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The Star Commander, Version 0.81 written by Joe Forster/STA This is still not the final release of The Star Commander, look out for further releases. Please, report bugs and ideas to me because I want Version 1.0 to be the final release. Since I finish my university studies in mid-1998 and will probably lose my Internet access, I'm going to release Version 1.0 then but after that I'm not sure if I can still remain online. Sorry for all kinds of bugs in the Commander but I'm in a hurry, as always. INTRODUCTION: This program is designed to handle the disk, tape and file images of the C64 Software Emulator (C64S, (C) by Miha Peternel and Seattle Lab, 1994-1997), the CCS64 emulator ((C) by Per Håkan Sundell, 1996-1997) and Personal C64 (PC64, (C) by Wolfgang Lorenz, 1994-1997), to copy files and disks between the PC and a Commodore drive and to convert several Commodore archive formats. It is very similar to The Norton Commander (NC, (C) by Symantec Inc., 1986-1995) and The Volkov Commander (VC, (C) by Vsevolod V. Volkov, 1991-1996) so it will surely be easy to use. However, before you start using it, please, read this documentation and the online help carefully for features, differences from the other Commanders, the description of the X1541 interfaces and other details. COPYRIGHT AND LEGAL ISSUES: The Commander is giftware. You may use the unregistered version as long as you wish and you may spread it as you like provided that it's in the original, unmodified archive. Don't distribute single files, only the whole package and don't ask for money above the normal fee of the distribution media itself. The Commander may not be included in any compilation or sold on disk or CD-ROM without the prior permission of the author. The unregistered version is in no way crippled, there are no nag screens or delays in it. However, if you are frequently using the Commander and you are satisfied with it then you are encouraged to register. Please, read the file REGISTER.TXT for more details. You must not distribute the personal keyfile you receive when you register. The Commander is copyrighted software. You must not disassemble, reverse engineer, hack the program and the related files or modify them in any way. The Commander is provided "as is", without a warranty of any kind. You are using it at your own risk, the author is not liable for any damage or data loss caused by the program (especially now, that the Commander is still under development). SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: You must have an IBM or compatible PC with a 80286 processor or higher with MS-DOS 3.20 or above installed on it and about 550 KBytes of free conventional memory. You may try running the Commander under the DOS emulator of OS/2 after enabling the HW_TIMER option in the DOS settings - it has been reported to work although I could not make it access an external Commodore drive. I have also tried to run the Commander under the DOS emulator of Linux but the kernel steals too much time making the data transfer from and to the Commodore drive impossible. Remember that, although the Commander may run under multi-tasking systems, it is not supposed to. However, if you use the XH1541 hybrid cable or the XP1541 parallel cable then you have a higher chance under multi-tasking systems since data is transferred asynchronously via these interfaces. INSTALLATION: You can install the Commander simply by decompressing the distribution package using PKZIP 2.xx. You don't need all the files to run the Commander, most of them are only for your comfort: - for an absolute minimum installation you need SCMAIN.EXE (required) - if you want to have much more memory in the DOS shell, keep SC.EXE and launch that instead of the main executable (highly recommended) - you can enable the online help by extracting SC.HLP (recommended) - with SCSETUP.EXE you can change all settings of the Commander (recommended) - SCVIEW.EXE displays and SCEDIT.EXE edits DOS files and Commodore files inside image files and uncompressed archive files (recommended) - you can run SCHELP.EXE to extract the online help into a text file or to print it out (optional) - if you want to use the Commander under OS/2, Windows, Windows '95 or Windows NT then SC.ICO and SC.PIF are just for you (optional) - there are some sample menu and extension files to help you with handling PC and Commodore archives and formatting PC disks: *.EXT, *.MNU (optional) - the archive PALETTES.ZIP contains some predefined color palettes (optional) - the archive SC_ARC.ZIP contains the following external archive utilities (optional): - Star ARC lists the contents of Commodore ARC archives and Self-Dissolving (SDA) archives and extracts them into disk images - Star Arkive creates Arkive archives out of disk images, lists their contents and extracts them into disk images - Star LHA creates Commodore LHA archives and Self-Extracting (SFX) archives out of disk images, lists their