Scene 96/Scene 96 International Edition (Zyklop Software) (Disc 1) (1997).iso/emulator/amiga065/docs/readme.dos

Text File | 1996-12-20 | 22KB | 513 lines

******************************************************************************
*                 UAE - THE UN*X AMIGA EMULATOR Version 0.6.5                *
*                           Written by Bernd Scmidt                          *
*           DOS port by Gustavo Goedert, Peter Remmers and Tim Gunn          *
*         Documentation by Brett Eden, Nemo Pohle and Gustavo Goedert        *
******************************************************************************

Please read this document and the 'readme' file thoroughly before attempting
to run UAE.

[INTRODUCTION]

Welcome to UAE, the first fully functional Commodore Amiga emulator.  This
documentation has been written for the DOS version of UAE, and contains
information on what UAE is all about, how to set it up, configure it, and
use it to the fullest extent of its capabilities.

[WHAT IS AN EMULATOR, AND WHAT EXACTLY IS UAE?]

An emulator a program which enables you to run software from a machine
which has non-native hardware and a non-native operating system, on your
computer.  UAE is a software emulator, and allows you to run most of the
Amiga software that is available commercially, and in the public domain.
No extra or special hardware is needed to do this, just the UAE package,
and in the case of this version, an IBM Compatible PC running MS-DOS 5.0
or later.

UAE emulates many of the hardware features found in a Commodore Amiga, so
many in fact, that you can run most games and almost all applications that
are available for the Amiga, without having to own one.  UAE allows you
to transfer software from an Amiga, and store it on your system where it
can be accessed by the emulator. While running UAE, your machine will behave
just like a real Amiga - you'll have a joystick, mouse, sound, a configurable
display, and providing you have the software - the Amiga's native operating
system.

The important thing to remember is that UAE is a REAL emulator that behaves
like a REAL Amiga.  On an entry-level Pentium machine it operates at a very
usable speed.  UAE is an on-going project which has the support of many
dedicated people and will get better as more contributions are made and
more advances are reached in shaping the emulator.

[CHANGES]

■ PRINT SCREEN Key saves a copy of the sreen to a targa image file (.tga).
■ PAUSE Key switches sound on/off (emulator must start with sound on).
■ INSERT Key is maped as the amiga HELP Key.
■ Try to preserse case off files under Win95 with the mount directory option
(untested since i don't have win95).
■ Fake joystick now has the RIGHT CONTROL Key as the Fire, also.
■ Graphics code changed a bit, might work on more cards.
■ Ignore FPE exceptions.
■ Support files compressed with gnu GZIP (has to have gzip/gunzip instaled).
■ Fixed 16 colors modes.
■ Sound Blaster bugfix by Michael Sontheimer & Peter Remmers.
■ GUS Support by Michael Sontheimer, make sure to have the ULTRASND
envirement variable correctly set.

[FEATURES OF UAE]

Version 0.6.5 of UAE emulates with the following components:

■ Amiga 500 Computer, with 68000 or 68020 CPU (68020 includes 68881 FPU)
■ OCS Graphics Chipset, with minor ECS Chipset support
■ Up to 8MB Chip RAM
■ Up to 8MB Fast RAM
■ Up to 1MB Slow RAM, for extended compatability with problem software
■ 4 x 3.5" floppy disk drives (DF0:, DF1:, DF2: and DF3:)
■ Hard-disk emulation
■ Full Joystick support (with option of mapping joystick to numeric keypad)
■ Full mouse support
■ 320x200, 320x240, 320x400, 640x480 and 800x600 display modes, with optional
  aspect correction
■ 16, 256, 256 dithered, 32768, 65536 and 16 Million colors on screen,
  depending on screen resolution and video hardware
■ Full sound support, consisting of 3 x 8bit channels
■ Beta serial and parallel support

[SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS]

In order to run UAE, you will need the following:

■ An IBM Compatible computer with a 386 or faster CPU
■ MS-DOS Version 5.00 or later
■ 8 Megabytes of RAM
■ A VGA compatible video
■ A Mouse

