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The history of The Star Commander Here is the list of the phases the development of the Commander has gone through. The fact that the public releases of the Commander were beta versions and their version number is still below 1.0 does not mean that they are full of bugs or the functions in it do not work properly. I just hate version numbers like 12.3 or 1.2.34 and until the Commander does all you and I want it to, the version numbering will remain the same - only the full, final release is going to be called Version 1.0. However, I hereby warn you that I will finish my university studies in mid-1998 and so will lose my Internet access. Before that I'm going to release The Star Commander, Version 1.0 and will probably release nothing for a long time after that! Don't hesitate to send your reports to me as soon as possible so that Version 1.0 can really be the final release. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Beta Version (SC_BETA.ZIP, Summer 1994): The first public release, only supported disk and tape images, the left panel was always a CBM panel, the right one always remained in DOS mode and there was no online help at all. I started coding it in Turbo Pascal 7.0 and Turbo Vision 2.0 because I saw how buggy, slow and hard-to-use X1541, DISK64E, C642C64S and the other copy and converter programs were and that there was no program that would have the copy and conversion functions all in one. I uploaded it only to ftp.funet.fi and even I don't have it anymore because I deleted it for some stupid reason when the next release came out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Beta Version #2 (SC_BETA2.ZIP, 08-24-94): In this release I created the online help by manually copying the online help of The Volkov Commander sentence by sentence into a formatted text file which was then compiled into the help file. The functions to access the external Commodore 1541 drive were already there, only they didn't work yet. There was no history in the documentation and I don't remember any other changes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Beta Version #3 (SC_BETA3.ZIP, 10-16-94): CHANGES FROM BETA VERSION #2: - fixed the 'multi file copy to image file' bug when the directory was messed up sometimes - the redundant configuration option "Real 1541 drive connected" is discarded - a new configuration option named "BAM disk copy" appeared - the image file name of the last session is not saved in the setup so the "<image file> not found" won't drive you crazy - the online help window does not flicker when changing topic - the PC-1541 connection is now more or less complete and turbo mode is also implemented - that's what you've been waiting for for a long time!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander Calibrator (SC_CALIB.ZIP, 10-20-94): Since Beta Version #3 was still not capable of calibrating the transfer routines, I released an external calibrator some days after the release of the Commander. You had to feed the integer number displayed by the calibrator to the Commander as a command line parameter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Beta Version #4 (SC_BETA4.ZIP, 12-18-94): CHANGES FROM BETA VERSION #3: - the CBM and PC fix mode panels transformed into multi-mode panels which means that you can copy now directly from any format to another - the reselection of selected files when rereading the directory is now fixed - changing the labels of image files didn't work - now it does - two new configuration options and some other changes for comfort - no need to connect the 2-15 pins of the parallel port and you won't see the "Interface not found" error anymore - no need to press Enter when changing drive - all DOS names are turned to uppercase while you are typing them - a new external calibrator routine inside the release package (run it before the Commander!) - the LED on the connected 1541 blinks at every transferred block ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Beta Version #5 (SC_BETA5.ZIP, 02-12-95): BUGS FIXED SINCE BETA VERSION #4: - when checking the date input of the "Set attributes" dialog box the Commander exchanged the day and the month - the Commander placed the backup of the image file in the current directory and not into its original path - when copying from a DOS mode panel to a CBM mode panel the file names could be converted incorrectly sometimes - the Commander couldn't copy a file longer than 256 blocks to a connected 1541 drive - the Commander didn't check if a file already existed on a disk in a connected 1541 drive when tried to copy another one with the same name (nice noises!) - the file type of all the files copied to a disk in a connected 1541 drive was changed to program file - the "Copy" and "Copy disk" progress indicator that displayed the block number or the track and sector being copied was flickering - the "Copy disk" worked only in turbo mode - in normal speed it froze - pressing ESC while reading/writing in turbo mode from/to a connected 1541 drive froze the Commander most of the time - it SEEMS to be fixed OTHER CHANGES FROM BETA VERSION #4: - the extended and fast 1541 routines are now inside the executable file and not as an external data file - the Commander uses the load path passed by DOS to locate its files instead of searching for the file SC.EXE - manual calibration is moved to the "Configurations..." menu and it is not to be entered as a command line parameter - the new calibrator routine displays a delay value VERY NEAR the best. It seems that it cannot be modified in such a way that it displays the best delay value an all kinds of PC's - you can select the address of the LPT port to be used - you can optionally save the paths of both panels in the setup file - you can select the sort order for files in DOS mode panels (do you think it should be enabled in CBM mode panels, too?) - when entering DOS file names letters are automatically turned to uppercase - all files with unknown extensions (not .SEQ, .USR, .REL, .D64 or .T64) are assumed to be program files - the Commander makes backup only once when copying or deleting a sequence of files to/from an image file - the Commander reports back if a file on a connected 1541 drive was deleted successfully or not - a new button named "All" appeared in the confirmation boxes with which you can confirm the operation for all the selected files - selecting/unselecting all the files in a panel is moved from the "All" button in the dialog box to Shift + Gray+/Gray- - the function key bar has been rewritten so that the items are separated with only one space instead of two and so the original function names are used - you can move around the items in dialog boxes using the cursor keys as well - the point marking the selected item doesn't follow the highlight bar in the RadioButton items of dialog boxes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Beta Version #5A (SC_BET5A.ZIP, 02-28-95): BUGS FIXED SINCE BETA VERSION #5: - the Commander didn't display the help for "Save setup" correctly - the Commander couldn't copy a non-program file from a disk in a connected 1541 drive (the main reason why this intermediate version was released) OTHER CHANGES FROM BETA VERSION #5: - the help dialog doesn't flicker anymore - the display changes only when the next help item is successfully read - the external calibration routine not only tests your machine in a loop (if you use the /L option) but also can use the connected 1541 drive to fine tune the calibration (if you use the /Fxy option where x is the number of the LPT port and y the device number - warning: this handles no errors, it might lock up your system if false values are entered) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Version 0.60 beta (not released): This version was never released officially, a tester put it onto his FTP site by mistake. