
                        The Star Commander, Version 0.82



  This is still not the final release  of  The Star Commander.  Look  out  for
further releases. Please, report bugs and ideas to me because I  want  Version
1.0 to be the final release.

  Because it took a significant amount of time to create  this  documentation,
you are expected to read it thoroughly. For a list of important  URL's,  where
you can find more information about the Commander and the cables it uses,  see
the 'Related Net resources' section.

  Note: This documentation is meant to be viewed with a monospace font, in IBM
code page 437 (US default for DOS).  With  a  proportional  font,  tables  and
drawings will fall apart; with other code pages, including but not limited  to
DOS 85x, Windows 125x and ISO 8859-x, some characters will look  strange.  You
might want to view this file from the Commander itself.



  0.  Table of contents

  1.  Introduction
  2.  Copyright and license
  3.  System requirements
  4.  Installation
  5.  Usage        
  6.  Advantages
  7.  Connecting a Commodore drive to your PC
  8.  The X1541-series interfaces
  9.  Technical background information
  10. Troubleshooting
  11. Reporting problems, ideas and wishes
  12. Bugs fixed since the previous release
  13. Other changes since the previous release
  14. Known problems and limitations
  15. Coming soon
  16. Thanks to
  17. Related Net resources
  18. The author



  1.  Introduction

  This program handles the image files  of  the  C64 Software Emulator  (C64S,
(C) by Miha Peternel and Seattle Lab, 1994-1997), the CCS64 emulator  ((C)  by
Per Hkan Sundell, 1996-2001), Personal C64  (PC64,  (C)  by  Wolfgang Lorenz,
1994-1997) and VICE ((C) by the VICE Team, 1993-2001).  It  copies  files  and
disks between the PC and external Commodore 1541, 1570, 1571 and  1581  drives
and converts several Commodore archive formats.

  It is similar to The Norton Commander (NC, (C) by Symantec Inc.,  1986-1995)
and The Volkov Commander (VC, (C) by Vsevolod V. Volkov, 1991-2001) so it will
surely be easy to use. However, before you start using it, please,  read  this
documentation and the online help carefully,  for  the  differences  from  the
other Commanders, the description of the  X1541-series  interfaces  and  other
details.



  2.  Copyright and license

  The Star Commander is copyright (C) by Joe Forster/STA, 1994-2002.

  The Commander is giftware. You may use the unregistered version as  long  as
you wish and you may give it to any individual,  provided  that  it's  in  the
original, unmodified archive. Don't distribute single files,  only  the  whole
package. To avoid confusion, you should download  distribution  packages  from
the homepage or other distribution sites listed below. If you  get  a  package
from somewhere else then make sure that the package has the author's authentic
verification stamped on it.

  The unregistered version is in no way crippled, there are no nag screens  or
delays in it. However, if you are frequently using the Commander and  you  are
satisfied with it then you are encouraged to register. Please, read  the  file
REGISTER.TXT for more details. You must not distribute  the  personal  keyfile
you receive when you register.

  The source of the Commander is distributed under a public  license  that  is
similar to the GNU Public License but is more restrictive, for the  protection
of Commander users and the author. You  may  distribute  only  those  modified
versions or derived programs that satisfy all  restrictions  in  the  license.
When you distribute the Commander, modified versions of it or programs derived
from it, you may not ask for money above the normal fee  of  the  distribution
media itself. Furthermore, you may not publish the Commander or its source  on
floppy disks, CD-ROM's, FTP sites, WWW pages or any other distribution  media,
include it in a software compilation or  bundle  it  with  other  software  or
hardware without prior permission of the author.

  Note that public distribution of the  beta  releases  of  the  Commander  is
completely prohibited. The only public place where you can find  them  is  the
homepage.

  The Commander is provided "as is", without a warranty of any kind.  You  are
using it at your own risk. The author is not liable for  any  damage  or  data
loss caused by the program.

  The Commander supports the following X1541-series cables:

  - X1541 cable ((C) by Leopoldo Ghielmetti, 1992)
  - XE1541 extended cable ((C) by Nicolas Welte and Wolfgang Moser, 1997)
  - XM1541 multitask cable ((C) by Michael Klein and Nicolas Welte, 2000)
  - XA1541 active cable ((C) by Michael Klein and Nicolas Welte, 2000)
  - XH1541/XH1571 hybrid cables ((C) by Bigfoot, 1997)
  - XP1541/XP1571 parallel cables ((C) by Joe Forster/STA, 1997)

  If you produce and sell cables or adaptors that are  compatible  with  these
cables - except for the original X1541 cable -, you must give credits  to  the
respective copyright owner or copyright owners. If  your  adaptors  are  built
onto printed circuit boards then  you  must  also  make  the  complete  layout
available in a format  and  resolution  that  is  suitable  for  high  quality
reproduction so that people can build the adaptors themselves, if they want.

  This common license for the cables is an agreement among the cable  authors.
However, because the author of the original X1541 cable couldn't be contacted,
this license does not apply to the original X1541 cable.



  3.  System requirements

  You must have an IBM or compatible PC with an 80286 processor or higher with
MS-DOS 3.20 or above installed on it and about 470 KBytes of free conventional
memory.

  Some versions of the Linux dosemu don't like the the  OverXMS  unit  of  the
Commander for some, yet unknown, reason. You may also try the Commander  under
the DOS emulator of OS/2, after having enabled the HW_TIMER option in the  DOS
settings. The Commander works quite well in  DOS  shells  of  Windows 3.x  and
Windows 95/98/ME. For Windows NT/2000/XP, see the tweak package.

  If you want to try accessing a Commodore drive under a multi-tasking system,
you must enable the 'Force async transfer'  option.  Remember  that,  although
some extra functions were implemented in the Commander to make it  run  better
under multi-tasking systems, you are supposed to run it under real DOS.



  4.  Installation

  You can install the  Commander  simply  by  decompressing  the  distribution
package using PKZIP 2.xx or any other compatible program. You don't  need  all
the files to run the Commander, most of them are only for your comfort.

  Required:

  - SCMAIN.EXE: For an  absolute  minimum  installation,  you  need  the  main
    executable.

  Recommended:

  - SC.EXE: If you want to have much more memory in the DOS shell,  keep  this
    loader and launch it instead of the main executable.

  - SC.HLP: Keep this to enable the online help.

  - SCVIEW.EXE, SCEDIT.EXE: With their help, you can view and edit  DOS  files
    and Commodore files inside image files and uncompressed archive files.

  Optional:

  - SCSETUP.EXE: Allows you to change the settings of  the  Commander  outside
    the program.

  - *.MNU, *.EXT: Some sample menu  and  extension  files  to  help  you  with
    handling PC and Commodore archives and formatting PC disks.

  - PALETTES.ZIP: Contains some predefined color palettes  that  resemble  the
    palettes of other Commanders and Commander clones.

  - PRINTHLP.EXE: Run this to extract the online help into a text file  or  to
    send it to a printer.

  - SC.ICO, SC.PIF, ICONS.ZIP: If you want to use the  Commander  under  OS/2,
    Windows 3.x, Windows 95/98/ME or Windows NT/2000/XP then  these  are  just
    for you.

  - SC_WINNT.ZIP: Tweak package that allows the Commander to access  Commodore
    drives under Windows NT/2000/XP. For more details, see  the  documentation
    inside the package.

  - SU???.ZIP: Contains the Star Utilities, the external utilities  that  help
    you with mass-converting Commodore archive formats. For more details,  see
    the documentation inside the package.



  5.  Usage

  If you did an absolute minimum installation  then  start  the  program  with
SCMAIN.EXE. If you also have the loader then start the  program  with  SC.EXE.
They accept the following command line parameters:

  SC [options] [startup command]
or
  SCMAIN [options]

  Options are case-insensitive and have to start with a slash; unlike in  some
other DOS programs, hyphens will not work. Valid options are the following:

  - /?: Displays the help screen of command line parameters.

  - /nolpt: Disables access of parallel ports completely. You will not be able
    to use Commodore drives from your PC but, in change, no  strange  behavior
    will occur either because the Commander will not touch the parallel ports.
    See below for a list of such strange behavior.

  - /novesa: Disables support for VESA BIOS extensions upon startup (when  the
    current screen mode is determined), in case it causes strange behavior  on
    your hardware. Note that this command line option does  not  override  the
    option with a similar name in the configuration menus: that option  rather
    controls the usage of the VESA BIOS when the Commander is already running.

  The startup command is a DOS command that is executed before  the  Commander
starts up. Note that the  main  executable  SCMAIN.EXE  itself  is  unable  to
execute startup commands.

  Please, note that there's no documentation on  how  to  use  the  Commander.
However, the context-sensitive online help contains all information on how  to
use each function. If you're using the Commander for the first time then  read
the online help carefully, to find out what the Commander is capable  of.  You
might want to use the included help printer program to have  the  online  help
printed into a text file or sent to your printer, for reading it later.

  To configure the Commander for your needs, enter the 'Configuration...' item
of the 'Options' menu and go through all options in all configuration screens,
reading the corresponding paragraph of the online help on your  way.

  Proper configuration is  especially  important  if  you  want  to  access  a
Commodore drive from your PC. Go to the main configuration screen,  enter  the
'Transfer options' menu and set, at least, the following options:

  - Transfer mode: For 1541, 1570 and  1571  drives,  you  should  set  it  to
    'Warp' because this is the fastest and most reliable  of  all.  For  other
    drives, leave it on 'Normal'.

  - Serial cable: Set the type  of  your  X1541-series  serial  cable  (X1541,
    XE1541, XM1541 or XA1541) here. Note that the listed  cables  are  serial,
    even if you connect them to the parallel port of the PC. Use 'None' if you
    connected a real PC printer that would get  confused  when  the  Commander
    initializes the parallel ports.

  - Parallel cable: Set the type of your X1541-series parallel cable  (XH1541/
    XH1571 or XP1541/XP1571) here. Use 'None' if you have no parallel cable or
    you don't want the Commander to touch the corresponding parallel port.

  - Force async transfer: Disable for plain DOS and enable  for  multi-tasking
    systems (Linux, OS/2, Windows 3.x, Windows 95/98/ME,  Windows NT/2000/XP).
    For Windows NT/2000/XP, also see the tweak package.

  - Manual timeouts: You might want to have it disabled all the time.

  - Delay value: Press the 'Recalibrate' button, to have a near optimal  value
    computed for your machine. Note that this value depends on the CPU  speed,
    the operating system and the CPU load. Make sure to  recalibrate  whenever
    using a preconfigured copy of the Commander on another PC or under another
    operating system.

  - Serial interface: Set the parallel port  which  your  X1541-series  serial
    cable is connected to. If your parallel port has a  non-standard  address,
    select one of the custom slots and enter the port address  in  hexadecimal
    notation.

  - Parallel interface: Set the parallel port which your X1541-series parallel
    cable is connected to. If your parallel port has a  non-standard  address,
    select one of the custom slots and enter the port address  in  hexadecimal
    notation.

  - Detect port modes: Enable it, to have warnings  displayed  about  possible
    transfer problems. However, this may cause  strange  behavior  or  certain
    hardware, including lockups. Also, under Windows NT/2000/XP, it may  cause
    long delays. In such cases, disable this option and hard reboot your PC or
    restart the DOS shell.

  - Drive type: Set the type of your Commodore drive here. For  more  details,
    see section 'Commodore drives' in the online help.

  Under certain circumstances, the usage  of  the  parallel  ports  may  cause
strange behavior:

  - After having started the Commander, not even a  printer  can  be  accessed
    anymore, until the PC is rebooted. Possibly, your parallel port falls into
    an unusable state when the Commander tries to  detect  its  mode.  Disable
    'Detect port modes' and reboot your machine.

  - There is a complete system lockup whenever the Commander is started.  Very
    few parallel ports lock up the hardware when their  mode  is  probed.  Set
    your parallel port to another mode in the BIOS setup  and  try  again.  If
    none of the modes work without a lockup, disable 'Detect port modes'.

  - Under Windows NT/2000/XP, there are long delays  upon  startup  or  a  few
    seconds/minutes after the Commander has started. When the Commander  tries
    to detect the mode of the parallel port, Windows  gets  confused.  Disable
    'Detect port modes' and restart the DOS shell and the Commander.

  - Under Windows NT/2000/XP, when a real PC printer is attached, a page  with
    garbage characters is printed upon every startup of  the  Commander.  When
    the Commander initializes the parallel ports, Windows may think  it  wants
    to print something and it forwards bogus data to the printer. Set  'Serial
    interface' to 'None' to skip parallel port initialization.

  If you specify the "/nolpt" option upon startup, these  problems  should  be
gone - although you will be unable to use Commodore drives. If the problem  is
still there then it's not because of the way the Commander  accesses  parallel
ports.

  If you have problems with accessing Commodore drives from your PC,  you  can
find more solutions in the 'Troubleshooting' section of this documentation.



  6.  Advantages

  The following features make the Commander the best of its kind:

  - It is very comfortable to use the well-known Commander-style  environment.
    There is no need to learn sequences of weird key combinations, only  press
    some familiar ones. You can always clearly see  what's  happening  on  the
    screen.

