Intro

This is an old page concerning the vDrive script.
It has been part of openmsx for years now.
In july 2013 the script was even enhanced, for more info see the discussion at www.msx.org

What is it?

This is a tcl script for the openMSX emulator that behaves like the v-drive feature of blueMSX.
I was trying to come with a schema that would allow users of the openMSX-CD to eassily switch disks in a given set without them having to open the console. Things like ALT+F1 for disk1, ALT+F2 for disk2, ALT+F3 for disk3, etc where tried but when I stumbled upon the v-drive feature of blueMSX, it was clear that this was the easiest way for most users to achive this effect.

What does it do?

It is a TCL script that binded to a hotkey (f.i. F9+ALT) allows users to swap disks without using the commandconsole or console for file selection. This is especially usefull for games and demos that span over multiple disks.

Preparations

  1. Download the script here.
  2. Put the script in the scripts directory of openMSX.
    On windows the default is "C:\Program Files\openMSX\share\scripts". If you compile your own under a *nix machine then it is most likely "/opt/openMSX/share/scripts"
  3. start openMSX
    1. open the console (default key is F10)
    2. type as command : bind ALT+F9 "vdrive diska"
      Note the usage of the double qoutes!! if wanted also enbled the vdrive feature for the second diskdrive type as command : bind ALT+F10 "vdrive diskb"
  4. Now make sure that you're disks are named according to the scheme: name+digit+extention for example:
    ofcourse they may all be compressed with gzip so that you end up with The script recognizes as extentions dsk, di1, di2 and xsa, with an optinal '.gz' affix. Make sure that they all have the same extention: and are completely different sets for the script! It only looks at the last digit so you can go from 0 up until 9, and gaps in the numbering are allowed (metal0.dsk, metal5.dsk,metal6.dsk is a correct set!)

Using the script

While emulating an MSX, and the sofware ask for the next disk simply press the hot-key. The script will select the next disk in the sequence if the last disk is reached, the script will select the first disk again. So you actually are cycling through the entire disk set as shown in the diagram below
	_"disk1.dsk" => ALT+F9 => "disk2.dsk" => ALT+F9 => "disk3.dsk" _
	|                                                                |
	<= <= <= <= <= <= <= ALT+F9  <= <= <= <= <= <= <= <= <= <= <= <=
	
If you look in the console the script will indicate the new dsk file that is being used.