The Sinclair QL Forum

Does anybody know exactly what this trap is supposed to return in it's 64 byte data block, at byte $30 (IOI_REMV).

The QDOS SMS Reference says it's "set if removable". However FLP and WIN drives return zero here.

Am I misunderstanding what is meant by removable, and it does not mean removable as in a floppy disk?

Martin,
that flag was introduced especially for the Atari Megafile 44 and the HW emulator on the Atari ST. The Megafile 44 used a Syquest hard drive with removable disk stacks and (hence the name) 44 MB of storage. This needed special OS handling to lock the eject lever while the disks were turning.

I don't really think anything else but the Atari emulator used this flag. And I also don't think there are still a lot of those around. I used to have one, but unfortunately sold the Mega ST 2 + Megafile 44 + QL emu in the late nineties.

Tobias

OK Thanks for that. So basically this flag will always be zero for normal devices such as mdv, flp, win, CDROMS? etc.

Martin

Martin_Head wrote:OK Thanks for that. So basically this flag will always be zero for normal devices such as mdv, flp, win, CDROMS? etc.
Martin

That wasn't exactly what I said
On everything else but the Atari, yes. The Atari ACSI bus enables a device (CDROM, Harddisk, whatever) to actually tell the OS that a media is removable.
The Megafile 44 - being handled as a "win" in SMSQ/E (and maybe ACSI CDROM or other drives with removable media) would have told the Atari SMSQ/E driver that it should maintain the flag. To my knowledge, the Atari drivers are the only ones in SMSQ/E that actually maintain that flag - And a quick grep through the SMSQ/E sources seems to support that assumption. The term "removable" only shows up in drivers related to ACSI

So, on everything else but an Atari, I would guess this flag is 0. On an SMSQ/Eed Atari, however, it depends on what the device is saying, and it will only be set by devices on the ACSI bus (so, even the Atari will consider flp_ as non-removable.....)

Tobias

Hi,

I think will find the MDV & FLP are not classed as Removal Drives, maybe the best definition if Removal Hard Drives.

Maybe best to post this message in the QL-Users Mailing list, as Wolfgang Lenerz reads the mailing list and will beable comment on the problem.

Yes, TT made this Trap, when Jochen found the Megafile 44 so very handy but ran into problems with different "cartridges" as SMSQ wasn't able to detect a given condition (door open or closed, HD changed or not), as it does not recognized that. TOS (the Atari's native OS, or better "AHDI.PRG/SHDRIVER.SYS", the driver) does.

At least, a lot of implemented things in SMSQ belongs to Jochen's demand during his update path from the standard Atari ST emulator from Futura Datasenter/Norway up to the QVME card on the Atari TT.