  - Several configuration options allow power users to tune the  Commander  to
    maximum performance.

  - The Commander has built-in support for several Commodore  archive  formats
    (Lynx, filepacked ZipCode, LHA, Arkive and TAR).  The  external  utilities
    also help you with mass-converting them.

  - The disk turbos, for Commodore 1541, 1570 and 1571 disk drives, provide an
    excellent compromise between transfer speed and reliability. Following  is
    a benchmark of the Commander under plain DOS, using a serial  cable  only,
    without async transfer. An original 1541-II drive was used with a 35-track
    disk. The disk contained a 210-block file, stored  below  track  #18.  The
    soft interleave used to save the file was 10 sectors, head movement  speed
    was set to 16.

    ͻ
       Whole disk copy     Read from the 1541     Write to the 1541   
    ͹
         Normal mode              7:50 (*)              9:55 (*)      
    Ķ
         Turbo mode               2:25 (*)              2:25 (*)      
    Ķ
          Warp mode               1:16 (*)              1:19 (*+)     
    Ķ
      Hybrid turbo mode           1:09 (*)              0:48 (*)      
    Ķ
      Hybrid warp mode            0:50 (*)              0:29 (*+)     
    Ķ
     Parallel turbo mode          0:48 (*)              0:48 (*)      
    Ķ
     Parallel warp mode           0:23 (*)              0:29 (*+)     
    ͼ

    ͻ
     210 block file copy   Read from the 1541     Write to the 1541   
    ͹
         Normal mode              2:20                  2:25          
    Ķ
         Turbo mode               1:00                  1:01          
    Ķ
          Warp mode               0:26 (*)              0:26 (*)      
    Ķ
      Hybrid turbo mode           0:22                  0:24          
    Ķ
      Hybrid warp mode            0:18 (*)              0:10 (*)      
    Ķ
     Parallel turbo mode          0:22                  0:24          
    Ķ
     Parallel warp mode           0:10 (*)              0:10 (*)      
    ͼ

    (*) Capable of retrying bad sectors.
    (+) Capable of verifying data written onto the disk.

  - Most of the image file handling routines are  faster  than  those  of  the
    other similar utilities.

  - Hopefully, you remember Disk-Demon, the great C64 disk editor, written  by
    G. Brandt and A. Wellie in 1986/87. A similar disk editor  is  built  into
    the Commander so that you can modify data in disk images and on  disks  in
    Commodore drives directly.

  - The Commander can optionally display everything with the C64 character set
    (only on EGA/VGA video cards).



  7.  Connecting a Commodore drive to your PC

  The serial connection is done using the X1541 interface or its  substitutes.
If you only have an EPP or ECP port then you  have  to  substitute  the  X1541
interface with the XE1541, XM1541 or XA1541 interface.

  If you already have one of the serial cables mentioned  above  and  want  to
achieve a much higher transfer speed and you're willing to modify  your  1541,
1570 or 1571 drive and you have a bidirectional parallel  port  then  you  can
make use of the XP1541 or XP1571  parallel  interface.  If  you  only  have  a
unidirectional parallel port then the XH1541 or XH1571 hybrid interface  gives
you the best performance. You can find the description of  all  interfaces  in
the following section.

  The Commander was designed to access Commodore drives under plain DOS  only.
If you wish to do that under a multi-tasking system then you should either use
the XH1541 or XH1571 hybrid cable or the XP1541 or XP1571 parallel  cable  or,
if having a serial  cable  only,  enable  the  'Force async transfer'  option.
Still, it's not guaranteed to work  absolutely  error  free.  Boot  real  DOS,
remove memory managers, device drivers and other resident programs, if  having
problems.

  The Commander has a machine independent synchronization method that uses the
hardware system timers. The automatic calibrator inside the Commander tries to
find a delay value that makes your PC communicate with the Commodore drive  at
the exact speed of the drive. However, if you encounter transfer  problems  or
you want to fine tune the transfer speed then you may want to raise  or  lower
the delay value in the 'Transfer options' menu manually.

  The Commander is equipped with optional fast transfer modes. In turbo  mode,
it transfers data from and to the external Commodore  drive  about  2-3  times
faster and, in warp mode, 5-6 times faster. If you also connect your Commodore
drive with the XH1541 or XH1571 hybrid cable to the PC, using turbo mode,  the
data transfer will be 6-12, with warp mode, 6-20 times faster. The  XP1541  or
XP1571 parallel cable gives you 6-12 times the original speed  in  turbo  mode
and is 10-20 times faster in warp mode.  The  Commander  has  turbo  and  warp
command routines, as well. These speed up deleting files and validating  disks
to 2-10 times the original speed (depending on the number and  length  of  the
files on the disk) and formatting a disk takes only about 12 seconds.

  The Commander supports the following Commodore drives, including all  models
and compatible clones:

  - 1541 drives. 1 MHz, single-sided disks.

  - 1570 drives, in native 2 MHz mode. Single-sided disks only.

  - 1571 drives, in native 2 MHz mode. Double-sided  disks  are  supported  as
    well single-sided ones: the Commander autodetects the number of  sides  on
    the disk.

  - 1570/1571 drives, forced into 1541  emulation  mode:  1 MHz,  single-sided
    disks.

  - 1581 drives. Currently, there are no disk turbos for this drive so  you're
    stuck with normal speed transfer. Disk turbos will be implemented  in  the
    next release.

  To use the built-in drive of a C128D or an SX64, see  the  'Troubleshooting'
section.



  8.  The X1541-series interfaces

  Here is the description of the X1541-series interfaces, with which  you  can
connect a Commodore drive to your PC to use with the Commander.

  If you don't want to read through this complete chapter then you should,  at
least, read the most important facts about the cables and their  compatibility
with parallel ports of different modes.

  If you'd like to build cables and compatible adaptors yourself then you  can
find a more detailed description of them at the cables and adaptors pages.  If
you're not good at at soldering then visit The X1541 Shop and  buy  cheap  but
good quality cables and adaptors there.

  If you're having problems with your cable, you should download  XCTest  from
the useful external programs page and test your cable with it.

  Serial cables are the following:

  - The X1541 cable works on older type SPP and PS/2 parallel ports, ones that
    have bidirectional control lines. The  parallel  port  on  I/O  controller
    cards for 286, 386 and 486 machines and on Hercules video  cards  and  the
    integrated parallel port of most newer 486 motherboards support the  X1541
    cable but only  certain  Pentium  motherboards  have  compatible  parallel
    ports. On motherboards with an integrated parallel port, you have  to  set
    the mode of the parallel port to SPP because the X1541  cable  won't  work
    with EPP and ECP parallel ports.  However,  on  many  newer  motherboards,
    there's absolutely no way to make the X1541 cable work because the control
    lines are not bidirectional in any mode of the parallel port. You can test
    your parallel port's compatibility with the X1541 cable  using  X1541Test.
    If it proves to be incompatible then you need  one  of  the  other  serial
    cables.

  - The XE1541 extended cable is a  substitution  for  the  X1541  cable.  Its
    advantage is that works in all modes of all parallel ports. Its  drawbacks
    are that you need special diodes to build it and that only a few  programs
    support it. Please, note that this cable has  problems  with  motherboards
    that use the ALI 5 chipset and certain laptops. On these machines, use the
    XA1541 active cable instead.

  - The XM1541 multitask cable differs from the XE1541 extended cable  in  two
    wires swapped at the Commodore end. This enables other  transfer  programs
    to use interrupts rather than polling  for  handshake  with  the  external
    Commodore drive. Its drawbacks are similar to the XE1541  extended  cable.
    It's supported by less programs than the XE1541 extended  cable,  however,
    it works under Linux, as well.

  - The XA1541 active cable is similar to the XM1541 multitask  cable  but  it
    uses transistors and resistors  instead  of  diodes.  This  makes  it  the
    ultimate transfer cable because it works with all kinds of parallel ports,
    including the ones the XE1541 extended  cable  and  the  XM1541  multitask
    cable have problems with. Again, it is supported by only a  few  programs.
    This cable also works under Linux.

  Optional parallel cables are the following:

  - The XP1541 parallel cable speeds up communication with  a  Commodore  1541
    drive via a PS/2, EPP or ECP  parallel  port  where  the  data  lines  are
    bidirectional. Its advantage is that both sending data  to  and  receiving
    data from the drive becomes 3 times faster. Its disadvantages are that you
    have to modify your drive internally so that you can connect this cable to
    a parallel plug on the drive. Also, its  need  for  a  bidirectional  port
    excludes the possibility to use it along with the X1541 cable,  except  on
    PS/2 ports. You can't use this cable alone, only together with one of  the
    serial cables above.

  - The XP1571 parallel cable is a modified version  of  the  XP1541  parallel
    cable, designed for 1570 and 1571 drives. Except for  the  periphery  chip
    used in the Commodore drive, it is the same concept as the XP1541.

  - The XH1541 hybrid cable speeds up  communication  with  a  Commodore  1541
    drive drive in all modes of all parallel  ports.  Its  advantage  is  that
    sending data to the drive becomes 3  times,  receiving  data  becomes  1.5
    times faster. Its disadvantage is that  you  have  to  modify  your  drive
    internally so that you can connect this cable to a parallel  plug  on  the
    drive. You can't use this cable alone, only together with the X1541 cable.
    You can't use this cable together with the other serial cables on the same
    port, because of the conflict between the pins used by the two  cables  on
    the PC parallel port.

  - The XH1571 hybrid cable is a modified version of the XH1541 hybrid  cable,
    designed for 1570 and 1571 drives. Except for the periphery chip  used  in
    the Commodore drive, it is the same concept as the XH1541.

  - If you only have one parallel port but want to use the  XH1541  or  XH1571
    hybrid cable or the XP1541 or XP1571 parallel cable then you can create  a
    Y-shaped cable. One end plugs into the PC parallel port and the two  other
    ends plug into the serial and parallel ports on the drive. You can use the
    X1541 cable together with the XH1541 or XH1571  hybrid  cable  on  an  SPP
    parallel port; the X1541 cable together with the XP1541 or XP1571 parallel
    cable on a PS/2 parallel port; and the XE1541 extended,  XM1541  multitask
    or XA1541 active cable together with the XP1541 or XP1571  parallel  cable
    on a PS/2, EPP or ECP port. You can't use the other serial cables together
    with the XH1541 or XH1571 hybrid cable on the same port,  because  of  the
    conflict between the pins used by the two cables on the PC parallel port.

  The mode of your parallel port is  a vital  feature  that  determines  which
cables you can use with your machine so try to find out all the modes of  your
parallel port. Older I/O and parallel port cards only have the  unidirectional
SPP mode, most Pentium and newer 486  motherboards  have  integrated  parallel
ports and allow you to set the port mode in the BIOS  setup,  with  the  usual
choices of SPP, EPP and ECP.

  It's possible that, when changing the mode of the integrated  parallel  port
in your BIOS setup, you won't find the necessary modes as they are  called  in
this documentation. Some BIOS setups have different names for the port  modes.
Compatible, Normal and Standard usually refer to SPP, Extended  possibly means
PS/2 or EPP and Enhanced stands for EPP or ECP.

  Below you find some advices about which cables to use with a given  parallel
port mode and vice versa. They are based on the fact that most  SPP  and  PS/2
parallel ports support the X1541 cable and most EPP  and  ECP  parallel  ports
don't. However, because of the lack of strict standards, there are  exceptions
to these rules: there exist SPP and PS/2 parallel ports that don't support the
X1541 cable and it's also possible that certain EPP and ECP parallel ports  do
support it. You have to determine the true capabilities of your parallel  port
yourself before choosing the cables to use.

  If you have a unidirectional SPP parallel port then you can  use  the  X1541
cable and, optionally, the XH1541 or XH1571  hybrid  cable,  for  the  highest
speed possible on SPP ports. If you have a bidirectional  PS/2  parallel  port
then you can use any of the cables. For maximum speed, you're advised  to  use
the X1541 cable and the XP1541 or XP1571 parallel cable  together.  The  X1541
cable doesn't work with most parallel ports in EPP and ECP mode. You will have
to configure them to SPP mode with the BIOS setup program or with jumpers.  If
the Commander still doesn't work then you have to use one of the  other  three
serial cables that substitute the X1541 cable.

  The X1541 interface is the easiest of all. You only have to connect  certain
pins of the serial port of the Commodore drive and pins of the  parallel  port
of the PC. You need some plugs, some wires  and  some  soldering  skills.  The
XE1541 and XM1541 interfaces are not much harder, they only needs some diodes.
However, the XA1541 interface needs a couple of resistors and SMD  transistors
which are quite hard to solder. Also, the  XH1541, XH1571, XP1541  and  XP1571
interfaces are relatively hard to build as you need to do  some  modifications
inside your Commodore drive. If you're not experienced at soldering then don't
even think about doing them yourself.  In  addition,  the  XH1541  and  XH1571
interfaces also need some diodes.

  The following tables may help you to decide which  cables  suit  your  needs
best. Depending on your parallel port hardware, your soldering skills and your
patience, you may choose the cables that will work best for you.

  This table is a compatibility chart between different  parallel  port  modes
and different interfaces.

