Welcome to ADF Sender Terminal! 1997-2000, 2004-2005 by Wolfgang Stoeggl German: readme_de.txt Requirements: Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP On the Amiga side: TRANSDISK or TRANSWARP (faster) 1.) What is ADF Sender Terminal? 2.) Quickstart 2.1) PC to Amiga 2.1.1) Sending whole disks 2.1.2) Sending tracks 2.2) Amiga to PC 3.) Nullmodem Cable 4.) Support 5.) Additional Information (transdisk with no second drive, comset, adf) 6.) FAQ 1.) What is ADF Sender Terminal? * This program has originally been written to send ADF files from a PC back to an AMIGA with little RAM. * Say: Amiga 500 with 512KB or 1Mb * Since V 1.2 you can also receive ADF, kickstart files etc. from the AMIGA. So you can get your Amiga disks over to th PC and use them with an emulator ... * TRANSWARP allows baud rates up to 115200 bps from Amiga to PC * V 1.3 allows you to send single tracks. On simple Amiga computers there is no way to decompress whole ADF files and then use transdisk. One solution would be splitting the ADF file, sending each time one part to the AMIGA with e.g. Twinexpress via Null Modem Cable, Dos2Dos, CrossDOS etc. and then write the right tracks to a disk with TRANSDISK... But why should you take all this effort if you could send the whole ADF image file back in one step? That is why I have written the ADF Sender Terminal. All of the Terminal programs (Hyper Terminal, Norton Commander, ...) I have tested are not able to send binary files to a COM port, only text files. You always have to specify a protocol (zmodem,...) if you want to send binary files, which is no use for transdisk because you only need simple handshaking and bytes. By the way: you can send a file to the COM port in good old MS-DOS with e.g. the following command: copy /B file.adf com2: Of course you have configure your COM port before with the MODE command to 19200,8,n,1 and CTS/RTS but as the baudrate of 19200 will not work on all machines even if they support it I suggest the nice utility COMSET which supports all baudrates under DOS. 2.) Quickstart: IMPORTANT: Always start the Program first on the machine, where the data should be RECEIVED. Only when the other side is waiting for data, send the files. Otherwise bytes will be lost. a) Connect the PC and the Amiga with a standard Nullmodem cable. b) Check the configuration of your COM port. Click the icon or at properties in the menu Commport. The configuration has to be the same on your Amiga and PC. The standard configuration is 19200,n,8,1 which means a Baudrate of 19200, no parity, 8 Data Bits, 1 Stop Bit. The flow control (handshaking) should be RTS/CTS. c) You may use TRANSWARP instead of TRANSDISK in the given examples for higher speed (see examples_transwarp.txt). 2.1) PC to Amiga 2.1.1) Sending whole disks a) Start TRANSDISK on the AMIGA. The following example copies all 80 tracks from the serial port to df1: transdisk -w ser: -d trackdisk 1 TRANSDISK is waiting for data. b) Click on the red button to open your COM port - it turns green if there is no error. The COM port can be opened automatically if you want to. Now click at the SEND button or use Transmit file (binary)... in the file menu. c) Now choose the ADF file you wish to send to your AMIGA. You may press Cancel to stop transmission. 2.1.2) Sending tracks This may be useful if the transmission stops, one computer crashes, a track is damaged and you do not want to send everything again. a) Start TRANSDISK on the Amiga In this example the transmission stopped while writing track 37, so get the rest. transdisk -w ser: -d trackdisk 1 -s 37 This will write all tracks from 37 to 79. b) Select 37 for the Start Track in ADF Sender Terminal, leave 79 as End Track. Click on the SEND button. 2.2) Amiga to PC a) Start ADF Sender Terminal. Click on the red button to open your COM port - it turns green if there is no error. Enter the correct file size. (901120 for adf files, 524288 for kickstart files, etc.). Now click at the RECEIVE button or use Receive file (binary)... in the file menu. Choose a filename. b) Start TRANSDISK on the AMIGA. The following example copies all 80 tracks from df1: to the serial port: transdisk >ser: -d trackdisk 1 or transwarp -d trackdisk 1 -b 115200 (see examples_transwarp.txt for details) Further examples are given in examples_transdisk.txt If you want to send your kickstart use TRANSROM: transrom >ser: 3.) Nullmodem Cable: Pin layout of the serial cables. 9 - 9 Serial 9 - 25 Serial 25 - 25 Serial 2 ====== 3 2 ======= 2 2 ======= 3 3 ====== 2 3 ======= 3 3 ======= 2 4 ====== 6 4 ======= 6 4 ======= 5 5 ====== 5 5 ======= 7 5 ======= 4 6 ====== 4 6 ======= 20 6 ======= 20 7 ====== 8 7 ======= 5 7 ======= 7 8 ====== 7 8 ======= 4 20 ======= 6 Adapter for Amiga I am using this one required The layouts above show how you could wire up your cable. Decide for one of the above versions depending on the free COM plug on your PC, because the AMIGA has got a SUB-D plug with 25 pins. By the way I have soldered a cable which combines all three solutions with two plugs on each end. Cheap adapters from 9 to 25 pins and vice versa can be bought. Be careful, that you get the right one. What you need: At least the right two female SUB-D plugs, a cable with at least 7 wires. The cable can be up to 