D.U.S. 4.0 Disk Utility System

Gathers more than thirty disk maintenance programs for the Larken LKDOS system on one disk, all run from a single boot menu. It needs a TS2068 with the Larken disk interface and has not been converted for tape. Booting the disk shows a title screen and then BOOT.B1, which lists the programs on the current drive as lettered entries A–P, scrolls the list with 6 and 7, switches drives with 0–4 and loads the chosen file with one keypress. Each utility is a short BASIC front end that asks for a drive (99 to quit), calls its machine code to do the work and then goes back to the menu.

The Utilities

The on-screen names of the programs, with their file names, are:

• Copying: COPY DISK I, II, III and IV (COPY I.B1, COPYII.B1, COPY 3.B1, COPY 4.B1); COPY DISK III asks for one to four copies.
• Formatting and setup: FORMAT DISK, FAST FORMAT, INITIALIZE CATALOG, CHANGE TRACKS & SIDES, FAST CHANGE TRACKS & SIDES, CHANGE HEAD SPEED, CHANGE DISK NAME and COLORED DISK NAME (FORMAT, FASTF, INIT, TRKSID, FTRKSD, HEAD, DSKNAM, COLNAM).
• Housekeeping: CLEAN UP DISK, FAST CLEAN UP, FRESHEN DISK, FAST FRESHEN, SORT NAMES (puts the catalog in alphabetical order) and MAP OUT BAD BLOCKS (CLENUP, FCLEAN, FRESHN, FFRESH, SORT, MAPOUT).
• Inspection and editing: DISK ANALYZER, FILE ANALYZER, BLOCK ANALYZER, BLOCK EDITOR and TRACK MAP EDITOR (CHKDSK, FANALY, BANAL, BEDIT, TMAPED).
• Recovery: RECOVER ERASED FILE, RECOVER BAD DISK and RECOVER CATALOG (RECOVR, RECBAD, RECCAT).
• Batch file work: BATCH MOVE, BATCH ERASE, BATCH RENAME and NAME THIEF, which works between a source and a target drive (MOVE, ERASE, RENAME, THIEF).
• Booting: the BOOT.B1 menu, the SCREEN.CS title screen and MINIBT.B1, a “tiny boot for Larken LKDOS” that picks a file from a grid with Q, A, O and P and loads it with ENTER. BOOT.B1 can be set to show or hide code files in its list.

Seven of the programs (CLEAN UP, COPY DISK II, COPY DISK IV, FORMAT, FRESHEN, RECOVER CATALOG and CHANGE TRACKS & SIDES) come with four versions of their machine code, with the endings .CA, .CL, .CO and .CR. Each has to be customized before its first use: as found, it stops with “THIS PROGRAM MUST BE CUSTOMIZED!” and lists the line where the owner puts the letter of the version to load. The disk doesn’t say which setup each letter is for.

Provenance

The programs credit Kris (Kristian) Boisvert and Byte Power on screen. Most modules are dated 1989, while COPY DISK III and IV, FAST FORMAT, FAST CLEAN UP, FAST FRESHEN, FAST CHANGE TRACKS & SIDES, RECOVER BAD DISK, BLOCK ANALYZER, BLOCK EDITOR, TRACK MAP EDITOR, FRESHEN DISK and NAME THIEF say 1990, and a REM in BOOT.B1 still reads 1988. Byte Power sold the package as The D.U.S. for the LKDOS cartridge. This copy comes from a disk labelled “Dus4.0”, which also holds a copy of Bob Swoger’s L.B1 loader (V4.9L3, 1992) that is not part of the package.

What’s Missing

• There is no manual or help file on the disk.
• Nothing on the disk explains the four .CA/.CL/.CO/.CR code versions or which one to choose.

The download holds the raw image of the original disk and every file on it as a TAP.

    0 REM                                                        FORMAT DISK                     WRITTEN BY K BOISVERT           COPYRIGHT 1989 BYTE POWER        
   10 GO TO 30
   20 LET L=USR 65281
   30 POKE 23658,0
   40 PLOT 0,173: DRAW 20,0: DRAW 0,-3: DRAW -2,0: DRAW 0,-2: DRAW 2,0: DRAW 0,-15: DRAW -20,0: DRAW 0,20
   50 CIRCLE 10,164,3: PRINT #4: CIRCLE 3,160,1: PRINT #4: CIRCLE 3,165,1
   60 INVERSE 1: PLOT 9,158: DRAW 0,-3: DRAW 1,0: DRAW 0,3: DRAW 1,0: DRAW 0,-3: INVERSE 0
   70 PRINT AT 0,10;"FORMAT DISK";AT 1,4;"WRITTEN BY KRIS BOISVERT";AT 2,8;"*1989 BYTE POWER"
   80 PLOT 0,147: DRAW 255,0: DRAW 0,1: DRAW -255,0
   90 LET l=USR 61337
  100 LET A=PEEK 65535: LET DR=0: IF A=4 THEN LET DR=1
  110 IF A=8 THEN LET DR=2
  120 IF A=16 THEN LET DR=3
  130 IF A=128 THEN LET DR=4
  140 PRINT #4: GO TO DR: PRINT #4: LOAD "BOOT.B1"
  150 INK 0: PAPER 7: BORDER 7: CLEAR 44999: RANDOMIZE USR 100: OPEN #4,"DD"
  160 LET a$="": IF a$="" THEN PRINT AT 5,0;"THIS PROGRAM MUST BE CUSTOMIZED!"''': BEEP .25,0: BEEP .25,0: LIST 160: STOP 
  170 PRINT #4: LOAD "FORMAT.C"+a$CODE : RUN 20
 9999 RANDOMIZE USR 100: SAVE "FORMAT.B1" LINE 150