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Text File | 1993-07-21 | 17.2 KB | 401 lines

GENERAL README FOR DICE (0) MEMORY REQUIREMENTS DICE requires 1.5MB of ram to run reasonably well. You can run it on a 1MB machine but you will not be able to put anything in ram or make anything resident or even have DME running in the background while compiling! 512K WILL NOT WORK! 1.0 MB nothing resident, nothing in ram, maybe even have to put compiler intermdiate files on disk! (see "RECOURSE WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF MEMORY" in section III) 1.5 MB you can maybe make DCC and DC1 resident but you really need the memory so maybe not anything else. 2.0 MB you can make all major DICE binaries resident 2.5 MB+ all major DICE binaries resident, link libraries in ram, some or all includes in ram (under 2.0 you can use multi-assignments to mix and match) (I) WARNING ON COMPRESSION OF DICE DISKETTES ** WARNING ** Most files on the DICE diskettes are *COMPRESSED*, even if they do not look it. In order to access the files on the DICE diskettes you must prefix your path(s) with ARCH: For example: 1> type ARCH:DF0/README.DOC 1> dir ARCH:DF0 1> assign fubar: ARCH:DF0 1> dir fubar: If you do not wish to boot from the DICE diskettes, the ARCH: handler can be started manually with the following command and then used to browse/copy the diskettes: 1> run <nil: >nil: XDCC1:L/FSOVL-HANDLER 1> list ARCH:XDCC1 1> list ARCH:XDCC2 1> etc... ACCESSING MOST FILES WITHOUT USING ARCH: WILL RESULT IN GARBAGE DATA. Specifically, accessing most files without arch: will yield the compressed version which, needless to say, is unreadable. ARCH: IS PART OF THE REGISTERED DICE DISTRIBUTION AND LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED. (II) COPYING THE MASTER DISKETTES The very first thing you should do is make an exact duplicate of your master DICE diskettes and hide them away. YOU MUST USE DISKCOPY TO DO THIS, DO NOT USE THE COPY COMMAND. Using copy can easily lead to confusion due to compression of the DICE diskettes, we strongly suggest you use DISKCOPY to backup your DICE master diskettes. NEVER MODIFY THE MASTER DISKETTES, LEAVE THE MASTER DISKETTES WRITE PROTECTED! (III) DICE INSTALLATION DICE disk #1 is bootable and will bring up a minimal CLI environment under both 1.3 and 2.0. This file is brought up in DME automatically. No optimizations are made and using DICE in this environment will be slow because everything is on floppy AND everything is compressed. This environment actually fits on a single floppy drive. You can compile the hello.c program by clicking in the CLI window and typing the following line. Note that since everything is comming off of floppy and is compressed to boot, compilation will be very, very slow at this point in the installation. 1> dcc hello.c -o t:hello 1> t:hello HELLO WORLD! 1> The volume name for disk #1 is DCC1: or DCC: ... these are assignments through the ARCH: device and should be used instead of DFn: . Note that the *actual* volume names for the diskettes are XDCC1: XDCC2: and XDCC3: but you do NOT want to access the disks this way because you will be bypassing ARCH: Access Method DiskCopy Copy/Normal-Usage ------------- -------- ----------------- DCC: assignment NOT OK DCCn: assignment NOT OK ARCH:XDCCn: NOT OK ARCH:DFn: NOT OK XDCCn: OK NOT DFn: OK NOT SINGLE FLOPPY INSTALLATION DICE disk #1 is bootable, simply make a duplicate using DISKCOPY and customize as you like. Well, not so simple... you have to be VERY CAREFUL to NOT modify certain files through ARCH: ... since most system assignments are reassigned through ARCH: this means you have to be doubly careful. The following files should be modified directly, bypassing ARCH:. The XDCCn: volume names will bypass ARCH: XDCC1:S/#? all files in this directory XDCC1:C/#? all files in this directory XDCC1:L/#? all files in this directory These files are required for booting by the system. Since the system doesn't know about ARCH: at the time these files are accessed you cannot compress them through