Long Filename Browser for ZX-UNO / esxDOS

[Seven.FFF]

SD card corruption

To set your mind at rest Bob, I now don't think the card got corrupted. My working theory is that something stomped on divMMC RAM, which stopped any further card operations working till a full power off. There's something wrong with my Cisco +3 replacement power supply which leaves the Spectrum and divMMC partially powered even when I turn it off at the PSU switch. When I powered off at the mains, the card and divMMC were fine again.

Any remaining problems were possibly because it was FAT16. I haven't had time to do wider tests with different cards yet.

Cheers, Robin

[bob_fossil]

Dear bob_fossil, I just register here on the forum to say "Thank you" for this nice New File Browser supporting LFN!

btw. I renamed it to B so I can start it faster by just entering a .b

Thanks for the kind words.

As for the shorter name, I was holding that 'feature' back until the 1.0 release!

[bob_fossil]

To set your mind at rest Bob, I now don't think the card got corrupted. My working theory is that something stomped on divMMC RAM, which stopped any further card operations working till a full power off. There's something wrong with my Cisco +3 replacement power supply which leaves the Spectrum and divMMC partially powered even when I turn it off at the PSU switch. When I powered off at the mains, the card and divMMC were fine again.

Any remaining problems were possibly because it was FAT16. I haven't had time to do wider tests with different cards yet.

Cheers, Robin

Thanks for the information - I appreciate people taking time to test this and send feedback. I'll keep the disclaimer for the time being as I'm sure there are some remaining bugs to squash in the FAT and esxdos code.

I've certainly encountered the scenario during development where I've done something stupid inside my code and further attempts to use esxdos generated cryptic error 19 messages or going into the NMI menu caused a reset. Hard resetting SpecEmu or power cycling the ZX-UNO seemed to restore normality.

[nihirash]

ZXUNO, 4Gb Fat16 part.(8 Gb flash) - blank screen.

[Spezzi63]

ZXUNO, 4Gb Fat16 part.(8 Gb flash) - blank screen.

I would recommend not using a card with multiple partitions for now.
Correct drive information is required for the browser to work.
The author will hardly be able to obtain any knowledge from your description.

Many Greetings,
Günter

[bob_fossil]

For those who are just getting a blank screen with their FAT16 cards after running the .dot command could you try downloading the following test version from here and see if the root file listing is now shown?

Don't get your hopes up - on the card I tested with (2gb FAT 16), whilst the blank screen was no longer encountered, navigating into the subfolders didn't work or listed corrupted files - but one problem at a time, eh?

[andydansby]

Amazing work your doing here [mention]bob_fossil[/mention]. I've been waiting for LFN support for the ZX-Uno to come out and this works really well. Thanks for working on this.

[ellvis]

ZXUNO, 4Gb Fat16 part.(8 Gb flash) - blank screen.

I had the same problem and updating ESXDOS helped (as my ZXUNO came with some ancient version of it), browser now work. Need to test v0.4 now.

[nihirash]

I'm using single part. card and 0.8.7 esxDOS.

I may try reformat it to fat32 and try again

[lordoftime79]

On my Fat16 card its garbled in some directories.

[bob_fossil]

Amazing work your doing here @bob_fossil. I've been waiting for LFN support for the ZX-Uno to come out and this works really well. Thanks for working on this.

Thanks for the kind words. Glad you like it!

[bob_fossil]

On my Fat16 card its garbled in some directories.

To clarify - you weren't getting any files listed with the previous vesions. Are you now getting some garbled directories with the test version I posted today or with the last release v0.04? The test version fixes a bug where the browser failed to start with a 2GB FAT16 card. There is still another bug I'm currently trying to fix where sub folders are not listing correctly on a 2gb FAT 16 card.

[bob_fossil]

I've uploaded a new test version here.

On my test 2gb FAT16 card I can now see the root folder and navigate the sub folders correctly.

[lordoftime79]

yes version 3 works on my Fat32 formatted card but I have no luck with Fat16 both the recent version ands the test allow browsing the root but when I go into some folders its garbled!

[Spezzi63]

After my 2GB SD card also had empty content and the file view was destroyed, after saving the content of the SD card,
I reformatted the card (no quick format) and removed all the garbage that was distributed on the card.
A RAR-file from an image of the SD card resulted in 840MB, so approximately 1GB file remnants from Windows times have been present.
ESXDOS backup back on the freshly formatted card, and it works, it works

DivMMC Enjoy / ESXDOS 0.8.5 / Browse v0.05Alpha2

[bob_fossil]

yes version 3 works on my Fat32 formatted card but I have no luck with Fat16 both the recent version ands the test allow browsing the root but when I go into some folders its garbled!

I've got a FAT16 2gb SD card and a FAT16 4gb card with a 2gb partition and they both work okay. Initially I had garbled folders with the 4gb/2gb partition card but these started working after the changes in made in the alpha 2 test.