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Version 0.61 beta (SC061.ZIP, 05-22-95): BUGS FIXED SINCE BETA VERSION #5: - the Commander didn't display the help for "Save setup" correctly (fixed in Beta Version #5A) - the Commander locked up if you changed the screen mode in DOS shell - the Commander couldn't copy a non-program file from a disk in a connected 1541 drive (fixed in Beta Version #5A) - you couldn't extract the last file from a full tape image - the file sizes in tape images weren't displayed correctly if over 256 blocks - the ".." DOS link in image files was selected by '*' and similar wildcards if it wasn't on the screen at the time of the selection - the Commander didn't display the ".." up-directory when viewing a remote drive in a Novell network (now it displays a dummy ".." up-directory) - the bugs that arise with the use of a write protected PC disk have been mostly eliminated - the mouse cursor didn't reappear when asking for a file name or confirmation during a multi-file copy or delete from or to a connected 1541 drive - the Commander locked up if you tried to delete a splat file or if you tried to validate a disk image that contained a splat file - the side sectors of relative files in a disk image were not allocated during validate or freed during delete OTHER CHANGES FROM BETA VERSION #5: - the version number and the file name of the distribution package has changed: the version number is now x.yz (where x is the major and yz is the minor version number); similarly the file name is now SCxyz.ZIP - warp transfer mode (about 5-6 times faster) introduced for copying disk from or to a connected 1541 drive - no /F option in the external calibrator routine (the delay value it displayed was absolutely wrong) - the help dialog doesn't flicker anymore - the display changes only when the next help item is successfully read (changed in Beta Version #5A) - the Commander can be also run on monochrome VGA, CGA and Hercules monitors - the Commander displays the letters of valid PC drives when changing drives - the Commander can optionally display file sizes and capacities in DOS mode panels in bytes instead of in blocks - the Commander can optionally display all files with invalid file type as programs in tape images - the Commander can optionally append the extension of the PC file to the converted C64 file name if not .PRG or .SEQ or .USR and append the DOS-style "extension" of C64 files (e.g. "diskcopy.lnx") to the converted PC file name - many things were changed to match the standards of The Norton Commander: most of the colors and dialog boxes; the outlook and behaviour of buttons; the upper line of panels; you can hide the menu bar and win an extra line for panels - each panel can hold a maximum of 1024 entries instead of 512 - the sort mode of panels can be set from the menu bar instead of a dialog box - the scrolling of panels and the online help with mouse is slowed down - they scroll only a single line and not a whole page - frozen files in tape images are displayed and can be extracted - you can stop the file copy between panels of any mode at any time by pressing Escape - when copying files a progress indicator will show you the amount of the copy already done - when you copy files from or to a connected 1541 drive the number of copied blocks is displayed - you can copy a disk image to a disk in a connected 1541 drive not only from the DOS directory but also when viewing the disk image itself - you can enter a new name for files copied between panels of any mode - you can enter wildcards when copying a DOS file into a DOS mode panel or when renaming a DOS file - you can't use the Tab and Shift-Tab keys to move around dialog boxes; use the cursor keys instead - you can also use Cursor Left and Cursor Right to jump to the top or the bottom of the panels - you can also use Space to select or unselect files - you can't use Alt+key combinations to jump to the menu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Version 0.70 beta (SC070.ZIP, 10-29-95): BUGS FIXED SINCE VERSION 0.61 BETA: - the Commander didn't separate double clicks - I've mixed up the Hidden and System attributes in the "Attributes" dialog box OTHER CHANGES SINCE VERSION 0.61 BETA: - the calibrator is now inside the Commander and is semi-automatic - it will activate if there is no setup file or it is corrupted; you can re-run the calibration by selecting "Recalibrate" in the "Advanced options..." menu - the file copy, rename and deletion system has been rewritten from scratch; you can specify the source files and the destination path or image file, now you are not limited to copying files from the active panel to the inactive one but are able to copy or move practically anything anywhere - the enhanced "Rename" command, "Rename or move" allows you to delete the source files at the instant they were successfully copied - introducing the command line with history capable of storing a maximum of 19 recent commands - introducing warp transfer for file copy (only the CBM -> PC direction is implemented with no error handling yet) - introducing disk editor for disk images and disks in a connected CBM drive also in turbo mode - introducing a new smart shelling system that allocates less than 25 KBytes for the Commander while executing DOS commands (that is if you start the Commander through the loader SC.EXE) - introducing the Brief mode which displays twice or three times more files in the panel than the Full mode - the Commander can optionally run with the C64 character set (only on EGA/VGA video cards) - you can change it in the "Advanced options..." menu and by pressing Shift+Control and Shift+Alt when no dialog box is on the screen - the "Configurations..." menu is split into two parts because there were too many options to stuff into it; there is a "Configuration..." menu (mostly PC related options; assigned to Control+F9) and an "Advanced options..." menu (rather C64 and CBM drive related options; assigned to Control+F10) - an external ZipCoder is inside the Commander distribution package - with the "Filter" menu you can disable the display of Hidden and System files and you can also make the Commander show you only executable or image files - you can create your own user menus for DOS panels - you can view and edit DOS files with external