Nextor 2.0 final released

Nextor, the disk operating system for MSX computers built upon the source code of MSX-DOS, has finally gone out of beta: Konamiman has just released the final version of Nextor 2.0.

The last beta version published was already fairly stable, so there are no big changes in this release, just a few bug corrections. Namely:

A misplaced internal pointer was overwriting a data area in page 3. No problems have been reported due to this bug, though.
NEXTOR.SYS was not properly displaying the "Abort, Retry, Ignore" message for disk errors.
For MegaFlashROM SCC+ SD users: the SD driver has been updated to version 1.2, the previous version had some timing problems in Panasonic FS-A1 machines.

As an added bonus, accompanying the release of this version two new Nextor-related downloads are available: the full source code of the external command-line tools supplied with Nextor, and the full source code of the FDISK tool that comes embedded within the Nextor kernel. So if you are a developer you can now take a look at the internals of these tools and even write custom versions.

Nextor 2.0 will not get further modifications unless bugs are found, but this does not mean that the development of Nextor has finished! New features will come with version 2.1.

Relevant link: Konamiman's MSX page

Comments (30)

By edoz

Prophet (2522)

12-02-2014, 14:52

Cool news! I will try it!

By Retrofan

Paragon (1339)

12-02-2014, 18:43

Nice, but I also hope for a release for Padial SD interface, then we can use Nextor on even more interfaces

By Latok

msx guru (3998)

12-02-2014, 19:14

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!!!

By Manuel

Ascended (20077)

12-02-2014, 22:27

Nextor is one of the coolest projects of the last few years. Very very useful stuff!

By luppie

Paladin (870)

14-02-2014, 13:33

I think Nextor in combination with the MegaFlash SCC +SD is the übercoolest thing on MSX.

By Latok

msx guru (3998)

14-02-2014, 17:03

Exactly, luppie. Megaflash SCC+SD in combination with Nextor 2.0 and DenyoNet has reaaaaallllly boosted my MSX experience

By Piter Punk

Master (232)

15-02-2014, 01:17

Great! Already updated my MegaFlash SCC+SD and my IDE from MSX Projetos to Nextor 2.00. If you have this IDE and want to try Nextor, you'll need to modify the cidebios.bas; edit line 1310 from "Q=0 to 3" to "Q=0 to 7". You can continue the update as usual. The cidebios.bin doesn't needs any change.

If you don't have cidebios.bas you can download it from MSXPro IDE page.

By KdL

Paragon (1493)

15-02-2014, 15:46

OCM way.......
Set DIP-SW5/6 = OFF/OFF (SLOT2 external cartridge at boot).
Copy NEXTOR.SYS and their files on the SD-CARD of OCM without remove the MSXDOS2.SYS
Also copy the NEXTOR kernel rom (NEXTOR16.ROM is the ASCII-16K kernel rom).
Go with a script like this:

A:\>mglOcm NEXTOR16.ROM /f

or:

A:\>SLOTMODE -7L
A:\>MGLOAD NEXTOR16.ROM /S2
A:>\GETRESET

Very nice job Konamiman!!!

By msd

Paragon (1570)

15-02-2014, 16:21

@Konamiman: Any changes / or new functions to the bdos calls?

By Manuel

Ascended (20077)

15-02-2014, 17:17

I read about plans for 'native DSK support'... is that still planned, Konamiman?

By msd

Paragon (1570)

15-02-2014, 17:58

btw konaman , Do you know the reason why dos2 can't directly load into secondary mappers?

By edoz

Prophet (2522)

15-02-2014, 18:10

yes, DSK support would be very cool! So that you just can mount a dsk file to a drivemapping.

By konamiman

Paragon (1228)

16-02-2014, 12:51

Retrofan wrote:

Nice, but I also hope for a release for Padial SD interface, then we can use Nextor on even more interfaces

Then just go and find a programmer willing to develop the appropriate driver. All the necessary information is available. :)

msd wrote:

@Konamiman: Any changes / or new functions to the bdos calls?

You mean relative to the previous version (beta 2)? No, there are no functional changes at all. If you mean relative to MSX-DOS 2, yes, there are new function calls and some changes to existing ones. All the ugly details are in the programmers reference.

Manuel wrote:

I read about plans for 'native DSK support'... is that still planned, Konamiman?

Yes, that's still planed... and by popular request, this is the next feature that will be implemented. :) But don't ask me for a time frame.

msd wrote:

btw konaman , Do you know the reason why dos2 can't directly load into secondary mappers?

All the sector access code is executed with the OS data segment (which is always on primary mapper) switched on page 2. When performing a read/write operation, the user segment is temporarily switched on that page, but no slot switching is made.