Can you create a .HDF or .IMG file from your SD Card? If you can compress the file (.zip or .rar) and make it available to me via a service like DropBox or Google Drive that lets you share large files, I can download it from there and try and debug the issue.

[pjrodriguez]

First of all, congratulations for your hard work, it's really impressive.
Your .dot file works great on a real Spectrum +3 equipped with a DivMMC Enjoy and a card with a single partition. However, it doesn't work with a card with two partitions, in my case the first one for +3e and the second one for EsxDos.
As a small suggestion, could you tell us where to poke the code to change the colour scheme? In my LCD TV the difference between white and bright white is not big enough.

[bob_fossil]

As a small suggestion, could you tell us where to poke the code to change the colour scheme? In my LCD TV the difference between white and bright white is not big enough.

Thanks for the kind words and feedback. I am looking at adding a configuration file so you can specify the colours and maybe the device number to read from to get around issues with multiple partitions. As a temporary workaround you could hex edit the BROWSE file to force different colours - which version number are you using?

[pjrodriguez]

As a small suggestion, could you tell us where to poke the code to change the colour scheme? In my LCD TV the difference between white and bright white is not big enough.

Thanks for the kind words and feedback. I am looking at adding a configuration file so you can specify the colours and maybe the device number to read from to get around issues with multiple partitions. As a temporary workaround you could hex edit the BROWSE file to force different colours - which version number are you using?

Thank you for your quick reply, I'm using 0.05 alpha 2.

[bob_fossil]

Okay, so poking or hex editing the code won't do a lot as it was hard coded to apply a BRIGHT on the existing colour. I've uploaded another test version here.

In the .zip are two additional files - default.cfg and dark_green.cfg. Rename one of these files to BROWSE.CFG and copy it into the BIN folder along with the updated BROWSE file. If you used dark_green.cfg, you should have a black and green colour scheme when you start the browser. To go back to defaults either copy over default.cfg (the factory defaults) to BROWSE.CFG or delete BROWSE.CFG.

I'm working on a program to edit these .cfg files but for now you can change them by hex editing the BROWSE.CFG file. It's currently 8 bytes long and has the following layout:

Code: Select all

Top line colour - INK + (PAPER * 8) - defaults to 48 (INK 0,  PAPER 6)
Bottom line colour - INK + (PAPER * 8) - defaults to 48 (INK 0,  PAPER 6)
Border colour - INK - defaults to 7
File colour - INK + (PAPER * 8) - defaults to 56 (INK 0, PAPER 7)
Directory colour - INK + (PAPER * 8) - defaults to 57 (INK 1 PAPER 7)
Selection colour - INK + (PAPER * 8) or BRIGHT / FLASH on their own to apply that on top of the current file colour - defaults to 64 (BRIGHT)
Device number - device to read from 0 - 7, defaults to 1
Spare Byte - 0

Hope that's clear. It should make more sense when you see the file in a hex editor. Or you could wait a bit until I get a nicer .cfg editor written.

[pjrodriguez]

I have tested your new alpha, that was fast!
Editing the config file with an hex editor to change the colour scheme works as intended.
Accesing a second partition after entering 2 instead of 1 in byte 7 of the config file works only half way. The command seems to access the partition because the screen shows the current directory, but the directory contents aren't displayed, I get a blank list. However, the delete key goes up a directory although it doesn't display the change and the break key returns to basic.

[bob_fossil]

I have tested your new alpha, that was fast!
Editing the config file with an hex editor to change the colour scheme works as intended.
Accesing a second partition after entering 2 instead of 1 in byte 7 of the config file works only half way. The command seems to access the partition because the screen shows the current directory, but the directory contents aren't displayed, I get a blank list. However, the delete key goes up a directory although it doesn't display the change and the break key returns to basic.

Are the files listed correctly in the browser for the root directory (e.g. if you do '.cd /' and then '.browse')? I have had reports of issues listing and entering sub folders on some FAT16 disks - where nothing is listed or garbage is listed.

Can you create a .HDF or .IMG file from your SD Card? If you can compress the file (.zip or .rar) and make it available to me via a service like DropBox or Google Drive that lets you share large files, I can download it from there and try and debug the issue.

[Luzie]

... to me via a service like DropBox or Google Drive that lets you share large files, I can download it from there and try and debug the issue.

A good, easy and free alternative is Wetransfer.com

[pjrodriguez]

I think the problem lies in the allocation unit size. I've been formatting the card (the one with two partitions) with different sizes, always FAT32. With some of them I get garbage in the directory listing, with others weird characters or blank listings.

[bob_fossil]

I think the problem lies in the allocation unit size. I've been formatting the card (the one with two partitions) with different sizes, always FAT32. With some of them I get garbage in the directory listing, with others weird characters or blank listings.

What size is the card? What size are the partitions and what allocation unit sizes were you using? If you can supply a disk image it would be easier than me trying to recreate your problem with the small collection of SD cards I've got here.