detecting RAMLink

[MIRKOSOFT]

Hi!


I have simple Q:
Is possible to detect if is RAMLink connected by software method?
Also its capacity?


Thanks for every reply.


Miro

[dr.v]

I had a similar question.  I needed a good device polling routine, and wanted to include Ramlink, CMD HD, Ramdrive, etc in the polling.  Then one day I read an article and studied the associated source.  The code is clear and well written (in my opinion).  The article was written by none other than Doug Cotton and Mark Fellows themselves.  They claim the code was very much akin to the routines used in FCOPY and MCOPY (which if you use CMD products, you will become familiar with). Check out pgs 36 & 37:     

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9846691/Commodore-World-Issue-22

As a bonus, the code integrates a checking mechanism for the Xetec Super Graphix Gold interface.  Apparently the SGG causes a serial bus lockup when standard polling techniques poll device 14 (the native device # for SGG).  It's a comprehensive polling routine.  It taught me what I wanted to learn.

As far as capacity goes, yes you can check for that as well.  But there are some considerations.  I'm not sure how familiar you are with the nature of CMD HD and Ramlink disk structure.  You have the ability to partition your HD (or memory in the case of the Ramlink) according to emulation partitions (reflecting the standard 15xx drives) or native partitions.  There are other special partitions, but you probably won't be interested in those as much.  The emulation partitions are (obviously) designed to emulate the capacity of the respective 15xx drive.  The native directories can be upto 16 megs.  That would be 256 banks of 64 kilobytes.  My understanding is that you can check capacity for the Ramlink in the same way you would check for the size of a standard 17xx C= REU.  But instead of detecting #$08 banks (for the case of the 512k 1750) you could detect upto #$FF banks (in the case of a full native mode partition).  Here is one of the articles that helped me learn about detecting REUs and their capacities... it is Transactor  vol 9 issue 6 pgs 40-43:

  http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/magazines/transactor/v9i6/index.html

Hope this helps. Have fun!!

Tom