Cloanto Amiga Forever Data Sharing Software (Amiga Side)


 Introduction

 This document is intended as a reference to the data sharing components
 which are designed to run on a "real" Amiga computer. The main
 documentation in HTML format contains additional instructions, especially
 in relation to the Windows side of Amiga Explorer, Amiga Explorer
 troubleshooting, and data sharing using floppy disks.

 The main data sharing tool, which is included in the same directory
 containing this text, is the Amiga Explorer network server software (to
 connect one or more PCs to the Amiga). This part of Amiga Explorer was
 designed to run on a "real" Amiga, but thanks to the TCP/IP protocol,
 support for which has been added to recent versions of the Amiga
 emulation, Amiga Explorer can now also be used to improve communications
 between Windows and the Amiga emulation.

 Amiga Forever also contains the "transdisk" and "transrom" utilities
 (which are stored in the "Emulation/shared/amiga_utilities" subdirectory
 of the Amiga Forever installation), used by several Amiga emulation
 environments. These utilities are not necessary if Amiga Explorer is
 installed, because Amiga Explorer incorporates and extends the features
 of both tools.

 Amiga Explorer and the other utilities described here are fully
 independent from the Amiga emulation software, and can be used to share
 data between Windows and Amiga systems without using the Amiga emulation
 software.

 The MenuBox program launcher of the Online Edition of Amiga Forever has a
 "Copy to Floppy" option, which copies the Amiga data sharing software to
 the PC's floppy disk, from where they can be copied to an Amiga computer.
 Please note that some Amiga computers can read only 720 KB floppy disks,
 and will fail to read 1.44 MB disks. In order to read PC-formatted floppy
 disks, the Amiga must have a DOS filing system, such as CrossDOS
 (included with the Amiga OS from version 2.1), MSH (available for free
 download on Aminet, and capable of running on older versions of the Amiga
 OS) or XFS (also on Aminet). XFS and the latest commercial version of
 CrossDOS support "long" Windows file names, meaning that file names
 longer than 8 characters appear properly when read on an Amiga. If the
 DOS filing system used on the Amiga does not support long file names,
 please make sure to rename the files after they are copied to the Amiga.
 The names should be:

    AExplorer
    AExplorer.info
    ReadMe.txt
    ReadMe.txt.info
    transdisk
    transrom

 Please refer to the main documentation in HTML format for a more complete
 explanation of the different methods which are available for transferring
 Amiga files from a PC to an Amiga.


 Amiga Explorer

 The Amiga side of Amiga Explorer ("AExplorer" icon) communicates over a
 cable connection with the Amiga Explorer part which resides on a Windows
 machine, exposing all Amiga drives to one or more PCs running Windows. In
 this configuration, the Amiga is called the "server", because it is the
 computer which satisfies requests from "clients", which are Windows
 machines. All Windows clients can "see" what is on the Amiga server, and
 read and write to the Amiga. The Amiga itself does not see the drives
 mounted on the client machines, i.e. the drives of the Windows computers
 do not appear on the Workbench screen of the Amiga server.

 On the Amiga side, double-click on the AExplorer icon to start it, and,
 if necessary, double-click on it again to stop it. Stopping Amiga
 Explorer may be useful, for example, to free the serial port for other
 tasks, or to change some Amiga Explorer settings. To install Amiga
 Explorer, simply copy the "AExplorer" icon to the hard disk. On version
 2.0 and newer of the Amiga OS, copying the "AExplorer" icon into the
 "WBStartup" drawer will cause Amiga Explorer to start automatically when
 the system boots. On all systems, Amiga Explorer can also be started
 automatically by entering the following line in the  "S:Startup-Sequence"
 or "S:User-Startup" file:

    Run >NIL: <NIL: AExplorer >NIL: <NIL: [OPTIONS]

 Instead of "AExplorer" alone, you will probably prefer to enter the path
 of the software as it is installed on the hard disk, e.g.
 "Work:Software/AExplorer/AExplorer", etc. The optional [OPTIONS] part
 consists of one or more keywords each followed by a setting, e.g.
 "CONNECTION SERIAL SERBAUD 115200", etc. If no options are indicated,
 then the default settings are used. The option names and the default
 values are explained below (all command line options have matching
 ToolTypes with the same name).

 This version of Amiga Explorer supports standard "null modem" 7-wire
 serial cables (the schematics are included in the main documentation), as
 well as TCP/IP (Ethernet, ARCNet, serial, etc.). Settings can be changed
 by clicking on the "AExplorer" icon once, and selecting the
 "Information..." (or "Info", on older systems) item from the Workbench
 menus. All settings are accessible by editing the appropriate "ToolType"
 entries, which are described here.

