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===================================== T3 Dragon / CoCo Emulator Version 0.8 Copyright 1995-1997 by Paul Burgin ===================================== 1 Introduction Welcome to T3. T3 is a multi-tasking Dragon and Tandy CoCo II emulator for 80386 PCs and compatibles. Used in conjunction with a ROM file from one of these 6809 based home computers, it enables you to run your old software on a modern PC. Note that a ROM file is not included in the emulator distribution. You must obtain one from elsewhere before you can use T3 (see end of these notes for a World Wide Web pointer to the ROM files). 2 What Is Emulated The following components are emulated by T3: · 6809 CPU; · Automatically emulates Dragon 32, Dragon 64 or Tandy CoCo II compatible architecture as appropriate to the ROM file provided; · All machines are provided with 64K of RAM, a switchable 16K BASIC ROM, and a 16K ROM cartridge area; · SAM chip with low/high/mid-resolution graphics, realistic text and semi-graphics; · Bi-directional cassette interface; · 6-bit and 1-bit audio output; · Digital joysticks; · Interrupt driven counter/timer mechanism (not 100% accurate). T3 also has additional features such as: · Multiple sessions within a single instance of T3; · Pre-emptive multitasking; · Snapshot and image facilities; · Variable speed control; · Audio mute and volume control. The following are not emulated by this version of T3 (some of the items in this list may be implemented at a later date, and others won't): · Disk drives; · Serial port / parallel port; · Analogue joysticks; · Joysticks via the PC mouse or joystick. 3 System Requirements The minimum system specification is shown below. T3 will not start if your system does not meet these requirements: · 80386 processor; · MS-DOS v4.00; · VGA graphics adapter; · 199K of base memory (approx.). The following is the recommended system specification for running a single session with full speed and functionality: · 80386 DX-25 or above; · MS-DOS v7.00 (Windows 95) or above; · VGA or SVGA graphics adapter; · SoundBlaster v1.0 or above; · 199K of base memory (approx.). If you have additional base memory available then you will be able use T3 to run more than one Dragon/CoCo session (task) at once. Approximately 133K of base memory is required for each additional task (subject to a maximum of four tasks). If you have additional processing power available then you can choose to have T3 execute all of your tasks simultaneously. Tasks then continue running even when switched into the background. When T3 is used for multi- tasking smoother emulation should be obtained for faster CPUs. 4 What Does T3 Mean? Well, it's nothing to do with that pop group, of that you can be sure! There is also now a magazine called T3, but again this emulator has no connection with that magazine. Although it still hasn't reached v1.00 and a wider distribution, T3 has in fact been around for nearly two years. The name T3 was originally intended to be only a working title, being an extreme contraction of "PC-Dragon III (386 Turbo Edition)". This name was conceived at a time when T3 was expected to re-use code from my previous emulator PC-Dragon II. However, it turned out that code re-use was not practical and as a result T3 has been written from scratch as a new emulator in it's own right. Nevertheless, the name has now become familiar and so it would be somewhat confusing to change it at this stage. It will therefore remain as T3 until such a time as I can think of something better! If you have any suggestions then please let me know! 5 Files In The T3 ZIP File The following files are supplied in the ZIP file: WHATSNEW.008 Summary of changes for this release. README.TXT Instructions (this file). T3.EXE T3 executable. T3.DAT T3 title page (can be deleted to save space). 6 Getting Started To begin using the emulator you need to copy a ROM file into the same directory as T3.EXE. Having done so type "T3" to start the emulator. T3 tries a variety of different names when it searches for a ROM file and will use the first file that it finds. Valid names include T3, DRAGON, DRAGROM, COCO, TANDYROM, and D64ROM1. You can use files either in PC- Dragon II's DGN format or in Jeff Vavasour's ROM format; T3 auto-detects which format you are using irrespective of the file name. If you have several ROM files and want to use a particular one then you can do this by specifying the -r option on the command line when you start T3. E.g. T3 -rCOCO.ROM Note that if the ROM file name includes a space then you will need to enclose the entire option in double quotes. E.g. T3 "-rD32 AND ALLDREAM" If you are using T3 to emulate a Dragon 64 and want to use the 64K BASIC mode then you will additionally need the 64K BASIC ROM. This must be in DGN format and have file name D64ROM2.DGN. Once started press any key to proceed from the title page and T3 will boot your Dragon or CoCo. When you wish to quit the emulator press F12 followed by END and then RETURN. 