contents and extracts them into disk images - Star Library creates Library archives out of disk images, lists their contents and extracts them into disk images - Star List lists the contents of image and archive files into a text file or onto the screen - Star Lynx creates Lynx archives out of multiple DOS files or the contents of disk images, lists the contents of Lynx archives and extracts them into multiple DOS files or into disk images - Star Tape collects multiple PC64 file images into tape images - Star Zip creates diskpacked or filepacked ZipCode archives out of disk images, lists filepacked archives, tests diskpacked archives and extracts both types into disk images ADVANTAGES OF THE COMMANDER: - it is comfortable to use the well-known environment of The Norton Commander: no need to press a sequence of weird key combinations, only a familiar one and you can always clearly see what's happening on the screen - hopefully you remember Disk-Demon, the great C64 disk editor (written by G. Brandt and A. Wellie in 1986/87) because a similar disk editor is built into the Commander so that you can change the data of disk images and disks in an external Commodore drive directly - several configuration options make the use of the Commander easy and comfortable - the Commander can optionally display everything with the C64 character set (only on EGA/VGA video cards) - most of the image file handling routines are faster than those of the other similar utilities - the Commander has built-in support for several Commodore archive formats (Lynx, filepacked ZipCode, LHA, Arkive and TAR archives) and the external utilities also help you with mass-converting them - here is a benchmark of the Commander using an original 1541-II drive and a normal 35 track disk containing a single 210 block file stored below track #18 with the normal interleave of 10 sectors (transfer modes marked with (*) are equipped with manual retry on disk errors, (+) means optional verify): ╔═════════════════════╦══════════════════════╤═══════════════════════╗ ║ Whole disk copy ║ Read from the 1541 │ Write to the 1541 ║ ╠═════════════════════╬══════════════════════╪═══════════════════════╣ ║ Normal mode ║ 7:50 (*) │ 9:55 (*) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Turbo mode ║ 2:25 (*) │ 2:25 (*) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Warp mode ║ 1:16 (*) │ 1:19 (*+) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Hybrid turbo mode ║ 1:09 (*) │ 0:48 (*) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Hybrid warp mode ║ 0:50 (*) │ 0:29 (*+) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Parallel turbo mode ║ 0:48 (*) │ 0:48 (*) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Parallel warp mode ║ 0:23 (*) │ 0:29 (*+) ║ ╚═════════════════════╩══════════════════════╧═══════════════════════╝ ╔═════════════════════╦══════════════════════╤═══════════════════════╗ ║ 210 block file copy ║ Read from the 1541 │ Write to the 1541 ║ ╠═════════════════════╬══════════════════════╪═══════════════════════╣ ║ Normal mode ║ 2:20 │ 2:25 ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Turbo mode ║ 1:00 │ 1:01 ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Warp mode ║ 0:26 (*) │ 0:26 (*) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Hybrid turbo mode ║ 0:22 │ 0:24 ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Hybrid warp mode ║ 0:18 (*) │ 0:10 (*) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Parallel turbo mode ║ 0:22 │ 0:24 ║ ╟─────────────────────╫──────────────────────┼───────────────────────╢ ║ Parallel warp mode ║ 0:10 (*) │ 0:10 (*) ║ ╚═════════════════════╩══════════════════════╧═══════════════════════╝ CONNECTING A COMMODORE DRIVE TO YOUR PC: The serial connection is done using the well-known X1541 interface. If you want to achieve a much higher transfer speed, you're willing to modify your 1541 drive and you have a bidirectional parallel port then you can make use of the XP1541 parallel interface. If you only have a unidirectional parallel port then the XH1541 hybrid interface gives you the best performance. If you only have an EPP or ECP port then you have to substitute the X1541 interface with the XE1541 interface. You can find the description of all four interfaces in the following section. Unless you're using the XH1541 hybrid cable or the XP1541 parallel cable, don't try to access external drives under a multi-tasking system and remove memory managers, device drivers and other resident programs, if possible. The Commander has a machine independent synchronization method that uses the hardware system timers and therefore no automatic calibration is inside the Commander. If your PC has a 80386 or 80486 CPU, the default delay value of 48 will probably be fine and you will be able to access the external Commodore drive without adjusting it. However, a 80286 CPU might be too slow and you may have to lower the delay value in the 'Drive options...' menu. Similarly, users having a Pentium or above should raise