        ͻ
                 Compatibility            SPP     PS/2    EPP/ECP 
        ͹
                 Normal (X1541)           yes      yes      no    
        Ķ
               Extended (XE1541)          yes      yes      yes   
        Ķ
              Multitask (XM1541)          yes      yes      yes   
        Ķ
                Active (XA1541)           yes      yes      yes   
        Ķ
           Hybrid (XH1541 or XH1571)      yes      yes      yes   
        Ķ
          Parallel (XP1541 or XP1571)     no       yes      yes   
        ͼ

  Again, the standard X1541 cable doesn't work on most Pentium-class machines.
You can test the compatibility of your parallel  port  with  X1541Test.  Also,
the XE1541 extended cable  and  the  XM1541  multitask  cable  don't  work  on
motherboards with the ALI 5 chipset and certain laptops. Unfortunately,  there
is no way of testing this compatibility with purely software.

  This table shows the ways to achieve different speeds on a  single  parallel
port in different modes.

            ͻ
               Single port       SPP       PS/2      EPP/ECP  
            ͹
              Minimum speed    Normal     Normal    Extended/ 
                                 (1)        (1)    Multitask/ 
                                                     Active   
            Ķ
              Medium speed     Normal+    Normal+             
                               Hybrid     Hybrid              
                                            (1)               
            Ķ
              Maximum speed               Normal+   Extended/ 
                                         Parallel  Multitask/ 
                                                     Active+  
                                                    Parallel  
            ͼ

  Notes:
    (1) This is not the maximum performance for your parallel  port,  you  may
        want to use another cable configuration.

  These tables show the ways to achieve different speeds on two parallel ports
of different modes. The first cable refers to the primary parallel port, whose
mode is indicated by the table title.  The  second  refers  to  the  secondary
parallel port, whose mode is indicated by the column  title.  Note  that  when
you're advised to swap your parallel ports then it's meant  to  be  a  logical
swap, not a physical one.

          ͻ
               Two ports,          SPP       PS/2      EPP/ECP  
             primary is SPP                                     
          ͹
              Minimum speed      Normal     Normal     Normal   
                                  (1,2)     (1,2,3)     (1,2)   
          Ķ
              Medium speed       Normal+    Normal+    Normal+  
                                 Hybrid     Hybrid     Hybrid   
                                   (2)      (1,2,3)     (1,2)   
          Ķ
              Maximum speed                 Normal+    Normal+  
                                           Parallel   Parallel  
          ͼ

  Notes:
    (1) This is not the maximum performance for your parallel ports,  you  may
        want to use another cable configuration.
    (2) You don't need two parallel ports for this  cable  configuration,  you
        can hook the indicated cables up to the primary parallel port.
    (3) This is not the maximum performance for your parallel ports. Swap your
        parallel ports and try again.

          ͻ
               Two ports,          SPP       PS/2      EPP/ECP  
             primary is PS/2                                    
          ͹
              Minimum speed      Normal     Normal     Normal   
                                  (1,2)      (1,2)      (1,2)   
          Ķ
              Medium speed       Normal+    Normal+    Normal+  
                                 Hybrid     Hybrid     Hybrid   
                                  (1,2)      (1,2)      (1,2)   
          Ķ
              Maximum speed      Normal+    Normal+    Normal+  
                                Parallel   Paralell   Parallel  
                                   (2)        (2)        (2)    
          ͼ

  Notes:
    (1) This is not the maximum performance for your parallel ports,  you  may
        want to use another cable configuration.
    (2) You don't need two parallel ports for this  cable  configuration,  you
        can hook the indicated cables up to the primary parallel port.

          ͻ
               Two ports,          SPP       PS/2      EPP/ECP  
           primary is EPP/ECP                                   
          ͹
              Minimum speed        (1)        (1)     Extended/ 
                                                     Multitask/ 
                                                       Active   
                                                         (2)    
          Ķ
              Medium speed         (1)        (1)     Extended/ 
                                                     Multitask/ 
                                                       Active+  
                                                       Hybrid   
          Ķ
              Maximum speed        (1)        (1)     Extended/ 
                                                     Multitask/ 
                                                       Active+  
                                                      Parallel  
                                                         (2)    
          ͼ

  Notes:
    (1) You shouldn't have an EPP/ECP parallel port as your primary port. Swap
        your parallel ports and try again.
    (2) You don't need two parallel ports for this  cable  configuration,  you
        can hook the indicated cables up to the primary parallel port.

  The following diagrams are pictured as viewed  from  the  solder  end  (back
side) of the plug. It may be of help to you that the numbers are often printed
in small letters onto the plug itself. When wiring the interface cables,  make
sure that they are not too long. A cable longer than about two  meters  (eight
inches) will possibly not work, especially if it isn't shielded at all.

  The PC parallel plug (male DB-25 connector):

            PaperEnd   Busy
        SelectIn         Ack        Data 7 - Data 0       Strobe
                           Ŀ   
               V   V   V   V                                 V
            ͻ
             13  12  11  10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1   
              o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   
            ͻ                                                  ͼ
                o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   
               25  24  23  22  21  20  19  18  17  16  15  14   
              ͼ
                                               ^   ^   ^   ^
                             
                            Ground          Select         AutoFeed
                                                  Init   Error

  The Commodore drive serial bus plug (male 6-pin DIN connector):

                                     Reset
                                       
                                       V
                              ͻ ͻ
                            ͼ       ͼ       ͻ
                                 5         1     
                   Data >      o    6    o      < SrqIn
                                      o          
                                 4         2     
                    Clk >      o    3    o      < Gnd
                                      o          
                            ͻ                 ͼ
                              ͼ
                                       ^
                                       
                                      Atn

  Commodore drive periphery chips are displayed  as  viewed  from  above.  The
small semicircular cut may help you with finding the correct orientation.

  The Commodore 1541 drive VIA#1 periphery chip:

                                        
                   ͻ
                    40                                   21 
                   )                                        
                    1 2             9                    20 
                   ͼ
                                        

                                    
                       
                          PA0 - PA7

  You can find the VIA#1 by searching for a chip on the motherboard  that  has
the type number 6522 on it and none of its pins 2-9 are connected to any other
chip.

  The Commodore 1570/1571 drive CIA periphery chip:

                                        
                   ͻ
                    40                                   21 
                   )                                        
                    1                 10           17    20 
                   ͼ
                                        

                                                    
                                       
                                          PB0 - PB7

  The CIA chip has the type number 6526, 8520 or 8521 on it.

  The X1541 interface connects the following pins:

                  CBM drive serial port   PC parallel port

                         2  Gnd  18-25  Ground
                         3  Atn  1  Strobe
                         4  Clk  14  AutoFeed
                         5  Data  17  Select
                         6  Reset  16  Init

  The original  specification  of  the  X1541  interface  requires  the  short
connection of pins 2 and 15 on the parallel port plug. The X1541 program  uses
it for autodetection, the Commander doesn't make use of it. If you  intend  to
use other transfer programs with your interface then you might want to do this
alteration, as well.

  You have to connect the X1541 interface to an SPP or PS/2 parallel  port  as
the lines used by this cable are not necessarily bidirectional on EPP and  ECP
parallel ports.

  The XE1541 extended interface connects the following pins:

                  CBM drive serial port   PC parallel port

                         2  Gnd  18-25  Ground
                         3  Atn  13  SelectIn
                                        >| 1  Strobe
                         4  Clk  12  PaperEnd
                                        >| 14  AutoFeed
                         5  Data  11  Busy
                                        >| 17  Select
                         6  Reset  10  Ack
                                        >| 16  Init

  This interface, unlike the X1541 interface, needs  electronical  components,
namely diodes. These decouple the control lines of the PC parallel port  while
data is coming from the Commodore drive. You have to solder them right  before
each of pins 1, 14, 16 and 17, their cathodes - the end marked  with  a  small
band - pointing towards the pins. It is highly recommended to  use  1N5819  or
BAT85 diodes only, other diodes may make the cable inoperable on some hardware
configurations.

  The XM1541 multitask interface connects the following pins:

                  CBM drive serial port   PC parallel port

                         2  Gnd  18-25  Ground
                         3  Atn  13  SelectIn
                                        >| 1  Strobe
                         4  Clk  12  PaperEnd
                                        >| 14  AutoFeed
                         5  Data  10  Ack
                                        >| 16  Init
                         6  Reset  11  Busy
                                        >| 17  Select

  Please, read the chapter of the XE1541 extended cable for more  details.  As
you can see, the only difference is that the multitask cable has pins 5 (Data)
and 6 (Reset) swapped in the Commodore plug.

  The XA1541 active interface connects the following pins:

                  CBM drive serial port   PC parallel port

                         2  Gnd  18-25  Ground
                         3  Atn  13  SelectIn
                                        () 1  Strobe
                         4  Clk  12  PaperEnd
                                        () 14  AutoFeed
                         5  Data  10  Ack
                                        () 16  Init
                         6  Reset  11  Busy
                                        () 17  Select

  This interface needs electronical  components:  transistors  and  resistors.
These enhance signals while data is going to the Commodore drive and  decouple
the control lines of the PC parallel  port  while  data  is  coming  from  the
Commodore drive. You have to solder the enhancers right before each of pins 1,
14, 16 and 17; see the circuit diagram zoomed below. It is highly  recommended
to use BSV52 transistors and (SMD 1206-style) 4.7 kOhm resistors  only,  other
transistors or resistors may  make  the  cable  inoperable  on  some  hardware
configurations.

  The enhancers are constructed the following way:

        Commodore pin  PC input pin
                                 
                              ------
                            /   C \   \
                           /       \B \
               transistor |         [////] PC output pin
                           \       /  /    resistor
                            \   E /   /
                              ------
                                 
                                  GND

  In the enhancer, the collector is connected to the Commodore pin;  the  base
is connected to the PC output pin, via a resistor; the emitter pin has  to  be
to any or, preferably, all of pins 18-25 on the parallel port.

  The BSV52 transistor has its pins laid out the following way:

                                       C
                                     Ŀ
                                  Ŀ
                                          
                                  Ĵ
                                    
                                   B      E

  This picture displays the transistor as viewed from above.  Note  that  this
pin layout belongs to the BSV52 transistor only, others may  have  their  pins
laid out differently. Also, the BSV52 transistor is a very small SMD component
which makes its manual soldering quite difficult.

  If you don't wish to solder SMD components then a  possible  substitute  for
the BSV52 transistor is the 2N3904 transistor. Please, note  that  using  this
transistor is not recommended at all, as it may make the cable  inoperable  on
some hardware configurations.

  The 2N3904 transistor has its pins laid out the following way:

                                  +------
                                  | o C  \
                                  |       \
                                  | o B    |
                                  |       /
                                  | o E  /
                                  +------

  This picture displays the transistor as viewed from below,  where  its  pins
are. Note that this pin layout belongs to the 2N3904 transistor  only,  others
may have their pins laid out differently.

  The XH1541 hybrid interface connects the following pins:

                    CBM 1541 VIA#1        PC parallel port

                         2  PA0  13  SelectIn
                                        >| 2  Data 0
                         3  PA1  12  PaperEnd
                                        >| 3  Data 1
                         4  PA2  10  Ack
                                        >| 4  Data 2
                         5  PA3  11  Busy
                                        >| 5  Data 3
                         6  PA4 >| 6  Data 4
                         7  PA5 >| 7  Data 5
                         8  PA6 >| 8  Data 6
                         9  PA7 >| 9  Data 7

  The XH1571 hybrid interface connects the following pins:

                   CBM 1570/1571 CIA      PC parallel port

                        10  PB0  13  SelectIn
                                        >| 2  Data 0
                        11  PB1  12  PaperEnd
                                        >| 3  Data 1
                        12  PB2  10  Ack
                                        >| 4  Data 2
                        13  PB3  11  Busy
                                        >| 5  Data 3
                        14  PB4 >| 6  Data 4
                        15  PB5 >| 7  Data 5
                        16  PB6 >| 8  Data 6
                        17  PB7 >| 9  Data 7

  These interfaces need diodes. You have to solder them right before  each  of
pins 2-9 of the PC parallel port, their cathodes - the end marked with a small
band - pointing towards the parallel port pins. A  suggested  diode  for  this
interface is the standard 1N4148 or equivalent.

  You can connect the XH1541 and XH1571 interfaces to  any  type  of  parallel
port. They have no common lines with the X1541  interface  therefore  you  can
connect them, along with the X1541 interface, to the same SPP or PS/2 parallel
port, using a Y-shaped cable. The XH1541 interface only works  with  Commodore
1541 drives and compatible  clones.  The  XH1571  interface  only  works  with
Commodore 1570 and 1571 drives and compatible clones.

