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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!dillon
From: dillon@ucbvax.ARPA (The Sherif "Matt D.")
Newsgroups: net.micro.cbm
Subject: Re: Copy protected disks
Message-ID: <5274@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 02:51:40 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.5274
Posted: Wed Mar  6 02:51:40 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Mar-85 04:05:53 EST
References: <414@bonnie.UUCP> <136@tektools.UUCP> <420@snow.UUCP>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 15

> the directory,  is there any one out there who knows what the '&'
> command really does, has it a bug?
> 			Dave.

   The & command is called the "Utility loader". It was placed in by Commodore
but strangely never documented (gee... I know of 10-20 other things like that)
Anyhow it loads and executes a disk file in DOS ram. On early 1541 disk drives
you could also use the "boot clip" to auto load and execute the first file
on the disk on powerup. (this feature was removed in ROM revision 5)

   The command does not have bugs (!), just a weird format for more than
253 bytes of data.

   -Bryce Nesbitt of the society to port BSD 4.2 to the Timex/Sinclair 1000