PDD.OPA ~~~~~~~ A Psion Series 3a program to access the Tandy Portable Disk Drive 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------- PDD.OPA is a program for the Psion Series 3a that allows it to make use of the Tandy Portable Disk Drive 2 (PDD2). The PDD2 was a small battery powered disk drive that Tandy once sold for use with their model 100, model 102 and model 200 laptop computers. It could store only 200k and 80 files. The 80 files were divided between two directories that you have to access separately. It's not made anymore but you can still find them for sale if you check around. Prices are usually around $150. Here's some places to look: CompuServe: ~~~~~~~~~~ model 100 (M100SIG) Atari Portfolio section of the Palmtop forum ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Also you could try contacting: Club 100: A Model 100 User Group P.O. Box 23438 Pleasant Hill, Ca. 94523 510-932-8856 voice 510-939-1246 bbs 510-937-5039 fax I was just on the Club 100 bbs tonight and there was 3 or 4 PDD2's for sale. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this zip file should be the following files: pdd.opa pdd.hlp pdd.txt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHANGES WITH VERSION 1.2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. PDD is now an OPA. Install as you would any other app. It doesn't matter what directory you put it in as long as you keep PDD.OPA and PDD.HLP together. 2. Fixed a couple of stupid bugs in some dialogs where hitting the escape key instead of "N" was sometimes seen as a "Y". 3. Will no longer hang up if you put a unformatted disk in the disk drive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHANGES WITH VERSION 1.1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Now if you try to save or load a file that already exists you're given a chance to replace it. You no longer have to manual delete the file. 2. You no longer have to change to the directory a file is in before saving it. You can hit 's', manuver around the directories and select the file you want to save. The program will change to that directory and save the file. Any files you load will now go to that directory, so be careful. 3. If you save or load a file over 5000 bytes the program will beep to let you know it's done. 4. With this version one beep is just to get your attention, two beeps always means an error has occurred. 5. Replaced some OPL code with Machine Language to improve speed when saving files. Saves are now about 36% faster. Loads are the same since the time it takes to load a file depends on the PDD and not on the Psion. 6. Program will no longer hang up if the PDD is off or not connected. You'll get a "Drive not responding!" error. 7. Added pull down menus 8. Added help. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Now on to some notes about the program. There is no build in help or pull down menus. Hitting the help key or the menu key will cause absolutely nothing to happen. The reason there aren't any is that everything you can do is listed across the bottom of the screen There's only three keys that have a function that aren't listed and they are: 'A' which will just show you my name and email addresses 'Psion-X' which exits the program 'space-bar' reads the files on the disk. 'M' also works because when I added pull down menus I couldn't figure out how to put 'Space-bar' on it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Commands: (case does not matter) 'S'ave Writes a file to the PDD2. Will open a file selector for you to select the file to save. You can press 'TAB' to call up a full screen file selector and maneuver around till you find the file you want. The path listed at the top left of the screen will update to match your selection. 'L'oad Loads the file under the cursor from the PDD2. The file will be place in the directory listed at the top left of the screen. You can change this with the 'C' command. 'D'elete Deletes the file under the cursor from the PDD2. You have to answer 'Y' to a query before it will proceed. 'R'ename Renames the file under the cursor. You're prompted for the new name. 'C'hange Changes the directory where files loaded from the PDD2 will be Dir placed. A file selector window opens to allow you to select the directory. You can also press 'TAB' to call up a full screen file selector. The current directory is shown at the top left of the screen. 'B'ank Switches from Bank 0 to Bank 1 and back. When you save a file to the PDD2 it goes into whatever bank you're looking at. The banks are totally separate. You can have the same file in both banks with no conflict. The current bank is shown at the top right of the screen. 'F'ormat Formats a PDD2 disk. You're given two chances to back out before the format proceeds. The PDD2 can only use 720k disks, 1.44k disks confuse it and the format will fail. Because it uses a proprietary disk format it can only put 200k on each disk. The disks are not readable by anything else but there are programs for DOS computers that will allow them to access the PDD. Look in the Palmtop forum section 9 or the M100SIG. End of Commands When you start the program you'll see a 40 cell grid on the screen and a couple of other things. In the top left corner will be "LOC::M:\". This is the place any files you load in from the PDD2 will go. You change this by typeing a 'C'. You'll get a file selector window that will only allow you to select a directory name. You can change drives or hit TAB to see all the directories. On the upper right will "Bank 0" The PDD2 is old technology. It stores a max of 80 files divided between two directory banks. Each bank can hold only 40 files. Also each PDD2 disk can hold only 200k. That's not much I know, but it's better then nothing. To look at the other bank hit a 'B'. Any files you save to the PDD goes into whatever bank you're looking at. In the middle will be the list of files on the PDD2. There's 40 slots because each directory can only hold 40 files. This display make it easy to see if you have any slots left. Under the file list on the left will be "202000 Bytes Free". This is the remaining space on the disk. These numbers were obtained by a professional programmer on a closed course, your actual numbers will be different. On the right will be "0 Files". This is the number of files in the current directory bank. It's here in case you don't feel like counting the files on the screen. I don't. On the bottom line of the screen is the available commands. See above for a explanation of what each does. --------------------------------------------- Notes on the PDD2: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You'll need a null modem to connect the PDD2 to your 3link cable. You can pick one up at any Radio Shack. There are several PDD access programs for DOS computers in the Palmtop forum section 9 and the M100SIG forum. --------------------------------------------- That's it, hope you get some use out this program. I also hope you don't have too much trouble finding a PDD2 drive. Be careful, Tandy also sold a PDD1 that will not work with this program. The PDD1 could only store 100k on each disk and only had one directory bank. If a PDD1 is all you have and you really want this program to work then contact me and I'll modify it to work with a PDD1. I look forward to any comments or suggestions you might have. --------------------------------------------- Disclaimer ========== Although this program appears stable, I cannot accept any liability for loss, or damage, as a result of using this program. PDD is released into Public Domain, and I am not looking for any payment for it. I am, however, interested to know whether you have found this program useful, and whether you have any suggestions for improvements. Please feel free to email me with comments! You may freely distribute this program to other users, but please make sure that the program and documentation are kept together. Distribution of reverse-translated source code is not permitted. Written by: Harvey Chrisley October 1994 CompuServe: 72446,3465 internet : hchrisley@mcimail.com