it, to about 80. I admit that this is a bit annoying but don't forget that you have to go through this tiring procedure only once with every new release, if at all. The Commander is equipped with optional fast transfer modes: in turbo mode it transfers data from and to the external Commodore drive about 2-3 times faster and in warp mode 5-6 times faster. If you also connect your Commodore drive with the XH1541 hybrid cable to the PC, using turbo mode, the data transfer will be 6-12, with warp mode 6-20 times faster. The XP1541 parallel cable gives you 6-12 times the original speed in turbo mode and is 10-20 times faster in warp mode. The Commander has turbo command routines, as well, which speed up deleting files and validating disks to 2-10 times the original speed (depending on the number and length of the files on the disk) and disk format takes only about 12 seconds. I had the opportunity to try the Commander with the 1571 drive of a friend. Although I haven't changed anything in the setup of the Commander, it could execute every 1541 function properly for the first try, even in warp transfer mode. However, native 1571 mode (double sided or MFM-coded disks) is not yet supported. I looked into a 1581 ROM dump, and it made clear to me that the Commander won't work with it in turbo and warp mode, if at all since it's not software compatible with the 1541 drive. I will have to get a 1581 drive to implement the necessary transfer routines. THE X1541 INTERFACES: Here is the description of the X1541 interfaces, with which you can connect a Commodore drive to your PC to use with the Commander. The mode of your parallel port is a vital feature that determines which cables you can use with your machine so try to find out all the modes of your parallel port. Older I/O and parallel port cards only have the unidirectional SPP mode, most Pentium and newer 486 motherboards have integrated parallel ports and allow you to set the port mode in the BIOS setup, with the usual choices of SPP, EPP and ECP. You can convert unidirectional SPP parallel port cards into a bidirectional PS/2 port by disconnecting pin 1 of the data latch 74LS374 from ground and connecting it to one of the output pins on the control latch 74LS174. This pin can be any of pins 2, 5, 7, 10, 12 or 15 and must not be connected to any other chip on the board. The corresponding input pin (3, 4, 6, 11, 13 or 14) must be connected to bit 5 of the data bus. If this is not the case on your card then you can access this bit from the data latch. Find out which one of its output pins (2, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16 or 19) is connected to pin 7 of the parallel port connector and get bit 5 from the corresponding input pin (3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 14, 17 or 18). It's possible that, when changing the mode of the integrated parallel port in your BIOS setup, you won't find the necessary modes as they are called in this documentation. Some BIOS setups have different names for the port modes: Compatible, Normal and Standard usually refer to SPP, Extended possibly means PS/2 or EPP and Enhanced stands for EPP or ECP. Please, note that the EPP mode cannot be reliably detected by SCSETUP on some machines: PS/2 is reported even if the port is not really in PS/2 mode. Use PS/2, if available, or ECP instead. The advices below, telling you which cables to use with a given parallel port mode and vice versa, are based on the fact that most SPP and PS/2 parallel ports support the X1541 cable and most EPP and ECP parallel ports don't. However, because of the lack of strict standards, there are exceptions to these rules. There exist SPP and PS/2 parallel ports that don't support the X1541 cable and it's also possible that certain EPP and ECP parallel ports do support it. You have to determine the true capabilities of your parallel port before choosing the cables to use. If you have a unidirectional SPP parallel port then you can use the X1541 cable and, optionally, the XH1541 hybrid cable, for the highest speed possible on SPP ports. If you have a bidirectional PS/2 parallel port then you can use any of the cables but, for maximum speed, you're advised to use the X1541 cable and the XP1541 parallel cable together. Unfortunately, since the X1541 cable doesn't work with most parallel ports in EPP and ECP mode, you will have to configure them to SPP mode with the BIOS setup program or with jumpers. If the Commander still doesn't work then you have two possibilities: you either use the XE1541 cable, a substitute for the X1541 cable, or buy a secondary parallel port card, plug the X1541 cable to it and optionally use the XP1541 parallel cable on the EPP or ECP port. The X1541 interface is the easiest of all, you only need to connect certain pins of the serial port of the Commodore drive and pins of the parallel port of the PC. You need some plugs, some wires and some soldering skills. The XE1541 interface is not much harder, it only needs some additional