VISI COPY III cartridge for Atari XE/XL User's manual for the VISI COPY III cartridge (c) 1993 JRC The cartridge is designed for the Atari XL/XE computers. It contains universal Turbo loader and a copy program for the Turbo system with speed 2270-6411 Bd. In addition the copy program has a powerful compress method for Turbo programs. Installation Insert the cartridge only to a computer which is !!! SWITCHED OFF !!! On Atari XE the cartridge slot is situated on the back side of the computer. LED and the cartridge button must be directed up. On Atari XE the cartridge slot is situated under the metal door on the top of the computer. LED and the cartridge button must be directed to the front. Introduction VisiCopy III allows you not only loading and running binary programs but also Basic programs saved as a single continuous block in Turbo-Basic. The module automatically identify the program type. New functions are load binary file and transformation of a binary file to Universal Turbo. During the loading process the progress is displayed graphically on the screen. When the file head - it contains information about program length and thememory location - five vertical lines are shown. The two bordering and thick ones represent the whole range of the computer's memory. The two thin lines represent the start and the end address and so the length of currently loading program. the moving vertical line represents the loading progress itself. Using the cartridge After the computer is switched on the VisiCopy III main menu will occur. If you want to start it again during playing game or other work press the button on the cartridge. LED will switch on and after RESET the main menu will appear. Basic VisiCopy III functions 1. Loading and running Universal Turbo and Turbo 2000 programs. 2. Copying Universal Turbo and Turbo 2000 programs. 3. Loading and running binary Turbo programs. 4. Copying binary Turbo programs. 5. Transformation of binary Turbo programs to Universal Turbo. 6. Cold start. Additional VisiCopy III functions 1. Loading of an operating system from a floppy disk drive. 2. Calling the BOOT routine of the operating system. 3. Exit to Self Test 4. Exit to Basic Description of basic function: the screen ESCAPE Loading and running SPACE Copy a file START Quit AUTOMATIC BIN-FORMAT ON AUTOMATIC UNIFICATION OFF B - BINARY CONVERSION ON/OFF U - UNIFICATION OF GAMES ON/OFF ESCAPE - Loader for all useable Universal Turbo speeds and Turbo 2000. After pressing ESCAPE loading will start immediately - so it is recommended to have dataset prepared. First program found will be loaded after its head is read. It is possible to break the loading by pressing RESET if you want to load another program. Loader is immediately functional again without the need of restarting cartridge. It is possible then to continue loading by pressing any key. SPACE - copy program. It is possible to run it by pressing any key (except the function ones i. e. ESCAPE, B and U). When loaded all information about the program read from its head are shown on the screen: NAME: FILE TYPE: STARTING ADDRESS: FILE LENGTH: RUNNING ADDRESS: LOAD SPEED: SAVE SPEED: SPACE SAVE DATA V CHECK DATA UP/DOWN CHANGE SPEED M MOTOR ON/OFF C COMPRESS PROGRAM U UNIFICATE PROGRAM R RENAME S RUN PROGRAM H DATA IN HEX/DEC Functions of the copy program: Space - after space is pressed saving data to the tape will begin immediately. So it is necessary to have the dataset ready. It is possible to set the speed in advance by the arrow keys. Implicit speed is Turbo 2000, e. g. 2270 Bd. Using arrow key you can change it to one of Universal Turbo speeds (2270 - 6411 Bd). "V" Key - Verify saved data. It is necessary to rewind the tape back to the start of the recently saved programand by pressing "V" the comparison with the data from the computer memory will be started. ATTENTION !!! - the program compares also the name of the program. "M" Key - switches on and off the dataset motor. It is useful to find the start of next program or the empty tape. "C" Key - VisiCopy III is provided by an efficient compress method for binary programs. It is not recommended to use the compression for multi-part programs. It cannot be used for data parts of games (e. g. caves for Goonies) and for Basic programs. Compression moves data to higher address so this function can be used for transformation programs to a right format of Turbo. "U" Key - Unification of the program - this function influences the compression function in this way: if unification is "off" the program will be only compressed, but if it is "on" the program will be compressed and moved to higher address. It is then possible to load it even by TT DOS or convert by Turbo Binary program to TT DOS format. "R" Key - rename - after "R" key is pressed you can change the name of the program before it is saved to the tape. The name can be up to 20 characters long if you use some of Super Turbo speed. If you save program in the lowest possible speed of 2270 Bd (e. g. Turbo 200) you can enter only 10 characters. "S" Key - is used to run a program (game) directly from the copy program. "H" Key - is used to switch displayed data about file length between hexadecimal and decimal values. When the program is saved on tape the main menu of the copy program with data about the loaded program will appear again. You can save the program again after possible changes of name, speed etc. START - When you press this key you will return to Atari operating system. READY prompt will appear on the screen. AUTOMATIC BIN-FORMAT OFF AUTOMATIC UNIFICATION OFF B - BINARY CONVERSION ON/OFF - it is possible to convert programs from Binary Turbo to Universal Turbo with this function. It is suitable to switch this function off while copy multi-part game scenes. U - UNIFICATION OF GAMES ON/OFF ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS: Running program from disk drive - computer tries to boot from floppy disk before running Basic or Self Test. This function is not reduced in any way by the cartridge so owners of the disk drives can have the cartridge instantly inserted in the computer's cartridge slot. Running the BOOT routine of the operating system - holding START key - the BOOT routine (i. e. Basic) enabled. Hold the OPTION key + START - the BOOT routine (i. e. Basic) disabled. Exit to Self Test - hold OPTION key and press START key shortly. Exit to Basic - press START key shortly. GENERAL Cold and warm boot Cold boot is activated after switching computer on or while leaving Self Test by pressing RESET key. In both cases complete initialisation of the computer will take place. Facing this warm boot means only a partial initialisation. It takes place after the RESET key is pressed during the work in Basic. Currently running program remains in memory and only the system environments are initialised. In most games the cold boot is unreachable by pressing RESET. In this cases VisiCopy cartridge can be used. It is not necessary to redundantly torture the computer by switching it off and on. It is enough to press the button on the cartridge and after the cartridge LED is switched on also the computer RESET key. This will cause the cold start and the VisiCopy main menu will appear. With START key the program can be exited and computer will start to work in the standard way of the cold boot. Length of the program Maximum length for the Universal Turbo is 47360 bytes. If the program (game) is longer it consists from more parts. Start address The lowest address in memory occupied by the currently read program is represented as decimal or hexadecimal number. For the Universal Turbo system this address must not be lower than 1792.