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Initializing an Exidy Sorcerer CP/M disk

D

dutchacorn

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 7, 2015
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Netherlands
Some time ago I was lucky to find an Exidy Sorcerer with an S-100 expansion unit, FDC, drives and some software. It had / has some issues which I am working on, which I am documenting on Stardot. There are a few members there that have some Sorcerer knowledge on Stardot but essentially it is an Acorn forum so it does not get much resonance there.

Apart from the last hardware challenge (getting the floppy drives to work) I would like to find a way to back up some of the floppies that came with it.

The Vista VOS CP/M manual states that, to make a backup the floppy used must be initialised. The Vista VOS disk boots to CP/M and I can start INIT. After typing the disk identifier (A) it accesses the disk drive (motor running) and after a while the disk drive head moves a few tracks. Then it asks to confirm initialising after which the floppy drive motor starts running, but that's where it ends; it never stops.
vista vos initialise.jpg

I've tried different drives and different floppies, no change.

It also came with CP/M 2.2, which has a SYSGEN tool, but that does the same.

  • Is there something I am doing wrong in this process?
  • Is it possible to use a PC to initialize Sorcerer-compatible CM/P disks?

Thanks!
 
Chuck(G) said:
22Disk should be able to format the 48 tpi SSDD floppies; use definition EXI1.
Click to expand...

Thanks Chuck! I did not know about 22Disk. Regrettably it seems that my old (Pentium 3) PC is not quite old enough to run 22Disk; I could not get it to format anything :(
 
Well, I found the reason for my slow progress on this; the disk interface is hard sectored! 40T, 10 sectors, 512 bytes/sector. Should have read the documentation more thoroughly. :oops::lookroun:

Inspecting the disks that came with it, they are all hard sectored. INIT works fine with a hard sectored floppy.
 
Hi, I need CP/M, either floppy or cart based, for my Exidy Sorcerer.

I want to format and use the floppy drives - I have the S-100 expansion and interface card.

I’ll make a copy and return your disk if you have one.

Thanks-
Steve.
 
dutchacorn said:
  • Is there something I am doing wrong in this process?
  • Is it possible to use a PC to initialize Sorcerer-compatible CM/P disks?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Have you made any progress? If you can boot CP/M and read and write normal .COM files there can't be too many possibilities left to explain why you are having trouble formatting a blank 10 sector floppy.
I am reading old manuals at the moment to teach myself CP/M and one of them suggests using the format command FMT as the first step - do you have FMT.COM ?
 
steven stengel said:
Hi, I need CP/M, either floppy or cart based, for my Exidy Sorcerer.
Click to expand...

You still haven't said which floppy controller you have in your expansion box

There are now TWO possible hard-sectored formats, Micropolis 16-sector and Vista 10-sector

The disks we have are 16. The CP/M came from Computer Mart

Exidy_2.2_Micro-Mart.jpg

And I've not seen any CP/M that ran off a cart.
 
I've got one too but it's not for the Exidy unit - it's for a UK floppy drive called FDX-180, assuming the media still works (the drive doesn't..)
 
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