Sedoric 4.0

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Steve M
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by Steve M »

That's what I was thinking. It makes it a bit less useful with all the different keyboard layout files hidden away in different directories so you can't load any of them up with INIST.

I guess I'll need to learn how to use it.
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Symoon
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by Symoon »

I can't recall, but if you can use CHDIR in INIST, then you could reach the file you need and load it (but it makes things more complicated, sure).
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by Symoon »

Read in an OUM recently posted by Omelette:
Presse-papiers-1.png
Presse-papiers-1.png (6.48 KiB) Viewed 10688 times
So apparently this was never released.
But wouldn't it be interesting to know what update did Ray McLaghlin have in mind?
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by omelette »

I had completely forgotten about that. I came across Sedoric 3 10+ years after OUM and was so excited that I was FINALLY going to have directories in Sedoric - all those files scrolling off the screen really used to wear me down. Imagine my disappointment on discovering that there were no directories to be had. :( In fact, I'm only after discovering Sedoric 4 a few weeks ago, and am elated to be able to 'compartmentalise' my 'disks', especially the ones that are crammed-full. I emphasise 'disks' 'cos I'm presently only using Oricutron, having (also) just got that working on Linux as well!

It's actually a bit depressing to dig out the real Atmos, 'cos, every time I do, my 3" disks develop more & more read-faults. I gave up on 3.5" disks a long time ago, the 'quaint' 3" ones having proven an order of magnitude more reliable as the decades have gone by. Still, they are now mostly in pretty bad shape. Last time I had the Atmos out, 3-4 years ago now, I resolved to port as many of my disks as I could over to the pc, with the help of my Atari Falcon. There were less than 7 out of dozens that copied without errors. I was actually going to ask if anyone still sold 3" disks anymore on the site.

But back to Sedoric4. I was actually surprised at the apparent lack of comment about it here on the forum since its release. Personally, I think it rocks! I'd also love to know what Dr Ray had conjured up way back then. Maybe he was just telling Dave fibs! It would be nice to know either way.
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by Chema »

Hmmm I'm using 3.5 disks quite a lot and they are quite reliable in my experience. Not only with the Oric, but also on Ataris, Amigas, CPCs...

My old 3 disks, on the other hand, (CPC in this case) nearly all died probably because of humidity.

What usually fails is the elastic band inside the floppy drive. But, again, most of the drives I got from old PCs work perfectly. And 3.5 disks are large and drives are fast and double-sided.

In any case, in the mid term a Gotek or similar is the way to go, most probably. Unless you have a Cumulus, that is.
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by Symoon »

Well I have already stated this, but my experience is closer to Omelette's - problems almost each and every time I used floppies.
The sadest part is in a recent purchase, that contains about 5 or 6 titles I've never heared of (educational mainly), and disks directly from Fabrice Broche (author of L'Oric à Nu and of Telestrat's Hyperbasic), 90% of the disks are faulty.
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by mikeb »

Chema wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:44 am What usually fails is the elastic band inside the floppy drive.
You should upgrade to the newer clockwork powered drives, far more reliable ;)

The *drive belt* in those drives that use them is a weak link. The old Apple II+ "Disk II" drives had a belt drive -- with age these are now really unreliable BUT with a replacement belt, they are still usable.

Direct drive drives (where a brushless "pancake motor" drives the disk directly) should be much more reliable.
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by omelette »

Chema wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:44 am Hmmm I'm using 3.5 disks quite a lot and they are quite reliable in my experience. Not only with the Oric, but also on Ataris, Amigas, CPCs...

My old 3 disks, on the other hand, (CPC in this case) nearly all died probably because of humidity.

What usually fails is the elastic band inside the floppy drive. But, again, most of the drives I got from old PCs work perfectly. And 3.5 disks are large and drives are fast and double-sided.

In any case, in the mid term a Gotek or similar is the way to go, most probably. Unless you have a Cumulus, that is.
I guess it has a great deal to do with how often they're used. For example, I used to have over 100 Atari disks. No matter if they were cover-disks or 'premium' disks, the same thing always happened to them - the head would get 'dirty', scratch the floppy's surface and render it unreadable. The 'dirt' of course being ferrite from the disks themselves, sticking to the head. The older the disk, the more of this gunk from it would stick to the head - which would then scratch more disks, rendering them unreadable. It drove me nuts!

This happened to my 3" disks as well, but no where near as often. Just a few months back, I had to order 10 3.5" disks from Amazon as not a single one of the 3.5" HD disks I had would even complete a format on my Atari Falcon. These were generally new disks as well, but had become scratched from the same dirty head problem. Yep, I hate 3.5" disks. :)

I actually attempted going down the Gotek road about a year ago, but for whatever reason, the Gotek drive I got positively refused to be reprogrammed. It worked fine with the default firmware it came with. I ended up returning it to Amazon as faulty. Not to be outdone, I ordered another from Amazon, this time from a different seller, a few months later. Unfortunately, I didn't check the seller's location beforehand and it was months before I finally got my hands on it. I have yet to do anything with it, out of apathy more than anything.
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by Chema »

mikeb wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 5:33 pm
The *drive belt* in those drives that use them is a weak link. The old Apple II+ "Disk II" drives had a belt drive -- with age these are now really unreliable BUT with a replacement belt, they are still usable.

