The main menu is what you in the future are going to see when you power up or reset your 128. Upon power up, THE SERVANT will change the function key definitions and set the screen colors. If you don't like the new F-keys or colors, please refer to appendix B on how you can have them changed if you so desire. Changing the F-keys is the key to THE SERVANT's high level of compatibility. Except for colors & F-keys, THE SERVANT don't change or interfere with your computer.
You will notice that your drive won't go click-whizz-click-click anymore, knocking the heads all over the place, trying to autoboot a disk. Furthermore, the computer won't reboot when leaving an application. This feature is included to save wear and tear on your drive as well as your nerves.
THE SERVANT supports both 40 and 80 column mode. In 80 column mode, the computer will always operate in fast (2Mhz) mode, and will still be in fast mode whenever you exit THE SERVANT. To insure compatibility, all 64 mode features, "boot disk" and "Call exrom" will put the computer into slow (1Mhz) mode regardless of screen mode.
No function on the main menu interfere with the computer's memory; using the features here won't interfere with any programs, variables or other things already in memory. The exceptions from this rule are obvious: If you load a BASIC program for example, it will of course replace any BASIC program which happened to be in the memory already.
Bypassing the menu:
There are only two ways to bypass THE SERVANT main menu when you turn on or reset your computer. You can hold down the STOP key which will drop you into the 128's ML monitor. Alternatively, you can hold down the C= key on the bottom left of your keyboard, which will immediately make the computer go into C64 mode. As you can see, both work exactly as if THE SERVANT was not present.
If you mount a 128 mode ROM cartridge into the Expansion port, it will probably, depending on it's design, bypass THE SERVANT. If THE SERVANT itself is mounted externally, it will bypass any internal ROM you might have. However, using the "Call exrom" command on the main menu will enable you to access the internal ROM.
IMPORTANT! - Escape keys: THE SERVANT respond to the ESC key as an all-purpose panic button. If you have chosen a function, but later find that it was not such a good idea, press the ESC key. The ESC key will let you exit from everything everywhere! The only exception is when a disk operation is in progress (reading or writing to disk). Then, the STOP key will in most cases be able to abort. Please note that the RUN/STOP key may have to be held down firmly for several seconds before THE SERVANT responds.
IMPORTANT! - The shift keys: When using all disk related selections on the main menu, the state of the shift keys are significant. When none of the shift keys are held down, THE SERVANT will access device 8. If you hold down SHIFT, device 9 will be accessed, device 10 can be accessed by C=, device 11 by CONTROL, and finally device 12 by ALT. If you try to access a device which is not present, you will hear a "ping", and the menu will reappear. If you're getting pings when you think you shouldn't, check that the SHIFT LOCK is up, that you're using the proper shift key, and that the drive you try to access is properly connected and turned on. You will also get pings if the disk is missing, the drive door isn't closed, or if other general disk errors occurs.
