i am planning to do my own rr-rom - totally from scratch. my intention is to let it do the following:

the main purpose should be to provide i/o interfaces for a REU-Ramdisk and all sorts of rs232 and maybe some RR-Net communication, using the system's vectors ($0314 ff, OPEN,CLOSE,CHKIN,CKOUT,CLRCH,BASIN,BSOUT,GETIN...)
the KERNAL provides i/o-interfaces for keyboard, screen, tape, rs232 and IEC-Bus. I will try to enhance these defaults by Ramdisk and maybe RR-Net and change the rs232 part to supply some more sophisticated hardware.

On power-up reset the ROM searches for a REU and all kinds of rs232 interfaces and if a rr-net is present. Then it installs the i/o vectors according to the setup so that you can e.g use device #7 as RAMDISK, dev #6 as "RR-Netdrive" etc. Opening a file on device #2 should determine automatically if and if yes which rs232 interface is present and using driver code for the appropriate interface (up9600, silversurfer, DUART...) if none is present, use the kernal custom rs232 routines.
(or another idea was to tell the open-routine which driver to use, e.g by sending a special "filename" char in the open-command...)
the device numbers will be changeable of course...!

for the rr-net stuff i would need some help since i have no idea about programming this beast...

i'd need some support for other rs232-drivers than up9600, too. (this is the only one i own, but i am planning to buy a silversurfer soon)

furthermore the ROM should contain a good monitor that can adress the REU and includes a disk monitor. (e.g. tronmon/fairlight)

of course things like hex input from BASIC, DOS-Wedge, some standard BASIC-Extensions (OLD, RENUM. and friends) and all this will be there as well. Any space left will be filled with some useful tools that can be downloaded from ROM (e.g. file copier, TMP...)
i don't intend to include a special (1541-) fastlload since i have installed 64er-DOS anyway and don't need any speed-up. And again the reason is that i have absolutely no experience with programming a fastloader, so...

The main subject of the ROM will be the Ramdisk part. it would be also cool to have some BASIC-Commands to save the whole REU-Content via a rs232 line to a null-modem-connected PC and re-get it from there, so you could send the whole RAM-Disk, switch off your c64 and the other day just reload it and continue working... with a silversurfer at 38600 baud this should be done in < 1 min for a 256k REU. (i have done this with up9600 which takes about 4 min. for my REU1764)

i have started some first experimenting and implementing the RAMDisk Part.
i am developping with ca65 and VICE.

if someone would like to join then project, have ideas, suggestions or remarks just send me an email or post here.

Hi!

Sounds quite good!


A few weeks ago I made my RR-Net sending some ethernet frames into my home network, and it was easier then I thought.

So if you need some basic infos, feel free to contact me.

CU
Kratznagel

Sounds marvelous to me! If there's no REU present, it would be cool to use the RR RAM as a small RAM disk.

thanks to magervalp's udpslave sources and some help from kratznagel i am starting to understand all this rr-net/ ethernet thing...
a basic frame for the cartridge is ready but far from being useful at the moment. i wanted to implement some kind of own reu ramdisk but this is harder than i thought. well - i'll keep up...
using rr-ram as mini-ramdisk should be no problem but 32k of ramdisk is really really few space.... wonder how one could use this reasonable.
(just managed to get a 1.5MB REU, so.... )

Actually it would be really handy when coding on the C64.. to keep objects or source backups when experimenting for instance or using it as a cut & paste scratch pad. A file system wouldn't be needed really. A monitor that can access and transfer between RR and C64 ram would suffice.

ok, but i want to have a file system for the reu ramdisk, so there would be not much overhead to apply this to rr-ram, too - _IF_ I manage to code this beast... as i said, it is harder than i thought but for my own purposes i need a ramdisk which acts like a serial device concerning kernal i/o (basin/bsout etc), such as the well-known official ramdisk coming with the REU.

Hey Hannenz! Keep us updated

Any progress yet?

Or did it end up in the large, round archive?

i must admit that there is no progress. lately i loist all my data due to a harddisk crash as well (and yep - i was one of those doing NO backups - now i do), so all my sources are gone.
i don't know if I will restart this prj... sorry.

Damn! I'm really sorry
What if we pull a little crew together and simply start hacking on a new ROM?


And.. To all who's reading this - TAKE BACKUPS!

well - i'd be in for a new start. but we should decide in the first place, what features this ROM should include and what purpose it should serve!

I'm totally for a 100% modular framework. Features I'd like to see:

* ROM "CORE" which supports plugins and program flashing. You should be able to load binaries from a disk that are flashed to ROM. Plugins could be monitors, fastloaders, TCP/IP library, etc. Programs could be warpcopy, tasm, etc.

The Core has a built in wedge that allows dynamic linking of new commands which can be utilized by plugins.

Native commands could be %FLS for showing a list of currently flashed programs. %F1..9 to launch a flashed program. %FLOAD to load and flash a new program from disk. %FRM1..9 for erase

Corresponding commands for plugins are need. %PLS, %PLOAD, etc.

Plugins could register new commands. %DLOAD for classic AR-style fastloader for instance.

All this would ofcourse require a ROM page (4k i think?) where all config data is written, such as command tables with commands and pointers, plugin tables with pointers.

* RR-RAM tool that allows for transfering data between C64 and RR RAM. Ultimately a memory manager that allows programs to use RR RAM dynamically.

Hmm.. there's a beginning...

phew.
so you think of some kind of frame where everyone could put together his own ROM by choosing the appropriate plugins/ programs. And the ROM Core itself just manages these Plugin/ Program Library?
Well that sounds .... great!
What rr ram is concerned, i have written a rr-ram extended memory driver for cc65 so this one could be used as a basis for a dynamic ram manager maybe...

RaveGuru: I like your ideas very much and i think this would be a good and very flexible point to start with!
some more suggestions?! Maybe we could join a team to work on this?! who'd be interested in active developping?!
I will be a little out of time until June because of exams but there is always a little spare time for the c64, so i say i'd be in!

I'm thinking of a system where you can add/remove plugins "online" without reflashing the entire ROM every time, using a smart flashing routine, but perhaps that's a bit overkill, at least to start with. A ROM creating/patching tool would probably be enough for starters..?

That RR-RAM driver for cc65 sounds like a good start.

Right now I'm also very busy, but hey, a couple of hours now and then can always be found. I've been thinking about doing this for a long time now, and gethering a development team would be excellent. I pass on the question:

Anyone interested?

FWIW, this is how dW intends to use the flash filesystem on his super snapshot clone. You'll be able to add your own plugins to the cart.

I'm working on disassemble retroreplay so it can be assembled in a crossassembler enviroment.

When or if it will be ready I don't know.
But it will sure make things more easy to hack the RR Rom.
Also it will give us more space, since it will be easy to make the code more compact.

If anyone is intrerested to help out, let me know.

Fix/TRSi