Is it possible?
The entire story (so you can figure what am I trying to do):
I've got a ZX-Uno. It is a FPGA based computer with the same size factor as a Raspberry Pi. Although it was made thinking about doing a hardware emulated ZX Spectrum, the designers added the capability to hold and use up to 9 "cores". Each core can emulate a computer/console (there are 15~20 of those cores). One of those cores emulate a PC/XT, and its "hard disk" is the SD card reader. That PC/XT core does not have floppy, so the SD must be a bootable XT hard disk (clone).
To create that SD card I've been using PCem. First I make a disk image using win32diskimager, then I use that image with PCem and, when it's ready, I dump the image into the same SD card.
So I was wondering if it is possible using a device (the SD card reader) as a hard disk for PCem. Doing so would save me time from dumping the contents of the SD card. I guess that (using Linux) I could edit pcem.cfg and put a line like hdc_fn = /dev/sdc but I don't know if it would work (PCem should be running as root).
Can it be done in windows? Maybe a future update (with a big red warning about the risks of using a device directly)?
Thanks.
Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
Re: Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
I second this request. It would make file transfer between host and guest a lot easier, but I guess it would demand heavy programing because Windows 9x would have to read a NTFS partition on the host side, something not possible I think
- ppgrainbow
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Re: Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
I would like to this feature request!
I currently have a 512 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB flash drive formatted as a FAT partition, a 1 GB and 2 GB compact flash and a 2 GB SD card that can be used to run under MS-DOS/Windows 95.
I currently have a 512 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB flash drive formatted as a FAT partition, a 1 GB and 2 GB compact flash and a 2 GB SD card that can be used to run under MS-DOS/Windows 95.
Re: Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
I suspect reading from a FAT32 host would be much easier to implementppgrainbow wrote:I would like to this feature request!
I currently have a 512 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB flash drive formatted as a FAT partition, a 1 GB and 2 GB compact flash and a 2 GB SD card that can be used to run under MS-DOS/Windows 95.
- ppgrainbow
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Re: Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
FAT32 is a good option as well...especially for drives greater than 2 GB to 8 GB in size.omarsis81 wrote:I suspect reading from a FAT32 host would be much easier to implementppgrainbow wrote:I would like to this feature request!
I currently have a 512 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB flash drive formatted as a FAT partition, a 1 GB and 2 GB compact flash and a 2 GB SD card that can be used to run under MS-DOS/Windows 95.
Re: Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
Sorry, maybe I was misunderstood. The goal is not reading disk images from NTFS/FAT32 filesystems (it does), nor reading files from filesystems (like DOSBox does when mounting folders).omarsis81 wrote:I suspect reading from a FAT32 host would be much easier to implementppgrainbow wrote:I would like to this feature request!
I currently have a 512 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB flash drive formatted as a FAT partition, a 1 GB and 2 GB compact flash and a 2 GB SD card that can be used to run under MS-DOS/Windows 95.
The goal is using the SD card as a whole so commands like FDISK would write over the MBR of the SD card (and make partitions on that SD), SYS would make a partition bootable (writting the boot record of the partition) and so on.
As I said, maybe the linux version could do using /dev files instead of image files, but you'll have to give PCem CHS parameters of that SD card to work.
Re: Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
Hmm I believe is almost the same, anyway, reading from a SD card would be great too!Zup wrote:The goal is using the SD card as a whole so commands like FDISK would write over the MBR of the SD card (and make partitions on that SD), SYS would make a partition bootable (writting the boot record of the partition) and so on.
Re: Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
I've compiled v12 version of PCem with my Debian (64 bits). It needed two changes to work (both 'depcomp' and 'missing' links are pointing to older versions of automake; needed to add -m32 to compiler flags).
After that, I've tried to select /dev/sdc as HDD image file but it didn't work. But after manually editing pcem.cfg, I've launched PCem as root and it booted from the SD card. I didn't even put any CHS values on pcem.cfg file.
I haven't tried to FDISK that SD card from PCem, but I guess it will work. Now I wonder how can I do that same trick under Windows...
BTW, the latest source downloaded from the repository doesn't compile. It complains about a dell200s initialization function...
After that, I've tried to select /dev/sdc as HDD image file but it didn't work. But after manually editing pcem.cfg, I've launched PCem as root and it booted from the SD card. I didn't even put any CHS values on pcem.cfg file.
I haven't tried to FDISK that SD card from PCem, but I guess it will work. Now I wonder how can I do that same trick under Windows...
BTW, the latest source downloaded from the repository doesn't compile. It complains about a dell200s initialization function...
- SarahWalker
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Re: Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
Run autoconf & automake. That's best practice when using source from the repo on Linux - as I don't generally develop on Linux the Linux makefiles aren't always kept up to date.
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Re: Physical disk as Pcem hard disk?
I already have a patch to fix the dell200 compilation problem, but it has not been reflected yet. The patch link is below.Zup wrote:I've compiled v12 version of PCem with my Debian (64 bits). It needed two changes to work (both 'depcomp' and 'missing' links are pointing to older versions of automake; needed to add -m32 to compiler flags).
After that, I've tried to select /dev/sdc as HDD image file but it didn't work. But after manually editing pcem.cfg, I've launched PCem as root and it booted from the SD card. I didn't even put any CHS values on pcem.cfg file.
I haven't tried to FDISK that SD card from PCem, but I guess it will work. Now I wonder how can I do that same trick under Windows...
BTW, the latest source downloaded from the repository doesn't compile. It complains about a dell200s initialization function...
https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... =681#p5327