· : ¦ . _________ ________ _____________ ._____¦ | · __ / : ___________/ _ \ \ __ _ / | \ |____: : \_/ -A : \______ \ | \_ _: \_/ \_/ | \ ¦ | ¦ \_ ··D_ / / _/ | / |___/ \_ | : : | |_______/ `N· _/ \ \_________/ | \________/ ¦ |_____¦ ¦ | : \__________/ \ ¦ \_ : : \__________| \___________/ . · . »»»» PRESENTS «««« PC TASK - VERSION 3 =================== TYPED BY SHARD - N&B USER REFERENCE MANUAL --------------------- CONTENTS -------- General Information 1.1 Introduction 1.2 System Requirements 1.3 Backing up your PC Task Disks 1.4 Installing PC-Task 1.5 Starting PC-Task Configuring PC-Task 2.1 Option Screen 2.2 Saving Options / Using Defaults / Quitting 2.3 Floppy Disk Options 2.4 Hard Disk Options 2.5 Graphics Adapter Options 2.6 Advanced Video Options 2.7 Mouse, Parallel, Serial & Sound Options 2.8 Priority Options 2.9 Memory Options 2.10 ToolTypes / Shell Arguments Emulating 3.1 General Emulating Information 3.2 Turning the Mouse Driver On 3.3 Rebooting and Quitting the Emulator Using your PC 4.1 Creating a Bootable MS DOS Disk 4.2 Getting Around in MS DOS 4.3 Using CopyToA, CopyToI & DirA 4.4 Getting Software to Run 4.5 Obtaining as Much Memory as Possible 4.6 Achieving Faster Emulation Technical Information 5.1 File Exchange with Floppy Disks 5.2 Using a 5.25" 40 Track Drive 5.3 Creating a HardDiskFile 5.4 File Exchange with HardDiskFiles 5.5 Creating a Hard Disk Partition 5.6 File Exchange with Hard Disk Partitions 5.7 Using an Amiga CD-ROM Drive Appendix A Common Problems Appendix B Hints & Tips Using PC-Task Appendix C PC Boot Procedure Appendix D Video Modes Appendix E MS-DOS Hard Disk Transfer Appendix F Technical Support Appendix G Bug Reporting Appendix H References Appendix I Glossary Index 1.1 Introduction ---------------- Even though the world computer market is still dominated by PC's, the Amiga range of computers is excellent. You may wish to run PC software but do not want to purchase a second computer. This is where PC-Task is ideal. It allows you to run the majority of PC software packages (that require an 80286 processor or below) on your Amiga computer, making use of the peripherals and memory (up to 16MB) which you already own. The multitasking capabilities of the Amiga range of computers is what has set it apart from other computer systems. PC-Task is no exception - it works without taking over your computer. When in operation the PC Task application can be switched to when required. Multiple versions of PC Task can be executed at the one time allowing you to run multiple PC packages at once. At last pre emptive multitasking comes to the PC! PC Task can support two floppy drives (including high density) and two hard disks. Pseudo hard disks can be created as a file on your hard disk. This feature allows the use of already created bridgeboard pseudo hard disk files. You can also use an Amiga partition as an MS DOS hard disk. MS-DOS is not supplied with this package. Versions of DOS that are suitable for use include 3.33, 5.0 or 6.2. MS-DOS can be purchased from most computer stores. If you have a PC computer you are able to make a bootable disk quite easily. Please refer to Section 4.1 - Creating a Bootable MS-DOS Disk for more information. Note: If you purchase MS DOS 6.2 it is supplied on high density floppies. If you do not have a high density drive, there is a form included in the package that entitles you to receive free low density disks. 1.2 System Requirements ----------------------- PC-Task requires an Amiga computer with at least 512K of RAM and AmigaOS 1.2+. Please note that some features of PC-Task will only work if you have at least 1MB of RAM. Some display features will also be unavailable if you do not have an AGA compatible Amiga or a third party graphics card. See Section 2.5 - Graphic Adapter Options for more information concerning display modes. Provided on the PC Task program disks are versions of the software for different Amiga processors. The supplied Commodore installer program will install the correct version for your machine. If you are having problems with the install process, remember that there is a help button you can press. Note: If you intend to run Windows 3.1 you will require a minimum of 1.5MB contiguous RAM (more recommended) and at least 6MB of available hard disk space (10MB recommended). 