Exile In Paradise

Stranded on Earth...

DLOAD

DLOAD Loads BASIC program at specified baud
0 = 300 baud
1 = 1200 baud
DLOAD “X”,1
~ https://archive.org/details/Color_Computer_Quick_Reference_Manual_19xx_Tandy/

TIMELINE

1981 Tandy ships DLOAD client in the Color Computer 1 Extended BASIC 1.0 by Microsoft

1982 Mark Chamberlin documents the DLOAD Protocol

1982 Tandy ships DLOAD client in the Color Computer 2 Extended BASIC 1.1 by Microsoft

1983 Micro '80 Article - DLOAD server for TRS-80 Model 1
https://archive.org/details/80-microcomputing-magazine-1983-03

1983-1984 Spectral Associates publishes Extended Color BASIC Unravelled ROM disassembly
https://archive.org/details/Extended_Basic_Unravelled_II_1999_Spectral_Associates

1988 Burt Mitchell creates dload server for MSDOS using Mark Chamberlin's protocol description

1997 Bryan Clingman ports Burt Mitchell's server to UNIX:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140814190400/http://dork.clingman.org:8080/coco/

1999 Walter Zydhek rebuilds Extended Color BASIC Unravelled making the DLOAD client source widely available again.

2013 Torsten Volmod begins updating Bryan Clingman's port
https://gitlab.com/m6809-computer-tools/dload-server.git

2019 TJBChris DLOAD server https://github.com/TJBChris/dload_server1

2020 Michael Kline, Art Flexser, John Linville repost the DLOAD Protocol

2020 TJBChris DLOAD server videos:

EXAMPLE RUN

On a Raspberry Pi 3 running Debian Linux 10 “Buster” 

>>> tar zxvf m6809-computer-toolsdload-server-782ddfa.tar.gz
>>> cd m6809-computer-toolsdload-server-782ddfa/                                                           
>>> ls                                                            
total 36
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile 8430 Jun 16 12:32 dload.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile  530 Jun 16 12:32 dload.stty
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile 3221 Jun 16 12:32 makebin.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile   70 Jun 16 12:32 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile 1191 Jun 16 12:32 README
>>> more README                                                   
Refer to:

	http://dork.clingman.org:8080/coco/

for docs/examples on these utilities.

These utilities are fairly simple unix stuff.  They should work with any
standard unix system.  Also, most likely OS9.  You probably could
compile gcc-6809 in osk and use it as a cross development platform.

Basically:
---------------------------------------------------------------
	makebin <s19file> <outputfile>

converts a s19 file to coco binary format.

---------------------------------------------------------------
	sh dload.stty <port>
	dload <file> <A or B> <port>

downloads the binary file to the coco.  You only need to run dload.stty
once per session.  Dload was originally written by Burt Mitchell.  I
just made it work in linux.

Bryan Clingman
>>> make                                                          
cc     dload.c   -o dload
cc     makebin.c   -o makebin
>>> ls                                                            
total 64
-rwxr-xr-x 1 exile exile 13200 Jun 16 12:33 dload*
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile  8430 Jun 16 12:32 dload.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile   530 Jun 16 12:32 dload.stty
-rwxr-xr-x 1 exile exile  8344 Jun 16 12:33 makebin*
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile  3221 Jun 16 12:32 makebin.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile    70 Jun 16 12:32 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 exile exile  1191 Jun 16 12:32 README
>>> sh dload.stty /dev/ttyUSB0                                    
9600
>>> ./dload ~/MC6847T1.BAS a /dev/ttyUSB0                           
target requested "MC6847T1"
trimmed to "MC6847T1"
cannot open MC6847T1
target requested "MC6847T1"
filename checksum bad.
Total transmitted = 222
file not transmitted successfully

Not successful? Looks like it was:

COCO~123

See also my “Exploring DLOAD” article in the Glenside Color Computer Club CoCo ~ 123 Newsletter Vol 40 #1 Spring 2020

RTS

Return to Tandy Color Computer