  The XP1541 parallel interface connects the following pins:

                    CBM 1541 VIA#1        PC parallel port

                         2  PA0  2  Data 0
                         3  PA1  3  Data 1
                         4  PA2  4  Data 2
                         5  PA3  5  Data 3
                         6  PA4  6  Data 4
                         7  PA5  7  Data 5
                         8  PA6  8  Data 6
                         9  PA7  9  Data 7

  The XP1571 parallel interface connects the following pins:

                   CBM 1570/1571 CIA     PC parallel port

                        10  PB0  2  Data 0
                        11  PB1  3  Data 1
                        12  PB2  4  Data 2
                        13  PB3  5  Data 3
                        14  PB4  6  Data 4
                        15  PB5  7  Data 5
                        16  PB6  8  Data 6
                        17  PB7  9  Data 7

  You have to connect the XP1541 and XP1571 interfaces to a PS/2, EPP  or  ECP
parallel port as on SPP parallel ports the data lines are  unidirectional.  If
you have a PS/2 parallel port then you can connect the X1541 and XP1541 or the
X1541 and XP1571 interfaces to the same parallel port, using a Y-shaped cable.
If you have an EPP or ECP parallel port then you should use the XE1541, XM1541
or XA1541 interface rather than the X1541 interface.  Alternatively,  you  can
build two separate cables and buy a secondary old SPP parallel port  card  for
the X1541 interface. The XP1541  interface  only  works  with  Commodore  1541
drives and compatible clones. The XP1571 interface only works  with  Commodore
1570 and 1571 drives and compatible clones.

  Please, note that none of the XH1541, XP1541, XH1571, or  XP1571  interfaces
is a substitute for the serial cables. You have to connect two cables  to  the
Commodore drive and the PC at the same time to acquire the  enhanced  transfer
capabilities. Don't connect the XH1541, XP1541, XH1571 or XP1571  cable  alone
to the Commodore drive: none of them contain  a  GND  line  so  plugging  them
without a serial cable may short circuit your machines and,  possibly,  damage
the periphery chips. Always connect  the  XH1541,  XP1541,  XH1571  or  XP1571
interface to your Commodore drive and your PC before switching either of  them
on and switch both machines off before pulling the cables out.

  In 1541 drives, nothing is defined to any of the bits  of  Port A.  You  can
solder the XH1541 interface and the XP1541 interface without any problem.

  In 1541C drives, bit 0 of Port A is used for the detection of the head being
over track 1. After stripping this connection off of the chip, you  will  have
to replace the DOS ROM with that of the 1541 or the 1541-II. Otherwise  you'll
get strange results when the drive is seeking: the DOS tries to  rely  on  the
detector line which doesn't exist anymore.

  In 1541-II drives, bit 0 of Port A is grounded, strip this connection off of
the chip.

  In 1570 and 1571 drives, there are several lines connected to  the  bits  of
Port A of VIA#1. You can't use the XH1541 interface or  the  XP1541  interface
with them. However, you can use the XH1571 or XP1571 interfaces, cables of the
same design as the XH1541 and XH1571 interfaces, to a different  chip,  namely
the CIA, most of whose pins are unused in these drives.

  1581 drives are completely different from the aforementioned members of  the
Commodore drive family. You can't use the XH1541,  XP1541,  XH1571  or  XP1571
interfaces with them.

  If you already have a floppy speeder like Speed DOS or Dolphin DOS  in  your
1541, 1570 or 1571 drive then you probably have a parallel plug at  its  rear.
In this case, you have many options of implementing the XH1541, XP1541, XH1571
and XP1571 interface. You can create another cable to connect the drive to the
PC with. You can also split the cable between the drive and  the  C64  into  a
Y-shaped cable, one end plugging into the drive, another into the C64 and  the
third one into the PC. In this case, remember not to plug the cable  into  the
C64 and the PC at the same time. However, your best choice is creating a small
adaptor that imitates the C64 user port on one side  and  plugs  into  the  PC
parallel port on the other side.

  If your 1541 or 1571 drive has no parallel capabilities then you might still
want to create a plug at its rear. This way there  will  be  no  cable  always
hanging out of the drive. With another cable, you'll be able to  use  parallel
transfer with the C64, too. Please, note that parallel copy programs  for  the
C64 may require some additional connections on the VIA  or  CIA  chip  of  the
drive. Read their documentation before soldering so that you can  connect  the
additional pins to the parallel plug, if needed.



  9. Technical background information

  There are three types of lines on PC parallel ports: data lines are used  to
transfer data bytes between the PC and the external device; control lines  are
used by the PC to send control signals to the external  device;  status  lines
are used by the external device to send status signals to the PC.

  From the PC side, logically, data lines should be used for  both  input  and
output, control lines for output only, and status lines for  input  only.  But
this is not exactly the case. On the early SPP parallel ports, data lines  can
only be used for output; this is what we call a unidirectional parallel  port.
Note that this expression is mainly used for the  usage  of  the  data  lines.
Furthermore, with a little trick, the control lines can be used not  only  for
output but for input, as well.

  On these early SPP parallel ports, the port  pins  are  connected  via  open
collectors to the chipset on the I/O controller  card:  there  is  a  resistor
between 5.0 V and the pin and a  transistor  between  GND  and  the  pin.  The
transistor is  controlled  by  the  chipset  which,  on  the  other  hand,  is
controlled by the software. When the corresponding port bit is set to one, the
transistor opens and the resistor pulls the signal level on the pin  to  high,
a voltage level of between 3.5 V and 4.5 V. When the port bit  is  cleared  to
zero, the transistor closes and pulls the signal level to low,  between  0.0 V
and 0.4 V. The reason for the differences of the voltage intervals is that the
transistor can pull stronger than the resistor.

  On Commodore drives, the pins of the serial port are also connected via open
collectors to the periphery chip. When there are open collectors  on  the  two
ends of the same cable then three possibilities exist. If both ends  pull  the
line low then the actual signal level, that can be read by both parties,  will
be low. If both ends pull the line high then the result will be a high signal.
However, if one end pulls the line high and the other one pulls it  low  then,
again, because of the strength of the transistor, the signal level will become
low. The PC or the Commodore machine can pull the line high and  low  and  the
drive will be able to read this signal. However, if  the  machine  pulled  the
line high then the drive will also be able to signal back, by pulling the line
low. This is the only way to input data from the drive and this is exactly how
Commodore machines and PC's, that use an X1541 interface, work.

  It is still a mystery why the original parallel port, designed by IBM, is  a
unidirectional parallel port. The port wouldn't have been more expensive if it
allowed the software to switch the data lines into input mode. Actually,  many
parallel port cards are designed to be bidirectional but are crippled down  to
unidirectional mode. The way to enable bidirectional mode on  these  cards  is
described at the end of this chapter. Such bidirectional SPP ports  are  often
called PS/2 parallel ports.

  However, with the introduction of high-speed  peripherals,  open  collectors
started to be replaced by totem poles: there are two transistors, one  between
5.0 V and the pin, the other between GND and the pin. The two transistors  are
controlled in an inverted way: at a time, exactly one of them is open and  the
other is closed. When the port bit is cleared to zero  then,  as  before,  the
transistor on the GND side closes and pulls the line low.  However,  when  the
port bit is set to one then it is also a transistor that pulls the line  high.
This way, the high signal level is a  voltage  of  very  close  to  5.0 V,  as
opposed to between 2.8 V and 5.0 V in the open collector,  and  the  speed  of
switching between signal levels is also significantly  higher,  allowing  more
data to be transferred within a given interval of time.

  On most Pentium and newer 486  motherboards,  the  pins  of  the  integrated
parallel port are connected via totem poles to the chipset. When a totem  pole
in the PC pulls the line high then it does that  with  a  transistor.  If  the
drive tries to pull the line low, to send a signal, then  it  also  does  that
with a transistor. The two transistors will be fighting against each other and
the outcome is unknown: the signal level may remain at high, if the transistor
on the PC side is stronger; or become low, if the transistor in the  drive  is
the stronger one. Most of the time, the transistors  in  the  PC  seem  to  be
stronger and, therefore, no data can be input from the Commodore drive. And it
is not only totem poles that can render transfer programs unable to work.  The
chipset on some other motherboards doesn't even contain the  circuitry  needed
to read the signal level on lines other than the status lines.

  The new enhanced parallel ports, EPP and ECP ports, have bidirectional  data
lines so that data can be read from a hard disk or a scanner connected to  the
PC. However, as described above, their control  lines  are  not  bidirectional
anymore. Additionally, on some motherboards, control lines are  unidirectional
even when the port is switched to SPP mode via the BIOS setup. The X1541 cable
won't work on these parallel ports. If you can't make transfer  programs  work
with your motherboard then you should stop testing  immediately,  because  the
fights between transistors put stress on the chips on both sides.  You  should
rather build one of the other serial cables which are slightly different  from
the X1541 cable and work on more parallel ports.

  The X1541 cable is of the simplest design. It connects pins of the Commodore
serial port and the PC parallel port without any conversion or wire split.  So
that the PC is able to also input data from the Commodore, not only output  to
it, it definitely needs the lines, it uses, to be bidirectional. If  they  are
not then the cable doesn't work at all, no matter what software  you're  using
with it.

  The XE1541 cable connects wires, coming from the Commodore end, to two  pins
on the parallel port. One of these pins belongs to a control line and there is
a Schottky-diode in front of it. This is the line via which data  is  sent  to
the Commodore. The other pin belongs to a status line which is used to receive
data. Because control lines can be used for output and status lines for  input
on any parallel port, this solves the problem with the X1541 cable.  When  the
PC expects the Commodore to send to data, it sets the control line to  a  high
level and listens to the signal level on the status line. The  diode  prevents
current from flowing from the PC end, therefore, the Commodore is free to  set
the line to whatever level it wants to. Without the diode, the output lines of
the PC and the Commodore would be  fighting  with  each  other,  as  described
above.

  The XM1541 cable has only two wires  swapped  at  the  Commodore  end.  This
results in the DATA line of the Commodore being connected to the ACK  line  of
the PC parallel port. This latter line is the only  one  that  is  capable  of
generating interrupts on the PC. This way, when the PC is waiting for the next
handshake arriving from the Commodore, it can do that  by  enabling  the  "ACK
generates interrupt" feature and halting its  execution.  When  the  interrupt
occurs, the PC can also continue with the next handshake. Until this  happens,
the program uses no CPU time because it's not running at all.  This  interrupt
method uses significantly less CPU time than polling, that is, running  in  an
endless loop that checks the signal level again and again. This  is  important
for true multi-tasking systems such as Linux and Windows NT/2000/XP.

  The XA1541 cable is derived from the XM1541 cable. It also has the two wires
swapped at the Commodore end, therefore, it also improves overall  performance
under a multi-tasking system. However, it corrects a problem with  the  XE1541
and XM1541 cables that occurs with certain parallel ports that are on the edge
of the original IBM specification. According to  the  specification,  the  low
level of a line means that the voltage is between  0.0 V  and  0.4 V.  When  a
Schottky-diode is applied onto this line then the voltage may go  up  to  even
0.8 V because the  typical  voltage  rise  of  such  diodes  is  about  0.4 V.
Unfortunately, this 0.8 V is also just the edge of the low level recognized by
a Commodore. For a Commodore, voltages between 0.0 V and 0.8 V are low;  2.8 V
to 5.0 are high; 0.8 V to 2.8 V are unknown. In the latter case,  it  is  also
unknown what the software running in the Commodore will see: sometimes a high,
sometimes a low level. It  is  worth  mentioning  that  exactly  this  is  why
Schottky-diodes were chosen for the XE1541 and  XM1541  cables:  other  diodes
raise the voltage even more.

  Instead of diodes, the XA1541 cable uses transistors and resistors.  If  the
PC needs to pull the signal level to low on the wire then it sends out a  high
level on the parallel port. This closes the transistor between  the  wire  and
the ground. Because the transistor is strong, it can pull the signal level  to
typically at most 0.2 V which is accepted as a low level by the Commodore,  as
well. This voltage depends on the transistor but not  on  the  voltage  coming
from the parallel port. Therefore, whatever parallel port you have,  including
the ones that are not compatible  with  the  XE1541  and  XM1541  cables,  the
resulting voltage will be enhanced to an acceptable level by  the  transistor.
The resistor is used to adjust the working point of the transistor for optimum
performance. Because a transistor will amplify currents, the base current  has
to be adjusted to a value that results in the needed output  current.  If  the
input current is too high, the transistor will work slower than it  should  be
able to; if the input current is too  low,  the  transistor  will  not  switch
reliably.

  You can convert unidirectional SPP parallel port cards into a  bidirectional
PS/2 port by disconnecting pin 1 of the data latch  74LS374  from  ground  and
connecting it to one of the output pins on the control latch 74LS174. This pin
can be any of pins 2, 5, 7, 10, 12 or 15 and must  not  be  connected  to  any
other chip on the board. The corresponding input pin (3, 4, 6, 11, 13  or  14)
must be connected to bit 5 of the data bus. If this is not the  case  on  your
card then you can access this bit from the data latch. Find out which  one  of
its output pins (2, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16 or 19) is connected to pin  7  of  the
parallel port connector and get bit 5 from the corresponding input pin (3,  4,
7, 8, 13, 14, 17 or 18).



  10. Troubleshooting

  If you encounter problems in this program, first of all, visit the  homepage
and download the very latest (beta) release as it may have the bug, which  you
have run into, already fixed. Also, its documentation may have more  ideas  on
what to try when that particular problem occurs.