1.3 Backing up your PC-Task Disks --------------------------------- The PC-Task program disks are not copy protected to allow you to make working backups of these disks. We recommend that you do this before installing the software and to then install the software from the backups Consult your Workbench manual for further information on making backups. It is legal to make one backup copy only of the package for your own personal use. Please respect the enormous amount of time and effort put into this product and do not make copies for other people. Please support the developers of software as it is only through software purchases that this, and other products, can be developed and improved. 1.4 Installing PC-Task ---------------------- PC-Task can easily be run from your program disks. It is not bootable so you must use a Workbench disk to start your machine. If you have a hard drive, PC-Task can be installed by double clicking the Install-PC-Task icon. Follow the instructions that appear on screen. On PC-Task Disk 1 is a directory called MSDOSUtils. It contains six optional utilities that you can use with PC-Task during emulation: COPYTOA.EXE See Section 4.3 COPYTOI.EXE See Section 4.3 DIRA.EXE See Section 4.3 PCTQUIT.EXE See Section 3.3 PCTMOUSE.EXE See Section 3.2 PCTCDROM.SYS See Section 5.7 These utilities are not required by PC-Task to run. If you wish to use them, either use the ProduceUtilDisk program, to create a 720k MS-DOS disk with a copy of the files, or copy the individual files across to an MS-DOS disk if you have the appropriate software. 1.5 Starting PC-Task -------------------- If you are running under AmigaOS 1.2 or 1.3 then you need to first double click the TDPatch1213 program. This program fixes bugs and adds some features to Kickstart to allow reading and writing to PC floppy disks when running PC-Task. To start PC Task double click the program icon that is appropriate to your machine. The correct version of PC-Task for your machine is dependent on your processor type. Below is a guide to which version is applicable for each Amiga model: PC-Task68000_10/PC-TaskTurbo68000_10 are for 68000 & 68010 machines. i.e. stock Amiga 500, 600, 1000, 2000's. PC-Task68020_60/PC-TaskTurbo68020_60 are for 68020 or later processors. i.e. stock Amiga 1200, 3000, 3000T, 4000's. The program should load and display an option screen. If the option screen does not appear, but instead an error window stating that you have the wrong processor type is displayed, then the wrong version of PC-Task has been selected. If this occurs please reselect the correct icon. There are two PC Task programs for each type of processor. The Turbo version of the program is faster but at a cost. It uses four times as much memory as the normal version. So if you are running 1 MB extended memory (plus the 1 MB conventional and upper memory area) PC Task will allocate approximately 5MB, but if you use the PC TaskTurbo version, it will try to allocate approximately 8MB of RAM. 2.1 Option Screen ----------------- The option screen allows you to change the various functions of PC-Task. To start the emulation just click the start button or press the return key, after you have set the options to suit your preferences. 2.2 Saving Options / Using Defaults / Quitting ---------------------------------------------- At the bottom right of the PC Task option screen there are three gadgets. These are used to control the configuration of PC Task. Use Defaults This resets all options to the default values. Save Configuration This creates a file in the current directory called "PC.config" which contains the configuration as currently set. PC-Task attempts to load this file each time it is executed and will use its values if found. Quit Quits PC Task 2.3 Floppy Disk Options ----------------------- PC-Task is able to take advantage of the Amiga's disk drives so you are able to read and write PC formatted disks. PCs use a different naming system for their disk drives. Whereas the drives on the Amiga are called DF0:, DF1: and so on, on the PC they are called drive A and drive B. You can only have two floppy disk drives on a PC, so the letters C, D, etc are used for hard drives. On the bottom left of the option screen are two text gadgets used to assign PC-Task's floppy drives A and B for use during emulation. The floppy drives can be assigned to any device, by entering the name of the drives into the text gadgets. By default DF0: is assigned as drive A, and DF1: is assigned as drive B (if applicable). These are the first two Amiga floppy drives. Alternatively if you have extra floppy drives you can assign these as the PC drives, for example set DF1: as drive A and DF2: as drive B. By default, your Amiga floppy drives are used as MSDOS 720K drives during