prodos-drivers/README.md
Joshua Bell ace258d862 Rejiggered the selectors, added actual 40-column Bird's Better Bye.
I discovered that Bird's Better Bye and the ProDOS 1.9 selector are different.
Documentation updated with the history to the best of my knowledge.
2020-12-23 19:23:23 -08:00

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# ProDOS Drivers
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# What are ProDOS "drivers"?
The ProDOS operating system for the Apple II executes the first `.SYSTEM` file found in the boot directory on startup. A common pattern is to have the boot directory contain several "driver" files that customize ProDOS by installing drivers for hardware or modify specific parts of the operating system. These include:
* Real-time Clock drivers (e.g. No-Slot Clock, Cricket!, AE DClock, etc)
* In ProDOS 1.x, 2.0 and 2.4 the Thunderclock driver is built-in.
* RAM Disk drivers (e.g. RamWorks)
* In ProDOS 1.x, 2.0 and 2.4 only a 64K driver for /RAM is built-in.
* Quit dispatcher/selector (`BYE` routines)
* In ProDOS 1.0 and later, a 40-column friendly [selector](selector) prompts for a prefix then a path `ENTER PREFIX (PRESS "RETURN" TO ACCEPT)`
* In ProDOS 1.9 and 2.0.x, on 80-column systems, a menu-driven selector is installed instead.
* In ProDOS 2.4.x [Bitsy Bye](https://prodos8.com/bitsy-bye/) is built-in.
Early versions of these drivers would often invoke a specific file on completion, sometimes user-configurable. The best versions of these drivers simply execute the following `.SYSTEM` file, although this is non-trivial code and often did not work with network drives.
This repository collects several drivers and uses common code to chain to the next `.SYSTEM` file, suporting network drives.
## What is present here?
This repo includes The following drivers/modifications:
* Real-time Clock drivers
* No-Slot Clock
* Cricket!,
* Applied Engineering DClock
* RAM Disk drivers
* RAMWorks Driver by Glen E. Bredon
* Quit dispatcher/selector (`BYE` routines)
* 40-column Selector (from ProDOS)
* 80-column menu-driven Selector (from ProDOS 1.9 and 2.x)
* Bird's Better Bye (a 40-column menu-driven selector)
* Buh-Bye (an enhanced version of the ProDOS 80-column, menu-driven selector)
In addition, `QUIT.SYSTEM` is present which isn't a driver but which immediately invokes the QUIT handler (a.k.a. program selector).
Some date/time utilities for The Cricker! clock are also included.
## How do you use these?
The intent is that you use a tool like Copy II Plus or [Apple II DeskTop](https://github.com/a2stuff/a2d) to copy and arrange the SYSTEM files on your boot disk as you see fit. An example boot disk image catalog that is used on multiple different hardware configurations might include:
* `PRODOS` - the operating system, e.g. [ProDOS 2.4](https://prodos8.com/)
* `NS.CLOCK.SYSTEM` - install No-Slot Clock driver, if present
* `DCLOCK.SYSTEM` - install DClock clock driver, if present
* `CRICKET.SYSTEM` - install Cricket! clock driver, if present
* `RAM.DRV.SYSTEM` - install RamWorks RAM disk driver, if present
* `BUHBYE.SYSTEM` - install a customized Quit handler to replace the built-in one
* `QUIT.SYSTEM` - invoke the Quit handler immediately, as a program selector
* `BASIC.SYSTEM` - which will not be automatically invoked, but is available to manually invoke
Alternately, you might want to install some drivers then immediately launch into BASIC. In that case, put `BASIC.SYSTEM` after the drivers in place of `QUIT.SYSTEM`.