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20 Backup Program 15 Open J.PEEPLES [CPM 22 TechMedia inventory 5 Open CBM-PRESS 26 FAX software 15 Clo/Ma J.SERAFINO 27 CMD HD40 Verify error 6 Clo/Ma R.ROSENLOF [Wizardry] 28 CMD Hard Drive Add On Oddities 42 Closed D.TUOMI [Doctor] 30 QLink Software Q's & A's 1 Closed F.NETTLES 31 removable media 4 Closed B.GANN1 33 ZED 6 Closed MRABOY 34 ducktales on a CMD HD 4 Closed J.SMUDA2 [The Shmoo] 38 Compression Kit 10 Clo/Ma N.PHI [Toto] 40 Ramlink & Geos 1 Closed S.SHEI [Poboy] 41 Dialogue 128 and SwiftLink 9 Clo/Ma C.LAWSON [Golden Bear] 43 geocable 4 Closed E.WILLIAMS43 44 Aprotek User Port Extension Cable 11 Closed H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] 46 Electronic Arts on CMD F-2000 11 Clo/Ma W.HALL24 47 Timeworks products 7 Clo/Ma H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] ************ Topic 20 Mon Jan 04, 1993 J.PEEPLES [CPM Survivor] at 23:25 EST Sub: Backup Program When could we expect to see CMD's new Backup program available? 15 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 1 Mon Jan 04, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 23:44 EST Should be around the end of January, but don't quote me. :) ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 2 Wed Jan 06, 1993 J.PEEPLES [CPM Survivor] at 00:22 EST Thanks, I look forward to it! :) Since through user mistakes I've had to rebuild my HD system twice (both fortunately not long after I got it), I've gotten rather paranoid about data security...not because of hardware error as much as my goofing up again! --James ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 3 Tue May 11, 1993 F.OGLE [Color 64 BBS] at 19:01 EDT Amen, Brutha! A war-torn veteran. Hehe ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 4 Sun Aug 22, 1993 J.DEKER at 19:13 EDT To: CMD-DOUG Would CMD ever consider creating a version of the VIDEO BACKUP SYSTEM for the 64/128 similar to the one available on the Amiga?? Or, is that a bad word?? :( For those not familier with the Amiga VBS, it is part hardware & software. The hardware plugs into the RS232 port and composite output ports of the Amiga and to your VCR. Backups are made to VCR tape. A T-120 tape is good for about 150 megs of data. I don't see why a similar product couldn't be created for the 64/128. The only problem as I see it is the size of the software program on the Amiga. It is large. A similar program with all the functions would have to be in 3 parts - backup routine, restore routine, & verify routine. It would probably also run slowly. On an Amiga it backs up about 35 megs an hour. The advantage of the system is that it uses a very inexpensive backup medium which most people already own. The second advantage is that it could be made to backup a series of partitions without any user intervention. Now if it could be produced for the same price as on the Amiga ($99), or for less, I think it would sell well. The Amiga version is over priced because it comes from overseas. There isn't much to the hardware. It's a small circuit board imbedded in the RS232 connector. The software may be a different story as it is a very large program. ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 5 Mon Aug 23, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 01:31 EDT We sort of mulled that idea over a few months back. You came up with some similar conclusions, or points... It would indeed be much slower, and the software would take quite a while to develop. This was one of the project ideas that lost out to the FD project. As to whether it might happen in the future, I can only say that there are no such current plans, nor is there any open time frame in our schedule for such a project in the near future. Beyond that, who knows? ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 6 Fri Nov 05, 1993 E.WHITAKER2 [Scormus] at 03:46 EST CMD-DOUG, I need help with BCOPY+ from the utilities disk.... Here is the setup I was using ( i removed EVERYTHING possible to unplug, just in case) c64 with jiffydos (switched OFF) plugged into ramlink/ramcard 4-4meg simms, ENABLE and NORMAL (also tried ENABLE/DIRECT with no luck. 1570 CLONE REU with 512K (setup as geos dacc 2048 blocks, 1st partition, #31, if it matters) HD with Foreign partition created using foreign creator. I tried 65536 and 65280 blocks. BCOPY+ WOULD (presumably) copy any individual partition, although I only actually tried the SYS partition and partitions 1,2, and 3. When I tried to COPY ENTIRE SYSTEM, the time estimate was 0 hours/1 minute and BCOPY+ crashed somewhat spectacularly each time. I assume it is not correctly handling the switch from $ff00 blocks to $010000 blocks. Any Ideas would be appreciated Thanks. ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 7 Sat Nov 06, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 08:19 EST This is a bug in the current version, and seems to occur only with exactly 16 MB. Be sure to send in a bug report documenting that you have the problem so that an update can be sent to you when it becomes available. ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 8 Sun Nov 21, 1993 E.WHITAKER2 [Scormus] at 03:14 EST another bcopy+ or HD-200 bug (I'm not sure which) that i just ran across last night: HD swapped to device 8. when bcopy+ reads the partition directory it sometimes (usually) chokes at about the 30th block or so. @$=p also chokes occasionally, same circumstances. after resetting the HD, the problem goes away. No big deal, but I thought I would mention it. ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 9 Sun Nov 21, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 04:29 EST That's an HD-DOS bug, and one which has proven elusive. A 'UJ' to the drive will clear it. ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 10 Mon Nov 22, 1993 M.RANDALL2 [Maurice] at 00:44 EST This subject reminds me of a problem I discovered with the HD Dos as I was developing the V2.2 upgrade to geoSHELL. geoSHELL allows you to send DOS commands to the drive and whenever the user sends @$=p to the drive, geoSHELL will trap the command and display the list of partitions in a formatted manner which the user can double-click on the desired partition to open it. Well, everything was fine except when I upgraded to a 40 meg drive in place of the 20 megger. Thiss allowed me to have more partitions of the same type. So, now when I would issue the command, @$=p, still no problem. But when I would send @$=p:*=8 the partition directory wouldn't be quite right. The eighth partition to be listed, in fact every eighth 1581 partition would be lis ted as the wrong partition number. It would always be listed as a number plus a multiple of eight. (if I said that right) For instance, partition 23 would be listed as 7. (23 - 2*8) Count down eight partitions and there would be another one listed wrong. This bug eluded me for quite some time, as I kept thinking it was a problem in my code. But I finally discovered that the DOS in the HD would return this information incorrectly if my code reads the error channel before bringing the data from the drive to the computer. So, now, geoSHELL sends the partition command, @$=p:*=8 or @$=p:*=n or whatever, checks the error channel to make sure that the drive accepted it as a valid command, and then sends the command for a second time, ignores the error channel this time and proceeds to read in the partition data. In this way, it works perfectly. I don't know if CMD is aware of this condition, or if any other programmers have run into this, but I've decided to do it this way every time from now on. This problem never occured on any other drive, maybe because a 1541 can't have partitions. ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 11 Mon Nov 22, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 22:58 EST Some very odd things can happen if you play around with the command channel when reading from the partition directory, and yes we're aware of that. It may actually be related to the other bug, Lord knows the HD DOS was rather a wonder to get working in the first place, and some of these quirks were never heavily investigated if they didn't turn out to be actual problems with common software. I'll take a closer look at this one, but I think it's an offshoot of something else that we definately know about. ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 14 Tue Nov 23, 1993 E.WHITAKER2 [Scormus] at 09:27 EST Please note: I just finished backing up everything on my 16meg ramlink by hand, one partition at a time, onto floppies, just in case something was to go wrong during the procedure that follows... Additionally, If you are not comfortable using a ml monitor to save data from or load data into your computer, you should probably skip this idea totally. The following procedure **should** allow someone with BCOPY and a machine language monitor which they know how to use to back up their 16meg ramlink, including the system partition. Please read this entire doc file before attempting this procedure. It isn't simple, but it seemed to work for me. Step 1. We'll start by running line 130 of the included program. This copies the entire system partition of your ramlink (16 blocks) into computer memory at 49152 ($c000). Step 2. Now, we need to save that section of computer memory onto a separate disk. If you don't know how to do that using your machine language monitor (I used super snapshot's) then you should stop right now and erase this text file from your disk. Saving a copy of your ramlink partition table is very probably a good idea anyway, since you never know what could happen. I tried to use bcopy to copy my 20 block system partition onto my HD in a 512 block partition and was told it wasn't large enough, so this procedure ensures a good copy of our old partition table and all the misc system data. Step 3. this is where it gets tricky. I hope you followed step 2. run line 180 and the 1st partition will be changed to a 255 track (65280 block) native partition named, apropriately, '65280 block natv'. If you aren't as daring as the rest of us, you might want to change the 1 in line 180 to an unused partition on your ramlink, if you have one. It isn't necessary, as you will see, but of course it couldn't hurt to be careful. Step 4. run line 320 to write this new data back to your ramlink. You don't need to worry, because we already saved the old data (just in case) back in step 2. IF WE DIDN'T, THEN DON'T DO IT NOW!!!. RETURN TO STEP 1 NOW!!! Step 5. If you were extra careful to squeeze as much space as possible out of your 16 megs, you might lose some data here, because there are 236 blocks beyond what we are about to save and I'm not too sure how to get 'em. Use bcopy to backup the new partition onto whatever backup disks or drives you choose. It takes about 29 minutes to copy to an HD and probably about a day and a half to copy it onto the 96 or so 1541 disks, but when you are done, you will have a 16711680 byte (almost 16 meg) backup of your ramlink data. Step 6. Now, restore the system partition using the saved system image from step 2. load it back into memory at $c000 (49152) and run line 320. this erases your 65280 block partition (which would surely cause you trouble if you tried to run ram-tools) and you're done with the backup. Now, if your ramlink fails, use ramtools and setup your system with 1 native 65280 block partition. bcopy (restore) the saved image onto the ramlink, then repeat step 6 with your saved (from step 2) image of your ramlink system partition and VOILA, you are back in business. It should be noted that I have followed this procedure, with the exception of having my ramlink fail, with no untoward effects. I used hd power tools to change the HD foreign partition temporarily into a native so I could poke around in it using disk cracker HD and all the data seems intact. I'm not all that keen on actually testing this, but if my ramlink does take a dive, I will certainly try to restore from the HD first before I start inserting the 5 disks with the 25 or so partitions and copy them all back by hand. 100 print"kids... don't try this at home" 110 print"but if you do, this is 64 mode