10m long because the COM ports use 12V which allows longer cables than the ones used for printers. Generally it is cheaper to buy a Nullmodem cable in a computer store, than buying the plugs and the cable separately and soldering it. The advantage of self-made cables is the length and the flexibility in changing the pin configuration because the plugs of the bought nullmodem cable cannot be opened in several cases. WARNING 1: Do not use a cable with more than these 7 connections (extra wires should be disconnected). This is very important on the AMIGA computers since they have a non-standard serial connector. WARNING 2: Cables longer than 20 meters should be used with caution. You might need to reduce the baud rate or use a more expensive low capacitance cable. WARNING 3: Avoid putting the cable near appliances. This could add noise to the signals. If this cannot be avoided you might consider buying a more expensive shielded cable. WARNING 4: Never try connecting a serial port with a parallel port. The hardware will be damaged. Both plugs of the cable must be female, so this cannot happen. Do not try adapters which could make such a connection possible. 4.) SUPPORT: If you have got any questions or suggestions get in contact with me via email. OMA: adfsender@stoeggl.com You will find my homepage at http://adfsender.stoeggl.com 5.) Additional Information a) COMSET: Example: comset 19200 2 u COMSET [speed] [port] U u tells Comset to set the UART only ___________________________________________ C O M S E T Modem / Uart Setup Program Version 13.0.-release date 04/20/97 from Hank Volpe Copyright 1987 - 1997 BBS Phone: 410-256-3631 Voice Phone: 410-256-5767 Internet: http://www.modemdoctor.com ___________________________________________ b) Transdisk: A utility shipped with UAE to create ADF files. This utility is essential for the use of ADF Sender Terminal. It is CLI based. For a usage summary read the file 'Examples_transdisk.txt' Here I have got an addition for people with only ONE disk drive on the Amiga: * PC to Amiga transdisk -w ser: Be sure that your disk containing transdisk is write protected. Insert the empty disk when transdisk is waiting for data and send the ADF file. * Amiga to PC transdisk >ser: + Insert the desired disk and press RETURN to send it. c) ADF files: ADF stands for Amiga Disk File. This is an image file of the 880KB 3 1/2'' Amiga disk, which can be used within Amiga emulators. 6.) Frequently asked questions: In several cases the pindefinition of the serial cable is wrong. So check the pindefinition in case of transfer problems. Q: What are ADF files? A: ADF is an abbreviation for Amiga Disk File. It is an image file of an 880K Amiga 3.5" disk, which is used by Amiga emulators like UAE and Fellow. The exact size is 901120 bytes (except copyprotected disks). Q: What are ADZ files? A: ADZ files are ADF files compressed by gzip. You can use them with Amiga emulators, if gzip can be found on your hard drive. These disks are write-protected . For WinUAE you need a 32 Bit version, get gzip124xN.zip. Use 'gzip -d -S .adz file.adz' to decompress them or the Windows Commander. If you want to create ADZ files, use 'gzip -9 file.adf'. The MS-DOS version creates .adz files, but short filenames. 32bit gzip produces '.adf.gz' files. You can rename them or try 'gzip -9 -c file.adf > file.adz' (Which is also useful if you want to keep the adf file). Q: How do I get the first file like TRANSDISK over to the Amiga? A: Read this FAQ which presents improved and simplified methods: FAQ (methods.html) Q: After transferring the adf file (NOT A DOS DISK) to an Amiga disk it does not boot. A: Check if any VIRUS is in memory and remove it from all of your disks! I have got several email requests, where the Lamer Exterminator or the Byte Bandit virus was the reason. Download Antivirus software working even on an Amiga 500 as ADF: http://adfsender.stoeggl.com/antivirus.zip (452k). Get newer software from http://www.dstoecker.de/antivirus.html. Q: While transferring an adf file you get the following error message: ADF too short? A: This can be caused by older versions of serial.device. Try a different version of it. Get one from here: http://adfsender.stoeggl.com/utility/serial.zip. If possible, the usage of Workbench 1.3.3, 2.0 or higher is recommended because they contain reliable versions of serial.device. Q: The Amiga can only receive ADF files at low baudrates, at 19200 bytes are lost, the other direction works fine. A: Increase the Buffer Size in the serial settings of the Amiga preferences. I recommend at least 1024 bytes. The disks should be formatted errorfree. Q: When installing ADF Sender Terminal the message "Invalid command-line parameters" appears. A: Install from a directory without a "-" inside its name. Q: How can I speed up transfer from PC to Amiga. A: Use transwarp and reduce the number of colors (Hint from Borg No. One). With only 2 colors 38400 bps are possible. This is easily achieved by the utilities add21k or add44k http://adfsender.stoeggl.com/utility/add21k_44k.zip Q: I get overrun errors from time to time on a notebook. A: The overruns on notebooks are caused, when the status of the battery is read by the system. You can disable your batteries in the hardware configuration.