However, it is RECOMMENDED that you have the following setup, if you want to
get the most from UAE:

■ An IBM Compatible computer with a 100mhz 486 or faster Pentium CPU
■ MS-DOS Version 5.00 or later
■ 16 Megabytes of RAM
■ A PCI VGA compatible video card which supports VESA BIOS extensions 2.0
■ Analog or digital joystick, connected to game port
■ Soundblaster/GUS or compatible sound card

UAE is a *very* CPU intensive program, which will benefit immensely from a
fast CPU and plenty of RAM. The faster your computer is, the more you can
enjoy what UAE has to offer in terms of fast emulation.  Don't expect UAE
to come to the party on a 386 with 256k VGA and 4MB RAM.

[INSTALLING UAE]

You should uncompressed your copy of a UAE archive into some directory.

In the utils subdirectory, you will find two programs makedisk.exe and
readdisk.exe.  Makedisk.exe enables you to make a virtual hard disk file
which UAE can use as a hard disk when emulating the Amiga. Alternatively,
you can use it to create a blank diskette for use while the emulator is
running. Readdisk.exe allows you to read an Amiga disk image file (.adf),
and transfer the contents into a MS-DOS directory.  A more precise look at
how both of those programs work will be provided later in this document.

In the amiga directory, you will find two Amiga executables which enable you
to transfer the contents of an Amiga floppy disk into a disk image file,
and also transfer a copy of the Amiga's Kickstart ROM into a file called
kick.rom, which UAE uses to to emulate the Kickstart - an essential component
if you want to run Workbench (the Amiga's native operating system).  I will
also explain those programs in greater depth later in this document.

Once you've made sure you have all the files from the UAE DOS distribution,
you can run UAE from a DOS prompt by just running the uae.exe executable.

UAE provides an simple menu-driven front-end interface that allows you change
and configure various aspects of it's operation to suit your emulation needs.
What follows is a brief description of each of the menu features, and some
suggested settings for people who may not have had experience with Amiga
hardware and may feel somewhat unsure of how UAE should be configured.

Also, consult the QSETUP.DOS file that comes with this distribution for a
step-by-step guide to setting up UAE.

[CONFIGURING UAE]

After launching UAE, you will be presented with a configuration screen,
containing a cursor driven menu.  Here, you can configure UAE to how you want
it to run on your system.  The text on the right side of the menu indicates
how UAE is presently configured, and as you change settings in the menus,
the changes will be reflected here.

[KEYBOARD COMMANDS]

The following keyboard commands can be used while UAE is running:

   END  + F1           Eject DF0:
      F2           Eject DF1:
      F3           Eject DF2:
      F4           Eject DF3:

   HOME + F1           Insert DF0:
      F2           Insert DF1:
      F3           Insert DF2:
      F4           Insert DF3:

The insert and eject options are especially useful if you are installing
software which has more disks than you have physical drives.  It is also
needed if you wish to make an assign under the name of a floppy-disk, which
must be removed before the assign can be made legally.

   PrintScreen         Dump a copy of the screen to a '.tga' file

   ScrollLock          Disable/Enable graphics update

   Pause               Disable/Enable sound update

   F12                 Exit Emulator

   RightWindows
   PageUp              Right Amiga key

   LeftWindows
   PageDown            Left  Amiga key

The Amiga has its own special keys the same way the MAC has it's own special
key, and in the same way that newer PC's come with keyboards equipped with
Windows keys.  The left and right Amiga keys are used to carry out special
functions such as accessing pull-down menus without the mouse, and other
shortcuts.

[TROUBLESHOOTING/FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS]

1. Just how fast does UAE emulate an Amiga?

This question isn't easy to answer.  It very much depends on what kind of
hardware you're running UAE on, and exactly it is you want to do with the
emulator.  For graphically tame situations such as text adventures, Workbench
applications (editors, etc.), a lower end Pentium would emulate at a very
usable speed.

On machines of 486/100mhz speed and greater, UAE actually performs better
than an A500/68000 in terms of raw CPU speed.

