Changes to V3.7 (01/10/94) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Removed automatic 'DMA Restrictions' disabling while in 32 bit mode. If you were using a Zorro II DMA hard drive controller and you were also using 32 bit memory, the system would boot unpredictably... resulting usually in a system crash. * Fixed a bug that has been around since v1.5! There was a *serious* bug in the hard drive code we discovered. Norton's Utilities program 'SpeedDisk' would fail (crash, bus error, take your pick of nasty things) if the 'Verify Media' option was used on an AmigaDOS hard drive partition. Real SCSI devices worked fine. The problem could have caused some serious damage if MAC-DOS had not reloaded the buffer pointer (hard drive cache buffer) everytime an I/O takes place, however, any program that bypasses DOS and talks directly to the driver (like Norton's) would run the risk of crashing. Although we had thought to have fixed the problem with MicroSoft Word crashing with v3.2 and later, we had not. We moved the hard drive routines into CHIP memory (slowing things down a LOT), so that mirroring (required for 24 bit) would not be a problem for the hard drive driver... under 32 bit mode, Word seemed to work just fine. It turns out that MicroSoft bypasses DOS and thus Word had the same problem as Norton's SpeedDisk program. So, the hard drive driver is now back in FAST memory again (with a noticeable difference in hard drive response). * Added numerous safety checks for the hard drive code (we now have nearly two dozen safety checks for hard drive access). * Changed the version number to properly reflect the software's real version! We release v3.6 without changing the interface screen (or version string) to v3.6. * Updated the version numbers on the ECSVideoNTSC and ECSVideoPAL drivers. ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.6 (01/09/94) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Corrected last remaining math problem. * Optimized math routines again, offering another 2% increase in speed. * Made 'DMA Restrictions' disabled automatically if running in 32 bit mode. ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.5 (01/05/94) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Corrected problems with fast math routines. A few of the complex math routines had problems. This was responsible for the 'bus errors' often experienced. * Optimized math routines again, offering another 10% increase in speed. * Added new data compression routines to jam.library (now v7.0). * Changed 'ECSVideoNTSC' & 'ECSVideoPAL' video drivers so that they no longer require the ECS Denise. Some time ago, we removed the necessity of the ECS chipset. However, when a bug in the main program that checked for the ECS/OCS/AGA requirement was fixed, it turns out that the 'ECS' flag was never removed from the video drivers. * Re-wrote 'RsrvMemII' (again). Apparently, the OVL line on many Amigas does not respond as documented, meaning that trying to take over the system while re-booting did not always work...rats! This would have been the best way to fix the problems with many memory boards. So, the new RsrvMemII is automagic. Use it as it is installed (by the installer script) and if it works just fine, leave it. If you have a GVP board, and the RsrvMemII from v3.2-v3.4 worked, you will need to add a '-r' after RsrvMemII in the s:setupEmplant script file: ---- Contents of file s:setupEmplant --- RsrvMemII >NIL: -r This will force the RsrvMemII program to behave like the last version, meaning it should work with all of the GVP Combo boards. The '-s' switch for splitting the memory still exists (see emplant.history for more details about this). * Added launcher script/icon for 'EC' machines. * Added cache clearing to .JDC decompressor (for safety sakes). ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.4 (12/19/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Created custom math handling routines. Most math benchmarks now exceed any equiv speed MAC by as much as 500%! Go Amiga! This in itself has been the most dramatic performance increase that the MAC emulation has ever seen. EVERY aspect of the MAC has been sped up tremendously due to nearly every function in the MAC uses the FPU at some point. Our A4000 w/Xcaliber shows 147% speed of a Quadra 900 in high end math (such as used in rendering programs). * Added full A4000/030 support. Added FPU exception handling so that machines without FPUs will now work. * New routines added to jam.library. Removed LED flashing from decompression routines. * Add custom decompressing software to installer so that everything will fit on a single floppy (again). ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.3 (12/15/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** ATTENTION *** V3.3 and later of EMPLANT's MAC emulation software no longer requires the v1.6 custom logic upgrade. A problem with a company duplicating EMPLANT boards forced us to change our custom logic to prevent v3.2 and later from working with the would-be EMPLANT clone. We were able to successfully stop this company from doing this, an thus, find it no longer necessary to have different custom logic. ALL EMPLANT boards will work with v3.3 and later software. * Fixed cache control problems. This was the heart to the floppy drive code problems (formatting/writing). * Fixed really nasty 68040 cache problem. In order for an 040 machine to successfully boot, the data cache must be off (the MAC turns it back on after FINDER is loaded). The cache control code was not working all of the time, resulting in many 040 systems crashing. When all else fails, use the Amiga's cache control routines built in to OS2.x and later... and everything works fine now. * Added the cache control ability. The MAC can now turn on and off any and all CPU caches at will. We noticed that a vast majority of MAC programs do this to maintain compatibility with 68040 processors. Word of warning: Quark Express 3.1 and Aldus Freehand 3.0 have cache problems. You will (like on a real MAC) have to turn off the 'datacache' before attempting to launch the programs. After the program is running, you can then turn the cache back on. If you are not familiar with caches, just type these commands while in a shell (CLI): CPU nodatacache CPU datacache * Re-wrote 'empscsi.device' to be compatible with A4000 machines. Got rid of a few enforcer hits. * Re-wrote 'emphf.device' to greatly speed up hard file access. Up to 10 times the performance is now possible with IDE (A4000) hard drive setups. Average transfers went from 90K per second with the older device driver to over 850K per second, making hard files a real solution (now) for A4000 owners. * Re-wrote 'MAC_HDSetup' to now generate your choice of either a mountlist entry or standard DOS Driver. Added the ability to scan any SCSI device for valid MAC data. This means that you no longer have to trick AmigaDOS into mounting a fake cartridge just to be able to create a mountlist/DOSDriver for a different (MAC) cartridge... this was a real pain, and has been corrected! * Re-wrote 'HardFile_Setup' to now generate your choice of either a mounlist entry or standard DOS Driver. * Corrected a nasty problem with 'write-resource'. If a resource was written back, it was completely corrupted, resulting in varying degree of file corruption (32 bit mode only). ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.2 (11/28/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** ATTENTION *** V3.2 and later of EMPLANT's MAC emulation software requires the v1.6 custom logic upgrade kit. If you do not have this upgrade kit, v3.2 and later of our software will not work...no exceptions. V3.2 and the upgrade kit is being mailed out to all registered EMPLANT owners free of charge. If you ordered EMPLANT directly from Utilities Unlimited, Inc., then you are already registered (this is automatically done for you when your order is shipped). If you purchased EMPLANT from a dealer, make sure that you send in your registration card. If you did not get a registration card (included as the last page of the "MAC Emulation - Software User's Guide" please contact Utilities Unlimited, Inc. immediately: Utilities Unlimited, Inc. 790 N. Lake Havasu Blvd. #16 Lake Havasu City, AZ 86403 (602) 680-9004 Voice (602) 453-6407 FAX :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: * Added ability to run the MAC emulation in a 32 bit clean mode. You toggle between 24 bit and 32 bit mode in the TASK CONTROL menu. 24 bit mode still requires that HardKickMMU or SoftKickMMU is still used, offering backwards compatibility for those programs that do not run under System 7.x. 32 bit mode does not require an MMU to run, and thus, it can be used with 68EC030 processors. A word of warning... if you do not use an MMU table of some sort, AmigaVideo refreshes will be painfully slow. Also, any video board that uses a 'refreshed' video mode (as opposed to 'direct') still requires an MMU..period. Until we can come up with some magical method of refreshing at a reasonable rate (which I am sure will happen), we are limiting these video modes to only those systems with an MMU. 