7 Emulator Controls The following are key combinations which can be used to control the emulator: F1 Display emulator version. F2 Load image (hold SHIFT to save image). F3 Load snapshot (hold SHIFT to save snapshot). F4 Cassette mode control. F5 Jump to Alldream. F6 Jump to Dreambug. F9 Previous task. F10 Next task. F11 Create new task. F12 Delete current task (hold SHIFT to auto-save image). Alt-A Artifacting control. Alt-C Cursor keys control. Alt-F Audio resampling frequency control. Alt-L Lower case text toggle. Alt-P Suspend task (i.e. pause). Alt-Q Audio on/off control. Alt-R Resume task. Alt-S Speed control. Alt-T Text colour control. Alt-V Audio volume control. Alt-X Task type control. SCROLL LOCK Freeze task. Ctrl-Alt-Delete Warm reset (hold SHIFT for cold reset). Additionally, PGUP has the same function as F9, PGDN has the same function as F10, INSERT has the same function as F11 and DELETE has the same function as F12. F8 has the same function as Ctrl-Alt-Delete. It is not needed when running T3 in MS-DOS, but should be used when running T3 in environments where it is not safe to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete (e.g. when running T3 in a DOS box under MS-Windows). The NUM LOCK key can be used instead of the Alt keys in order to prevent joystick fire button being pressed. The following keys can be used in file name input dialogue boxes: F4 Paste Dragon/CoCo name. DELETE Backspace. HOME Erase all. ESC Quit. RETURN Accept. Additionally Ctrl-Alt-Delete, F8 and F12 have the same function as ESC. The following keys can be used in selection boxes: LEFT Previous option. RIGHT Next option. UP First option. DOWN Last option. ESC Quit. RETURN Accept. Additionally HOME has the same function as UP. END has the same function as DOWN. Ctrl-Alt-Delete, F8 and F12 have the same function as ESC. 8 Video T3 fully emulates the default Dragon/CoCo text mode and all semi-graphics modes. It is also possible to select either realistic or idealistic text mode colours by pressing Alt-T. With true text colours "ON" the colours will be either dark green on green or dark red on light orange. With true text colours "OFF" the colours match with low-resolution graphics and will be either black on green or black on orange (this improves the look of games like Copta Snatch and Tetras). High/mid-resolution graphics modes are available in 2-colour or 4-colour palettes, as provided by the Dragon/CoCo. All 2-colour black/white modes are also available in artifacted colours by pressing Alt-A and selecting a "RED" artifacted palette or a "BLUE" artifacted palette. All 28 "regular" high/mid-resolution graphics modes are supported by T3. In this context "regular" means modes where the number of bytes displayed for each scan line is equal to the video memory increment for each line. Other modes where video memory is skipped or repeated will be displayed as the nearest equivalent regular mode instead. As there is no worthwhile reason to implement the irregular modes (I haven't found any commercial software which uses them), it's very unlikely that they shall ever be implemented by T3 (note however that PC-Dragon II does implement all of them). T3 implements an additional 4 mid-resolution graphics modes with 16 lines of 16 bytes (total 256 bytes) which do not exist on the CoCo/Dragon! Refer to the virtual cassette MODES.CAS supplied with PCDGN201.ZIP for a demonstration of all of the high/mid-resolution graphics mode classes. 9 Audio T3 provides emulation of Dragon/CoCo audio by using a SoundBlaster card, if installed. There is no option to hear audio via the PC beeper. In order to receive audio you must ensure that your BLASTER environment variable is set correctly when you start T3. This should contain a string such as "A220" to specify the base IO address of your SoundBlaster. When running under Windows 95, the string will normally be set for you automatically, but under MS-DOS you will need to set the variable yourself. Typically this involves adding a command such as the following to your AUTOEXEC.BAT (but the settings must reflect the actual hardware settings of your card): SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 Unfortunately SoundBlaster cards provide a very slow response to software. Because of this, T3 cannot afford to wait for the SoundBlaster to respond to audio output on demand. Instead, T3 resamples all audio output at run- time. By default T3 uses a resampling frequency of 16KHz, which provides satisfactory results for most games. However, you may wish to change the frequency when the default is not