While working on the PLASMA 2.0 development branch, it occurred to me that copying files by floppy was just too retro. Since I have both an Uthernet and Uthernet II card, it made sense to use these for file transfers. As many know, ADTPro has fantastic support for file copying using the Uthernet cards. However, as I have a nice network stack under PLASMA for these cards, I decided to build an industry-standard file transfer program. The Trivial File Transfer Protocol fits the bill perfectly. I wrote the TFTP server and ported it back to the stable branch of PLASMA Version 1.1 (the server found a bug with the PLASMA 2.0 network module loading I’m still working out). You can download the bootable PLASMA System floppy from GitHub:PLASMA-SYS1.PO

Simply boot the floppy in your Apple II with Uthernet I or Uthernet II card installed. Once booted, you should see the PLASMA startup message. To run the TFTP server, type:

+tftpd

The disk will spin as the modules are loaded and the network card should be auto-detected. The IP address will be fetched from a DHCP server and the Apple II will be ready to transfer files. The Apple II will display its IP address which you will need later with the TFTP client.

On your modern computer, you will need to install a TFTP client.

Windows 10: You already have a TFTP client, it just has to be enabled. Go to” Control Panel=>Programs=>Turn features on or off” and scroll down to TFTP Client. Enable it by clicking in its box.

MacOS: A tftp client is included with MacOS, accessible from the command line. It doesn’t have the extended command line options that atftp has, though.

Linux: I have used Advanced TFTP (atftp) with good results. You can install with your Linux package manager of choice.

I will use atftp under Linux for my examples as I was using A2Pi for my development machine. The TFTPD server on the Apple II will use the CiderPress ProDOS filename metadata extension so you can set the ProDOS TYPE and AUX values with standard clients. If you set your TFTP client to ‘netascii’ mode, TFTPD will do the conversion of linefeed to carriage-return and vice-versa when copying text files. This only works for MacOS and Linux, Windows uses both carriage-return and newline which doesn’t convert easily.

Copying a file from Linux to Apple II using the command line:

atftp 192.168.123.108 --put -l plasma.system -r /CFFA/PLASMA.SYSTEM#FF2000

Let’s break this down: The IP address is the address displayed by the Apple II when it started TFTP. The –put option tells atftp that we are sending a file to the server. The ‘-l plasma.system’ gives the local name of the file and the ‘-r /CFFA/PLASMA.SYSTEM#FF2000’ gives the remote file name. Note that we specify the full pathname. It could have been relative to where we started TFTPD on the Apple II, but I like being explicit. Also note the CiderPress meta-data extension to the filename. This will be translated into the ProDOS TYPE and AUX values for the file and removed from the filename on the disk.

Copying a text file from Apple II to Linux:

atftp 192.168.123.108 --option "mode netascii" --get -l read.me -r /CFFA/README

Here we are copying a text file and converting the line endings to match Linux/MacOS. the ‘–option “mode netascii”‘ sets the text mode translation. The default is ‘octet’ which does no translation.

So, there are some issues with copying text files this way. It turns out that setting ASCII mode for transfers sends end-of-line as a CR/LF sequence. Our Apple II only wants CR, making a real mess of text files. Instead, I decided to use the ProDOS file TYPE value to determine when to translate LF to CR and back. Transfer text file to the Apple II with:

atftp 192.168.123.108 --put -l read.me -r /CFFA/READ.ME#040000

By using the CiderPress meta-data to set the ProDOS TXT type (the 04 part of #040000), TFTPD will do the translation. Getting text files from the Apple will automatically translate the line endings back to LF:

atftp 192.168.123.108 --get -l read.me -r /CFFA/README

 

Note that neither sets the ASCII mode.

One of the difficulties with TFTP is the inability to do a directory listing. You can’t fetch a list of files from the server, so you will have to know the filenames a-priori. If you do a lot of copying of the same files, it is very handy to create a batch-type file to automate the copies.

 

Enjoy!