'Direct' mode video drivers can be easily identified by having a physical resolution (640x480, 1024x768, etc.) after the video board's name. In order to run in 32 bit mode, you are required to use Apple's System 7.1 or higher system software. No exceptions. You will not find this software freely available like all of the other system software in the past. Apple now sells what they call the 'System 7 personal upgrade kit'. Buy it... it is required for 32 bit clean mode operation. Also, do not attempt to use system disks for a specific MAC machine (like Centris). These systems will not work. You must be using an installer that will install for ALL MACs. An interesting fact: 32 bit clean is not 32 bit clean. Pre-System 7.1 systens are in fact 29 bit clean. They still use the upper 3 bits for flags. System 7.1 is the first system actually be fully 32 bit clean. * Goodbye 'RsrvMem37ii' and 'ReserveMem'. You can all thank GVP for this. Because GVP's accelerators don't quite play by the rules, we were forced to write a completely new program for reserving the low-memory block. This new program is called 'RsrvMemII'. It takes the place of both the 'RsrvMem37ii' and 'ReserveMem' programs. RsrvMemII has one command line option: -s The '-s' option will split your largest block of memory into two blocks, with the smaller of the two blocks (always two megs) located at the very top of the memory block. This allows people using the emulation in 24 bit mode to run up to two megs of normal Amiga startup programs without affecting the amount of memory that can be allocated for the emulation to run in. If you are using the emulation in 32 bit mode, it is recommended that you do not use this option, as you would have two megs less memory for the emulation. The MAC emulation always uses the largest contiguous block of memory in your system (just like a real MAC). * Re-wrote HardKickMMU and SoftKickMMU. HardKickExt and HardKickAuto are no longer necessary (just use HardKickMMU). GVP owners need to map their memory as 'extended'. *** PLEASE NOTE *** The command line options have changed: -f Turns on the FASTROM option (remaps KickStart into FAST memory). -w Turns off CopyBack mode (turns on write-through, 68040 owners only). -h Remaps the EMPLANT hardware to appear at the same memory location that the MAC's hardware appears. -t Maps 4K pages with MMU for video display refreshing, does not mirror memory. WILL NOT WORK IN 24 BIT MODE!! -q Supress screen flash, also known as DisplayBeep(). You can use either upper or lower case letters (ie. -f or -F). Options may be in any order. * Corrected file transfer problems with certain files types (most commonly self extracting arc {.SEA} files). * Corrected a problem with the file transfer startup. The file transfer requires that the currently active MAC application is FINDER itself. If you were running another program (depending on how co-operative it was), and you attempted to transfer a file, the system could hang. * Corrected a problem with the file transfer file requestor (MAC side). Actually, we have no idea why it even worked at all before. :-) People were getting FOLDERS only (no files) in the file requestor. Technically, it should have crashed the emulation. * Changed disk insert/eject. Got rid of the Amiga based sprites and the screen flash. Instead, a small 'disk' (in color even) is drawn into the MAC's menu bar (in a free space... it won't interfere with clocks and such) instructing you to either insert or remove a disk. A '0' or '1' is displayed in the middle of the disk, indicating which drive is being affected. People using the Picasso II video board will notice that their screen no longer goes to mostly black when a disk is ejected. This was caused by the Amiga's screen flash routine not being correctly handled by the Picasso's software. * Increased FPU math benchmark results by 215%. We did this by removing a pile of debugging code that was stored in chip memory. Everytime there was an FPU access, bebug information was written out, slowing things down considerably. * Increased CPU benchmark results by 5%. Not a big deal here, but every little bit helps! This was also fixed by removing some debug code. * A3000 SoftKick'd machines can now reboot properly by pressing CTRL-AMIGA-AMIGA, like normal. No more flashing yellow screen! * Fixed the problems with MicroSoft products (Word, Excel, etc.). Leave it to MicroSoft to fetch private structures.... As a result of MicroSoft Word5.0/5.1/5.1a not working, we had to rewrite all of the hard drive handling code so that our structures were identical to the MAC's normal IO structures. * Fixed a problem with QuickTime(tm) movies and other video/audio related programs. Since the EMPLANT hardware runs faster than a real MAC's hardware, we have to scale all of our timers, interrupt controls, and such to match a real MAC. Well, ironically enough, we missed the 'Time Manager' resource. You would think that would be the first thing to look at... well, we didn't look at it at all. So, if you played a QuickTime(tm) movie, after about 15 seconds or so, the audio would start getting out of sync with the video. Once the Time Manager routines got patched, everything is now sync'd perfectly. * Added support for Apple's 'Sound Manager 3.0'. This new sound manager is suppose to be 2-3 times faster than the previous sound manager. Don't believe it. They achieve the additional speed by not letting any more than two audio channels to be added together. The MAC has a neat feature to the OS... if you run several programs at the same time (like a QT movie, SoundTrekker, and MaelStrom) you will actually hear the audio from all three programs at the same time. Two of the sound channels (up to four with the older sound manager) can be added together and output through the audio hardware. * Fixed problem with the ADB driver. We *thought* that the LEFT-AMIGA-M and LEFT-AMIGA-N were getting filtered (not passed to the MAC). This was not alway the case, resulting in a LOT of new folders appearing on the MAC's desktop. If you need to use the MAC equiv to COMMAND-M COMMAND-N, use RIGHT-AMIGA-M or N instead of the LEFT-AMIGA-x combination. * Created all new video drivers. ALL unnecessary video resolutions (sizes not even remotely square, like 1200x200) were removed from all of the AmigaVideo drivers. This resulted in a dramatic drop in the amount of memory required for the driver. Added Visiona Paint video board support. 8 bit or 24 bit... ARGB This board is very nice, and quick. Added EGS Spectrum 28/24 video board support (8/16/32 bit support). Added 16/32 bit display mode support for the Merlin, and Piccolo video boards. Added new resolutions to the Retina, and Picasso video boards. ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.19 (10/16/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Corrected (finally) timing problems related to sound. We tested the following systems: 6.0.2, 6.0.4, 6.0.5, 6.0.7, 7.0.0, 7.0.1, & 7.1.6. * Fixed Sound On/Off gadget code. With sound support 'OFF', the audio channels were still getting allocated. * Increased SCSI hard drive transfer speeds by 20% or more! This affects only SCSI devices plugged into the EMPLANT's SCSI port. * Added standard MAC startup sound. * Added bi-directional built in file transfer ability! You can now easily transfer files to/from the Amiga/MAC. ALL of the headaches of resource and data forks are taken care of automatically. To use the file transfer options, switch to the emulation control screen (the screen that appears right after starting the emulation) and click on 'MAC to Amiga' if you want to transfer a file from the MAC emulation to the Amiga side, or 'Amiga to MAC' if you want to transfer a file from the Amiga to the MAC emulation. NOTE: Make sure that you do not attempt file transfers before the MAC emulation screen shows the MAC desktop with the devices, otherwise, the emulation will go to sleep, and never wake up. Although it is unlikely that somebody would want to attempt to transfer a file before the emulation finished loading, this is a problem that we know about and will correct in v3.2. FILE TRANSFER QUIRKS: After transferring to MAC emulation - Older SEA (Self Extracting Arc) files have some information pertaining to the archive in the MACBinary header. Since this is not legal, newer versions of CompactPro do not stick this information where it doesn't belong. You can easily identify and older SEA; just double-clicking on the file will cause a system requestor to appear with an error code of -50. You can still decompress the archive by using CompactPro or StuffIt Expander. Not all file types are identified correctly. If you end up with a 'document' looking icon, try it anyways...if the bundle bit is lost in the translation, the default system document icon will be shown. ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.18 (10/08/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Corrected all timing problems related to sound. We tested extensively on programs that had known to be problems in the past. MANY different configurations were tested for hours without a single problem! * Added parity hardware emulation. This simulates the RAM parity checking circuitry built into 512K and later ROMs. Since we are getting ready to release 32 bit cleaned ROM support, many of the 512K ROM features have been added (such as parity checking) to insure 100% compatibility. * Added support for the Piccolo and EGS-28/24 Spectrum video boards. We added this support before, however, we goofed and gave you the WRONG screen name (see 'EMPLANT.history for previous screen name). NOTE: The screen name must be defined as the following for EITHER the Piccolo or the EGS-28/24 Spectrum board (same driver for both boards): PICOa:VGA 640x480 PICOa:VGA 1024x768 PICOa:VGA 1280x1024 * Added support for the Merlin video board. This board beats every board on the market to date as far as raw speed with EMPLANT's MAC emulation. Only a 640x480x256 driver is included. We are waiting for a replacement Merlin board (ours went bad...might of been us hammering it into the Zorro slot). :-) We were able to create the driver even though we could not see the display clearly (bad RAM, we think). * Added support for the Rainbow II video board. This is a rather interesting board in that it only supports 768x536 in 24 bit. When you use this driver, you will not see the 'Welcome to Mac...' message. This is because in order for the 256K ROM'd MAC to use 24 bit displays, 32 bit color quickdraw must be loaded, which does not happen until well after the system is loading. * Changed the SYBIL hardware support slightly. Now, when you flip screens and switch the floppy 'ownership' between MAC and Amiga, the SYBIL hardware (if selected) toggles off for 'Amiga' and on for 'MAC'. This allows you to use the parallel port on the Amiga side... SYBIL blocks the parallel port when it is enabled. ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.17 (10/04/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Corrected the timing for sound support. Let us know how it works! * Corrected a problem with v3.16 that would not let the emulation allocate any 32 bit memory if your system contained 8 megs or less of system memory. ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.16 (09/30/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Added full stereo sound support. *NOTE* There is a stereo/mono jumper on the EMPLANT hardware (consult your EMPLANT hardware manual for location). You must set this jumper to stereo in order for the MAC to think it is capable of producing sound through BOTH channels, otherwise, only the MAC's LEFT channel will be used. The emulation will always output sound to the Amiga's LEFT AND RIGHT channels, even if the jumper is set to mono mode. Sound support is selectable in the TASK CONTROL menu option. The default setting is 'ON'. The emulation allocates ALL of the Amiga audio channels. This means that when the emulation is running, and you have set 'Sound Support' to be 'ON', the Amiga will *not* be capable of producing ANY sound. There are some known problems with sound. We are working on these problems right now. The problems have to do with interrupt timing and the speed of the Amiga. Because everybody uses a different type of Amiga (A3000/4000/040 boards/etc.) it is very difficult to calculate the relative timing necessary for the EMPLANT hardware to match the system it is being used on. 'Close' has worked in the past, but it needs to be perfect for the sound interrupts. One more reason why a 'software only' version of our emulation is not possible. All of the interrupt timing is handled by the EMPLANT hardware to insure that all interrupts happen at the proper time, and in the proper sequence. If you are experiencing 'Bus Errors' when attempting to use a program with sound, please let us know what program it is. This will greatly speedup the correction of this problem. As many of you have probably heard, there was at one point a v3.15 software released to beta testers. We have only 6 beta testers outside of our company, and apparently one of them gave it to somebody they shouldn't have. So, as a result, we are forced to no longer use beta testers outside of our company, which will cause longer time periods between updates. * Fixed a *very* serious problem that we have had since the very first release of our emulation software. If you have a 12 meg or 16 meg (FAST memory, we don't count CHIP memory) system, and you attempted to use too much memory, and you did *not* get a warning message telling you that you have selected too much memory, then the graphics data (amongst other things) was probably corrupted when Finder appeared. The MAC's memory ALWAYS starts at location $0. The maximum amount of memory that a 256K ROM'd machine can have is 8 megs ($800000). If the memory was allocated at $400000 (common with a Picasso video board) and you selected 4 megs of memory for the emulation, the ROM image and possibly the video data would end up outside of the $800000 limit. We wrote a routine to fix this problem, but it was never called! We never noticed any serious problems due to the routine never getting called. (This is rather amazing since anytime memory was used outside of the 8 meg boundry, the entire system was only a wrong keystroke from disaster). * Corrected and interesting problem with keyboard and mouse interactions. While using PhotoShop, a customer noticed that if you held the space bar (hot key for the 'hand' used for dragging laso'd data) and attempted to move the mouse (actually dragging the data), the mouse would not move. Further investigation lead us to the problem.... we forgot that the Amiga keyboard generates repeated keys. So, we were passing the same key down message over and over to the MAC when there was no key up message. The MAC became confused and the ADB went into a reset state, halting the mouse. EVERYTHING that uses the keyboard is *much* better and less CPU intensive than before. Games are noticeably quicker at keyboard response (Maelstrom, for example!). * Added support for the Piccolo and EGS/Spectrum video boards. NOTE: The screen name must be defined as the following for EITHER the Piccolo or the EGS/Spectrum board (same driver for both boards): PICo:VGA 640x480 PICo:VGA 1024x768 PICo:VGA 1280x1024 * New HardKickMMU and SoftKickMMU. There is no longer a HardKickExt version for people with extended memory. It is now built into the HardKickMMU program. THERE HAVE BEEN REPORTED PROBLEMS using these latest MMU programs with Progressive 040 boards. We are trying to figure out what we 'broke'. We don't have a Progressive board ourselves, so we are flying blind here. DO NOT DELETE your old version of Hard/SoftKickMMU if you have a Progressive 040 board. The latest versions of Hard/SoftKickMMU are *required* for using the Piccolo or EGS/Spectrum boards. * New RsrvMem37ii written to allow more CPU time for MAC deferred tasks. Deferred tasks are most commonly used for sound drivers. If there are no deferred tasks, CPU usage is normal. Real MACs will very often skip audio or produce weird noises when there wasn't enough CPU time to keep the audio in sync. * Increased the speed of the 'PicassoVideo' driver's 16 and 32 bit modes by 5%. Not a big deal, but it was easy enough to do. * 256K of memory is now reserved as 'protection' against unwanted weird things happening (64K was previously reserved). The problem we have heard of is when a customer has a device selected in the DEVICE menu that allocates a cache for itself. If the cache is too large (or if you have a lot of devices selected), you could easily exceed the 64K saftey margin we had before. * EVERYONE REJOICE!! We found the problem that has been haunting people since the v2.1 to v2.2 update. We found the nasty problem that would cause the Amiga's serial.device to 'hang' (sometimes the Amiga would hang/crash too). The Amiga's level 6 interrupt handles the serial.device's incomming data. Well, since we take over the level 6 vector (nasty but necessary), we check the pending interrupt and see if it was for the Amiga or for the MAC and handle it accordingly...wrong. The only time we were checking the Amiga's level 6 is if the MAC also had a level 6 pending. Since we have all of our systems AppleTalk'd together, a level 6 interrupt is always happening on the MAC side, and so the Amiga side got processed too...thus, we never could duplicate this mysterious 'lockup' problem reported by so many customers.... that is until Jim forgot to plug in an AppleTalk connector after comming back from a show in Las Vegas....attempted to log onto GEnie... whamo! Crash! $@%#^!@# ... fixed. :-) Another note about modems: If you are using a hardware handshaking cable on the EMPLANT's serial port, please remember to set your modem to ignore DTR transistions. This is the same for a real MAC too. You need to use this string to setup the DTR correctly: AT&D0 * Included 'empscsi.device' and 'empscsi.amhd'. 'empscsi.device' is a SCSI device driver that uses EMPLANT's SCSI interface. Currently, devices do not automount with this driver. This will change. Follow the documentation in EMPLANT's Hardware User's Guide. The 'empscsi.amhd' file allows customers using AMAX to use EMPLANT's SCSI interface for their hard drives. ++++++++++++++ A T T E N T I O N P L E A S E +++++++++++++ There have been some drastic changes made to our emulation software in preparation for the next release (32 bit clean ROM support). * Our emulation is no longer a MAC II/x/cx machine. Our emulation is now a 'GENERIC' MAC emulation. When you now go to 'About this Macintosh' you will probably not find 'MAC IIx' listed as the machine type. The speed of your emulation is computed, and the equivalent MAC machine type is displayed. For example: A3000/25Mhz machines will show up as 'Macintosh IIci', A4000/040 machines will show up as 'Quadra 700'. This is based on the speed of the emulation running on your machine, so if you have something intensive running in the background on the Amiga side, and you start the emulation, your machine type just might be different (slower MAC). * The 'Total Memory' and 'System Memory' values shown in 'About this Macintosh' are now correct. * You can NO LONGER SELECT 'CHIP' or 'RANGER' MEMORY TYPES. The MAC does not have different speed memory, and people have been putting things like the ROM image into CHIP memory. The emulation crashed (not right away) because of this. So, you are now limited to using either 16 bit or 32 bit memory. It is *highly* recommended that you use 32 bit memory if you have it!! * Added MAC IIci/si and Quadra hardware bit information. The emulation is now setup to report the various hardware found in the 512K and 1 meg (Quadra/Centris) ROMs, even though our emulation uses only 256K ROMs. * Fixed a bug in the Converter program that caused files created with the old converter format to not load/write properly. ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.1 (08/27/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Fixed problem with the FPS gadget in the Video Drivers menu. It was not properly reflecting the refresh rate until you changed it. * Fixed the 'Lookup Table' gadget to properly reflect the state of the gadget. * Fixed Memory Type select gadget in the MEMORY menu. Under certain circumstances the software would exit to AmigaDOS. * New HardKickMMU, SoftKickMMU, & HardKickExt programs. We now remap the ASC and SWIM chips to be in safe memory areas in case a program bangs on the hardware directly. Programs that forced open the sound manager (against our wishes) no longer causes the emulation to crash... you just don't get sound. Many programs that come up and instantly have a 'Bus Error' condition, will now work properly (no bus error). * Welcome to new video drivers. ALL of the video drivers have received overhauls, resulting in speed increases from 2% to 200%. AGA owners will not only be delighted at the new speeds, but will probably be shocked. :-) * Picasso II video board owners should now be happy to find 4 video drivers for their board. 'PicassoVideo' is a multi-purpose driver that allows various screen resolutions (up to 1280x1024) in either 8, 16, or 32 bit color modes (256 colors, 'Thousands', and 'Millions' modes). The other three drivers are very special...each of these drivers (PicassoVideo_640x480, PicassoVideo_1024x768, and PicassoVideo_1280x1024) only allow 256 colors in the resolution that follows the name...however, these drivers have two huge advantages. 1) They do not require ANY video memory, allowing you to have about 1.2 megs more memory for your emulation. 2) They talk directly with the MAC. You will be able to run QuickTime movies, play fast action video games, and anything else REAL TIME. We are talking fast here folks! Please note that the PicassoVideo board is a 1 or 2 meg board. 