Amiga Plus 2000 #4

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========================================================================= PARADISE v0.71 beta - April 2000 Copyright (C)1999, 2000 by Giuseppe Mignogna. Freeware. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use. Special thanks to Tony Duxbury. ========================================================================= 1. DISCLAIMER 2. FREEWARE 3. OVERVIEW 4. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 5. INSTALLATION AND SETUP 6. USAGE 7. KNOWN OR PROBABLE PROBLEMS 8. TROUBLE SHOOTING 9. HELP NEEDED 10. HISTORY 11. WHAT'S NEXT 12. REPLIES 13. AUTHOR 14. THANKS 1. DISCLAIMER --------------------------------- The author of this program is in no way liable for hardware or software damages that may occur during usage or by the information given in this document. There is absolutely no kind of warranty: use it at your own risk. ========================================================== >>> Please carefully read ALL the documentation before <<< >>> starting this project. <<< ========================================================== 2. FREEWARE --------------------------------- This program is free. You can use it as you want but I still have copyrights on it. No gift is needed to use it. Magazine editors or internet archive owners should inform me about the program review or inclusion in their CD-ROM's or collection. Distribution without profits is allowed and encouraged but only for the whole archive, not parts of it. 3. OVERVIEW --------------------------------- Paradise is a set of two command line programs, one for MS-DOS and one for Amiga OS, with which you can easly and quickly transfer files, entire directories or disk images between the Amiga and PC systems using a spare parallel port and a special link-up cable. If you need a program to do the above things mentioned, this is the one for you, but if you are looking for a program to share the devices between the two systems and/or with a nice GUI, sorry but you have to search elsewhere. 4. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS --------------------------------- * A PC with a bi-directional SPP parallel port and MS-DOS 7; Windows 9x is needed to support long file names, but is not necessary; other versions of MS-DOS or Windows have not been tested but probably work OK. * An Amiga with OS 2.0+. I've made some tests using my Amiga 500+ with Kickstart 1.3 loaded in RAM and I found only one problem when uploading files. It's possible to exclude the routines that cause the failure by using the "-kick13" option, but doing so, only files (not directories) can be sent. Please read the "Known problems" and "Help Needed" sections for more info. * A ParNet modified cable. This is the cable diagram, build it using two 25 PIN D-SUB MALE connectors (for a better view, use a fixed size font): ============================================== AMIGA SIDE | Pins | PC SIDE ---------------------------------------------- Data bit 0 | 2 <---> 2 | Data bit 0 Data bit 1 | 3 <---> 3 | Data bit 1 Data bit 2 | 4 <---> 4 | Data bit 2 Data bit 3 | 5 <---> 5 | Data bit 3 Data bit 4 | 6 <---> 6 | Data bit 4 Data bit 5 | 7 <---> 7 | Data bit 5 Data bit 6 | 8 <---> 8 | Data bit 6 Data bit 7 | 9 <---> 9 | Data bit 7 Busy | 11 <---> 11 | Busy Paper Out | 12 <---> 1 | Strobe Ground | 17-25 <---> 17-25 | Ground ============================================== On my cable, I have the shield wire connected too, but I think that if you don't have it, it will work OK anyway. Note: The ground wires and the shield wire are not the same thing and their functions are totally different! ============================================================= >>> * * W A R N I N G S * * <<< - BE SURE NOT TO CONNECT PIN 14 ON THE AMIGA SIDE TO ANYTHING! It provides A +5 volt power source used by some devices. It may be dangerous to connect this, so don't! - The cable is NOT reversable. Each connector must be plugged into the right port: the Amiga side connected to the Amiga port, the PC side connected to the PC port. However, no damage will occur, but it's better to mark both connectors so that you don't get them mixed up. - Turn off both computers before connecting the cable. ============================================================= Note that Paper Out (pin 12) on the Amiga side is connected to Strobe (pin 1) on the PC side: this is the only necessary difference between a standard ParNet cable and a Paradise cable. Note also that other pins used by a standard ParNet cable (such us Acknowledge - pin 10, and Select - pin 13) are not required by Paradise and are not shown for clarity. If you decide to build the cable by modifying a standard one and you keep the extra pins connected and the program will not work, try disconnecting them. Anyway, I've tested a cable with pins 10 and 13 connected and it works OK either way. See "Trouble Shooting" and "What's Next" for more. 5. INSTALLATION AND SETUP --------------------------------- - copy the "Paradise.exe" file in the "ToPC" directory to a PC directory then copy the "Paradise" file in the "ToAmiga" directory to an Amiga directory. - build the cable (or modify a standard one) then link the two computers together (remember to turn them off first). - Enter your PC BIOS and make sure it's set to use the SPP parallel port mode at I/O base address 0x378 (this is the default setting but Paradise allows you to specify a different address. See "Usage" for more). Maybe your BIOS will display different