viewers and editors - you'll have to create extension files first (read the online help on how to do that) - you can associate commands with file extensions (e.g. start a word processor if you press Enter or double click on a file with the extension .DOC) - the Commander can now handle tape images with more (or less) than 30 entries - the Commander now has a screen saver with adjustable screen blank delay - you can start typing a file name to make the cursor bar jump to a matching file in the panel (you have to press the Alt key with the first letter) - the scroller bars of the panels and the online help are removed - they were the ugly remnants of the original Turbo Vision routines and had nothing to do with the environment of the other Commanders - you can retry or skip reading or writing bad sectors during disk copy - the disk copy CBM -> PC direction has been sped up by 10 seconds - you can stop the reading of the directory and the validation of disk images by pressing Esc (it can help if there's a loop in the sector chain although you should fix that as soon as possible) - all the four possible device numbers of connected CBM drives are displayed in the "Change drive" dialog box; if you have a single floppy drive in your PC, it will not be displayed as a phantom second drive - you can change the soft sector interleave for disk images and disks in a connected CBM drive - the "Volume label" command is moved from Alt+F4 to Control+F4 - Alt+F4 is now reserved for the internal editor (in one of the next releases) - the Insert key now repeats just like any other key - you can press Control+Alt+Insert to reset all connected CBM drives and Control+Alt+Delete to exit the Commander immediately (emergency exit - use it only as a last resort) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Version 0.71 beta (SC071.ZIP, 03-04-96): BUGS FIXED SINCE VERSION 0.70 BETA: - when copying a file or disk from a connected Commodore drive to the PC in normal transfer mode the last byte in some of the sectors or the last byte of the file could sometimes get lost - you couldn't copy sequential and user files from a connected Commodore drive - if you started SCMAIN.EXE and launched a standard viewer or editor while the C64 character set was enabled then garbage would be displayed at the original DOS output screen after returning from the external program - if you started the Commander through SC.EXE and executed a DOS command when one of the panels was an external panel then a strange path would be offered when you tried to copy a file to the external drive and the manual file name conversion box would give you a blank file name - when both panels were off and you tried to re-read a panel with Control-R then nothing happened but the clock disappeared - user menu entries without any commands and commands prepended with '@' were handled incorrectly - if you typed anything on the command line after returing from an external viewer or editor then the previous contents of the command line disappeared OTHER CHANGES SINCE VERSION 0.70 BETA: - introducing a new synchronization that uses the hardware system timers and therefore is not machine dependent - the infamous problem that made the Commander unable to work in turbo modes on certain PC's has at last been eliminated - introducing an external setup program that allows you to set all the settings of the Commander - only the important settings can be changed inside the Commander and so the configuration menus are not as stuffed as before - from now on the external setup program and the Commander itself will be able to read the setup file created by the previous version - no need to set the options that were unchanged in the new version - introducing an external Lynx/unLynx program that can build archives out of multiple DOS files or the contents of disk images and extract archives into DOS files or disk images - introducing an external program that collects multiple file images (files with the extension '.P00'/'.S00'/'.U00' created by PC64) into tape images - from now on I will maintain a mailing list for those who would like to get the future releases of the Commander as soon as possible (you just send me an E-Mail and you'll get a uuencoded package on the release day) - a World Wide Web homepage of the Commander is being under construction - you will be able to download the latest release and read about changes in the upcoming version - the type of column mode (brief or full) and the mini status box (off, brief or full) can be set separately for the left and right panel and separately for DOS and CBM panel mode - however, the original options 'Brief' and 'Full' in the 'Left' and 'Right' menus and 'Mini status' in the 'Options' menu were kept for comfort and compatibility - critical errors are reported in a nice dialog box instead of that ugly red message overlaying the last line of the screen - standard viewers and editors are informed about the screen mode (black and white, color or laptop) and the mouse mode (present or not, right or left handed) the Commander is using and they work with these parameters (provided that they support the way of passing parameters of The Norton Commander) - Star Zip asks you for overwrite confirmation if the destination file already exists - you can overwrite an already existing disk image when copying a disk from an external drive to a disk image - if the inactive panel is off then the command "Rename or Move" will default to renaming the file under the cursor bar - emergency exit is assigned to Ctrl-Alt-Ins and external Commodore drives can be reset with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace (no dangerous Ctrl-Alt-Del anymore) - only 16 commands are stored in the history since a history of 19 commands could not be displayed aesthetically on a 25 line screen anyway - this lowers the amount of memory used by the loader program, too - the menu of available commands in the disk editor pops up when you press F2 instead of 'M' ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Version 0.72 beta (SC072.ZIP, 05-20-96): BUGS FIXED SINCE VERSION 0.71 BETA: - you were not prompted for overwrite confirmation when copying an already existing file from the PC to the connected Commodore drive - empty files are now copied properly between panels of any mode - saving the settings in the external setup while the Commander is resident in the memory does not create a corrupt setup file - some mouse handling problems before and after executing DOS commands and calling standard viewers and editors have been fixed - invalid track and sector numbers are not allowed in the disk editor - if the functions ^[ and ^] would cause the command line to overflow (locking up the computer), you will not be allowed to use them OTHER CHANGES SINCE VERSION 0.71 BETA: - introducing an internal viewer for DOS and Commodore files with wrap/unwrap, text/hex display, adjustable end-of-line mark, text/hex search, ASCII/ PETSCII/screen code display and C64 character set - this program is physically external (SCVIEW.EXE) so that the memory required by the Commander does not increase - all the interactive external programs (currently the external setup and the viewer) can be also shut down by pressing Control+Alt+Insert at any time in case they lock up for some reason - introducing a full color setup for all palettes (black & white, color, laptop and monochrome) in the external setup - there are sample palette files included, too - introducing a FAQ - frequently asked questions about the Commander and my answers - the Commander and all related programs abort with an error message if run on an XT - on any error during finding a viewer or editor for the file to be viewed or edited (extension file does not exist, there is no appropriate entry in the extension file or the standard viewer or editor in that entry does not exist) the Commander will try to load the standard viewer SCVIEW.EXE or the standard editor SCEDIT.EXE - until the internal editor of the Commander is done, you can rename your favorite editor to SCEDIT.EXE - you can recursively delete non-empty directories - the symbols '!', '!.!', '!:', '!