
              Frequently Asked Questions about The Star Commander

Here are some questions I was asked many times and my answers to  them.  First,
I'd like to mention that the Commander was not  meant  to  be  a  multi-purpose
utility with lots of goodies and that the main executable file is  already  too
big and it eats up a lot of memory. And to  advertize  my  favorite  Commander,
The Volkov Commander: one of the features I just love in it is that  there  are
no redundant functions in it, it is as simple as possible.

Q: I found few bugs in the Commander and there are many functions in it. How is
   it then that the public releases are still 0.xx versions?
A: The reason is that I hate version numbers like 12.3 or  1.2.34  and  I  only
   want to call 1.0 the final version. On the other hand, many people have  the
   prejudice of thinking that beta releases are buggy. Don't worry, the  public
   releases of the Commander are as bugfree and complete as any other  non-beta
   program. But to make you happy, starting with Version 0.73 the Commander  is
   not called "beta" anymore.

Q: I'm desperately trying to make the Commander access my Commodore  drive  but
   it just displays "Device not present" or simply locks up. What shall I do?
A: Please, read the section "TROUBLESHOOTING" in the documentation.

Q: Does the Commander support non-1541 drives?
A: No, only the 1541 drive family, 1541 compatible drives, and the 1541 mode of
   the 1571 drive since I only have a  1541C  and  a  1541-II  drive.  I'm  not
   planning to support the native mode of the  1571  and  1581  drives  (double
   sided disks, MFM-coded data) and GCR-coded disk images  because  I  have  no
   1571 and 1581 drives and the emulators don't support them either.

Q: Does the Commander support 40 track disks and disk images?
A: Yes, it does. However, there is a restriction: since the Commander uses  the
   original DOS routines to allocate blocks for the files during file copy from
   the PC to the external Commodore drive in any mode,  if  your  drive  cannot
   handle the extra tracks or the extra BAM entries, you won't be able  to  use
   all the 40 tracks. In this case you might have to fill up a  40  track  disk
   image with files first and then  copy  the  disk  image  onto  the  external
   Commodore drive. It is also possible that the ROM of your Commodore drive is
   not patched to let programs seek to the extra tracks - in this  case  you're
   totally out of luck.

Q: I tried to extract LHA archives using the Commander and I saw a filename  at
   the beginning of the uncompressed files and some of their  last  bytes  were
   chopped off. How is this possible?
A: You are using LHA 2.13 or an older version. The Commander and  Star LHA  are
   using the print command instead of the usual extract command. The reason for
   this is that when specifying the name of files to extract, a filename with a
   space inside (not unlikely in a Commodore LHA archive) would make LHA  think
   it to be two separate filenames. Therefore all the files in the archive  are
   printed in one continuous stream into a single file and then  the  necessary
   ones are picked out. Unfortunately, LHA 2.13 and older versions prepend  the
   filename to each printed  file  which  is  garbage  for  the  Commander  and
   Star LHA. Get the official LHA 2.55 English release to solve this problem.

Q: The benchmark in the documentation says that copying a whole  disk  in  warp
   transfer mode takes not more than a minute and a half. How  is  it  possible
   then that it's even slower than turbo transfer mode on my machine?
A: Perhaps, you are using the delay value computed  by  the  calibrator  of  an
   earlier release. The synchronization method has been changed since that  and
   you should not use the old delay value. If you have a  386  or  a  486,  you
   should try the default delay value of 48. If you have a 286 then  lower  it;
   if you have a Pentium or above then raise it, to about 80.

Q: Anyway, why do I have to change the delay value every time a new version  is
   released?
A: I'm constantly playing with the transfer routines so that they  become  more
   and more stable and as fast as possible at the same time. When I change  the
   timing then the delay value is not valid anymore. The timing  is  done  with
   the hardware system timers whose speed is machine independent but the little
   routine initializing the timer takes different times  to  run  on  different
   configurations. This is the possible reason why you have to change the delay
   value if your machine is reasonably slower or faster than a 386 or 486.

Q: And what about the other options? Do I have to set all  of  them  again  and
   again?
A: No, you don't.  Since  Version 0.71 beta  the  Commander  and  its  external
   programs are able to read the setup file created by the previous version  so
   that you only have to set the new options and those having been changed.