ideal for the software that you are using. To do this, press Alt-F and select a new resampling frequency between 4KHz and 40KHz. Software which uses 1-bit sound rather than 6-bit sound typically requires higher resampling frequencies (e.g. Planet Invasion, Intergalactic Force). Note that the resampling frequency is relative to the task target speed, thus if you increase the target speed of a task then the resampling frequency is also proportionately increased. Dramatically increasing a task target speed without reducing the resampling frequency will eventually cause a minor reduction in the emulator's efficiency. Audio output can be toggled on and off by pressing Alt-Q. The volume level may be adjusted by pressing Alt-V. 10 Music The default audio settings are satisfactory for most sound effects. However, if you intend to use T3 to play music (or other sounds lasting longer than a quarter of a second at 100% speed) then you will need to take note of the following recommendations for improving the quality of the music reproduction (in decreasing order of importance): 1. Audio output will be fragmented if a task is being timesliced with other tasks. For best results set the task type to "EXCLUSIVE". 2. Although the dynamic speed adjustments made by T3 are not usually noticeable, when playing music they become very obvious as changes in the pitch of notes. It is therefore highly recommended that the dynamic target speed be set to "OFF" when playing music. To do this, allow the music to play for awhile and then press Alt-S followed by HOME and RETURN. See also the notes in the Target Speed section. 3. Depending on the software in use, increasing the resampling frequency may provide noticeable improvements to the audio quality. To do this press Alt-F (see previous section). 4. Quitting MS-Windows environments and running T3 in pure MS-DOS can provide minor improvements to the audio quality. 11 Joysticks Joysticks are emulated using the PC cursor keys (but can be disabled using Alt-C). Both of the left and right joysticks are operated simultaneously, but the fire buttons may be operated separately. Press the left Ctrl key or right Alt key to simulate the left joystick fire button. Press the left Alt key or right Ctrl key to simulate the right joystick fire button. Pressing the keypad 5 key will simulate both fire buttons at once. The joystick emulation is digital rather than analogue and therefore will not work with all games. 12 Virtual Cassettes When the Dragon/CoCo requires access to cassettes you will be prompted for the name of an MS-DOS file to be used as a virtual cassette. Type the name in the box with or without a CAS extension and press RETURN. Pressing F4 pastes the name of the file that the Dragon/CoCo is attempting to access (if any) into the box, but you can only enter well formed names so some characters may be translated to underscores. If you are running T3 with MS-DOS v7.00 or above and IFSHLP loaded (i.e. a DOS box in Windows 95) then you can type up to 250 characters including upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, special characters and spaces. If running T3 with an earlier version of MS-DOS or without IFSHLP loaded (i.e. MS-DOS mode in Windows 95) then you can enter only 75 characters which may include upper case letters, numbers and special characters. If long file names are available then the cursor is blue, otherwise it is grey. When saving a cassette, should you enter the name of a file which already exists then T3 will display the message "FILE EXISTS" and allow you to choose to cancel the file name, append to the existing file, or replace it. T3 does not impose a limit on the length of cassette files. They are normally closed when the file mode changes or if you reset or quit a task, but can also be closed manually by pressing F4 and selecting CLOSED. You will need to do this to write separate programs consecutively to different MS-DOS files, to recover from an ?IO ERROR, or to enter a file name after pressing Quit. Unlike all other emulation performed by T3, the cassette emulation is implemented at the operating system level rather than the hardware level (ROM breakpoints are installed at start-up). Cassette emulation therefore does not work for the (very small number of) programs which access the cassette mechanism at the hardware level. If running multiple timesliced tasks then background tasks are permitted to momentarily interrupt foreground tasks in order to prompt for filenames. 