\' and '!@' used in menu and extension files for the active panel have the equivalents of '%', '%.%', '%:', '%\' and '%@' for the inactive panel - a new C64 character set was designed for and only for the 80x25 screen mode - the Commander doesn't display "Invalid disk image" for disk images with error info at their end, it just ignores the error info instead - if a disk error occurs during warp file copy CBM->PC direction then instead of aborting the copy the Commander will allow you to retry the bad block - there is a new option called 'Copy full track 18' that allows you to BAM copy disks that have unallocated but useful sectors in the directory - in this case track #18 will be fully copied no matter what the BAM contains - if you try to BAM copy a disk with an invalid BAM you are asked if you want to copy the full disk - the disk copy dialog box also contains the 'BAM disk copy' and 'Copy full track 18' options which default to the value in the 'Advanced options...' menu but you can override them temporarily for that particular disk or disk image - if a disk error is encountered during disk copy in either direction you can skip the whole track, as well - when finishing copying a disk from a connected Commodore drive to the PC or you abort the process, the Commander will only re-read the DOS panel - pressing Escape will no more stops reading the directory in disk image panels, only in external panels - pressing F6 while the inactive panel is off or pressing Control+F6 pops up the 'Rename or Move' dialog box in rename mode offering you the original file name instead of a destination path - you can assign commands to F1 and F10 in the user menu - this will override 'Help' and 'Quit' on the function key bar - there is a clipboard in the disk editor that allows you to copy data chunks between sectors - if you run the Commander through SC.EXE then you can enter a DOS command as a parameter to be executed before the Commander starts - you are not allowed to copy, rename or move deleted files (files with the file type 'DEL') - you can only delete them - the 'Mini status' option in the 'Options' menu changes the mini status for both panels - the 'Clean' function deletes the garbage in the last block of files, as well - the color attribute of characters in the shadow has been changed from dark gray on black to light gray on black ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Version 0.73 (SC073.ZIP, 09-30-96): BUGS FIXED SINCE VERSION 0.72 BETA: - if you select 'Executable files' or 'Image files' in the Filter dialog box of a panel, directories will still be displayed - if you press 'B' in the menu of the disk editor then the BAM editor will come up and not the sector editor - when you pop up the online help above the user menu, the cursor keys will be handled by the online help and not the user menu below it - if you press cursor left or right in a Brief panel, the cursor will not jump to the first or last entry - if you press Alt+A to select 'All' in the manual file name conversion box, the Commander will not lock up after copying the file - the automatic file name conversion now works correctly for non-program files having dots in their names - if you enter an empty search string, the viewer will not lock up - the Commander now finds standard viewers/editors in its home directory if no path was specified in the extension file OTHER CHANGES SINCE VERSION 0.72 BETA: - the Commander is not called "beta" anymore - it is just a matter of naming to please worrying people because the public beta releases have always been just as complete and bugfree as any other non-beta program - from this release on the Commander is giftware: it can be freely used but registering it is encouraged - please, read REGISTER.TXT for more details - the delay values are now multiplied by 4, the default is 48 - this makes the delay value scale finer, helping you with setting the correct value - only the executable files of the external utilities are in the archive SC_ARC.ZIP in the Commander package, the full packages of the Star Utilities are in a separately distributed archive named SUxyy.ZIP (where x.yy is the version number) - the maximum number of files displayed in the panels is reduced to 512, this way the Commander needs 50 KBytes less memory for execution - similarly, the maximum number of entries in the 'Make tape image' function is reduced to 99, the value in C64S, since you can't see 1499 entries in a panel anyway - introducing full read and write support for the file images (files with the extension '.P00'/'.S00'/'.U00') of Personal C64; press Enter or double-click on a file image to view its contents and check 'Into file images' in the 'Copy' and 'Rename or move' dialog boxes to copy/move the source files into file images - introducing support for 40 track disks and disk images - you can format such disks and create such disk images, copy them between the PC and an external Commodore drive and copy files into or out of them - introducing support for the error info attached to disk images - although most parts of the Commander ignore it, you are given the opportunity to collect read errors during disk copy in any mode into an error info block and you can edit the error info of disk images in the disk editor - introducing the capability of the viewer to display files inside images, there is even a file selector for you to view other files in the image - introducing Star LHA, an external archiver than can create Commodore LHA archives out of disk images, list their contents and extract them into disk images (it uses LHA for DOS for compression and decompression so remember to put it into your path) - it can even display archive comments (only the PETSCII control codes $0D, $0E and $8E are supported) - introducing Star Arkive, an external archiver than can create Arkive archives out of disk images, list their contents and extract them into disk images - introducing a new panel mode: Info panels show the total and free memory and some info about the other panel like total and free capacity, volume label, number of files in