ARCH: MULTIPLE FLOPPY INSTALLATION Under 2.0, the startup-sequence on the boot floppy will automatically recognize the existance of INCLUDE and DLIB subdirectories on other floppy drives at boot time. DICE uses 2.0's multi-directory assign, the floppies can be accessed with DCC1:, DCC2:, DCC3:, and DCC4: which the startup-sequence sets up to go through ARCH: Under 1.3 the DCC2:, DCC3:, and DCC4: assignments through ARCH:XDCCn: will be made only if the disks are present during boot (i.e. in other floppy drives). If, say, disk #2 were not present at boot and you wanted to access it later on you would have to make the assignment manually as follows (after putting in disk #2): 1> assign DCC2: ARCH:XDCC2 See the section below called CUSTOMIZATION / OPTIMIZATION for information on tradeoffs and such. HARD DISK INSTALLATION Hard disk installation is easy. Either boot with DICE disk #1 or startup the ARCH: handler by running it in the background as shown in section (I). Then copy each DICE diskette THROUGH the ARCH: handle as shown below. This will result in an *uncompressed* version of all DICE files on your hard drive. Once you do that you don't have to worry about ARCH: anymore. For ease of use the instructions show you how to do a mass copy of everything onto your hard drive. You actually do not need certain directories from disk #1 that are used for booting, the last command in the following set deletes these superfluous directories. 1> makedir work:dice 1> copy arch:XDCC1 work:dice ALL CLONE 1> copy arch:XDCC2 work:dice ALL CLONE 1> copy arch:XDCC3 work:dice ALL CLONE 1> copy arch:XDCC4 work:dice ALL CLONE 1> delete work:dice/(l1.3|l2.0|c|libs1.3|libs2.0) all UNDER 1.3 ONLY YOU NEED TO INSTALL THE 2.0 MATH LIBRARIES IN YOUR LIBS: DIRECTORY. DO THE FOLLOWING COMMAND *ONLY* IF YOU ARE RUNNING UNDER 1.3 !!! 1> ; DO ONLY IF RUNNING UNDER 1.3 1> copy dcc:libs libs: For hard disk installation you probably want to de-archive the various archives. De-archiving is accomplished via the WORK:DICE/BIN/DZRESTORE command. This can be done as follows: 1> cd work:dice 1> work:dice/bin/dzrestore libsrc.bak 1> work:dice/bin/dzrestore dlib.orig.bak 1> cd include 1> work:dice/bin/dzrestore amiga13.bak 1> work:dice/bin/dzrestore amiga20.bak 1> work:dice/bin/dzrestore amiga30.bak libsrc.bak - library source code dlib.orig.bak - original commodore-supplied amiga.lib link libs include/amiga13.bak - full 1.3 includes include/amiga20.bak - full 2.0 includes include/amiga30.bak - full 3.0 includes Once you unpack the archives you can delete them. HARD DISK INSTALLATION - MODIFYING YOUR STARTUP-SEQUENCE Once you install the DICE files you need to add a command to your S:USER-STARTUP file. If your system does not have an S:USER-STARTUP file you should modify S:STARTUP-SEQUENCE. You should add the following line to the appropriate file: EXECUTE WORK:DICE/S/STARTUP-DICE WORK:DICE NOTE: the 'work:dice' elements in the above line assume you installed the DICE files in WORK:DICE. Also, if you are doing this after booting from the floppy remember to use a full hard drive volume name path to get to the hard drive's user-startup (example: System2.0:S/user-startup). * If you have a hard drive you normally do not use the ARCH: handler to compress files. Keep in mind that ARCH: takes around 140K of memory, a definite consideration if you do not have much memory. * If you wish to customize DICE you normally do it by modifying the WORK:DICE/S/STARTUP-DICE file. If you are not familiar with DICE I suggest using the defaults for now. RECOURSE WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF MEMORY If you have only 1MB of ram you will barely be able to use DICE! If you find yourself running out of memory there are a few things you can do: * Make sure nothing is resident * Put nothing in RAM: * Modify the DCCOPTS environment variable to put intermediate files on floppy/HD instead of in ram: . To do this you want to add the -T option to your DCCOPTS, as in: -TDF0: ... note that you do NOT want to go through the ARCH: handler. Your DCCOPTS