Q: Does the Commander support file images (files  with  the  extension  '.P00'/
   '.S00'/'.U00' created and used by PC64)?
A: Yes, it does. You can press Enter or double-click on such files to see their
   contents just like with disk and tape images. There is an option "Into  file
   image" in the copy/move dialog box, as well. By checking it,  the  Commander
   copies/moves the source files into file images (creating them on  the  fly),
   provided that the destination is a DOS directory.

Q: May I know what language the Commander is written in?
A: I started coding it in Turbo Pascal 7.0 with Turbo Vision 2.0 but changed to
   Borland Pascal 7.0 a bit later since it had a better IDE  and  online  help.
   When I got the sources of the Borland Pascal run-time libraries, at  once  I
   began to rewrite the user interface so that it looks absolutely like that of
   The Norton Commander. Many  of  the  original  Turbo  Vision  routines  were
   deleted or changed during this process. The source  of  the  Commander,  the
   external setup and the internal viewer and  editor  is  now  at  about  1230
   KBytes - not counting the little utilities I made for compiling  the  online
   help, creating the sample Commander screens in the external setup and  other
   purposes. There are also many assembly routines in the  source,  mainly  for
   data transfer and conversion where speed is most important.

Q: Why doesn't the Commander work under my OS/2, Linux, Windows, Windows'95  or
   Windows NT?
A: Because it's technically impossible to achieve correct  timing  under  these
   multi-tasking environments: the kernel, the control program of the operating
   system, steals time from the Commander for monitoring the system and  giving
   time slices for the other precesses, messing up the synchronization  between
   the PC and the external Commodore drive. However,  if  you  use  the  XP1541
   parallel cable then you'll possibly be able to access your  Commodore  drive
   even under these multi-tasking systems because  the  parallel  handshake  is
   asynchronous.

Q: Will you do an OS/2, Linux, Windows, Windows'95 or Windows NT version of the
   Commander?
A: No, I won't. A major problem is that most  routines  of  the  Borland Pascal
   run-time library rely on being run under DOS and I don't feel like rewriting
   them from scratch. On the other hand,  you  can  use  all  features  of  the
   Commander under the DOS emulator or DOS shell of  these  operating  systems,
   perhaps, except for the access to an external Commodore drive.

Q: I would like an OS/2 version of the Commander for another reason: running on
   HPFS, it could use the original long Commodore file names and I could forget
   the 8.3 file name limitation of DOS. What do you think?
A: Such a version of the Commander wouldn't help  much  with  long  file  names
   because Commodore file names need to be converted into  ASCII.  During  that
   many PETSCII characters would be lost because they  have  no  equivalent  in
   ASCII or are not allowed in an HPFS file name. The same goes for Windows '95
   long filenames. However there is some kind  of  solution:  if  you  want  to
   upload Commodore files onto your Unix account and keep  the  long  filenames
   then you can copy the files into TAR archives then upload  and  extract  the
   archives under Unix.

Q: I've edited the directory of a disk and then copied it onto my PC  with  the
   option "BAM disk copy" checked. The end of the directory was lost. Why?
Q: I've edited the directory of a disk image  and  then  cleaned  it  with  the
   "Clean" option in the user menu of disk image panels. Why  did  I  lose  the
   end of the directory?
A: There's a serious problem with the  early  versions  of  Dir Master  by  Wim
   Taymans, which is the best and most  wide-spread  directory  editor  around.
   When you insert some phantom files into the directory  (e.g.  deleted  files
   whose names make up the logo of your group) the size of the directory grows.
   When you save it back onto your disk or disk image then some new sectors are
   filled up with the new data. But the program forgets to allocate  these  new
   sectors therefore the BAM disk copier won't copy these blocks and  the  disk
   image cleaner will destroy all data in them. Validate   your  BAM  with  the
   "Validate" option in the user menu or manually in  the  disk  editor  before
   copying or cleaning. You can also switch to  "Safe BAM disk copy"  mode  and
   track #18 will be fully copied even during BAM  disk  copy.  Similarly,  use
   "Safe clean" for cleaning disk images and it won't harm  a  single  byte  on
   track #18.