By AxelF

Champion (398)

16-02-2014, 14:52

Flashed the Standalone ROM with ASCII 8 mapper to my Flashron 512k SCC.

works like a charm, great job.

By msd

Paragon (1570)

16-02-2014, 15:34

Quote:

So you could say they forgot that? Would it work if you add it?

By konamiman

Paragon (1228)

16-02-2014, 16:42

msd wrote:

So you could say they forgot that? Would it work if you add it?

It doesn't look like they "forgot" that, but an intentional decision to make code simpler and faster.

Yes, maybe I could add it, but I'm not going to do that. First, because it is not a trivial code modification. And second, because it would be pointless... all the existing MSX-DOS 2 compatible software is already working with this limitation in mind, so if I change it it would be useful just for developing Nextor-only software. And I doubt that such thing as "Nextor-only software" will exist ever, other than the small tools that I have developed.

By Manuel

Ascended (20077)

16-02-2014, 17:37

That's what you think! We may all massively switch over to Nextor! Why not?

By msd

Paragon (1570)

16-02-2014, 18:50

Quote:

all the existing MSX-DOS 2 compatible software is already working with this limitation in mind,

That is very true. I was more wondering why they didn't add that. Does this also mean that for the ramdisk there are extra copies in ram required when coping to the ramdisk (which by default selects secondary mapper)?

By karloch

Prophet (2160)

17-02-2014, 00:05

Successfully upgraded. Great work Konamiman!

By konamiman

Paragon (1228)

17-02-2014, 13:52

Manuel wrote:

That's what you think! We may all massively switch over to Nextor! Why not?

Switching to Nextor is one thing. Developing software for Nextor is a completely different thing. Probably it will be like InterNestor/DenyoNet: quite a few people is using it, but nobody (that I know of) has developed networking applications.

msd wrote:

Does this also mean that for the ramdisk there are extra copies in ram required when coping to the ramdisk (which by default selects secondary mapper)?

The RAM disk is a special case, it is handled by completely different code (which, of course, performs the necessary slot switchings in order to access the appropriate RAM segments).

By Manuel

Ascended (20077)

17-02-2014, 14:35

If we all switch over to Nextor, there's no reason to not use the Nextor-specific features, right? That was my point!

By Poltergeist

Champion (281)

17-02-2014, 16:42

I don't see the problem. A program can simply state: minimum requirements: Nextor 2.0 or something like that. I don't expect subdirs to work on MSX-DOS 1 also...

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6714)

17-02-2014, 17:13

Subdirs exist with special versions of MSX-DOS 1, but they are not compatible with DOS2.

By msd

Paragon (1570)

18-02-2014, 10:11

@konamiman: What is the reason you changed the name of msxdos2.sys to nextor.sys.. Things like this http://www.msx.org/wiki/How_to_reallocate_MSXDOS2.sys_without_going_to_basic_or_using_basic will not work anymore.

By konamiman

Paragon (1228)

18-02-2014, 10:47

msd wrote:

That's an interisting piece of information, I didn't know about it!

I did the name change to prevent confussion. Nextor introduces new function calls and the .SYS file needs to be aware of this. If an old MSXDOS2.SYS was used by mistake, the system would boot normally, but the new Nextor specific tools would not work.

I didn't expect anyone trying to manually load MSXDOS2.SYS, but anyway that's not a big issue. Just create a copy of NEXTOR.SYS named MSXDOS2.SYS in the same folder, and you're done! Nextor will ignore the extra file, your reallocating software will use it, and everybody will be happy. :)

By msd

Paragon (1570)

19-02-2014, 18:53

Quote:

. Just create a copy of NEXTOR.SYS named MSXDOS2.SYS in the same folder, and you're done! Nextor will ignore the extra file, your reallocating software will use it, and everybody will be happy.

Well that would fix it on my system, but it somebody else would use a tool which does not know this... (BTW did I already mention great job , great job!)

By msd

Paragon (1570)

20-02-2014, 19:14

konamiman: If there is no real reason to rename msxdos2.sys, why don't you keep it the same? If you just called it msxdos2.sys version 2.5 or something than no programs would or will have problems with it.

By konamiman

Paragon (1228)

21-02-2014, 13:52

Sorry, I really don't think it is such a big problem and an easy workaround is available, so no deal here. :-)

However thank you for pointing out the problem, I appreciate it very much and I will mention it in the documentation for the next version.

By konamiman

Paragon (1228)

21-02-2014, 14:41

By the way, let's continue the discussion here: http://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/development/nextor-work-pr...

By edoz

Prophet (2522)

23-02-2014, 15:55

it took a while but I was busy with symstudio but it's flashed and so far so good!

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Comments (30)