  If you find a problem that is not related to accessing an external Commodore
drive, you should contact me with a detailed description of the bug, including
a guide on how to reproduce it. See the next  chapter  on  how  a  proper  bug
report should look like. However, if you can't access the  external  Commodore
drive properly, here are some ideas for you.

  Bare boot your computer, disable all resident programs, memory managers  and
device drivers. Exit multi-tasking systems such as Linux, OS/2,  Windows  3.x,
Windows 95/98/ME or Windows NT/2000/XP. These circumstances  may  affect  data
transfer. Boot plain DOS on your machine or boot your Windows operating system
in DOS mode and strip everything, you don't need, off  your  AUTOEXEC.BAT  and
CONFIG.SYS files. You may create a boot menu or a boot disk,  too.  Note  that
you definitely need the tweaking package  to  access  Commodore  drives  under
Windows NT/2000/XP.

  During your test, don't plug anything other than the serial  interface  into
your PC parallel port and your Commodore drive. From your PC, remove  dongles,
parallel port switches and other devices that may filter data transfer via the
parallel port. From your Commodore drive, remove daisy chained  other  drives,
peripherals and Commodore machines.

  If the connection with the Commodore drive locks up then  switch  the  drive
off and pull the serial interface out of it. Wait for the error message "Drive
not present", plug the interface back and turn the drive back on.  Optionally,
you can reset  the  drive,  e.g.  with  Control-Alt-Backspace.  Then  try  the
following.

  If you get completely confused, you may want to  simply  delete  the  SC.INI
file and start configuring the Commander again from scratch.

  Switch 'Transfer mode' to 'Warp' in the 'Transfer options' menu. This is not
only the fastest transfer mode but the  most  reliable,  as  well.  If  you're
experiencing problems during disk commands then switch 'Command exec mode'  to
'Warp' in the 'Drive options' menu. This will make the Commander use its  own,
more stable, programs for disk commands.

  Raise or lower the delay value in the 'Transfer options' menu.  It  is  very
sensitive so change it at steps of one, with a butterfly method:  add  one  to
the original value; subtract one from the original value;  add  two;  subtract
two etc. The highest delay value you can use without transmission problems  is
the optimum. You can use the 'Recalibrate' button to have the - hopefully best
- delay value calculated for you. Note that you definitely have to change  the
delay value if you started using the Commander under another operating system,
e.g. switched from DOS to Windows or  vice  versa.  The  optimal  delay  value
depends on the effective CPU speed of your PC which, in turn, is  affected  by
the raw CPU speed, the operating system you use and the current CPU load.

  Check, in the 'Transfer options' menu, if you have correctly set the type of
the serial cable and the parallel port it is connected to. Do  the  same  with
the parallel cable, in case you have one. If you  have  no  additional  cable,
besides the serial cable, then set the parallel cable to 'None'.

  If you really want to access the Commodore drive via a serial cable under  a
multi-tasking system then enable  the  'Force async transfer'  option  in  the
'Transfer options' menu. Without that,  you  would  most  probably  experience
frequent lockups or timeouts. For Windows NT/2000/XP, see the  tweak  package.
First, you should test the connection under plain DOS though. You  might  want
to try the async transfer feature under plain DOS, as well, if you  experience
transmission problems.

  Under Windows, open the 'Properties' windows of  the  DOS  shell,  that  the
Commander is running in, go to the 'Misc' tab and  set  'Idle sensitivity'  to
'Low', the left end of the slider. This gives more CPU time to the Commander.

  Turn 'Manual timeouts' on or off. While it usually helps under plain DOS, it
may turn things even worse under a multi-tasking  system.  Also,  when  it  is
enabled, the Commander doesn't really like it if you touch the keyboard or the
mouse during its communication with the Commodore drive.

  Check whether the address and mode of your parallel  port  is  detected  and
displayed correctly in the 'Transfer options' menu. If it is not  detected  at
all then, in the case of an integrated parallel port, enter the BIOS setup and
check your parallel port settings. On some motherboards, it is possible to set
the parallel port into Auto mode. In this  case,  a  plug-and-play  compatible
operating system has the chance to set the parallel port to  the  address  and
mode it likes. However, DOS is not one of these operating systems so  set  the
address and the mode manually. See the next paragraph for the proper mode.

  If you have a Pentium or newer 486 motherboard, with an integrated  parallel
port and you're using the X1541 interface then change the mode of the parallel
port to SPP or PS/2  (usual  aliases  are  Normal,  Standard,  Compatible  and
Extended). In case you also use the XP1541 or XP1571 parallel cable, you  must
set its parallel port to PS/2, EPP or ECP  (usual  aliases  are  Extended  and
Enhanced) mode. To test your PC against compatibility with  the  X1541  cable,
download X1541Test from the useful  external  programs  page.  For  the  other
cables, the parallel port mode usually doesn't matter although there are  some
exceptions. You can read more about the compatibility of  the  cables  at  the
separate cable info pages, below the cables and adaptors page.

  If you are still unable to access  the  Commodore  drive  then  disable  the
'Detect port modes' option in the Commander, save the  setup  and  do  a  hard
reboot with the RESET button of your PC. A very few parallel ports  fall  into
an unusable state when the Commander attempts to detect their mode.

  If a given mode of your parallel port completely fails all trials,  you  may
try switching it into another mode in the BIOS setup. It is  worth  mentioning
that, on some motherboards, the Commander locks up the machine completely when
it is trying to detect a parallel port that is in EPP 1.7 mode. This seems  to
be some kind of a hardware problem as it makes Linux also lock  up  completely
upon startup. In this case, you rather have to switch the parallel  port  into
EPP 1.9 or ECP mode in the BIOS setup.

  If you have  a  motherboard  for  a  Pentium-class  CPU  then  you're,  most
probably, the owner of an integrated parallel port that is  incompatible  with
the X1541 cable. To test your PC against compatibility with the  X1541  cable,
use X1541Test. Try using an older I/O controller card, a parallel port card or
a Hercules video card with a built-in parallel port.  Alternatively,  you  can
use the XE1541, XM1541 or XA1541 cable.

  If your motherboard allows overclocking the FSB  (Front Side Bus)  frequency
then set it back to the default value in your  BIOS  setup.  For  the  default
value, refer to the motherboard manual. The Commander relies upon the hardware
timers having the same speed on all PC's but changing the  FSB  frequency  may
affect the hardware timer frequency, as well, on some motherboards.

  If you use the built-in drive of a C128D or an SX64 then execute the command
'POKE 56576, 199' on the Commodore machine, before  accessing  its  drive,  to
decouple the machine from the common serial bus, by switching the CLK line  to
high. Every time you also access the drive from the Commodore machine,  you'll
have to issue this command again afterwards. Note that the Commander decouples
the PC from the serial bus one second after having completed a disk operation.

  Make sure that the serial  interface  is  assembled  well,  it  is  shielded
correctly and it is not too long. Check it against the diagrams  above  or  at
the cables and adaptors pages: it may be a mirrored cable or the  electronical
parts used in it may be off the specification. If you bought  the  cable  from
someone, you may want to contact the seller with a  problem  report.  You  can
also try your cable with other PC's and/or other  transfer  programs.  If  you
want to test your cable, download XCTest from  the  useful  external  programs
page.

  Plug your Commodore drive to a Commodore machine to see if it works  at  all
after all those years. You may want to borrow a tested drive from someone.

  If you have an integrated parallel port whose connector is not soldered onto
the motherboard but rather has a cable that is plugged  onto  the  motherboard
then check this cable connection. It's possible that the cable of the parallel
port is plugged onto the motherboard in a mirrored way. You can also check its
functionality with a PC printer.

  If your network uses parallel port redirection then logout.

  If you've tried everything and you still can't find out which  component  is
is not working properly, download XCDetect from the useful  external  programs
page. Connect your Commodore drive via the cable to the PC, switch  the  drive
on and run XCDetect in debug mode,  by  specifying  the  "-d"  option  on  the
command line. If the program manages to detect both your cable and your  drive
then there's either a Commander configuration problem or you have found a  bug
in the Commander. Please, note that if  XCDetect  displays  "(NC:0x83)"  or  a
similar hexadecimal error code after the device number then it did not  detect
a device with that particular device number.

  Also, there's a tester program for X1541-series cables called XCTest on  the
same page. It allows you to test the cable at a lower level,  by  letting  you
send outgoing signals to the drive via the  cable  and  showing  the  incoming
reply signals.

  If you're done with all these checks and still  no  luck,  contact  me.  See
below for more information on how a proper report should look  like.  Improper
reports will not be replied to.



  11. Reporting problems, ideas and wishes

  I do not have the possibility to test the program on many kinds of  PC's.  I
ask you to contact me if you found bugs in the program (you will possibly find
some as it is still under development) or have an idea of what improvements  I
should do in the future. Please, send me a  note  if  you  saw  a  grammatical
error, misspelling, typo or something misunderstandable in the online help  or
this documentation.

  If you're having some problems with accessing your Commodore drive with  the
Commander, please, read the 'Troubleshooting' section in this documentation as
it covers most usual mistakes and problems and, also, possible  solutions.  If
that guide doesn't help you then send me an E-mail with your detailed  report.
A report should have the following information:

  - The description of the important components of your PC: motherboard  brand
    and type, CPU type and speed, integrated chipset brand and type. Refer  to
    your motherboard manual for this information.

  - The type of the serial - and, optionally, the parallel -  cable  that  you
    used between the Commodore drive and the PC. Also, where you got the cable
    from: self-made; bought it in The X1541 Shop (see URL below); or bought it
    somewhere else (URL and/or E-mail address of seller, please).

  - The type of your Commodore drive.

  - Name and version of operating system used.

  - The exact version number of your Commander copy. Note that  beta  releases
    have a third version number, too, e.g. "0.12.34 beta".

  - What error you get and when you get it. Make sure to quote the exact error
    message.

  - The SC.INI file you used when the problem occurred. Send it  uuencoded  or
    attached, but compress it first with ZIP.

  - A guide on how to reproduce the error. Even if it occurs for you  all  the
    time, it might not be trivial to make the Commander do it again on another
    setup.

  - If you can't access the Commodore drive at all, include XCDetect's  output
    in debug mode, as well, by typing "xcdetect -d > output.txt" into the  DOS
    command line, and attaching the resulting  "output.txt"  file,  compressed
    with ZIP. You may also want to run XCTest and include its output, too.
  
  - If the problem occurs only with a certain file or set of  files  then  you
    can send it/them to me uuencoded or attached, as  well.  Please,  compress
    all the files, you send to me, with ZIP. For ZIP archives  larger  than  a
    few hundred Kbytes, ask first.

  - Please, confirm that you have read the 'Troubleshooting' section and tried
    everything described there!

  Reports that miss any of these informations will not be replied to.  Please,
understand that I don't have the time to find out what you mean in your report
or make experiments on how to reproduce the reported problem on my own system.



  12. Bugs fixed since the previous release

  The following bugs have been fixed since Version 0.81. For a  complete  list
of bug fixes since older releases, see HISTORY.TXT.

  - a pointer went astray when switching to the C64 character  set,  it  might
    have caused rare lockups

  - the EOI detection problem, that caused the loss of the last byte  of  some
    sectors during disk copy and the loss of the last directory sector  during
    reading the directory in normal transfer mode, has been finally fixed

  - when the header of sectors are not found during warp disk copy, you get an
    error message instead of the transfer stopping, with the disk spinning but
    apparently no data being read

  - false timeout errors were reported at the end of file copies in normal and
    turbo mode

  - no files could be processed in directories inside archive files

  - the Commander, the viewer and the editor don't lock up under the long file
    name support program of Caldera OpenDOS anymore

  - the Commander doesn't lock up when reading a looping directory

  - if you were using the hybrid or parallel cable on an ECP parallel port and
    saved the setup with one of the panels being an external  panel  then  the
    Commander didn't recognize external drives upon startups anymore

  - you get a warning when you leave the 'Transfer options' menu if one of the
    LPT ports is set to a non-existant port

  - if there was an error while preformatting the destination disk,  the  disk
    copy was aborted

  - the warp disk copy locked up  when  it  tried  to  verify  certain  sector
    contents

  - wiping phantom files does not erase the directory anymore

  - the Commander and Star Ark computed the start offset of the data  area  of
    Arkive archives incorrectly so they sometimes extracted corrupted files

  - deleting files from filepacked ZipCode archives went  crazy  most  of  the
    time

  - no dialog box remains on the screen when a directory structure is copied

  - if you switched back to normal mode from either fast mode, only the  first
    block of the directory was read from the Commodore drive

  - the GEOS file converter routines chopped off the last byte of VLIR records

  - GEOS files are now saved exactly the same way into disk  images  as  under
    GEOS itself

  - when copying files out of file images automatically,  using  the  'Extract
    PC64 file images' option, the original Commodore name of the file is  also
    extracted

  - when, during a file copy, the name of  the  destination  PC64  file  image
    resembles a device, an underscore is appended to the  name;  this  follows
    PC64's original behavior

  - Commodore file names, that  contain  too  many  decimal  digits,  are  now
    correctly converted into a PC64 file image name

  - LHA archives with entries of invalid Commodore file types or with trailing
    garbage are now considered to be valid

  - when extracting files from LHA archives,  you  are  not  asked  twice  for
    manual file name conversion anymore