 CONNECTION: This entry may be set to AUTO, SERIAL or TCP/IP. AUTO, which
 is the default, means that Amiga Explorer uses TCP/IP if a TCP/IP
 environment is found, otherwise it uses the serial (null modem) cable
 connection.

 SERDEVICE, SERUNIT, SERBAUD: These are the serial port settings. By
 default, the standard Amiga serial device, "serial.device", unit 0, is
 used. This does not require changes, unless non-standard serial ports and
 devices are used, in which case the corresponding documentation needs to
 be referred to. SERBAUD is preset to 19200 bit/sec, which was tested to
 run well even on the slowest Amiga systems. Higher values allow for
 higher transmission speeds, but are not supported by all systems. If this
 setting is changed, it also needs to be changed to the same value on the
 Windows side of Amiga Explorer. Other possible values include (without
 being limited to): 4800, 9600, 38400, 57600 and 115200.

 TCPLIBRARY, TCPPASSWORD, TCPCLIENT, TCPSERVER: These are the TCP/IP
 settings, which on the Amiga side by default do not require any specific
 configuration. The Amiga side of Amiga Explorer processes requests from
 all Windows clients. To limit potential security risks, Amiga Explorer
 gives the possibility to specify a password (TCPPASSWORD), and to
 optionally indicate the IP address of a single Windows client to which
 exclusive access is to be granted. A default password is preset on both
 the Windows and the Amiga side. If the password is changed, the new value
 must be set both on the Windows clients and on the Amiga server. Requests
 from clients with a different password are not processed. By default, the
 Amiga side of Amiga Explorer "listens" to all Windows clients. As an
 additional security measure, it is possible to program the TCPCLIENT
 setting to the IP address (e.g. "TCPCLIENT=10.0.0.5") of a single Windows
 client, which will then become the only client with which the Amiga
 server exchanges data. This provides an additional level of protection
 over the password solution, because the (encrypted) password is
 transmitted over the network, and, in theory, could be read by an
 unauthorized party on the same network path using a TCP/IP packet
 monitor. The TCPSERVER setting, which is also optional, can be programmed
 to the IP address of the Amiga server. This is required on multi-homed
 systems, i.e. where the Amiga has more than one network board and/or IP
 address, and Amiga Explorer may need to be told which one to use.

 PACKETSIZE: This value indicates the maximum size, in bytes, of the data
 packets sent by the Amiga server to the Windows clients. A "packet" is
 the unit of data which is transmitted from one side to the other at one
 time. Each packet has different checksums to ensure the integrity of the
 data, once the packet is received by the other side. If the line is not
 totally error-free, which may for example occur on a serial connection
 which is set to an excessively high speed, corrupt packets are detected
 and re-sent. If this happens, the overhead is in proportion to the size
 of the packet. Longer packets are more likely to be corrupt, because they
 contain more data, and they also take longer to be sent and re-sent.
 Shorter packets are more reliable, but they slightly increase the overall
 overhead on an error-free line, because each packet has some additional
 header and checksum data, which, if there are no errors, is not
 necessary. By default, PACKETSIZE is set to 4096, which is a good
 compromise for different types of connections. It is not necessary to set
 the Amiga side and the Windows side to the same value (the clients may
 use a different setting for data sent to the server, if so desired). All
 Amiga Explorer packets are "dynamic", i.e. the packet size is only a
 maximum, not a constant. If the packet size is set to 4096, but only 100
 bytes need to be transmitted, then only 100 bytes (plus the header) are
 transmitted, not 4096.

 RETRIES: This parameter determines how often the Amiga side will request
 a corrupt packet to be retransmitted, before "giving up". By default, it
 retries 10 times. The Amiga and the Windows side do not need to be set to
 the same value.

 ADFVERIFY: Amiga Explorer can transform Amiga disks to ADF ("Amiga Disk
 File") images, and vice versa. When writing an ADF image to an Amiga
 disk, Amiga Explorer by default verifies that the data was written
 correctly, just like the Amiga OS does when formatting a disk, or like
 disk-copying programs can do during a copy. In this way, bad disks and
 other possible problems are immediately detected. If ADFVERIFY is set to
 NO, bad disks and other write errors are not detected, but the write
 process will be faster.

 OVERRIDEPROTECTION: If this setting is enabled (=YES), then Amiga
 Explorer overrides any Amiga protection bits which may indicate, for
 example, that a file cannot be deleted, read or written.