diodes. The XH1541 and XP1541 interfaces are a lot harder to build because you need to do some modifications inside the Commodore drive. If you're not experienced at soldering then don't even think about doing them yourself. In addition, the XH1541 interface also needs some diodes. The following tables may help you to decide which cables suit your needs best. Depending on your parallel port hardware, your soldering skills and your patience, you may choose the cables that will work best for you. This table is a compatibility chart between different parallel port modes and different interfaces: ╔═══════════════╦═════════╤═════════╤═════════╗ ║ Compatibility ║ SPP │ PS/2 │ EPP/ECP ║ ╠═══════════════╬═════════╪═════════╪═════════╣ ║ X1541 ║ yes │ yes │ no ║ ╟───────────────╫─────────┼─────────┼─────────╢ ║ XE1541 ║ yes │ yes │ yes ║ ╟───────────────╫─────────┼─────────┼─────────╢ ║ XH1541 ║ yes │ yes │ yes ║ ╟───────────────╫─────────┼─────────┼─────────╢ ║ XP1541 ║ no │ yes │ yes ║ ╚═══════════════╩═════════╧═════════╧═════════╝ This table shows the ways to achieve different speeds on a single parallel ports in different modes: ╔═════════════════╦═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╗ ║ Single port ║ SPP │ PS/2 │ EPP/ECP ║ ╠═════════════════╬═══════════╪═══════════╪═══════════╣ ║ Minimum speed ║ X1541 │ X1541 │ XE1541 ║ ║ ║ (1) │ (1) │ (2) ║ ╟─────────────────╫───────────┼───────────┼───────────╢ ║ Medium speed ║ X1541+ │ X1541+ │ ║ ║ ║ XH1541 │ XH1541 │ ║ ║ ║ │ (1) │ ║ ╟─────────────────╫───────────┼───────────┼───────────╢ ║ Maximum speed ║ │ X1541+ │ XE1541+ ║ ║ ║ │ XP1541 │ XP1541 ║ ║ ║ │ │ (2) ║ ╚═════════════════╩═══════════╧═══════════╧═══════════╝ Notes: (1) This is not the maximum performance for your parallel port, you may want to use another cable configuration. These tables show the ways to achieve different speeds on two parallel ports of different modes. The first cable refers to the primary parallel port, whose mode is indicated by the table title, and the second refers to the secondary parallel port, whose mode is indicated by the column title. Note that when you're advised to swap your parallel ports then it's meant to be a logical swap, not a physical one: ╔═════════════════════╦═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╗ ║ Two ports, ║ SPP │ PS/2 │ EPP/ECP ║ ║ primary is SPP ║ │ │ ║ ╠═════════════════════╬═══════════╪═══════════╪═══════════╣ ║ Minimum speed ║ X1541 │ X1541 │ X1541 ║ ║ ║ (1,2) │ (1,2,3) │ (1,2) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫───────────┼───────────┼───────────╢ ║ Medium speed ║ X1541+ │ X1541+ │ X1541+ ║ ║ ║ XH1541 │ XH1541 │ XH1541 ║ ║ ║ (2) │ (1,2,3) │ (1,2) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫───────────┼───────────┼───────────╢ ║ Maximum speed ║ │ X1541 + │ X1541+ ║ ║ ║ │ XP1541 │ XP1541 ║ ╚═════════════════════╩═══════════╧═══════════╧═══════════╝ Notes: (1) This is not the maximum performance for your parallel ports, you may want to use another cable configuration. (2) You don't need two parallel ports for this cable configuration, you can hook the indicated cables up to the primary parallel port. (3) This is not the maximum performance for your parallel ports. Swap your parallel ports and try again. ╔═════════════════════╦═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╗ ║ Two ports, ║ SPP │ PS/2 │ EPP/ECP ║ ║ primary is PS/2 ║ │ │ ║ ╠═════════════════════╬═══════════╪═══════════╪═══════════╣ ║ Minimum speed ║ X1541 │ X1541 │ X1541 ║ ║ ║ (1,2) │ (1,2) │ (1,2) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫───────────┼───────────┼───────────╢ ║ Medium speed ║ X1541+ │ X1541+ │ X1541+ ║ ║ ║ XH1541 │ XH1541 │ XH1541 ║ ║ ║ (1,2) │ (1,2) │ (1,2) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫───────────┼───────────┼───────────╢ ║ Maximum speed ║ X1541+ │ X1541 + │ X1541+ ║ ║ ║ XP1541 │ XP1541 │ XP1541 ║ ║ ║ (2) │ (2) │ (2) ║ ╚═════════════════════╩═══════════╧═══════════╧═══════════╝ Notes: (1) This is not the maximum performance for your parallel ports, you may want to use another cable configuration. (2) You don't need two parallel ports for this cable configuration, you can hook the indicated cables up to the primary parallel port. ╔═════════════════════╦═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╗ ║ Two ports, ║ SPP │ PS/2 │ EPP/ECP ║ ║ primary is EPP/ECP ║ │ │ ║ ╠═════════════════════╬═══════════╪═══════════╪═══════════╣ ║ Minimum speed ║ (1) │ (1) │ XE1541 ║ ║ ║ │ │ (2,3) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫───────────┼───────────┼───────────╢ ║ Medium speed ║ (1) │ (1) │ XE1541+ ║ ║ ║ │ │ XH1541 ║ ║ ║ │ │ (3) ║ ╟─────────────────────╫───────────┼───────────┼───────────╢ ║ Maximum speed ║ (1) │ (1) │ XE1541+ ║ ║ ║ │ │ XP1541 ║ ║ ║ │ │ (2,3) ║ ╚═════════════════════╩═══════════╧═══════════╧═══════════╝ Notes: (1) You shouldn't have an EPP/ECP parallel port as your primary port. Swap your parallel ports and try again. (2) You don't need two parallel ports for this cable