names or modes, in any case a bi-directional one must be used. I tested it with my PC all modes available (SPP, EPP, ECP) and every mode works, but some modes seem don't work on all PC's. 6. USAGE --------------------------------- - The Amiga version must be executed from a shell window, the PC version from the DOS prompt. Long file names are supported only if Windows 9x is running, in this case you need to execute it from a DOS shell. - The easiest way Paradise can be used is to upload a file. To do this, execute the specific version indicating the file name on the source system, and no name on the destination system. For example: "paradise c:\archive\images.zip" on the PC "paradise" on the Amiga This will transfer the file "images.zip" located in the "c:\archive" directory on the PC to the current Amiga directory. ========================================================= --- Complete syntax for the Amiga and the PC versions --- ========================================================= Paradise [?] [filenames] [-spath <saving path>] [-stay] [-nosubdir] [-timeout <delay>] [-noask] [-sdisk [name]] [-rdisk] [-drive <n>] [-kick13] PARADISE.EXE [?] [filenames] [-spath <saving path>] [-stay] [-nosubdir] [-timeout <delay>] [-noask] [-port <I/O base address] ====================================================== --- Parameters and options common to both versions --- ====================================================== [?] gives short on line help. [filenames] is the list of files and/or directories to be uploaded separated by spaces. Wildcards are allowed, and are OS dependent (that is, with the Amiga version you must use '#', '?' etc. and '*', '?' with the PC version). If you specify a directory or it's matched by wildcards, its contents will be transfered recursively. The long file names with the PC are supported if Windows 9x is running, but in any case at the command line (actually) >> requires the 8.3 format << to indicate the files; anyway, if possible, the long format will be used. Protection bit will be converted in this way: Amiga -> PC: rwd -> d; x -> a. PC -> Amiga: d -> rwd; a -> x. [-spath <saving path>] is the directory where the downloaded files must be saved. If none is given, the current dir will be used. [-stay] avoids program quitting after completing a download. If you have a lot of files to upload from one side to another, using this option on the destination system helps you by executing the program each time. [-nosubdir] avoids directories be accessed recursively (that's, sub directories are not transfered, only first level files). [-timeout <delay>] is the delay in milliseconds used only by the connection/reset routine. If the message "Time Out" is displayed and the connection can't be established, maybe the delay is too low, so try to use an higher value. Note that this possibility is very remote, most probably the problem is elsewhere. Each part uses its own delay, so different values can be used. Default is 500 ms for the Amiga part and 10/18 of second for the PC part. [-noask] no kind of confirmation will be asked, for example before writing a disk image to the floppy or when an existing file is going to be overwritten. Note: if you answer "N" to a confirmation message, your entire transfer will be interrupted. See "What's Next" for more. ===================================================== --- Specific Amiga version parameters and options --- ===================================================== [-sdisk [name]] allows to send a disk image directly from the Amiga floppy drive to the PC. If you don't specify a name and the disk is in the Amiga DOS format, its name will be used with the ".adf" suffix, otherwise a default name. Very useful if you use an Amiga emulator under PC, like WinUAE. [-rdisk] allows to receive a disk image file from the PC and directly write it to a floppy disk. The image file must be 901120 bytes long (low density). You can receive one disk image and other files at the same time, but you must indicate on the PC the disk image as the first file to be uploaded. [-drive <drive nr.>] let specify the drive (0 to 3) to be used for the disk image transfering. Default is 0 (internal drive). Please read the "Needed Help" section. [-kick13] actives a patch for Kickstart 1.3 users. I found out some incompatible Amiga DOS routines, that cause Guru Meditation when uploading files. Using this option avoids it, but you can't use wildcards nor send directories (from the Amiga to the PC), just single files. All other operations seem to work properly. Read "Needed Help" and "Known Problems" for more. [-notbreak] makes the program ignores a user break before having finished its job. ================================================== --- Specific PC version parameters and options --- ================================================== [-port <hexadecimal I/O base address] lets specify the address at which the parallel port is mapped. Default is 0x378. ================================================== --- More examples (as requested by some users) --- ================================================== -> PC: "paradise" AMY: "paradise -sdisk mydisk.adf" Transfers a disk image from the Amiga to the Pc. It will be saved in the PC current dir and named "mydisk.adf". -> PC: "paradise mydisk.adf" AMY: "paradise -rdisk " Transfers a file from the PC to the Amiga, writing it to the floppy drive as a disk image. Paradise can't know if "mydisk.adf" is a real disk image, it can just check its size. -> PC: "paradise