About TR-DOS disk images

The Beta 128 Disk Interface was released by Technology Research Ltd in the UK in 1986 for the Spectrum 48k/128k.

Although not successful at home, it was adopted as the standard disk system in the former Soviet Union. A clone of it is built into the Pentagon 128 and Scorpion ZS 256 machines.

Spectaculator emulates the Beta 128 disk interface when emulating either of these two machines.

Real TR-DOS disks must be converted into disk images (.trd, .scl, .fdi or .udi files) for use with Spectaculator. Luckily, World of Spectrum carries a vast array of these images along with several utilities to help you transfer programs between disk images and real TR-DOS disks.

Spectaculator allows you to use disk images just like they were real disks. Images can be read to and written from using the standard TR-DOS commands. Up to four virtual disk drives can be connected at anyone time.

For further details on TR-DOS, see the Beta 128 Disk Interface manual - available here.

Tip

  • When creating new disk images, use the .scl format if you can as these are considerably smaller than the equivalent .trd, .fdi or .udi file.

  • Using the format toolbar button allows you to re-format disk images containing data.

Note

  • Treat disk images just like real disks - do not reset the Spectrum or exit Spectaculator while the Spectrum is reading or writing to a disk image.