from HC disk in drive A: to disk image hc.dsk.
copyfs - Copy only used blocks from current file system to another disk (same file system type, CP/M only)
- <direction>: 'to'/'from'
- <remote>: source/destination disk image (i.e. 1.dsk) or COM port (i.e. COM1)
Examples:
- copyfs from COM1 - will write curret disk with file system blocks read from COM1
- copyfs to COM2 - will copy file system blocks from current disk to COM2 port
How to copy HC BASIC disks over serial cable (COM port):
- Notice in Windows device manager the name of the COM port (COM1, COM2, etc).
- Run the latest HCDisk version and open or create a disk image in the format for HC BASIC 3.5.
- In HCDisk use command 'copyfs to COM1' to copy from PC to HC or command 'copyfs from COM1' to copy from HC to PC.
- Run the latest HCCmd version and use menu '9-Disk', then option '3. Copy A:->COM' to copy from HC to PC or option '4. Copy COM->A:' to copy from PC to HC.
- A message will show on PC and on HC showing how many blocks are left to copy. A full disk takes about 7 minutes to copy.
put - Copy PC file to file system
- <source file>: the file to copy
- [-n newname]: name for destination file
- [-d <destination folder>]: CP/M file folder
- [-s start]: Spectrum program start line/byte start address
- [-t p|b|c|n file type]: Spectrum file type: program, bytes, char arr., no. arr
- [-turbo <1364|2250|3000|6000>]: Turbo baud rate for TZX blocks
Examples:
- put dizzy.scr -n "Dizzy1SCR" -t b -s 16384 will copy a file from PC to the current Spectrum disk; the PC file name is dizzy.scr, the new file name on destination will be Dizzy1SCR, the type will be Bytes (b), the start address will be 16384.
- put "pc file" -n "HC file" -t p -s 10 will copy a file from PC to the current Spectrum disk; the PC file name is "pc file" (includes space, so quotes must be used), the Spectrum name will be "HC file" (also containing space), the type will pe Program (p), the start line of program will be 10.
del rm - Delete file(s)
- <file spec.>: the file(s) to delete, ex: del *.com; A confirmation is displayed.
ren - Rename file
- <file name>: the file to rename
- <new name>: new file name
! - Execute DOS command after '!' - will execut the shell command. Note the space after !.
- <DOS command>: ! dir, ! mkdir, etc
tapplay - Play the tape as sound asynchronously
- [-w]: play to a .wav file instead of real-time You can connect the PC audio output to a Spectrum tape input, and load the tape image. Copy protected programs, like Speedlock are supported, in TZX images.
Example of async. tape playing: Playing the tape. Press ESC to quit, SPACE to pause. Block count is: 80. 00: Std. Block Program: run 19 00 01: Std. Block Data : 1288 FF Progress: 77 %
tapexp - Exports the files to a tape image
- <.tap name>: the TAP file name
- [file mask]: the file name mask - if specified, only these files will be exported, not all the files.
- [-convldr]: convert BASIC loader synthax, file names The parameter -convldr will cause BASIC program conversion to match the tape LOAD synthax.
Examples:
- tapexp dizzy.tap dizzy* - will export all blocks starting with "dizzy" into tape file named "dizzy.tap".
- tapexp dizzy1.tap dizzy1* -convldr - will export all blocks starting with "dizzy1" into tape file named "dizzy1.tap", converting the BASIC loader to destination file system synthax (tape, disk, etc)
tapimp - Imports the TAP file to disk
- <.tap name>: the TAP file name
- [file mask]: the file name mask - if specified, only these files will be exported, not all the files.