Display speed is another story.  In order for an animation, demo, or game
to run at its intended speed, you will require a middle range Pentium with
a good PCI video card.  Slower machines can work around this with altering
the frame rate, but at the cost of quality.

2. What kind of software won't UAE run?

Although UAE is at the stage where it emulates a lot of features found on a
real Amiga, there are still some things that UAE simply cannot, at this
point in time, run.  Firstly, UAE lacks an MMU (Memory Management Unit),
which means that software that requires one (Virtual memory utilities, Linux,
etc.) will simply not work.  An MMU may come along in a later version, but
at this stage it is not supported.

UAE is also incapable of running software that requires the AGA chipset
(found in Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 systems), because none of it's features
are supported.  This too may come along in a later version of UAE, as
experimental work is being done at present.

There are a small number of applications for the Amiga that demand a 68020
CPU *and* a 68881 FPU to run properly (some raytracing applications being the
main one to come to mind), so obviously you will have to use the 68020
version of UAE to use these.

3. What are the differences from the other versions ?

A) Some command line switches:

     -l lang      Set keyboard language to lang, where lang is DE or US
     -x           Don't use linear framebuffer, even if available
     -p filename  Use filename to save printer output (i.e. PRN)
     -I device    Name of the used serial device (i.e. AUX)

B) The HD file is not fixed sized. You can give it any size with MAKEDISK.
But beware: MAKEDISK will delete any HD file already created without warning.
You also have to format the HD file under the emulator.

4. Where is a complete summary of all command line switches ?

You can simply generate it yourself by typing:
UAE -h > uae-help.txt

5. What to do if I don't want to type in all command-line switches again and
   again ?

Put the command line switches you use in the 'uae.rc' file. Note that the
configuration is NOT automaticly saved in the 'uae.cfg' file anymore, it will
be saved in the 'uae.rc' file if you use the '-o' command line option.

6. Do I have to name diskimages df0.adf ?

No. Just specify your diskimage file after the parameter -0. This is for
DF0:. For DF1: it's -1 and so on.

7. Why does the screen look sometimes weird with -C ?

The emulator skips some lines to fit the image to the screen except in mode
800x600.

8. How can I use the diskimages available on the net ?

Files with the extensions .gz or gz.bin are packed with GZip. Get it on
ftp://oak.oakland.edu. Unpack the files with Gzip -d <filename>.

9. Why do some demos crash which are said to work in the compatibility list ?

Try the -s 4 switch. Then you could look in the UAE.log file. If you don't
know what to do with the information in it write me.

10. How can I get sound ?

You must not use '-S 0'. Try using '-S 2'. Set the BLASTER or ULTRASND
variable properly. This depends on the configuration of your Soundblaster/GUS.

11. How can I squeeze the most speed out of UAE?

Run the emulator in the lowest screen mode (320x200), set it to 16 colors,
make sure aspect correction is disabled, and set the frame rate to every 3rd
frame.  Lastly, disable sound.  It won't look very nice, but it will run as
fast as your machine allows.

12. Why do the Workbench windows and fonts look warped?

320x200, 320x240 and 320x400 are not proportional modes.  Try switching to
640x480 or 800x600 and enabling aspect correction (without aspect correction,
UAE skips lines in the display - enabling it fixes this).

13. When UAE starts up, it says "Illegal instruction: 4e7b". Why?

That's normal, it's just the Kickstart CPU type test.

14. Why does UAE sometimes crash under Windows 95?

UAE does things that Windows 95 sometimes dislikes.  Sometimes you may be
able to get it to work, other times you may not.  It depends how you have it
configured.  It is recommended you quit Windows 95 and run it from a plain
DOS prompt with disk-cache enabled.

15. What do I do if a game/demo/application doesn't work?

If you're trying to run a game or a demo, enable some SLOW RAM, and try
running it again.  Some older software has compatability problems which SLOW
RAM can sometimes fix.  If it's an application, check for obvious things
like Kickstart version requirements, RAM, etc.  Also make sure the software
you're trying to run isn't for AGA equipped machines.

