Microdrive catalogue



Per Arne Jenseen[sic],

Aalesund, Norway.



The program for the ZX 16/48K Spectrum generates a list of

programs on a Microdrive cartridge together with the usual

information from the CAT command. It also helps you to

load and erase programs on your cartridge plus some more

functions.



 Saved on Microdrive cartridge



The program should be saved on a cartridge like this:

        SAVE *"m";1;"run" LINE 1: OPEN #4;"m";1;

        CHR$ 0+"cat": CAT #4: CLOSE #4

[This has already been done on the .mdr on which this

program is supplied, but must be done again for every other

.mdr you want to use it on.] Type NEW and then RUN. The

program will then autoload and give you the opportunity to

use your Microdrive with a minimum of effort. You will be

presented with a list of programs on the cartridge.

Pressing the symbol in front of each program name will

automatically load it. If the name ends with a full stop,

the program will believe it's a block of code, and will ask

you for a CLEAR address. This can be skipped by pressing

the ENTER key. The program will then not NEW itself, thus

preserving the code block.

  If you want to delete a program, press delete and the

program symbol on the list. The program will then be

erased.

  You can operate more than one Microdrive by pressing

ENTER. A prompt will appear at the bottom of the screen to

tell you when you can do this. Caps+6 will bring you back

to drive 1.

  To add a program to the cartridge, save the program as

normal. Then type NEW and RUN. Press EDIT and the new

program will be handled by the program. You can also use

the EDIT after doing a normal ERASE from Basic, as the

program will believe the other program is still on the

cartridge.



 You can scroll the list



If the cartridge is very full and the list is long, then

you can scroll the list by using ENTER and Caps+7.

  The program must be held in Microdrive 1. To use other

drives you must create a cat file on the other cartridge.

This is done by the same procedure described, but canceling

the SAVEing. Use drive 1 when doing this. If you do this

you can have my program on one cartridge only and cat files

on all the others.



[ This program includes a small machine code routine in a

  REM statement. The listing instructs the user to first

  load the machine code into the REM, and then to delete

  the loader lines. On the .mdr, the program with the

  machine code not loaded and the loader lines present

  has been provided as "catclean"; the working version,

  with machine code in place and those lines removed,

  has been saved both as "Catalogue" and, as described

  above, as "run". I've also provided a few trivial

  sample files, so that there is something to load from

  the catalogue beside the catalogue itself.

                                      RLB, September 2012 ]