13 Cartridges There are two ways to load a cartridge into T3. Firstly, if you would like the cartridge to be loaded at boot-up time then you must append it to your ROM file. To do this type an MS-DOS command such as the following: COPY /B DRAGON.DGN + CART.RAW DRAGCART.DGN T3 -rDRAGCART Note that your cartridge must be in a raw (pure data only) format. The second method of loading a cartridge into T3 is to use a snapshot file. This is usually the best way to load cartridge games into T3. See later section on snapshot files for more details. Whichever method of loading a cartridge is used, it may or may not automatically execute, depending on how it was designed. If you load the Alldream cartridge into the emulator then the F5 and F6 keys can be used to immediately jump to Alldream (F5) or Dreambug (F6). The exact function performed by F5 is: push PC register onto the stack, push the value of ($FFFE) onto the stack, push $C000 onto the stack, clear the I flag in the condition code register, and finally execute a jump to $A93A. This has the effect of returning to text mode and then executing Alldream. When you quit Alldream a reset occurs. F6 performs the same function except that $D384 is pushed onto the stack rather than $C000. Remember that in order for Alldream/Dreambug to function correctly, the CLEAR command should be used to set-up their workspace before they are executed. A warning will appear if you do not do this. 14 Images Images are copies of the entire workspace of a T3 task. Image support was initially implemented in order to aid debugging of the emulator but has now been made available for general use. The use of images allows you to save the context of a task to continue at a later date, or perhaps save a position in a game for instant replay. To save an image simply press SHIFT + F2. The current task is then immediately saved to disk. It can be reloaded at any time by pressing F2. All task settings and ROMs are saved in the image, so that the reloaded task state is identical to the saved state. Note that T3 provides access to just one image file at a time. It does not prompt for a file name when you load or save an image. However you can use the -i command line option to change the image file name when you start T3 (see notes on -r option for applicable syntax). Note also that images should not be considered to be snapshots because they are much larger than snapshots need to be, and are non-portable between emulators (or even between different versions of T3). Use the snapshot facility instead if you need to make files portable. 15 Automatic Images T3 can also create "automatic" images which are used slightly differently to standard images. To save an automatic image hold down SHIFT when you delete a standard task and you will be given the option of auto-saving it. After doing so, when you next start T3 the image will be loaded automatically, creating an "automatic" task. Automatic tasks behave slightly differently to standard tasks; they are automatically saved when deleted. Also, some T3 messages are slightly different, and to protect the integrity of the task and the copyright of the emulator some control keys and command line options are unavailable. Automatic images can be saved and loaded at any time by pressing F2 and SHIFT + F2 as usual. You can prevent T3 from loading an automatic image by deleting or renaming it (file name IMAGE.T3), or by using the -a command line option when you run T3. This is the only permitted command line option for automatic tasks. Syntax as follows: -a0 Ignore any image. -a1 Load any image as an automatic task. -a Automatic toggle (equivalent to -a0 or -a1 as appropriate). The following are the only valid control keys for automatic tasks: F2 Load image (hold SHIFT to save image). F9 Previous task. F10 Next task. F12 Auto-save image (hold SHIFT to delete task). Alt-F Audio resampling frequency control. Alt-P Suspend task (i.e. pause). Alt-Q Audio on/off control. Alt-R Resume task. Alt-S Speed control. Alt-V Audio volume control. Alt-X Task type control. SCROLL LOCK Freeze task. Automatic images have one particularly specialised use; they can be used to create executable PC programs from Dragon/CoCo programs. To do this proceed as follows: 1. Run T3 as normal, and load the Dragon/CoCo program from an image, snapshot, or virtual cassette. 2. Use the emulator control keys to ensure that the cursor keys, lower case, and text colour task settings are correct for the loaded program. 3. From the title page of the program, press SHIFT + F12 to auto-save an image of the program. 4. You can now create an executable Dragon/CoCo program on a floppy disk by typing: COPY T3.EXE A:\PROGNAME.EXE COPY IMAGE.T3 A:\ 5. PROGNAME.EXE can be run on any 80386 PC with MS-DOS v4.00 or above and a VGA graphics adapter. It will start immediately and will have persistent data each time it is run (thus retaining progress in an adventure game, or preserving hi-score tables in an arcade game, etc.). 