emulation (or 1.44MB if you have a high density drive) and hence can only read disks of that format. Please note only some later A3000's and all A4000's were shipped standard with high density drives, other machines do not have high density drives. To determine whether your drive is high density, insert a high density floppy disk in the drive (these disks have an extra hole opposite the write protect tab) and format it from Amiga Workbench (only AmigaOS 2.0+). If it creates a disk with 1.76 MB capacity then this is a high density drive. If you do not have a high density drive in your Amiga several 3rd party high density drives are available. People who mount their drives as MS DOS drives, so they can read and write files using the AmigaOS 2.1 + MS-DOS filesystem, or other such software, can enter the device names that they use for that (e.g. PC0: & PC1:) in the text gadgets. 2.4 Hard Disk Options --------------------- During emulation a hard disk can either be a file or a partition on your Amiga hard disk. Each has its advantages. A hard disk file is more versatile. You are able to copy it, back it up and move it around, as AmigaDOS treats it as a normal datafile. But the compromise is speed. A hard disk partition is considerably faster. You can emulate two hard disks, drive C and drive D. If you choose to set up only one emulator hard disk, it must be assigned as drive C, as drive D will not be accessed if drive C is not found. The emulator will boot off drive C if no MS-DOS disk is found in floppy drive A and drive C is bootable. Note that early versions of MS-DOS do not work with hard disk partitions larger than 32MB. It is suggested that you create hard disks of 32MB or less if you are using MS-DOS version 3.33 or lower. It is important that you refer to Section 5.5 - Creating a Hard Disk Partition if you want to use a real partition on your Amiga hard disk instead of a hard disk file. The use of partitions should only be attempted by advanced users. If you have an existing bridgeboard hard disk file, click the left mouse button on one of the hard disk text gadgets and enter the file name (including path) in the text gadget e.g. "Work:IBMHardDiskFile". PC-Task does not work with JLink virtual drives. If you want to create a hard disk file on your Amiga hard disk follow the instructions contained in Section 5.3 - Creating a HardDiskFile. 2.5 Graphics Adapter Options ---------------------------- You can emulate five different display adapters with PC-Task. You can toggle between modes by clicking the left mouse button on the gadget right of the Graphics Adapter text. MDA This is a monochrome, text only adapter that gives faster screen updates. You are able to select the colours that will be used in the Advanced Video Options CGA CGA is the default graphics option and has the most complete implementation and compatibility. EGA EGA will do the same modes as MDA and CGA and adds some higher resolution graphics modes. VGA VGA will do all the modes of MDA, CGA, EGA and higher resolution graphics modes. One VGA mode requires a machine with the AGA chipset (such as the A1200 & A4000) or with a graphic board capable of 256 colours in order to display the correct colours. Other machines will display the mode but with incorrect colours. SVGA 512K / SVGA 1 Mb / SVGA 2Mb SVGA modes are high resolution graphics modes, some of which require a machine with the AGA chipset or a graphics board capable of 256 colours in order to display the correct colours. Other machines will display the mode but with incorrect colours Many PC games use non-standard modes and features of EGA/VGA and therefore will not run correctly. 2.6 Advanced Video Options -------------------------- Underneath the Graphics Adapter options you are able to select Advanced Video Options. This will bring up another window allowing you to select the Amiga screen mode for each graphics mode available. For a complete list of modes, please refer to Appendix D - Video Modes. Down Mode This will move down through the list of available video modes. Up Mode This will move up through the list of available video modes. Window/Screen This will select whether the current mode will run in a window or on its own screen. If running in a window the Public Screen can be selected using the PUBSCREEN ToolType. See Section 2.10 - ToolTypes / Shell Arguments. Graphics Update This selects whether the screen is updated immediately when any changes are made, or only updated after every 1 , 2, 4 or 8 frames. MDA Palette This allows you to select the