ReadMe MFC 2.8d (29.03.93) ========================== Improvements of 2.0 compared to earlier releases ------------------------------------------------ Release 2.0 has significant improvements compared to the older MFC releases. Although we made some changes to the hardware, the new software is fully compatible with old and new style MFC boards. Both boards give you exactly the same features and the same performance. Of course, all MFC soft and hardware is fully compatible with AmigaOS 1.2, 1.3 and 2.0 and all Amigas A2x00 and A3x00. For the new release a brand new user manual exists which explains all of it's features, anyway here is a short round up of the major new features found in this release: The "duart.device" now also supports five databits and sending a break of programmable length. When opened it attempts to load it's default settings from an environment file in the "ENV:" directory, this allows you to set up parameters for applications, that do not support setting them at all. You can easily create a parameter file with the supplied preferences editor in the "Prefs" directory of the distribution disk. From the "pit.device" the capability for reading was removed. This only caused loads of problems with customers which mistakenly thought, that they could connect a bidirectional peripheral. The mechanism to write data was completely rewritten and should now cause less problems. The "MFC-Handler" was completely removed. It is now replaced by the much more powerful "Pit-Handler", "Duart-Handler" and "Terminal-Handler". These handlers are completely written in assembler and thus are very small and very fast. The "Duart-Handler" and the "Terminal-Handler" give you the ability to set serial parameters when specifying a name for open. Read the new developer docs about this, or the new user manual. Example mountlists are now stored in the "Devs" drawer with the names "PitMountList", "DuartMountList" and "TermMountList". A utility program called "UnMount" is supplied which enables you to remove a handler again, once it was mounted. The "MapDevice" utility was improve significantly. It now allows you to redirect each unit of every device you want. It even can create a dummy device name if you wish so. Take care of the new changed commandline syntax. A drawer called "Developer" was introduced which contains "AutoDocs", "Includes" and a "TechDoc" which provide the programmer with all information he ever needs to program applications for the MultiFaceCard. The distribution disk also contains more example scripts, an automatic installation script and more. Whereas it is a plain 1.3.2 WorkBench it was completely equiped with the new WorkBench 2.0 icons, to give you that pretty look. Improvements of 2.1 compared to earlier releases ------------------------------------------------ Fixed a bug in duart.device's CMD_CLEAR. Fixed another bug with detecting break. Improvements of 2.2 compared to earlier releases ------------------------------------------------ Fixed a bug which appeared in all handlers (Pit-Handler, Duart-Handler and Terminal-Handler) which caused a GURU with a Kickstart older than 2.0. Now all handlers work well under 1.3 and 1.2. Improvements of 2.3 compared to earlier releases ------------------------------------------------ The Pit-Handler now supports the packet ACTION_FINDINPUT as a synonym for ACTION_FINDOUTPUT. This weirdness was implemented to make PageStream work with the Pit-Handler. Improvements of 2.4 compared to earlier releases ------------------------------------------------ Fixed a severe bug in the "duart.device" which is now version 2.2. Bug caused the device to probably hang when any I/O completely failed (before it really begun). Improvements of 2.5 (internal) compared to earlier releases ----------------------------------------------------------- Bumped up revision numbers of "duart.device", "pit.device" and "mfc.resource" to align all software revision numbers with the revision number printed on the disk label. The TechDoc was improved and cleaned up. Btw. my Email connection is now working. Use it! The "duart.device" was changed slightly in order to support the new SerialMaster 500, this change is not seen when used on a MultiFaceCard. Change includes programming of the Output Port Configuration Register to control the two LEDs of the SerialMaster. The environment path is now ENV:bsc/ instead of ENV:ECG001/. This requires renaming of the ECG001 directory in ENV: and ENVARC:. Improvements of 2.6 compared to earlier releases ------------------------------------------------ The "duart.device" didn't work with the C-Net software. This is now fixed! IMHO the problem was in C-Net, the fix is kind of a work-around, but should give no new compatibility problems. The distribution now includes PitNet, a ParNet compatible network driver for the first parallel port on the MultiFaceCard. Thanks to Roland Schwefel, who ported the ParNet software. For your convenience ParNet is also included. Created an all new distribution disk. This now includes an installer script which eases installation of the MFC software significantly! Hope you like this one. Improvements of 2.7 compared to earlier releases ------------------------------------------------ The MapDevice utility program sometimes crashed on 68040 systems due to caching issues. This was corrected. By the way, I recompiled the entire MapDevice using SAS/C 6.1. The new version of MapDevice is now 2.1. Made some minor changes to duart.device to support the new SerialMaster 500 (in particular to support the two LEDs of it). BTW. eliminated all occurences of MOVEP instructions for better future MC 68060 support. Also a simple hardware diagnostic is done on the DUART. If your DUART is broken you should be facing an $0000CAFE Alert when trying to use the duart.device. New Version is now duart.device 2.7. Similar minor changes were made to the pit.device for consistency. Again, all occurences of the MOVEP instruction were replaced. A similar fix as was done to support C-Net on the duart.device, was incorporated in anticipation of future software from the guys that made C-Net. New version is now pit.device 2.7. Bumped up version numbers of mfc.resource and the mfc driver to align with the new 2.7 release. There are now two different distribution disks. one for the SerialMaster and a slightly different for the MultiFaceCard. Both come with an Installer script for easier installation. Improvements of 2.8 compared to earlier releases ------------------------------------------------ New version 2.8 of the duart.device now fully supports the new SerialMaster 500 product, also from bsc. The SerialMaster 500 is a small slap-on-the-side box the Amiga 500 with two serial channels. It has a pass-thru so that it is possible to connect additional expansion boxes. The SerialMaster has two LED's at it's front panel. The lefthand LED is lit whenever the duart.device unit zero is logically "opened" by application software. The righthand LED is lit whenever unit one is "opened". Added another safety-check to the duart.device's AbortIO() function to be more resistant to ill-behaved software. Made some enhancements to the installer script, which make it more solid. Now the installation script adapts automatically to Workbench 1.2, Workbench 1.3, Workbench 2.04 and Workbench 2.1 and newer. Made some finishing touches on the new distribution disk. Improvements of 2.8d (beta) compared to earlier releases -------------------------------------------------------- Minor changes to the Installation script for more luxory and robustness. Recompiled MapDevice using SAS/C 6.2 and the scnb.lib. This hopefully eliminated the reported bug. Needs testing. Now version number 2.2. Recompiled DuartPrefs using SAS/C 6.2. Eliminated ancient bug in Save As ... menu item. Version number is now 2.3. Credits ------- Design and programming of most software was done by Andreas Hofbauer. The ParNet software was ported by Roland Schwefel. The network filesystem coming with ParNet is Copyright (c) 1988, 1989, 1990 The Software Distillery. All Rights Reserved. The Parallel Port Network code (PPN code) is Copyright (c) 1989 by Matthew Dillon. The copyright of the MFC software is held by bsc büroautomation AG. You can contact me directly via EMail or via bsc: Mail: bsc büroautomation AG Attn: Andreas Hofbauer Lerchenstraße 5/II D-W8000 München 50 EMail: andi@bscmuc.adsp.sub.org