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Mirror of Martin Eberhard's Google Share:

(see files below)
For those of you who haven't tried it, PTDOS is a pretty interesting OS, significantly more advanced than CP/M. And the Helios disk subsystem is the coolest addition to your Sol-20. Getting an old Helios working is a bit of work but well worth the effort :-)

I've also included in the Hexer subdirectory a substantially rewritten document that gives detailed instructions for renovating a PerSci drive, with the help of Hexer.

Solos/Cuter Programs:

HLOAD adds a command to Solos called HL, which will load files in Intel hex format. This program moves itself into some free space in Solos (or Cuter) RAM, staying out of the way of pretty much any program you might want to load.

MINHX is a tiny intel hex loader that can be easily loaded via the serial port either as an ENT file or even just typing in the hex. Once loaded, you can use it to load the more robust HLOAD and save that to tape.

HEXER is a very comprehensive program for exercising the Helios disk drives. This is absolutely essential for repairing, aligning, and adjusting the PerSci drives inside the Helios subsystem. For those of you using Hexer already, this is a new version with some substantial upgrades. (This is a Solos program instead of a PTDOS program because you may want to use it before your disk drive is working! but also runs under PTDOS.) There's a User's manual for Hexer in its directory too.

PTDOS Device Drivers:

PTDOS device drivers can be the source or destination "file" for any PTDOS program, such as COPY, ASSM, etc. I have written a few device drivers that are extremely useful for moving programs into and out of the PTDOS environment.

SERIAL is a simple serial port device driver without any flow control. PTDOS can keep up with the serial port up to about 1200 baud.

XMODEM is my most useful driver. It allows you to transfer files onto and off of a PTDOS disk using the XMODEM protocol. For example, COPY XMODEM,MYFILE will receive a file from the Sol-20's serial port (at up to 9600 baud), and save it to disk as a file called MYFILE. Similarly, COPY MYFILE,XMODEM will read a PTDOS file called MYFILE from disk, and transmit it via the Sol-20 serial port using the XMODEM protocol.

TXTMODEM works like XMODEM, except that it is optimized for transferring text files, by adjusting the end-of-line and end-of-file markers between the way PTDOS likes them and the way PC's like them.

RXMODEM is a super-simple receive-only XMODEM program that is intended to be easy to type in, and used just once to load XMODEM the first time.

PTDOS Utility Programs:

FORMAT is a comprehensive disk formatting program that will also transfer PTDOS itself, as well as optionally transferring all PTDOS files to the new disk. It can also repair PTDOS on a disk, as well as optimize every file's block size for speed and compactness.

HEX2IMG converts an Intel hex file into an executable program. Combined with the XMODEM device driver, you can directly load a program you've written over the serial port and make it and executable program, like this: HEX2IMG XMODEM,MYPROGRM

IMG2HEX will turn an executable program into an Intel hex file. This is useful for archiving or sharing PTDOS programs. For example, you could upload TREK80 to your PC like this: IMG2HEX TREK80,XMODEM. This will send TREK80 as an Intel hex file via the serial port, using the XMODEM protocol. Receive this file on your PC (using e.g. Hyperterm), and save it there as TREK80.HEX

GETTAPE will read a file from a Sol-20 cassette tape, and save at on PTDOS disk.

RUNSOLOS will allow programs written to run under Solos (or Cuter) to run under PTDOS. This works great with for example PT's MUSIC program, which normally won't run under PTDOS.

MAKETAPE will make a cassette tape with a list of files on it. This is useful for making distribution tapes, for example a tape with MUSIC on it, along with a library of music files. (This is how I make PT music tapes for those of you who have the PT music system.)