 LOGGING, LOGFILE: Logging can be enabled (LOGGING=YES) in case of
 persistent difficulties, to better track the origin of specific problems.
 By default, logging is disabled (LOGGING=NO). Please refer to the main
 documentation for additional information.

 QUIET: This setting can be set to YES or NO to respectively suppress or
 enable the initial and final status window which appears when Amiga
 Explorer is launched or stopped.

 DONOTWAIT: This ToolType ensures that the "AExplorer" icon can be dropped
 in "WBStartup" without leaving the Amiga OS waiting for Amiga Explorer to
 terminate.


 MSH

 MSH is an Amiga file system handler that allows the Amiga to read and
 write floppy disks in the MS-DOS format. It is available for free
 download from Aminet (www.aminet.org).

 Amiga operating systems beginning from version 2.1 already include a
 similar type of support for MS-DOS disks, as explained in the Amiga
 documentation. MSH works on all versions of the Amiga OS, including 1.3
 and 2.0.

 To install MSH to your system, execute the following in a Shell or CLI
 window (replace "Disk:" with the path where the MSH files are located):

    Copy Disk:devs/messydisk.device DEVS: CLONE
    Copy Disk:devs/MountList.MSH DEVS: CLONE
    Copy Disk:l/MessyFileSystem L: CLONE

 In the "S:Startup-Sequence" or "S:User-Startup" file, add one entry for
 each disk drive for which you wish to enable MSH, where the name of the
 device to be mounted is "MS" plus the unit number. For example, to add
 MS-DOS-support to drives 0 and 1, add:

    Mount MS0: FROM DEVS:MountList.MSH
    Mount MS1: FROM DEVS:MountList.MSH

 Please note that high density data (disks formatted for 1.44 MB) cannot
 be accessed by the Amiga unless the Amiga drive supports this. Some
 drives shipping with the Commodore Amiga 3000, 3000T, 4000 and 1200
 models, as well as some newer third-party drives support this. If
 high-density is not supported by the drive, then only disks formatted in
 the 720 KB format can be accessed.

 Please refer to the main documentation of Amiga Forever for additional
 information.


 Transdisk and Transrom

 The "Emulation/shared/amiga_utilities" subdirectory of the Amiga Forever
 installation (usually on "C:\Program Files\Cloanto\Amiga Forever" on the
 PC) contains the "transdisk" and "transrom" utilities, which can be used
 to create image files of Amiga ROMs and floppy disks (ADF format), for
 use with the UAE and Fellow Amiga emulators. The same functionality is
 also part of Amiga Explorer, which is capable of creating "virtual" ADF
 and ROM image files, so these additional tools are mainly interesting
 when Amiga Explorer is not used.

 In order to share data stored on floppy disks between the Amiga and other
 systems, the disks must be formatted in the MS-DOS format. The main
 documentation of Amiga Forever explains why Amiga-formatted disks cannot
 be read on non-Amiga systems, and how MS-DOS disks can be formatted and
 used on the Amiga (for example using MSH).

 Please note that a ROM image fits on a 720 KB (MS-DOS) disk, but a disk
 image of an 880 KB Amiga disk cannot fit on an MS-DOS disk unless it is
 either compressed (with a program such as LhA), or split in several
 parts. The transdisk utility includes an option to split a disk image in
 several files.

 Both utilities are designed to be used from the Shell. Before use, they
 are best copied to the C: directory, or to another location where the
 system looks for programs associated to Shell commands.

 The following are examples of command lines entered in a Shell (or CLI,
 on older systems) window.

 To install the command line utilities (add file path as necessary):

    Copy transdisk C: CLONE
    Copy transrom C: CLONE

 To get instructions on the use of transdisk:

    transdisk ?

 To write a ROM image file to the PC0: MS-DOS disk:

    transrom > PC0:kick31.rom

 To write a ROM image file to the MS0: MS-DOS disk:

    transrom > MS0:kick31.rom


 Notes

 Amiga Explorer is Copyright © 1997-1999 Cloanto. MSH is Copyright ©
 1989-1997 Olaf "Rhialto" Seibert. Transdisk is Copyright © 1995-1997
 Bernd Schmidt, Joanne Dow, Marcus Sundberg, Rodney Hester and Stefan
 Ropke, distributed with permission. Transrom is Copyright © 1995-1996
 Bernd Schmidt, Marcus Sundberg, Rodney Hester and Stefan Ropke,
 distributed with permission. Please refer to the main documentation for
 additional copyright, distribution and other legal and technical
 information.