  - turbo delete and validate work correctly on extended disks, too

  - if 'Keep non-standard ext' is switched off, when copying DOS files into  a
    CBM panel, characters including and after the rightmost dot  are  cut  off
    rather than the leftmost dot and everything after it

  - when copying DOS files or files in LHA or TAR archives from or  into  GEOS
    disk images, no ASCII-PETSCII file name conversion takes place

  - if a CD-ROM drive has no disk in it and you want to change to this  drive,
    you will get the same error message as when  changing  to  a  floppy  disk
    drive with no disk in it

  - under PTS-DOS, the 'Change drive' dialog box  displays  only  those  drive
    letters that are really available; also, there are no more  problems  when
    changing to a floppy disk drive

  - the handling of the phantom B: drive on single-floppy  PC's  is  now  more
    compatible with DOS clones

  - the critical error boxes display device errors correctly

  - the bug that makes C64S refuse paths given on  the  command  line  with  a
    trailing backslash has been circumvented in the emulator launch file

  - if you entered an invalid image or archive then, after the error  message,
    you got an empty DOS panel

  - if you pressed Enter on 'Cancel' buttons then  the  current  function  was
    continued as if you had pressed the 'OK' button

  - Control-PgDn enters directories, image and archive files  only  and  never
    launches DOS files

  - the undocumented hotkeys Control-PgDn and Control-PgUp are  now  mentioned
    in the online help

  - the Commander locked up if you pressed Control+Backslash  in  an  external
    panel

  - when sorting DOS directories by date, directories whose name starts with a
    dot won't be sorted before '..' anymore

  - when renaming files with long file names, asterisk wildcards  are  handled
    in a Unix-like way, e.g. 'a*' changes the first character of the file name
    to 'a' but keeps all other characters unchanged, including the extension

  - very long paths are truncated in the command line

  - long file names containing the characters ",", ";", "=" or  "+"  are  also
    enclosed into quotes when inserted into the command line

  - file time stamps are displayed with the correct country-specific separator
    in the 'File attributes' dialog box

  - the bottom frame of Wide DOS panels with no  mini  status  now  joins  the
    vertical separator line correctly

  - when copying multiple disks, destination disk  images  don't  inherit  the
    error info block of the previous one

  - in the disk copier, automatically skipped bad sectors  don't  inherit  the
    error code of that sector where 'Skip auto' was selected

  - if an error occurs during copying a disk to a disk image, the first one or
    two sectors of the current track are not overwritten with the code of  the
    turbo loader

  - when changing one of the panels to an external  panel,  the  command  line
    path automatically changes to the path of the opposite panel

  - GEOS disks in external Commodore drives are also displayed with  the  GEOS
    character set

  - you couldn't move files between images or archives with the same file name

  - there are no more lockups if files of empty names  are  copied  into  PC64
    file images

  - when copying files inside PC64 file images into PC64 file images, the file
    type of the source file is preserved

  - when copying into PC64 file images, the progress indicator filled up  with
    half speed and only reached the middle of the bar

  - if you copied files from Commodore drives with typing a file name  pattern
    then the Commander tried to copy files in the second, third etc. directory
    sector again and again and the attribute of the destination files was also
    changed to DEL

  - by pressing 'Cancel' in the file name conversion confirmation dialog  box,
    now you can abort the file copy process immediately

  - when you renamed or deleted files by  entering  a  wildcard  pattern,  the
    cursor was placed onto an inappropriate file afterwards

  - directories containing files with dot as  the  first  character  of  their
    file name couldn't be deleted

  - you are not allowed to copy multiple files with the same name into LHA and
    TAR archives anymore

  - there were several problems if  you  tried  to  compress  files  into  LHA
    archives from disk images containing phantom files

  - you couldn't extract files from LHA archives with a long file name

  - when copying, moving or renaming files, file names  are  truncated  to  16
    characters, except for DOS, TAR and LHA panels

  - in Brief mode, file names in LHA and TAR directories are  truncated  to  16
    characters

  - sometimes false errors were reported about trying  to  copy  a  file  onto
    itself

  - you're not allowed to select relative files with Grey * anymore

  - you can select DOS directories with the right mouse button

  - frozen files copied into tape images were given invalid attributes so  the
    emulator wouldn't load them

  - when saving files, the GEOS soft interleave is used if the source file  is
    a GEOS file, not if the destination disk is a GEOS disk

  - while copying files into disk images, Convert archives are  not  converted
    into GEOS files if GEOS support is disabled

  - if you moved files and appended them to an already existing file then only
    every second source file was processed

  - you couldn't delete files in image and archive files with  typing  a  file
    name pattern

  - if the destination file already existed, you were asked  for  confirmation
    about overwriting it, even if you pressed Escape while reading  the  first
    chunk of data from the source file

  - the Commander didn't recognize the standard Commodore file  types  in  DOS
    file extensions

  - if you delete a file image which is opened in the inactive panel then  the
    panel will fall back to DOS mode

  - if you enter a year less than 80 in the 'Attributes' dialog  box  then  it
    will be assumed to be a date after 2000

  - even when 'Auto unselect files' is unchecked, 'File attributes'  unselects
    processed files

  - File info didn't recognize frozen files

  - files extracted from images or archives did not keep  the  date  stamp  if
    'Keep file date stamps' is unchecked

  - the attributes of multiple files couldn't be changed in image and archives
    file, only one by one

  - no volume label was displayed for CD-ROM drives and a false  volume  label
    was reported for Windows 95 partitions where there was a  long  file  name
    entry before the entry of the real label

  - there are no more lockups if you forget  the  colon  at  the  end  of  the
    file name pattern in extension files

  - the 'Owner' function does not lockup anymore for crosslinked  and  looping
    files

  - inserting data in the text half of the sector editor works now

  - several problems related to Quick view panels have been fixed

  - the sample Commander screens in the external setup have been updated

  - keeping the left mouse button pressed will scroll the panel display up  or
    down, even if you move off the panel rectangle

  - the viewer and editor now also display the symbols for control  characters
    in screen code view mode

  - when creating a new file in the editor, several active  functions  in  the
    key bar, at the bottom of the screen, weren't displayed

  - search strings were truncated at 21 characters both in the viewer and  the
    editor

  - the editor couldn't backup files in shared environments

  - the editor didn't recognize when a file inside an image  or  archive  file
    was too big and, while trying to load it fully into memory, locked up

  - in the ASCII half of the hexa mode of  the  editor,  Alt-key  combinations
    won't write a zero byte into a file anymore

  - the 'Save as' function of the editor now reads in  the  attribute  of  the
    file specified and warns you about it being  a  read-only,  hidden  and/or
    system file correctly

  - the Star Utilities had several problems with phantom files

  - Star ARC didn't stop displaying some  archive  titles  because  it  didn't
    recognize their end

  - in Star LHA, you can use a dash before the command 'S'

  - Star List does not fall into an endless loop when listing messed  up  disk
    images and stops execution if you press Escape

  - Star List didn't display graphical characters correctly  in  LHA  and  TAR
    archives

  - Star List doesn't recurse into subdirectories unless you  explicitly  tell
    it to

  - Star Zip warns you if the destination disk is full



  13. Other changes since the previous release

  The following features have  been  implemented  since  Version 0.81.  For  a
complete list of changes since older releases, see HISTORY.TXT.

  - the Commander  main  executable  has  been  restructured  to  an  overlaid
    program, now it needs about 100 KBytes less conventional memory

  - the executable files and  the  online  help  are  neither  compressed  nor
    encrypted anymore because their source is published anyway; feel  free  to
    compress the executable files yourself, if you need to  fit  them  onto  a
    floppy disk

  - the personal keyfile is now called 'sc.key' so that its extension  doesn't
    conflict with that of Windows registry files; rename your keyfile to  make
    it work again

  - introducing the command  line  option  '/novesa',  to  disable  VESA  BIOS
    support upon startup

  - introducing the  command  line  option  '/nolpt',  to  completely  disable
    parallel port access

  - the documentation contains some technical background information about  PC
    parallel ports

  - raised the proposed registration fee to 10 EUR and  1000 HUF;  the  10 USD
    remained unchanged; also, removed the possibility to pay by check

  - the extension of the documentation files of the Star Utilities was changed
    to '.txt' because they are plain DOS text files

  - introducing support  for  1571  and  1581  disk  images  and  Prologic DOS
    extended disk images

  - introducing support for Commodore 1570 and 1571 drives

  - introducing support for the XM1541 multitask and the XA1541 active cables

  - introducing support for the XH1571 hybrid and XP1571 parallel  cables  for
    Commodore 1570 and 1571 drives

  - introducing a new option called 'Force async mode' that, at the cost of  a
    slightly lower transfer speed, allows you to access Commodore drives under
    a multi-tasking system, as well

  - introducing support for the "giveio" and "userport"  drivers  that  enable
    access of Commodore drives under Windows NT, Windows 2000 and  Windows XP;
    you must use the tweak package to make this possible

  - the complete external setup has been integrated  into  the  main  program,
    Control-F9 now opens the menu of configuration screens

  - introducing a new menu for maintaing local settings for all the  Commodore
    drives you have, with Control-F10 assigned to it

  - now you can change the address of the parallel ports to  any  value  using
    the two custom port address slots

  - introducing support for relative files

  - the Commander, the viewer and the editor can now  process  multiple  files
    with the same name independently

  - the warp disk copier now recognizes 27 and 29 READ ERROR's

  - introducing support for VESA text screen modes up to 132x60, to be changed
    with Alt-F10

  - introducing support for GEOS disk images in Star List

  - introducing a "printf"-style way to format the output of Star List

  - just like in  the  other  Commanders,  Shift+F10  positions  to  the  item
    previously executed in the menu tree

  - introducing the warp delete and validate routines that  read  through  the
    disk only once instead of tracking through the files on it one by one

  - the configuration  menus  have  been  rearranged;  you  can  jump  between
    submenus with the 'Next' and 'Previous' buttons

  - the online help pages now list all configuration options related  to  that
    particular function rather than only the important ones

  - introducing a smart drive presence detection routine

  - you should now be able to  use  your  Commodore  drive  from  a  Commodore
    machine and a PC simultaneously, as the Commander decouples  the  PC  from
    the common serial bus one second after having completed a disk operation

  - pressing Escape or F10, while messages or code fragments  are  transferred
    between the PC and the external drive, aborts the operation with a timeout
    error; with 'Manual timeouts', you can control whether  you  can  generate
    timeouts manually or not

  - introducing clipboard support, buffering data on disk or, when  available,
    in the common Windows clipboard

  - the mode of parallel ports is not checked upon returning from  DOS  shells
    anymore

  - now you can access tracks 36-40 on 1541 disks on any 1541 drive

  - you can again use Control+Shift to toggle the C64 character set

  - 'Quality C64 charset' lets you switch between the two VGA  modes  used  to
    display the C64 character set on the screen

  - 'Prefer long names' lets you use long file names more comfortably

  - you can also select files by holding Shift when moving the cursor

  - you can use Control-N to toggle long file names

  - Control+Tab now completes DOS commands and file names on the command  line
    and in file name input lines

  - pattern matching for Commodore file names is now case-sensitive,  like  on
    real Commodore drives, but the  "*"  wildcard  is  handled  the  Unix  way
    (rather than the DOS way), unlike real Commodore drives

  - with a new option 'Alternative hotkeys', a few hotkeys, mainly  ones  that
    are hard to use on a laptop, can  be  replaced  with  other  keys  or  key
    combinations on the alphanumerical keyboard

  - with a new option  'Cursor follows filename',  you  can  set  whether  the
    cursor should jump onto  the  new  position  of  a  file  after  a  rename
    operation and jump onto the new file or directory after having created one

  - 'Convert chars' makes the Commander convert those  PETSCII  characters  to
    hexadecimal codes, that have no ASCII equivalent, and converts these codes
    back to PETSCII characters during file copies and any other  inputs  where
    Commodore strings are used

  - new possible values for the 'Into PC64 file images' and 'Extract PC64 file
    images' options allow you to copy into PC64 file images only if the source
    is a Commodore file and extract the contents of PC64 file images  only  if
    the destination is a Commodore panel;  in  parallel,  the  local  override
    settings for these two options have been removed from  the  'Copy'  dialog
    box

  - now you can rename and delete files inside PC64 file images

  - you can use Alt-Up and Alt-Down to change the height of the panels row  by
    row

  - you can change the width of the panels with Alt-Left and Alt-Right

  - you can change the width  of  the  Name  column  with  Alt-Shift-Left  and
    Alt-Shift-Right

  - you can change the  height  of  the  mini  status  with  Alt-Shift-Up  and
    Alt-Shift-Down

  - the cursor moves in a smarter way between items in dialog boxes

  - when Tab or Shift-Tab is pressed in a group of radio buttons,  the  cursor
    jumps to the next or previous group of items

  - introducing the Wide panel mode for CBM panels

  - Wide DOS panels are  now  very  similar  to  Full  DOS  panels,  the  only
    difference is that, in Wide panels, file names are not split into the name
    and extension parts

