Amstrad DDI-1 manual Direct Console Commands, Filenames, Switching default drives, DIR command

3.6 Direct Console Commands

There are five direct console commands which can be typed at the A> or B> prompt. The first of these; SAVE, is for specialist use only.

CP/M Error messages tend to be economical and normally consist of repeating the offending command or filename followed by a ?. Repeat the command with the mistake corrected.

3.6.1 Filenames

Many of the commands take filenames as parameters, and where specified the filename may contain wild-cards. (See sections 2.3.1 and 2.3.3 of the AMSDOS primer). All filenames will be forced to upper case.

Direct Console Commands and most utility programs do not require that filenames are contained in double quotes "". The CLOAD and CSAVE utilities (see section 3.7.2.3) do however require that double quotes be placed around the cassette filename only.

Remember that filenames can have an A: or B: prefix to force CP/M to use the appropriate drive if you have a two drive system.

3.6.2 Switching default drives

If you have two disc drives then it is possible to switch the default drive selection between drive A and drive B by typing A: or B: at the B> or A> prompt. That prompt, of course, tells you the current default drive. Adding the A: and B: prefix to filenames overrides, but does not reset, the default drive setting.

3.6.3 DIR command

DIR lists the DIRectory of the disc. The filenames are not sorted into any particular order, but the position of the filename in the DIR display indicates the position of that file's entry in the disc directory. Wild cards are permitted.

DIR DIR B: DIR *.BAS DIR B:*.BAS

DIR PIP.COM

will list all files

will list all files on Drive B will list all files of type .BAS

will list all files of type .BAS on drive B will list only the file PIP.COM , if it exists.

3.6.4 ERA command

ERA is used to ERAse files from the directory. Only the Directory Entry is erased so the data is still in the data section of the disc until the space is re-used by another file, but the information is nevertheless not recoverable. Wild card filenames are permitted. If the filename *.* is specified then ERA will ask for confirmation that all files should be erased. ERA does not list the filenames that are deleted. If any file about to be erased is found to be read-only (see STAT) then the command will abort.

Chapter 3.3 AMSTRAD Disc Drive & Interface DDI-1 Manual