Commodore A1060 Sidecar User manual

Personal Computer

AMIGA 1060

SIDECAR

USER MANUAL

Commodore

Table of Contents

1. Introduction.......................................................................... 3

1.1 Attaching the Sidecar to the Amiga

...............................

2. Activating the PC from the Workbench

..........................

3. Activating the PC from a C I

..........................................

4. Emulating the PC

................................................................

4.1 Display modes

......................................................................

4.2 Keyboard............................................................................... 9

4.3 Parallel Port..........................................................................10

5. The PC Display Windows

...................................................

5.1 Borders.................................................................................. 12

5.2 Size of the window

.............................................................

5.3 Number of Text colors

.......................................................

5.4 Changing colors

...................................................................

5.5 Multiple windows.................................................................15

5.6 Display priority.....................................................................16

6. Pulldown menus of the PC-window

.................................

Appendix A : DIP switches

......................................................

Appendix B : Expansion slots for cards

................................

Appendix C : Connecting external disk drives

.....................

Appendix D : Installing a hard disk

......................................

Appendix E : The 8087 numeric co-processor.....................33

Appendix F : RAM expansion for the P C ............................35

Appendix G : RAM expansion for the Amiga

......................

PICTURE 2

1 POWER SWITCH 4 EXPANSION PORT

2 POWER CORD 5 MOUSE CONNECTOR

3 FLOPPY DISK CONNECTOR 6 JOYSTICK CONNECTOR

PICTURE 1

1. Introdu tion

Welcome to the Commodore Sidecar, a system that combines

hardware and software to give complete IBM-PC compatibility

to your Amiga 1000 computer. This brief tutorial describes how

to set up and use the Sidecar. It presumes that you have already

put together your Amiga and that you know how to operate it.

Please refer to the manual "Introduction to Amiga” for

information about setting up and operating your Amiga.

NOTE: The Sidecar can only be used on an Amiga expanded to

512 KB by means of installing the memory expansion cartridge

(A 1050) in the front of the main computer housing.

This document is not a tutorial on using the IBM-PC. For

information on the correct usage of the PC, you will have to

study the documentation that comes with the IBM-PC operating

system and any application software you choose to use with

your Sidecar.

If you are wondering what IBM software will work with your

Sidecar, the answer is simple: all IBM-PC software will work

with the Sidecar.

1.1 Attaching the Sidecar to the Amiga

WARNING: Before you start, you must make sure that your

Amiga is powered off.

The Sidecar plugs into the side of the Amiga. It fits onto both

the Amiga expansion port and the connectors where the mouse

is attached. The expansion port and connectors are located on

the right side of the Amiga box (when facing the front of the

Amiga).

To attach the Sidecar, first you have to clear the way: unplug

the mouse, and remove the cap that covers the Amiga expansion

port. There’s a little slot beneath the cap, where you put your

fingertip to pry the cap off. Apply gentle pressure and the cap

will come loose. Save this cap in case you ever want to detach

the Sidecar from your Amiga. Next, place the Sidecar to the

right of the Amiga and line up the Sidecar’s plugs with the

Amiga’s connectors. The face of the Sidecar should be flush

with the face of the Amiga. When all the Sidecar plugs are

lined up with Amiga connectors, slide the Sidecar gently but

firmly into the Amiga sockets.

You do not have to run a new power cable to the Sidecar,

because the Sidecar has a convenient power-cord extender.

Notice that a cable comes out of the back of the Sidecar. This is

the power-cord extender. Find the cable that runs from the

power outlet to your Amiga, unplug this cable from the Amiga

and plug it into the Sidecar. Then plug the Sidecar’s power-cord

extender into the Amiga, in the socket where the power cable

had been attached to the Amiga. Electricity flows into the

Sidecar, and then through the extender to the Amiga.

On the front of the Sidecar cabinet are the connectors for the

mouse and other controllers. Plug the mouse into the left

connector.

Now you can turn on the power for both the Sidecar and the

Amiga. The power switch for the Amiga is on the left side of

the Amiga, and the power switch for the Sidecar is on the back

of the Sidecar. Turn on the power switch for the Amiga.

Because the Amiga gets its power through the Sidecar, the

Amiga won’t power up until you turn on the power to the

Sidecar. Now turn on the power switch for the Sidecar.