- [-convldr]: convert BASIC loader synthax, file names The parameter -convldr will cause BASIC program conversion to match the destination file system LOAD syntax.
saveboot - Save boot tracks to file - usefull for CPM disks with booloader
- <file name>: output file
loadboot - Load boot tracks from file - usefull for CPM disks with booloader
- <file name>: input file
format - Format a physical disk or a disk image for a certain file system
- <disk/image> : the disk drive or image to format
- [-t] : the file system format number to use, as found in fsinfo command
bin2bas - Put binary to BASIC block, in a REM statement or variable
- <type>: type of conversion: 'rem' or 'var'
- <file>: blob file to add
- [name of block]: name of BASIC block, default blob file name
- [address of execution]: address to copy the block to before execution, default 0 - no moving blob to an address, > 0 means the blob will be LDIR-ed to the specified address before execution.
Examples:
- bin2bas rem 1.bin run - will create a BASIC program block, named "run" containing file "1.bin" in a REM statement
- bin2bas var loader run 32768 - will create a BASIC program block named "run" containing file named "loader", which will be moved to address 32768 and will be executed.
convldr - Converts a BASIC loader to work with another storage device
- <.tap name>: destination TAP file name
- <loader type>: type of loader: TAPE, MICRODRIVE, OPUS, HCDISK, IF1COM, PLUS3, MGT Will convert the BASIC program to LOAD from a different device. The ones supported are mentioned. Is usefull for tape to disk conversion, where it also handles file naming (distinct, unique, non-empty names for disk files).
Examples:
- convldr dizzy1.tap HCDISK - converts current tape file to dizzy1.tap, updating the BASIC program synthax for HC with disk.
putif1 - Send a file or collection to IF1 trough the COM port
- <file name/mask>: file mask to select files for sending
- [COM port index]: COMx port to use, default 1
- [baud rate]: baud rate for COM, default is 4800 If one of the blocks is a Program block, the loaded blocks for that block are also sent and the BASIC loader is updated to match IF1 synthax. So it automatically does TAP to IF1 uploading.
Examples:
- putif1 Dizzy1 COM1 9600 - uploads file/block named Dizzy1 to COM1 port using baud rate 9600; if Dizzy1 is BASIC program, loaded blocks will also be uploaded
getif1 - Get a single file from IF1 trough the COM port
- <file name>: file name for the received file
- [COM port index]: COMx port to use, default 1
- [baud rate]: baud rate for COM, default is 9600
diskview - View disk sectors on screen, displayed as hex and ASCII.
- [track]: track index
- [head]: head index
- [sector]: sector index (not ID)
basimp - Import a BASIC program from a text file
- <BASIC file>: BASIC program file to compile
- [file name]: Program file name (default: file name)
- [autorun line]: Autorun line number (default: 0)
Example:
- basimp 1.bas run 10 - will create a Spectrum file named "run" on current disk/tape, from text file 1.bas, setting auto-run for line 10
screen - SCREEN$ block processing functions
- <operation>: order, blank
- <argument>: order: column/cell; blank: line1xcol1xline2xcol2
- <input file>: SCREEN$ file on PC read
- <output file>: SCREEN$ file on PC write
Examples:
- screen order column - will order SCREEN$ by columns, to improve compression
- screen blank 0x0x1x1 - will set to 0 the upper left character cell in the SCREEN$, for both pixels and attributes.
bincut - PC file section cut, starting at offset, with size length
- <input file>: input file name
- <output file>: output file name
- <offset>: 0 based start offset
- [lenght]: length of block, default: file len - offset
binpatch - Patches a PC file, with content of another file, at set offset
- <input file>: input file name
- <patch file>: patch content file
- <offset>: 0 based start offset in input file
bitmirror - Reverses bits in each byte of PC file; Example: bits 0001 become 1000
- <input file>: input file name
- <output file>: output file name
exit quit - Exit program
Commands can be concatenated using the ":" character. Example: "open -t 1 : ls : close" .
The same commands can be entered interactively, or on the program command line, making it easier to use it in batch programs:
"hcdisk2.exe open plus3.dsk -t 1 : cat run : exit >> run.bas" - will open the disk plus3.dsk, specifying the type of file system to be preselected, as the first in the list (1), display the basic program named "run", and then exit. Because the output is redirected into the file run.bas, the result is the BASIC program into a text file.