Q: Will there be a directory editor inside the Commander?
A: No, there won't. However, it's possible that I code a stand alone  directory
   editor for disk images.

Q: Why can't I copy all the files on the disk of my favorite demo?
A: Probably some files on that disk are phantom files (directory  entries  with
   no real file data) or have non-standard characters in their name  (graphical
   characters or characters that are not allowed in  file  names,  like  colon,
   asterisk, question mark etc.). The Commander uses the original 1541  DOS  to
   open files so it doesn't support such files either. Rename those files using
   the disk editor or copy the whole disk instead.

Q: When I want to delete a separator line in the directory of a disk image, why
   does the Commander delete another separator with the same name?
A: The Commander identifies files with their names and not with their  position
   in the directory - just like Commodore drives do. When you process  a  file,
   the Commander searches through the directory of the disk image  for  a  file
   with that name and processed it. It assumes that there is only one file with
   a given name in the disk image. The directory editor coming later will  help
   you with that.

Q: Why is it, that although I have defined several standard viewers in the file
   SCVIEW.EXT, the Commander still can't use them like The Norton Commander?
A: Perhaps, you are using the  viewers  of  The  Norton  Commander  5.0,  which
   require data to be passed in a special file instead of a  special  parameter
   block on the command line. The Commander only supports the parameter  block,
   therefore you should use the viewers that came with an earlier version (3.0,
   4.0 or 4.5) of The Norton Commander.

Q: There are some minor but annoying differences  between  your  Commander  and
   The Norton Commander. Why?
A: A personal opinion: when I started using The Volkov Commander,  I  began  to
   hate The Norton Commander. Consider that The Volkov Commander  is  a  single
   64KB COM file (written fully in assembly, not a high-level language),  still
   it can do what The Norton Commander 3.0 can. It's not that overgrown fatware
   like The Norton Commander has become (not to mention that now it has nothing
   to do with Peter Norton - said to be the best programmer  ever - and  should
   rather be called The Socha Commander or The Symantec Commander) so I make my
   Commander to be similar to the The Volkov Commander.  Admit  it  that  after
   some hours you got used to the new features like pressing Escape  turns  the
   panels off, maybe, now you even like them...

Q: I hate the colors the Commander uses. Can I change them?
A: Yes, you can. There is a full color configuration menu in the external setup
   for all screen modes (black & white, color, laptop and monochrome). You  can
   also try the prepared palette files that make the Commander look similar  to
   the "Color 2" scheme of the The Norton Commander and to DOS Navigator.

Q: I know that a diskpacked ZipCode archive contains all the data found on a 35
   track disk. How is it possible then that there are  certain  archives  which
   don't work if I unzip them on my PC and then  transfer  the  resulting  disk
   image onto my disk?
A: There is one difference between unzipping the archive on your  PC  and  your
   Commodore machine. The second two bytes of the first ZipCode archive contain
   the ID in all the sector headers of the original disk (not the  one  in  the
   BAM). When you extract the archive on  a  Commodore  machine,  the  ZipCoder
   re-formats the disk on the fly with that ID so that e.g. the disk identifier
   routine of "Test Drive 2" recognizes the  master,  car  and  scenario  disks
   based on the ID of sector headers being "MD", "CD" or "SD". All you  can  do
   is look into the first ZipCode archive and re-format  the  destination  disk
   with those two bytes as an ID before transferring the disk  image.  However,
   if the ZipCode archive was created on a PC, not on a Commodore machine,  you
   will possibly find an invalid ID there, e.g. "64". In  this  case  you  will
   have to find out the correct ID yourself.

Q: I switched to 'EGA Lines' in the Commander and saved the setup.  How  is  it
   then that the next time I launched the  Commander  it  didn't  automatically
   change to 'EGA Lines' upon startup?
A: The Commander never changes the screen mode, only if it  has  to,  e.g.  the
   screen is in graphical or 40 column mode. This is how the  other  Commanders
   also work. The state of the 'EGA Lines' option is  not  even  saved  in  the
   setup file.