the current directory and the capacity they use - introducing a history file containing all the changes made since the first release of the Commander - introducing a command line for external drives in the User Menu - if your Commodore drive has special commands over the normal 1541 commands, you can type them there - lots of more C64 graphical characters are displayed in PC character set mode so that the directories of demo disks look a bit better - the configuration menus of the main program and the external setup were again rearranged - the sample menu and extension files have been expanded to handle Commodore archives using the external archivers - if you copy or move multiple files into a disk or tape image with the option 'Backup image files' checked and an error occurs then the image file is not overwritten with the backup so that the previously copied or moved files won't disappear - if you press Escape or F10 during disk or file copy while data is being transferred from or to an external Commodore drive, you are optionally asked for confirmation before the copy is cancelled - there is an option to display start info in the panels (the track and sector number of the files in disk images and the start address of programs in tape and file images) - you can set the number of automatic retries on disk errors during data transfer between the PC and the external Commodore drive - you are warned if you copy a too big file onto a disk or into a disk image - the Commander now warns you if the destination PC disk gets full during file copy - it allows you to continue with the next selected file but it always deletes the partly copied file - you can save the BAM in the BAM editor with F2 instead of 'W' - when the Commander is running idle, it executes INT 28h - for example, disk caches can write data back faster in the background - if the environment variable TEMP is defined, the panel list files are created in the directory it points to - the viewer opens a warning window to inform you when there is not enough memory to view the file - the "NULL" line feed of the viewer has been changed into "User LF" - you can define any one byte code for a line feed mark - all the external utilities recognize 40 track disk images and disk images with error info - Star Zip can create and extract "filepacked" ZipCode archives (files with the name pattern A!*.*, B!*.*, ... plus a "directory" file X!*.*) - Star Zip can create diskpacked ZipCode archives out of 40 track disk images, in which case a fifth archive is created; similarly, if this fifth archive is found while unzipping diskpacked ZipCode archives, a 40 track disk image is created - note that the fifth ZipCode archive will not be recognized by ZipCoder programs running on a Commodore machine - Star Lynx now creates archives out of disk images by default and extracts archives into disk images; to lynx and unlynx multiple DOS files you must put the option 'D' right after the command - Star Zip and Star Lynx will allow you to extract, skip or rename the current file if a file with the same name was encountered in the destination image - you can add and extract phantom files (they start at the sector 18;0 and usually have the length of zero blocks) into and out of Lynx archives - you may prepend a dash to the commands of the external utilities, if you want ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Version 0.80 (SC080.ZIP, 05-26-97): BUGS FIXED SINCE VERSION 0.73: - now the Commander does run with only 500 KBytes of free conventional memory just as the documentation states (I forgot to change the check for free memory at startup) - the Commander can create backup files under Windows'95, too - the Format menu item in the user menu for tape images now works OK - the automatic file name conversion works correctly if you use wildcard characters or change the file extension in the Copy, Rename or move and Delete file name input dialog boxes - the device number of both panels is remembered correctly in the setup - the keys PgDn, PgUp, Home and End don't change the active button in the online help index of the viewer and the external setup - the "Next" and "Previous" items in the online help don't skip the section "Memory allocation" - the 'Write block' item at the bottom of the disk editor menu is not hidden - when 'Full screen' is off, the speed search dialog box is still sticked to the bottom of the panel - if you save the setup when one of the panels is an external panel and restart the Commander then the "Change drive" dialog box will show you the correct default drive number for that panel - the 'Color' palette color of the numbers in the function key bar at the bottom is light grey on black instead of cyan on black - the sample Commander screens in the palette setup of the external setup have been changed according to the new features (I should have done that in Version 0.73) - when viewing or editing files inside images, always the internal viewer or editor is called - the viewer scrolls upwards in a smarter way in files containing Tab characters - the viewer displays Commodore file names with graphical characters correctly in the upper status line - the viewer works properly if you specify the name of the file to be viewed and the active panel is an image panel - Star LHA now omits the path stored in LHA archives and only uses the file name itself when displaying or extracting the contents - Star Lynx doesn't create corrupt archives out of more than some 130 files - Star LHA now doesn't display the option 'V' for the command 'L' in its usage info because such an option doesn't exist at all OTHER CHANGES SINCE VERSION 0.73: - introducing a file editor for DOS files and Commodore files inside images: handles files up to amount of free conventional memory, ability to mark, copy, move and delete text and hexadecimal blocks, adjustable line feed, optional PETSCII and screen code display, built-in C64 character set - introducing built-in support for Lynx, filepacked ZipCode, LHA, Arkive and TAR archives - you can enter them, copy files into and out of them, rename and delete files inside them, even File Info and the Info panel works with them (note that the Commander needs LHA 2.14 or newer in order to be able to extract files properly) - introducing the XP1541 parallel cable that speeds up transferring data between the PC and the external Commodore drive even more - introducing the warp file copy PC->CBM direction - introducing Star Library, yet another external utility to handle Library archives - the Commander, the external setup, the viewer and the editor all check the version number of the resident Commander/loader - the description of the X1541 interfaces has been moved to the docs from the online help - you are warned if you try to access an external drive under a multi-tasking system via the X1541 cable, you try to use the X1541 cable on an EPP or ECP parallel port or try to use the XP1541 parallel cable on an SPP parallel port - the delay value defaults to 80 on Pentiums and to 48 on earlier CPU's - you can sort files in CBM panels, too - you can press the right mouse