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Quick'n dirty English translation of the readme.txt file,
by Jens Schoenfeld ( [email protected] Mar98 ).
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1. Blah-Blah, no really important info
These drivers are designed to work with MS-DOS (TM) and
MS-WINDOWS (TM). All programmes have been succesfully tested
ith various versions of Windows and MS-Dos. You need a 486
processor or higher to run the drivers. If you have a 486SX
CPU, please upgrade your system with an FPU.
The archive contains the following files:
README.TXT - This file - please read completely!
VERSION.TXT - Description of changes
CATPARAM.TXT - File with standard-definitions
FAQ.TXT - Frequently asked questions
RTM.EXE - Runtime-Manager
DPMI16BI.OVL - Helpfile for Runtime-Manager
CATSHELL.EXE - Command processor, decreases load time of
Catweasel commands dramatically when under plain DOS.
CATINFO.EXE - Gives information about installed
controllers and drives
CATDIR.EXE - Substitute for the DIR-command especially
for Catweasel drives
CATCOPY.EXE - Substitute for the COPY-command
CATIMAGE.EXE - Makes a complete image (backup) of a disk
and writes it to a file
CATBASE.EXE - Basedriver for the Catweasel
Some archives also contain these files:
BC450RTL.DLL - DLL with help functions
CATDLL.DLL - DLL with Catweasel functions
In the latest version, the following formats are supported:
- CBM 1541, 5.25" single-sided 170 KB
- CBM 1571, 5.25" single-sided 170 KB
- CBM 1571, 5.25" double-sided 341 KB
- CBM 1581, 3.5" double-sided 800 KB
- Amiga, 3.5", double-sided 880 KB
- Amiga, 3.5", double-sided 1760 KB
- Amiga, 5.25", double-sided 880 KB
- Amiga, 5.25", double-sided 1760 KB
- Atari ST, 3.5", double-sided 720 KB
- Atari ST, 3.5", double-sided 800 KB
- Atari ST, 3.5", double-sided 1440 KB
- IBM PC, 3.5", double-sided 720 KB
- IBM PC, 3.5", double-sided 1440 KB
- IBM PC, 5.25", double-sided 360 KB
- IBM PC, 5.25", double-sided 720 KB
- IBM PC, 5.25", double-sided 800 KB
- IBM PC, 5.25", double-sided 1200 KB
- Catweasel-Extra, 3.5", double-sided 1160 KB
- Catweasel-Extra, 3.5", double-sided 2380 KB
- Apple Macintosh, 3.5", single-sided 400 KB
- Apple Macintosh, 3.5", double-sided 720 KB
- Apple Macintosh, 3.5", double-sided 800 KB
- Apple Macintosh, 3.5", double-sided 1440 KB
- Apple IIe, 5.25", single-sided 140 KB
The following filesystems are supported:
- CBM 1541 (DOS 2A)
- CBM 1571 (DOS 2A), single-sided & double-sided
- Amiga OFS
- Amiga OFS localised
- Amiga FFS
- Amiga FFS localised
- PC FAT12
- PC FAT16
- PC VFAT12
- PC VFAT16
2. Installation
---------------
We don't have an installation tool with this version yet, so
the installation has to be done manually. This is rather
easy, so even less experienced users can do it. If you don't
dare to install the drivers on your own, or have
difficulties understanding the instructions, please ask
someone who has done things like this before.
First, make a directory for the Catweasel files. This can be
done by this sequence of commands:
md c:\catwsl
xcopy a:\*.* c:\catwsl
Where a: is the drive with the disk containing the Catweasel
drivers. Next, your autoexec.bat file must be adapted. To
accomplish this, start a texteditor with this command:
edit c:\autoexec.bat
If you're using a boot-menu, this file contains several
sections for the menu items. One item is marked with
:Windows
For example. If you have such a boot-menu, just follow these
instructions for every section. If you don't have a
boot-menu you don't have to care about the different
sections, there is only one for you.
Now add the following line to your autoexec.bat:
C:\CATWSL\CATBASE.EXE /p320
Whe /p states the base address of the controller. The
address is jumpered to 320 by default. This can be changed
by the jumplers on the card. A list of the
addressesavailable is given in chapter 3.