colours used when MDA is selected as the graphics adapter. Colours can be adjusted by sliding the red, green and blue gadget controls to the right of the colour boxes. Set Mode This gives you a choice, through the use of a screenmode requestor, of the available screenmodes on which to run the current video mode. AmigaOS 1.2 / 1.3 users will have to enter the mode ID in the text gadget next to the Set Mode button. Some common modes are: $0000 Lores $8000 Hires $8004 Hires Laced PC Task will automatically default to values viewable on all machines if no screenmode is selected for a PC graphics mode. If you select an Amiga graphics mode which has less colours than the PC mode you are using, the screen may look wrong, as PC-Task won't be able to use the correct colours. 2.7 Mouse, Parallel, Serial & Sound Options ------------------------------------------- You can toggle the Parallel, Serial, COM2 Mouse and Sound gadgets to on or off by clicking the left mouse button on these gadgets at the top right of the option screen. When a tick is displayed in the gadget, the parallel or serial port can be used during emulation for printing or communications with a modem. By default both are selected for use. To access either the serial or parallel ports with another Amiga program, while PC Task is running, you will need to turn the relevant port in PC-Task to off. See the Section 2.10 - ToolTypes / Shell Arguments for information on how to select other serial and parallel ports. The COM2 Mouse option changes the mouse driver (when activated) to emulate a Microsoft compatible serial mouse On COM2:. This increases compatibility with software that uses its own drivers for serial mice (eg. Windows 3.1). For more information on the mouse driver see Section 3.2- Turning the Mouse Driver On. The Sound option emulates basic PC sound. This is equivalent to the motherboard sound present on most real PCs and is intended for simple beeps it does not emulate SoundBlaster or other PC sound cards. 2.8 Priority Options -------------------- As PC Task allows your Amiga to continue to multitask, two options are provided to control the Amiga processor allocations to allow maximum emulation performance. "Priority when selected" is the priority the processor gives to running the emulator, when the emulator screen / window is selected. Assigning a value of one (1) to this option gives the emulator the majority of the processors time when PC Task is in use. This means that the emulation will run faster in the Amiga's multitasking environment. There is usually no need to raise this value, as there is only minor speed increases. "Priority when not selected" is the priority the processor gives to running the emulator when the emulator screen / window is not selected. Assigning a value of negative one (-1) to this option gives other programs the majority of the processor's time when PC-Task is not being used. 2.9 Memory Options ------------------ In the bottom right of the option screen there are three sets of left / right gadgets that allow you to change memory options of the PC. Before we explain these options the way memory is used on PCs will be discussed. The first 640K of memory on a PC is called conventional memory. After that you have 384K which is used for system hardware, device drivers, memory-resident programs, etc. and is referred to as the upper memory area. If you are not using EGA, VGA or SVGA, you can extend your conventional memory to 704K, and into the upper memory area. Beyond this first 1MB there is the high memory area extended memory and expanded memory. Consult your DOS manual or related book for information on expanded memory and the high memory area. The following memory options are available on the PC-Task option screen: Conventional Memory Sets the amount of memory PC Task will allocate for emulation with the maximum base memory allowed being 704K, if MDA or CGA graphics adapter selected, and 640K if EGA, VGA or SVGA is selected. For best compatibility select 640K. If the emulator fails to get the amount set it will try for a smaller amount until it gets too low to be functional. Extended Memory Sets the amount of extended memory which will be allocated for emulation. You are able to select up to 15MB of extended memory. It is best if you do not allocate all available fast RAM on your Amiga for emulation. If you allocate more, PC Task may use Chip memory, which will slow down the emulation. Minimum Leave Available This is the minimum amount of memory that the emulator will leave available for