Personally i liked the Euphoric method (although seemingly a little convoluted) that allowed me to
Code: Select all
CLOAD"TOLTOP":CLOAD"TOLGAME".
One problem seems to be that the level above the operating system has no way of knowing what the required tape file is. It means the current directories tape file headers being sent in succession until the Tape routine recognises a filename that was enclosed in quotes in the CLOAD argument.
A further problem seems to be that whilst i can attach a tape file it is not a permanent attachment. I can CLOAD the file but when i reset Oricutron the tape file is lost. ie. If i CLOAD the file again it gets stuck in Searching..
The only current way of correcting this particular scenario is to place the tape filename after the oricutron exe in the command line and then rebooting oricutron each time i want to retry the tape file.
Would it make sense to reserve the Tape option in the menu to select the tape directory (by default being Oricutron/Tapes)?
Then CLOAD"" will load the first tape file in the directory (on first bootup of Oricutron), any subsequent CLOAD"" will load the next tape file.
A CLOAD"Gumball" will run through the current tape directory until a matching filename is found. If not found the emulator would keep looping round on the current tape directory (Not ideal but compliant with real oric behaviour).
For the first scenario i wrote above CLOAD"TOLTOP":CLOAD"TOLGAME" will work so long as both files exist in the selected (or default) tapes directory.
If the CLOAD after the first contains the same filename as previous it suggests a multi-file tape file and the next section should be loaded.
Not sure if the standard Tape file format supports this but it makes sense.
CSAVE could perhaps be a simpler schema, in that it would save the supplied filename to the current tape directory.
However if the file already exists, then it should overwrite the current version and if CSAVE "" then it should generate BLANKxxx.TAP where xxx is a sequence number for the next unused BLANK file.
There are many other scenarios, some of which may not be well supported by this format. Please comment but also please keep in context with this forum thread