  - instead of radio buttons, the panel filters are now check  boxes  so  that
    you can make the panels show files that belong  to  any  of  the  selected
    groups rather than only one selected group; also, there  is  a  new  panel
    filter for PC archives

  - introducing the 'Restore selection' feature

  - you can sort the display of disk images, as well

  - there is a new configuration menu for soft and hard interleaves

  - to save memory, the disk editor discards the contents of temporary buffers
    upon exit

  - now you can also enter Commodore drive device numbers in the error  dialog
    box that comes up if there's no disk in the PC drive you tried to change a
    panel to

  - DOS files are first opened in sharing mode and, if unsuccessful,  then  in
    compatibility mode

  - the visible length of the 'Program extension' input line has  been  raised
    to 8 characters

  - the checkbox 'Fast command exec' has been changed  to  a  group  of  radio
    buttons called 'Command execution' with the possible values  of  'Normal',
    'Turbo' and 'Warp'

  - you are warned if the  destination  tape  image  grows  above  64  entries
    because C64S can only handle the first 64 of them

  - instead of an error message that you have to confirm, you only hear a beep
    if there's not enough memory to read in the directory

  - if there are no more entries in destination tape image  during  file  copy
    then you're asked about expanding it

  - under 4DOS and NDOS, files with the extension '.btm' are  also  recognized
    as executable files

  - you can now set the  real  number  of  retries,  the  search  on  adjacent
    halftracks and the head bump on retry separately

  - the default number of retries of disk errors on Commodore disks  has  been
    raised from 1 to 5

  - the progress indicator boxes don't flicker anymore

  - when a disk error occurs while copying a file from  a  Commodore  disk  in
    warp transfer mode, it is possible to skip the current  file  only  rather
    than cancelling the complete file copy

  - you can make the Commander save files  into  the  unused  sectors  of  the
    directory track, if there's no more space in the destination  disk  image,
    by checking 'Copy onto dir track'

  - when saving files onto disks or into disk images, the fill pattern for the
    unused part of their last block is determined by the 'Orig format pattern'
    option

  - when the destination file already exists, during a file copy, you can also
    choose 'Rename' to have the source file saved with another name

  - you can force the deletion  of  all  read-only  or  write-protected  files
    without further confirmation for each

  - in delete and overwrite confirmation boxes, you can  choose  to  skip  all
    files without further confirmation for each

  - the deletion of cross-linked files ends when arriving at the  BAM  or  the
    first directory sector

  - 'Make directory' now creates a directory structure of any depth in one go

  - by checking the new item 'Keep lowercase chars', under Windows 95, you can
    create directories with lowercase file names

  - now there are separate soft interleave configurations for external  drives
    and all types of disk images

  - the maximum value of interleaves has been raised to 21

  - the hotkey Control-F7 is now assigned to 'File attributes'

  - you can change the attributes of a whole directory structure of DOS files

  - you can disable the head bump before disk format

  - both parallel ports assigned to the Commander  are  initialized  to  input
    mode and ECP ports are set to byte mode, upon  startup  and  before  every
    access of the Commodore drive

  - a lot more ASCII characters are converted to PETSCII in file names  during
    file copy from a DOS panel to a CBM panel

  - now all PETSCII characters are converted to some similar  ASCII  character
    when displaying file names or copying files from CBM to DOS panels

  - the user menu displays the first 16 items only

  - the user menu item 'Minimize' deletes unused entries from tape images

  - if the first line of a menu or extension file is a comment  starting  with
    the word "title" then the rest of the line is taken as the  title  of  the
    menu to be displayed on the screen

  - the user menu for external drives is expanded with an item  which  changes
    the head used by the 1571 drive in 1541 mode

  - you can protect and unprotect 1541 disk images from the user menu

  - with a new item in the user menu for disk images,  you  can  select  files
    that contain at least one bad sector

  - now the 'Clean' and 'Safe clean' functions don't touch at all sectors that
    are used but don't belong to a file

  - when cleaning disk images, the BAM, the first  directory  sector  and  the
    GEOS border sector are cleaned with their default contents rather than the
    current format pattern, if they're marked free

  - if no setup file is present, the parallel port assignments default to LPT1
    both

  - critical error dialog boxes contain an additional  'Ignore'  button,  when
    allowed

  - with the 'Skip all' button in read error message boxes, you can  have  all
    subsequent read errors skipped for  the  current  file  being  copied  and
    during a disk editor session

  - you can enter wildcards into the speed-search dialog box

  - the speed search dialog box scrolls the panel in a smarter way so  that  a
    few entries around the target entry are also visible

  - in sort modes other than 'Unsorted', directories are sorted before  normal
    files in LHA and TAR archives, too

  - the 'File sizes' warning now takes the actual amount of  free  space  into
    account and works with DOS drives, as well

  - some steps were taken to better  display  file  and  disk  sizes  above  2
    Gigabytes

  - when a bad sector is read from a disk image that has an error  info  block
    attached then an error message is displayed and the error code is  cleared
    if a sector is overwritten; you can disable this  by  unchecking  the  new
    option 'Show read errors'

  - the menu of available commands in the disk editor has  been  moved  to  F9
    because now several other commands are assigned to the other function keys

  - the disk editor asks for confirmation every time you read in a new  sector
    and the current one had been modified

  - the confirmations in the disk editor now have three choices that allow you
    to save and proceed, discard and proceed or cancel

  - with several hotkeys  in  the  disk  editor  you  can  jump  to  different
    important sectors of the disk or disk image

  - Shift-Home in the sector editor takes 'Orig format pattern' into account

  - in the BAM editor, free sectors are marked with a dot and used  ones  with
    an asterisk

  - you can jump to any sector directly from the BAM and error info editor

  - Ctrl-Gray Plus/Minus/Star select/unselect/invert the complete BAM  in  the
    BAM editor

  - using Shift-F1 to Shift-F8 and Alt-F1 to Alt-F8, you can jump to the first
    block and the info block of files directly from directory sectors

  - a new function in the disk editor lets you see the owner  of  the  current
    block and you can move around the blocks that belong to the same file

  - the disk editor now shows the linear offset of the current sector  in  the
    disk image

  - with a new feature, you can  make  the  disk  editor  display  the  sector
    contents in ASCII, as well

  - you can use Enter to enter and exit the sector editor

  - the sector editor remembers the last position of the cursor when you exit

  - you can pick up two bytes under the cursor in the sector editor  and  jump
    to the block at that track and sector

  - the disk copier has been extended with the ability to duplicate and  merge
    disk images

  - it is now possible to manually select the sectors to be copied by the disk
    copier

  - if you leave the file name part of  the  destination  blank  in  the  disk
    copier then the source file name will be  duplicated  there;  except  when
    copying a Commodore disk into a disk image, in which case  the  file  name
    'disk0001' is added and indexing is switched on automatically

  - when copying multiple disks into disk  images  and  the  destination  file
    already exists, the index is increased until a non-existant file is found

  - 'Fetch format label from source' has been  removed  from  the  'Copy disk'
    dialog box, destination disks are always formatted with the label  of  the
    source disk image

  - upon input of disk labels, trailing spaces are not cut off from  the  disk
    name or ID code

  - you can make the disk copier check the BAM ID against the sector header ID
    and correct the BAM ID, if needed

  - with a new option in the  disk  copier,  you  can  have  the  source  disk
    directory displayed in the active panel before you'd actually copy it

  - to speed up the disk copy of multiple disk images, you're  not  asked  for
    confirmation when preformatting the destination disks

  - the disk copier can also generate indices containing  disk  side  letters,
    when copying multiple disks from a Commodore drive

  - the disk copy now always ends with seeking the head back to the  directory
    track

  - you can switch disk copy modes in the  'Copy disk'  dialog  box  with  the
    function keys, too

  - if you're copying an extended 1541 disk or disk image and, for any reason,
    no data was copied from the extra tracks then you're asked about  removing
    them completely from the resulting disk image

  - by checking a new option, 'Detect disk changes', you  can  make  the  disk
    copier continue copying the next disk or disk image as soon as you  change
    the disk in the external Commodore drive

  - if you check a new option, 'Endless retry',  the  disk  copier  will  keep
    reading bad sectors until it succeeds or you exit  the  loop  by  pressing
    Escape or F10

  - if you choose to create an error info block at the end of a disk copy, the
    errors will be displayed in the error info editor

  - when specifying source files for copy, move, rename or deletion,  you  can
    enter a list of file name patterns, delimited with commas or semicolons

  - during a file copy from or to a Commodore 1541 drive, the extra tracks are
    detected only before copying the first file but not for subsequent files

  - you get an error message when you're trying to copy a  GEOS  file  from  a
    Commodore disk and a warning  message  when  copying  a  GEOS  file  to  a
    Commodore disk

  - there's an error message when you try to delete a GEOS file on a Commodore
    disk or try to validate a GEOS disk

  - the file copy is a  bit  faster  when  you  copy  selected  files  from  a
    Commodore drive

  - in GEOS disk images, non-GEOS files are also saved the same  way  as  GEOS
    files

  - you can format multiple disks in one session by checking  'Format multiple
    disks' in the 'Format' dialog box

  - when formatting Commodore disks, the  characters  '*',  '='  and  '?'  are
    replaced with spaces so that the drive doesn't reply with an error message

  - files with the extension '.sfx' are now handled as LHA archives

  - files starting on the dirst directory sector or on any BAM sector are also
    considered to be phantom files

  - sizes in Info panels are now displayed in a single form, depending on  the
    current status of 'DOS sizes in blocks'

  - Quick view panels  now  display  file  count  and  file  size  totals  for
    directories in the opposite panel

  - the 'File info' dialog box shows the description of GEOS files

  - for BASIC programs, 'File info' now also displays the  computer  the  file
    was, most probably, created on

  - when changing the attributes of a single Commodore file, the  new  default
    for the file type is 'Do not change'

  - the disk image maker is back to its original speed

  - the speed-search dialog boxes are now wider, allowing you to type more  of
    long file names

  - when long file names are available, file name input lines allow data to be
    entered up to 255 characters

  - if a command being executed already exists in the history then it is moved
    to the end of the list instead of being duplicated

  - command lines containing spaces only are discarded

  - in input lines, Control-Del has the same function as Control-T

  - when inputting file names, Alt-24 and Alt-27 are converted to the  up  and
    left arrows of the PETSCII character set

  - good sectors are marked with a dash instead of a number '1' in  the  error
    info editor

  - the function that strips the error info block off the disk  image  is  now
    assigned to F8 in the error info editor

  - with the symbol '!/' in user menu and extension files, you can insert  the
    current path inside the current image file into the  command  line;  also,
    the symbol '!#' inserts the zero-based index of the  current  file  inside
    the current image file

  - standard viewers and editors are searched for in the PATH,  not  only  the
    Commander home directory

  - the description of supported Commodore drives has been moved to a separate
    page in the online help

  - the maximum length of a line remaining unwrapped in  the  viewer  and  the
    editor has been raised to 2048 characters

  - the maximum length of search strings has been raised from  64  to  255  in
    both the viewer and the editor

  - the viewer and editor now accept file names  containing  spaces,  even  if
    they're not enclosed into quotation marks on the command line

  - when the load address is displayed in the viewer  or  editor,  the  'Goto'
    function inputs and goes to a memory address rather than a file offset

  - in the viewer and editor, you can also use the mouse to select the file to
    view or edit in an image or archive file

  - the viewer and the editor now also display  special  symbols  and  do  Tab
    translation in PETSCII mode

  - the viewer can also display file offsets based on the load address

  - the viewer now displays a warning about the current file  being  corrupted
    only once

  - if a long file name is specified in the command line and the file does not
    exist then the viewer truncates the file name to short  form  and  retries
    opening the file

  - in the editor, there are separate Insert/Overwrite modes, indicated  by  the
    cursor shape and a marker in the title bar, for the  text  and  hexa  modes;
    when Insert is active in hexa mode, you can insert  and  delete  bytes  just
    like in text mode

  - in the editor, Ctrl-Del  deletes  the  selected  block,  if  there  is  one;
    otherwise, deletes the word to the right of the cursor, as before

  - the Replace function of the editor can now, in  both  text  and  hexa  mode,
    either delete the old string and insert the new one in its  place  or  patch
    the old string with the new

  - if you answer 'All' to the confirmation  of  the  Replace  function  of  the
    editor then the screen won't follow instances being replaced which speeds up
    the process to several times the original speed

  - you can select blocks with Shift-arrow keys, as well, in the editor

  - you can use wildcards in the 'Insert file' box of the editor

  - the Star Utilities can now handle long file names

  - the Star Utilities now have two more options that tell whether to  display
    Commodore file names with the  lowercase/uppercase  or  uppercase/graphics
    character set

  - a new option in the Star Utilities lets you delete successfully  processed
    source files

  - the Star Utilities can now extract data into 1571 and  1581  disk  images,
    too

  - the format descriptions in the Star Utilities now mention relative files

  - Star ARC now displays archive comments upon extraction

  - Star Zip, by default, stores the cosmetical ID in the BAM  of  the  source
    disk image as the sector header ID stored into diskpacked ZipCode archives



  14. Known problems and limitations

  The following problems and limitations  are  documented  below  so,  please,
don't bother reporting them:

  - Timeouts are not handled. All PC interrupts are disabled  while  accessing
    the Commodore drive, so errors during data transfer may lock up  your  PC.
    In this case, you have to generate a timeout manually by  pressing  Escape
    or F10 - if 'Manual timeouts' is enabled - or unplug the serial cable from
    either the PC or the drive.

