Currently the disk is built from dos_20s.atr, with the "axe" utility. See the script mkdisk.sh to see how it's done. In case you're wondering about fujitest.atr, it's fujichat.atr plus the author's personal config file and serial driver, so I don't keep having to answer the config prompts every time I test a new build. The rest of this file describes only fujichat.atr. Reasons for distributing FujiChat as a bootable disk image: - It's "boot and go" for users who use real floppy drives or emulate them with SIO2PC + software. - The setup process is automated and guides the user through. First boot it asks what serial driver to use (then reboots). Next boot it loads the menu with the Setup option as the default. Further boots, the config file exists so Chat is the default menu option. - Since there's not enough memory to combine the menu, about, setup and chat programs, they have to be separate files. Which means FujiChat has to be distributed as a multi-file archive... I could have used e.g. ZIP or ARC instead of ATR, but then floppy users would have to create their own ATR image and copy the files to it. The only disadvantage is that hard disk users might want to "install" FujiChat to their drive. This can be done just by copying the contents of the ATR to a directory on the drive, then running FUJICONF.COM to create a config file and FUJICHAT.COM to actually use IRC (if the hard disk boot process already loaded an R: driver). Disk Contents ------------- fujichat.atr is built from a DOS 2.0S floppy image containing only DOS.SYS and DUP.SYS. These are the files that go on the disk: ABOUT.COM ABOUT.TXT ATARI850.SER AUTORUN.SYS BOBVERT.SER FUJICHAT.COM FUJICONF.COM FUJIMENU.COM LOADMENU.COM MAKEAUTO.COM PRCONN.SER One thing missing from the disk is the config file, FUJICHAT.CFG. This is created by FUJICONF.COM (see below). If you load FUJICHAT.COM without creating the config file first, it uses compiled-in defaults (which might not work for you). File Descriptions ----------------- The initial AUTORUN.SYS is aexec.xex and loadmkau.xex concatenated. The code in aexec.xex is the atari_exec() function, loaded to $600. loadmkau.xex uses atari_exec() to load & run MAKEAUTO.COM. This AUTORUN.SYS is *overwritten* by MAKEAUTO.COM (see below). NOTE: All the *.COM files contain the aexec.xex code, so atari_exec() can be called from any of them, even if they're loaded out of the usual order. aexec.xex (atari_exec()) is necessary because standard Atari DOS doesn't provide a way to load and run an executable programmatically (only interactively from the DOS menu). Third party DOSes (notably SpartaDOS) provide a function (an XIO call) to do this, but FujiChat is intended to work with all DOSes. MAKEAUTO.COM asks for the serial port driver to use (the *.SER files are the choices). It creates a new AUTORUN.SYS which is a concatenation of the chosen serial driver and LOADMENU.COM. After it's done, it prompts the user to reboot (to boot with the new AUTORUN.SYS). Note: this means FujiChat must be run from a writable disk. LOADMENU.COM simply runs FUJIMENU.COM. It's never run standalone; it's incorporated in AUTORUN.SYS (along with the serial driver). The reason for this indirection is to keep FUJIMENU.COM as a standalone executable, not containing the serial port driver (and not named AUTORUN.SYS). FUJIMENU.COM is the main menu, with the choices About, Setup, and Chat. It runs ABOUT.COM, FUJICONF.COM, or FUJICHAT.COM based on the user's choise. ABOUT.COM is basically the Unix "more" command for the Atari. It reads and displays ABOUT.TXT with a ---more--- prompt at the end of each screens' worth. When it's done, it reloads FUJIMENU.COM. FUJICONF.COM is the config menu (Setup), which asks for IP addresses, IRC nick, etc. It can be run either from FUJIMENU.COM or from FUJICHAT.COM (while not connected to the server). Note that the config is persistent in memory between runs of FUJICONF.COM and FUJICHAT.COM, meaning you can temporarily change settings (in memory only) by *not* saving the config (answer N to "Save this config?"). Also, the first question it asks (Change serial driver?) will run MAKEAUTO.COM (see above). FUJICHAT.COM is the main executable. It's loaded by FUJIMENU.COM, and expects a serial port (R:) driver to already be loaded. If you wanted to "install" FujiChat to a hard disk or otherwise run it directly from e.g. a SpartaDOS command line, you could load this by itself (without booting the FujiChat disk), *provided* you already have an R: driver loaded *and* that you've created a FUJICHAT.CFG (by running FUJICONF.COM). The *.SER files are just the various R: device drivers. These are the standard drivers, I just gave them a .SER extension to make them stand out.