"Scratch" files off d64 directory

[Arcticfox]

Hi!

This noob's been enjoying CCS64 V3.0 Beta 1.4, but I've filled up several game d64's with saved games, works-in-progress etc. and I can't figure out how to get rid of unnecessary saves to free up space on the disk images. Windows XP doesn't seem to recognize any CBM filenames inside .d64's...duh. In the emulator I've tried selecting the disk, then at the READY prompt entering the usual old 1541 "Scratch" command:

OPEN 1,8,15, "S0:filename" : CLOSE 1

No error messages, but nothing happens. PHS hasn't answered my email yet. Anybody got the same problems, any ideas, or am I just a moron?

Thanks, Jim

P.S. I ran into this Scratching problem from playing Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set, which provides no way to delete saved pinball board designs. On the other hand, PCS featured the first GUI I know of, with joystick-driven point-click-drag operating environment, in pre-Mac 1983!

P.P.S. Yeah, I named myself Arcticfox after my favorite video game of all time. See my review at http://www.lemon64.com

[renegade X]

I am pretty sure there is a utility for that. Cant remember if I actually had it or not. I dont know if you could dis/reassemble the file or not, if you know asm?

[Arcticfox]

Whoa, thanx for the quickie response, renegade X!

What kinda utility are we talking about? Some kinda wedge, little shortcut code loaded over C64 ROM-RAM image maps, or just pre-Norton troubleshooting diskette utilities?

I never had much use for wedges, and my acquaintance with assembly language was superficial, mostly trying to get a few games I wrote in CBM-BASIC to run faster with a compiler utility that had a nasty tendency to destroy my source codes on the same floppy disk. My C64 programming days were long ago and mostly forgotten.

Not that I'm totally ignorant of C64 architecture, I just got into it too late! The machine was already obsolete when mine died a slow and painful death by chip burnout, thanks to a flaky power supply. I still dream about the games I could've written, had I been born a few years earlier.

I'm not looking for utilities, SYS-calling wedges or patches here, just if anyone knows a way to get CCS64's emulated 1541 to Scratch certain filenames off a .d64's directory track, or if there's a way for Windows XP to delete files inside a Commodore 64 disk image.

I can't be the only person with disk-image management issues in CCS64. When I played Pinball Construction Set on original equipment, I could reset the machine, pop in the game disk and Scratch my old designs from the READY prompt. Other games required a "save game" disk, but the user was expected to manage the directory and know how to scratch files as necessary.

I hope I'm not too stupid to have figured out how to Scratch my own C64 files using CCS64!

[farang]

A simple way to work with files inside a D64 is to use D64 Editor. (a windows based D64 editing program)

http://almighty.c64.org/d64editor.html

Or use the command: OPEN 1,8,15, "S:filename" : CLOSE 1

[Arcticfox]

Okay, I'm a moron. OPEN 1,8,15,"S:filename" works.

I musta had the Scratch syntax wrong, adding the zero:
OPEN 1,8,15,"S0:filename"

Why did it always work that way on my C64? What's the zero do there that it doesn't do in CCS64?

Thanks for correcting my instincts.

[Stuart Toomer]

I recommend using the Star Commander utility:
http://sta.c64.org/sc.html

[farang]

I musta had the Scratch syntax wrong, adding the zero:
OPEN 1,8,15,"S0:filename"

Why did it always work that way on my C64? What's the zero do there that it doesn't do in CCS64?

Yes using "S:0" works on a real C64 so your are not completely wrong. I think that using the "0" do the same as with other 1541 commands, Initialize the diskdrive... But I'm not sure since I never used to add it to the scratch command when I worked with files on a real C64 about 20 years ago...