Then you go through the normal start-up procedure for your

Amiga, which includes using your own Kickstart and

Workbench disks to initiate the Workbench display.

BEWARE: You must never turn on power to the Sidecar unless

the Amiga is already powered up. Doing so can seriously

damage the Amiga hardware. This is especially important to

note if you do not use the Sidecar power-cord extender and you

choose instead to have separate power cables for the Amiga and

the Sidecar. If you follow the normal procedure of plugging the

Sidecar power-cord extender into the Amiga, you can prevent

this problem entirely.

2. Opening the Side ar display programs

When you put the Sidecar disk into one of the disk drives, an

icon for the disk will appear on the Workbench screen. Double

click on the Sidecar disk icon to open the disk’s top drawer. In

the top drawer you will see, among other things, two icons that

look like graphical representations of IBM Personal Computers.

These two icons allow you to open programs that emulate the

two IBM-PC display types: Monochrome and Color.

Notice that one icon is in two colors and has the words "PC

Mono" beneath it. This icon opens the IBM-PC Monochrome

display emulator.The other icon is in 4 colors and is labelled

"PC Color. It opens the program that emulates the IBM-PC

Color display. To open either display, double-click on the

appropriate icon.

When you first unpackage your Sidecar, it is configured to

power up in Monochrome mode, so if you double-click on the

Monochrome icon you will see the diagnostic messages that

come up when the Sidecar is powering up. If you double-click

on the Color icon, you will see a blank window. The displays

will stay like this until you put some software into the Sidecar

disk drive.

If you want to use the colour PC screen, no system messages

will appear. When the screen is opened the cursor will be in the

home position and you must type the following ’blind’:

<RETURN <RETURN MODE C080 <RETURN

Then the DOS prompt ( A> ) will appear and you are ready to

enter commands in the usual fashion.

At this point the Sidecar is ready to run IBM-PC software. You

should put a PC system disk of your choice into the Sidecar’s

floppy disk drive. It might be a PC-DOS disk, an MS-DOS

disk, a CP/M disk, or any IBM-PC application.

3. A tivating the PC mode from a CLI

On the Workbench disk that is supplied with the Sidecar there

are two programs that activate the PC mode. To use these from

the C I, install the Sidecar and turn on the sytem as described

above. Insert the KICKSTART disk in the drive and when the

Workbench prompt appears, insert the disk containing the

Sidecar software. When the disk Icon appears, double click on it

to open a workbench.Next open a C I window by opening the

system drawer and clicking on the C I icon. If you wish to

operate the Sidecar as a monochrome PC type :

RUN 'PC MONO' <RETURN

If you wish to operate as a colour PC, type:

RUN 'PC COLOR' <RETURN

You can then proceed as described above.

4. Emulating the PC

This section describes some of the IBM-PC characteristics and

how they are emulated by the Sidecar.

4.1 Display Modes

The PC has two standard display modes: Monochrome and Color

Display. Both of these display modes are available on the

Sidecar by using the PC Mono and PC Color Display programs.

Running one of these programs is similar to turning on a video

monitor attached to the PC, except that the PC requires a

separate monitor for each mode while the Sidecar requires only

one monitor. The Amiga conveniently creates windows and

screens which allow multiple display types (such as the IBM-PC

display types) to appear on a single monitor.

The IBM-PC Monochrome mode normally displays only one

color (green) on a dark background. Programs can display an

intensified version of the one color, and can also reverse the

color with the background so that dark characters appear on a

color background.

The Sidecar Monochrome display emulates this mode without

these chromatic restrictions. In the Sidecar Monochrome mode,

the color of the text, the intensified text and the background

are independent of each other, and you are able to modify these

colors in any way you choose by selecting the CO OR menu

option (see the MENUS section). Normally the text of the

Monochrome display appears in a window on the Workbench

screen, although the Monochrome display window will move to

its own screen if you choose to use fewer colors than the

normal 4 colors of the text display.

In the IBM-PC Color Display mode, both text and graphics can

be displayed. Text can be rendered in up to 16 colors, and

graphics can be up to 4 colors. The various Color display modes

of the PC are generally incompatible with the display

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