other Amiga programs, after it has allocated the main memory. This is used to ensure that your Amiga's available memory does not get too low when the emulator allocates the amount it requires. If the memory available gets below 64K the system may crash. It is suggested that this value is never lowered below 16K. Because MS DOS only manages conventional memory you need to use a extended memory manager. HIMEM.SYS is one that does this and is provided with MS-DOS. If you wish to use your extended memory you will need the following line (or similar, depending on options) in your CONFIG.SYS: DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS If you are a using a different memory manager, please refer to its documentation. Some programs require the availability of expanded memory. Since MS-DOS only comes with EMM386, you are unable to use it on PC-Task's 8086/80286 emulation. There are a number of shareware or public domain memory managers that work well with PC-Task. We have found that EMS40.SYS is one of these. To free conventional memory to allow DOS programs to run, MS-DOS provides the option of running MS-DOS in the high memory area, using the following command in your CONFIG.SYS: DOS=HIGH This works with PC-Task, but we suggest only do this if you really need the memory. Because of the way PC-Task works, this will slow down the emulation. A RAMDrive comes in handy when using PC-Task. The extended memory area can be used for this. A typical RAMDrive would be set up in the following manner in your CONFIG.SYS: DEVICE=C:\DOS\RAMDRIVE.SYS 256 / e 2.10 Tooltypes / Shell Arguments -------------------------------- There are a number of options that cannot be accessed from the PC-Task option screen. These options are generally suited to the advanced user and are specified by adding the ToolType to the PC-Task icon or specifying the keyword after the program name when starting PC-Task from a Shell / CLI. If you are using AmigaOS 1.2 or 1.3 you will need to add "=ON" to a ToolType to turn it on. These users will also have to enclose the ToolType with brackets to turn it off. For example, with the NOOPTIONWINDOW ToolType, AmigaOS 1.2 / 1.3 users will use: NOOPTIONWINDOW=ON to stop the option screen from appearing, and (NOOPTIONWINDOW=ON) to make it appear (if there is no ToolType, the option screen will still appear). Following are the accepted ToolTypes. LANGUAGE=ENGLISH, DEUTSCH, FRANCAIS Three languages are built into PC-Task and can be selected by this ToolType. If you do not have this keyword, PC-Task will default to the languages set in your preferences if you have AmigaOS 2.1 or above. Otherwise the English language will be used. MAXDEPTHTWO MAXDEPTHTHREE These two ToolTypes limit the maximum screen depth that PC-Task will open. This can be of great use on an Old or ECS Chipset machines with chip (graphics) memory only or chip and slowfast (memory at $c00000 which is called fast on the system but is as slow as chip memory) memory only. On such a machine any more than a depth of two on a screen with a width of 640 will slow down the operation of PC Task if you do not mind losing some colours you can get faster operation by using either of these keywords. MAXDEPTHTWO limits the screen display to a depth of 2 for HIRES (width 640) screens. For LORES (width 320) screens double the depth is allowed before slowdown occurs. BOOTANYFLOPPY Does not check for valid boot code. Will boot from any MS-DOS floppy disk. SERIAL=name.device,unit,flags If you have more than the internal serial port on your machine or just want PC Task to use the device instead of going direct to the internal serial port hardware, you can use this keyword. For using the internal port with the serial device use "serial.device,0,0". PARALLEL=name.device,unit,flags If you have more than the internal parallel port on your machine you can use this keyword. What PC-Task defaults to when you dont give a PARALLEL keyword is "parallel.device,0,32". The 32 means it will open in shared mode. FONT=name.font If you wish to specify your own font for use during emulation use this keyword. You can supply 8*8, 8*14 and 8*16 fonts. NEVERBLANKPOINTER Stops the mouse pointer from ever being turned off. FORCEFASTMEM Force PC-Task to get the PC memory from fast ram. This is only of use if you have more chip memory than fast memory. NOOPTIONWINDOW This stops the option screen/window from appearing when loading PC-Task. This option should be used when you want to use the options you have previously saved and go straight to the emulation.