Nextor 2.1.1 beta 2 released

Spring always brings us some nice things, and this time one of these things is a new release of Nextor! This is what the second beta of Nextor 2.1.1 offers:

The biggest change is an internal one: the mechanism for mounting disk image files to drives (with MAPDRV after a normal boot, not when booting in the disk emulation mode) has been completely rewritten. Previously, a file handle was kept open for the mounted file, which lead to very complicated code (file access functions had to be re-entrant) and to hard to debug bugs. Now the initial physical sector of the file is remembered, and a simple sector offset is used to access the mounted drive. This implies that now files need to be stored across consecutive clusters in order to be mountable.
A smaller but also important one: fixed yet another bug in the mechanism that was introduced in Alpha 1 to improve the performance of cluster chain allocation in large drives. This bug didn't compromise the data integrity of the affected drives, but caused computer crashes.
A new BASIC command has been added: CALL SYSTEM2. This one works like the good old CALL SYSTEM, but it will always load MSXDOS2.SYS instead of NEXTOR.SYS, even when the later is available. Useful to get some extra TPA memory since MSXDOS2.SYS is smaller than NEXTOR.SYS; remember however that Nextor specific tools don't work under MSXDOS2.SYS.
A new environment variable has been introduced: KILLDSKIO. When it exists with a value of ON there will be an extra 512 bytes of free BASIC memory, at the expense of disabling the DSKI$ and DSKO$ commands.

Relevant link: Nextor 2.1.1 beta 2 release

Reacties (12)

Van sdsnatcher73

Enlighted (4289)

22-03-2022, 18:47

Quote:

This implies that now files need to be stored across consecutive clusters in order to be mountable.

Does this mean MAPDRV.COM (or the undelying OS) will check if a image being mounted has all consecutive clusters and gives an error if it does not?
If this check is not present this would be very dangerous imho (because you would read/write the wrong clusters belonging to another file on the mass storage).
Also a tool to defragment a file that does not have consecutive cluster would be handy (defragment just the one DSK file, not the entire file system).

Van konamiman

Paragon (1211)

22-03-2022, 20:35

sdsnatcher73 wrote:

Does this mean MAPDRV.COM (or the undelying OS) will check if a image being mounted has all consecutive clusters and gives an error if it does not?

You will get an error indeed if you try to mount a fragmented file. The check is not done by the MAPDRV tool but by the underlying kernel function call, therefore it's impossible to mount a fragmented file even by developing a custom mapping tool.

23-03-2022, 06:39

Great!

Van gdx

Enlighted (6429)

23-03-2022, 15:06

Thanks, I updated my Sunrise CF interface.

Nextor.sys become MSXDOS2.SYS since the v2.11 alpha, right? I couldn't find the v2.50 on your site but in utils.dsk. And what about the CMD230.COM?

I also noticed you use the COMMAND2.COM v2.41 instead of v2.44 for the utils.dsk. Is there a reason?

23-03-2022, 16:46

gdx wrote:

Nextor.sys become MSXDOS2.SYS since the v2.11 alpha, right?

No! NEXTOR.SYS is still NEXTOR.SYS. The change I did back then was allowing to boot with MSXDOS2.SYS if NEXTOR.SYS was missing. The change in this new version is the new CALL SYSTEM2 command that will always use MSXDOS2.SYS to boot.

No reason whatsoever, I must have changed it inadvertently. Any version of COMMAND2.COM is fine for use with Nextor (in fact there's no Nextor-specific version).

Van edmsxtrek

Supporter (10)

23-03-2022, 17:38

One question, why does the floppy drive disappear when using the mapdrv.com command?

Van Parn

Paladin (854)

23-03-2022, 19:03

Great news! Nextor is awesome, we all love it, and we are all happy to see it still getting attention.

24-03-2022, 09:31

Okay, thanks.

I found the NEXTOR.SYS v2.1.1 (2019) here:

https://github.com/Konamiman/Nextor/releases/download/v2.1.0...
https://github.com/Konamiman/Nextor/releases/download/v2.1.0...

So I compared it with the NEXTOR.SYS that I downloaded before to verify if it's not the same and this is indicated v2.1.2 (2021)!!!

Why does the previous version indicate it's a newer version? I'm lost.

24-03-2022, 18:08

You have to download nextor.sys from 2.1.1 beta 1 release

Van KdL

Paragon (1485)

24-03-2022, 20:35

A new BASIC command has been added: CALL SYSTEM2. This one works like the good old CALL SYSTEM, but it will always load MSXDOS2.SYS instead of NEXTOR.SYS, even when the later is available. Useful to get some extra TPA memory since MSXDOS2.SYS is smaller than NEXTOR.SYS; remember however that Nextor specific tools don't work under MSXDOS2.SYS.

You wrote CALL SYSTEM2 twice by mistake on GitHub, in this text line:

Added a new CALL SYSTEM2 command in BASIC. This one works the same way as CALL SYSTEM2, but it will always load MSXDOS2.SYS, even when NEXTOR.SYS is available. (#97)

25-03-2022, 12:28

edmsxtrek wrote:

Non-Nextor-controlled devices get a drive at boot time and can't be mapped to a different drive. You can remap that drive to a Nextor-controlled device, but then you are hiding the original device and the only way to get it back is to remap the drive again to its default state (MAPDRV has an option for that).

Yep. Any new release will only include the files that are modified, if you need any of the other files you need to get it from the newest release in which it is included.

KdL wrote:

You wrote CALL SYSTEM2 twice by mistake on GitHub

Fixed, thanks!

25-03-2022, 11:21

Thank you, sdsnatcher73.

So here are links for the versions with japanese support:
https://github.com/Konamiman/Nextor/releases/download/v2.1.1...

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