The Linux emulator now supports a TANDOS card with up to 8 disk drives. The TANDOS command disk is included, which provides additional disk/file maintenance programs. This can be mounted as read-only in one of the drives so that the programs are always available. I’ve also put most of the emulated games (not the BASIC ones) onto a disk image.
One incompatibility remains between TANDOS Disk BASIC and the Mousepacket Colour VDU firmware. DBASIC is not a complete, self-contained BASIC interpreter. It extends the existing Microtan BASIC ROM, with part of the extension stored in the TANDOS EPROM at $A800-$AFFF and the remainder loaded from the system disk. Before installing its extensions, DBASIC checks that the BASIC ROM has the version it expects.
The Mousepacket Colour VDU requires a modified firmware set: TANBUG v3B and a replacement for the BASIC D3 EPROM at $E000-$E7FF. This replacement redirects BASIC’s screen handling to support the colour display, but it also changes the contents and therefore the checksum of the BASIC ROM. Mousepacket Colour VDU firmware Consequently, the standard DBASIC loader reports BASIC CHECKSUM FAILED when used with the VDU-compatible ROM set. It is a deliberate compatibility check preventing DBASIC from installing patches into an unfamiliar version of BASIC. DBASIC should work with the original BASIC ROM set; supporting it with the Colour VDU firmware will require either a compatible DBASIC version or a carefully verified patch to its loader.
I’ve also changed the old popup menu to a standard looking menu system, because it was getting a bit unwieldy with the recent additions.