1 or 2 megs of your MAC system memory *could* (depending on your system configuration) be taken away. Please look at your memory setup. * Added a new screen for the DEVICES menu. If you click on a device in the RIGHT window (a device that has been selected for use with the MAC emulation), you will see a new looking window. You can select the device to be EJECTABLE media (as before), and you can also turn ON (default) or OFF 'DMA Restrictions'. You can only turn OFF the DMA restrictions gadget if your hard drive controller DOES NOT USE ANY FORM OF DMA TRANSFER (A3000 owners CAN NOT TURN IT OFF!!!). The A4000, Supra controllers, IVS Trumpcards, Spartan, etc. systems are allowed to turn OFF the DMA Restrictions. So what does it do? Well, turning OFF the DMA Restrictions can make your hard drive access during the MAC emulation anywhere from 30% to 400% faster, depending on the controller and hard drive you have. * ALL NEW HardFile setup program and device driver. There was A MAJOR bug in the PC support. DON'T USE THE OLD DRIVER WITH PC FORMATTED partitions...you could corrupt the data by doing so. A MUCH faster emphf.device now uses a new technique for seeking. * Corrected a interesting problem with formatting hard drive partitions. The value used for the high cylinder was one less than it should have been, resulting in the partition not being completely formatted. A 52 meg quantam drive would lose about 1.2 megs of storage. The amount of loss depended on the number of heads and the number of blocks per track. We recommend backing up your hard drive and reformatting it if you want to get the full size. You can also use Norton's Utilities to fix this problem (bitmap correction). * BLIND TRANSFERS ARE OK!!! That's right, you can now use blind transfers when using REAL SCSI devices plugged into the EMPLANT's SCSI port. We have tested HDT, SilverLining, DataWare, and Drive7...all work flawlessly WITH blind transfers on. CD-ROM owners should also now be able to get data off of their disks (and not just play music CDs!). People using flat bed scanners that were getting blank (or all black) pages when scanning should be happy! If you are using a SCSI device other than a hard drive, we would like to hear if this works for you! * Fixed the oldest bug we have had. Kinda strange actually.... during the course of testing the new video driver code we noticed that the palette setting routine in the video driver does not work properly if you were in grey mode. The result, programs like Speedometer would start draw COLOR on a grey screen! COLOR...we can't have color in grey mode, so we fixed it. :-) * Added gamma correction to all video drivers. I don't know too many people needing this option, but, hey, the MAC has it. :-) ************************************************************************** Changes to V3.0 (07/27/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Corrected a bug that has been bugging us (no pun intended!) for a long time! If your Amiga had multiple blocks of memory, only the LAST block in the memory node could be used for emulation memory. This is why programs that auto-added their memory to be first in the list (some GVP and ALL Progressive 040 boards) did not get the memory. Thanks goes out to David Kwan for lending us his GVP Combo board to fix this problem. Those of you who were getting the "can't allocate 32 bit memory" error message should now be able to use the emulation. * We have an all NEW PORTA and PORTB support interface, however, this is for looks only...nothing functions. We do NOT support the Amiga's serial or parallel ports yet. Please let us know what you think of the new interface screens. * Got rid of the 'NuBus Control' setup option and replaced it with a new gadget called, 'Misc I/O Control'. ALL of the video drivers are new. NONE of the old ones will work. The video drivers _use to_ contain the code for handling the ADB (Apple DeskTop Bus) emulation which handles the MOUSE and KEYBOARD. We have moved the ADB code into a driver (much like the video drivers we already have). The purpose of this is to make things quicker for us when we make changes to ADB code (not every video driver has to be changed), and to allow for easier additions to support other I/O devices. Many people (including ourselves) experienced a LOT of quriks with the keyboard input. We have corrected all of these quirks and added a few features that people who own MACs would like to have. :-) We added a commodity (installed resident by the ADB driver) that steals keys from the keyboard if the MAC emulation window is active. Actually, we pass ALL keys on to the Amiga anyways (except Amiga-N) so that hot key programs will still function. By getting these keys _before_ Intuition gets them allows us to have normal qualifier key operations (ALT, AMIGA, CTRL, SHIFT). You no longer have to 'double-press' the Amiga key to get the MAC to recognize it as pressed. Functions that were _not_ possible before (such as Amiga-CRSR-LEFT/RIGHT/UP/DOWN) now work as they should. One of the features we added was a 512 byte keyboard buffer. Real MACs only have a 2 byte keyboard buffer. If you could manage to out-type the program you are running, the keys will go into the keyboard buffer and should NOT be lost. You won't lose keys until you are typing about 1,000 words per minute, and if you did manage to type that fast, the system will not crash, unlike a MAC if you bang on the keyboard too fast. The Std_ADB driver has a neat MOUSE emulation option. You can select 'Software' mouse emulation. This will use the Amiga's mouse movements (the Amiga mouse is really on the MAC's screen, it is just invisable) to move the mouse. You probably won't notice any difference when using it, however, it is possible that some program go low-level and poke the MAC...err EMPLANT hardware directly, which we handle just fine with 'Hardware' mouse emulation. The advantage of even having the software mouse option is that ANY device plugged into the Amiga's mouse/joystick ports (and sends RAWMOUSE events) can be used during the MAC emulation. This means that pressure sensitive graphics tablets, lightpens, and yes, even the Nintendo PowerGlove can be used to control your MAC. * Re-wrote much of the 'jam.library' to bring it up to date. The file requestor sports a 2.x style look now, and the little quirks found by a few people have been fixed. Moved the screen fadein/fadeout routines into the jam.library, added 3K of graphics data, and after optimizing the library, it was actually SMALLER than the original. :-) * Added a 3rd hard drive support function. "HardFiles". A HardFile is a big file that appears to the OS to be a hard drive partition. HardFiles are used on the Bridgeboard and PC-Task. Thanks really goes to Chris Hames (author of PC-Task) for inspiring me to write a better HardFile device driver. Chris Hames wrote 'hardfile.device'. This is a nice little driver that he uses with PC-Task. It has a few drawbacks... it is slow, and requires weird mountlist entries (due to support for the Bridgeboard). Our 'emphf.device' works on a complex relative seek offset concept as opposed to seeking from the beginning of the file each time a read/write operation is performed. The result is a 20% increase in actual read/write speeds and a 1500% increase in overall seek speed. Our device is a 'complete' device, supporting ALL device level functions (STOP, START, FLUSH, etc.). We also support 'hardfile*' files (used by PC-Task and the Bridgeboard) with our driver, so you don't have to remember what device driver goes with what device. A convient hardfile setup utility was created to make hardfile setup and usage hassle free. Why use a hardfile? Well, if you don't want to re-partition your hard drive, hardfiles are *the* solution. You just create a hardfile as large as you want, and it will appear as a normal AmigaDOS device (usable under the MAC emulation by selecting the device name in the DEVICE setup menu). The 'emphf.device' uses HardFiles with the name of 'EmpHardFile*' or 'hardfile*' (where the * is a unit number [0-15]),. Please read the documentation for the HardFile Setup Utility! * After re-writing some of the hard drive code, we figured out a really slick way to beat a problem we have been faced with since the hard drive support was added. Previously, you could not format a partition larger than 32 megs. This is no longer the case. You can format partitions up to 1.96 gigabytes in size. This should make many people very happy! * Fixed a problem with the time/date not being set if you were booting in 256 color mode. Since we don't have an 'EMPLANT' logo for 256 color mode, the routine would exit and not set the MAC's time and date. * Changed installer script to not allow NOVICE installation. ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.9 (06/12/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Changed the level 6 handling routines back to the way they were in v2.6 and earlier. An attempt was made to help the problem with the early revision A4000 motherboards (A thru D)....nothing we can do about a hardware problem. If you have a pre rev 'K' motherboard in your A4000, contact your local Commodore service center and find out how you can get it upgraded to one that works. * Fixed serious startup problem. You can't call DOS while in SuperVisor mode. DateStamp(), Read(), Open(), and Close() were all being called in SuperVisor mode. These are now signaled. * Fixed memory limit checking for 8 meg systems. It was possible to still select too much memory for the MAC system if you had 8 megs (exactly) of FAST memory. * Changed in-front and in-back priority setup. You can NO LONGER select a priority greater than 0! You can however, select negative priorities lower than previous versions of the software allowed. * Added DisplayAlert() for all system errors (can't find library, open screens, and such). Now, when something is missing, you know it! * Changed the way the floppy drives are busy'd and unbusy'd. Hopefully, this will correct the strange shutdown problem found on A3000s and sorted others. * Finally corrected the selection of memory problem. The memory available now automatically reduces the value you have selected when the system runs out of memory. Before, you would see some strange characters in the 'free memory'. * Subtracted 256K lookup table size from free memory list. You could be on the edge of memory, and this would either fail (causing a white display to be shown when the emulation starts) or CHIP memory would be used for the lookup table memory...and that is TERRIBLY slow! * Finally got rid of the darn window in the emulation when there is a hardware error and you click on 'Abort' (it use to hang around, not letting the screen close). * Changed MAC_HDSetup program to include quote marks around the device name. AmigaDOS does not like two or more periods '.' in a device's name without it being enclosed in quotes. * Changed installer script to now insert: execute >NIL: s:SetupEMPLANT This is a script file that runs the various programs required by each emulation module running with the EMPLANT hardware. It also handles the necessary ASSIGN for EMPLANT: and will be the file that is upgraded/changed with future revisions (no more messing with the startup-sequence). You need to replace the old 'RsrvMem37ii >NIL:' line in your startup-sequence with the line above. ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.8 (05/24/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Fixed ALL software that comes with EMPLANT to open a NTSC hires screens only. Mode promotion will NOT promote any screen anymore. The timing for the DIAGNOSTIC program, the CONVERTER, and the emulation itself rely on NTSC hires screen mode timing (vertical blank timing). * Fixed really odd bug with memory nodes. It was possible for someone to attempt to NOT setup one of the memory types in the MEMORY configuration menu. If the emulation was setup correctly, and NuBus memory type was left set to 'No Memory!!', an error would occur, but the error window would display no message. There is now another (27 error messages so far!) message telling you to select a memory type for ALL four gadgets. * Fixed (hopefully, because we can't duplicate the problem) a reported problem with the level 6 interrupts that caused problems with terminal programs. Please let us know if this works! * Fixed VIA timing to be correct for our friends over-seas. PAL systems should now have all timing correct (1% difference was not a priority, but we were looking at other code in the neighborhood and Mr. Rogers told us to fix it). ;-) * Fixed cosmetic boo-boo. When an emergency POWEROFF was requested, the gadget imagery from the main menu would trash the POWEROFF window. * Fixed a possible crash/lockup situation. A Window was being opened with a proper IntuiText structure, but with a pointer to the ASCII set to NULL. This created some interesting menu descriptions. ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.7 (05/18/93) - INTERNAL RELEASE - NOT TO PUBLIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Fixed the bug with saving the configuration when there was no previous configuration. * Added another error message telling you if you did not run Hard/SoftKickMMU before the emulation. * Added patch to MAC's SysBeep to call the Amiga's DisplayBeep() function...effectively giving you system sound. * Fixed RsrvMem37ii program (again) so that it really doesn't blow up if an EMPLANT board is not in the machine it is run on. * Fixed a ultra NASTY bug in level 6 handling routine. If a level 6 interrupt was generated on the Amiga side, and your EMPLANT board did not have the dual serial option, the Amiga would hang. As of OS2.x, WorkBench generates a level 6 interrupt whenever you double-click on a icon. * Corrected a problem with the AppleTalk support. It would hang under certain conditions. ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.6 (05/17/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Changed the way the messages were displayed. Now, a ROM Checksum message is really caused by a ROM checksum. Two new messages were added: 'ROM mirroring error' (MMU either inactive or defective), 'Mirroring limit exceeded' (we do not let you select too much memory anymore!) * Fixed bug in RsrvMem37ii. If you ran it without an EMPLANT board installed, it would crash. Also, running RsrvMem37ii toggles the serial bit correctly so that both Port A and Port B (Units 0 & 1) can be used by the empser.device. * Fixed a serial bug. If you did a POWEROFF, the serial interrupts were left active. This would result in a system lockup if data was received by one of the EMPLANT serial ports. * Fixed a NASTY, NASTY bug in the AmigaDOS device support. The READ routine did not return errors _at all_, instead (if an error was encountered) it would fill memory full of trash and usually blow up. We now return error code -36 (i/o error, bummers!) to the MAC when there is a read/write error on a device. * Finally corrected floppy recognition routine. In previous versions it was possible that an AmigaDOS disk (or any other non-readable format) would show up as a MAC formatted disk, causing the emulation to sit there for many minutes while the MAC was trying to read it... and it didn't matter if SYBIL was on or not. * Added LOGOS. You may notice that the software size shrank by about 10K. Actually, it shrank about 16K, but we added 6K worth of new code. We removed the hardcoded EMPLANT/copyright Logo (graphics) and we now use random disk-loaded logos. These new logos are in color, and we have actually made an anim format for ourselves so we could do things like spin cubes, morph pictures, etc. We don't have any anims included yet (we don't have _that_ much free time), but the ability is there. You will now (for the first time) be required to make an ASSIGN for EMPLANT: so the logos can be found. * Made a new option in the Emulation Control menu (menu that is shown after emulation is started) "Re-Mount Ejected". Just like the gadget name implies, clicking on this gadget will re-mount any device that you threw away into the MAC's trashcan. You must mark a device as 'ejectable media' before it can be thrown away. You mark devices as ejectable by going to the DEVICE menu and select the device after it appears in SELECTED DEVICES window (click on the device name). You will see a window open containing information about the device, and an option to make the device ejectable. * Added DisplayBeep() to the floppy drive eject/insert icons. Whenever you remove a disk when you are not suppose to, the MAC pops up a sprite in the lower right corner of your screen with a '?' in the middle of it (and the drive number above it). Not only will you get this friendly message asking you to re-insert the disk, but every one second the displaybeep is called. Likewise, when you are asked to remove a disk, the displaybeep is called, but only once. * Changed RetinaVideo driver to work properly with the Retina's WorkBench emulator. Before, you could lose the MAC screen completely by pressing Amiga-M/N to swap screens. Now, you just click on the blank white screen, and the MAC will reappear on the Retina's display. * Fixed the emulation so you can not run more than copy of the MACII program at the same time. * Added the ability to lock/unlock the Amiga floppys! You can now use the floppys on the Amiga side while the emulation is running. You can also select what has control of the floppys while the emulation is running (either the MAC side or the Amiga side). You can flip sides while disks are in the drives and there won't be a problem. The MAC will recognize that the Amiga has control (when you select AMIGA) and will take the floppys offline. A neat trick is to mount PC0 and select it with the DEVICE menu. Now, use a program on the MAC side like AccessPC, PCExchange, or Apple File Exchange and you can read/write IBM disks via PC0 on the Amiga side. * Added ability to select if you have the SYBIL hardware or not. If you don't own SYBIL, or if you do not plan to use SYBIL during the emulation, you should turn it off (no check mark in the box)...otherwise, your printer will have a fit and eject paper. * Last minute change! I found it! A lot of people have been reporting problems formatting floppys. If the disk you were formatting was not AMAX, EMPLANT or MAC formatted previously, it would always fail the formatting. If you formatted the same disk again, it would then work fine. There was also a problem inside the Apple File Exchange. IBM disks would be verified twice. This has all been fixed! ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.5 (04/28/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * MAC's VBR is now left at address $0 for better compatibility. * MAC's and Amiga's VBR and table are now seperate from each other. * VBRMover now checks to see if the VBR can be moved to/from $0 safely. * Fixed cache control with 030/040 processors. The caches were getting shut off after boot time. No 030 MAC can function with caches off! ALL of the MAC's ROM routines, ROM overrides, Resources, etc. use software timing loops for their 'accuracy'. This was the cause for everyone's serial rates to drop with severe error conditions. * Fixed slot manager routines to properly handle video drivers with multiple resolutions. * Added -H option to Soft/HardKickMMU. The -H option will remap the EMPLANT hardware to appear at the exact same memory location that the MAC II/x/cx hardware is located at. This means that if a program pokes $50800000 directly (serial chip location) it will now work! This is a no-no on the MAC to be doing this, but we have seen quite a few PD programs doing this, so here is a fix. * RsrvMem37ii now replaces the older RsrvMem37. The difference is that it now handles ALL of the MAC traps like the real MAC does and no longer lets the Amiga side handle any of these. The result is that you will no longer see a system crash (unless something walked on the Amiga side!), you will get the standard MAC requestor telling you to restart instead. * Added four new video drivers that replace ALL other versions completely. (The old ones still work though). The drivers allow different size screen resolutions. To change the screen size, go to the MONITORS control panel on the MAC and click on OPTIONS. You will now see a list of various sizes. Select the size you want and either RESTART or SHUTDOWN. RESTART will let you use the newly selected mode but will NOT save it into the system resource until a SHUTDOWN has happened. PLEASE NOTE:The screen resolutions are taken from the Display Database, so you will need to make sure that ALL of the monitors from the storage drawer have been moved into the DOSDrivers/Monitors drawer or you will not be able to select very many resolutions. * Added the first 256 color/16 million color support using a 3rd party video board! The Retina board is now full supported! This is a great little board! Now that we have the base for the video driver, we will be pumping these things out as soon as we get information on a video board. EGS is completed now and is being beta tested. NOTE: If you are using an 040 machine with the Retina board, you will have to use the INIT_RETINA program *before* running the emulation using the RetinaVideo driver. There is something that the Retina.library does not like about the 040 and the MAC. * Change converter to now read/write MAC disks using the AMAX cartridge and a real MAC floppy drive. This is not yet supported through the emulation. Also finally corrected ALL of the known problems with SYBIL and it now reads *AND* WRITES MAC disks properly! For those of you who have not heard yet, John Droden, the President of Utilities Unlimited, Inc. passed away on the 22nd of April, 1993. This software is dedicated in his memory... ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.4 (04/22/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Fixed ALL floppy drive routines to correctly handle PAL mode. (Not ALL of the routines were fixed before!) * Fixed serious bug in 'emplant.library' that was leaving the system in a Disable()d state when not getting IDCMP messages or signals. This could explain quite a few random problems with the video display 'locking up' when switching modes. * Fixed shutdown problem when using the -S command line option. Before a shutdown would return back to the main setup screen then instantly restart the emulation. * Fixed problem with 0 length autoconfig boards (boards told to shutup by the Amiga). These would blow up the MMU program (ie Bridgeboards that would not fit in the autoconfig space). * MMU program now skips blocks 2 megs or less. This means that the emulation now -requires- that you have at least 4 megs of memory in your Amiga. * Fixed those darn 'Cant allocate 32 bit memory' messages when some of the memory gets fragmented. You should be able to allocate memory very easily and applications launched from the startup-sequence or user-startup should now work fine with the emulation (as long as you don't get carried away and eat multi-megs of memory in the process). * Created new program called 'VBR_Mover'. This will re-locate the Vector Base Register and the associated table to/from location $0. This was done in attempt to remain compatible with those Amiga games that break the rules. It is interesting to note that the A4000 moves this on startup (setpatch does this), so you can actually use this program to obtain some compatibility with these games on an A4000. ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.3 (04/19/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Corrected problem with booting. The change in the hard drive code in V2.2 broke. If you were *not* booting from an AmigaDOS device (or did not have any devices selected in the DEVICE menu) the emulation would instantly crash. Argh. ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.2 (04/18/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Changed RsrvMem37. VBR is now moved to FAST memory. * Correct potential problems with floppys. You will probably have to make your HEAD STEP RATE value much smaller now as the disk drive code was made less timing dependant, and the head step rate with the default value sounds like the drive is going to fall apart! * Fixed floppy problems while in PAL mode. * Changed the way the hard drive partitions were recognized. Hopefully, this will prevent applications from ejecting them. * Added COPYBACK ability for 040 owners. You need to use the appropriate Hard/SoftKickMMU with the -C option to enable CopyBack mode. It is also HIGHLY recommended that you use the -F option as well to remap the kickstart ROM into fast memory (SoftKick machines do not need this). *NOTE* : You must be running System 6.0.7 or later in order to run the emulation on an 040 based machine...no exceptions. * Added support for System 7.1.0 and higher. Earlier versions of the emulation software did not support System 7.1.x at all. * Added the ability to have a background refresh. This means that if you are on the Amiga side doing something, you can make the MAC periodically update it's display at the time interval you select. This was a request from customers who use the MAC for ray tracing and such, and do not want to have to 'click' on the MAC screen (making it the 'active' window) just to see what progress has been made on the MAC side. The only video drivers that support background refresh are AmigaVideo2.7 and AGAVideo1.5, both of which also use the 256K lookup table for better speed. ALL other video drivers still work as normal, they just don't support the background refreshing. * Corrected interrupt problems in the serial dept. AppleTalk could cause the Amiga to lockup if it 'went away' while moving data. * Fixed the 'run away' clock problem. We are still not quite sure what causes the problem, but 'something' is poking different values into our (the MAC) hardware. * Added 32 bit clean interface screen, however, at this time, the ability to select a 32 bit clean system is not available. Please note that there will most likely be several new versions of software over the next week. We are frantically beta testing the 32 bit clean system and will be releasing it as soon as we are completely satisfied that it is stable....hang in there... ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.1 (03/21/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Changed RsrvMem. Added handling of ALL traps. Sometimes traps are used to restore stack and register contents saved on the exception frame. MicroSoft likes to do this to prevent the original stack and register contents from being different when you exit (I think that is the lazy way of doing things). This is why when you exit some MicroSoft programs, the emulation would crash. * Added MAC & IBM 1.44mb floppy support. This *requires* Commodore's HD floppy (Chinon 357A drive guts). SYBIL can not be used to read or write high density format. High density floppys are recognized automatically. Please note that it is not possible to format a low density disk format on a high density floppy (another MAC thing). So, you can not make a high density floppy a 720K IBM disk without covering the high density 'detect' hole (opposite the write protect hole). * Added IBM 720K floppy support. DOSInit, AccessPC, DOSMounter, and Apple File Exchange have been with tested and work as they should. You can use ANY Amiga drive for IBM 720K disks. If you want to allow the formatting of 720K disks, you need to hold down either SHIFT key while inserting a disk. If you do not hold down one of the SHIFT keys, then the disk will only be able to be formatted with 800K MAC/AMAX/EMPLANT format. Please note that you MUST be running a program that has the ability of formatting in MS-DOS (IBM) format, such as Apple File Exchange, AccessPC, DOSMounter, etc. The MAC has no way of formatting or using IBM 720 or 1.44HD disks directly without some support program(s). * Changed reading. ALL formats use FULL track reading (full track writing is being worked on now). This means that ALL formats can read properly in 16+ colors. * The floppy disk routines average 4-5 times faster than before. This is accomplished by FULL track reading, improved encoding & decoding, improved sector caching, and general optimization of code. * Fixed floppy formatting problem that required a floppy to be formatted twice before it was usable....no, you all were not going crazy. :-) * Fixed Format & Verify return error messages. I walked on D0 with one of the SYBIL.LIBRARY routines called after formatting or verifying an entire disk. Formatting and Verifying ALWAYS returned success. * Removed ability to format IBM disks by holding down the SHIFT key on a format. Since the MAC can not read or write IBM disks, it made no sense to allow 720K MAC formatted disks that would not work on an IBM machine. Disks formatted in IBM format were in fact IBM disk format with MAC DOS on them. Pretty useless. * Added experimental iconify routine. Ok, you asked for it, so you got it. Once the emulation has started, you can click in the upper left corner of the window (one behind the info window) on the 'close window' gadget. This will iconify the window to a small window on the WorkBench. * NOTE * Currently, there is no way to expand it back to the full size window when the emulation is running. If you 'SHUTDOWN' on the MAC, the window will expand back to full size. ** NOTE ** OS1.3 users! Due to our extensive use of the Amiga's operating system (and our need for speed), this will be the *last* version of the MAC II/x/cx emulation software that will work under OS1.3. From here on out, we *will* be calling OS2.x specific routines. A4000/A1200 systems will also be using OS3.x specific calls. ************************************************************************** Changes to V2.0 (02/19/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Changed RsrvMem. Moved multi-tasking handling routines into FAST memory resulting in a speed up of up to 20%! RsrvMem also corrects 68040 problems. *NOTE* Please put this as the *very first* item in your S:STARTUP-SEQUENCE. It *must* be run before 'setpatch'. SETPATCH *must* be used if you have a 68040 processor or the MAC will crash. * Fixed 68040 problems with MAC II emulation setup menus. * Miscellaneous cleanup and fixes. * Fixed a few cosmetic problems and renamed the 'SyQuest' program to 'MAC_HDSetup'. Fixed 68040 problems as well. * A4000 owners rejoice! You will now have the ability to run a true 640x480 de-interlaced display in your choice of 2,4,16, or 256 colors! Please note that this video driver steals a full megabyte of memory (this *is* reflected properly in the MEMORY menu). * Added 68040 specific video drivers, one with standard chunky conversion, and one with a lookup table. (V2.4 & 2.5 respectively) * NOTE TO 68040 OWNERS -- A real MAC with a 68040 (Quadras, etc.) require the use of System 7.0.1 or higher for proper operation. Although you can use any System version available with our emulator and the 68040 (that is one up on Apple), we highly recommend that you use System 7.0.1 or 7.1.0 as these systems have custom routines that bypass the necessity of certain FPU emulations by the 68040 handling routines. ************************************************************************** Changes to V1.9A (02/01/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Disabled SOUND. We were experimenting with the sound routines, and since they could cause random lockups, they should have been disabled... ************************************************************************** Changes to v1.9: (02/01/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Added SCSI device support. Enabled the EMPLANT SCSI interface so that SCSI devices can be plugged directly into the SCSI port and used. ALL known SCSI devices (hard