BBC Micro Advanced Disc Filing System (ADFS)

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by Denwynne

Whats the ADFS for then? I really need to get the manual now.

The "A" stands for "Advanced" and ADFS is much more feature-rich than good old DFS - including such features as sub-directories and treating both sides of the disc as a "single logical surface" to name but a couple.

It goes some way towards the disc features provided in MS-DOS, though is unfortunately not compatible with it.

As you say, you really need to track down a manual. My (Solidisk Technology) ADFS manual runs to 96 pages, so rather too much to scan I'm afraid, but here is the introduction page:

[mhennessy]

Denwynne, let me know if you get stuck finding documentation - I've got spare copies of the welcome manual and advanced user guides - PM me.

ADFS is fairly powerful, as Dave says - I didn't use it too much because I was raised on the model B and had written many DFS-specific file management programmes... One obvious thing you'll find is that the ADFS "catalogue" is held in RAM, so when you type *. the disc drive won't run after the first time. You'll need to use *MOUNT (IIRC) to get it to refresh after swapping discs. One tip - after formatting a disc, I write ADFS on the label in big letters! And you learn not to panic when a disc doesn't read - change filing system until you find one that works

To quickly change filing system, do a Crtl+A+Break for ADFS, and a Ctrl+D+Break for DFS (or type *ADFS or *DISC if you don't want to press Break)

There's still a Master on my desk (admittedly doesn't get much use these days). It's working with 5.25 and 3.5 inch drives taken from old PCs - with 3.5" you to find older double-density drives and discs (only one hole for write protection - newer HD discs had an extra hole to identify themselves as such). I had to play around with jumper settings to make them work but it wasn't too tricky to get right (IIRC - it was 15 years back!). If you need help transferring between disc sizes, I'd be happy to help

Software can readily be found on the web and easily transferred with a serial cable. It's worth downloading a PC-based emulator so you can test the images before going to the effort of transferring them. Additionally I could help out [Mods, please delete this bit if this breaks any forum rules regarding copyright ]

Hope this helps,

Mark

[mhennessy]

Just a follow-on; you're might already be aware of these, but a lot of the documentation can be found at these sites:

http://bbc.nvg.org/docs.php3

http://www.bbcdocs.com/

Additionally, there is a Yahoo mailing list which will help - it's primarily aimed at people who have use Richard Russell's BBC Basic for Windows, but many of the members there will be happy to help with Master/ADFS questions. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bb4w/

Good luck

[dominicbeesley]

Or there's the bbc-micro mailing list

http://www.mdfsnet.f9.co.uk/Archive/BBCMicro/help/#list

Adfs can also be used on Hard Discs, Indeed I've got a Master with a hard disc which I do use a fair bit - lots of programs for calculating L,C,R values!

A really handy interface I bought this weekend allows you to load disc images from a USB stick, add a hard disc and all manner of other useful things - http://www.retroclinic.com/acorn/dat...datacentre.htm

Trouble is I got home to find out all my BBC Micros have gone mouldy! There are pictures of the horrors here: http://z80homebrew.blogspot.com/

Dom

[evingar]

Originally Posted by dominicbeesley

Trouble is I got home to find out all my BBC Micros have gone mouldy! There are pictures of the horrors here: http://z80homebrew.blogspot.com/

Dom

Blimey, where do you keep them ?? Even my unheated shed doesn't support that kind of growth !

[dominicbeesley]

Looks like the drain outside my cellar wall is leaking - yuck!

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by dominicbeesley

A really handy interface I bought this weekend allows you to load disc images from a USB stick, add a hard disc and all manner of other useful things - http://www.retroclinic.com/acorn/dat...datacentre.htm

I must say that it looks very tempting to add some decent storage to my BBCs/Master.

[Andyt31]

I also bought one of the datacentres. Fantastic bit of kit. I think its time to archive my beeb disks.

[dominicbeesley]

Yes, I have to say this is the best storage solution for the beeb so far. Especially for games, though you do have to remember to re-export a disc image before switching off...which of course I forgot yesterday!

Dom