Direct drive drives (where a brushless "pancake motor" drives the disk directly) should be much more reliable.
Hehe, yeah. I knew there was a proper term, but it didn't come to my mind ;)

Of course, I was referring to the old 3" floppy drives in Amstrads or Spectrums, not the 3.5 drives I use.

Well, I guess I was lucky with 3.5 disks then. I can tell I played quite a lot pinforic games using real disks, also 1337 and, most of all, Blake's7. I tested this one quite a lot, played it start to finish, saving many times, testing things such as removing disk while loading or saving... and with a few different disks.

I also prepared several physical editions for some friends who played it. Zero problems till now *fingers crossed*
omelette wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 9:58 pm
I actually attempted going down the Gotek road about a year ago, but for whatever reason, the Gotek drive I got positively refused to be reprogrammed. It worked fine with the default firmware it came with. I ended up returning it to Amazon as faulty. Not to be outdone, I ordered another from Amazon, this time from a different seller, a few months later. Unfortunately, I didn't check the seller's location beforehand and it was months before I finally got my hands on it. I have yet to do anything with it, out of apathy more than anything.
Pitty you also has a bad experience with Goteks... I could have recommended you a shop in Spain, which sells it fully tested and flashed with FlashFloppy.
https://www.micomputer.es/es/gotek/390- ... gotek.html
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by Vyper68 »

I had a few headaches with Goteks when I first started out but I have had more success lately. Now I have the correct USB programmer I have managed to program HxC Firmware and FlashFloppy firmware. I did the OLED screen and sound mods too. If anyone wants one programmed then PM me - free - no charge - gratis, just want to help out fellow Oricians. If I ever get my Cumana working I will be able to use mine :) and give Sedoric 4.0 a go myself.

I didn't have a Microdisk back in the OUM days I had a Cumana and 3.5 floppy drive. I have had experience of 3" Drives on the CPC6128 and the belt can be replaced as you can buy spares. So you can keep the drives going but the actual 3" disks are very unreliable in my experience with CPC 3" disks with over 50% of any I bought on eBay being faulty or failed soon after purchase compared to 3.5" disks or to some extent 5.25" if they have been stored well.
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by omelette »

Vyper68 wrote: Sun Nov 24, 2019 12:05 pm I had a few headaches with Goteks when I first started out but I have had more success lately. Now I have the correct USB programmer I have managed to program HxC Firmware and FlashFloppy firmware. I did the OLED screen and sound mods too. If anyone wants one programmed then PM me - free - no charge - gratis, just want to help out fellow Oricians. If I ever get my Cumana working I will be able to use mine :) and give Sedoric 4.0 a go myself.

I didn't have a Microdisk back in the OUM days I had a Cumana and 3.5 floppy drive. I have had experience of 3" Drives on the CPC6128 and the belt can be replaced as you can buy spares. So you can keep the drives going but the actual 3" disks are very unreliable in my experience with CPC 3" disks with over 50% of any I bought on eBay being faulty or failed soon after purchase compared to 3.5" disks or to some extent 5.25" if they have been stored well.
First, a quick question about Goteks. There are many different Sellers on Amazon & Ebay, selling them for wildly varying prices - in your experience, are ALL of these drives 'flashable'? In other words, does Gotek, or whoever makes these, manufacture different versions, cheap ones that are non-flashable, whereas more expensive models are flashable?

Like I think I mentioned, I tried flashing my first one dozens of times, on a variety of different computers, none worked.

On Microdisks, I can only speak for what I own, but neither of the two 3" disks that I have use belts, they are steppermotor-driven. I DO have a 3.5" drive in a Sam Coupe that does employ a belt-feed, which I thought really 'quaint' when I first discovered it. And as you point out, they do wear out - the Coupe's was unusable because of it, last time I had it out - about 10 years ago! There was someone on the web selling replacements, a Sam Coupe Enthusaist, for really reasonable prices, I just never got around to ordering one. It also doesn't help that practically all of the Sam Coupe disks I have are unusable, having been stored in a damp shed for years. :cry:
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by ibisum »

I have Cumulus, Gotek and Cumana- based drive systems for my Oric fleet, and I really like the ease of use of Gotek, but am also super glad I managed to get a couple of Cumulus' drives .. it means I can use the Goteks' for other machines, such as the ZX Spectrum, C64 and CPC6128 in my collection .. I try pretty hard to not boot the moving-parts drive arrays, they're getting tougher and tougher to keep working, even though they are the most compatible in terms of SEDORIC.
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by Vyper68 »

omelette wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:30 am
First, a quick question about Goteks. There are many different Sellers on Amazon & Ebay, selling them for wildly varying prices - in your experience, are ALL of these drives 'flashable'? In other words, does Gotek, or whoever makes these, manufacture different versions, cheap ones that are non-flashable, whereas more expensive models are flashable?