16. I just inserted a new disk image, but UAE isn't recognizing it!

You first have to eject the other disk with END + F-keys.

17. I can't seem to get the 640x480 and 800x600 modes to work.

These modes require that your video hardware has VBE support.  You can either
obtain UniVBE (part of the Display Doctor suite of programs) from Scitech
(http://www.scitech.com), or possibly a VBE update driver from your video
card distributor.

18. Will there be a Windows version of UAE?

A Windows port of UAE is currently being developed by Tim Gunn.  Take a look
at http://rdragon.livewire.com.au/homepages/timgunn/ for more information.

19. When UAE starts, it says "Illegal instruction: 00f8" (many times). Why?

That's because your Kickstart ROM was compiled for a 68020 CPU.

20. Why is there a blank area on the left side of the screen?

The Amiga can display graphics there, but usually doesn't because this
would disable some sprites. The area is only used by some overscan demos.
Normal screens are off-center. I'm not going to do anything about that.
If you can't stand it, you can try to use 320x200 resolution, which will
attempt to center the screen. This is near impossible to get right for
every program. If your screen doesn't fit in 320x200, use 800x600.

21. Benchmark program <insert your favourite benchmark> gives weird results.

Amiga programs run by the emulator think the Amiga timers can be used to
measure real time. But in UAE, they only measure "emulation time". Sysinfo,
for example, gives the same results on all machines. So don't run
benchmarks to test the emulator speed.
Some benchmarks also use tight loops of DIV or MUL instructions to measure
CPU speed, and in "emulation time" these instructions take as much time
as any other instructions, and you'll get much too high values.

22. Wasn't this called the Unusable Amiga Emulator?

Yes, but it seems hardly appropriate now.  The name was really only meant for
version 0.1, which couldn't even boot.

23. Would it be possible to speed it up by using graphics accelerator boards
    for example by using the blitter in S3 chips?

I doubt it. If the S3 blitter worked in similar way as the Amiga blitter,
which is unlikely, it might work; but you'd have to keep all Amiga chip
RAM in the graphics memory and that would most likely make everything
painfully slow.

24. It still doesn't work. Why ?

The diskimage or rom file could be corrupt. Your configuration might cause
troubles. Try creating a boot disk with nothing more than the VESA and the
mouse driver.

25. What should I do if I find a bug?

If you find what you suspect may be a bug, please contact the author of the
DOS UAE port.  The more information you supply about problems you may be
encountering, the more likely the problem can be solved.  If possible,
include a snapshot image of the screen where the problem took place.  The
authors details are at the end of this document.

[HISTORY OF DOS UAE]

   Version 0.6.5
        ■ PRINT SCREEN Key saves a copy of the sreen to a targa image
          file (.tga).
        ■ PAUSE Key switches sound on/off (emulator must start with sound on).
        ■ INSERT Key is maped as the amiga HELP Key.
        ■ Try to preserse case off files under Win95 with the mount directory
          option (untested since i don't have win95).
        ■ Fake joystick now has the RIGHT CONTROL Key as the Fire, also.
        ■ Graphics code changed a bit, might work on more cards.
        ■ Ignore FPE exceptions.
        ■ Support files compressed with gnu GZIP (has to have gzip/gunzip
          instaled).
        ■ Fixed 16 colors modes.
        ■ Sound Blaster bugfix by Michael Sontheimer & Peter Remmers.
        ■ GUS Support by Michael Sontheimer, make sure to have the
          ULTRASND envirement variable correctly set.

   Version 0.6.4
        ■ Changes in the interface, disk changing now support directories,
          ability to skip user interface added in.
        ■ Chaged the way FPU is compiled, hope it proves more stable.
        ■ Cleaned up graphics code.

   Version 0.6.3
        ■ New graphics code, supports VBE 2.0 directly, as well as normal VGA
      and VGA mode X.
        ■ New Sound Blaster code from Peter Remmers.
        ■ Full feature Interface code from Tim Gunn.
        ■ Preliminary serial support, not tested.