environment variable might then read: setenv DCCOPTS "-2.0 -f -// -TDF0:" * Use the 1.3 includes and libraries instead of the 2.0 includes and libraries. DLink is notorious for taking a lot of memory, by using the 1.3 includes and link libraries in ARCH:XDCC2/DLIB and ARCH:XDCC3/INCLUDE instead of the 2.0 includes and libraries, and then changing your DCCOPTS to read "-1.3 -f -// -Tdf0:" instead of "-2.0 -f -// -Tdf0:" the linker will use less memory. Unfortunately, this means that you will not be able to write 2.0-specific programs. CUSTOMIZATION AND OPTIMIZATION If you are not satisfied with your configuration.. and you probably will not be satisfied with the default configuration since it skimps so much, I have a few suggestions on possible optimizations. Keep in mind that the whole of DICE is huge and for floppy users this means compression is necessary. Still, parts of DICE can be cached or made resident bypassing the decompression overhead. There are a number of things you can do to make DICE run faster if you have the memory. By memory I mean at least 2MB of ram. If you only have 1MB DICE will be hard pressed as it is, you will not be able to afford to put anything else into ram and would probably even have to close down your editor while compiling something. * You can make any pure executable in the bin/ directory resident with the Commodore RESIDENT command. The primary DICE binaries are dcc, dcpp, dc1, das, and dlink. Note that copying binaries to ram wastes a lot more memory then simply making them resident! Most of the binaries in bin/ are residentable, most especially the core compiler binaries. * You can copy commonly used header files and link libraries into ram:. Under 2.0 you can setup a multi-assignment to cause the system to look in ram: first and then look on disk, thus keeping your environment relatively seemless. For example, under 2.0 you can: 1> assign DLIB: ram:dlib DCC:DLIB 1> assign DINCLUDE: ram:include DCC:INCLUDE Under 1.3 you can do something quite similar, and that is to modify your DCCOPTS environment variable adding -L and -I options. -L options add new directories to the directory search path used to find link libraries and -I adds new directories to the include search path. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT .BAK FILES .BAK files are archives. I shouldn't really be using lharc/lha because DICE is more a commercial package then anything else so instead I use my backup/restore program with a new compression algorithm of my own design that uses very little memory. There are two programs, dzback and dzrestore, that reside on disk #3. Like everything else they are compressed through ARCH: so to get a copy of them you need to use the path: ARCH:XDCC3/BIN/DZBACK or ARCH:XDCC3/BIN/DZRESTORE. There are three commands: dzback -c directory -o archivefile.bak ARCHIVE A DIRECTORY dzrestore -t archivefile.bak LIST AN ARCHIVE dzrestore archivefile.bak UNPACK AN ARCHIVE You can use these to create, list, and unpack the .bak archives found on the DICE diskettes. (IV) IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON LINK LIBRARIES Not all memory-model combinations for DICE's link libraries are shipped. However, with the library source you can create the missing libraries if you need them. The most-used libraries are shipped and you should not come across very many situations where you might need additional memory model combinations. ONLY SYSTEMS WITH A HARD DRIVE HAVE THE CAPACITY TO REMAKE DICE'S LINK LIBRARIES! * large-data model libraries are not shipped. The accepted method of linking a program with more then 64KB of combined data+bss is to make selected declarations __far so that remaining small-data declartations fit within 64K, as in: __far char HugeArray[100000]; * registered-profiled libraries are not shipped. normal-profiled libraries are shipped. Since linking with profiled libraries is generally done to determine cpu usage in a program it is not really necessary to have all manners of combinations for profiled libraries. The profiled