drives, SyQuest drives, hand scanners, etc.) appear to work just fine. MAKE SURE THAT THE DEVICE IS SET FOR 'POLLED READS AND WRITES'!! BLIND READS AND WRITES COULD FAIL, DEPENDING ON HOW THE SCSI DRIVER WORKS. "DataWare" (hard drive setup software) works just fine. The SCSI enable/disable control can be found by selecting the MASS STORAGE menu option. * Added CLI input for MAC II. You can now type MAC ? and see the version and the switches (only 1 currently) that are available. The '-s' switch will skip the menu selections and immediately launch the emulator using the existing config file found in the S: directory. You will have to use RUN or RUNBACK to launch the program as it does NOT detach itself. * Changed SYBIL.library! The routines now used for reading MAC disks with SYBIL are incredibly intelligent. You can now have the calibration way off and the unit will adjust itself automatically...no more tweaking the pot for those stubborn MAC disks! ************************************************************************** Changes to v1.8: (01/27/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Fixed problem with System 7.x locking up when either the installer or the System was loaded. This problem only existed with EMPLANT boards not having the serial option. * Added new Hard/SoftKickMMU programs that fix problems with PP&S 040's (including Zeus). ************************************************************************** Changes to v1.7: (01/18/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Fixed a few problems with the DEVICE selection requestors. * Fixed (once again) 32 bit color quickdraw for the A3000s. The System gadget would often times end up corrupted. * A3000 owners rejoice! We have fixed the memory selection so that 4 or 8 megs of 32 bit memory can use the memory for the MAC system! Although not fixing the "32 bit clean" problem that plagues the MAC II/x/cx computers, it does solve the low memory problems found with most A3000s. 6 meg A3000s (4 fast/2 chip) will be able to use about 3 megs of 32 bit memory with emulation. 10 meg A3000s (8 fast/2 chip) will be able to use about 5 megs of 32 bit memory with the emulation. With either system, the amount of memory you can use will vary depending on how much memory the Amiga is using, how badly fragmented the memory is, and what type of auto-config boards are plugged into the machine. * Added command line parse routine to HardKickMMU and SoftKickMMU. There is a single argument of '-q' to not call DisplayBeep() (flash the screen) when the program is run. (You're welcome Scott!) * Fixed a few problems with the file requestor not cleaning up the window during some functions and the random crashing when doing really weird things that only the Germans would do...hahah (Sorry Albert, just had to throw that in) Changes to AmigaVideo2.2/2.3: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Fixed problem with formatting disks. With the introduction of the new keyboard routines, we broke the format routine. Basically, everytime a format was attempted, it was attempted in MAC format, which for the time being has been disabled. Formatting controls still remain the same: AMAX format - Hold down the CONTROL key before format starts. IBM format - Hold down the SHIFT key before format starts (not used yet). MAC format - Hold down both SHIFT & CONTROL keys before format starts (not used yet). EMPLANT format requires no keys to be pressed and is the default format. - NOTE - You can release a key after the formatting has started. You can NOT format under 16 color mode with any format except EMPLANT format. * AmigaVideo 2.3 uses a 256K lookup table for the Chunky to Planar conversion routines. Although this pencils out to be a 27% faster conversion, however, due to DMA contention, this is only about a 7% increase in speed with non-AGA machines. Remember, although this file is apparently smaller in size, it will remove 256K of available memory that could be used for the emulation. * Support for new memory mapping for the A3000 with 4 or 8 megs of fast memory. _Must_ be used with v1.7 or later software! * Write protected ROM image for SuperKickStart machines. * Added parsing for people like Scott Shambarger who run OS3.0 and have two hour audio samples for the screen flash. :-) Arguments: SoftKickMMU -q (-q is the only argument, this means QUIET - no flash) HardKickMMU -q (ditto) Please note - Until the next release of the MAC II/x/cx emulator, we highly recommend that you do NOT attempt to boot a MAC or AMAX formatted floppy while in 16 color mode....you will most likely see a system crash! Also, do NOT attempt to write data to even an EMPLANT formatted floppy while in 16 color mode. We have seen that DMA contention (especially on slower machines) is so severe that the floppys do not function properly with the existing driver while in 16 color mode. 2 & 4 color modes have no problems with any format. HARD DRIVE USERS -- DON'T WORRY ABOUT 16 COLOR MODE, IT ONLY AFFECTS FLOPPYS! :-) ************************************************************************** Changes to v1.6: (01/16/93) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Fixed System7.0/7.1 to function properly. The ADB routines were changed in System 7.x and the Mac was waiting on interrupts to happen that never did. * Fixed 32 bit color quickdraw for all Systems. A3000 owners can now use the 32 bit color quickdraw INIT file in their System folder. * Fixed CPU identification. Previously, we just told the Mac that it was a MAC IIx (because they have six NuBus slots compared to the Mac IIcx's three slots) with a 68030 CPU. There is a potential problem with some Mac software calling 68030 only routines if you had a 68020, or worse yet, calling 68030 cache routines if you had a 68040. * Fixed problem using MacBinary ROM images. Yes, I goofed. I did correctly identify the ROM image as MacBinary, however, since MacBinary files contain a header (128 bytes long) I simply forgot to add 128 to the start of the ROM position. So, when the failsafe routines looked at the ROM, they reported that the ROM image was unusable...I guess those routines work just fine. :-) * Completely rewrote the DEVICE interface. A more reasonable/easier approach to selecting devices was necessary. I think that this is the answer! The LEFT window shows the devices that can be used with emulation. The RIGHT window shows the devices that you have selected (so far) to use with the emulation. The LEFT list of devices is sorted alphabetically. The RIGHT list of devices is in the order that you selected them. This is the order that the Mac will attempt to boot them in. For example, if you have six devices selected, two of which are bootable, whichever of the two bootable devices appears in the list first will be booted from; even if the two devices are last two in the list. Non bootable devices are things those that do not have a Mac System/Finder on them, including unformatted devices. * Rewrite of nearly all code. This was necessary in preparation for the Mac IIsi/ci list. The way the software is written, by simply supplying a list of patch locations, all of the existing patch routines for the Mac II/x/cx emulation can be used to patch the Mac IIsi/ci ROMs. There really is not much difference between the different Macs in the Mac family. * Renamed emulation program from "EMPLANT" to "MAC II". (Yes, we are gearing up for the other emulation modules, so we had to start calling them by their proper names) * Reduced custom screen colors from eight to four. This saves CHIP memory and speeds things up. * Added ability to change the video refresh rate while the emulation is running. Added ability to "Power OFF" the Mac while it is running (in case the Mac side crashes or you are too lazy to do a shutdown). I also made the emulation memory usage information a seperate window. This seemed to confuse a lot of people that were not interested in this information. * Fixed slow mouse problem. The previous video drivers had a problem with moving in the positive (RIGHT/DOWN) direction. If you moved the mouse really, really slow, the mouse pointer (called a 'cursor' in the Mac world) never moved at all. An error was found in the routine that converted Amiga mouse hardware data into the data the Mac uses. * Fixed random lockup problems when switching color modes. We found out that Intuition does not like the OpenScreen() and OpenWindow() functions to be called from within interrupt code, so, we now use signals. * Completely rewrote the keyboard handling routines. We now use the Mac's window to send IDCMP RAWKEY messages. We convert these to the key codes needed by the Mac. * Optimized Chunky-to-Planar conversion routines. The 16 color mode gets faster every time! We got another 13.3% increase in speed. * No longer holds off interrupts. The last version of RsrvMem held off ALL softints and level 2 interrupts. This resulted in some really strange things happening. Under OS1.3, things like MOD players, Imploder, or any other program that used interrupt driven music would play at about 1/10th the normal speed. Also, uploading with a terminal program would give you about 1/10th of the normal transfer speed (or worse). 