Like I think I mentioned, I tried flashing my first one dozens of times, on a variety of different computers, none worked.

On Microdisks, I can only speak for what I own, but neither of the two 3" disks that I have use belts, they are steppermotor-driven. I DO have a 3.5" drive in a Sam Coupe that does employ a belt-feed, which I thought really 'quaint' when I first discovered it. And as you point out, they do wear out - the Coupe's was unusable because of it, last time I had it out - about 10 years ago! There was someone on the web selling replacements, a Sam Coupe Enthusaist, for really reasonable prices, I just never got around to ordering one. It also doesn't help that practically all of the Sam Coupe disks I have are unusable, having been stored in a damp shed for years. :cry:

This Wiki will guide you on the models you can use...

https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wi ... patibility

You can really use the cheap GOTEK drives costing around £14 and flash them yourself. The would only give you a 7 segment LED display. You can fit a OLED display, rotary dial and mini speaker for drive sounds fairly easily. If you want to use HxC it costs £12 per unit whereas Flash Floppy is free. The expensive ones on feeBay are where you are paying for someone to have done all that work. I don’t know if Flash Floppy works with Oric’s though but as you need to convert the disks to .hfe images it should work.
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by omelette »

Vyper68 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 9:43 pm
omelette wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:30 am
First, a quick question about Goteks. There are many different Sellers on Amazon & Ebay, selling them for wildly varying prices - in your experience, are ALL of these drives 'flashable'? In other words, does Gotek, or whoever makes these, manufacture different versions, cheap ones that are non-flashable, whereas more expensive models are flashable?

Like I think I mentioned, I tried flashing my first one dozens of times, on a variety of different computers, none worked.

On Microdisks, I can only speak for what I own, but neither of the two 3" disks that I have use belts, they are steppermotor-driven. I DO have a 3.5" drive in a Sam Coupe that does employ a belt-feed, which I thought really 'quaint' when I first discovered it. And as you point out, they do wear out - the Coupe's was unusable because of it, last time I had it out - about 10 years ago! There was someone on the web selling replacements, a Sam Coupe Enthusaist, for really reasonable prices, I just never got around to ordering one. It also doesn't help that practically all of the Sam Coupe disks I have are unusable, having been stored in a damp shed for years. :cry:

This Wiki will guide you on the models you can use...

https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wi ... patibility

You can really use the cheap GOTEK drives costing around £14 and flash them yourself. The would only give you a 7 segment LED display. You can fit a OLED display, rotary dial and mini speaker for drive sounds fairly easily. If you want to use HxC it costs £12 per unit whereas Flash Floppy is free. The expensive ones on feeBay are where you are paying for someone to have done all that work. I don’t know if Flash Floppy works with Oric’s though but as you need to convert the disks to .hfe images it should work.
Thanks for the info. To be honest, I was reluctant to go through the same procedure with the new Gotek , for fear of getting the same results. It's some consolation to know that 'cheap' Gotek units contenders, so, at some stage, I'll check out your link & give it a try.
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Re: Sedoric 4.0

Post by omelette »

Just a quick post about a little discovery I've made after I transferred Sedoric 4 to a 3.5" disk. My system boots from the 3" Microdisc, in this instance, from a Sedoric v3 disk, my second drive is a 3.5" floppy, drive B. Eager to get Sedoric 4 onto a 3" disk, I issued a SYSTEM B command, followed by a FORMAT A,17,42,S,which completed successfully. However, on issuing a RESET, the system hung. Inspecting the newly formatted 3" floppy with Nibble, T0, S1 displayed the following;
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MgXns ... KRdANoPK5Q
- not what the first sector of a Sedoric disk should be! I then tried booting with a different version of Sedoric, v2.1, again issuing a SYSTEM B to use the 3.5" floppy containing Sedoric 4, and formatting the 3" floppy again. Same result, the resulting disk refused to boot the system. Finally I issued a 'B-', making drive B the default, and tried merely formatting a 3.5" disk with the same drive. Doing this achieved even less, the computer hanging whenever I selected either the Slave (S) or the Master (M) option.

What all this boils down to is that it is impossible to produce a bootable Sedoric 4 disk, unless you first boot the computer from a Sedoric 4 disk - a real, 'the chicken or the egg', situation! To get this working, I needed to dismantle my Atari ST, remove its 3.5" drive and use this to boot the Oric from, while also attaching & configuring the Microdisk's 3" floppy as drive B. Once booted from the 3.5" drive, I could then format successfully a 3" drive.

This Sedoric 4 'oversight' is a bit tedious, and a show-stopper if you didn't have a floppy drive that was configurable. Luckily, my ST drive has a nice sliding switch that lets me select 1 of 4 drive numbers.

PS. Hmmm, inserted an as 'img file, the forum complains that "It was not possible to determine the dimensions of the image. Please verify that the URL you entered is correct.". Posting it as a url instead.
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