Text Editor / DSK read-write

[Rogue_Leader]

Hi all.

Only my second post, sorry to be so nerdy so soon :)

I'm currently writing BASIC scripts to run on an Amstrad emulator (Arnold for Mac, to be specific) but writing code in the Emulator is a massive pain: you only have to do this for a couple of hours to realise how far even basic things like text editing have come in the last 25-30 years.

So:

I'm looking for a way to read and write disk images from an external system, preferably Mac / Linux, but I have access to Windows if necessary. Failing this, a half-decent text editor for the Amstrad CPC would do, but I've given up looking for this.

Thanks, and if I can be of any help please ask.

Rogue.

[Rogue_Leader]

Ok, oddly enough after weeks of searching I've partially answered this question today. I can't edit files directly and save them back (encoding problems) but I've worked around the main issue with using the emulator to edit the files. The problem with using the built-in editor is that it's extremely cumbersome and you have to view the file in a linear fashion which makes skipping around the source code - as you often have to do in a procedural language like BASIC when debugging - extremely difficult. You can't search the source or back up to see earlier lines - you have to start again with LIST <line_no>-

So, this is what I've done:

I downloaded a piece of software called iDSK (I can't link to it at my current level unfortunately) which is a Windows-only command-line application which provides manipulation capabilities for DSK files. you can see what files are available by listing them with iDSK (something like iDSK mydiskimage.dsk -l) then list the contents of a file within the dsk with (eg) iDSK mydiskimage.dsk -b myBASICprogram.bas All you then need to do is use a command-line trick to redirect the output into a file (iDSK mydiskimage.dsk -b myBASICprogram.bas > BASICDump.txt) and you have a dump of the source that you can load into a more advanced text editor. Changing the code in the editor won't save back due to the aforementioned encoding problems but it's much easier to make changes with Amstrad's Locomotive BASIC text editing tools when you have a searchable copy in front of you.