16 Snapshots Snapshots are minimal task images which are portable between different Dragon/CoCo emulators, and future versions of T3. To load a snapshot into T3 simply press F3 and type the filename of the snapshot that you wish to load. If you do not give an extension then PAK will be assumed, but snapshots may not always have this extension. They may also have extensions D32, D64, D96 or CCO to indicate which architecture they are intended for. Snapshots do not contain BASIC ROMs and therefore you must ensure that a task is initialised with the correct architecture before loading a snapshot. It is usually best to create (or cold reset) a task and wait until it is fully booted before loading a snapshot, otherwise the interrupts and IO registers may not be set correctly. If you load a snapshot with a start address of $C000 then T3 will assume that it is a cartridge game and will perform an FIRQ to execute it. T3 can load snapshots in either v1.4 or v1.5 format, as used by Jeff Vavasour's CoCo II emulator. It can also load snapshots saved by PC-Dragon II but only if the format is v1.4 (or compressed v1.4). Any other snapshots will need to be converted to v1.4 format before they can be loaded by T3 (this conversion can be performed using PC-Dragon II). Compatibility with snapshots created by DREaM is untested at the time of writing. To save a snapshot press SHIFT + F3 and type in the filename for the snapshot. Again if no extension is given then PAK is appended. If the file already exists then you will be given a choice of replacing the existing file or entering a different name. Snapshots saved by T3 use an uncompressed v1.4 format compatible with Jeff Vavasour's CoCo II emulator v1.4 or v1.5, and also with PC-Dragon II. However, note that T3 does not save any emulator settings in snapshots, thus if you load a snapshot saved by another emulator into T3 and re-save it then you will lose any settings used by the other emulator. Also note that T3 always automatically minimises the amount of RAM saved in snapshots, which may cause difficulties if you load a T3 snapshot into PC- Dragon II and re-save it. To avoid any potential problems always reset the snapshot length to $8000 or $FF00 before re-saving a T3 snapshot using PC- Dragon II (press F4, 5, 2 and then enter 8000 or FF00 as appropriate). Beware that because the snapshot format does not include all IO registers, you may sometimes find that you hear no audio when you reload a snapshot. This can usually be fixed by typing the following BASIC command before loading the snapshot: POKE &HFF23, 63 Since ROM is not saved in snapshots, if you are running cartridge based software then you will need to reload both the cartridge and RAM snapshots in order to restore the emulator state using snapshots. In this situation it may be more convenient to use images, because these include both RAM and ROM. T3 uses the same buffer area for snapshots as cassettes, thus accessing the snapshot facilities will force any open cassette to be closed. This version of T3 does not buffer the memory areas held in compressed snapshots, thus loading them is quite slow and the message "DECOMPRESSING..." will appear. 17 Multi-Tasking When T3 is started it will emulate just one Dragon/CoCo. However, if you have spare base memory available then you can create additional Dragon/CoCo sessions at any time by pressing the F11 key (or INSERT). T3 then spawns and boots a new Dragon/CoCo session (or task) and moves the previously executing Dragon/CoCo task into the background. Each new task is entirely independent of other tasks, receiving it's own RAM, ROMs and emulator workspace (includes settings, keyboard state, cassette buffer, text font etc.). The ROMs for the new task are copied from the current task when the new task is created, but the RAM is cleared. Once you have more than one task running under T3, you can switch between them at any time by pressing F10 (or PGDN) to switch to the next task, and F9 (or PGUP) to switch to the previous task. Unwanted tasks should be deleted in the usual way by pressing F12 (or DELETE). T3 will then terminate the current task and switch to the next remaining task, if any. In addition to allowing a variable number of tasks to be created, T3 is also capable of executing the tasks simultaneously. It does so using a pre- emptive multi-tasking executive which switches context between the available tasks up to 17 times per second (switching is synchronised with Dragon/CoCo interrupts in order to reduce game flicker and is therefore slower for slower PCs). Even on very fast PCs, the multi-tasking may cause game motion to be jerky and keyboard responsiveness to be less sensitive. By default all tasks are executed exclusively rather than timesliced in this manner. However, pressing Alt-X when two or more tasks exist causes a task type selection box to appear. The type of the current task can then be set to either "EXCLUSIVE" or "TIMESLICE". If the type of a task is set to "EXCLUSIVE" then it will not execute at all when it is in the background, and will not allow any other tasks to execute whilst it is in the foreground. By contrast, if set to "TIMESLICE" then a task will share processing time with any other "TIMESLICE" tasks whenever any of them are in the foreground. Each "TIMESLICE" tasks receives an equal share of processing time irrespective of their target speed and irrespective of whether they are in the foreground or the background. Any tasks which are suspended or frozen do not receive a timeslice even if they are in the foreground, thus suspending or freezing a "TIMESLICE" task may cause other "TIMESLICE" tasks to execute more quickly (this will be the case whenever a task is currently executing slower than it's target speed). Note that because tasks are independent, they each require a lot of base memory (133K per task). This limits the number of tasks which can be created by T3 to four for a minimally booted PC, or two/three for an average PC set-up. Future versions of T3 may allow more tasks to be created (e.g. by allowing ROM sharing, or by swapping exclusive tasks into EMS/XMS), but in the meantime it is of course possible to run more than four Dragon/CoCo tasks by using an environment such as MS-Windows or MS- DOS v5.00/v6.00 DOSSHELL in order to run more than one instance of T3. 18 Target Speed Each task has an independent target speed setting. T3 assesses the speed of each task relative to the target setting for every 25 Dragon/CoCo IRQ periods executed (this equates to approximately every half a second if the target speed is 100%). The average instruction execution speed for each task is then adjusted, where necessary, in order to meet the requested target speed as closely as possible. Note that the dynamic execution speed adjustments are made in small increments (or decrements). It therefore takes a few seconds for T3 to make any necessary speed adjustments whenever "TIMESLICE" tasks are created, deleted, suspended, frozen or resumed. If the target speed for a task is set to "MAX" then the execution speed of that task is not measured or adjusted. The task simply runs as fast as possible. The dynamic speed adjustment of a task may also be turned off by selecting target speed "OFF". The delay factor for the task is then fixed at the current value when "OFF" is selected. This is not usually necessary but will give greatly improved music reproduction. Note, however, that if you turn dynamic speed adjustment off for a "TIMESLICE" task then creating, deleting, suspending, freezing or resuming any other "TIMESLICE" tasks will have a dramatic impact on the execution speed of the task because T3 will not be allowed to compensate for the change in number of tasks. 19 Emulator Compatibility The following table shows T3 compatibility for various platforms. Where "?" is shown, compatibility is unknown. Where "*" is shown, compatibility is unknown but has been guessed. If you can provide information on the details which are unknown, or believe others to be wrong, please do contact me at the address provided at the end of these notes. Platform | Run T3 | Long Filenames | Audio -------------------+--------+----------------+-------- MS-DOS v1.xx-v3.xx | NO | NO | NO MS-DOS v4.xx-v6.xx | YES | NO | YES Windows 3.1x | YES | NO | YES Windows 95 | YES | YES | YES Windows NT | YES | NO | ? OS/2 | YES | NO | YES* SoftWindows | NO | NO | NO DR-DOS | NO* | NO | NO Novell DOS v? | YES* | NO | YES* PC-DOS v1.xx-v4.00 | NO* | NO | NO PC-DOS v4.01+ | YES* | NO | YES* 20 Frequently Asked Questions People ask me a lot of questions about T3 and the Dragon/CoCo scene, so please check to see if the answer to your question is here before you write to me. Thanks. Q. Where can I download T3 updates? A. The latest version of T3 is held on my web site. The address is "http://public.logica.com/~burginp/t3.html". Please feel free to make links to this page, but do not link directly to the ZIP file because your link will be invalidated when the ZIP is updated. A new version of T3 will be available from SimTel mirror sites in the near future. Q. Where on the Internet can I find the ROM files? A. You can get the ROM files for the Dragon 32, Dragon 64 and Tandy CoCo II from at least one site on the Internet. Try Ross Hamilton's web site and David Linsley's web site. You can also find links to these from my own web site, but for copyright reasons the files are not stored there. Try the following address "http://public.logica.com/~burginp/emulators.html#roms". Q. Why don't you include the ROM files? A. I don't include them because I have no right to do so. They are copyrighted, and as much as we may dislike it, that copyright remains valid. I agree that it is very unlikely that I would be