If there are no hardware-conflicts, the driver will show the
address of all controllers found.
In your autoexec.bat should be a line like:
PATH = C:\DOS;C:\WINDOWS
If this line is already very long (more than 200 chars) or
there are more than one of these lines, your system should
be examined by an expert, because this indicated some
"installation-deadends" on your harddisk that should be
deleted. In such a case, nobody can guarantee that a change
to the PATH line stops some programmes from working after the
next boot.
Insert the name of the directory where you have copied the
Catweasel files at the beginning of the arguments of the
PATH command as shown in this example:
PATH = C:\CATWSL;C:\DOS;C:\WINDOWS
When all changes are done in your autoexec.bat and you have
saved the file, you can start your system again. During the
restart, the driver should output information about the
controller and the drives found, so you can see the success
or non-success of your installation. You can get closer
information with the CatINFO command which is described in
chapter 4.
3. Solving problems
-------------------
3.1. Base-driver
The base driver looks for the Catweasel only on the
specified address. If the address of your controller is not
known, you can also state /pauto in the driver arguments.
The driver will look for your controller in all known
addresses, but this can make problems with other hardware in
your system. For this reason, the driver should only be
started once with this option to determine the address.
WARNING: If you specify /pauto or a wrong address for the
driver, it will look in addresses where the Catweasel is not
located. This can cause serious problems including loss of
data and system crashes. In our tests, we didn't experience
problems like this, that's why we decided not to exclude the
/pauto option from the distribution. Use the option at your
own risk!
The driver supports a maximum of four controllers and eight
drives.
The hardware base address can be determined with the jumpers
on the card. Take the address from the following table.
The errors in this table have been corrected on 19-mar-1998
Jumper- | address | Possible conflicts with cards of this type:
setting | |
----------+---------+---------------------------------------------
::: | 360-367 | ?
| |
::X | 388-38f | Soundblaster (TM) und compatible Soundcards
| |
:X: | 220-227 | Soundblaster (TM) und kompatible Soundkarten
| |
:XX | 240-247 | Soundblaster (TM) und kompatible Soundkarten
| |
X:: | 280-287 | Ethernet cards by various vendors
| |
X:X | 2c0-2c7 | Ethernet cards by various vendors
| |
XX: | 300-307 | Ethernet cards by various vendors
| |
XXX | 320-327 | Ethernet cards by various vendors
| |
Factory default setting is 320-327 which is free in most
computers.
If the driver doesn't recognise the controller, but no
conflict with other cards is evident, a software conflict
can also be the problem. In this case another driver stops
the Catweasel driver from accessing the hardware. A possible
conflict can be memory managers by other vendors than
Microsoft (TM).
To sort problems out, you should "clean up" your system as
much as possible. This means, remove all unnecessary drivers
until the Catweasel driver works.
If you have more than one Catwease controller in your
system, you can issue more than one /p option in the
autoexec.bat.
CAUTION: The base driver can also be started in a DOS-box of
Windowns 95 (TM). You can start the driver in this dosbox
without modifying your autoexec.bat just by typing
catbase /p320
for example. After starting the driver, all Catweasel
programmes can be used. To avoid problems with the hardware-
emulation of Win95, make sure you issue the correct address.
The driver should not be started in two DOS-boxes at a time
if the same Catweasel controller accessed.
3.2 Tools
On some systems the error message "Cannot enable A20" or
something similar may be shown. In this case, install a
memory manager like EMM386. Please refer to your DOS manual
to accomplish this.
All tools run in protected mode. This means that they need a
486 processor or better. Depending on the version, they also
need a dynamic link library (DLL). It takes considerable
time to load these DLLs under plain DOS, you can reduce the
load-time by starting the CATSHELL tool once or using a
DOS-box of any Windows system.
4. Using the tools
---------------------------
All tools shipped with the Catweasel are meant for the
command line. If you are familiar with the command line,
using the tools is easy. In the following description of the
tools, we expect you to be experienced in using the command
line.