configuration, you can hook the indicated cables up to the primary parallel port. The following diagrams are pictured as viewed from the solder end (back side) of the plug. It may be of help to you that the numbers are often printed in small letters onto the plug itself. When wiring the interface cables, make sure that they are not too long: a cable longer than about two meters will possibly not work, especially if it isn't shielded at all. The PC parallel port (male DB-25 connector): PaperEnd Busy SelectIn │ │ Ack Data 7 - Data 0 Strobe │ │ │ │ ┌─────────────┴─────────────┐ │ V V V V │ │ V ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ║ ║ o o o o o o o o o o o o o ║ ╚═╗ ╔═╝ ║ o o o o o o o o o o o o ║ ║ 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 ║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ │ │ ^ ^ ^ ^ └─────────────┬─────────────┘ │ │ │ │ Ground Select │ │ AutoFeed Init Error The Commodore drive serial bus port (male 6 pin DIN connector): Reset │ V ╔═══════╗ ╔═══════╗ ╔═╝ ╚═╝ ╚═╗ ║ 5 1 ║ Data ──> ║ o 6 o ║ <── SrqIn ║ o ║ ║ 4 2 ║ Clk ──> ║ o 3 o ║ <── Gnd ║ o ║ ╚═╗ ╔═╝ ╚═════════════════╝ ^ │ Atn The Commodore 1541 drive VIA#1 periphery chip: │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ╔═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╧═╗ ║ 40 21 ║ ║) ║ ║ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 ║ ╚═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╤═╝ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └──────┬──────┘ PA0 - PA7 You can find the VIA#1 by searching for a chip on the motherboard that has the type number 6522 on it and none of its pins 2-9 are connected to any other chip. The X1541 interface connects the following pins: CBM drive serial port PC parallel port 2 Gnd ───────── 18-25 Ground 3 Atn ────────── 1 Strobe 4 Clk ───────── 14 AutoFeed 5 Data ──────── 17 Select 6 Reset ─────── 16 Init Although the Commander doesn't make use of it, the original specification of the X1541 interface requires the short connection of pins 2 and 15 on the parallel port plug, since X1541 uses it for autodetection. If you intend to use other transfer programs with the interface or want to access your Commodore drive under the emulators, you might want to do this alteration, as well. You have to connect the X1541 interface to an SPP or PS/2 parallel port because the lines used by this cable are not necessarily bidirectional on EPP and ECP parallel ports. This interface should work with all kinds of Commodore drives and their clones. The XE1541 extended interface connects the following pins: CBM drive serial port PC parallel port PC parallel port 2 Gnd ─────────────────────────────── 18-25 Ground 3 Atn ───────── 13 SelectIn ───>|── 1 Strobe 4 Clk ───────── 12 PaperEnd ───>|─ 14 AutoFeed 5 Data ──────── 11 Busy ───────>|─ 17 SelectIn 6 Reset ─────── 10 Ack ────────>|─ 16 Init This interface, unlike the X1541 interface, needs electronical components, namely diodes, to decouple the data lines of the PC parallel port while the PC receives data from the Commodore drive. You have to solder them right before each of pins 1, 14, 16 and 17, their cathodes pointing towards the pins. Note that you should primarily use BAT85 diodes or other Schottky-diodes, like the 1N5819. If you can only get 1N4148 diodes then you can try them but be warned, they may make the cable inoperable on certain parallel ports. You can connect the XE1541 interface to any type of parallel port and it has no common lines with the XP1541 interface therefore you can connect them both to the same PS/2, EPP or ECP parallel port, using a Y-shaped cable. This interface should work with all kinds of Commodore drives and their clones. The XH1541 hybrid interface connects the following pins: CBM 1541 VIA#1 PC parallel port PC parallel port 2 PA0 ───────── 13 SelectIn ────>|─ 2 Data 0 3 PA1 ───────── 12 PaperEnd ────>|─ 3 Data 1 4 PA2 ───────── 10 Ack ─────────>|─ 4 Data 2 5 PA3 ───────── 11 Busy ────────>|─ 5 Data 3 6 PA4 ─────────────────────────────>|─ 6 Data 4 7 PA5 ─────────────────────────────>|─ 7 Data 5 8 PA6 ─────────────────────────────>|─ 8 Data 6 9 PA7 ─────────────────────────────>|─ 9 Data 7 This interface also needs diodes, you have to solder them right before each of pins 2-9, their cathodes pointing towards the pins. The best diode for this interface is the 1N4148 or equivalent. You can connect the XH1541 interface to any type of parallel port and it has no common lines with the X1541 interface therefore you can connect them both to the same SPP or PS/2 parallel port, using a Y-shaped cable. This interface works with 1541 drives and compatible clones only. The XP1541 parallel interface connects the following pins: CBM 1541 VIA#1 PC parallel port 2 PA0 ────────── 2 Data 0 3 PA1 ────────── 3 Data 1 4 PA2 ────────── 4 Data 2 5 PA3 ────────── 5 Data 3 6 PA4 ────────── 6 Data 4 7 PA5 ────────── 7 Data 5 8 PA6 ────────── 8 Data 6 9 PA7 ────────── 9 Data 7 You have to connect the XP1541 interface to a PS/2, EPP or