D71 and D81 image writer tool for use with the 1541Ultimate 2 or 2+. Commodore 128 version.
Written by Ernoman and WdW.
This C128 tool will enable you to use your 1541 Ultimate 2 cartridge (U2) to write .D71 and .D81 images to a physical drive.
It uses fast serial, and is therefore a bit faster than the C64 version. If you have a C128, I recommend you use the C128 version.
- Set your physical drive to another id than the emulated U2 drive, because having two drives with the same device id on the serial bus is asking for trouble. You can also disable the emulated drive and use device 8 on the physical drive.
- The diskette must be formatted before you can use it. It does not need to be empty, though. In order to get a 1:1 copy its best to format the diskette with the index option (this will zero all sectors), as the write tool will skip empty sectors to speed up the process.
Example: HEADER "EMPTY", U8, I01
- Enable the Command Interface and the REU with at least 1MB of memory.
- Disable any cartridge in the U2 interface, otherwise you willl end up in C64 mode.
- Put your image files somewhere on a USB or Micro SD card and insert it into the U2.
When the tools starts, make sure if you see the Ultimate DOS version appear under the header. If this does not happen, re-check your U2 settings!! The tool will not function until you see the DOS version.
Select the option you want to perform:
1 will allow you to set the Ultimate DOS path the tool is looking at. 2 will prompt you to enter a D71 or D81 filename.
After entering a valid file name the destination device is asked. When a destination (device 8 - 11) is entered the transfer will begin.
In case the filename does not end in .d71 or .d81 the user will be prompted to select the correct image type.
Whenever return is pressed without entering anyhting the tool goes back to the beginning.
A word of warning; this tool does not check if the devices matches the selected image. It will gladly try to write a D71 to a 1581. The behavior of such a mismatch is uncertain.
The code is build using Kickassembler (at the moment of writing v5.3). There are two builds:
- For Vice emulation purposes java -jar C:/Tools/kickassembler/KickAss.jar -define EMU -odir ./bin Startup.asm
This build omits the 1541 Ultimate API parts. It quits when disk writing is supposed to start. The intended use for this build is to be able to test some of the code using an emulator like Vice.
- For real java -jar C:/Tools/kickassembler/KickAss.jar -odir ./bin -o Startup.asm
Note the Startup.asm instructs the compiler to create a D64 image containing the d7181_for_ult.prg. Should you desire a different file name make sure to edit the Startup.asm accordingly.