Installing TOS 2.06 from a disk-file
Installing TOS 2.06 from a disk-file
Apart from the usual way of having TOS installed in ROM chips inside the computer, making it instantly available you can also load TOS from your floppy disk or a hard disk as you had to do with the very first Atari ST computers.
Naturally this isn't as practical as having it in ROM, but may be useful if you haven't bothered to install your TOS 2.06 chips inside your machine, or for a number of other reasons.
TOS images and loaders
The first thing we have to get hold of is TOS 2.06 as a file, commonly referred to as a "TOS image" file. The TOS image will be an exact copy of the contents inside the ROM chips of a computer containing TOS 2.06. Naturally you will need a computer with TOS 2.06 to do this, and using programs such as ROM-dump or TOS-dump you can extract this data and save it as a file to be used with another computer which doesn't already have TOS 2.06.
The issue of using TOS images is a sensitive one as there are copyright implications involved. Many people make TOS image files and upload them to various website on the Internet (I'm not going to tell you where), and by downloading and using them you're breaching copyright issues since TOS is still copyrighted (even though Atari is no longer around and it's getting harder to buy real TOS ROM chips). You're only allowed to use a TOS image of TOS chips that you already have.
Nevertheless the whole issue is a still a confusing one as Atari is no longer around and because of this there are no sales of TOS chips (except any existing old stock from any Atari dealers still around), so the original manufacturer isn't losing money over this, and what is considered legal when you already have a computer with TOS 2.06? ...are you allowed to use a TOS image of that computer with another Atari ST? Can you use a TOS image with another language if you already have an existing set of TOS 2.06 chips etc?
....the next thing we need to do is load this TOS image into the computer. For this we need a TOS-loader of some sort, such as SelTOS.
"SelTOS" doesn't handle all language versions of TOS 2.06, but UK, USA and German versions work fine with it. It works like this:
- Your TOS image files have to have the extension .IMG. The actual name of the TOS images don't matter. Give them a descriptive name so you know what they represent (e.g. "TOS206UK.IMG", "TOS206US.IMG", "TOS206DE.IMG" etc.).
You can load the TOS image several ways:
- Drag and drop the TOS image file over to SELTOS.PRG. If the TOS image is supported it will reboot the computer and load it into memory. .....or
- Put the TOS image file(s) in the same folder as SELTOS.PRG.
- Double-click SELTOS.PRG
- You'll be presented with a list of all available TOS image files, select the one you want to use. The computer will reboot and load this TOS image into memory. .....or
- Put SELTOS.PRG in the AUTO folder. Preferrably it should be the first program to load (use AUTOsort to change the order).
- Put the TOS image file(s) in the root of the boot drive (e.g. not within any folder).
- Reboot the computer. You should be asked which TOS you want to load if supported. Select the one you want which will reboot the computer again and load TOS.
- Since the computer reboots as part of the TOS installation process, SELTOS.PRG will also run once again as it's in the AUTO folder, and you will once again be asked which TOS you want to load. At this stage we don't want to load it again of course, so press <Control><C> to cancel, and move on with the boot-process.
TOS 2.06 loaded from disk like this takes around 262 Kbytes of RAM memory. Needless to say, having TOS in ROM inside the machine lets you use this memory for other things.