ECP parallel port because the data lines are unidirectional on SPP parallel ports. If you have a PS/2 parallel port then you can connect both the X1541 and the XP1541 interface to the same parallel port, using a Y-shaped cable. If you have an EPP or ECP parallel port then you can either use the XE1541 cable or build two separate cables and buy a secondary, cheap, old SPP parallel port card for the X1541 interface. This interface works with 1541 drives and compatible clones only. Please, note that neither the XH1541 interface or the XP1541 interface is a substitute for the original X1541 interface or the XE1541 interface, you have to connect two cables to the Commodore drive and the PC at the same time to acquire the extended transfer capabilities. Don't connect the XH1541 cable or the XP1541 cable alone to the Commodore drive because neither of them contain a GND line: plugging them without the X1541 cable or the XE1541 cable may short circuit your machines and damage the periphery chips. Always connect the XH1541 interface or the XP1541 interface to your Commodore drive and your PC before switching either of them on and switch both machines off before you pull them out. In 1541 drives nothing is defined to any of the bits of Port A, you can connect the XH1541 interface and the XP1541 interface without any problem. In 1541C drives, bit 0 of Port A is used for the detection of the head being over track 1. After stripping this connection off of the chip, you will have to change the DOS ROM to that of the 1541 or the 1541-II; otherwise you'll get strange results when the drive is seeking because the DOS tries to rely on the detector line which doesn't exist anymore. In 1541-II drives bit 0 of Port A is grounded, strip this connection off of the chip. In 1571 drives there are several lines connected to the bits of Port A therefore you can use neither the XH1541 interface or the XP1541 interface with them. If you already have a floppy speeder like Speed DOS or Dolphin DOS in your 1541 drive then you probably have a parallel plug at its rear. In this case you have many options of implementing the XP1541 interface. You can create another cable to connect the drive to the PC with. You can also split the cable between the drive and the C64 into a Y-shaped cable, one end plugging into the drive, another into the C64 and the third one into the PC, in which case remember not to plug the cable into the C64 and the PC at the same time. However, your best choice is creating a small converter imitating the C64 user port on one side and plugging into the PC parallel port on the other side. If your 1541 drive has no parallel capabilities then you might still want to create a plug at its rear. This way there will be no cable always hanging out of the drive and with another cable you'll be able to use parallel transfer with the C64, too. Please, note that the parallel copy programs for the C64 may require some additional connections. Read their documentation before soldering so that you can connect the additional pins to the plug, if needed. TROUBLESHOOTING: If you encounter problems in the part of the program that does not access an external Commodore drive then you should contact me at once with a detailed description of the bug. However, if you can't access the external Commodore drive properly, here are some ideas for you to try first. First of all, bare boot your computer, disable all the resident programs, memory managers and device drivers and exit multi-tasking systems such as OS/2, Linux, Windows, Windows '95 or Windows NT since these circumstances may affect the data transfer. Boot plain DOS on your machine and strip everything you don't need off your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. You may create a boot configuration menu or a boot disk, too. You should also switch the Commander into normal transfer mode since this is the most stable mode and it is not as sensible to the change of the delay value as the fast modes are. Furthermore, don't plug anything other than the X1541 or XE1541 interface into your PC and your Commodore drive: connecting a printer to your PC or other Commodore machines or drives to your Commodore drive will probably mess up the data transfer, lock up the connection or may even damage the periphery chips in your Commodore machine. This also means that C128D and SX64 owners can't use the Commander with the built-in drive. If the connection with the Commodore drive locks up then pull the X1541 or XE1541 interface out of the drive, wait for the "Device not present" error, plug the interface back, reset your drive (e.g. with Control-Alt-Backspace) and try the following: - raise or lower the delay value - make sure that the X1541 or XE1541 interface is assembled well (try it with other machines and other transfer programs), it is correctly shielded and it is not too long - plug your Commodore drive to a Commodore machine to see if it works at all after all those years or borrow a tested drive from