button on the key bar at the bottom of the screen to access the Alt functions - the maximum number of entries in tape images has been raised to 500, it was unnecessary to decrease it to as low as 99 - the Commander and all the external programs give up their time slice under DESQview and in the DOS shells of OS/2, Linux and any Windows when waiting for input - the Commander takes the "COUNTRY=" settings in your CONFIG.SYS into account, it displays numbers and displays and inputs dates and times accordingly; you can view these settings in the menu item "Country info" of the external setup - by checking a new option, 'Verify write', the Commander verifies data written onto disks in the external Commodore drive during warp disk copy - the process of copying files from an external panel in warp mode has been sped up a bit by reading 256 blocks of data in one go instead of track by track - "22,READ ERROR" and "23,READ ERROR" errors are also retried as many times as the option "Number of retries" specifies during warp disk and file copy - you can format the destination disks during disk copy - when you press Enter or double-click on a DOS file, the Commander first reads through the extension file to find a command specified for that extension - this way you can override the normal action of entering image and archive files - it is now possible to specify file name patterns besides extensions in the extension files - you can specify the same commands for a sequence of name patterns in the extension files by listing the patterns in subsequent lines or by separating the patterns with semicolons - now you can use the "<imagetype>:<path>\<imagename>\<filename>" file name format (used in the Copy dialog box) in the View and Edit dialog boxes to view or edit files inside images - the PETSCII to DOS file name conversion now includes stripping off leading and trailing underscores of the file name and the extension - it is now possible to change the file type of files being copied by appending ",<file-type>" to the file name pattern - now you can set the Filter to display only archive files - the Commander doesn't read the error channel of the external drive if there were no errors while reading the directory, which speeds up the process - if you delete the image file displayed in one of the panels then that panel turns back to DOS mode and no error message is written onto the screen - the disk image cleaner is much faster than before - the confirmation option 'Write block' has transformed into the option 'Disk editor' and now it controls all confirmations in the disk editor - a new confirmation option, "Abort data transfer" tells whether the Commander should ask for confirmation when aborting data transfer between the PC and the external Commodore drive or not - with two other new confirmation options you can control the warnings about possible transfer and file size problems - another new option, "Auto unselect files" allows you to control whether processed files are automatically unselected or not - the option 'Wipe scratched files' allows you to clean up the sectors of files being scratched in disk images - another new option, 'Orig format pattern' controls whether empty sectors are filled up with zeros or the original 1541 format pattern - you can copy frozen files out of tape images as programs and File Attributes can turn files in tape images into frozen files - there is no label displayed in file images - if you allocate or free a whole track in the BAM editor, the cursor will jump a column to the right, helping you with allocating or freeing the whole disk - now you can also use the clipboard of the disk editor to copy data between different disks and disk images - if the screen height allows, the lower part of the disk editor screen shows the current contents of the clipboard - pressing Escape doesn't stop reading the directory in any panel mode - if you press Space on the selected item of a radio button group then the selection and the cursor will jump onto the next item - the Commander informs you if an invalid sector link is found in the source disk image during file copy - you can select multiple disk images and copy them one by one onto disks in an external drive - the "Configuration..." menu of the external setup shows you the current mode of the LPT ports - the viewer and the editor are now able to read and write uncompressed (Lynx, Arkive) archives - since you can use the viewer and the editor with other programs, as well, neither of them display registration info in the online help - when in text mode, the Goto function in the viewer and the editor ask for the number of the line you want to jump to, jumping to an offset is available only in hexadecimal mode - a new line feed mode in the viewer and the editor allow you to have a fixed line length - an empty line within the selected block is marked with a phantom space by both the viewer and the editor so that you see the block has not ended yet - the viewer now scrolls much faster when you press PgDn or PgUp - the viewer is a bit more tolerant, it won' t lock up when viewing files inside damaged disk images - the viewer and the editor write no messages onto the DOS screen if everything is OK - this way you can use them under other programs without that annoying screen jump - the viewer and the editor now scan the first 4 kilobytes of the input file to autodetect the line feed and whether to switch Tab translation on or off - you can switch the display of special characters (Space, Tab and line feed marks) both in the viewer and the editor - the viewer and the editor put a "$" sign before the hexadecimal number input line of the Goto and User Line Feed dialog boxes - Star Arkive, Star LHA, Star Library, Star Lynx and Star Zip display the names of files being skipped during extraction - when renaming a file during extraction, Star Arkive, Star LHA, Star Lynx, Star Library and Star Zip offer you the original file name and you can use the cursor keys, Home and End to move around the file name, Backspace and Delete to delete characters and Control+Backspace to delete the complete file name - Star LHA lets you extract files even if another one with the same name already exists in the destination disk image - Star LHA recognizes file names longer than 16 characters in LHA archives - with a new command of Star LHA you can prepend the SFX header to an already existing LHA archive or strip it off of an SFX archive - Star List is now capable of listing file images, Lynx, filepacked ZipCode, LHA, LHA SFX, Arkive and TAR archives - Star List now displays the total number and size of files at the end of the file list of the current image or archive file - some of the archive checks were changed in Star Lynx to make it recognize more Lynx archives - Star Tape can handle list files created by the '!