DOS-2-DOS V1.3 Release Notes February 11, 1987 Thank you for purchasing Dos-2-Dos. We encourage you to return the postage-paid Dos-2-Dos registration card to us so that you will be eligible for support and product updates. We will also send you information about other new products for your Amiga as they become available. BACKUP FILES ON DISK For your convenience, we have included two copies of Dos-2-Dos (called D2D and D2D.backup) and two copies this READ.ME file on your distribution disk. Copy D2D to your working Workbench disk, and print this READ.ME file We suggest that you keep a copy of the READ.ME file with your Dos-2-Dos manual. And then put the Dos-2-Dos distribution disk in a safe place. Dos-2-Dos V1.3 ENHANCEMENTS The following enhancements are now included in Dos-2-Dos, but are not mentioned in the Dos-2-Dos manual, or are changes to the use of Dos-2-Dos as described in the manual. DF0 Support. Dos-2-Dos now permits you to use DF0 as the MS-DOS drive. Now Dos-2-Dos can be used on any Amiga, with or without external disk drives. If you use DF0, you must be careful to access AmigaDOS files on some other AmigaDOS device, such as RAM:. Dos-2-Dos displays such a warning if you select DF0 as your MS-DOS device. Atari ST disk formats supported. Dos-2-Dos now reads, writes, and formats 360KB and 720KB Atari ST 3.5-inch diskettes. Change MS-DOS drive. Dos-2-Dos now permits you to change the MS-DOS drive selection from within Dos-2-Dos. This means that you do not have to exit Dos-2-Dos and restart it to select a different MS-DOS disk drive. Use the RESTART command to do this. RAM disk and hard disk support. Dos-2-Dos now accepts RAM:, DH0:, and DH1: as valid AmigaDOS devices, and displays AmigaDOS directories of these devices with proper device names. See discussion below of RAM: usage. Large file sizes. Dos-2-Dos now supports file sizes and disk capacities up to 100MB. Improved 3.5-inch support. Dos-2-Dos no longer requires that you reboot your Amiga after using a 3.5-inch drive for MS-DOS files. Other problems relating to accessing 3.5-inch drives under AmigaDOS V1.2 have been eliminated. Format problems. 3.5-inch disks formatted by Dos-2-Dos can now be read by IBM systems. Dos-2-Dos now places disk parameters into the boot block, as required by PC-DOS. File dates. Dos-2-Dos now supports MS-DOS file creation dates beyond 1999. RAM DISK USAGE Dos-2-Dos supports RAM: as an AmigaDOS device. This can be very useful if your Amiga has only a single 3.5-inch drive, which you want to use for MS-DOS files. But you should remember that the RAM: device driver must be loaded into memory before Dos-2-Dos (or any other program) can access the RAM: device. Usually the RAM: device is loaded from a Workbench disk in DF0:. Therefore, you should force the RAM: device to be loaded from DF0: before you start Dos-2-Dos. One way to do this is to request a directory of RAM:. Type DIR RAM: to force AmigaDOS to load the RAM: device and get it going. If you start Dos-2-Dos and designate DF0: as the MS-DOS drive before the RAM: device driver is loaded from DF0:, AmigaDOS will complain that it can't find the Workbench disk. By then it is too late to load the RAM: device, and you will have to exit Dos-2-Dos to load it. Please note that all this is unnecessary if you have your RAM: device already loaded, or available on another AmigaDOS device, or if you are using DF1: as the MS-DOS drive. FORMATTING 3.5-INCH DISKETTES Dos-2-Dos formats 3.5-inch disks to three user-specified formats: IBM 720KB (used by the IBM Convertible, Toshiba laptop, and Data General One), Atari ST 720KB and Atari ST 360KB. The Atari ST formats are unique to Atari. Dos-2-Dos reads, but does not format, the Transformer 360KB 3.5-inch format. The new FORMAT commands for 3.5-inch diskettes are: FORMAT (with no parameters) - IBM 720KB (80 track, double sided) FORMAT /A - ATARI ST 720KB (80 track, double sided) FORMAT /A/1 - ATARI ST 360KB (80 track, single sided) Format commands for 5.25-inch diskettes are as shown in the Dos-2-Dos manual. ASCII and WORDSTAR FILE CONVERSION Dos-2-Dos converts WordStar word-wrap line endings to "hard" line endings, as required by AmigaDOS text files. These "hard" line endings are interpreted by Scribble! and TextCraft to be end-of-pararaph markers. You may wish to manually change these "hard" line endings to the appropriate "soft" line endings required by your favorite word processor. When copying from AmigaDOS to MS-DOS, Dos-2-Dos adds a carriage return in front of every line feed. No other conversions are performed. If you do not specify the -A option, Dos-2-Dos transfers the exact number of bytes specified by the file length parameter of the source file directory entry, with no conversions. DEFAULT DRIVE and CURRENT DIRECTORY Dos-2-Dos treats your current AmigaDOS drive and directory as the default for COPY, TYPE, DIR, and DELETE operations. This means that you DO NOT need to include the drive or path if the current AmigaDOS directory is either the source or destination of the transfer. Example: COPY DF2:*.ASM -A This command transfers all files with a file type of ASM from the currently selected directory on DF2 (the MS-DOS drive) to the current AmigaDOS dirctory (which could be on either DF0 or DF1). Note the -A option which you need for ASCII files. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES There is a quirk (read that BUG) in AmigaDOS V1.1 which causes it to be confused if you change AmigaDOS directories from inside Dos-2-Dos and then exit. AmigaDOS remembers the directory you are now in, but if you inquire, (using the CD command) it reports the OLD directory you were in when you started Dos-2-Dos. This quirk has been corrected in AmigaDOS V1.2. That's it. Give us a call or drop us a line if you have problems or suggestions. And please return the registration card if you want our support. George Chamberlain Central Coast Software 268 Bowie Drive Los Osos, California 93402 (805) 528-4906