The program is written in C++, and it's using the Standard Template Library (STL). I used Visual Studio 2008 for development,
but I made sure a free compiler can also be used, and I tested with Borland C++ 5.5 free compiler, that can be downloaded from here: http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/20633 . Most of the code is written by me, from scratch, but some components are used, as follows:
-
SCREEN$ to GIF code is written by M. van der Heide; I had my own implementation, with the added functionality of saving to other formats besides GIF, but it used the GDI+ library, which is harder to use with the Borland compiler.
-
The disassembler is dz80, Copyright 1996-2002 Mark Incley
-
The CQM, TD0 image drivers are based on LIBDSK 1.2.1, Copyright (C) 2001-2,2005 John Elliott <jce@seasip.demon.co.uk>
-
BAS2TAP implementation is written by M. van der Heide, used for the basimp commmand. Code is adapted to accept HC IF1 synthax.
The program is designed with Object Oriented Design in mind. The disk object is decoupled from the file system object, so that any combination can be used, CPM in DSK image, TRDOS in CQM image, MGT +D on physical disks, etc. The file system is abstracted as a collection of allocation blocks, and a file catalog. The file system has attribute flags, to be able to determine at runtime what features it support: file attributes, disk label, Spectrum specific files, etc. A file object contains a list of file system blocks that it occupies, a list of catalog entries that is occupies, a file name, attributes, length. The file system object is a factory for file objects. Files can be raw files, or Sinclair Spectrum specific files. The base class for file system is file archive, used for file collections that are not disks, like the tape images, SCL images, or in the future, file archive (ZIP, etc). The code is not as clean as I would like. It is gathered from parts I wrote across several years. The license is GPLv3, which in my understanding, means that you can use it in your own programs, as long as you specify the original author and include the changes you added to the code, when you release your code.
- Add support for the FAT file system, for DOS disk images.
- Add file system configuration in external config. file, to be able to add varations of a file system without recompiling
- Add write support for the current read-only file systems, if usefull.
- Audio tape signal digitisation.
- COM port transfer speed improvement using 19200 baud for HC computers, from 4800/9600 baud currently supported.
- Create a GUI using MFC or QT.
- For best compatibility for floppy disk access, an older PC is recomended, with a floppy controller on the motherboard. These were produced up until about 2003-2004.
- The operating system is at minimum Windows XP, but any later Windows version will work.
- USB floppy drives can be used for CP/M disks. Other file systems and disk geometries don't work due to hardware limitations of USB floppy drives and due to Windows floppy driver limitations.
- For COM port/RS232 usage, an on board controller works (but is not usually found on today's computers) or an USB to serial controller also works.
- For data transfer via audio, from the PC to the Spectrum, the usual 3.5 audio jack output works fine, using a jack to DIN5 cable. For recording (not yet implemented in HCDisk), an audio splitter can be used to capture Spectrum output using the microphone input of PC via the same audio jack, for computers with mic input on the headphones jack, using Audacity software for example. The resulting WAV file can be digitized using MakeTZX from Ramsoft or using audio2tape.exe from the fuse-utils package.
Example class usage:
- Accessing ZXSpectrum+3 floppy disks on PC floppy drive. CDiskBase is instantiated with CDiskFloppy class. CFileSystem is ZXSpectrum+3 BASIC. CFile class is instantiated with CFileSpectrum.
- Accessing CP/M disks in DSK disk image files. CDiskBase is instantiated with CDiskImage. CFileSystem is CPM.
- Transferring tape image blocks to a HC BASIC file system. CFileSystem is HCBasic. CFileArchiveTape is CTapImage. Tape blocks are read as CFileSpectrumTape and written to the file system as CFileSpectrum using class CFileArchiveTape.