MSX-DOS1 file comparison utility

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By cax

Prophet (3740)

cax's picture

16-03-2009, 20:52

Which tool should I use in MSX-DOS1 to diff 2 binary files ?
Even simplistic "files are equal" or "files differ" is enough.

All I found till now is diff.com for DOS2 and differ.com that works on DOS1 but can't compare binaries.

If no such tool exists - I will write it myself in C, but I still hope to find an existing one.

Please advise.

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By Manuel

Ascended (19270)

Manuel's picture

16-03-2009, 21:00

WRong question maybe, but why do you want to do this? Smile

By cax

Prophet (3740)

cax's picture

16-03-2009, 21:45

I have no disk drive.
I wrote a flashing tool that uses cassette interface to flash SCC-based flash cartridge.
All games except Metal Gear 2 work, so I'd like to understand why it happens.
I decided to check if the game was flashed properly first.

So I load MSX-DOS into virtual ramdisk (special feature of MicroWAVer) using cassette interface.
I want to fetch all 8K pages of the flashed cartridge using debugger, and either calculate the checksum, or - to compare them with the pre-loaded original 8k pages.

All the suggestions (including "write your own comparison tool in MSX Basic" ) are welcome.

By Manuel

Ascended (19270)

Manuel's picture

16-03-2009, 22:49

Sounds like you could use a Nowind Smile

By W76NearDark

Paladin (684)

W76NearDark's picture

16-03-2009, 23:02

Strange recommondations are being made on this forum lately... When someone asks which hdd he should use he gets the answer: buy a 1chipmsx or use an emulator. When someone asks for a tool to determine a file problem he gets the answer he needs a Nowind.

That's quite strange... when i get car problems with my Mercedes Benz (not very likely to happen though, but in a pure hypothetic way) i don't want to hear i need a new Ferrari...

Oh yeah i did mention the smile in Manuel's reply, but consider this as my two cents in general...

By Manuel

Ascended (19270)

Manuel's picture

16-03-2009, 23:08

W76NearDark, some problems can be solved in a different way. The actual problem he has is that he doesn't have a disk drive. A nowind is an excellent replacement for that... OTOH, if he just enjoins doing things like this, it is no solution at all, of course.

By cax

Prophet (3740)

cax's picture

17-03-2009, 06:31

manuel, it's not about enjoyment. It's just about not re-coding comparison tool, if there is such one.
Buying more hardware is not a solution. All I want to know is whether my flashing code is faulty or I have some hardware problem.

By Erikie

Champion (324)

Erikie's picture

17-03-2009, 08:03

I cannot believe you have a hardware problem as your MMC bios works fine on your flash chip. Same size as MG2. Did you try this file: mg2rom12.zip on msxarchive / games / msx2 / konami ?
This is the one I used and worked fine in the same hardware you have ...

By ro

Scribe (4902)

ro's picture

17-03-2009, 09:48

Such a tool would be very easy to write. Open two files and compare blocks.... since I'm not a DOS programmer I'm not gonna bother.
Was that helpfull? prolly not.... couldn't you compare those files on your PC then? using windiff or anything... 2cents, well more like 1/2 a cent.

By cax

Prophet (3740)

cax's picture

17-03-2009, 11:38

ro, thank you anyway, but as a programmer I can tell you that coding the tool myself is not a problem.
I just thought the allmighty ALL may know about some EXISTING kind of diff.com or file management tool that is capable of this. I wanted to save time and effort.

And if I were able to copy extracted files back to PC, were I asking about MSX-DOS tool ?

I already regret I started this thread at all.

By cax

Prophet (3740)

cax's picture

17-03-2009, 11:43

I cannot believe you have a hardware problem as your MMC bios works fine on your flash chip. Same size as MG2. Did you try this file: mg2rom12.zip on msxarchive / games / msx2 / konami ?
This is the one I used and worked fine in the same hardware you have ...

I tried this one and 2 other versions from Bytemaniacos collection.
And even if MMC works OK - a hardware fault may be in my MSX machine too, BTW.
But before I made conclusions, first of all I want to check if the flashing went OK.

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