The tools accept some specific parameters for controlling
the software in case of an error. These parameters are:
/rotationtime=t
t states the rotationtime in milliseconds. This
parameter is necessary for the software in order to
adjust the Catweasel controller to your drive.
The Catweasel can be adjusted to the rotation speed of your
diskdrive in a very wide range. Normally, the speed of a
3,5" drive is 300 RPM (=200ms), while a 5,25" drive rotates at 360
RPM (=166ms). The Catweasel driver tries to measure the speed and
adapt to it.
In some cases, the measurement doesn't work correctly. You
can achieve better results if you give the value directly to
the command you're using. The second purpose of this
parameter is reading bad disks: In some cases, the floppy
that has written this disk has a bad speed control, and the
only way to read this disk can be playing with this
parameter. Try values between 156 and 176 ms for 5,25" disks
and values between 188 and 212 ms for 3,5" disks.
/rotationtime[i]=t
Same as before, but you can determine the speed of each
drive individually. i is the number of the drive.
/retries=n
With this parameter you can set the number of retries in
case of a read error before an error message is shown.
/calibrateretries=n
Same as before, but this one sets the number of retries
before the r/w head is recalibrated. Recalibrating takes
some time and usually doesn't have any effect. Anyway,
recalibrating is done after 8 retries by default. If n
is larger than the number of retries, recalibrating
isn't done at all.
/dirsortorder=o
This parameter sets the order in which the CATDIR
command shows directories. o represents the order, the
default value is "gn". The folling values can be
combined:
'-' - inverts the order for the next parameter
'r' - inverts the order for all following parameters
'a' - sorts by name alphabetically
'd' - sorts by date
'e' - sorts by extension
'g' - separates directories from files
'n' - sorts by name alphanumerically
's' - sorts by size
'u' - unsorted
/imageextension=e
e is the extension that is appended by CATIMAGE if no
extension is given.
/imageextension[f]=e
same as before, but f can give extensions individually
for every recognised diskformat. If no individual
extension is defined, the default extension specified
with the command described before is used. The name of a
recognised diskformat is printed by every tool as soon
as they access a disk. Since these names contain spaces,
but spaces can't be given via a command line, they have
to be substituted by underscores (_). At this stage, the
following names are recognised:
"Extra, 4760 KB"
"Extra, 2380 KB"
"Extra, 1160 KB"
"Amiga, 1760 KB"
"Amiga, 880 KB"
"IBM, 1440 KB"
"IBM, 1200 KB"
"IBM, 800 KB"
"IBM, 720 KB"
"CBM 1581, 800 KB"
"CBM 1541, 170 KB"
"CBM 1571, 341 KB"
/blocksize=n
The tools can access Catweasel diskdrives, the standard
diskdrives and virtual diskdrives (disk image files
stored by the CATIMAGE tool). These virtual disks don't
contain any information about the blocksize, that's why
you have to enter the blocksize with this parameter.
The default value is 512 bytes. This value is the most
common on modern computer systems. 8-Bit systems use
256 bytes, very old 8-Bit systems have used 128 Bytes.
/blocksize[e]=n
Same as the last parameter, but this is specific for a
filename extension e. If a blocksize isn't specified for
a given image file, the value of the parameter described
before is used.
/ignoreformatviolations=b
With this parameter you can determine how the drivers
will behave when the specs of a diskformat are not fully
met. Normally it's not necessary to be piccy about
format violations, but with older (or bad) disks it may
be necessary to meet the specs 100% to restore all the
data. Since some computers or operating systems don't
meet the specs in all cases, the tools can be configured
to ignore these slight violations.
All parameters can be stored in the Catparam.txt file. This
file will be read by all the tools when started. The
catparam.txt file must be located in the same directory as
the tool itself. Every parameter must have it's own line in
the file, comments can be inserted using a semi-colon (;).
You should enter the speeds of all connected drives in this
file, so the speeds are set correctly for all tools. If you
need to read a bad disk, the parameter in the catparam.txt
file can be overrided with a parameter in the command line.
