
                    The Star Commander, Version 0.61 beta

                          written by Joe Forster/STA

          The ultimate PC-1541 copy utility with optional turbo modes


  This is still only a beta release of The Star Commander. Look out for further
releases. Please report bugs and ideas to me as I want  to  release  the  final
Version 1.0 as soon as possible. Sorry for all kinds of bugs that appear in the
Commander but I'm in a hurry - as always.
  WARNING: if you come across The Star Commander, Version 0.60 beta then delete
it immediately! That is an alpha version which was released by mistake!



  SHORT INTRODUCTION:

  This is a Norton Commander like program being designed to copy  binary  files
between the PC and the 1541 drive and handle the disk and tape  images  of  the
C64 Software Emulator (C64S, (C) by Miha Peternel and Seattle  Lab,  1994).  If
you know The Norton Commander well, this program will surely be  easy  to  use.
But first before starting, please, read this documentation and the online  help
carefully for features, differences from the other Commanders, the  description
of the X1541 interface and other details.

  You can find the following files in the package:

     Name        Size         Date           CRC-32           Function

  FILE_ID.DIZ     791    05-22-95 00:06     9ffec257    Distribution info file
  SC.EXE        80098    05-22-95 00:06     4ab00be8    Main executable file
  SC.HLP        39609    05-22-95 00:06     d9abb407    Online help
  SC.TXT        15296    05-22-95 00:06                 Short documentation
  SCC.EXE        5318    05-22-95 00:06     525af4ee    External calibrator

  All what you need is only the SC.EXE file. However, you might need some  help
which is found in SC.HLP - if it doesn't exist no error is  displayed  but  the
help won't pop up. Please,  don't  modify  the  package  and  don't  distribute
single files only the whole package.



  ADVANTAGES OF THE COMMANDER:

- it is comfortable to  use  the  so  well  known  environment  of  The  Norton
  Commander, isn't it? You  don't  have  to  press  a  sequence  of  weird  key
  combinations only a familiar one  and  you  can  always  clearly  see  what's
  happening on the screen

- all functions of the  Commander - including  the  connection  with  the  1541
  drive - work properly under the DOS emulator of OS/2 3.00 Warp

- most of the image file handling routines are faster than those of  the  other
  similar utilities, even faster then C64S itself

- here's a benchmark of The Star Commander using my original 1541 drive  and  a
  disk containing a single 210 block file  stored  below  track  #18  with  the
  normal 10 block interleave:

    ͻ
       Whole disk copy     from the 1541 drive     to the 1541 drive   
    Ķ
         Normal mode               7:50                  9:55          
    Ķ
         Turbo mode                2:25                  2:25          
    Ķ
         Warp mode                 1:25                  1:20          
    ͹
     210 block file copy   from the 1541 drive     to the 1541 drive   
    Ķ
         Normal mode               2:20                  2:25          
    Ķ
         Turbo mode                1:00                  1:00          
    ͼ



  CONNECTING A REAL 1541 DRIVE TO YOUR PC:

  The PC-1541 connection is done using the well known X1541 interface. You  can
find the interface description in the online help.

  Since different kinds of PC's run with different speed you have to slow  them
down differently to keep up with the strict timing  requirements  of  the  1541
drive. There is an external calibrator routine (SCC.EXE) in  the  package  that
displays you the delay value you have to use. Enter this value in  the  "Delay"
option of the "Configuration..." menu and try using the connected  1541  drive.
If it works, try lowering the delay value. If the  connection  locks  up,  pull
the interface out of your 1541 drive, wait for the "Device not present"  error,
then plug it back, reset your drive and try raising the delay value. The lowest
value with which you can still properly use the connected 1541 drive should  be
the best for the turbo modes as well. Be warned: with a too  high  delay  value
you might experience data loss or corruption  during  the  transfer.  Hopefully
calibration will be automatic in one of the next releases. Don't forget to  run
the calibrator and change the delay value when  using  a  new  release  as  I'm
playing with the timings to find the solution for automatic calibration.  Note:
I left out the /F option from the calibrator as it displayed  a  totally  wrong
value. Sorry about that!