only...":stop 120 : 130 xt=49152:rem 64 setup 140 gosub 380:rem read ramlink system 150 : 160 stop 170 : 180 ek=51200 + (32*1):rem partition 1 190 poke(ek+ 2),1:rem native 200 poke(ek+21),0:rem start addr (hi) 210 poke(ek+22),0:rem start addr (mid) 220 poke(ek+23),0:rem start addr (lo) 230 poke(ek+29),0 :rem size (hi) 240 poke(ek+30),255:rem size (mid) 250 poke(ek+31),0 :rem size (lo) 260 a$="65280 block natv" 270 forx= 1 to 16 280 poke ek+x+4,asc(mid$(a$,x)):next 290 : 300 stop 310 : 320 xt=49152:rem 64 setup 330 gosub 580:rem write ramlink system 340 end 350 : 360 : 370 rem read system (16 blocks) 380 ad=xt 390 print"reading system to"xt 400 for tr=0to1 410 for se=0to7:gosub460:ad=ad+256:next 420 next tr 430 return 440 : 450 rem read sector to buffer 460 sys57513:rem setup for read/write 470 poke56865,tr 480 poke56866,se 490 poke56867,ad-(int(ad/256)*256) 500 poke56868,int(ad/256) 510 poke56869,255 :rem system partition 520 poke56864,128 :rem job $80 read 530 sys65057:rem execute and return 540 return 550 : 560 : 570 rem write system (16 blocks) 580 ad=xt 590 print"writing system from"xt 600 for tr=0to1 610 for se=0to7:gosub650:ad=ad+256:next 620 next tr 630 return 640 : 650 rem write buffer to sector 660 sys57513:rem setup for read/write 670 poke56865,tr 680 poke56866,se 690 poke56867,ad-(int(ad/256)*256) 700 poke56868,int(ad/256) 710 poke56869,255 :rem system partition 720 poke56864,144 :rem job $90 write 730 sys65057:rem execute and return 740 return Scormus ------------ Category 12, Topic 20 Message 15 Tue Nov 23, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 21:13 EST Welp... the BCOPY bug appears to be fixed at this point, and we're just testing it out now. Anyone online who has purchased CMD UTILITIES can leave me mail with your real name and a message stating that you'd like to get the BCOPY+ update. I'll be uploading it in about a week, and will CC it to all verified purchasers who email me by then. ------------ ************ Topic 22 Sun Jul 18, 1993 CBM-PRESS at 23:29 EDT Sub: TechMedia inventory This is for questions on TechMedia (RUN) products. 5 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 22 Message 1 Sun Jul 18, 1993 CBM-PRESS at 23:31 EDT Does CMD carry Superbase? If so, what are the prices? ------------ Category 12, Topic 22 Message 2 Mon Jul 19, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 00:00 EDT We're currently out of stock on Superbase, and still negotiating for the final inventory that exists. Last I knew, the prices were set at $35.00 each. We should have Superbase 64 in stock within a week, as we have plenty of manuals, and just need to produce the disks for which we already have the masters. But the 128 version we won't have until we reach an agreement, and I'll post info on that as soon as things are settled. I'm hoping it won't be too much longer. If everything goes okay, we should also be getting a number of copies of 'Superbase - The Book' to offer for sale. ------------ Category 12, Topic 22 Message 3 Sun Mar 20, 1994 F.OGLE [Color BBS] at 10:29 EST That's GREAT news, Doug --I hope everything goes well :) ------------ Φºç¿ç ------------yth≡ºçh¿ç8That's GREAT news, Doug --I hope everything goes well : Category 12, Topic 22 Message 4 Sun Mar 20, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 20:58 EST Er... Fred? This is a rather old message you've responded to... ------------ Category 12, Topic 22 Message 5 Mon Mar 21, 1994 GEOS-TIM at 20:46 EST LOL....8 months is a rather slow response time, have you been using a non C= program to answer message threads, Fred? :) -Tim ------------ ************ Topic 26 Fri Dec 10, 1993 J.SERAFINO at 21:37 EST Sub: FAX software I've been thinking about the possibility of writing either a Menuette module or a stand alone program to send and recieve FAXes. I've been having some difficulty gettting the FAX comm. protocol. Does anyone know where I might get this in 15 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 1 Fri Dec 10, 1993 J.SERAFINO at 21:38 EST (info) Is it possible to send a text file as a fax? Any help would be appreciated. ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 2 Sat Dec 11, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 00:14 EST So far as I know, it isn't possible just to send text. You have to convert it to a bitmap, and everything I've heard so far is that it must be in TIFF format (probably a specific derivative, since there seem to be a lot of subtly different TIFF formats). Beyond that, I'm not familiar with the specific commands you have to use to make a fax connection, but I don't believe that end of it is any harder than making standard modem connects. There may be, again, some command structure to inform the receiver that you're ready to send, etc. Again, shouldn't be any tougher than other transfer protocols to implement. But I'm pretty sure that the majority of the work is in getting the document formatted for sending. ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 3 Sat Dec 11, 1993 CBM-ED [e.g.bell] at 02:25 EST Do you have the TIFF format specs, Doug, or the handshaking required (i.e. the protocol spec). I don't see where getting the document ready to send, if it is just a matter of conversion to bitmap, would be a particular headache. I have done work in Xmodem, Ymodem, Punter, etc. and I can't imagine it being any more difficult than that, unless there are some zmodem-esque features to it????? ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 4 Sun Dec 12, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 00:27 EST Turning text into a bitmap isn't all that hard, obviously, but the TIFF format is compressed, so far as I know. Again, this shouldn't make it hard, but it does tend to add some headaches. My sources tell me that the uncompressed bitmap for a single page is about 450 KB (Bytes, not bits), though compression generally brings this down dramatically, generally to around 1/10th that size (about 45 KB). So, creating an image is going to take some time and space. Overall, though, send-only isn't nearly so bad as doing send and recieve. Recieve means having to be able to either view the recieved bitmap, or print it. I forget the exact resolution, but it's definately beyond the capabilities of any standard Commodore printers - which means you pretty much have to dither the image down to something manageable after you decompress it. I'll have to dig around for my notes to get any more specific. I'm not saying FAX capability is going to be all that hard to implement, just that it isn't something that will be easily whipped up into a MENUETTE module as John was probably hoping. ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 5 Sun Dec 12, 1993 C128.JBEE at 10:11 EST Resolution is less than 300 dpi and you can buy C source code for about $100 (in a PC 'C' package). ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 6 Tue Dec 14, 1993 B.VRIELING1 [Bruce] at 00:15 EST All, Thought I'd add my two cents concerning FAX specifications... First of all, the FAX bitmap transmission is *not* in TIFF format. Many programs use TIFF format to store the intermediate bitmap on diskette, but then another conversion must take place to actually send it to a FAX machine. TIFF is merely a convenience; it could have been PCX or BMP format used. Considering the complexity of TIFF, I wonder why it was chosen... There are three components to sending a FAX transmission. One must: 1) Convert the text to a RLE encoded bitmap 2) Convert the RLE bitmap to the appropriate huffman codes for transmission 3) Manipulate the modem properly to send the actual pages 1) Converting to a bitmap ------------------------- (Assume the characters on the page have been stamped onto a bitmap image on disk:) Each fax page is 1728 pixels or 'pels' across (this is going by memory - it's been a LONG time since I've looked at the specs). Assuming one has a 'normal bitmap' (by that I mean a picture on disk with bytes like: 000 001 002 003 004... 216 217 218 219 220 221... 432 etc.. and each byte is 8 bits - like a geoPaint pic with wierd dimensions), this bitmap can be run-length encoded (RLE) into sequences of WHITE and BLACK pels. For example, if the first line contained 3 black pels, then 20 white pels, then 5 black, then 1700 white, one would have to figure this out (read the bitmap - almost trivial) and come up with these numbers. So, you would have a file something like: 3,20,5,1700 etc... 2) Converting RLE to Huffman codes ---------------------------------- The fax protocol is interesting in that it works on a binary search tree technique. If you don't understand BST's, I can't explain it all right here. (I have a bulletin I wrote for my old BBS some years ago which explained BST's... maybe I should post it.) Due to the hazards of data transmissions over normal phone lines, and the possibilities of errors, PLUS the fact that the receiver has to print the FAX in REAL TIME, BST's were chosen as the best method. The idea is this: A bunch of predetermined "numbers" are specially encoded with a huffman encoding key. Since they are predetermined, the tree is static - this huffman tree is the same all the time. Each number in the RLE encoded bitmap can be represented as one of these keys. Let me illustrate: The table of "numbers" and keys" might look like: Numbers Keys 0 00000001 1 00000010 2 00000011 3 00000100 4 00000101 5 00000110 6 00000111 7 00001000 16 00001001 32 00001010 64 00001011 128 00001100 etc... So the number "20" could be encoded as the number "16" (or 00001001) plus the number "4" (or 00000101). Go back to our example. We have the numbers 3, 20, 5, and 1700. We could encode these using the keys above. Extra note: The way the codes are sent are always white then black, white then black, white then black, forever. So, rather then sending a 20 as a 16 and a 4, we would have to send it as 16 0 4, that is 16 black, 0 white, 4 black. Let's do the numbers 3, 20, 5, 1700 (give the number '1700' the key '11111111' for argument's sake): 000000001 00000100 00001001 00000001 00000101 00000110 11111111 0 white 3 black 16 white 0 black 4 white 5 black 1700 white This would be sent as: 000000001000001000000100100000001000001010000011011111111 I said I wasn't going to get into BST's. I will say for those that understand them, though, that these 0's and 1's tell you how to traverse the tree (0=left turn, 1=right turn), and the value at a "leaf" is the "number" corresponding to the key you used to traverse the tree. Note also that the keys are different lengths; this is possible because *no key is a prefix of any other key*. This means that even though they are different lengths, the traversal through the tree will always be *UNIQUE*. So, in the table, the more often used codes are given shorter key lengths. IEEE specs 265 and 266 (I think those are the ones) talk more about specifics. 