4.1. CATSHELL
This programme starts your command interpreter. This prepares
all Catweasel commands and establishes contact to the base
driver, thus decreasing load time dramatically compared to a
plin MS-DOS (TM) system. Starting this programme from a
WINDOWS (TM) DOS box won't affect the load times, because
these OS's use much faster loading routines.
4.2. CATINFO
CATINFO will show version information of the drivers. the
Catweasel-DLL and some hardware details. A typical output
looks like this:
CatInfo, V 1.05. (C) 1997 by Tobias Haustein.
Catweasel-DLL:
- Version . : 1.05
Name .... : catdll.dll
Copyright : Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 by Tobias Haustein, Aachen. All
rights reserved.
Catweasel-Basistreiber:
- Version . : 1.05
Name .... : catbase.exe
Copyright : Copyright 1996, 1997 by Tobias Haustein, Aachen. All rights
reserved.
Catweasel-Controller:
- Nummer ........... : 0 ( controller number )
Laufwerke ........ : 2 ( drives )
Basisadresse ..... : 0240 ( base address )
Speichergr��e .... : 128 KB ( memory used )
Version .......... : 1.00
Laufwerke: ( drives )
- Nummer ........... : 0 ( number )
Eingestellte ID .. : 0 ( selected ID )
Controller-Nummer : 0 ( controller number )
Geschwindigkeit... : 169 ms / 355 upm ( speed in rpm )
- Nummer ........... : 1
Eingestellte ID .. : 1
Controller-Nummer : 0
Geschwindigkeit... : 202 ms / 297 upm
The programme doesn't accept any parameters.
4.3. CATDIR
CATDIR shows the directory of a disk in a Catweasel drive or
any other drive, including virtual drives. All implemented
filesystem routines are used for this, so you can see the
long filenames of a VFAT disk under plain DOS.
The syntax is:
catdir [path]
Where is an optional path of the directory you want
to see. Use a: and b: as drive identifier for the internal
diskdrives and 0: to 7: for up to eight Catweasel-drives.
The other alternative of specifying the drive is giving an
exact description; at this point the following path
descriptions can be used:
catweasel/: - specifies the Catweasel-drive
between 0 and the number of drives connected
minus one.
bios/: - soecifies the number of a BIOS
drive, where 0 and 1 represent A: and B:
file/: - is a file that contains
the disk image of which you want to
display the directory.
The path may also contain wildcards, but they have to be
given in the correct syntax for the corrosponding
filesystem. FAT supports the wildcards "?" and "*", while
the Amiga filesystem supports the much more powerful
wildcards of the Amiga OS.
The option /o can determine the order in which the directory
is shown. A definition of the syntax is given in chapter
4.1, subchapter /dirsortorder. The parameter /s will tell
CATDIR to scan into directories recursively and disply their
contents.
4.4. CATCOPY
This command copies files from Catweasel-drives to a
harddisk. It expects path descriptions just like the CATDIR
command. The syntax is:
catcopy source [destination]
If the destination path is not specified, CATCOPY will copy
the file(s) to the current directory. If this tool is used
in a DOS-box of Windows 95 (TM), it supports long filenames
for the destination filenames.
4.5. CATIMAGE
This command will read the image of a disk and write it to a
file. An image is a file containing all sectors of a disk,
while the structure of the disk is maintained. Images like
this can be used by several emulators. The Amiga-emulator
UAE expects an Amiga-disk image to have the suffix .adf
while C-64 disk images are stored with the suffix .d64.
The syntax is:
catimage source destination
Where is the drive without further descritopn of a
path, and is the path and filename of the image
file you want to make. If this command is started in a
DOS-box of Windows 95 (TM), it supports long filenames to
the destination file.
(C) 1996, 1997 Tobias Haustein, Aachen. All rights reserved.
Quick translation done on 22/march/1998 by Jens Sch�nfeld. I
have removed some passages in order to speed things up.
Don't write to Tobias if you have problems, he doesn't have
the time to answer your mail. Write to me instead:
[email protected] I'll try to solve your problem.
If you want to purchase a catweasel controller please email
Norbert: [email protected] he can ship a catweasel to you
in 4-6 days if you pay by credit card.