  The Commander uses smart techniques to speed up reading and writing even when
you are not using the turbo modes (e.g. speeding up  1541  IRQ's  means  faster
head stepping and saves about 2% of read/write time; reading a disk  unlinearly
saves about 15% of time - on my 1541 drive it reads a  whole  disk  to  a  disk
image in 7 minutes and 50 seconds instead of slightly more  than  9  minutes!).
You can use the "BAM copy disk" option to speed up the disk copy even more  but
if the disk or or disk image contains data in free sectors they will be lost!

  The Commander is equipped with turbo transfer mode which means  it  transfers
data from and to the connected 1541 drive about 2-3 times faster. It has  turbo
command routines as well which speed up deleting files and validating disks  to
2-10 times the original speed (it depends on the number and length of the files
on the disk) and disk format takes only about 12 seconds.

  NEW!!! The Commander has now a new turbo, the warp transfer  mode,  which  is
about 5.5 times faster than the original speed. Note that you can  stop  it  at
any time and use the "BAM copy disk" with it, as  well.  WARNING:  as  the  GCR
coding and decoding takes place in the PC there's no retry on 22  and  23  READ
ERROR's so you shouldn't use this mode with old and  possibly  defected  disks.
You must also check the "Turbo transfer mode" if you want to use the warp mode.

  As I have never had experience with 1571 and 1581 drives the Commander  can't
make use of their features - it uses them only as if they were 1541 drives.

  WARNING: don't plug anything other than the X1541 interface into your PC  and
your 1541 drive. Connecting a printer to your PC or a C64 or C128 to your  1541
drive will probably mess up the data transfer or lock up  the  connection.  You
must not connect more than one 1541 drive when using the turbo transfer modes.



  BUGS FIXED SINCE BETA VERSION #5:

- the Commander didn't display the help for "Save setup"  correctly  (fixed  in
  Beta Version #5A)

- the Commander locked up if you changed the screen mode in DOS shell

- the Commander couldn't copy a non-program file from a  disk  in  a  connected
  1541 drive (fixed in Beta Version #5A)

- you couldn't extract the last file from a full tape image

- the file sizes in tape images weren't displayed correctly if over 256 blocks

- the ".." DOS link in image files was selected by '*' and similar wildcards if
  it wasn't on the screen at the time of the selection

- the Commander didn't display the ".."  up-directory  when  viewing  a  remote
  drive in a Novell network (now it displays a dummy ".." up-directory)

- the bugs that arise with the use of a  write  protected  PC  disk  have  been
  mostly eliminated

- the mouse cursor didn't reappear when asking for a file name or  confirmation
  during a multi-file copy or delete from or to a connected 1541 drive

- the Commander locked up if you tried to delete a splat file or if  you  tried
  to validate a disk image that contained a splat file

- the side sectors of relative files in a disk image were not allocated  during
  validate or freed during delete



  OTHER CHANGES FROM BETA VERSION #5:

- the version number and the file name of the distribution package has changed:
  the version number is now x.yz (where x is the major  and  yz  is  the  minor
  version number); similarly the file name is now SCxyz.ZIP

- warp transfer mode (about 5.5 times faster) introduced for copying disk  from
  or to a connected 1541 drive

- no /F option in the external calibrator routine (the delay value it displayed
  was absolutely wrong)

- the help dialog doesn't flicker anymore - the display changes only  when  the
  next help item is successfully read (changed in Beta Version #5A)

- the Commander can be also run on monochrome VGA, CGA and Hercules monitors

- the Commander displays the letters of valid PC drives when changing drives

- the Commander can optionally display file sizes and capacities  in  DOS  mode
  panels in bytes instead of in blocks

- the Commander can optionally display all files  with  invalid  file  type  as
  programs in tape images

- the Commander can optionally append the extension  of  the  PC  file  to  the
  converted C64 file name if not .PRG or .SEQ or .USR and append the  DOS-style
  "extension" of C64 files (e.g. "diskcopy.lnx") to the converted PC file name

- many things have been changed to match the standards of The Norton Commander:
  most of the colors and dialog boxes; the outlook and  behaviour  of  buttons;
  the upper line of panels; you can hide the menu bar and win an extra line for
  panels

- each panel can hold a maximum of 1024 entries instead of 512

- the sort mode of panels can be set from the menu bar instead of a dialog box

- the scrolling of panels and the online help with mouse is slowed down -  they
  scroll only a single line and not a whole page

- frozen files in tape images are displayed and can be extracted

- you can stop the file copy between panels of any mode at any time by pressing
  Escape