3) Manipulating the modem This I am very fuzzy on. I know you have to send an ATF1 to get the modem into fax mode. In addition, wierd things are done during transmission. For example, carrier is dropped (!!) between pages to signal end of page. This doesn't hang up a fax modem, it generates something to tell the reciever that a page is done. I hope the above was semi-clear. I'm studying for exams right now, so I appologize for any fuzziness above. I have to get the concept of Turing machines and "Theory of Computing" into my head by Thursday. YUCK. ...Bruce GEnie: B.VRIELING1 Internet: bvrieling@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca Fido: Bruce Vrieling @ 1:229/15 ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 7 Tue Dec 14, 1993 J.SERAFINO at 05:55 EST Yep. It sounds to me as if it can't be "whipped up." (LOL) But it sounds to me like it would be more possible (easier) to send a geopaint page than a text file. I do agree with jbee. FAXes can be printed on a dot matrix printer because the resolution is not as dense as one would expect. I've seen it done on PC's ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 8 Tue Dec 14, 1993 B.VRIELING1 [Bruce] at 19:29 EST J, Sending a geoPaint picture would likely be easier, but not by much. It's not that difficult to translate a line of text to bitmap. Take in one line, and simply look up each characters bitmap image in the character set. Come to think of it, this would be VERY simple. Please, if you're going to attempt something like this, don't restrict it to GEOS users. Some of us cannot stand the geoEnvironment (and to think I ran a BBS called geoTalk dedicated to GEOS programming at one time... yeeccchhh. The folly of youth.) I certainly think this project is doable. Many people are starting to get modems that come with fax firmware built in; this could be popular. Don't let the concept of BST's scare you away - its only a theoretical model. While one would likely code it that way on a PC simply because it's easier, you could certainly devise your own data structure on the C64 which would work just as well. Are you interested in working on this project? If so, I do have some documentation that you would find handy. Digging it all up again for nothing would be a pain; however, if you are serious about it, it would be worth it. Feel free to ask me any questions you wish. FAX capability on the C64 is something I would be interested in seeing myself, and while I don't have time to write one myself, I consider it within the realm of doing. We can carry this on right here or through email if you wish. Do you have an Internet account? That would be even better. :) ...Bruce GEnie: B.VRIELING1 Internet: bvrieling@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca Fido: Bruce Vrieling @ 1:229/15 ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 9 Wed Dec 15, 1993 CMD-DOUG at 07:47 EST The RLE and Huffman encoding schemes certainly agree with things I read about FAX transmission a few years back. The info I posted on TIFF was basically stuff I was fed from some other sources, which I believed. Since the actual value of the number of bits per line you mentioned agrees with what those sources gave me, either they tagged it with the wrong name, or there's some other confusion. I'm no expert on TIFF, so I couldn't say if it is or isn't actually using RLE. TIFF is confusing all by itself, since it is an ever- changing format. I understand the Huffman encoding scheme, and there was a nice article on that in an old Transactor - complete with source code for the 128. As for the comment that FAX's can be printed on dot matrix printers, I don't refute that. However, consider that PC's generally have always used printers with Epson or IBM Proprinter compatibility, and that these printers have had the higher density modes to output these images. While many Commodore users also have such printers, many too have only Commodore (or compatible) printers which are capable of only 480 dots on a line... Thus my point is that to fully support the Commodore community, printing modules for a 64/128 FAX program must be capable of re-dithering the image down to a lower resolution. Doable, just more work. Finally, we're in contact with developers who are working on a FAX program for the 64 and 128. Work has been going slower than we had hoped, but it is definately being worked on. They're not feeding me every technical spec, so I apologize for the fuzzy details in my earlier post - which was more or less just intended to indicate that it was more work than John might think to put it together. ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 10 Wed Dec 15, 1993 J.SERAFINO at 20:32 EST doug, Evrything is more work than I figured. At work, I made one small change in our database code, and I've been fighting the repercussions for two weeks! Well, If you've got someone already working on FAX software, I won't bother taking it any further. I'm not an expert on telecommunications procedures, so it probably would be a lot of work. Thanks to B.Vrieling1 for his offer to help. BTW, doug, any progress on that menuette 128 bug? ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 11 Mon Jan 02, 1995 D.PHELPS1 [Tim Phelps] at 01:04 EST I've just read message 9 of this topic an noticed Doug mentioning that there's are developers working on a FAX program for the 64 and 128. Is the developer in question Maurice Randell or is (or was) it someone else? Can you say Doug, and add any more info.? ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 12 Mon Jan 02, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 13:59 EST Maurice was one, yes. There are others, but I cannot disclose who any of the others are. ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 13 Mon Jan 02, 1995 R.DAY at 20:06 EST The person that is doing Nova term will try to make a text fax program for it. I talked to him on the phone and he told me this. ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 14 Mon Jan 02, 1995 D.PHELPS1 [Tim Phelps] at 21:42 EST You mean the send module? Yes, I think Nick has mentioned this to other people, also. ;) ------------ Category 12, Topic 26 Message 15 Tue Jan 03, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 00:49 EST Supra has drafts of the original proposed specs on their BBS. The actual specs are published by the EIA, but I suspect those cost a bit. There's at least one reference book that can be purchased that has the info, but I don't have the title offhand. ------------ ************ Topic 27 Sat May 14, 1994 R.ROSENLOF [Wizardry] at 07:12 EDT Sub: CMD HD40 Verify error My HD is sending a verify error when I save a file and then use VERIFY"FILENAME",9 6 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 27 Message 1 Sat May 14, 1994 R.ROSENLOF [Wizardry] at 07:22 EDT Everything seems to work perfectly... It initializes correctly when switched on. Files load just fine. GEOS boots ok. Validate works correctly. But as stated, if I load or save a file and then check memory against HD with VERIFY"FILENAME",9 I get a VERIFY ERROR. I think I've tried just about everything... I disconnected my RAMLink and parallel cable, and stripped the system down to just a device 8 1571 and device 9 HD. Still getting the VERIFY ERROR. I use verify quite a bit while programming, so it was pretty shocking to get the error all of a sudden like that. I believe that's the first time I've *ever* seen that error... :/ I've tried it with all types of other files on other partitions and still I get the error. Suggestions, comrades? Ron :) ------------ Category 12, Topic 27 Message 2 Sun May 15, 1994 C128.JBEE at 13:23 EDT > R.ROSENLOF [Wizardry] > with VERIFY"FILENAME",9 I get a VERIFY ERROR. I tried a BASIC program in both C-64 and C-128 modes using a RamLink and CMD HD with the HD set as device #9. I encountered no problems. Whatever program you are testing might have moved the BASIC pointers up causing the verify errors. ------------ Category 12, Topic 27 Message 3 Sun May 15, 1994 R.ROSENLOF [Wizardry] at 21:23 EDT Nope, John, I don't think so. Like I said, I've tried a bunch of different programs, and one in particular that I *always* save a new version of after I've used it, and it generates the verify error as well. I'd sure like to know what's going on here, as I use my HD to save everything that's important to me. As it stands, I can't really use my system until I know it's 100% reliable... Ron :) ------------ Category 12, Topic 27 Message 4 Sun May 15, 1994 C128.JBEE at 23:54 EDT Have you tried comparing a file saved to a floppy, that VERIFY reports OK, to a file saved to the HD? If both files are the same (OK) then you have narrowed it down to few less things. If they are not the same and Fcopy reports the difference at # of bytes within the file, you might be able to figure out exactly what is wrong. ------------ Category 12, Topic 27 Message 5 Tue May 17, 1994 R.ROSENLOF [Wizardry] at 04:51 EDT Yes, I have tried that too... I had a BASIC program in memory. No ML, nothing funny, just a straight 20 block program. I saved it to the HD and then did a verify. Got an error. I saved it to my '81, verified it, came out OK. Just tonight, I tried doing some more programs, and get this, with the SAME prg in memory, sometimes the HD would say OK and other times give me a verify error! Wierd stuff, I tell ya... Out of about 10 one-after-another verify attempts, at least 7 returned an error. 2 or so came out OK. Next suggestion? Ron :) ------------ Category 12, Topic 27 Message 6 Tue May 17, 1994 C128.JBEE at 09:00 EDT I am talking about doing a byte by byte comparison using FCOPY+ or some other file comparison tool, not VERIFY from Basic, to see if the program is being corrupted. ------------ ************ Topic 28 Thu Jun 09, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 00:27 EDT Sub: CMD Hard Drive Add On Oddities Dear Doug, I've not been replied to in E-Mail, so I'll go ahead and make a post out of it. I'm terribly sorry to be redundant and a problem to you, but once I latch onto a problem I usually wont let go. 42 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 1 Thu Jun 09, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 00:33 EDT Here's an update as to whats happened. January of this year I bought a Maxtor XT-1480s 380mb 5 1/4" full height SCSI hard drive, refurbished. Had problems connecting it, contacted you voice and here on GEnie. Got my answer to look for termination problem. I discovered that it was actually the cable that was the problem. I fixed it the drive settled in nicely. Recent problem which I tried to E-Mail you about. The drive will randomly deliver SCSI error #72. Drive checks out under all diagnostics ran by the refurbisher. It was left running random read/write checks for a week without a error or problem. CMD device boots, formats, and says there are no bad blocks on the hard drive. Yet SCSI error still happens. Side note, when a "UJ" command is sent to a partition on the add on drive, the drive returns a DOS error of #41. The drive is a little too flaky for use on my board. So, I'm asking you for your help on this problem. As I said earlier, I apologise for being a continual problem concerning this, but I'm really stumped. Everything checks out with the drive as being fine, but it doesn't work reliably with the CMD host adapter. Thanks for your patience, Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 2 Thu Jun 09, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 08:49 EDT This is all pretty obscure, and we haven't got a drive like that one to test, so it isn't going to be easy to resolve this. The error when you send a UJ *might* be a DOS bug - I've passed that info on to Mark to have him test for it; but it may be a while before he can fit such testing into his schedule since he's backed up at least a couple of weeks on everything else he has to do. In the end though, I doubt we'll be able to get you any kind of useful answer on the 72 error without having the drives in-house to analyse. It could be a SCSI reset related problem, but that's impossible to tell without first- hand analysis; and generally the only way to fix such a problem is to have Mark tweak the DOS and boot ROM code, something that takes a couple days of research and experimentation; probably not a likely scenario for a drive that's no longer produced. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 3 Fri Jun 10, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 00:27 EDT Yes, its a pretty old drive and you're not likely to run across many of them. I'm just hopeful that I might of overlooked something, and you might be able to give a suggestion. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 4 Fri Jun 10, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 01:49 EDT I did some checking to today and talked with Mark about it some. The error on UJ isn't a bug, and is a further indication of probable incompatibilities with SCSI reset. About the only thing you could try that stands a chance of making it work right would be to get the latest HD DOS and boot ROM - last update was a couple of weeks ago, and depending on how old your current ones are, the latest may work with one or more different varients of SCSI reset conditions. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 5 Fri Jun 10, 1994 G.NOGGLE [Greg] at 03:04 EDT Doug I bought my HD about a year ago. Is it worth the hassle for me to upgrade my HD boot rom and Dos.? Otherwise what different? Thanks Greg ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 6 Fri Jun 10, 1994 THE.OUTLAW at 06:17 EDT Doug, I just recieved an 80mg HD with DOS 1.47 I'm trying to upgrade to 1.86 and having followed both the instructions in the manual and on screen with the HD utilities, I cannot rewrite the DOS. With LLFORMAT, it seems to go by WAY to quickly and only reformats the partitions. Then running the CREAT SYS 128 it goes thru the motions and after writing the partion table (3rd item?) I get CHECKSUM ERROR. ANd if I load & Run REwrite DOS 128, I instantly get CHECKSUM ERROR. Is there something I'm not doing right? BTW, I did not get a HD Utilities disk with the HD, I d/l'd the programs from the LIB. Thanx for the Help :> ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 7 Fri Jun 10, 1994 THE.OUTLAW at 16:51 EDT Nevermind Doug.. I figured out my problem.. On the Utilities Disk I didn't scratch the System Header file and replace it with the header that came with the new DOS. I didn't realize that the new DOS comes with a new system header. Anyways, things are working just fine! :> ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 8 Fri Jun 10, 1994 C128-QT.PIE at 17:59 EDT Congratulations on the new HD, Cam!!! ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 9 Fri Jun 10, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 22:23 EDT What is the current version of the HD ROM, and what is the current version of DOS? Thanks, Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 10 Sat Jun 11, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 06:21 EDT Yep, there are actually 3 files that have to be replaced whenever you get a new HD DOS... HDOS Vx.xx, SYSTEM HEADER, and GEOS/HD Vx.xx. Current HD DOS is 1.88, which Mark created about 2 weeks ago. I'll have to check on the boot ROM version number, but it was last upgraded 2 weeks ago as well, at the same time the DOS was. This last upgrade was to resolve SCSI reset problems with a current drive model, and I believe it was a Maxstor 290 MB 3.5' drive. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 11 Sat Jun 11, 1994 THE.OUTLAW at 12:29 EDT Doug, With use of a parallel cable, just how much faster does the RL speed up the HD? I looked at the d/load time between the 2 with a file that was 72 yModem packets and the difference was 10 seconds. The HD took 7.42 minutes and the RL 6.33 Thanx :> ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 12 Sat Jun 11, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 14:30 EDT I'd guess that the difference would be split approximately in half. Generally speaking, the HD operates about twice as fast with parallel as it does under JiffyDOS serial. What you have to keep in mind in this particular example you presented is just how much time is actual disk access time and how much isn't? For example, if actual disk access time takes up only 25 percent of the time a program is doing something, and if you then operate parallel, then your savings would only be something like 12 percent of the overall time the program operates (half the disk access time). ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 13 Sat Jun 11, 1994 THE.OUTLAW at 14:50 EDT ok great! Thanx Doug, I was curious... I have the cable being sent to me. :> ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 14 Sun Jun 12, 1994 W.WILEY2 [COYOTE] at 02:35 EDT Hello, folks. A few questions re: hooking up a SCSI drive (set up for an IBM compatible) to my HD-20. My manual (pg. 2.5) says Mac SCSI's have same pinout connections as the HD. Can I simply use the 50 pin ribbon with this drive (Quantum 80 meg Oct.1993) and use a connecter that converts the 50 pin connecter to a 25 pin female to plug into the CMD HD? By the way, perhaps the reason I have the 50 pin connecter in the first place is due to the use of an internal drive to which I have added a case & pwr supply. next Q: Do I need (or would I benefit from) the briefly mentioned SCSI controller? This is the only add-on drive I expect to get. Next Q: I gather from the brief text in manual that I need to change jumper on new drive to device 1. Is that correct? Next Q: Manual says I need to LL format the new drive- Appendix pg A-11 says LLformat 'will destroy all data on the hd.' Am I correct that is only refering to the new drive- the program will NOT touch the first drives' contents? ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 15 Sun Jun 12, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 09:12 EDT You may have trouble finding a cable that converts directly from a 50-pin header to a DB-25, but they do exist for this purpose. Often when you buy an external case from a Mac supplier, it will generally come with a cable that will at least bring the drive connections out to a connector on the rear panel. This connector is generally either a DB-25 or a Centronics 50, and the latter of those is easily adapted with very common Mac SCSI System cables. Not sure what you mean about getting a SCSI controller... the CMD HD has the only controller you need for running an add-on drive. The SCSI ID of the drive built in to the CMD HD is 0, and the 'host' controller in the HD has a SCSI ID of 7. That leaves numbers 1 through 6 open for add-on's. You can use any number in that range; SCSI doesn't care, so long as there aren't two devices using the same number. LLFORMAT lets you choose which SCSI device you want to format, so as long as you don't choose device 0, you won't be formatting the main drive. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 16 Mon Jun 13, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 22:40 EDT I called up CMD today and ordered a new copy of the DOS and the boot ROM. I own a Maxtor drive, so hopefully the reset problems this revision of the DOS is designed to fix will also work on my Maxtor drive. At any rate, we shall see, I'll let you guys know how it goes. Also, I was wondering. I have a sort of custom case I built. Its basically a PC case, with the hard drive in it, a power supply and the 50 pin to Centronics 50 pin connector (which then gets connected to a Centronics 50 pin to DB25 pin connector for the back of the hard drive. I'm picking up a lot of RF noise from this case. It's an all metal case, so it should do that. Any suggestion as to how I can dampen the noise down to a dull roar? Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 17 Tue Jun 14, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 21:28 EDT Difficult to say how to cut down on the noise. There are various ways that noise can be transmitted, but once it is, it's hard to block. But before I go further, why don't you explain what effects you are seeing as a result; that will help me pinpoint any useful tips. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 18 Tue Jun 14, 1994 S.EYRSE [steve] at 21:53 EDT Is your "case" grounded out? Buy that I mean have you run a wire from a Clean Bright scraped area with a screw in it to the "system" ground on the cable. Paint will keep you from getting a good ground. If the case isn't grounded you get no sheilding. In fact it could act as a ant. and pick up RF (radio freq.) fields from all over. I live in a high air traffic area and have had my monitor fritzz. when jets fly over the house due to their radar. I also ran into probs. with my 1581 drives when I put them under my monitor. Had to put a extra sheild to clean that up. Check the grounds.. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 19 Fri Jun 17, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 23:56 EDT Well, the noise is generated in the AM section of the radio. Every 20 khz or so there's a big blank out where you can't receive anything. Which ground would I need to check? Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 20 Tue Jun 21, 1994 S.EYRSE [steve] at 01:11 EDT AH let me read what I just buffered..to see where the AM fits in,..most putters and TV's work in the FM and higher but there are ways to sheild them out ...Some times just a resistor and cap,.in the line will do it.. 20 khtz is rather low on the spectrem might be just cross talk from the monitor..TRY foil under or over the drive as a "screen" won't look nice but if it works..then put some inside.. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 21 Fri Jun 24, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 23:00 EDT Okay, I'll give the "foil meathod" a try. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 22 Thu Jun 30, 1994 THE.OUTLAW at 23:40 EDT I just came across something rather odd... Is there a reason the HD Tools do not work when you have a Parallel Cable hooked into the RamLink? I just recently changed 128D's and wasn't sure if it was that or the configuration of my system, but after shutting off or turning on everything I finally decided to unplug the cable and then I was able to use the HD tolls to create a new partition. Is this something than can be corrected thru the DOS? Current version installed is 1.86 Thanx for any help! :> ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 23 Fri Jul 01, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 00:53 EDT If you read your RAMLink Manual, you'll notice that this is mentioned in section 2 (Getting Started) under the heading 'HD Parallel Hookup'. When the HD is placed in INSTALL or CONFIGURATION modes, the only active DOS is that provided in the Boot ROM, which does not support parallel operation. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 24 Fri Jul 01, 1994 THE.OUTLAW at 06:00 EDT Oh! I missed that ! Thanx Doug :> ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 25 Sat Jul 09, 1994 M.BENDURE at 23:03 EDT Doug, Here's one for ya. :) I have a fellow that is having problems with his HD- 20 overheating. He replaced it with a 30 Meg and the problem persists. He also keeps getting SCSII errors, he thinks, due to the overheating. I guess my question would be; have you heard of this before? Could it be related to the power supply or would it be the controller itself? I realize its hard to tell these things without seeing the drive in front of you. I was just curious if you've heard this one yet? ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 26 Sat Jul 09, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 23:58 EDT Might be the power connector, or one of the cables inside the drive. But since there aren't any NEW 30 meg drives around, it's always possible that he' replaced a bad drive with a bad drive. Wouldn't be the first time I've seen that happen either. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 27 Sun Jul 10, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 23:11 EDT As to drive overheating, I actually purchased a fan from CMD. I'm not sure if these fans are still available or if it was something custom created for me to get me off the back of those at CMD (yes, I'm a regular caller) ;) But, it should be easy to construct another fan similar to the one that's in my box. It basically looks like a CPU fan or a very small micro-fan, with a connector that allows it to connect piggyback on the drive power Then fan itself is on an L-bracket and is mounted in the front of the unit. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 28 Mon Jul 11, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 23:21 EDT I believe we do keep these fans in stock, but I don't know offhand what is charged for the kit. Best to check with the Sales dept. on that. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 29 Wed Nov 30, 1994 W.WILEY2 at 19:00 EST I'd like to find program to let me know how much space is used on HD + add-on drive, and show how much is available. None of supplied files seem to show this. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 30 Wed Nov 30, 1994 W.WILEY2 at 19:02 EST Hey there, all! I am wondering if any of the CMD software in the libraries is able to show how I am doing with space on my HD 20 + an add-on drive. I followed all the setup instructions, including the LLformat, and would like some feedback from the system, i.e., a showing of how much is allocated for existing partitions, and space available for further partitioning. I seem to recall such a showing, but maybe it was the 'drive info' program. That program only shows info for the first drive, and seems to ignore the add-on drive info and storage capacity. The manual shows no instruction on how to send SCSI request for that info. On another point, is pin 26 from scsi drives (labeled as'terminator power') supposed to be connected to any pinout from the DB25 from the HD? Thanks for any help, smarties! ;] Will ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 31 Wed Nov 30, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 23:16 EST The only place where you'll see available blocks is in HD-TOOLS, when you enter the CREATE option. As far as I know, no, there is no other program to show you this, and no programs that show total system blocks or blocks allocated to partitions. These are, however, subjects which will be covered in our SCSI Magic series of articles in Commodore World Magazine. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 32 Thu Dec 01, 1994 W.WILEY2 at 00:39 EST thanks,Doug! I knew I'd seen that info somewhere.... /s ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 33 Fri Dec 02, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 05:20 EST Ah, I got a new one for you Doug. I recently bought a used CMD HD case (without HD), and a RAMLink with 0mb (but with RAM card) for $140. The previous owner of this equipment stripped the machines for outfitting his Amiga. I got the RAMLink working pretty good with a 1mb SIMM. 1) Can I order a new hard drive case? There is nothing wrong with the host adapter, power supply, or front controls, just the previous owner seriously mangled the case when he attempted to open it without relizing that there are "secret" screws holding the machine together. 2) Do you have any information on how to get a Quantum PRODrive LPS 120mb hard drive to go with a CMD? Currently its set as SCSI device 6, and I don't think you can actually use it like that with the CMD. Doesn't it have to be 0 to boot from? Also, the LLFormat program doesn't seem to desire to format the drive. Both of these tendencies make me think its time to return the mechanism, but hopefully you might have some info. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 34 Sat Dec 03, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 02:42 EST I believe you can order the case from CMD Sales. Check with them directly on that. I've heard before that the Quantum Pro series (which is now old, btw) has some oddity with the SCSI format command. Talked to someone once who said he had one and that it formatted fine the first time, but after that it would just return immeiately after the format command was issued. They may have some kind of flag to avoid accidental formatting. Yes, the drive must be set to SCSI device 0 in order to be able to install and boot HD-DOS. Jumpers labeled A0, A1 and A2 on the drive should all be removed to set the address to 0. If you're buying this as a 'new' drive, then yes, I'd return it. It's an old model that Quantum no longer makes, so far as I know. And the newer drives don't have the format command quirk, run cooler, are smaller in height, faster, and will probably last longer. ------------ ************ Topic 28 Thu Jun 09, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 00:27 EDT Sub: CMD Hard Drive Add On Oddities Dear Doug, I've not been replied to in E-Mail, so I'll go ahead and make a post out of it. I'm terribly sorry to be redundant and a problem to you, but once I latch onto a problem I usually wont let go. 42 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 34 Sat Dec 03, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 02:42 EST I believe you can order the case from CMD Sales. Check with them directly on that. I've heard before that the Quantum Pro series (which is now old, btw) has some oddity with the SCSI format command. Talked to someone once who said he had one and that it formatted fine the first time, but after that it would just return immediately after the format command was issued. They may have some kind of flag to avoid accidental formatting. Yes, the drive must be set to SCSI device 0 in order to be able to install and boot HD-DOS. Jumpers labeled A0, A1 and A2 on the drive should all be removed to set the address to 0. If you're buying this as a 'new' drive, then yes, I'd return it. It's an old model that Quantum no longer makes, so far as I know. And the newer drives don't have the format command quirk, run cooler, are smaller in height, faster, and will probably last longer. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 35 Sat Dec 03, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 04:01 EST Well, the nice part of this story is that when I removed the jumpers the hard drive was able to have its system installed on it. As to the llformat quirk, do you know where I could reach Quantum to ask about this little difficulty. It might be easy to patch the LLFormat program to recognise the drive and send the correct flag for formatting. As to 'new' drive, I purchase the drive as "new" as in "never used." Appearently, its not the latest model of drive, but if I can fix the LLformat problem, I see no reason to return the drive. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 36 Sun Dec 04, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 23:45 EST I don't have the Quantum info here, but I'll check around at work. If I recall, the only time we spoke with them directly, we got someone who could barely speak english. This seems to be the rule with most computer hardware companies anymore. "Hello, Tech Support? Say, do you have someone there who can speak english?" Now, this isn't a dig at folks who don't speak english, but I just don't think such folks should be your only source of trying to resolve computer-related problems. I mean, it's tough enough without a language barrier. ::sigh:: ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 37 Mon Dec 05, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 02:33 EST If you could check on it for me, or at least give me the info on how to reach Quantum I'd really be appreciative. I had heard a rumor from Brian Bell (OMNI 128 author), who said that some Quantums were unformattable. I mean, literally, the only way to format them was to return them to the factory. If this is indeed true, then I'm returning this drive. If not, then perhaps there will be some patch that can be made to the llformat program, or perhaps a new llformat program could be written specifically to address this drive. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 38 Thu Jan 05, 1995 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 08:52 EST The saga of the Maxtor XT-1480s hard drive continues: Guess what I found, Doug? Your latest version of the HD boot ROM, V2.72 is incompatible with my Maxtor hard drive. When I replace the HD ROM with the earlier version, V2.68, the hard drive responds normally. I get a SCSI Error 8 on the add drive program, and a SCSI Device Not Ready error on the llformat program when I use the latest ROM. However, the earlier ROM does work normally with the Maxtor, with both my Seagate ST1096-N and my Quantum ProDrive LPS as the primary drives (SCSI-0), not at the same time of course just that the Maxtor works as an add-on drive with both those hard drives as long as I have the earlier ROM installed. I just thought that I'd let you know. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 39 Fri Jan 06, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 07:03 EST Wonderful. Ack! Not that I'm suprised much that this could happen. The new version did make some radical changes to how things work in order to make it work with a wider range of drives; but doing so always carries with it the risk of losing compatibility with some of the more strange implementations that have come and gone. Unfortunately, about the only way we would be able to get the compatibility back would be if we had one here to test, which we do not. All I can do at this point with this info is add the drive to the list of incompatible ones. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 40 Sat Jan 07, 1995 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 01:11 EST I find that more than slightly annoying considering that you only just got it working with the last ROM revision. Whatever you did to upgrade the HD system to work with Maxtor hard drives caused my Maxtor to begin functioning with the HD. I'd send you mine to play with, but its a rather permiment part of my BBS. Please, reconsider picking up a Maxtor drive to play with, there's a lot of them about and its likely that mine isn't the only one that's been made incompatible by the latest revisions. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 41 Sat Jan 07, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 10:49 EST Doc, Is your Maxstor one of the current models? ------------ Category 12, Topic 28 Message 42 Tue Jan 10, 1995 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 07:39 EST My Maxtor is an antique. My point is that you should verify that the problems I descript do not occure in the current models. If it doesn't then I'm not concerned. I plan to just continue using this earlier version of the boot ROM which DOES work. But, I felt that if my drive has gone wrong, then there are others out there as well that have been made incompatible, and that you should be informed about it. Doc. -for a refresher my hard drive is a Maxtor XT1480-S full height 5 1/4" hard drive 17ms access time ------------ ************ Topic 30 Sun Jul 10, 1994 F.NETTLES at 17:45 EDT Sub: QLink Software Q's & A's A topic for questions and answers regarding the QLink software included with CMD hard drives. 1 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 30 Message 1 Sun Jul 10, 1994 F.NETTLES at 17:47 EDT I was referred here by CMD-Doug. I am looking for someone with the QLink software bundled with the CMD HDs. I need to get a copy with the fastload feature disabled, as distributed by CMD so it will work with their product. Any help wil be *greatly* appreciated! :) Please leave Email if possible, or reply here! Forrest ------------ ************ Topic 31 Wed Aug 17, 1994 B.GANN1 at 10:56 EDT Sub: removable media What one to get, what do I need to know 4 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 31 Message 1 Wed Aug 17, 1994 B.GANN1 at 10:59 EDT I want to use a removable media drive so that I can make backups I have an Amiga, so I was thinking about an Iomega. How would this work, and what do I need to know? (I know CMD does not sell the controllers separately. I read something that said the Iomega needed to be formatted as one partition to be used on the Amiga. Will I run into partitioning probs? Brenda ------------ Category 12, Topic 31 Message 2 Wed Aug 17, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 23:28 EDT I have no experience with the Iomega drives, but I've used a Syquest on the HD without any problems. There are a couple of catches, though. First, I'm not sure how you'll go about formatting. It may be that the current version of LLFORMAT will work, but I can't verify that for sure. I only have two cartridges, and both were formatted on a Mac before I had a chance to try the unit on the HD. To use the drive, I had to use ADD DRIVE to add it tothe system; it refused to do this until I inserted a cartridge. Again, this was already formatted, so I can't say if you'll be able to do this with an unformatted cartridge. Finally, partition information is stored on the main drive in an HD system... thus, when you add a Syquest unit and create some partitions for it, those partitions will be there even after you switch cartridges... so all your cartridges will essentially be partitioned the same way. Another quick note about partitioning: Before you ADD a removable media drive to the system, check to see how many blocks you have left on your current drive (you can do this in HD-TOOLS' Create New Partition option. I suggest that you create a partition (or partitions) to use up as much remaining space as possible. This should leave you with 255 or fewer blocks remaining on the main drive. After you add the new device to the system, create a minimum size Foreign Partition (256 blocks) to 