Changes
Tidy up some typos
=== PCW Expansion port adapter composite video cable ===
If you want to connect a PCW Expansion port adapter to a display, you're going to need to make up a suitable video cable. The composite video signal is on the pad closest to the trimmer, with the ground pin next to it. This is marked on the board in tiny lettering. If you use a duble double pin header to populate the video output pads on the PCB (as I do when building them for other people), your cable should look like this:
{| class="wikitable"
* Auto detection of the uIDE card, unloads if not found.
* Provides up to 6 CP/M drives C: D: E: F: G: H:. This appears to be a limitation of the Amstrad CP/M Plus memory map. Depending on what expansions you have connected to the PCW, you may have fewer than this (for example, if the Amstrad CPS8256 Serial/Parallel device is fitted, you lose H:).
* A later version exists that gives the full complement of drives, see below in bold and the Downloads section abovbeabove.
* Is compatible with the CP/M Plus M: drive.
* Provides additional drives under Locoscript - H: I: J: K: L:.
==== To transfer the uIDE disk image under Windows ====
Later Windows versions are not very good at giving low level access to hard drives like Linux is. Transferring images is, therefore, a bit more convoluted (and so far I ahve have not found a way of reading images back, becasue because Windows will not recognise the hardware unless the drive on it is formatted for DOS or Windows).
This procedure should get you started, though.
* Connect the transfer rig to your PC
* Insert the IDE device and power it up.
* If Windows Explorer does not show the drive it is unformatted or uninitialised. Initialise it first via "Computer Management" (On the Start menu, under All Programs -> Windows Administrative Tools, or Run -> compmgmt.msc). Click the Storage / Disk Management item in the left hand side of the screen and you should see the IDE device in the main pane. Right-click on the button labelled "Disk n Unknown" (n depends on how many drives you have) and select "Initialise Disk". Select MBR and click OK. Now click on the "Unallocated" block for the disk and select "New Simple Volume", then (in the New Simple Volume Wizard, click Next, Next, Next, Next, Finish). If you get a popup sayng saying the disk needs to be formatted, cancel it, because the Disk manager is already doing it. Now, go back to Windows Explorer and you should see a disk called "New Volume". Note the drive letter.
* Launch '''Win32DiskImager'''. Select the drive letter of your CF card or DOM on the right of the window and choose the uIDE disk image file on the left, then click the "Write" button. Check that the confirmation dialog box shows the correct drive letter, then click "OK". You should now see a progress bar as the image is written to the IDE device. When complete, a small widow will pop up saying "Write successful." Click the OK button and close win32imager.
* You should now have a prepared uIDE DOM or CF card. Disconnect the imaging cable and power down the IDE device. Plug it into the uIDE adapter.
C:/Users/JonB/uIDE/cpmtools>cpmcp -f uIDE2 more.com 3:more.com
Copies the CP/M program MORE.COM from teh the current directory to drive 2, user 3 of the uide.img image file.
If you are transferring files to an image, remember you have to then put the image back onto the IDE device before you can access it on your Z80 computer.
Refer to [http://www.seasip.info/Cpm/amsfid.html http://www.seasip.info/cpm/amsfid.html] for more details.
If you find your CP/M Plus version is too old, it should be sufficient to replace the EMS file on your boot disk with a later one. The file containing CP/M is named like "JnnCPM3.EMS" or "JnnCPM3.EMT". The nn indicates the version number so for example "J14CPM3.EMS" is version 1.4. If your boot disk's CPM file has a ".EMS" extension and you want to use a file with ".EMT", just rename it (and visa-vice versa).
=== PCW8000 series CP/M versions ===
You can download a ZIP file with the later CP/M PCW EMS/EMT files here: http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/nc100-nc200-pcw-pda600/cpm-plus-1-11-1-5-download/?action=dlattach;attach=21886
(From this thread http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/nc100-nc200-pcw-pda600/cpm-plus-1-11-1-5-download/ )
This section was written for xdriver v1.9 under CP/M 2.2 and may or may not apply to CP/M Plus.
A CP/M "user area" is a bit like a directory under MS-dosDOS, except it is named by a number and there are only 16 of them on each drive.
To use the different user areas, use the command USER n where n is the user
I would like to thank some collaborators for their work and kind assistance.
* Grant Searle, who wrote the original formatting program and read / write driver code as well as the DPB for his 9 nine chip CP/M computer. XDRIVER is a derivative of this work. http://searle.hostei.com/grant/index.html
* John Elliot, who helped me to understand how the FID file format works, and provided his FID CHECKSUM program which is a required part of the FID development toolchain. http://www.seasip.info
* CPCWiki member Bryce, who provided a good deal of hardware advice and encouragement. Bryce is also a uIDE beta tester.