@' option of the Commander ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Star Commander, Version 0.81 (SC081.ZIP, 11-30-97): BUGS FIXED SINCE VERSION 0.80: - the pin assignment of the VIA#1 chip was incorrect in the documentation - verify is working in warp BAM disk copy PC->1541 direction - you can again copy files in turbo mode onto a Commodore disk - turbo and warp mode is again working on 1571 drives - the parallel turbo file copy to the PC lost the last bytes of many of the sectors - the parallel warp file copy from the PC often damaged the last byte of the BAM sector and the directory sector holding the file entry - if a new directory sector was opened for the entry of the file currently being copied in warp mode, PC->1541 direction, then it was left unallocated - you can again skip the whole track during warp disk copy 1541->PC - the turbo disk copy continues properly if you press 'Retry' on a bad sector - there are no strange problems anymore when you try to delete files from write-protected PC floppy disks - the X1541 and the XP1541 cables can be connected to the same port, if it's in PS/2 mode - only parallel ports between the addresses $0200-$0400 are accepted by the Commander and the external setup - when copying a disk into a disk image in normal mode, you won't get a false alarm about errors during the disk copy - when copying a disk into a disk image with BAM disk copy, the BAM is read from the disk prior to the actual disk copy - the fast transfer routines have been modified to be able to seek back to the extra tracks after a head rattle - you are warned if there are more entries in the current directory than the Commander can handle - very long directories are sorted correctly - files are created on Novell network drives properly - when deleting phantom files, the directory blocks remain allocated - when deleting the first file in an LHA or TAR archive, the archive itself won't be deleted - there are a lot less error messages when you want to process files on a floppy disk but the drive is empty - the Commander won't lock up when trying to read the directory of a disconnected network drive, it will change to the path of the opposite panel instead - when a directory sector is damaged on the disk or becomes damaged during warp directory read, you are warned with a read error - the Commander finishes reading the directory in turbo and warp mode if it encounters an invalid sector link - the floppy drive is accessed properly for both letters on single drive systems - the Commander returns to 80 column text mode from any graphical screen mode upon startup and when finishing DOS shell - there is really no snowing on CGA video cards if you switch 'Snow check' on - the annoying screen flickers upon entering and exiting DOS shell are gone - 'Make disk' and 'Make tape' gives you an error if there's no room to create the image - when copying a file into a disk image is aborted, no splat file remains; leaving splat files in disk images and copying other files over them later can cause crosslinks to appear - the file copy will not lock up when copying a file from an external drive into a disk image with an invalid BAM - the file copy is aborted automatically when the directory of the destination disk image is full and the last entry is not corrupted either - files with the names "." and ".." are properly handled in image and archive files but, in change, you have to specify ".\" and "..\" if you want to extract files, as DOS files, into the current or the parent directory - when deleting a subdirectory of the current directory, the cursor won't jump to the top of the panel - the keyboard buffer is not flushed during the copy, rename, move or delete process - Alt-Shift toggles the lowercase/uppercase and uppercase/graphics character set on all video cards - if you click on a disabled menu item, the menu will cancel itself - when in the menu, only those commands displayed in the current pull-down menu will work - Control+letter codes are working with national keyboard drivers - pressing Control+Backspace or Control+W at the beginning of an input line won't press the first button in the file name input box - the panels don't flicker when copying files into LHA archives - the sample Commander screens in the external setup have again been updated to show the same display as in the Commander - the viewer doesn't display a length of -1 and the editor doesn't lock up with files whose first block is completely empty - the viewer and the editor displayed incorrect load addresses in image and archive directories - the editor doesn't scroll the screen far to the right sometimes when copying text blocks - the text cursor of the editor follows the mouse cursor correctly - binary replace in the editor works in PETSCII and screen code modes correctly - the item "--- Next ---" is not displayed in the "Convert" dialog box of the editor - the LHA conversion routines in the Commander and Star LHA are now working under Novell DOS and Norton DOS and they still suppress messages from LHA under Windows '95 - Star Tape is working again - the Star Utilities recognize bad track or sector links while reading input files inside disk images - Star LHA converts ASCII underscores to PETSCII spaces instead of Shift- spaces - renaming a file inside a Lynx archive to a name longer than 16 characters will not cause archive corruption - the option P in Star List is working properly again - Star List couldn't list Lynx and Library archives and it displayed incorrect file sizes in tape images OTHER CHANGES SINCE VERSION 0.80: - the documentation, being a plain text and no formatted document, has been renamed back to SC.TXT, as it has been in Version 0.71 and before - the file README.1ST had been deleted - all text files in the Commander package have been changed to a 78 character per line format - there is a lot more information about different cables and parallel port modes in the documentation, helping you with selecting cables easily - the transfer routines have been restructured, all delay values below 80 are automatically raised by 8 - introducing support for Windows '95-style long file names: the panels display long file names and paths under Windows '95 and, when processing files and directories, long file names are used - introducing a new panel mode besides Brief and Full to show as much of long file names as possible - you can select, copy and move DOS directories - introducing the XH1541 hybrid cable that gives the best performance on SPP parallel ports - introducing the XE1541 extended cable that substitutes the X1541 interface on all kinds of parallel ports - introducing an auxiliary utility that extracts the online help into a file or prints it out - added detection for PS/2 (bidirectional) parallel ports - you can launch programs in emulators right from the Commander by pressing Enter on a file inside an image and selecting the emulator from a menu - introducing full support for directories in LHA and TAR archives - introducing full GEOS support for disk images: disks are validated and files are scratched properly and files are converted to and from sequential files using the Convert file format - however, you can't view or edit VLIR files - introducing Star ARC, an external utility that lists and extracts Commodore ARC archives and Self-Dissolving (SDA) archives - there is a new panel mode similar to 'Quick view' in The