- when copying files a progress indicator will show you the amount of the  copy
  already done - when you copy files from or to  a  connected  1541  drive  the
  number of copied blocks is displayed

- you can copy a disk image to a disk in a connected 1541 drive not  only  from
  the DOS directory but also when viewing the disk image itself

- you can enter a new name for files copied between panels of any mode

- you can enter wildcards when copying a DOS file into a DOS mode panel or when
  renaming a DOS file

- you can't use the Tab and Shift-Tab keys to move around  dialog  boxes;  use
  the cursor keys instead

- you can also use Cursor Left and Cursor Right to  jump  to  the  top  or  the
  bottom of the panels

- you can also use Space to select or unselect files

- you can't use Alt+key combinations to jump to the menu



  KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS:

- you must not let the Commander search for a connected 1541 drive if the X1541
  interface isn't plugged into the appropriate LPT port

- timeouts are not handled - as during data  transfer  all  PC  interrupts  are
  disabled, the connection with the 1541 drive might lock up (in such cases try
  the following: pull the X1541 interface out of the 1541 drive, wait  for  the
  error, plug the interface back and reset the drive; if it doesn't help you'll
  have to reboot)

- you mustn't try to delete any file from a write protected disk otherwise  you
  will get very strange results (possibly an internal BP7 bug)
  



  COMING SOON:

  Please tell me if I should start working on the items  marked  with  (?),  as
well. However, unmarked items are of higher priority than marked ones:

- bug fixes, of course...

- automatic calibration of the 1541 read/write routines

- disk error dialog box instead of the awful red line that overlays the  status
  bar (it's partly done but there are problems with it)

- disk editor for disk images and disks in a connected 1541 drive

- warp transfer mode for copying files (?)

- an option to set the number of entries when creating a tape image (?)

- an option to change the block interleave for saving files  into  disk  images
  and onto disks in a connected 1541 drive (?)



  BETA TESTING:

  As I do not have the possibility to test the program on many kinds of PC's  I
ask you to be my beta tester and write to me if you:

- found a bug in the program (you will possibly find some, as it is still under
  development)

- have an idea what improvements I should make in the future

- saw a grammatical error, misspelling, wrong punctuation, wrong  justification
  or something misunderstandable in the online help or this documentation

- know good FTP sites with C64 areas to which I should upload this program

- are just interested in this program or you simply like it and  want  to  have
  the final version as soon as possible

  Please E-Mail your detailed bug reports along with the configuration of  your
PC (CPU type and speed) and the configuration of the  Commander  when  the  bug
occured (especially the delay value and whether you used the turbo modes or not
if you used a connected 1541 drive). If the bug occured  only  with  a  certain
file you can send it to me uuencoded, as well.



  THANKS TO:

  I'd like to thank to the following people for their valuable help:

  Bernhard Schwall, the author of Trans64

  Gergely Viktor
  Gustavo Ayala
  Jrgen Bullinger
  Matthias Hartung
  Michael J. Darschewski
  Suba Pter
  Sven Goldt
  Tamsi Gyrgy



  WHERE TO FIND THE COMMANDER:

  I'll always send the newest releases of the Commander to:

  arch.kiae.su                  /msdos/emulator/c64
  bbs.cc.uniud.it               /pub/c64/tools/Xfer
  caramba.cs.tu-berlin.de       /pub/c64/tools/transfer/pc
  ccnga.uwaterloo.ca            /pub/cbm/emulation
  frodo.hiof.no                 /pub/c64/utils
  ftp.seattlelab.com            /UTILS
  nic.funet.fi                  /pub/cbm/c64/emulation/c64s
  pitel_lnx.ibk.hvu.nl          /pub/c64/Tools/pc
  watson.mbb.sfu.ca             /pub/c64/utils

  Usenet NEWS                   comp.emulators.cbm

  You can also E-Mail me at any time to ask for a uuencoded copy.



  THE AUTHOR'S ADDRESSES:

  Please do not hesitate and send an E-Mail to  "sta@ludens.elte.hu".  Use  the
address "sta@dtalk.elte.hu" only for sending E-Mails that contain large  files.
You can also send snail-mails (no disks, no swapping) to me at this address:

  Kovcs Balzs

  Budapest, XX. ker.,
  Orsolya utca 5. IV/12.
  1204, Hungary



  22th May, 1995                                Joe Forster/STA
