Hi! And welcome to THE SERVANT. The guys who designed the Commodore 128 did a great job. Both you and I have enjoyed the fruits of their efforts. In the design of the C128 they included a feature which has only rarely been put to use. If you open your trusty computer there seem to be something missing. Among all the black, rectangular chips there's a vacant socket. What kind of chip might fit. An extra processor? Nah. Extra memory? Well kind of, the socket is meant to contain a ROM chip of up to 32 kilobytes. A creative programmer is free to use this space in whatever way he or she (I would like to see female C128 programmers!) sees fit. A lot of goodies can be put into that space.
This is where THE SERVANT comes in. THE SERVANT offers a plethora of nifty utilities and convenience features designed to make your computing life easier and more fun. This goes even if you never use the 128 mode at all. THE SERVANT is designed with maximum convenience, compatibility and security in mind, making it unusual or even unique in many ways. But they all say that don't they?
Well see for yourself and enjoy!
The author welcome all kinds of reactions from the users. Complaints, suggestions, technical or other questions, comments, corrections, reports on errors and bugs, nitpicks, boast or whatever. Everyone, please write!
THE SERVANT and this manual has been produced using the following: C128, Master 41, 1570, 1571, 1581 disk drives, 1750 Ram Expansion Unit, Promenade C1 EPROM programmer, Brother HR15 printer with Super G interface, Midnight Assembly System machine language assembler, The Write Stuff word processor.
The author wishes to thank all people using and supporting the 128 (and then some) who, mostly without knowing, have made this possible. One person deserves a special mention though. I wish to thank Matthew Montchalin for his wonderful Midnight Assembly System, the assembler used to create THE SERVANT. Without it, THE SERVANT would never have seen the light of day.
This work is dedicated to all the good people around the world who are working for peace, understanding, non-violence and the saviour of our wonderful blue planet.
And last but not least; please bear with me as you read this manual. I am not native to the English language. I was born, raised and still live in Norway, the land of the midnight sun. Norway is known for its mountains and fiords and for being a peaceful corner of the world. Thank you.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
You'll probably spend your first hours using THE SERVANT in computer RAM. THE SERVANT is somewhat hampered when working in that configuration. There will be less buffer space available for the Disk Copier and File Copier. Furthermore, some programs won't launch properly when using THE SERVANT in RAM. Especially, using RAMDOS will produce severe problems in some cases. Also, you can't load programs of more than 100 blocks in size, as bigger programs will overwrite THE SERVANT and crash it. You may also discover other quirks when using THE SERVANT from computer RAM. However, all these problems will disappear when THE SERVANT is allowed to live on a chip. THE SERVANT working as a RAM-resident program is only for your review, customizing and then for making a copy that can be programmed into an EPROM. THE SERVANT is NOT intended to be run from computer RAM on a regular basis! I should also mention that the copyright message you see when reviewing THE SERVANT in RAM will disappear when it is working from an EPROM.
