Projects
Projects
These are recent programs related to HC computers.
HCDisk 2.0
Updated February 2022 to include support for USB floppy drives, that can be used for the CP/M disk formats. Updated June 2022 to include automatic conversion of BASIC loaders for TAPE, HC with disk, IF1COM, Spectrum +3 syntax.
1. What is it?
HCDisk is a tool able to transfer files to and from several file systems Specific to the Sinclair Spectrum computer and clones on a PC.
Can be used to create disk images from physical disks or TAP/TZX files, to be used with GoTek floppy emulators installed in HC.
2. What can it do?
It can understand these file systems:
- CPM - Spectrum +3 and various clones (HC, CoBra)
- +3 BASIC (CPM based)
- Betadisk TR-DOS
- Miles Gordon Technologies +D
- Opus Discovery
- ICE Felix HC BASIC (Romanian clone, CPM based)
- ICTI CoBra Devil FS (Romanian clone)
- Electronica CIP-04 (Spectrum +3 clone from Romania, with 3.5 disk drive)
File systems based on CPM are read-write, the others are read only (for now).
Several disk image types are supported:
- Physical disks inserted into the PC floppy drive or USB floppy drive
- RAW, including TRD, MGT, OPD
- DSK/EDSK
- CQM (read only)
- SCL (read only)
- Tape images: TAP, TZX
Note: For accessing floppy disks in physical drive, for all supported disk formats, you need Simon Owen's fdrawcmd driver:
http://simonowen.com/fdrawcmd/ . For USB floppy drives, no driver is needed, but only some disk geometries are supported, mainly CP/M ones.
It also includes file conversion for Spectrum Specific files, to be viewed on PC:
- converts Spectrum BASIC programs to BASIC source code
- converts Spectrum SCREEN$ files to animated GIFs
- includes a disassembler for CODE files
- includes a hex viewer
HC 2000 Emulator for Sinclair Spectrum +3 by Rares Atodiresei
HC 2000 emulator that runs on Sinclair Spectrum +3. It has floppy disk support. It consists on IF1 ROM patches that change the floppy disk access ports to those used on +3. It also relies on writable memory provided by Multiface interface. Tested on Spectaculator.
Fuse Emulator for HC 2000
Modified for HC disk access by Alex Badea, now with CP/M support.
Update 14.05.2013 based on Fuse 1.1.0
HC Disk 1.X
This one can be used to transfer files to and from HC floppy disks inserted into a PC floppy drive. Can also read/write disk images, format disks and export files to TAP format for use in emulators.
Download 1.04c - Includes documentation in Romanian, deprecated by HCDisk 2.0
Download 1.02 - Includes version for DOS and also for Windows XP and later, deprecated by HCDisk 2.0, unless you need the DOS version.
CPM Img
This one can be used to read and write image files of HC CP/M floppy disks inserted into a PC floppy drive. It can also format disks into HC CP/M format. Deprecated by HCDisk 2.0, unless you need the DOS version.
Both of the above programs need installation of Simon Owen's floppy disk driver found here: http://simonowen.com/fdrawcmd/ .
HC Commander
Norton Commander-like file manager for HC computers. Allows for:
accessing both floppy drives A:/B:
file copy between drives or single drive - between 2 floppy disks or trough serial port
has text file viewer
file parameters are displayed: type, start address/line, length
file renaming, deleting, attribute changing (read-only, hidden)
disk copy between drives or single drive - between 2 floppy disks
disk copy using serial port connection to a PC running HCDisk tool
disk formatting
Download
HC Exteded Cat
This utility is running on HC and displays detailed information about each file from the floppy disk. Info is: file number, file name, file attributes, start line/start address, exact file length.
Source code is included. Can be assembled with SJAsmPlus or Pasmo cross assemblers. It ilustrates HC disk access from assembler.
HC RUN - Rares Atodiresei
HC Disk Loader by Rares Atodiresei - Assembly routines for a disk loader resident in shadow RAM, with comments and instructions, used by Rares when converting multi-level games to load from disk on HC.
HC Run program with source code in assembler - a file browser for HC with disk usable as 'run' program. It shows all files on disk, with different colors for hidden and read-only files. Also shows space occupied and number of files on disk, space free and catalog entries free. Can access both A: and B: drives. Can run programs.
Spectrum Game Compressor
Tool for semi-automatic game compressing for the ZX Spectrum computer