2400 baud transfers were averaging 23 CPS, while 14400 baud transfers would almost reach 80 CPS. ** NOTE ** With the release of this new version, you *must* be using an AmigaVideo driver v2.0 or higher. ************************************************************************** Changes to v1.5: (11/07/92) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, here it is. Full hard drive support...well sorta... * We did away with hard drive support in favor of a better, more pratical approach. We now support ANY standard AmigaDOS device that has DOSEnv variables with HiCyl/LoCyl format. This means that any device that is based on trackdisk will work. This includes ALL known hard drives (reguardless of their pysical format - SCSI, IDE, RLL, MFM, etc), recoverable RAM disks (like VD0, RD0, RAD, etc), and some networking devices as well as others. * You need not know anything about your hard drive or other AmigaDOS devices for this to work. You also do not need to have a mountlist entry for your device(s) to use with the emulation. You just need to have a properly formatted device. ALL devices must be properly formatted with either AmigaDOS's format routine or a prep program for the device (Supra uses SupraTools, Trumpcard uses TCUtils, etc). * The entire operation of the AmigaDOS device support (and it's complexity) is completely hidden from the user. This means a "fool-proof" installation. * If you select on the DEVICES gadget from the main window, you will notice a few things. First of all, it does something again. Customers who did have this option enabled will notice that little has changed in the way of looks. Secondly, you will notice four rotating gadgets. Each time you click on a gadget a new AmigaDOS device will be displayed. Only valid (HiCyl/LoCyl) devices are displayed. You will also notice that if a gadget is marked as "Unused Device", it is not possible to select the next gadget in the sequence, this is normal (e.g. If Device 2 says it is Unused, then you will not be able to change the state of Device 3). Select the AmigDOS devices that you wish to use with the emulation. People who already have a properly formatted AMAX partition can use it directly. There is no magic to an AMAX partition, it is simply MAC format on an AmigaDOS device. Same holds true for SyQuest owners....just make SURE that the cartridge is in *before* you run the emulation. Device selection is straight forward and should present too much of a problem for anyone. The maximum number of devices that are allowed is four. This will change to 16 shortly after Christmas. The maximum allowed on a real MAC is 14, however, if you disabled both floppys (did not select them), you could really use 16 different AmigaDOS devices. I think that would be a bit much, but, it will be there for those with special applications in mind. * You will also see a "Transfer Buffer Size" gadget set. This will be moving to the MEMORY screen on the next release as it really has to do with how much memory you want to allocate for the device buffer space. The MAC's own buffer size is adjustable via the control panel. The value you select here will best if it matches the control panel value. Make sure that you have the CACHE set to ON. There is only a slight speed decrease if you do not use the cache...remember, the AmigaDOS devices are cached using the ADDBUFFERS command. So, basically, the memory selection set by the "Transfer Buffer Size" is the middle man between the AmigaDOS device and the MAC. The Amiga fetches the data into it's own caches (increased in size by the ADDBUFFERS command), then that data is passed to us, and we then pass the data to the MAC. So, you can see that if one buffer is smaller than the other, you could have a bottle neck effect. Experiment! There is nothing you can do to harm your devices. How safe is the hard drive support? Well, let's put it this way... If your hard drive is properly formatted, you will NEVER have a problem. We check the HiCyl/LoCyl and the start position variables EVERYTIME the hard drive is accessed. The reason is simply...if something changed the DOSEnv table, there is a possibility that the hard drive could be written to an area outside of the defined range, thus trashing whatever was there before. We check every time to make sure that it hasn't changed size or position on us...and if it does, we shut down the emulation instantly, and report the problem. It is possible that something either on the MAC or the Amiga side "walked" on memory and causes the DOSEnv table to change. I think everyone will appreciate this safety feature, although, manually altering the table was sufficient for our testing, we have never seen this actually happen. So, I am confident (to the point of being cocky..hehe) that these routines are completely safe. Another thing, if you decide to format a device, put a System Folder in the Device, and then delete the System Folder, you will have to reformat the drive. This is a MAC thing, we didn't event it. What happens is that the boot block never gets cleared, so the device will try to boot because the boot block is still valid. When the device doesn't find the System or Finder, it crashes violently (our MACs go out to la-la land and make neat noises and colors). :-) __________________________________________________________________ WHAT HAS CHANGED? Well, in a word, EVERYTHING! The *only* programs that you can use from the previous versions of EMPLANT are the RSRVMEM34 and RSRVMEM37 programs (although we will have new versions of those in the next few weeks). ALL of the LIBRARYs are NEW. DELETE your old versions completely, and replace them with the new versions included in this archive. Delete your old PRAM.config as well as your MACII.config files, they have changed too. The main program, "EMPLANT" has grown quite a bit since the v1.4. The larger size is mostly due to the extensive error handling now built in. The type and VERSION number of the MAC ROM image you have will be displayed and will tell you if you can even use the ROM image or not (thanks to Steve Winokur and Mark Blanke for their help testing this out). There are new versions of the various MMU programs. You must use the new versions with the v1.5 EMPLANT software. A special video driver has been created for those with MMU's. This driver is substantially faster than the non-MMU version (except for 16 color mode, which we have not had to time to change the routines to use the MMU yet). You will find that this version will run as fast (or faster depending on what you are doing) in 60 FPS (new mode) than 6 FPS did. Four color mode is the same or faster than two color mode. 16 color mode (when finished) will be only slightly slower than two color mode, giving a VERY usuable 16 color MAC. To use this new video driver, you MUST be using one of the MMU programs on this disk (SoftKickMMU, HardKickMMU, or ImageMMU). ************************************************************************** Changes to v1.2: (11/23/92) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Memory now allocated as contiguous memory to minimize fragmentation. * User interface completely re-written to allow memory selection from any block (type) of memory. * Moved video refresh gadget to the Video Options window. * Fixed problem with configuration. You no longer have to save the configuration, exit and restart to use changed settings. * Fixed AmigaVideo v1.2-->now v1.4. Major oversight=bitplane pointer locations were fixed, and if the OS used oddly spaced bitplanes, the colors went bananas and often crashed the system. * Fixed ReStart option. Now does proper screen closing. We forgot to clear out the fake SWIM and ASC buffers. * Fixed ShutDown option. Totally re-wrote the startup and shutdown procedures, thus curing the wild crashes often experienced. * Fixed problem with high memory (A3000 owners should be happy now). :-) Memory is mirror'd allowing high memory to be used like low mapped memory. * Added caching to EMPLANT floppy format. Substantial difference in speed, especially when in heavy DMA contention. * Fixed interrupt locking problem caused by task switching into an interrupt. * Added NOCLICK option to floppys and turned off "euro-hacker" Power LED flashing when reading sectors (by popular demand). * Fixed floppy selection problem when exiting the floppy menu and returning. * Added version strings to all programs (OS2.x/3.x $VER: style). * Fixed EMPLANT.library routines for determining what kinds of chips are installed on the EMPLANT hardware. * Fixed DUMP256K to use expansion.library located EMPLANT hardware. * Added MAC compatible RS422-->RS232 hardware handshake schematic (IFF pic file) for those of you wanting RTS/CTS ability. * Added complete "walk through" help file on release disk. * Cleaned up code, removed some debugging LED flashing. Hey! If you're really bored, hold down the joystick button when starting the emulation (hold it until the boot screen appears). Now that the system is completely stable, we are going back to look at the hard drive again. We re-wrote a lot of the code because of the errors that we encountered. It appears that the problems really were caused by the interrupts locking up the system, and perhaps signalling problems (all have been corrected). Hang in there people! We are going as fast as we can... ************************************************************************** Changes to v1.1: (11/01/92) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * The SCSI has been disabled due to unknown random crashing that results in total catastrophe (read as _corrupted hard drive_). * Sound is not available currently. * Apple File Exchange does not function (reads/writes AMAX format instead of IBM...argh!) * Added ability to read & write AMAX formatted disks. * MAC writing has been disabled, reading is fine. * Reselected keys for various functions- * Screen Front to Back: ALT * (keypad) Screen Back to Front: ALT / (keypad) * Format EMPLANT: Default (no key press) Format AMAX: Hold CTRL until format begins Format IBM: Hold SHIFT until format begins Format MAC: Hold CTRL & SHIFT until format begins * ROM Dump temporarily moved to seperate program (saves file as RAM:testfile). Supports 256K ROM SIMM. DIPS not supported...next version. :-) * Added disk Eject/Insert Sprites- (Number of Disk Sprite represents the MAC drive number) X = Eject this disk (The disk can now be safely ejected) ? = Re-Insert the disk. (You must have ejected the disk w/o the MAC telling you to do so) * Changed format/verify routines to allow screen refreshes. * Screen refresh speed enhanced (15% speedup). * Removed AE HD drive auto-eject (will be back next version). Included is a file called "utils". This is a file compressed in .LHA format. Decompress this file to either RAM or your hard drive. The file will be over 800K. Now, use the "Converter" program and convert from FILE to EMPLANT (or AMAX if you like). The disk created will contain a file called ROM INFO, which is used to dump ROMs on a real MAC. You will need an Apple System disk in either AMAX, MAC (if you have SYBIL), or EMPLANT format. Systems 6.02, 6.04, 6.05, 6.07, & 7.0 (if you have a hard drive) will work. These systems can be obtained from MAC dealers as well as public forums such as GEnie, BIX, and FTP sites. Added empser.device to release disk. This is the highspeed Amiga serial device driver using the EMPLANT's hardware (if you have the serial option). ************************************************************************** Release v1.0: (10/06/92) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, here's hoping it works on ALL systems! Please leave comments/questions/criticisms/flames/etc. on our support BBS: (602) 453-9767 24hrs v.32bis+/v.32bis/v.42bis 2400-19200 true connect. Jim Drew * Joe Fenton