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VICE ~~~~ MS-DOS specific information official VICE home page: http://viceteam.bei.t-online.de/ IMPORTANT NOTICE ================ There is no "real" documentation for the MS-DOS version of VICE at the moment. Please refer to the Unix manual, available from the home page, for the main concepts. This file is only supposed to get you started, and is incomplete. If you feel like helping us to maintain the MS-DOS version of the documentation, you are of course welcome. Please contact ettore@comm2000.it. OVERVIEW ======== VICE is a set of advanced emulators for the Commodore PET, CBM-II, VIC20, C64 and C128. It runs on Unix, MS-DOS, MS-Windows, RiscOS, OS/2 and BeOS systems. VICE is Free Software, released under the GNU General Public License, and you must read the License before using this program. The License is contained in the `COPYING' file which should be included in the distribution. If it is not, please tell us. For more information about the Free Software movement, please consult the GNU home page at http://www.gnu.org, or the Open Source (tm) home page at http://www.opensource.org. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS =================== This has not been tested thoroughly, but the minimum requirements should be: - a Pentium-class machine or better; - 8 Mbytes of RAM; - a register-compatible VGA graphics card (better if it is also SVGA and VESA-compliant); - MS-DOS 5.0 or later (or Windows 95/98). If you want to run VICE under plain MS-DOS (and you should), also the CWSDPMI DPMI server is needed. It's available on several places on the Internet, and is also used by many other 32-bit MS-DOS program. For example, you can download it from the following site: ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2misc/csdpmi3b.zip Alternatively, you can search for `csdpmi3b.zip' on http://ftpsearch.unit.no/ftpsearch/ or other FTP search engines. VICE also supports standard PC joysticks and SoundBlaster 1.0/Pro/16 compatible sound cards, although they are not mandatory. Important notice: due to license incompatibilities with the MIDAS audio system, binaries of the MS-DOS version of VICE do not use the MIDAS audio system anymore. As a consequence, we are now using an Allegro-based driver that only supports SoundBlaster cards. If somebody persuades the MIDAS people to release their code under the GNU Library General Public License or under another license compatible with the GNU General Public License used by VICE, there are chances MIDAS support will be included again. INSTALLATION ============ There is no particular installation procedure for the MS-DOS version of VICE. Just unzip the archive by keeping the directory structure intact (eg. you need to use `pkunzip -d' if you use PkZip). If you have troubles getting sound to work, make sure that the `BLASTER' environment variable is set properly (you should have received information about this together with your soundcard). HOW TO RUN THE EMULATORS ======================== There are four executables for the three PET, VIC20 and C64 emulators: x64.exe, the C64 emulator x128.exe, the C128 emulator xpet.exe, the PET emulator xvic.exe, the VIC20 emulator xcbm2.exe, the CBM-II emulator To run them, just type the corresponding name at the DOS prompt. `xpet.exe' actually emulates all the PET models (2001, 3008, 3016, 3032B, 4016, 4032, 4032B, 8032, 8096, 8296, SuperPET). You can select which machine you want by using the `-model' option. So you basically have to do: xpet -model 3032 for the PET 3032 emulator xpet -model 4032 for the PET 4032 emulator xpet -model 8032 for the PET 8032 emulator (80 column) and so on. As soon as the emulator is started, you should get the boot-up screen of the emulated machine on your screen. KEYBOARD LAYOUT =============== C64/C128/VIC20 Keyboard layout ------------------------------ The keyboard layout is pretty much the same as the one of the real thing. ! " # $ % & ' ( ) INST <- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 + - DEL CTRL Q W E R T Y U I O P @ * = RUN [ ] STOP A S D F G H J K L : ; RETURN < > ? SHIFT Z X C V B N M , . / SHIFT CBM SPACE The other keys are mapped as follows: Delete Arrow Up/PI Insert Pound Home CLR/HOME Page Up RESTORE Arrow keys CRSR The additional C128 keys are mapped as follows: F1 ESC F2 TAB F3 ALT F5 HELP F6 LINE FEED F7 40/80 COLUMN F8 NO SCROLL F9 F1 F10 F3 F11 F5 F12 F7 End CRSR Up/Down PgDown CRSR Left/Right Numpad Numpad Grey + Numpad - Grey - Numpad + Grey Enter Numpad ENTER Moreover, unlike the C64, the arrow keys emulate the "unshifted" cursor keys in the upper part of the keyboard instead of the CRSR ones. PET keyboard layout ------------------- The PET keyboard layout is a bit more