I just saw this on comp.sys.cbm and thought folks here might want a preview
of things coming this year to C=4.
--
David Witmer Cincinnati Commodore Computer Club President
Webpage http://www.geocities.com/c64-128-amiga

AKA Snogpitch
snogpitch@...
cbmusers@...
ICQ 4989342


------ Forwarded Message
From: Jim Brain <brain@...>
Organization: AT&T ASP.att.net
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:26:16 GMT
Subject: uIEC (Micro IEC) Update

For those who do now know, uIEC and uIEC/CF are projects to allow a
IEC-based CBM computer (VIC/64/128/etc.) to utilize a IDE drive
formatted with a FAT filesystem or a CompactFlash (CF) card with such a
filesystem.

uIEC development took some very interesting paths this year (more
details if there is interest), but I am happy to report that the unit is
working and I'm now concentrating my efforts on making it CF-card
agnostic (testing various cards I have here), and trying to increase
compatibility. I have a deadline to have units for sale in time for the
CCCC expo in late June.

I've taken advantage of the long list of features in another project
(sd2iec) to make uIEC even more compatible and useful. So, here is a
combined list of features:

o Supports IDE and CF cards (uIEC supports IDE/IDE, IDE/CF, or CF/CF if
you have an IDE->CF adapter for the second card. uIEC/CF supports
single CF card)
o Supports drives of any size, though support for >137GB drives needs
more testing. :-)
o Supports FAT12/16/32 partitions of any legal size
* Supports partition-less cards/drives, or up to 4 primary partitions or
3 primary and 12 extended partitions. (Email me if you have more than
12 extended partitions on a drive :-)
o Supports FAT Long filenames
* Transparent support for PRG/SEQ/USR file extensions, with REL support
planned.
o Transparent support for P00/S00/U00 files, with R00 support planned.
o Supports read and write of D64 images.
o Block level disk access supported on D64 images
o Most CBM DOS commands (Scratch,Initialize,Rename,etc.) supported.
o CBM general config commands (U0, U+, U-, UI, U9, U:, UJ) supported.
o CBM block level commands (B-R, B-W, UA, U1, U2, UB) supported when in
D64 image.
o CMD-style partition ($=P) support
o CMD-style subdirectory (MD,CD,RD) support.
o CMD DOS Commands (G-P, G-<shift-P>) support.
* Long form CMD directories ($=T:*, $=T:*=L) supported
o 1581-style/CMD-FD/HD-style wildcard matching supported ($:JIM*RAIN)
o JiffyDOS fast loader equipped (PAL and NTSC support). Can be enabled
or disabled via DOS command.
& Firmware can be updated by copying new firmware file to root dir of
first drive, first partition and resetting unit.


(* noted items are in my WIP codebase, & are features in mainline
codebase I need to enable in my variant)

I want to publicly thank Unseen of sd2iec for creating a very impressive
codebase that made my feeble original attempt pale in comparison.
Although I will regret not being the originator of the uIEC firmware, it
simply made no sense to duplicate all of the features and require sd2iec
to re-implement features already in the uIEC project. I think Unseen
also appreciates another developer on his firmware project. My
additions have primarily been to the FAT LFN code, the CMD HD commands,
and multiple drive support.

In process is time-based directory pattern matching (>00:00:00 and
<00:00:00), support for programs that determine drive type via M-R, and
D71/D81 image support.

I'll refrain from listing the ideas in the enhancement bucket, but there
are quite a few. At this point, I am prioritizing features that might
make HW changes necessary, for obvious reasons. Firmware-only additions
can be made after shipping.

I'm happy to answer questions in the thread.

Jim

------ End of Forwarded Message