'bridge' the area where the old drive's storage ends and the new drive's storage begins. Then go ahead and create whatever partitions you want to have on the new drive. This will avoid some problems that can pop up, including having parts of files disappear when you swap cartridges. Also, once you add ANY new drives to an HD system, you can no longer use the Partition Delete function to remove partitions from any drive but the last one in the chain. If you do, you may end up with a scrambled partition table and lose a LOT of data. ------------ Category 12, Topic 31 Message 3 Mon Sep 12, 1994 B.GANN1 at 00:57 EDT Would it be possible to use a removable drive as the ONLY drive on the system? (removing the drive in the HD case and connecting only the removable drive. Brenda ------------ Category 12, Topic 31 Message 4 Mon Sep 12, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 03:07 EDT Someone was doing that with a Syquest, but found he had to reset the drive a couple of times during boot-up to get it to boot. This is due to a different method used for SCSI reset. The very latest version of the HD Boot ROM and HD DOS might solve this, since Mark decided to take a very different approach to handling SCSI reset; but I can't verify if it fixed this particular problem until I have some time to do further testing. ------------ ************ Topic 33 Wed Aug 17, 1994 MRABOY at 19:19 EDT Sub: ZED Discussion of this text editor 6 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 33 Message 1 Wed Aug 17, 1994 MRABOY at 19:22 EDT Is anybody familiar with the text editor called Zed. It can auto-access ram expansion up to 8 megs. How do i use it with a ramlink? ------------ Category 12, Topic 33 Message 2 Mon Aug 22, 1994 J.KARN at 06:10 EDT According to Craig Bruce, ZED only supports expanded REUs, not RAMlink. It's still an extremely valuable manipulator for big files, and since you can enter control-codes, it also allows you to access all of your printer's features ( to set margins, font sizes, etc.). j.karn ------------ Category 12, Topic 33 Message 3 Mon Aug 22, 1994 H.HERMAN1 at 08:22 EDT Best thing to happen to a 128! Howie ------------ Category 12, Topic 33 Message 4 Mon Aug 22, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 20:23 EDT Craig mentions that his new version of ZED, which will be set up to run only under ACE, will extend this capability to RAMLink. Actually, ACE itself is supposed to create such support for any program that uses ACE to determine how much memory is available. Problem is, the ACE version isn't out yet. ------------ Category 12, Topic 33 Message 5 Mon Aug 22, 1994 MRABOY at 20:52 EDT What is ACE? ------------ Category 12, Topic 33 Message 6 Mon Aug 22, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 23:54 EDT ACE is an alternative operating system for the 64 and 128... similar in some respects to CS-DOS, but more like Unix than MS-DOS. If you're interested, I believe the current version of ACE can be found in the libs. ------------ ************ Topic 34 Tue Aug 30, 1994 J.SMUDA2 [The Shmoo] (Forwarded) Sub: ducktales on a CMD HD I want to play this game off my CMD hard drive 4 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 34 Message 1 Tue Aug 30, 1994 J.SMUDA2 [The Shmoo] (Forwarded) I can play it off my CMD hd if I make 4 1541 partitions, but I also noticed that I can put every single file of all four disks on one partition to boot up really really fast, but the second it ask for a disk change I got to go to one of the four 1541 partions. This is tedius. Is there a pathc out there that lets me play Ducktales off of a single HD partion instead of swapping disks? @r ------------ Category 12, Topic 34 Message 2 Fri Sep 02, 1994 CBM-MARK (Forwarded) This topic will be moved to Category 12 shortly. ------------ Category 12, Topic 34 Message 3 Sat Sep 10, 1994 R.DAY at 09:15 EDT I put ducktales on a 1581 disk a long time ago. I could not find the disk so I looked at the code again. It was easy to get the disk part to think it's one disk. Just load file "loader" If you have Super snapshot like I do, go in the monitor and type ls "loader" Make sure you on drive 8 use the swap on CMD drives. Then do: a c8f8 and 8000 it was a and ca93 then save it back out do: ss "@0:loader" 8 c000 d000 that will fix it so you can put all the files on on disk. To bypass the code you have to put in, Big so what any way you can copy there paper easy that comes with the disk. But do: ls "map" then do: a 12d5 bne 12d7 it was bne 12da. This will fix it so you don't have to look at the paper. Ducktales is a super game. on ramlink it's just like it's all in ram and it loads from the disk a lot. On my FD-4000 it loads super fast too! Ramlink is a little fast but not a lot. You my have to load the 1st program on the disk then do a swop to 8 on ramlink. My ramlink will go in some loop. I guess it's to fast on the load up and loops. I think I got all the way in this game but it's been so long I don't remember. I was just playing it and some came back :) I told about this on Q-link a long time ago that I put it on 1 1581 disk. So just let me know if it works for you. Have fun. Raymond Day ------------ Category 12, Topic 34 Message 4 Mon Sep 12, 1994 R.DAY at 21:05 EDT I have been playing it on easy. I can do all the 4 things good. At 26 days all the places on the map had been played by me and the computer. Then it locked up! I have vershion 1. Good think I had super snapshot in my RAMlink I found were it was looping and made the branch at $CCD branch to the next address. So it all ways branched in the same spot and this fixed it but I had to play around in the office to add the days to 30 and I one big. If you like to cheet and all ways win, your money is stord at $831 to $833. Three bytes in hex converted to you money in dec. It is loading on my RAMlink good. Just some times it will loop on the start up loading. But the last 5 times I booted it it booted up super from my RAMlink :) To bad programs have stoped being made for the C64. they started being made on 2 disk both sides filled. I beet if programs were still being made they would be on 1581 disk. You can get loadstar on a 1581 disk now too. The dates are there because they use a FD drive. Some day mybe you will not find were to get 1541 disk. They will all be 3.5 disk. ------------ ************ Topic 38 Sun Mar 20, 1994 N.PHI [Toto] at 05:45 EST Sub: Compression Kit Now that Creative Micro Designs handles the sale of "The Compression Kit" by MadMan Software... 10 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 1 Sun Mar 20, 1994 N.PHI [Toto] at 05:49 EST I have Version 1.04 of this powerful utility. It has been quite valuable to me, especially since I lack the patience to learn SFX'ing and such under CS- DOS or ARC... I would like to know what the the most current version is, what (if any) the improvements consist of etc. etc. Also, there is a recurring bug that causes my 1581 drives to think that the write-protect switches are open! (Within C-Kit) I must frequently send a UJ to reset both drives. ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 2 Sun Mar 20, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 21:08 EST I'm not aware of a new version as of yet, though I do know that Madman has completed a stand-alone unarchiver, and is also working on something they call 'python' compression for release in a later version. But we're strictly like a dealer when it comes to this product, so I'd suggest reporting any problems directly to Madman. ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 3 Sun Mar 20, 1994 N.PHI [Toto] at 23:14 EST AHH! I was under the impression that MadMan had simply FOLDED. But from your response, it looks like CMD is merely acting as a high-profile distributor. (Not a bad thing, really) On the stand-alone archiver called "Decomper": it is HORRIBLE! VERY slow, and only works on a SINGLE drive. In my opinion, this is the worst piece of anti- CKit propaganda that could be created - and it came from the author himself, Gene Barker! (Bad marketing decision) Too bad, because CKit really is a cool product deserving of recognition. ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 4 Mon Mar 21, 1994 J.STEPHENSO1 [Jimbo] at 00:09 EST Speaking of bad marketing decisions: I *HATE* dongles. Guess why I no longer play Leader Board... I move around fairly often (five times in the last six years) and little tiny pieces of hardware tend to disappear. Anyway (now that my spleen is vented :) ), I agree that CKit is really good. BTW, when is Messiah III ever going to come out? It's been, what, two or three years since the first mention I saw in Compute! But that's off the subject ... ;) Jimbo ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 5 Mon Mar 21, 1994 T.GOSSER1 [PowerUserMag] at 22:41 EST I talked to Gene back in January and He said that M3 for the 64 would not be released until a version for another platform was finished. Because He did not have the money to print the manual for the 64 version alone. Maybe CMD could take over the manual printing duties for him? ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 6 Tue Mar 22, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 00:08 EST On M3, no I doubt we would 'take over the manual printing duties'. The manual itself is not finished, and would too large a task to simply just do it for Madman (we're talking about a 400 page book here - not your average game manual). I've talked extensively with Gene about this matter, though, and there is a chance that something will be done to bring the M3 product to the 64 market regardless of its status in other markets. ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 7 Tue Mar 22, 1994 C128.JBEE at 04:29 EST I take delivery of new network printers in April (17ppm) that could whiz out a 400 page book on a as needed basis. ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 8 Thu Jun 09, 1994 W.WILEY2 [COYOTE] at 01:26 EDT I've been asking about the comp. kit- how much (%) compression on average do you get? For example: how much will a full 5 1/4 disk compress? Also, about how long to do the job per disk? How long to decompress? I know all you can give is approximate info, but it would help me decide about purchasing it. -Thanks for info. -Will ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 9 Thu Jun 09, 1994 CMD-DOUG at 09:05 EDT Offhand, I couldn't tell you - you'd be best off contacting Madman if you want specifics on TCK. Generally speaking, the compression seems to be approximately equivalent to the 64 version of Arc. I'm also aware that a new version of TCK is in development that will offer another compression module which will have a higher degree of compression, amoung other added features. One thing to bear in mind with compression in general - as you get into routines that offer more compression, you sacrifice time; it takes longer to get higher compression ratios. It also tends to take more resources, IOW, memory (buffer space). As to what The Compression Kit offers, it can compress individual files OR entire disks/partitions into single or multiple files, and is operated from an easy to use menu system. It also performs a complete verify of all data written to assure against problems. ------------ Category 12, Topic 38 Message 10 Fri Jun 10, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 00:31 EDT I've compressed 1541 disks from about 685 blocks (format info included) down to around 605, sometimes even 590 depending on what's on the disk. This is around 13% compression. I've heard people get as high as 16%. It depends on what you have on your disks. I'm not sure about the file compression, I've not really used that. I usually use LHARC for the 128. Doc. ------------ ************ Topic 40 Sun Nov 27, 1994 S.SHEI [Poboy] at 15:32 EST Sub: Ramlink & Geos Need help with Geopublish and Gateway 128 1 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 40 Message 1 Sun Nov 27, 1994 S.SHEI [Poboy] at 15:41 EST I am using Gateway128 on a 8Mb Ramlink with a 128D. I set up a partition for Geopublish and copied all of the files from the Geopublish disk to it. When I try to boot the Geopublish program it asks me to reboot the system using the disk I first booted Geopublish with. My Geos system is setup with everything from my 128 system. I used the 64 geos system to run Geopublish before I bought the Ramlink and Gateway128 Is there any way to make the Geopublish work with the Gateway128 on the Ramlink ? ------------ ************ Topic 41 Thu Mar 24, 1994 C.LAWSON [Golden Bear] at 23:24 EST Sub: Dialogue 128 and SwiftLink I am using Dialogue 128 and a SwiftLink interface with a Compudyne 14400 fax/modem. I can't find the right set-up for Genie. 