sued for infringing the copyright, but that is my risk and I choose not to take it. Also, including the ROMs in the emulator ZIP would force any person or site distributing the emulator to infringe the same copyright, which would be unfair on them. Moreover, some archive sites (including SimTel) would not accept T3 if the ROMs were included. If you did receive the ROMs together with the emulator then please drop me a line at the address given at the end of these instructions. Q. Why won't my ROM work? A. This problem is almost always caused by your ROM file being corrupt. You should obtain another copy, ensuring that you download in binary mode. Q. Why won't the keyboard/joysticks work in <game>? A. This problem is usually caused by the game taking exception to the fact that by default T3 allows the PC cursor keys (standard and keypad) to simultaneously emulate both the Dragon/CoCo joysticks and the Dragon/CoCo cursor keys. The solution is to use the Alt-C control to set the PC cursor keys to emulate either the Dragon/CoCo joysticks only or the Dragon/CoCo cursor keys only. Q. How do I load this *.CAS format software into T3? A. If the program is machine code format, type "CLOADM". This will work for most software. If the OK prompt appears after loading then you will need to type "EXEC". Remember to always perform a cold reset before loading each game into T3. If you still get unexpected results then your *.CAS file is probably corrupt. For software written in BASIC type "CLOAD" and then "RUN". Q. How do I load this *.PAK, *.D32, *.D64, *.D96 or *.CCO format software into T3? A. These extensions all indicate that the files snapshots. If they are v1.4 or v1.5 format (there's no way to tell) then they can be loaded into T3 by using the snapshot facilities (F3 key). If they are other versions then you will first need to use the PC-Dragon II emulator to convert them to v1.4 format. Q. How do I load this *.IMG format software into T3? A. You can't. This software is an old T3 image, which is not portable to this version of T3. Your only chance of loading it into the new version of T3 is by converting it into a virtual cassette file (may not be easy). Q. How can I load my old tapes into T3? A. There are a few utilities around which enable tapes to be copied to files on your PC by using a SoundBlaster card. Download the older emulators (PCDGN201.ZIP and COCO2-15.ZIP) and read the documentation provided there. Q. How can I load my old disks into T3? A. You can't. T3 does not support disk drive emulation. Your only option is to transfer the software to another format (such as a cassette file) and use that. This is only possible for a small number of programs. You can transfer files from Dragon disks to PC disks using PC-CONVERT (contact NDUG), and from CoCo disks using COCO2-15.ZIP. Raw disk format files held in PC format can be converted to cassette files using DC.EXE in PCDGN201.ZIP. Q. Where can I get a copy of <some game>? A. For Dragon games check Ross Hamilton's archive, a link to which can be found on my web site at "http://public.logica.com/~burginp/dragon.html". If you can't find the game there then you will have to convert it to PC format yourself. Please don't ask me to send it to you. Q. Where can I buy hardware these days? A. I do not keep information about hardware suppliers, and cannot help with this type of enquiry. Q. Please help me with OS9, or with my Tandy <machine>? A. I have no knowledge of these, sorry, and cannot help with any enquiries. Q. Can I still register PC-Dragon II? A. Yes you can. At the time of writing, the terms and conditions of the original registration offer are unchanged. Please refer to the documentation provided in PCDGN201.ZIP. However, please note that snail mail should not be sent to the address given there. Instead use: 18 Moorcroft Road, Sheffield, S10 4GS, England. 21 Disclaimer If you choose to use T3 then you do so entirely at your own risk. No warranty either implied or otherwise is provided for this software. Usage of T3 constitutes acceptance of these terms. 22 Usage Restrictions T3 v0.8 is released to the public domain. It may be used and distributed without charge, but MUST NOT be uploaded to FTP sites/WWW sites or bulletin boards. T3 v1.0 will be made available for widespread distribution very soon, but until then I would like it to reside only at "http://public.logica.com/~burginp/t3.html". 23 Address For Comments And Bug Reports If you have any comments on T3 please do drop me a message at the following address "BurginP@Logica.Com". If you are reporting a bug then please include as much information as possible (but please do not send binaries). If you have access to the World Wide Web then please refer to the notes at "http://public.logica.com/~burginp/mail.html" before sending me any e- mail.