New Cottonwood BBS Photos

[wiskow]

I just posted new photos of the setups for both Cottonwood BBS and Cottonwood II on the BBS's website at cottonwood.servebbs.com ... If you want to see what a C128 setup looks like with six 1571's and four 1541's (device #'s 8 through 17), then check it out!

-Andrew

[Space Centurion]

Cool pic...
I really hope you found a way to hard number those things....would be a royal pain to soft number all those!!!!

[wiskow]

spacecenturion said:

Cool pic...
I really hope you found a way to hard number those things....would be a royal pain to soft number all those!!!!

Of course, device numbers 8 through 11 are set by the dip switches on the 1571's. It's not possible to "hard number" devices 12 through 17, so the only way is by the "software method". I wrote a small program that makes this easy to do, and I only have to do it when I shut down the drives, which is rarely. Whenever I have to reset the computer, I just pull out the serial cable so that the drives don't get reset. I'm thinking that I'll probably cut this down to four 1571's when the temperatures start going up here in Southern California. Devices 10 through 17 are file transfer directories, and since the file transfer sections are not extremely popular anyway, I could get away with just having two drives for file transfers. That way, too, I'd just be using devices 8 through 11, which are much easier to set.

-Andrew

[Space Centurion]

With all the hacking/modd'ing going on these days, you never know....I thought maybe you found a way to rewrite part of the device id code to start at id 12, giving you four more id's to play with. Like I said, you never know.....

Back in 1986, a guy my mom worked with gave me his 1650 modem and some software, and since then I was hooked with BBSing. During one of my chats with him, he told me he had 5 1541's running on his BBS, but numbered 7-11. I didn't think to ask back then if it was hard or soft numbered. Has anyone else heard of this? I've tried doing it through software, and it didn't work for me. As I am using a Buscard II, anything past ID 11 is locked on IEEE, so this limits me to only 3 serial drives. Being able to add drive 7 would be perfect.

[wiskow]

Here's a post I just found on the comp.sys.cbm newsgroup, posted in April 2004 by none other than Maurice Randall. It was posted in response to a question about how to disable the internal 1571 in a C128D:

Here's a software command that will disable it:

With JiffyDOS or most any DOS wedge you can use:


@"U0>G"


When you enter that command, you have to use CONTROL-G
where you see the G. Be sure to also enter the quote
marks.


Without JiffyDOS, use:


OPEN 15,8,15,"U0>G": CLOSE 15


Again, be sure to use CONTROL-G where you see the G
in the above example.


What this does is it changes the device number to 7.
Most programs won't look for device 7. You can also
change it to other device numbers such as 15 or 22 or
whatever you'd like. Just use the CONTROL key along
with the appropriate alphabetic letter key. G is the
7th letter of the alphabet.


The drive will remain with this device number until
you reset the drive or computer. This command works
on 1571's, 1581's, CMD FD's, HD's, and RAMLink's.
It doesn't work on the 1541.


-Maurice


--
** Maurice Randall - Click Here Software Co.
** High-Performance for your Commodore
** email: [e-mail], [e-mail]
** web: cmdrkey.com

This is incredible, and actually much easier than the program I wrote! Too bad it doesn't work on 1541's though... Anyway, I guess this answers the question about using device 7 for a disk drive. Of course, you'd have to be using software that was programmed to LOOK for a device 7 drive.

-Andrew

[Space Centurion]

Holy crap on a crap cracker........
It works!!!
I just tried it on my 128d with Supersnapshot...works fine.
Also tried it on my 64c with 1571 using open command.....works fine!!!
Be very careful of the quotes though.....I forgot to use them the first time and nothing happens when you hit Control G!

HEHEHEHEHEHE.....this is totally cool......

I will see if Image BBS can handle devices under #8...if so, then all I have to do is stack some 1571's, change them to 5-7 and see what happens. Of course, it will be a bit of pain before I boot the bbs....change the numbers, set to 1571 mode..... :-)

I will keep you posted.....I'll probably try it out tomorrow.....

Thanks again!!!

[Space Centurion]

Well.....Image does accept drive 7, set it up as a U/D area.....even formatted the drive in 71 mode using the online copier system!!

I wouldn't want to try it as a main drive, but for u/d use it seems to be ok. Now I just have to add drive 5 and 6 and see what happens!!

Ahhh....so many projects....so little time!!!

[expertsetup]

Hi Andrew, nice photo! Is that one of the original VIC 1540/41 drives i see in service there! Wow thats great to see you have it up and at em like that.

Alright S.C., you have my attention, what have you got plugged into your buscard II if I may ask? I have 2 SFD1001s but one is out of service The other works great and is a fantastic drive.

[Space Centurion]

Hey Expert......currently, I have a SD-1 as drive 11, an 8050 as 12, and my 4040 went ill...argh...all well.....I've always wanted a 8250 though. Actually, one can dream, a 9090 would be nice!!!

In total, on the 64 anyways, I have a 1571 and a newer 1581 which are used as drive 8, depending on the app, an older 1581 as drive nine, and a 1571 as drive 10. For BBS use, the 1571 (8) will become drive 7. I am still going to try adding 5 & 6 to the batch.....

I am going to experiment a bit with the SD-1 and try to turn it into an SD-2. From what I have heard and read, some of the SD-1's used the SD-2 boards, but with a single floppy cable and a few LED's missing. According to the manual I downloaded, mine looks to be the SD-2 board. Worse comes to worse it won't work....I am not going to do any board mods, but I am going to add a dual cable and see what happens.

Has anyone tried this before?

[wiskow]

expertsetup said:

Hi Andrew, nice photo! Is that one of the original VIC 1540/41 drives i see in service there! Wow thats great to see you have it up and at em like that.

Of the four 1541's currently running on Cottonwood BBS, one is a VIC-1541, two are standard 1541's, and one is a 1541C. The Epyx Vorpal Utility disk tells me that these drives are in the best alignment of all my 1541's.

Oh... and on the topic of changing device numbers... I discovered that KeyDOS makes this a breeze! Even easier than the program I wrote... I can now set all the device numbers 12 through 17 much faster than before using KeyDOS. For those who don't know, KeyDOS is an option ROM for the C128. I have Servant and KeyDOS running on the C128 that runs Cottonwood BBS (Servant installed internally, and KeyDOS installed externally in the 1750 REU). I now have both Servant and KeyDOS ROM's available for download on my website for anyone who is interested.

-Andrew

[Space Centurion]

Just an update on my MSD-1 "mod"...it works!
I am going to post this in the general section......

[Pinacolada]

Jan 26, 2008 10:22:10 GMT -5 Space Centurion said:

I will see if Image BBS can handle devices under #8...

Image BBS recognizes device #7 as an REU, typically, using RAMDOS. Neat trick though, I'll have to put that updated information in the updated manual now.