9 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 41 Message 1 Thu Mar 24, 1994 C.LAWSON [Golden Bear] at 23:33 EST My set-up that I am using is 8-N-1, ASCII mode, Local Echo=on, Flow Control=XON/XOFF, Baud=2400 (or 4800 -tried both), Transmit Mode=Stream, Transmit Delays= 1 (1/100 sec). When I connect, and send three [RETURNS], I don't get the system prompt for User #. I have not had any trouble connecting to the local BBS's at speeds from 2400 to 14400 and don't have any trouble using BobsTerm Pro 128 (using that now). I had the same problem with DesTerm, never could log on to Genie using it either. Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions :) ------------ Category 12, Topic 41 Message 2 Fri Mar 25, 1994 CBM-ED [e.g.bell] at 04:29 EST GB: GB> When I connect, and send three [RETURNS], I don't get the GB> system prompt for User # When you connect, send the string 'hhhhh' and don't send any RETURNs. You could probably get by without the former if you skipped the latter. :) At least it used to be that if you didn't send the 'hhhhh', GEnie would eventually make an assumption, but I think it is the carriage returns that are hurting you. When I log on here at 1200 baud (from work), I send 'hhh' and no RETURN. Try that. :) Finally, I'm sure this message/reply belongs somewhere else, but for right this moment I can't quite figure where. :) ------------ Category 12, Topic 41 Message 3 Sat Mar 26, 1994 C.LAWSON [Golden Bear] at 20:39 EST ED> Send the string 'hhhh' Ed, thanks for the information, I'll try it as soon as I can get my swiftlink connected back up and log back on next time. I wasn't exactly sure where to post this either, but figured since I got both SwiftLink and Dialogue from CMD, this was as good a place as any. ------------ Category 12, Topic 41 Message 4 Sun Nov 20, 1994 L.SCHONDER [C128.LOU] at 10:49 EST D.BELTER - If you are handy with a soldering iron, can work your way around circuit boards, handle boards in a static-safe manner, and follow moderately technical instructions, you CAN use your Swiftlink and 17XX REU at the same time with a Ramlink! With Dialogue 128, you can do ALL that Doug mentioned, AND use your REU for a GREAT text buffer! At 512K, you can either have eight 800 line buffers, or a massive 6400 line buffer! (You would need "ZED128" to edit the large buffer) This mod is NOT for the faint hearted!!! You can also say "Bye-bye" to your warranties! Outlaw, did you buffer the text I wrote to you in the RTC that night? If so, can you E-mail it to me? :) ------------ Category 12, Topic 41 Message 5 Mon Nov 28, 1994 S.SHEI [Poboy] at 22:23 EST I just bought the Aprotek modem adaptor and cable to connect a Racal-Vadic model 2400PA modem to my 128D. I am using Dialouge 128 and I set it for Heyes compatibility but I can't get it to dial out or even respond at all. I don't have a manual for the modem so I'm pretty lost and I don't know how to go about setting it up. There are several lights on the front with the following letters ER, TXD, RXD, HS, CTS, DSR, DTR, RI, CXR The HS and DTR lights were on when I tried to use it. It also has a touch keypad on the front with the following keys; RESET, DATA VOICE, ANS ORG, 1200BPS, 300BPS, REDIAL LOCAL DLB, ALB, REMOTE DLB, SELF TEST This is an old modem that was used at work to hook up the old MicroVax computer to the software maint. service. When we junked the MicroVax I brought it home to use on my Commie. ------------ Category 12, Topic 41 Message 6 Wed Nov 30, 1994 H.HERMAN1 at 17:03 EST A Racal-Vadic modem is not Hayes command compatible. I doubt if Dialogue included a Racal modem file. Therefore none of Dialogue's auto features can be accessed. You will have to use the modem manully, direct from terminal mode. Howie ------------ Category 12, Topic 41 Message 7 Fri Dec 02, 1994 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 05:27 EST I used to use a Racal-Vadic modem with Atex 500 remote terminals. Atex manufactures computers that are used in newspaper editing/publishing. What we used to do would be to manually dial the modem, then switch the modem on-line manually. I can't remember the name of the switch, but I can remember doing it like it was yesterday. I think it might of been the answer/originate switch. At any rate, doing this would cause the modem to go on-line and the Atex 500 would happily talk to its mainframe back at the newspaper. The old Atex 500's were fun, but very outdated when I took over their care and feeding in the late 80's. I remember the modems were nothing, but trouble since someone at the newspaper always set the Racal-Vadic modem connected to one of the Atex mainframe terminals to the wrong mode. Anyways, hope this might help, sorry I can't be more precise. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 41 Message 8 Tue Dec 20, 1994 C128.JBEE at 06:52 EST I have used a Racal-Vadic modem myself and it is not the ideal modem to use, but better than not having one! They were fine, high quality modems, but as Howie noted they were not Hayes compatible and were designed for main frame DEC enviroments and not personal computer use. They are Class A devices and as such may cause interference in a home enviroment or drive your neighbors crazy ;) That being said, there should be general instructions on the bottom of the modem for the various escape commands you need to dial out, there were on the one I used. Your best bet for a manual might be to post a "help wanted" topic in the database RT on page 485 or type DBMS from any system prompt. A post in the IBM RT asking for a manual would not hurt. ------------ Category 12, Topic 41 Message 9 Wed Dec 21, 1994 H.HERMAN1 at 07:03 EST JBEE, Some of this stuff is coming back to me: I seem to recall that the R-V has a built in help screen, or maybe it is nothing more than the Hayes equivalent of an &V. Not sure now, since it has been so long. Not even sure how to access it..... Maybe it is with the slash, "/"? You might just try experimenting. I did find some old settings I used to send to the remote R-V's: set 0:0,57:1,63:0 set 2:0,4:2 Again, this was so long ago I have no idea why I sent these things, or what they do, but at the time it made the R-V's run the way I wanted. Howie ------------ ************ Topic 43 Sun Jan 01, 1995 E.WILLIAMS43 at 02:48 EST Sub: geocable I was wondering if one could use a switch box w/ the Gcable so one could switch from parallel to serial.also,I use the 8pin3pass printdriver which is really good but slow, Does the Perfectprint have as good as results--ideally I would li 4 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 43 Message 1 Sun Jan 01, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 22:37 EST Sure, you can use a switchbox - I assume you mean a Centronics A/B type box on the printer end of the cable. Part of your second question didn't make it... when starting a new category, you should save your questions for the first message, instead of trying to put them in the category header. But I think I got the gist of what you're asking. While the Epson8pin3pass driver certainly does give excellent reslts, I believe that Perfect Print does even better. While Perfect Print does support the geoCable, you may not see much of a speed increase using it, because the speed advantages of using geoCable are minimal on 9-pin printers(about 15 percent or so), and the extra steps Perfect Print goes through may nullify that increase when compared to a multi-pass serial printer driver. ------------ Category 12, Topic 43 Message 2 Sat Jan 07, 1995 C.MATTER at 21:39 EST Doug, I just got the GEO cable from CMD but don't know what or how to hook it up?It didn't come with any instructions or a way to hook it up to my 64/128. Any and all help would be great. Cliff Matter ------------ Category 12, Topic 43 Message 3 Sat Jan 07, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 21:49 EST Is this geoCable II? It should come with a disk and instructions. If you didn't get one or either of these itms, call CMD and let them know so that they can be forwarded to you immediately. ------------ Category 12, Topic 43 Message 4 Sun Jan 08, 1995 C.MATTER at 22:26 EST cmd-doug, Yes its the new cable(just got it jan 6). I will call tomorro. Thanks for the help C Matter ------------ ************ Topic 44 Mon Jan 23, 1995 H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] at 22:34 EST Sub: Aprotek User Port Extension Cable A place to put your questions and comments on the Aprotek User Port Extension Cable. 11 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 1 Mon Jan 23, 1995 H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] at 22:40 EST Doug, I have used the Aprotek User Port Extension Cable with my RAMLink and geoRAM quite successfully so that I can let the REU lay down and not stick up out of the RAMLink. However, I would like to know if the cable could be used with the SwiftLink for the same reason. Why I am asking is because I am about to buy myself a new computer desk where I can have the keyboard slide under the desktop surface and I would like the RAMLink assembly to slide under with the C-64. BTW, the cable also works with the geoRAM and the C-64 in the user port without the RAMLink as well. I know Aprotek said it should not be used with a REU (as it will not work with the C-1764 REU), but the geoRAM worked beautifully with it. --Harold ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 2 Tue Jan 24, 1995 H.HERMAN1 at 05:47 EST Harold, The Extension cable works fine with SwiftLink. I used to have my sys set up that way. (Now, everything plugs directly into RAMLink.) And the length of the cable is not critical, as is the case with some REU's. The nice thing about that cable is that its length can be so easilly adjusted, by just sniping the cable. Howie ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 3 Tue Jan 24, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 23:14 EST Well, the official take on this is that there's no guarantee whether an extension cable will work on anything at all. If your computer has strong signals with decent timing, then chances are it will. Otherwise, not. ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 4 Sat Jan 28, 1995 H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] at 09:39 EST Thanks for the info Howie. Now I can get my Swiftlink to lay down. :) But I am going to have to wait for that as my RAMcard is being fixed and I'm now using my 1764 REU plugged into the ram port and it likes to stand up. :[( ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 5 Sun Feb 05, 1995 J.HUFTALEN at 14:55 EST I've read the comments in this topic and I think somehow I'm missing something. Aren't the Swiftlink, Reu's and Ramlink attached to the cartridge port and not the user port? Isn't tthis cable incompatable with the cartridge port since it's a user port extension cable? I'M Lm looking for an extension cable that would allow me to use the Swiftlink from the ramlink in a horizontal aspect. Please forgive me if I'm being dumb; could you shed some light for me? Thanks...JOHNH ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 6 Sun Feb 05, 1995 H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] at 21:26 EST Yes, John, you are missing something. the Aprotek extension cable is attached to the cartridge port and not the user port. That's why I asked Doug if the cable was compatible with the Swiftlink as I want to keep my SL from having to stick up when I get a new computer desk that allows the motherboard to slide under the tabletop surface. If you got a copy of the old Tenex catalog you will get an excellent description of the extaension cable. And if you read my original post, you will see that I said I used the geoRAM with the cable successfully. --Harold ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 7 Tue Feb 14, 1995 J.HUFTALEN at 15:41 EST Well, Harold, i got a hold of the extension cable and both of the ends fit only in the user port and with my Omnitronix rs-232 interface. I purchased it from CMD. Are there adapters that I need to buy to make it work with the cartridge port or did I buy the wrong thing? Thanks for your help, JOHN ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 8 Sat Feb 18, 1995 H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] at 18:42 EST John, one end of the cable should have 22 "teeth" on it, just like the part of the REU that you plug into the commodore at the RAM port and the other end should be an open female version of this (which look like the part at your RAM port that you plug your REU, RAMLink and cartridges into). This extension cable should NOT be plugged into the user port where you plug the Commodore type modems or RS-232 adaptors into as there is only 12 "teeth" on this. You probably are using it the wrong way. --Harold ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 9 Mon Feb 20, 1995 J.HUFTALEN at 22:22 EST Thanks again for your help, Harold. The cable that I received from CMD is definitely not the one you are describing. It has a female end that has 12 "slots" and a male end that has twelve "pins". When I ordered, was I to have specified that I wanted to use a REU with it, and they would have retrofitted it with the appropriate ends or did I order the wrong thing? The only cable they have listed is an Aprotek User Port Extension Cable for $19.00. Thanks again, JOHN ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 10 Wed Feb 22, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 18:18 EST The Aprotek User Port Extension cable is just that: an extension cable for the User Port - not the Expansion (cartridge) Port. The latter was once available from Tenex, but is no longer so. ------------ Category 12, Topic 44 Message 11 Sun Feb 26, 1995 H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] at 22:31 EST I was afraid you would say that Doug, as the Extension Port cable that I have is busted. I'm going to check the local computer stores and Radio Shack to see if I can find either the parts to fix it or a similar cable. I'll let you know. --Harold ------------ ************ Φ8å9å Topic 46 Sun Mar 05, 1995 W.HALL24 (Forwarded) Sub: Electronic Arts on CMD F-2000 How can I transfer this?!? I've got a number of EA games that I want to put on my CMD 2K but don't have the right program!!! Did that copy? Anyway, putting EA on CMD 2K. I've tried everything, short of finding illegal, stripped copies 11 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 1 Sun Mar 05, 1995 W.HALL24 (Forwarded) Sorry, haven't been a user here very long... I don't understand the mese base. I need help!!! ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 2 Mon Mar 06, 1995 E.GBELL [e.g.bell] (Forwarded) WH: This message base is a collection of categories with a sub-collection of topics. The topic cops try to keep things in their respective categories, tho that is not always possible. Open the buffer in your term program and type 'INDEX' and you will get a list of all of the categories and all of the topics in each one. That is the fastest way to get a comprehensive list. To get to a specific category, the command is 'set #' where # is the desired category. You can then reply to any topic in the category by either reading the message and replying when asked if you want to or by using the 'REP #' ommand, where # is the topic to which you want to reply. Did that make any sense? Documentation is not my strong suit! :) ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 3 Tue Mar 07, 1995 D.BELTER at 03:53 EST Documentation is never a strong suit for a programmer. :) I think it inversely proportional to the programmer skill. ;) Enough of that, to the topic at hand. EA games were some of the most heavly copy protected games on the market, and I have yet to find a way to transfering a Copy Protected game to a FD2000 disk! If you own the program you are entitled to backup program, says right on the package! If you can find an old program called Di-Sector III, you can backup all EA programs up to Lords of Conquest. Past that, you would have to use a parameter from Maverick or Fast Hack'em. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO CONDONE OR SUPPORT PIRACY!!! But I do like having Mule on a FD2000 disk, it normally takes a couple minutes to load, the original version but from the FD version, it takes only 11 section per section. (BTW I have two MULEs and host of other EA games, I got most from a Garage Sale about a year for $0.05 apiece!!) ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 4 Sat Mar 25, 1995 W.HALL24 at 22:18 EST Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you guys. I finally figured out how to use the message system here. You see, I'm used to Wildcat and Spi and those types of ANSI boards, since I have Novaterm and Swiftlink. I'm glad the original message got shifted to the right area. As for the EA games, one of the tech workers at CMD told me to try the Action Replay cart. (which I already own) or Snapshot cart. to freeze (ok........) the program in memory and save it, but what about hidden files and multiple disks?!? I'll have to give it a shot, or learn what EA did and try to undo it. And another thing (though this is slightly off-topic), why is there no ssingle- drive copier for the FD series of drives?!? Do you know how absolutely annoying it is to have to copy from FD to 1571 and back again?!? I was going to try to construct a prg by combining FCopy and another single drive copier, but FCopy evidently is ML!!! BTW, I need to get in touch with Doug (Cotton) and figure out what I need to do to be entitled to use the CMD private areas. I own three CMD devices, planning on two more in the immediate future. I'm not sure if I registered (?!?) these things or not... Sorry I babbled... William ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 5 Sun Mar 26, 1995 B.MASSE [BIG BOB] at 09:41 EST >And another thing (though this is slightly off-topic), why is there no ssingle->drive copier for the FD series of drives?!? Do you know how absolutely >annoying it is to have to copy from FD to 1571 and back again?!? I was going The only utility I am aware of that will allow single drive copying on the FD drive is Madman's Compression Kit. This copy problem was my only complaint about the FD series drives, But since I have a RamLink it's not that big a bother to copy. It would drive me nuts to have to copy to a 1571 and back again. >BTW, I need to get in touch with Doug (Cotton) and figure out what I need to >do to be entitled to use the CMD private areas. I own three CMD devices, You need to leave Email to CMD-Doug (Doug Cotton of CMD) and list the devices you have along with serial numbers on the units. Bob P.S. to send email , type MAIL at the prompt. ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 6 Sun Mar 26, 1995 W.HALL24 at 15:59 EST Ok. Thank you for the info. I guess I'll have to find $40 for the compression kit. What else is included in that package, do you know? I absolutely HATE to shell out money for something, then find out I can't use it... Where are the serial numbers on the Swift-link and Jiffy-Dos? William ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 7 Sun Mar 26, 1995 B.MASSE [BIG BOB] at 18:23 EST > What else is included in that package, do you know? I William.. The compression kit consists of: FileMaster ProCopy Archiver 1541 disk boa 1571 diskboa 1581 disk boa CMD native boa Mad Man Software 1400 East College Drive Cheyenne, Wy. 82007 Bob ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 8 Wed Mar 29, 1995 W.HALL24 at 22:44 EST I can also order that through CMD, correct? ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 9 Fri Mar 31, 1995 S.SHEI [Poboy] at 19:58 EST I use the Ckit for most of my copying and also to backup my 8 Meg Ramlink to a FD2000. The program works great. The only thing I don't like is having to insert the dongle (security key) into the joystick port #1 everytime I use it. ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 10 Sun Apr 02, 1995 D.TUOMI [Doctor] at 19:49 EDT I've had pretty good luck with the CKit myself. But, I have had trouble with the compression. Particularly the CMD native BOA. When I tried to compress my BBS's RAMLink partition the file corrupted for no particular reason. Since I was reading from the RAMLink and writing to the hard drive, nothing should of gone wrong. But, when the restore was turned on, the program reported that tracks were corrupted. Very strange. Otherwise, for all the copy functions, etc., the program has worked great for me. Doc. ------------ Category 12, Topic 46 Message 11 Tue Apr 04, 1995 C128.JBEE at 16:46 EDT There is a single drive file copier that will work on any type disk drive on an upcoming (#38) TC-128/64 disk. ------------ ************ Topic 47 Mon Mar 27, 1995 H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] at 21:37 EST Sub: Timeworks products We can use this area to discuss Timework products for the C-64/128. 7 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 12, Topic 47 Message 1 Mon Mar 27, 1995 H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] at 21:40 EST Hey, Doug, I just saw information in the Timeworks RTC that Timeworks went out of business last summer. Is this true? Why I am asking is because I am trying to find a printer driver to use either WW4 (Word Writer 4) or WW6 with a laser printer and I seem to be running into a stone wall. --Harold ------------ Category 12, Topic 47 Message 2 Tue Mar 28, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 01:19 EST It's true, yes. Timeworks is history. ------------ Category 12, Topic 47 Message 3 Wed Mar 29, 1995 J.THOMPSO122 [JIMBOB51] at 20:05 EST >Commodore RoundTable >Category 12, Topic 47 >Message 2 Tue Mar 28, 1995 >CMD-DOUG at 01:19 EST > >It's true, yes. Timeworks is history. >---------- >Are you going to buy any of their products I would realy like to see some updates on their 128 stuff. Jimbob;] PS I just uploaded a template for Swiftcalc 128 to do 1994 taxes. W2,1040,Schedual A, are all on one sheet you just need your regular tax book to look up some figures to insert. A small bonus I also included MD state tax form that is filled in as you go. Anyone please Email me any comments or questions. File 16927 TAX94.SFX Jimbob;] ------------ Category 12, Topic 47 Message 4 Wed Mar 29, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 23:49 EST No, we talked to them about taking over some of their product line around a year and a half ago. They wanted way too much for the 64 stuff, and wouldn't even discuss the 128 stuff. We didn't persue it any further after that, and then they died about 6 months later. ------------ Category 12, Topic 47 Message 5 Sat Apr 01, 1995 H.STEVENS5 [HaroldOH] at 07:26 EST Have you guys thought about contacting the attorneys who are handling their bankruptcy legal affairs to see if your company can purchase the software rights. After all, I'm sure Timeworks' creditors would love to see some kind of cash flowing in, even if it is a little bit. --Harold ------------ Category 12, Topic 47 Message 6 Sat Apr 01, 1995 CMD-DOUG at 16:25 EST No, we haven't tried tracing things back, but I'm not aware that they went bankrupt, either. It would probably take weeks to track down this stuff, as it will depend on how their contracts were worded... sometimes rights revert back to authors after a certain number of years, and tracking down each individual author could be darn near impossible. Even finding someone who knows how their contracts were set up could prove tough. ------------ Category 12, Topic 47 Message 7 Tue Apr 04, 1995 C128.JBEE at 16:48 EDT The trouble with the C-128 software, from what I could gather, is that Timeworks had several different people work on the C-128 software, each owning rights to the parts they authored, and noone had the original source codes. ------------