Norton Commander, assigned to Control-Q: the contents of the image or archive file under the cursor are displayed in the opposite panel - the Commander now always deletes the file under the cursor in image and archive files rather than the first file with the same name - the menu 'Advanced options' has been renamed to 'Drive options' - 'Wipe scratched files' has been renamed to 'Wipe deleted files' - the configuration items 'Alternative charset' and 'All PRG's in a tape' have been deleted, both defaulting to checked - you can switch GEOS support off with the option 'GEOS file support' so that GEOS file types are not displayed in the panels and Convert files are not created or processed during file copy - 'Win'95 long names' allows you to switch support for Windows '95-style file names off so that you can work the same way as under plain DOS - in connection with the Windows '95-support, there are new symbols to insert the long form of file names into the command line and into list files - you can associate several DOS command sequences to the same file name pattern - you can insert the path of both panels and the current file name of the active panel into file name input lines, too - the destination file is only opened after having read the first block of data from the source file during file copy - you can copy several phantom files of the same name into disk images, Lynx, filepacked ZipCode and Arkive archives - you cannot specify the file type while copying or moving files into image or archive files but, in change, you can copy files whose names contain commas - you can now append the source files to existing DOS files during file copy - empty files copied into disk images become phantom files - when copying files from a CD-ROM, the read-only flag is stripped off automatically - the Commander will recognize when a file is being copied or moved from a SUBST'ed drive to its real location and will abort the file copy - when copying or moving files into image files or native Commodore archives, the manual file name conversion box limits your input to 16 characters - DOS file names are turned into lowercase while being converted to Commodore format; you can switch this off with the option 'Keep uppercase chars' - you can make the Commander extract files inside PC64 file images during file copy by checking 'Extract PC64 file images' - the PC->1541 direction part of the warp disk and file copy routines have been modified to run near full speed on 286 and 386 machines - you can copy multiple disks into disk images with an automatic index generation in the destination file names - the fast transfer routines now support the disabling of the retry on the adjacent halftracks and the head bumping - by pressing Control+Enter in the History you can copy the current command into the command line without executing it - when in images and archives, Control-Enter pressed in the file name input line inserts the name of the image or archive - because of new functions using Control+Shift+key combinations, Control+Shift alone doesn't toggle the C64 character set anymore, use Control+Tab instead - Shift+Gray plus/minus now (un)select files and directories and Control+Gray plus/minus are the ones to (un)select all the files in a panel, furthermore Shift+Gray star inverts all the files and directories in a panel - you can enter multiple file name patterns, delimited with commas or semicolons, into the 'Select' and 'Unselect' dialog boxes - the asterisk wildcard now works a Unix-like way under Windows'95, e.g. you can select all files containing the letter 'a' with "*a*" - external and disk image panels are not sorted anymore - the panel display can be sorted in reverse order - the panel contents are not reread when you change the sort order - if you eject the media from a removable drive and then reread the panel then you'll get an error message - you get an error message if there was not enough memory to execute a DOS command - you can swap the clipboard with the block in the disk editor, too - the 'Format disk' dialog has an option 'Extended disk' to override the original setting - the 'Make disk' and 'Make tape' functions don't offer you a default file name - system and/or hidden files are not displayed with a capital first letter - load address is displayed for all file types, not only programs - you can no longer even select files with invalid file types in image and archive files - if you change the directory in the DOS shell with the active panel being an image or archive panel then it will change to a DOS panel showing the directory you changed to - switching 'Detect extra tracks' on makes the Commander detect the presence of extra tracks on disks - a new option, 'Head movement speed' allows you to change the speed of the stepper motor in the external Commodore drive - you can pop up the menu bar by tapping Alt; you can switch this off in the setup - there is an option to control the 'Escape toggles panels' feature - the option of 'Number of retries' behaves a bit differently, now you can switch retry on the adjacent halftracks and the head bumping on and off - if you press Ctrl-BackSlash in an Info panel, it will be redirected to the opposite panel - when run under the Commander, the external setup only changes those settings in the setup file that can be set in the external setup, settings that can only be set inside the Commander are left alone - the Commander remembers all options of the viewer and the editor, that are not set automatically, throughout sessions - the viewer and the editor don't even display an error message when loading an empty image or archive directory - if the viewer or the editor cannot open the file selected from the directory list of an image or archive file then they return to the file selector - when symbols are on, the viewer and the editor mark the end of the file, too - all non-alphanumerical characters in the lower half of the ASCII character set are considered as word separators in the editor - when finding a string or byte sequence in the editor, the cursor jumps to its beginning - you can press F3 twice in the editor to select the whole line the cursor is standing in - the editor allows you to enter wildcards in the 'Save as...' box - when replacing byte sequences in the editor, the length of the file doesn't change - a new option in the Star Utilities makes them assume 'Yes' to all queries, good for running them from batch files. - by specifying another option you can have the Star Utilities ask for confirmation about extracting each file - similarly to the Commander, the Star Utilities also allow you to add or extract files whose names contain commas - Star Arkive, Star LHA and Star Library now accept archives with extensions other than the default, too - Star List can list directory structures recursively - Star List can list Commodore ARC and SDA archives, too - the DOS file handling routines have been deleted from Star Lynx - Star Zip ran endlessly when extracting filepacked ZipCode archives and it created DEL files ------------------------------------------------------------------------------