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How to use direct block access commands in Commodore DOS

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Commodore-Logo-PaddedWe can access each sector’s raw data on Commodore disk drives with direct block access commands. Supported drives include the 1541, 1571, the VICE emulator as well as the SD2IEC card reader (for the most part).

Each single sided floppy contains 35 sectors, while a double sided 1571 formatted disk contains 70 sectors. Each track contains between 17 and 21 sectors depending on how far inside or outside they are. Each sector contains 255 bytes we can read or write.

Sectors are the same as blocks: only the directory refers to them as “blocks” and shows us how many we have available.

We’ll need to open two channels to our disk drives: a command channel and a data channel. Here’s how to do it:

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How to create relative data files on your Commodore 128

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The CBM DOS can write “relative data” onto disk, based on individual records. The advantage is that all space is allocated once and then randomly accessed if and when it’s needed – much like the tracks on a CD. This approach is different from sequential files, which have to read or write the whole file … Read more

How to create sequential files on your Commodore C128

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Sequential files are files to which we can write arbitrary data and read it back later. We can even append data to the file later without having to re-write the whole file. This works with the Datasette (tape drive) as well as floppy drives. Here’s how to do it in CBM BASIC 7.0: Creating Sequential … Read more

How to check the Fan Speed on your Mac

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Sometimes you may want to know how fast your fans are spinning, more as a “number value” rather than a “noise value”. While you can hear when your Mac in front of you is working hard, it’s impossible to tell how fast those fans are spinning when you’re miles away from your Mac in a … Read more

How to disable System Integrity Protection on OS X El Capitan

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System Integrity Protection was introduced in El Capitan to add another layer of security to OS X. The system prevents the root user from doing things that are potentially harmful. Apple did this because any app at any time may ask for the administrator password and execute commands with elevated permissions, which is a big … Read more

How to turn plain URLs into clickable links in WordPress

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The marvellous P2 Theme has an interesting feature: write out a plain link, and it magically becomes clickable without explicitly adding the a href tag.

This may not be a big deal if you’re writing posts in the visual WordPress editor rather than HTML, but for those of us who like to write in HTML, it’s just one less thing to worry about.

I was investigating this feature recently, and it turns out WordPress has a built-in function that can do this: they call it make_clickable(), and it works with URIs, FTP, Email addresses and anything starting with www. The function is really easy to use too: it only takes one parameter (a string), and returns the clickable HTML code. 

$clickableText = make_clickable($plainText);

Let’s see how to use it in context, using the TwentyThirteen theme.

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