complicate and varies according to the model. PET "graphics" keyboard (40-column models) .......................................... <- ! " # $ % ' & \ ( ) <- DEL Q W E R T Y U I O P UpArrow STOP A S D F G H J K L : RETURN SHIFT Z X C V B N M , ; ? SHIFT RVS SPACE STOP The other keys are mapped as follows: Home [ PgUp ] End < PgDown > Ins @ Numpad Numpad Grey * * Grey / / Grey + + Grey - - Grey Enter = NumLock CLR/HOME Arrow keys CRSR PET "business" keyboard (80-column models) .......................................... ! " # $ % & ' ( ) INST <- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 : - DEL TAB Q W E R T Y U I O P [ ] \ : ESC A S D F G H J K L ; @ RETURN < > ? SHIFT Z X C V B N M , . / SHIFT RVS SPACE RPT The other keys are mapped as follows: Home CLR/HOME Ins RUN/STOP Del Up Arrow Numpad Numpad Arrow Keys CRSR Special keys ------------ The following keys perform special actions on *all emulators*: Esc Enter the emulation menu Alt-F1 Attach next disk image from flip list Alt-F2 Attach previous disk image from flip list Alt-F3 Add current disk image to flip list Alt-F4 Remove current disk image from flip list Alt-F5 Toggle the statusbar that displays drive + speed infos Alt-F12 Soft reset Alt-Ctrl-F4 Datasette Record Key Alt-Ctrl-F5 Datasette Play Key Alt-Ctrl-F6 Datasette Rewind Key Alt-Ctrl-F7 Datasette FF Key Alt-Ctrl-F8 Datasette Stop Key Alt-Ctrl-F12 Hard reset (wipes out RAM) ScrollLock Toggle warp mode (it makes the emulator run as fast as possible and turns sound off) Alt-Pause Freeze (emulates the Action Replay freeze button when an Action Replay image is loaded in the C64 emulator) THE EMULATOR MENU ================= You can access the emulator's main menu by pressing the `Esc' key. You can then select a menu item with the arrow keys and activate it by pressing Enter. Moreover, every menu item has an highlighted character which you can press to activate it; the items of the main menu can also be activate by pressing Alt + that character from within the emulator screen. Many menu items open other submenus; you can leave the submenu by pressing the `Esc' key. To leave the menu system and return to the emulation screen, you can either press `Esc' at the toplevel menu or press `Tab' from the main menu or any submenu. You can also navigate through menu levels using `Left' and `Right' cursor keys. Here is a short list of what the various items do. (For more information, refer to the Unix documentation.) Attach images ------------- This menu is used to "attach" a disk, tape or cartridge image for use. "Attaching an image" means that the virtual disk, tape or cartridge is inserted in the virtual disk drive, tape recorder or cartridge slot and you can use it. If you select any of the devices in the menu, a simple file selector will be shown; press `SPACE' to preview the contents of the image or `RETURN' to attach it. In preview mode, you can browse the contents of the image and automagically start one of the programs, by selecting it with the arrow keys and pressing `RETURN'. The contents are displayed in a special C64-lookalike font, and you can switch between the uppercase and lowercase character sets by pressing backspace. When a program is autostarted, the 1541 automatically switches to the fast emulation mode (see below) before loading the file, and the user-specified emulation mode is then restored before the program is executed via the "RUN" command. This procedure does not work for all the programs, though. In such cases, you have to load manually (e.g. `LOAD"NAME",8,1' or `LOAD"*",8,1' for disk images and `LOAD"NAME"' or simply `LOAD' for tape images). Detach image ------------ This menu is used to "detach" disk, tape or cartridge images. This means that the virtual disk, tape or cartridge is removed from the virtual disk drive, tape recorder or cartridge slot. Notice that, when a T64 tape image is attached, X64 emulates a pressed PLAY button on the cassette recorder. This should not do any harm in most cases, but some programs do not like it; if you experience any weird problems, try to detach the tape image after you have loaded it. Joystick settings ----------------- This allows you to select in which port the emulated joysticks should be plugged in. You can specify a different device for the two joystick ports (the VIC20 has only one); available devices are the PC keyboard and the PC's real joysticks. The PC keyboard can also be configured for any joystick layout you like. Video settings -------------- This is a sub-menu from which you can specify the desired refresh rate, enable/disable sprite collisions (on the C64) and select the VGA mode you want. The following resolutions are supported: 320x200 (linear) 640x480 (linear, requires a VESA-compliant SVGA