Star Commander & XE1541

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 11:31 pm

I can't get this to work

It took me 2 days to stop it saying "Drive 8 not present."

Now it times out on the drive

I was so excited about this as well... Any ideas?

Schlowski · Post by **Schlowski** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 3:20 am

I had lots of troubles with this too, I had to made a real DOS boot disk.
And even then in 1 out of 4 trys it would not be able to read my disk...

I use 64HDD http://www.64hdd.com from Coplin, a very nice tool, I have configured my old laptop as Commodore file server

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 7:39 am

What PC are you running it on? Running through DOS or Windows? How is your parallel port set up in BIOS?

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 8:26 am

What PC are you running it on? Running through DOS or Windows? How is your parallel port set up in BIOS?

It's a home build with a Gigabyte GA-7VT600 MB

The Parallel Port is ECP/EPP I've not seen any options to change it in the BIOS.

I have a DOS 5 boot disk I am using.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:20 am

Ah so does this mean, if you are using a boot disc, it isn't a natural DOS PC? Or in other words, what OS does it boot to if you don't use the boot disc? If it's Windows95 or later, you may need to set "Async On" in the setup as StarCom does not work 100% in anything but a pure DOS environment.

My PC I use for StarCom for example, has Win3.1 and DOS6.22 installed on it. When booting up, it ends at a DOS prompt and I have to type "WIN" to run Windows. That's the sort of environment that is 100% for StarCom.

You could also look for the DOS util LPTDETCT to see what your parallel port(s) are set up to transfer.

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:58 am

If I am booting with a floppy it is pure DOS. So much so I can't access my hard drives (they are formatted NTFS.)

I will get this going, even if I have to by a crappy old 386!

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:19 pm

You can run StarCom in a DOS box within Windows, but you must have the Async set and it isn't 100% reliable.

Just getting a cheap DOS only PC would be the ideal thing. Which is why I kept this old one I have. I even bought a new parallel card for it so I can run a parallel 1541 to it AND datasette at the same time for TAPage. Talk about remembering how to set jumpers and what IRQs and ports running to avoid conflict etc

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:40 pm

I always get random lockups when running in a dos box.

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 3:11 pm

I boot into dos using a DOS 5 disk.

SC always reports "Timeout Error"

xcdetect reports

Code: Select all

PC-CBM transfercable autodetection design study, (C)      1998 - Wolfgang Moser
      uses basic routines of The Star Commander, (C) 1994-1998 - Joe Forster

Version: 0.17  --  Debug messages mode (-d) switched to off.

Prechecking port addresses ...

LPT1 at 0x378, PS/2

Searching for cables (DelayOffset:  9)...
(can only be found, if IEC devices are connected and switched on)

XE1541   connected to port address 0x378

Searching for IEC floppy devices ...

Floppy devices connected to port 0x378:

Searching for parallel cables on all floppy devices ...

xcdeteck -d reports

Code: Select all

PC-CBM transfercable autodetection design study, (C)      1998 - Wolfgang Moser
      uses basic routines of The Star Commander, (C) 1994-1998 - Joe Forster

Version: 0.17  --  Debug messages mode (-d) switched to on.

Prechecking port addresses ...

LPT1 at 0x378, PS/2

Searching for cables (DelayOffset:  9)...
(can only be found, if IEC devices are connected and switched on)

XE1541   connected to port address 0x378

Searching for IEC floppy devices ...

Floppy devices connected to port 0x378: 8<NC:0x83> 9<NC:0x83> 10<NC:0x83> 11<NC:0x83>

Searching for parallel cables on all floppy devices ...

I'm stumped

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:11 pm

It may be as simple that your Gigabyte motherboard has a parallel port (or chipset rather) that X-cables don't support unless you move up to the most advanced series. Actually, one Gigabyte mobo is listed as not working with either cable. Of course, testing it on another computer is a good idea to ensure that the cable is correct.

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:21 pm

I've tested on 2 others, but they were laptops.. I am told that is a real no-no

I can get my hands on another PC, I'll try that.

Schema · Post by **Schema** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:33 pm

Maybe try an XM1541 cable and cbm4win under Windows? It supposedly works with a wider range of motherboards.

http://www.trikaliotis.net/cbm4win.shtml

An XM is the same as an XE with pins 5/6 swapped at the DIN (C=) end.

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 6:42 pm

I've just tried the obly other PC I could use and that is worse.

When I turn it on the busy light appears on the disk, and doesn't go off at all. SC says the port doesn't exist.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:38 am

Your parallel port is set to PS/2 here according to XCDETECT. Whilst that can work (it does for me regarding TAPs), it should ideally be set to ECP/EPP mode. Can you access the BIOS and try changing this?

Leeeeee · Post by **Leeeeee** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 7:28 pm

Having used SC and made it work on a number of PCs here's my £0.02 worth.

Make sure the cable works, I know this is a no-brainer but I have had a faulty cable.

Find the calibrate function and do an auto calibrate for the delay, sorry it's been a while since I last had to do this so I can't remember where calibrate is. Once done SC usually works, either from a DOS box of real DOS, it doesn't matter which as long as you don't try to do both with the same settings.

I think the reason SC users say you must use DOS and/or 386, 486 or whatever is that the default setting are for this vintage of machine and OS combination.

I must have spent 100's of hours transfering data from C= disks using SC and an XA1541 cable, once I'd done all this the management realised that the raw data from the disks wouldn't just 'import' into XL and abandoned the whole plan, pah!

Lee.