PPPPPPPP OOOOOOO WW WW RRRRRRRR PP PP OOOOOOOOO WW WW RR RR PP PP OO OO WW WW RR RR PPPPPPPP OO OO WW WWW WW RRRRRRRR ===== PP OO OO WW WW WW WW RR RR ===== PP OO OO WW WW WW WW RR RR PP OOOOOOOOO WW WW WW WW RR RR PP OOOOOOO WWWW WWWW RR RR DDDDDDD IIIIII SSSSSSS KK KK DD DD IIIIII SS SS KK KK DD DD II SS KK KK DD DD II SSSSSSS KKKK DD DD II SS KK KK DD DD II SS KK KK DD DD IIIIII SS SS KK KK DDDDDDD IIIIII SSSSSSS KK KK P O W E R - D I S K Power for the Tandy Portable Disk Drive Owner's Manual Transcribed By Tony Anderson [76703,4062] Exclusively for CompuServe Model 100 Forum Members (C) 1985 Acroatix Incorporated All Rights Reserved POWR-DISK for The Tandy Portable Disk Drive A Supplement to FLOPPY.CO Acroatix Incorporated Copyright (C) 1985 by Acroatix Inc. All Rights Reserved NOTICE Acroatix Incorporated shall have no liability to any customer or use with respect to any loss, damage, or liability caused by POWR-DISK, including but not limited to loss of data, interruption of service, or loss of business or profits. If you are sufficiently jolted by this disclaimer, we recommend that you save all files before first loading POWR-DISK, and that you use it with care until you feel sure that it will perform reliably in your machine. Table of Contents Section One: Getting Started................................1 Notes for the Expert.......................1 Removing POWR-DISK.........................2 Section Two: Using MENU.BA..................................3 Section Three: Using POWR-DISK without MENU.BA................6 Convenient Access from TEXT................6 Convenient Access from BASIC...............7 Section Four: BASIC Command Extensions.......................9 LFILES.....................................9 LFILES TO "fname".........................10 LFILES OFF................................10 LFILES MENU...............................11 LOADM ":fname"............................11 LOADM ":fname.xx",F.......................11 OPEN ":fname".............................12 SAVEM ":fname"............................12 Running BASIC programs with POWR-DISK.........13 Machine-language calls to POWR-DISK...........14 Error Codes...................................17 Section Five: Using Other Machine-Language Programs.........19 Checking for Possible Conflicts...........19 Running Relocated Programs................20 Relocating POWR-DISK......................22 Appendix A: The Tandy Portable Disk Drive.................25 Appendix B: Machine Language Programs in Tandy Laptops....28 Editorial note: Original manual was printed with 52 column lines, and 51 lines per page. In order to accommodate standard 80-column printers, some material has been reformatted, and some pages of this transcription contain material that appeared on two or more pages of the original manual. Page numbers in the upper right corner of each page refer to the pages in the original manual. Occasional editorial comment will be found inside [square brackets] Tony Anderson September 1988 POWR-DISK Owner's Manual Manual Page 1 ------------- Section One Getting Started CAUTION: Read through this entire section at least once before proceeding. You may save yourself time and trouble. In this manual, material in UPPER CASE letters indicates something you type into the computer; means pressing the ENTER key; and function keys are shows as [F1], [F2], etc. If you have never used a disk drive before, you may want to read Appendix A, which explains some basic concepts of the Tandy portable disk drive. You may want to skim over this appendix in any case. [Instructions are for loading from the original Utility disk. Forum users can skip down to "Notes for the Expert User" section. - ed.] POWR-DISK is a supplement to FLOPPY.CO. In order to load POWR-DISK, you must use FLOPPY.CO to get started. Here is the simplest way: 1. Run FLOPPY.CO. If you haven't loaded FLOPPY, follow the directions given with the Tandy Portable Disk Drive (called TDD in this manual.) 2. Press [F2], "Load". Answer the prompt, "File name on disk:" with POWR-D.CO . Press ENTER again, after the prompt, "File name in RAM". 3. Press [F2] again. This time, load in the file, START.BA from the disk. 4. Press [F8] to exit FLOPPY.CO. 5. Run START.BA. When it finishes, POWR-DISK is operational and MENU.BA is available for your use. Notes for the Expert User: This section describes the startup procedure in more technical terms. The POWR-DISK code comes packaged in [an assembly language] file, POWR-D.CO. The file loads into the area directly below the computer's default MAXRAM (system memory boundary). Running it changes some RAM hooks to add extra functionality to BASIC and TEXT. In addition, MAXRAM itself gets lowered to protect the POWR-DISK code from accidental clears. So, once POWR-D.CO has been run, the file itself can be removed from memory without danger. Manual Page 2 ------------- The program START.BA simply runs POWR-D.CO, deletes the [menu] file, sets HIMEM to the new MAXRAM, loads MENU.BA from the disk, and removes FLOPPY.CO from memory. Errors can occur in START.BA if FLOPPY.CO does not exist, etc., but once POWR-D.CO has been run, POWR-DISK is safely in place. If you are working in an environment with frequent cold-starts (such as assembly language development), it is wise to keep a copy of POWR-D.CO on cassette tape, where it can be reloaded more easily than using dip switches, IPL.BA, etc. It may seem ironic, but the cassette is supported in the ROM, so support for it won't evaporate with a cold-start. POWR-DISK Owner's Manual Removing POWR-DISK You will have only infrequent occasions to remove POWR-DISK. With the relocation techniques discussed in Section Five, you can leave POWR-DISK active virtually all the time. However, if you ever want to remove it, use the following BASIC command: LFILES OFF : CLEAR 0, MAXRAM : MENU Be certain that you can restore POWR-DISK before you disable it. (The simplest way to be sure is to have POWR-D.CO and START.BA in RAM before doing the LFILES OFF.) Otherwise, you may be forced to start from the very beginning and load FLOPPY.CO from your Tandy Utility Diskette. [Forum versions of the two necessary files, START.BA and POWR-D.CO (in hex format) may be downloaded from the forum's library whenever needed; the hex file converted with HXFER.200, and you're ready to load. Both START.BA and POWR-D.CO are contained in the single file, PDSK03.200 in Library 9. - ed.] Manual Page 3 ------------- Section Two Using MENU.BA MENU.BA is a utility program, written in BASIC, to simplify file transfers to and from the TDD. You can get by without MENU.BA; POWR-DISK allows you to save and retrieve files from the TDD in BASIC or TEXT. However, MENU.BA allows you to examine the disk and RAM contents and to move files back and forth without typing filenames. [One problem with all menu-type programs is that they consume RAM space; it is recommended that users learn to use direct commands to access disk functions, and use menu-type programs only when needed, not as a regular practice. - ed.] To run MENU.BA, simply put the wide cursor bar over it from the main menu, and press . After a few seconds, a display similar to the one below will appear: ---------------------------------------- |Src:RAM Type:DO Free: 1444 Len: 1798 | |12/20/85 14:35:39 | |EPS ADRS M-CMD MAN2 R0 | |R4 TASK MSG0 | | | | | |TDD Save Sel BA Kill Info Menu | ----------------------------------------