BASIS.SYSTEM for DOS 3.3 Launcher

💾 Disk images can be found on the Releases page 💾

Background

ProDOS 2.4 includes the Bitsy Bye program launcher. It can launch System (SYS), Binary (BIN) and BASIC (BAS) files. For other file types, if there's a BASIS.SYSTEM handler in the root directory of the volume, it is invoked to handle the file.

DOS 3.3 Launcher is a tool to run certain DOS 3.3 games (or more commonly, game cracks) under ProDOS. Launchers must be specially configured to invoke it for these DOS 3.3 files (file types $F1, $F2, $F3, $F4).

What's this?

This repo includes a BASIS.SYSTEM implementation that takes the passed file and invokes DOS3.3.LAUNCHER on it. It searches for DOS3.3.LAUNCHER starting in the directory containing the DOS 3.3 file, and then upwards. So you can create a disk like this:

• PRODOS
• QUIT.SYSTEM
• BASIS.SYSTEM
• DOS.GAMES/
  • DOS3.3.LAUNCHER
  • GAME1
  • GAME2
  • ...

And then Bitsy Bye will be able to launch them.

If invoked on a file type other than $F1...$F4 it will QUIT back to ProDOS.