libraries are huge. * The unix-compatible uc*.lib files are lha'd on disk 3, along with the rom*.lib files (used when generating epromable code in non-Amiga projects) and a few others. (V) WARNING ON USING ARCH: FOR FLOPPY BASED USERS * ARCH: IS EXPERIMENTAL.. It works with the DICE master disks, and you are welcome to use ARCH: for personal storage, but ARCH: does not fully mimic the filesystem it overlays and is not tested beyond working with DICE. ARCH: (fsovl-handler) is part of the registered DICE and like everything else may NOT be distributed. * going through ARCH: to access the master diskettes can be confusing, so I reiterate that you must be careful! First of all, ARCH: doesn't do well when the disk runs out of space, you will not get a write error because ARCH: doesn't write out a file until Close(). ARCH: is excellent for providing a fully working environment on three diskettes and without ARCH: I would not have even been able to get a reasonably effective single-floppy installation, but when it comes to using ARCH: as a working environment you have to be damn careful in low disk-space situations. * ARCH: keeps an in-memory decompressed copy for active files so while you can theoretically compress huge filies through arch:, you must be sure you have the memory for the job or ARCH: will not work properly. * A great deal of confusion can occur when you attempt to customize your DICE configuration in a floppy-based environment where ARCH: is used (in a hard disk environment I strongly suggest NOT using ARCH: to make DICE run faster). I will reiterate that certain files are required to not be compressed and while ARCH: will read such files just fine, you have to remember not to MODIFY said files through the ARCH: driver or they will get compresesd. You can determine whether a file is compressed or not by its comment field obtained when you get a directory of the raw volume (not going through the ARCH: driver which filters out the comment field). A Comment field beginning in the form "##xxxxxxxx##" indicates a compressed file. WARNING! If you write out a compressed file from an editor (say, ARCH:DF0/fubar) and want to convert it to a non-compressed file, you have to DELETE the file first before writing it out with "DF0:fubar". The reason is that 2.0 does not clear out the comment field when you re-open a file modes 1006 so the non-compressed file will still have the compression id in the comment field, causing any future access with ARCH: to be improperly interpreted. (VI) COMMON PROBLEMS WITH FLOATING POINT SUPPORT * When you use *printf() to print floating point numbers you must be sure to link with the math library. The option '-lm' to DCC will do this. Otherwise printf() will only produce "<float>" as output. * *scanf() routines only support reading IEEE float's and either IEEE or FFP doubles. I strongly suggest that you NOT use the -ffp option to DCC. (VII) DME QUICK-REFERENCE, LOCATION OF DOCUMENTATION All DICE documentation resides in ARCH:XDCC2/DOC and ARCH:XDCC2/MAN (that is, on disk #2). If you have installed DICE on your hard disk, documentation can be found in DCC:DOC and DCC:MAN. Under 2.0 you can use DCC2: instead of ARCH:DCC2 and DCC3: instead of ARCH:DCC3 as a short cut to the other two disks (DCC1: is a short cut to disk #1 under both 1.3 and 2.0)). DME has quick-reference capabilities which can be immediately used. If you have two floppy drives put disk #1 in one and disk #2 in the other. The boot sequence automatically brings up DME with the README.DOC file, find a phrase 'dcc' in the document somewhere and position the cursor over the 'd', then hit the CONTROL-RIGHT-BRACKET (ctl-]) key. DME should be able to find the reference to dcc in the documentation on disk #2. Single-floppy users can also utilize this capability by putting disk #2 in the floppy drive before hitting the ctl-] key sequence. Hard-drive installed copies should also work seemlessly presuming the documentation is in DCC:MAN and DCC:DOC (as it would be if you followed the hard disk installation instructions).