mydisk.adf" AMY: "paradise" Transfers a file from the PC to the Amiga, writing it to the Amiga current dir. Note how a disk image from the PC can be saved as a normal file if the "-rdisk" option isn't used. -> PC: "paradise mydisk.adf seek.lha" AMY: "paradise -rdisk -spath dh0:downloads" Transfers the "mydisk.adf" disk image file from the PC to the Amiga, writing it to the floppy drive; transfers the file "seek.lha" from the PC to the Amiga directory "dh0:downloads". -> PC: "paradise seek.lha mydisk.adf" AMY: "paradise -rdisk -spath dh0:downloads" Unlike the previous example, this one probably gives an error: when receiving a disk, the first file from the PC must be a disk image. ========================= --- More informations --- ========================= - It's possible to perform many operations at the same time. For example: PC: "paradise file.1 file.2 c:\songs\*.* -spath C:\download" AMY: "paradise ram:#?.lha -sdisk" will transfer the files "file.1", "file.2" and all the ones and/or directories placed under "c:\songs" from the PC to the Amiga current directory and all the files with extension ".lha" from the Amiga ram: device, plus a disk image file named as the disk name inserted in the internal drive, to the PC directory "c:\download". - While running, both versions display some informations. The PC version will show something more, like the remaining time or the transfer rate. The rate depends on the I/O disk access in some cases, so don't rely too much on it for the real memory buffer to memory buffer transfer rate. - To break a transfer, press the <ESC> key on the PC; on the Amiga, you must press <RETURN> too. No confirmation will be given. If one program quits, the other one will still run, and you have to stop it manually. 7. KNOWN OR PROBABLE PROBLEMS --------------------------------- - Without using the "-kick13" option, the Amiga part will fail under Kickstart 1.3 when uploading files. When using the patch, you must indicate the exact file name, without the path or wildcards. - Problems may happen using fast Amigas. I use a 7mhz Amiga against a 233mhz PC and I don't know if something might go wrong when both speeds are similiar. Anyway, due the asynchronous way the programs work, everything should be alright (I hope...). - The programs was developed under Amiga OS 2.0 and MS-DOS 7 running in a Windows 98 shell. Tests have been made running the program under different conditions, but problems may still occur, in particular, file name conflicts. - Note that the two programs work doing direct hardware accesses at the parallel port registers: if they'll change, well, you know... But I think this is very improbable. 8. TROUBLE SHOOTING --------------------------------- If the connection can't be established ("Time out" is always shown): 1) Do a partial test of your parallel ports, e.g. using a printer. This should be enough, but not completely. 2) Check your cable, with a multimeter. Probe each single pin with all the others: there can be no short circuits with other pins except the one visible in the cable diagram. 3) Be sure the PC parallel port I/O base address is set to 0x378 and in SPP mode (bi-directional). Note: you can specify a different par port address using the option "-port <address>". 4) Try other PC parallel port modes (e.g. EPP or ECP). 5) Set a higher value for the delay used by the reset routines. For example, "paradise [your files or options] -timeout 40" on the PC and "paradise [your files or option] -timeout 999" on the Amiga. Anyway, this is very strange (means your computers are TOO slow). 6) Try to connect the Acknowledge line, that's pins 10 <--> 10. A user wrote me saying he had to keep it on, otherwise the program did not work. I have never heard anything like this from other people. 7) Try the Paradise v0.53b. This has very little bugs and has been used succesfully by many users. If it works, the problem is in this new version, so please write me. 9. HELP NEEDED --------------------------------- If you want this program to be better, help me sending in an answer for the next points (if you can, naturally). - I haven't received anything from users of fast Amigas. If you have an Amiga 4000 or an accelerator board, and you use Paradise, let me know if and how it works. - If you have an Amiga with native Kickstart 1.3 ROM, let me know if uploading files works without using the '-kick13' option. I can test it only using a Kickstart loaded in RAM and this may be different from a real one. - If you have an external drive, let me know if the "-sdisk" and "-rdisk" commands work with the "-drive <n>" option (I just have an internal drive). <n> should be "1". 10. HISTORY --------------------------------- --- v0.53 beta --- At first, I made this program for my personal use, because I needed to transfer .MOD files and disk images (large files). I was not interested how, but I wanted to do it fast via parallel. But after I looked on Aminet, I saw that there where just a couple of programs, and they didn't work for me. So I decided to program something myself, but I have only an Amiga 500+ with 2 MB of RAM, no hard drive and a stripped down version of SAS C that compiles only ANSI C source code. It was very hard to make the first Amiga part of Paradise, because of the large number of disk swapping to compile everything. Fortunally, I only got just one or two system failures :-) No problems with the PC part (I have a Pentium). When I finished the programs, I saw that they worked fine and that someone else might be interested in them, so I decided to improve them and put the archive on the Internet. --- v0.71 beta --- Using WinUAE to develop the Amiga part with the PC, I've added tons of new features. Here is some of them: - core routines optimized in Assembly 68000; - handshaking routine; - multiple files; - disk image sending; - disk image receiving; - wildcards support; - long file names; - recursively directories sending. 