  - Accessing Commodore drives under multi-tasking systems  is  not  supported
    very well. For Linux, you should  be  using  a  native  Linux  application
    instead. For Windows NT/2000/XP, a similar device  driver  is  needed  for
    best performance; see the tweak package to make the Commander more or less
    work under these operating systems.

  - You can't use more than one Commodore drive at a time.  Only  one  of  the
    panels can show a Commodore drive and the disk turbos won't work if  there
    are more drives connected and switched on. The best you can do is have all
    needed drives connected but only one of them turned on. The  'Drive setup'
    function helps you  with  configuring  and  switching  among  your  drives
    easily.

  - For certain 1571 drives, it may take as long as a full  minute  to  accept
    single-sided floppy disks, when the drive type is set to '1571' or '1570'.
    This is a bug in older 1571 DOS revisions and has nothing to do  with  the
    Commander, as it also occurs when the drive is connected  to  a  Commodore
    machine.

  - You can't copy GEOS files from and to  and  relative  files  to  Commodore
    disks. You have to use the disk copier to copy such files  as  part  of  a
    disk or disk image instead. Also, it is not possible to delete GEOS  files
    on Commodore disks or to validate GEOS disks; this is implemented for disk
    images only.

  - When copying a GEOS file from a DOS file (in Convert format) into an image
    or archive file, the manual file name conversion box offers  you  the  DOS
    file name, rather than the original Commodore file name inside the Convert
    archive. The reason for this is that the dialog box  is  displayed  before
    the Commander would read any data from the source file and recognize  that
    it's in Convert format.

  - Because of memory constraints, the Commander doesn't show  more  than  500
    directory entries per panel.

  - Very long file and path names, those over 254 characters,  get  truncated.
    This is an inherent limitation of the Pascal language,  in  which  strings
    may not be longer than 255 characters.

  - Instead of the usual extract  command  of  LHA,  both  the  Commander  and
    Star LHA use the print command, which only works correctly  with  LHA 2.14
    and newer versions. With older versions of LHA, you will find  garbage  in
    the extracted files.

  - The common clipboard of Windows pads  text  data  with  zero  bytes  to  a
    multiple of 32 bytes. You may experience the loss of some bytes  from  the
    end of blocks, that contain zero bytes, when pasting them into input lines
    or into the editor. Fortunately, this doesn't occur with normal text, only
    binary data.

  Some of these problems may later be solved and some will not.



  15. Coming soon

  I'm planning the following changes for the next version. Please, tell me  if
I should start working on the low priority items marked with (?), as well.

  - bug fixes, of course...

  - convert all documentations into HTML format

  - support for GCR-coded disk images

  - support for 1581 drives, including disk turbos for copying files and disks

  - support for reading, writing and formatting 1581 disks in  the  PC  floppy
    disk drive - that  is,  integrating  Wolfgang Moser's  1581COPY  into  the
    Commander

  - support for ZIP archives

  - restructure the disk copier so that it can copy data between any pairs  of
    the following formats: disk  in  external  Commodore  drive,  disk  image,
    GCR-coded  disk  image,  diskpacked  ZipCode  archive,  sixpacked  ZipCode
    archive

  - another retry counter for the disk copier that tells  that  a  bad  sector
    should be considered successfully read if the same -  although  apparently
    damaged - data has been read from it for this many successive retries

  - a 'Find file' function, with the ability to search  for  textual  contents
    and, also, inside image and uncompressed archive files

  - command line interface for batch processing

  - display files in the border sector of GEOS disks and disk images

  - speed up the editor with a line buffer

  - allow associating menu files to different file name patterns in  extension
    files

  - XMS and EMS usage for storing temporary data in DOS shells, to  give  more
    memory to programs and, also, for storing the clipboard

  - show the header ID of the current sector in the disk editor

  - the Star Utilities should be able to handle directory structures

  - "![<text>]" macro in menu and extension  files  for  asking  the  user  to
    specify the value to be inserted into the command

  - circumvent the single-sided disk recognition delay bug in older  1571  DOS
    revisions

  - an alternative timing system that uses the Pentium time stamp counter (?)

  - support for copying GEOS files from  and  to  external  Commodore  drives,
    deleting them and validating and formatting GEOS disks (?)

  - support for copying relative files to external Commodore drives (?)

  - comparing files or complete directory structures of  files  (recursively),
    no matter what format they are in (?)

  - allow to insert separator lines into  the  directory  of  disks  and  disk
    images; perhaps, some time a full-blown directory editor (?)

  - ability to create custom C128-style boot sectors, either with  precompiled
    code or with the standard boot sector command to load a  program  off  the
    disk (?)

  - make the editor allocate new sectors in the disk imageif  the  file  being
    edited grows beyond  its  original  size  and,  similarly,  free  unneeded
    sectors if the file shrinks (?)

  - interactive file copier that allows you to exactly tell onto which sectors
    to put the destination file data, when copying into disk images (?)

  - allow copying directory structures from and into 1581 disk images and  LHA
    and TAR archives (?)

  - smart disk and disk image filling algorithm that copies the  source  files
    in groups that fill in the destination disk  or  disk  image  as  much  as
    possible (?)

  There are many ideas that I will not put  inside  the  Commander.  They  are
related to a multi-purpose utility, not a DOS shell and transfer program  like
the Commander.



  16. Thanks to

  Without the following two persons, this program, this documentation and even
the interface cables wouldn't be as good as they are:

  Wolfgang Moser
  Nicolas Welte

  I would like to thank my development team for their invaluable help:

  Todd A. Aiken
  Gustavo Ayala
  Bacchus/Fairlight
  Mathias Beilstein
  Jrgen Bullinger
  Clarence/Graffity
  Credo/SCS*TRC
  Michael J. Darschewski
  Dohos dm
  Edhellon/Resource
  Sven Goldt
  Halsz Csaba
  Matthias Hartung
  Lion/Chromance
  Stephen Lloyd
  Olav Morkrid/Panoramic Designs
  Piret Endre
  Gunther Richter
  Mathias Schroeder
  Darrin Smith
  Sorex/WOW
  Suba Pter
  Szigetvri Jzsef
  Tamsi Gyrgy
  Vic/COMA
  Wojtek Wasilewski

  The following people have contributed code fragments or their programs  were
used as examples:

  Marko Mkel                  original ZipCode and UnLynx for DOS
  Chris Smeets                  Commodore ARC and LHA extractors
  Turczi Ferenc                original warp validate program

  The following people have given miscellaneous help with the development:

  Andreas Boose                 discussion about the 1581 track cache
  Markus Gebhard                several sample 1571 disk images
  Hrsfalvi Levente             the idea of TAR support for long file names
  Frank Kontros                 help with parallel cables and disk verify
  Chris Link                    many good ideas concerning the development
  Pasi Ojala                    help with the layout of 1581 disks
  Ettore Perazzoli              discussion about the GNU Public License
  Slaygon/Censor                permanent WWW and E-mail address
  SVS/[FIRE]                    additional, 256-color icons
  Andres Valloud                general Pascal code optimization ideas
  Joe Votour                    help with the way GEOS saves files

  Special thanks go to:

  Mr. Axel                      for manufacturing stuff for The X1541 Shop
  BBT/Breeze                    for his 1571 drive
  Berkeley Softworks            for GEOS
  Bigfoot                       for the XH1541 hybrid cable and other ideas
  Borland International         for Borland Pascal and Turbo Assembler
  Ralf Brown                    for the x86/MSDOS Interrupt List
  Commodore Business Machines   for the Commodore computers
  Leopoldo Ghielmetti           for X1541 and the X1541 cable
  Michael Klein                 for the XA1541 active cable
  Wilbert van Leijen            for the OverXMS unit
  Wolfgang Lorenz               for Personal C64
  Miha Peternel                 for the C64 Software Emulator
  Hans Pieters                  for his 1581 drive and other Commodore stuff
  Peter Schepers                for 64COPY
  Bernhard Schwall              for Trans64
  John Socha                    for The Norton Commander
  Per Hkan Sundell             for the CCS64 emulator
  VICE Team                     for the VICE emulator package
  Vsevolod V. Volkov            for The Volkov Commander

  And thanks to you, too, for using the Commander, especially, if you took the
time to register it.



  17. Related Net resources

  The Star Commander homepage:

    http://sta.c64.org/sc.html

  Here you can always find the latest public  release,  along  with  the  full
source.

  The Star Utilities homepage:

    http://sta.c64.org/su.html

  The Star Utilities  are  external  programs,  for  mass  conversion  between
Commodore-related file formats. At their homepage, you  can  always  find  the
latest public release, along with the full source.

  The Star Commander beta page:

    http://sta.c64.org/scbeta.html

  Here you can see information (bug fixes, modifications, new features)  about
the beta versions of the Commander  and  the  utilities  being  developed  and
tested and download these betas. This is the only place on the Net  where  you
can find beta releases; do not republish beta releases!

  Useful external programs for the Commander:

    http://sta.c64.org/scextprg.html

  Here you can find some additional programs that may help  you  with  solving
problems with the Commander and the X1541-series interfaces.

  X1541-series cables and adaptors page:

    http://sta.c64.org/xcables.html

  Here you can have a look at the documentation and  the  description  of  the
X1541-series interfaces, those supported by the  Commander.  Also,  there  are
construction pages that  show  you  how  to  build  the  cables  and  adaptors
yourself.

  The X1541 Shop:

    http://sta.c64.org/x1541shop.html

  Here you can buy X1541-series and other cables and  adaptors  for  unusually
low prices.

  You can also E-mail me any time to ask for a  uuencoded  or  attached  copy.
Finger me at the address sta@sta.c64.org to find out the version number of the
latest release.

  If you would like to subscribe to The Star Commander  mailing  list,  to  be
notified about new (beta) releases, to ask questions or to just  chat  around,
then send an E-mail to  sclist-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.  To  post  articles,
send an E-mail to sclist@yahoogroups.com. Please, note that only  members  are
allowed to post to the  mailing  list.  To  unsubscribe,  send  an  E-mail  to
sclist-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.

  I also upload the newest releases to the following WWW sites:

  - Albion mirror site (Poland)
    http://biotop.umcs.lublin.pl/~ptracz/sc_site.htm

  - The C64 tools list, MS-DOS section (Sweden)
    http://www.fairlight.to/tools/pc.html

  - Zak's C64 Download Area (Poland)
    http://fanthom.irc.pl/~zak/c64/download.htm

  ...and the following FTP sites:

  - ADE BBS (Italy)
    ftp://bbs.cc.uniud.it/c64/tools/other_machines/pc/dos/

  - Arnold, home of the Commodore games (USA)
    ftp://arnold.c64.org/pub/utils/transfer/

  - Computer Workshops FTP site (USA)
    ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/spectre/EMUL-UTIL/

  - The Digital Dungeon (The Netherlands)
    ftp://utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/c64/Tools/Convert/

  - Funet archive (Finland)
    ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/cbm/transfer/1541-to-PC/

  - Gangsta's Paradise (Hungary)
    ftp://c64.rulez.org/pub/c64/other-OS/Dos/

  - Kiarchive FTP server (Ukraine)
    ftp://ftp.kiarchive.ru/msdos/emulator/c64-128/

  - Padua FTP site (Germany)
    ftp://ftp.padua.org/pub/c64/Tools/transfer/pc/

  - Spockie's FTP site (Austria)
    ftp://ftp.giga.or.at/pub/c64/transfer/1541-pc/

  If you know more good, stable WWW or FTP sites with C64  areas  to  which  I
should upload the Commander then an E-mail would be appreciated.



  18. The author

  Please, send an E-mail to the address sta@c64.org  if  you  have  questions,
problems, ideas or wishes concerning the Commander. In your E-mail, wrap  your
lines at 70-75 characters. Send plain text only, no rich text in  HTML  format
or the message in an attachment.

  You can send snail-mails to me at this address:

  Kovcs Balzs
  Orsolya u. 5. IV/12.
  1204 Budapest
  Hungary

  You can also call the phone number (+36-)1-285-3881 to contact me (8PM-10PM,
GMT+1). Please, call me only if extremely urgent.

  My ICQ number is  43570569. I'm  usually  online  on  weekdays,  during  the
working hours (10AM-6PM, GMT+1). Please, ICQ me only if very urgent.

  Please, use English or Hungarian. If you really have to, you  can  write  in
German, as well, but be warned, I can only understand it, I don't speak it.

  If you wish to send some files to me, either by E-mail or  snail  mail  then
ask me before you do it. I don't like being flooded with large E-mails or lots
of disks without having been warned.

  Note that  Hungarians,  similarly  to  Chinese,  Japanese,  Vietnamese  and,
probably, some other Far-Asian people, have their names in a "reverse"  order.
If you really don't want to call me Joe then, please, use Balzs or Mr. Kovcs
in your greeting rather than the opposite.



  31st March, 2002                              Joe Forster/STA