a friend - if you have a Pentium or a newer 486 motherboard and only use the X1541 cable then enter the BIOS setup and change the mode of the parallel port to SPP or PS/2; in case you also use the XP1541 parallel cable then you must set its parallel port to PS/2, EPP or ECP - if your network uses parallel port redirection then logout and remove dongles and other devices that may filter data transfer via the parallel port - you might be the unlucky owner of an (integrated) I/O card whose parallel port is incompatible with the X1541 cable; try swapping it with an I/O card of a friend or buy an old parallel port card or a Hercules video card with a built-in parallel port or use the XE1541 cable instead - the port mode autodetection routines might confuse your parallel port which then enters into an incompatible mode; switch the option 'Transfer warnings' off in the external setup, disabling the port mode autodetection in the Commander completely, and reset your machine always after having run the external setup because it always autodetects the mode of the ports - as a last resort, you can try switching the turbo button of your machine on or off or disable/enable the shadow RAM's or the cache RAM's; these changes might slow down or speed up your machine so that data transfer then becomes possible on a too slow or too fast computer REPORTING PROBLEMS, IDEAS AND WISHES: As I do not have the possibility to test the program on many kinds of PC's I ask you to contact me if you found bugs in the program (you will possibly find some as it is still under development) or have an idea of what improvements I should do in the future. Please, send me a note if you saw a grammatical error, misspelling, typos or something misunderstandable in the online help or this documentation. If you know good FTP sites or WWW pages with C64 areas to which I should upload this program or are just interested in this program or you simply like it and want to have the final version as soon as possible then an E-mail from you would be appreciated. Please, E-mail your detailed bug reports along with the version number of the Commander you use, the configuration of your PC (CPU type and speed) and the configuration of the Commander when the bug occurred (especially the delay value and the transfer mode if you used an external Commodore drive). If the bug occurred only with a certain file you can send it to me uuencoded, as well. 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 KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS: - you must not try to access an external Commodore drive if the X1541 or XE1541 interface is not plugged into the appropriate parallel port or all the external Commodore drives are switched off - timeouts are not handled - as all PC interrupts are disabled while accessing the Commodore drive, errors during data transfer might lock up your PC - instead of the usual extract command of LHA the print command is used by both Commander and Star LHA which only works correctly in LHA 2.14 and newer - it is possible to create PC64 file images with the Commander that will not be recognized by Personal C64 because of some invalid characters in the original C64 file name - if you encounter such files then, please, send some samples to me - timezone settings are not standardized in DOS therefore there may be some unwanted changes in the time stamps of files inside TAR archives if you exchange the archives between the Commander and a real Unix system COMING SOON: I'm planning the following changes for the next version. Please, tell me if I should start working on the items marked with (?), as well. However, unmarked items are of higher priority than marked ones: - bug fixes, of course... - something must be done about the memory requirements of the Commander, it's getting unacceptable - a smarter routine to detect the presence of Commodore drives correctly - autodetection of the type of drives connected to the Commander - native support for non-1541 drives, mainly 1571 and 1581 drives - full support for 1571 and 1581 disk images - a configuration menu to allow you to change the interleaves for different transfer modes and directions - make it possible to change the attributes of a whole directory structure of DOS files - speed up the editor with a line buffer - allow associating menu files to different file name patterns in extension files - expand Quick view with the ability of showing the total size of files in the directory structure under the cursor of the opposite panel - add new switches into the Star Utilities that would delete the source files as soon as they have been processed successfully - full GEOS support for Commodore disks, as well (copy GEOS files from and onto disks, scratch GEOS files on disks, validate and format GEOS disks) (?) - make the editor allocate new blocks in the disk image if the file being edited grows beyond its original size and, similarly, free unneeded blocks if the file shrinks (?) - automatic rereading of