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3.6 Direct Console Commands
There are five direct console commands which can be typed at the A> or B> prompt.
The first of these; SAVE, is for specialist use only.
CP/M Error messages tend to be economical and normally consist of repeating the
offending command or filename followed by a ?. Repeat the command with the
mistake corrected.
3.6.1 Filenames
Many of the commands take filenames as parameters, and where specified the
filename may contain wild-cards. (See sections 2.3.1 and 2.3.3 of the AMSDOS
primer). All filenames will be forced to upper case.
Direct Console Commands and most utility programs do not require that filenames are
contained in double quotes "". The CLOAD and CSAVE utilities (see section 3.7.2.3)
do however require that double quotes be placed around the cassette filename only.
Remember that filenames can have an A: or B: prefix to force CP/M to use the
appropriate drive if you have a two drive system.
3.6.2 Switching default drives
If you have two disc drives then it is possible to switch the default drive selection
between drive A and drive B by typing A: or B: at the B> or A> prompt. That prompt,
of course, tells you the current default drive. Adding the A: and B: prefix to filenames
overrides, but does not reset, the default drive setting.
3.6.3 DIR command
DIR lists the DIRectory of the disc. The filenames are not sorted into any particular
order, but the position of the filename in the DIR display indicates the position of that
file's entry in the disc directory. Wild cards are permitted.
DIR
will list all files
DIR B:
will list all files on Drive B
DIR *.BAS
will list all files of type .BAS
DIR B:*.BAS
will list all files of type .BAS on drive B
DIR PIP.COM
will list only the file PIP.COM , if it exists.
3.6.4 ERA command
ERA is used to ERAse files from the directory. Only the Directory Entry is erased so
the data is still in the data section of the disc until the space is re-used by another file,
but the information is nevertheless not recoverable. Wild card filenames are permitted.
If the filename *.* is specified then ERA will ask for confirmation that all files should
be erased. ERA does not list the filenames that are deleted. If any file about to be
erased is found to be read-only (see STAT) then the command will abort.
Chapter 3.3 AMSTRAD Disc Drive & Interface DDI-1 Manual