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 Post subject: HuBASIC Disk Format (X1)
PostPosted: September 26th, 2013, 11:18 am 
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Joined: September 21st, 2013, 9:33 am
Posts: 6
Hi guys,

I'm new to the forum but figured this would be the best place to ask for information.

I've been pulling together some docs, and writing some tools to help Sharp X1 fans; and have run into a couple of strange issues when looking at the floppy disk format used by Sharp-HuBASIC.

If you set bit 7 of a file's type/mode then HuBASIC lists the entry as "Dir"... except I'm not aware of any commands in HuBASIC for dealing with directories. Despite the odd file mode, the file is still loadable.

Bit 5 is also interesting. With this flag set, files are listed as "Bin#", "Bas#" and "Asc#". Again, I can't find anything in Sharp-HuBASIC to indicate what this flag is for. It's not write protect (that's bit 6) or for hidden files (bit 4).

I can't help thinking that these parts of the disk format might have been reused from another one of Hudson's other projects - possibly HuBASIC on a different system? But I don't know systems such as the MZ, PC88 etc. very well and looking into the docs hasn't revealed much.

Hoping someone here has some ideas or perhaps even knows what these flags are for? They're driving me crazy because I think I have everything else figured out.

Many thanks.


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PostPosted: September 26th, 2013, 12:12 pm 
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Joined: May 21st, 2011, 7:33 am
Posts: 377
I guess you know these tools: http://www.geocities.co.jp/ceeezet/index.html
Maybe the programmer can give you some infos?

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PostPosted: September 26th, 2013, 3:25 pm 
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Joined: September 21st, 2013, 9:33 am
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Well... drat! :lol:

I have that page bookmarked but forgot all about it. I've just written a blasted X1 disk viewer/editor and could have saved myself the hassle. Typical.

Good call though, thank you. I'll try and contact the developer and see if he knows anything about these flags.


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PostPosted: September 26th, 2013, 4:30 pm 
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Joined: September 21st, 2013, 9:33 am
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Well that's one half of the mystery solved - sort of. The disk format used as far back as 1982 does fully support directories; but commands for using them weren't introduced to Sharp-HuBASIC until two years later (CZ-8FB02 in 1984, for the Turbo). Although for some reason, they then released v2 of 8FB01 in 1985... with, you guessed it, no support for directories.

Edit: 1995 should have read 1985.


Last edited by Rink on September 28th, 2013, 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: September 28th, 2013, 1:22 pm 
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Joined: September 21st, 2013, 9:33 am
Posts: 6
Think I've figured out the remaining file attribute:

Bit 5 is a flag for marking a file for verification. It can be set by the command
Code:
set "file","r"
which (if my Japanese holds up) says that the file will be verified the next time it is written. Re-saving the file clears the flag, but I think this might be intended for compatibility with tape systems as the VERIFY command only seems to work on cassettes.

Not 100% on this yet. I'd be interested if anyone knows of anything similar on other Sharp machines?


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