11. WHAT'S NEXT --------------------------------- There are things that I'll try to do, even if I get no replies: - Solve the bugs that might appear (I think only minor bugs, 'cause I've tested the program enough to say it's ok :-); - A cable test routine to test if it's ok or diagnose what's wrong; - Make the Amiga version fully compatible with Kickstart 1.3; There are things that I'll do only if I'll get a lot of replies: - Change the cable diagram in a symmetric one, that's change the actual line 12 <-> 1 in 1 <-> 1. This means old users must modify their cables that they have already built, but new users can easily find, build or modify an existing commercial one. Let me know what you think about this. If most of you think that it's a bad idea, I'll leave things how they are now. - A log file, where all operations will be recorded to. - A simulation transfer routine, to test if a big transfer will be done succesfully without wasting a lot of time. - Make the program more flexible. Actually, it quits on any type of error that will occur during the transfer. To avoid this, I have to modify the transfer protocol to a so called "protocol with confirmation". In this way, each part will know exactly what is happening on the other side and act consequently. The drawback is the long time to make and test it! 12. REPLIES --------------------------------- Bug reports, suggestions or complains are very welcome AND requested. If you think this program is useful, let me know; if you think it's ugly, let me know too. Especially, I'm interested on your transfer rate and configuration. Remember that the amount of time that I'm happy to spend on this program depends on the amount of people interested in it: if you don't write me, I'll never know that you are using it! Lot of features that I've added to this version are there only because some people requested them... To contact me: e-mail ------------------- raze@iol.it lux@cds.unina.it gmignogna@yahoo.com ------------------- web page (carelessed, but soon you'll can find there more beta version, bug reports, extra docs etc. Nothing just now) ----------------------- http://www.gm.iwarp.com ----------------------- 13. AUTHOR --------------------------------- I'm a student of Informatic Engineering at Federico II University of Naples. I was born in Riccia, a little italian town, where I still live. I've a lot of interests, computers firstly. My first computer was a Commodore 16, bought in 1985. With it, I started to learn basic and machine languages. Today I like to run old c16 programs on emulators. In 1989 I sold my c16 to buy an Amiga 500 w/ ks 1.2. After that, I bought and sold some other machines, but what the Amiga has given to me, no other computer has. For me it's more than a computer, it's a dream come true. This program is a gift to the Amiga and all of its community, I think the best community ever. And I still hope one day it'll come back (Don't we all?). 14. THANKS --------------------------------- Last BUT NOT the least, the thank you's! Developing Paradise took a lot of my free (and sometimes not only that :) time, when I was not busy with studies. Anyway, without the direct or indirect help from some people, this release would have never been made. So, a big thanks to: - Tony Duxbury for offering me his help and for improving the english in these docs. I think you should thank him too :-) (my english is so baaad!); - Craig Peacock for its very useful page on how to use the PC parallel port. If you want to, you can visit: Interfacing the PC - Homepage http://www.senet.com.au/~cpeacock - SAS Institute Inc. for the SAS C v6.51; - Borland International Inc. for the C++ v3.1; - Mathias Ortmann, Bernd Schmidt and all the other incredible guys who developed UAE and WinUAE emulators (The Amiga version of Paradise was developed using the SAS C running under WinUAE 0.8.8 Release 7!); - Frank Wille for the good MC680x0 Macro Assembler PhxAss V4.xx; - The guy who created the inter57b.zip collection of MS-DOS interrupt list (sorry, I can't find his name); - Mikael Kalm, author of the demo "Tunnel". I used the demo source to learn how to call functions in asm objects with the SAS C; - Roland Bengtsson for putting the demo "Tunnel" on his page; - The owner of this site: "http://amycoder.hypermart.net/". I have found lot of interesting Amiga stuff there; - Bernd Schmidt, Marcus Sundberg, Stefan Ropke, Rodney Hester, Joanne Dow for the Transdisk v4.2 source code included in the UAE archives (Transdisk was a good example and helped me to develop the send and receive disk routines); - All the people working for Aminet; - Pelucchi Marco for a very detailed transfer rate report; - Janne Lähteenmäki for reminding me to include in the docs the BIOS setting for the parallel port; - Ofner Michael for letting me know about his problem with the Acknowledge line; - Fabio Benedetti for the Amiga keyboard input location; - All the people that I forgot to include here (really sorry!); - Iron Maiden, Metallica, Manowar, AC/DC and Depeche Mode for making my day with their great music; - My family; - The Amiga!