card) 360x240, 360x270, 376x282, 400x300 (planar) *Warning*: the planar resolutions might not work on your equipment! Some monitors do not like to be fed with strange frequencies, and although we have never heard of any damages resulting from these resolutions, we cannot give any warranties about that. The mode-X resolutions are _much_ slower than the linear ones, so the performance will be worse with them. The VGA mode in the PET emulator is hard-coded: you will get 320x200 for the 40-column models (2001, 3032, 4032) and 640x480 for the 80-column models (8032, 8096, 8296). From this menu you can also enable or disable a video cache which *might* make things faster when little graphics activity is going on. This feature was originally intended for Unix system running their window systems across networks; on MS-DOS, it usually does not help much (if at all). As it can even slow things down, you probably want to keep it turned off. Another important feature is "triple buffering". With triple buffering, animations will be much smoother, provided that your system is fast enough to support them. Triple buffering overrides the video cache (which is always turned off), uses some additional processor power and does not work at 640x480. Moreover, it turns 320x200 into a Mode-X planar resolution, and thus that mode will become as slow as the other planar ones. Important notice: triple buffering might not work correctly under Windows; and even if it works, it might cause serious performance loss. You should definitely run the emulator under plain DOS if you want to use this feature. Drive settings ----------------------------------- This sub-menu specifies the parameters for the hardware-level emulation of the 1541 disk drive. If the programs you are running do not need accurate emulation of the disk drive, keep the "true" 1541 emulation turned off as it is much faster this way. On the other hand, if you run games that require turboloaders or other features that are not supported by the fast disk-drive emulation you should keep it turned on. The 1541 "idle method" selects the way the 1541 CPU is emulated. With the "Skip Cycles" method, each time the serial line is accessed by the computer the drive executes all the cycles since the last time it was running; if the number of elapsed cycles is larger than a certain value, the drive discards part of them. With the "Trap Idle" method, the disk drive is still emulated upon serial line accesses as with the previous option, but it is also always emulated at least at the end of each screen frame. Moreover, if the drive gets into the DOS idle loop, only pending interrupts are emulated to save time. The first option ("Skip cycles") is usually better for performance, as the drive is emulated as little as possible; on the other hand, you can notice sudden slowdowns (when the drive executes several cycles at once). Moreover, if the drive tries to get in sync with the computer in some weird way and the computer does not access the serial line for a long time, it is possible that some cycles are discarded and the sync is lost. Notice that this hack can have no effect on performance if one program continuously reads the CIA ports, as the drive will have to be emulated in any case. The second option ("Trap idle") is usually a bit slower, as at least interrupts are always emulated, but always keeps the 1541 and the computer in sync. On the other hand, if a program installs a non-standard idle loop in the drive, the 1541 CPU has to be emulated even when not necessary and the global emulation speed is then much slower. If the "Trap Idle" method is enabled, the Scroll Lock LED of the keyboard will emulate the 1541 drive LED. The "Enable parallel cable" option can be used to enable/disable the emulation of a SpeedDOS-compatible parallel cable. Sound settings -------------- This menu is used to specify the parameters for the sound emulation. Sound playback only works if you have specified a 100% speed limit, and is turned off with an error message otherwise. Moreover, it eats some CPU speed. The "sound buffer size" setting is used to specify the amount of data the audio playback buffer can hold; data is actually played through the speaker when the buffer is full. Because of this, large values will result in delayed sound output; slow machines have to use larger values than fast ones, though, because this helps to avoid "clicking". SID filters are a feature of the original audio chip of the C64; if you turn them off, some sound effects will not be played correctly. But on the other hand, keeping them enabled makes VICE a bit slower. Other settings -------------- These settings include: - the 1750 512K RAM emulation; - 1351 mouse emulation; - IEEE488 interface