see What is SAM Coupé?

see What is SIM Coupé?

see What is Pro-DOS?

see What is ALPD?

see What is CP/M

The disk images you have found are NOT SAM Coupé disk images they are in fact for Apple computers. One of the Apple computers OS`s is call ProDos. ProDOS Stands for Professional Disk Operating System which is the primary operating system for the Apple IIgs. ProDOS 8 and ProDOS 16 refer to versions of ProDOS designed for 8 and 16-bit microprocessors respectively. The CP/M 2.2 system for the Sam Coupé is call Pro-DOS, the disk images size is 720k.

You need SAMDisk Version 2, the disk image maker software from Simon Owen`s Website. This software can create SAMDOS disks and CP/M disks images. Full instructions are given on the website.

From the SIM Coupé File menu choose new. The select the CP/M DOS image. You will be prompted to save the new CP/M disk image to your harddrive. A CP/M disk image also has the file extension .cpm so you will not get the types of disk images mixed up. SIM Coupé auto detects what type of image its loading when you next open the image.

Move, Copy and Run files as normal just remember to "Save Changes" on the emulators menu, so the disk image is save to your hard drive with the new data written to it. If you do not, you will not be able to read your files back as the disk image was not updated with the changes.

The easiest is to use is "SAMDisk" Version 2. Written by Simon Owen and is available from his Website. Full instructions are give, and it will run on Windows XP, XP Pro, with SP2, SP3.

To format a Pro-DOS disk from the Windows XP Dos command prompt type:

This will format the disk in Drive a: to the Pro-DOS CP/M 2.2 format. Remember that the disk should be a 800k low density one.

Yes, see above

You need the MS-DOS program 22Disk(Version 1.42). 22Disk is an MS-DOS program and needs to be run from a DOS-BOX on Windows XP. Before you can use 22Disk we need to select the type of CP/M disk format.

The SAM Coupé Pro-DOS format is not listed in the definitions file, as 22Disk does not know about the SAM Coupé and Pro-DOS, but Pro-DOS uses the same basic CP/M 2.2 format as the Amstard PCW256.

The Pro-DOS definition is listed here;

BEGIN A2 SAM COUPE Pro-DOS - DSDD 160 tpi 3.5"
DENSITY MFM ,LOW
CYLINDERS 80
SIDES 2
SECTORS 9,512
SIDE1 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
SIDE2 1 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
ORDER SIDES
BSH 4 BLM 15 EXM 0 DSM 356 DRM 255 AL0 0F0H AL1 0 OFS 1
END

The definition needs to be in a .DEF file for use with 22Disk, which means we have to replace to one in the 22Disk package.

Rename the file in the 22disk folder called 'CPMDISK.DEF' to 'CPMDISK.old', then unzip this Pro-DOS definition file to that folder.

When you first run 22Disk you will see this screen.

If the "A2 SAM COUPE Pro-DOS - DSDD 160 tpi 3.5", drive A:" is not displayed then you will need to select the CP/M type, press 1 and a list of types are displayed, select the SAM Coupé Pro-DOS one, you will then be prompt for a few values, just press enter which will select the default options. You will only see the SAM Pro-DOS and Amstard CP/M definitions if you have replaced the CPMDISK.DEF file as mentioned above.

Once you have set the CP/M disk type and have a CP/M formatted disk in your floppy A: drive. You will be able to transfer CP/M file to the floppy disk with option 4.

Copy DOS files to CP/M - these are CP/M files stored in MS-DOS file systems. I find the best way is to create a temp folder called cpmtemp on your C drive. Move the CP/M file(s) to be transferred to the folder cpmtemp. Then use 22disk to write them to a CP/M formatted floppy disk from the cmptemp folder.

SAM or SIM running Pro-DOS can read the disk once its in the A drive. You can then use Pro-DOS copy command to move the files between SIM/SAMs Drives ( or ALPD records).

Easy! Normal SAM/SIM images are 800K, CP/M images are 720K. You can also change the extension on CP/M images to .cpm ( SIM already does this for you when you create a new CP/M image). SIM does not use the file extensions to work out what type of image it could be, DSK, MGT, EDSK or CPM. We can use this .cpm file extension to set an file icon to the .cpm file extension. At a glace you will now see what images are normal SAM types and what are CP/M types. As seen in the image below;

To set the .cpm file type use the Window file types associate the .CPM extension with this icon file.

PowerArchiver can help. PowerArchiver has native support for most popular compressed and encoded formats currently in use. All formats are fully integrated into PowerArchiver, so you can utilize all PowerArchiver tools with each of them. Read and write support for ZIP, 7-ZIP, CAB, LHA (LZH), TAR, GZIP, BZIP2, BH, XXE, UUE, yENC, and MIME (Base 64) Read support for: RAR, ARJ, ARC, ACE, ZOO Some CP/M compressed file can only be decompressed from with CP/M using CP/M archivers [ see FDOS disk 002 ]

No, Not yet. You can only move CP/M file around using the MS-Dos program 22Disk.