Article 15672 of comp.sys.amiga.emulations: Path: news.csos.orst.edu!flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU!ogicse!emory!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!hamblin.math.byu.edu!news.byu.edu!cwis.isu.edu!mica.inel.gov!guinness!gozer.idbsu.edu!gwolfe From: gwolfe@gozer.idbsu.edu (Gary P. Wolfe) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations Subject: A64 V3.0 (REVIEW) GOT IT TODAY!!! Message-ID: <1994Jan4.084841.27576@guinness.idbsu.edu> Date: 4 Jan 94 08:48:41 GMT Article-I.D.: guinness.1994Jan4.084841.27576 Sender: usenet@guinness.idbsu.edu (Usenet News mail) Organization: Boise State University Lines: 101 Nntp-Posting-Host: gozer It came!!! Version 3.0 of the A64 Package was delivered to my mailbox at precisely 2:34pm mountain standard time. Since mine was an upgrade all I got was the new printed manual and 2 disks with the version 3.0 software on them. The disks were black with a different more professional label on them than the V2.0 disks and the came in an envelope with software liscencing agreement and copyright notice. Very similar to the one that Commodore ships the system disks in. The manual is very professionally done and the cover has a blowup of the graphic/text as what's on the disks. Inside there is a table of contents and an index in the back. The manual is really nicely laid out and has some good information that is not hard to follow at all. The best improvement that I noticed right off was the integration of the transfer program. In V2.0 the way to get a directory of the 1541 drive was to run this graphical program an enter a pattern which you'd think would be $ but it wasn't it was some other really cryptic thing that really sucked. Anyway they have integrated most all of these programs into this really slick looking one. Has a menu option for filtering a cycle gadget for Amiga to C64 and vice versa. Also some translating features. Also in V2.0 the option to optimize a program consisted of this shell program that was very hard to get to work--I think I only got it to work 2 times. Now it has been given a new look and integrated with a whole new program--CONVERT! This thing will read in a .map file (which is a snapshot of a 64 program in memory saved out to disk) and then you can either optimize it, convert it, or both. Optimizing will search for delay loops and if it finds any it will ask you if you want to get rid of them. Convert will convert the .map file which is 6510 code to 68000 code and save the file out to disk with the .code extension. This is utilized by A64 by using the code-->load menu option. This VASTLY improves the speed of the program emulation. The A64 monitor which is just a 6510 monitor is as far as I can tell the same--but I didn't get to play too much with it yet. Although the docs are MUCH clearer as to the use of its features. The progam disks were easy enough to install to hard drive. I have some, posibly minor, gripes with it. First of all, in the manual it says that The A64 Package is compatible with all Amigas--ok fine. It also states that on Amigas equipped with 68040 cpus they must turn Copy Back mode off. Well first of all on my 4000, when I use the cpu command with a ? I get the command template just fine but when I specify nocopyback just like it says in the template and the AmigaDos manual it does absolutely nothing! I have never ever been able to turn this off. Sysinfo has the option but it does nothing, it just sits there in the ON position---the same behavior as AIBB 6.2, so what gives. I have to turn burst and cache off to get the message the Copy Back is off. Maybe someone can explain this behavior to me. Ok so now I have basically crippled my machine with burst and cache off and I run A64 package. Wrong answer (and it never says anything about this in the manual either) if I do this I get the standard NONAGA compliant screen called on an AGA machine and my video is jibed and then it locks up. IF I boot with caches off and my chip emulation set for ECS and then run A64 package things work fine. Damn annoying though. CBM should have put some flash ram in for that Boot menu so as to save the preferences, instead of having to reboot, hold down both mouse buttons and wait over and over again. This would be excellent for checking out old games--just turn everything off and default to the OCS, save the prefs and viola! Maybe in AAA? Well once in the program there are a lot more options than the old V2.0 version 2 of which are the load code, save map and some other variants that I haven't used yet. There is an option that will allow you to add up to 2Mb of RAM as expansion memory which is fairly cool. They also included an option that will let you load patch files for fast loaders and they include a few of which the only one I can remember is ISEPIC's fast load patch. There is a 2 color mode option for yet another speed increase. A bunch of sprite options such as being able to turn the colisions on and off--useful for not getting killed in games. A lot of sound options and the option to turn it off altogether. There's a lot more to the program that I am forgetting at the moment but all in all I feel it was worth the money. I also recieved a Tenex catalog today that has an add on the new A64 package--$49.95 I think. Now I just gotta dig out my old copy of Ultima IV and V to see if they work. I didn't have my 64 handy (in storage) so I had to use the Questronix supplied pseudo ROM image. A few programs like Crown Rebellion gave illegal opcode errors and A64 told me that if I had the REAL ROM this would be cured. That is where I'll be tomorrow--digging out the old 64 and a drive and the games. :-) Any questions or comments flames or whatever can be directed to: Gary Wolfe gwolfe@gozer.idbsu.edu -- *********************************************************************** * Amiga 4000/040 w/ 14Mb RAM, 2 -124Mb IDE Hard Drives, 1 SCSI 501Mb * * Hard Drive, Two 3.5" floppy drives, and a Commodore 1960 Multiscan *