emulation; - custom emulation speed; - "warp mode" (makes the emulator run as fast as possible); - usage of the keyboard LEDs for the 1541 emulation and warp mode (try to turn it off if your machine hangs without any apparent reason); - memory configuration (PET and VIC20 only); On the PET emulator, this also lets you choose the model of PET being emulated. Notice that switching from one model to another causes the emulated machine to reset itself. Reset ----- This is used to reset the emulated machine. The are two types of reset: the "hard" one which wipes out the RAM as if the machine had been turned off and on, and the "soft" one which simply emulates a standard reset button and preserves the memory contents. The soft reset can be performed from the emulation screen by pressing `Alt-F12'; the hard one by pressing `Alt-Ctrl-F12'. "Soft" reset is sometimes not enough to bring the machine to the startup sequence. Monitor ------- Enters the built-in machine-language monitor. Type `x' to go back to the emulation. A complete list of the commands is in the UNIX documentation, available from the VICE home page. Otherwise, you can use the `help' command. The monitor is still under construction, so use with care. VICE info --------- Displays some information about the authors, the copyright and the GNU General Public License. Quit ---- Exits the emulator. USING GZIP-COMPRESSED FILES =========================== The VICE emulators are able to handle files compressed with GNU zip automagically, without the need of unzipping them first; this can be used for both D64 and T64 images. In order to allow this, the file's extension must end with `Z': for instance, compressed D64 files must have a `D6Z' extension while compressed T64 files must have a `T6Z' extension. A binary of GNU zip is available through the DJGPP distribution, so you can find it in any of the DJGPP mirror sites. For example, you can find it at the following places: ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/ ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/djgpp/v2/ Of course, GNU Zip is free software released under the GNU General Public License (just like VICE is), and its use is highly recommended as T64 and D64 usually waste much of space and can be highly compressed. One drawback is that when an image is opened in read/write mode, VICE has to re-compress it when the image is detached to update the original in case something has changed. This makes using of GNU zipped images somewhat more harmful (and slower) than using plain uncompressed ones, as it relies on the zipping process to always work correctly. If you are concerned about destroying important images, you should protect them from being written to with the DOS command `ATTRIB': attrib +r diskimage.d6z This is a good idea even if you are not using GNU zipped images, as it prevents emulated programs from writing to the disk. (Of course, some programs explicitly require the disk not be write-protected instead.) CONTACTS ======== You can always find the latest news about VICE at the official VICE home page: http://viceteam.bei.t-online.de/ Also the public patches and beta releases will be available there, so you might want to have a look at it periodically. If you are going to report a bug, please check those pages first; it is possible that the problem you encountered has already been fixed in a more recent version. Also notice that, since VICE is released under the GNU General Public License, the sources are available from the home page too. If you want to report bugs, make suggestions or contribute to the project, e-mail one of the following people: Andreas Boose <boose@linux.rz.fh-hannover.de> drive, tape and cartridge emulation. Ettore Perazzoli <ettore@comm2000.it> for everything else. COPYRIGHT ========= Copyright C 1998-2002 Andreas Boose Copyright C 1998-2002 Dag Lem Copyright C 1998-2002 Tibor Biczo Copyright C 1999-2002 Andreas Dehmel Copyright C 1999-2002 Thomas Bretz Copyright C 1999-2002 Andreas Matthies Copyright C 1999-2002 Martin Pottendorfer Copyright C 2000-2002 Markus Brenner Copyright C 2000-2002 Spiro Trikaliotis Copyright C 1997-2001 Daniel Sladic Copyright C 1996-1999 Ettore Perazzoli Copyright C 1996-1999 AndrΘ Fachat Copyright C 1993-1994, 1997-1999 Teemu Rantanen Copyright C 1993-1996 Jouko Valta Copyright C 1993-1994 Jarkko Sonninen This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA The MS-DOS version of VICE was made possible by a great library: - Allegro, a Game Programming Library by Shawn Hargreaves (http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/allegro). There have also been contributions from several people around the world: look at the Unix documentation or at the "VICE Info" command for a complete list.