Thank you for trying PARALINK. Don't forget its freeware, and we would love to hear your views (only good!). CREDITS ~~~~~~~ (c) 1995/6 Paul Finch and Thomas Haines NOTE ~~~~ A lot of work has gone into this program, mainly due to an all but complete lack of documentation on either the PC's or the Falcon's parallel ports. You may not realize this when you run the program, this is why I point it out here:-) WHAT IS IT? ~~~~~~~~~~~ Para2000 is a program for transferring files between PC's and Atari's using the parallel port. It will only work with a bi-directional parallel port. It has been tested (i.e. run at least once) between the following computers:- 486Dx2 <=========> Falcon 030 Atari STe <=========> Falcon 030 Falcon 030 <=========> Falcon 030 Pentium <=========> Falcon 030 Pentium <=========> Pentium but it should work with any combination. If only one end has a bi-directional parallel port, then only that end can receive. HAVE I GOT A BI-DIRECTIONAL PARALLEL PORT? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have a PC then you will need to check you mother board manual or your I/O card manual. The setting you want is probably PS2/Bi-directional. You might find that to configure your parallel port to this setting you need to change a jumper setting on your I/O card. Alternatively you might be able to do it via your BIOS (this is often the case when the I/O is on your motherboard). *NEW* Nowadays the BIOS setting you require should be parallel port mode, this should be set to EPP (the specific version (1.7/1.9) should not matter). If you have an Atari then the answer should be a yes. As I understand it all non-Falcon Atari computers have a bi-directional port by virtue of the fact that they are not buffered, that is the lines go straight into the chip. With the Falcon Atari started describing the parallel port as bi-directional. However the only difference that I know of between the Falcon's parallel port and that of other Atari computers, is that the Falcon has two additional lines (Acknowledge and Select). These lines do not make it bi-directional though (they are both present on the standard non bi-directional parallel port found in PC's). It is possible that the Falcon's parallel port is now buffered, which would mean that a little extra hardware is required in the controlling chip to make it bi-directional and this is why Atari now describes it as bi-directional. You may have noticed that I have started to waffle on a bit, so here is a recap:- IBM-PC - You will need to check to see if it is bi-directional. Atari - Yes it is bi-directional. CABLES CABLES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The easiest way to make up the required cable is to buy a transparent 25 D-type to 25 D-type (male to male) cable. Open up one end and un-solder the strobe and busy wires (pins 1 and 11), swap them over and re-solder. If you want to make one up from scratch the minimum requirements are as follows:- connect the 8 data pins to each other (pins 2 through 9) connect busy to strobe (pins 11 and 1) connect strobe to busy (pins 1 and 11) In addition you can of course connect up all the grounds etc. As to how important it is to do this I have no idea although one of our leads has only one ground wired up and works fine. NOTE:- A LapLink cable will NOT work with this program. Apart from the fact that our program does not use the laplink method, the Atari computer does not have half the pins that laplink uses actually connected on its parallel port. DISCLAIMER ~~~~~~~~~~ This program may go wrong. It may blow up your computer. Which may burn down your house. Which could drive you to becoming a mad deranged psychopath. However, should you kill anyone, we take no responsibility. Nor do we take responsibility for anything else that could go wrong. If anything untoward happens, even if it just prints a character out of place it is --YOUR-- fault. This revolutionary piece of software does not contain the worlds best error handling code, but hay, its free ! If however it all works perfectly, you are happy with it, it saves your marriage, or inspires you to pick the winning lottery numbers, then that was --US--. Please feel free to send any rewards (financial, material, or good karma) in our direction:-) ====SPEED=====>!!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Between two Atari Falcon 030 computers we managed about 6 Mbytes per minute. Between two Pentium PCs we managed about 7 Mbytes per minute. We had wanted to get a faster transfer rate than this, but at least it is faster than serial. USAGE (THE COMMAND LINE VERSION for All Machine Combinations) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On the receiving end you just run the program with no parameters, it will then wait forever until it receives commands from the sender. On the sending end you pass any files and/or directories you want to send on the command line. The program will accept standard wild cards and any number of parameters (to the limit of the command line of course). USAGE (THE -*INTERFACE*- VERSION) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For Atari<->Atari transfer you can use PARALINK.TOS. The first machine to run it will become the server and the other machine will provide the interface. Keys are: D - Select Drives (then drive letter) (right arrow) - Move to Local List (left arrow) - Move to Remote List (up/down) - Move Up and Down Left Shift (up/down) - Move Up/Down A Page Right Shift (up/down) - Move To Top/Bottom Page (Space) - Tag File/Directory A - Tag All Files Shift A - Tag All Files on Page C - Clear All Tags Shift C - Clear All Tags on Page I - Invert All Tags Shift I - Invert All Tags on Page (Return) - Change Directory \ - Go to Root (backspace) - Move Back a Directory G (Get) - Copy Remote To Local P (Put) - Copy Local To Remote (escape) - Terminate Both Ends When you first run it, you must select both drives using the drive letter. DISTRIBUTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please distribute this program to anyone you think might find it useful. We are currently out of touch with where people go to find Atari software, so if you know of anywhere that this program can be placed (ftp/bbs etc.) we would be grateful if you could place a copy there. The only condition that we impose on the distribution of this software is that it remains free and that you inform us of any location/source to which you have added this software. REGISTRATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you use this program then you should register it. Registering is FREE. All you have to do is mail both myself and Paul and tell us what you use the program for. WARNING ~~~~~~~ There is currently no way to quit this program other than successfully completing a file transfer, which means that you need the cable in place before you run it. You will need to be running in a DPMI environment (such as Windows 3.1), OR you will need the file cwsdpmi.exe in your path or the program directory. Unfortunately this program does not run well under Windows 95, which seems to interfere with the parallel port whilst it is running (if any one has a solution or explanation to this, please let us know). If you are a Windows 95 user and wish to use this program then you must boot into Dos mode. CONTACTS ~~~~~~~~ If you would like to contact us:- You can contact me by email:- thomas@mistral.co.uk on the WWW:- http://www3.mistral.co.uk/thomas/ You can contact Paul by email:- paul.finch@virgin.net