   Version 0.6.0
        ■ Optimized sound blaster code.
        ■ Two sound buffer sizes, minumum and maximum.

   Version 0.5.4b
        ■ Preliminary sound support. Only done for sound blaster 8 bits
      22050 sample frequency. Only works with DMA 1 and IRQ either 5 or
      7.
        ■ Some empirical printer support debugging (since I don't have a
      printer).
        ■ Lock variables used by interrupt handlers. Might increase stability
      of the emulator for machines with little memory.

   Version 0.5.4
        ■ Less Optimized version removed.
        ■ Script flag forced off on the filesys support.
        ■ Correct aspected ratio command line option added. Works with any
      resolution now.

   Version 0.5.3
        ■ Less Optimized version made.
        ■ Disk Change/Eject implemented.
        ■ CPU keyboard reset fixed.
        ■ SVGA asm code optimized a bit.
        ■ SVGA 640x480 mode implemented.
        ■ Normal DOS slashes (/) are now supported in the filesys mount.
        ■ Script and Exec flags are now forced on the filesys support.
        ■ Printer support ported from unix code.

   Version 0.5.2
        ■ SVGA asm code remade.
        ■ VGA low-res modes implemented.
        ■ Joystick button bug fixed.
        ■ Keyboard support finished (extended keys).
        ■ Arbitrary size hardfile implemented.
        ■ Makedisk redone to support arbritary size hardfile.

   Version 0.5.0
        ■ Linux Assembler code ported to DOS.
        ■ SVGA asm code remade.
        ■ Makedisk utility created (make hardfile and diskfiles).
        ■ Mouse support redone (interrupt).

   Version 0.4.4
        ■ DPMI/EMS version implemented with DJGPP 2.0.
        ■ SVGA asm code remade.
        ■ SVGA Hicolor/64k mode implemented with libgrx 2.0.
        ■ Joystick support implemented (pooling port 201H).
        ■ 'Disable messages' command line option removed.
        ■ Logging of messages into 'uae.log' file.
        ■ Hardfile bug fixed.

   Version 0.4.1
        ■ First public realese.
        ■ EMS only version implemented with DJGPP 1.12.maint4.
        ■ No graphics mode implemented (Doh!).
        ■ SVGA 800x600 256 and HiColor/32k modes implemented with libgrx.
      1.03.maint1 (and some speed up hacks).
        ■ Keyboard support implemented (interrupt).
        ■ Mouse support implemented (pooling).
        ■ Filesys fixed to work with DOS.
        ■ Disable messages command line option implemented.

[CONTRIBUTERS]

Code contributers:
   ■ Gustavo Goedert: Port and video code
   ■ Peter Remmers: Sound Blaster sound code
   ■ Tim Gunn: Interface code
   ■ Michael Sontheimer: GUS sound code

Misc contributers:
   ■ Nemo Pohle: rewritten 'readme.dos' for duae054b
   ■ Henry Mantere: Qbasic program that helps transfering diskimages through
                    a serial cable.
   ■ Brett Eden: rewritten 'readme.dos' for duae064

   Please fell free to make any contribution to DosUAE. All DosUAE users will
be very gratefull.

[INFORMATION]

The DOS version of UAE has a Web site, at:

    http://tinos.pucrs.br/~ggoedert/dosuae.htm

UAE also has it's own news board, at:

    http://tinos.pucrs.br/~ggoedert/uaeboard

If you use BBS in Germany try the following:

    Point Of No Return BBS
    28k8: [phone]
    ISDN: [phone]

[AUTHOR]

The author of the DOS port of uae, Gustavo Goert, can be contacted either by
email at:

[e-mail]

or, via snailmail at:

    Gustavo Goedert
    Rua Francisco Braga, 239
    Porto Alegre, RS
    CEP 91530-330
    BRAZIL

Please read the FAQ and documentation carefully before posing questions to
the authors.  Do not send requests to any of the UAE contributors for disk
images or Kickstart ROM files, as they will be ignored.