panels showing PC floppy drives if you select the panel after having changed the disk in the drive (?) - allow copying directory structures into LHA and TAR archives (?) - a much faster validate routine for external disks that does not track through files one by one but first reads all sector chains on the disk and only then starts working on the BAM (?) There are many ideas that I will not put inside the Commander since I don't think that they are closely related to a DOS shell like the Commander but to a multi-purpose utility instead. If you still insist on these ideas, I may implement them, but only in external programs. THANKS TO: I would like to thank my development team for their valuable help: Bacchus/Fairlight Clarence/Graffity Darrin Smith Dohos Ådám Edhellon/Resource Gustavo Ayala Halász Csaba Jürgen Bullinger Lion/Chromance Mathias Beilstein Matthias Hartung Michael J. Darschewski Nicolas Welte Sorex/WOW Stephen Lloyd Suba Péter Sven Goldt Szigetvári József Tamási György Todd A. Aiken Vic/COMA Wojtek Wasilewski Wolfgang Moser Special thanks go to: Berkeley Softworks the authors of GEOS Bernhard Schwall the author of Trans64 Borland International for Turbo Pascal and Borland Pascal Commodore Business Machines for the Commodore computers Chris Smeets the author of the ARC and LHA extractors Marko Mäkelä for the original ZipCode and UnLynx for DOS Miha Peternel for the C64 Software Emulator Leopoldo Ghielmetti for X1541 and the X1541 cable Per Håkan Sundell for the CCS64 emulator Peter Norton for The Norton Commander Peter Schepers the author of 64COPY Ralf Brown for the x86/MSDOS Interrupt List Vsevolod V. Volkov for The Volkov Commander Wolfgang Lorenz for Personal C64 The following people have also contributed to the development: Bigfoot for the XH1541 hybrid cable and other ideas Chris Link for many good ideas concerning the development Frank Kontros for help with parallel cables and disk verify Hársfalvi Levente for the idea of supporting TAR archives Joe Votour for help with the way GEOS saves files WHERE TO FIND THE COMMANDER: I always upload the newest releases to the following platforms: http://ludens.elte.hu/~sta/sc.html http://hem.passagen.se/bacchus/tools/pc.html ftp://bbs.cc.uniud.it/pub/c64/tools/other_machines/pc/dos ftp://frodo.hiof.no/pub/c64/utils ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/spectre/EMUL-UTIL ftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/c64/tools/transfer/pc ftp://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/c64/PC_Tools ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/cbm/transfer/1541-to-PC ftp://ftp.giga.or.at/pub/c64/transfer/1541-pc ftp://ftp.inf.bme.hu/pub/c64/Tools/MSDOS ftp://ftp.kiae.su/msdos/emulator/c64-128 ftp://ftp.seattlelab.com/UTILS ftp://ftp.vekoll.vein.hu/pub/c64/tools ftp://rsls6.sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de/pub/c64/transfer/sc ftp://utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/c64/Tools/Convert ftp://woland.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/pub/c64/MSDOS Wildfire BBS, Hungary (36-)1-156-3770 (22:30-07:00), SysOp: Dino (FidoNet: 2:371/41) USR Sportster 14.4, FREQ Magic Name: SC You can also E-mail me at any time to ask for a uuencoded copy. Finger me at the address "sta@ludens.elte.hu" to find out the version number of the newest release. The first address in the above list is the World Wide Web homepage of the Commander. There you can always download the latest public release, have a look at the documentation and the description of the X1541 interfaces and see some facts (bug fixes, modifications and new features) about the internal beta versions being developed and tested. If you want to have the newest versions of the Commander in the future, you can subscribe to a mailing list by sending an E-mail to me. When a new version is out, you will get it on the release day in a uuencoded E-mail. If you have troubles with large E-mails (about 800-900 KBytes) then, please, indicate the maximum mail size your mailer program can handle. THE AUTHOR: Please, don't hesitate, send an E-mail to the address "sta@ludens.elte.hu" if you have any questions, problems, ideas or wishes concerning the Commander. Use the address "sta@dtalk.inf.elte.hu" for and only for sending E-mails that contain large files. You can call the phone number (36-)1-285-3881 to contact me and you can also send snail-mails to me at this address: Kovács Balázs Budapest, XX., Orsolya utca 5. IV/12. 1204, Hungary If you wish to send some files to me, either by E-mail or snail-mail, then, please, ask me before you do it; I don't like being flooded with large E-mails or lots of disks without having been warned. I prefer getting binary files in uuencoded E-mails, but if you can only attach files then, please, send them in a separate mail instead of attaching them to the letter itself. Note that all my accounts will probably cease to exist in mid-1998 when I finish my university studies. 30th November, 1997 Joe Forster/STA