Slowdos

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Writ by Dom 3/7/98

Slowdos v2 is the culmination of over three years of thought and programming. Along with DiSCDOS it is the ultimate utility for the Spectrum +3, giving new life to this thought dead computer.

Now, what is Slowdos? And why can it breath life into your +3? Slowdos is the ultimate MSDOS disc utility for the +3. You can now read and write MSDOS discs from BASIC - offering far more flexibility than the original Slowdos program (which merely converted files between +3 and MSDOG), this time reading and writing of MSDOS discs is an integrated part of the Spectrum operating system.

A list of features of Slowdos v2 is detailed below:

  • Reading and writing of MSDOS disc from BASIC
  • Deleting of files (including wildcards)
  • Renaming of files
  • Support of subdirectories (saving/loading)
  • Copying of files to and from MSDOG discs
  • Loading of .SNA snapshot files
  • Loading and copying from .TAP files
  • Saving and copying into .TAP files

    • The last three features are those that really show the power and flexibility of Slowdos. These two features allow +3 users to access the majority of Spectrum games which are on the net, restoring access to the programs to the original machines.

    Being able to read .TAP files is particularly powerful, for example it is now possible to download copies Alchnews from the Alchemist web site and read them immediately on your +3 - no messing around with conversion anymore.

    Slowdos will also copy files out of .TAP files - allowing them to be loaded from +3 discs, it will even convert headerless files to +3 disc, though of course you'll have to convert the program to use them. It will even create .TAP files allowing export of your programs to the emulator world.

    The latest version of Slowdos, v2.3 also supports command codes so that you can directly access MSDOS discs from your programs so that you could for example load z80 files on your +3 as well as many other possibilities.

    A cut down demo version is available for download, this demo, which shows you some of the power of Slowdos can CATalogue discs and LOAD files, but doesn't support SAVEing or emulator features.

    Slowdos v2 is available free of charge from me - just mail me and I'll send you a copy. Or, you can have a go with the demo version.

    The program is available in two formats, a +3 file format and also the tap file format.