Spectrum/24 for Windows VL driver notes Driver software for the Spectrum/24 VL card for Windows 3.1. All files located in this directory are compressed into a self extracting archive using the PKZIP file compression software. No software is required to de-compress these files. After your files have been downloaded, simply use the following command to extract the files: SPECVL -D Example: SPECVL -D A: The example above will place the unziped files on to your A: drive.The "-d" option will extract the original directory hierarchy on to the designated drive. Filename Size Date Description of File Contents ============ ======== ======== ============================================ SPECVL.EXE 307569 07-01-94 | Spectrum/24 VL Disk Version 7/1/94 | This is the entire Spectrum/24 VL Windows | installation disk. ============================================================================== Windows 95 Note The Spectrum/24 VL board will not be updated beyond this driver version, nor will it be supported under Windows 95. Windows 95 expects a user-accessible base MMIO address, and since the Spectrum/24 VL board pre-dates these requirements by several years and offers no MMIO interface, it will not be possible to retrofit or upgrade it to run under Windows 95. ============================================================================== A Windows NT 3.5 compatible driver for the Spectrum/24 VL card is also available. ============================================================================== SuperMATCH Spectrum/24 VL Release Notes 29 March 1994 These release notes contain the latest information about operating your new Spectrum/24 for Microsoft Windows graphics display card and software. -------- Release Notes --------- 1. Requirements The Spectrum/24 drivers require a 80386 based CPU or better, and are fully supported only in Windows 386 Enhanced mode. 2. Unnamed floppy prompt If you attempt to install the Spectrum/24 software from your B: floppy, you will see the prompt "Please insert the .", due to a bug in the Windows SETUP program. Type "B:\" (or the name of the disk drive holding the Spectrum/24 install disk), then click OK. 3. Third-party "shell" programs If you are using a third-party shell program, such as the Norton Desktop for Windows, and you experience problems while installing Spectrum/24 software, refer to the detailed section later in this file. 4. Applications with difficulties at 24 bits - The Windows Program Manager will cause errors if you attempt to add applications to a large group. See the detailed section later in this file. - The Microsoft Visual C++ setup program attempts to create a large group and will issue two errors. See the detailed section later in this file. - The "Aquatic Realm" and "Swan Lake" screen saver modules in After Dark 2.0 display strange bitmaps on devices with 24 bits of color depth. Release 2.0a of After Dark solves this problem. Contact Berkeley Systems Technical Support at 1-800-877-5535 for this upgrade. ========================== -------- Details --------- ========================== This file contains notes and information relating to the Windows driver installation and usage which might not have made it into the release documentation. 1. Restrictions --------------- The Spectrum/24 drivers require an 80386 CPU or better, and are fully supported only in Windows 3.1 386 Enhanced mode. Our experience has shown that the driver operates correctly in Windows Standard mode only if an extended memory manager (such as EMM386 or QEMM) is NOT used. Spectrum/24 will not operate at all in Windows 3.0 Real mode, and neither should you. Ordinarily, this does not present a problem. Most 386 users use Enhanced mode. However, when you perform an initial Windows installation, you must select a VGA device as your initial graphics adapter when performing an initial Windows installation. Then, once Windows has been installed, you may use the Spectrum/24 Setup utility to change to the Spectrum/24 adapter. 2. Windows 3.0 -------------- SuperMac does not support operation of the Spectrum/24 VL card and driver under Windows 3.0. 3. Installation Notes --------------------- . Locating the frame buffer window Spectrum/24 VL needs a 16MB window in your memory space to access its frame buffer. The frame buffer can be located at any 16MB boundary in the address space. The installation program will scan your address space in an attempt to locate available locations. In our experience, the install program rarely has trouble finding a free location; further, almost any address higher than your physical memory will work. Because of the nature of the VL bus, however, the installation program is not always able to locate a free spot, and will occasionally diagnose as "free" a location which has some other device. The following suggestions will assist you in installing the device. There are relatively few devices which live in the very high address space. In general, you can choose almost any location above your physical RAM. F000 0000 through FF00 0000 are good choices. If these are unsuccessful, try in this order, 7F00 0000, then 3F00 0000, then . Unnamed floppy prompt Because of a bug in the Windows SETUP utility, if you are installing Spectrum/24 from your B: floppy, you might be prompted with the particularly unfriendly message "Please insert the ." If you receive this prompt, type in "B:\", or the path to the floppy disk drive holding the Spectrum/24 install disk if you are using a different drive. . Third-party "Shell" Programs The Spectrum/24 installation and setup program communicates with the Windows Program Manager to install the Spectrum/24 group and program icons. Some third-party shells, such as Norton's Desktop for Windows, do not fully comply with the Program Manager DDE interface, and will produce a system error during the Spectrum/24 installation. To work around this problem, either change the SHELL line in your SYSTEM.INI file to read "SHELL=PROGMAN.EXE" and restart Windows, or launch PROGMAN.EXE from your preferred shell. Then, restart the Spectrum/24 installation. 4. Applications with difficulty at 24 bits per pixel ---------------------------------------------------- Some applications have difficulty operating on a true-color device with 24 bits per pixel. Here are some of the applications which are known to have difficulty. . Program Manager All of the bitmaps for all of the icons within a Program Manager group must fit within a single 64K segment. Because of this, at 24 bits per pixel a single group can hold at most 19 icons. Attempting to add the 20th icon to a group results in a message box indicating "Insufficient Memory to complete the operation." The only solution to this is to split the group into two smaller groups. . Microsoft Visual C++ As one of the last steps in its setup process, Microsoft Visual C++ creates a program group with 22 icons. Because of the Program Manager limitation described above, the addition of last two icons will generate errors. Microsoft is aware of this problem and will be issuing a corrective update. In the interim, one solution is to create another group by hand called "Visual C++ Doc", then move (using drag-and-drop) all the documentation related icons to this new group. Then you may add the two icons which fail: MFCNOTES.HLP and MFCSAMP.HLP, both in the MSVC\HELP . Berkeley Systems After Dark 2.0 The "Aquatic Realm" and "Swan Lake" screen saver modules in After Dark 2.0 display very strange bitmaps on devices with 24 bits of color depth. Release 2.0a of After Dark solves this problem. Contact Berkeley Systems Technical Support at 1-800-877-5535 for this upgrade. 5. Usage of I/O Ports ---------------------- In some cases, in can be useful to know exactly which I/O ports are required by your peripheral devices. This can be especially useful for isolating unusual conflicts. The Spectrum/24 VL card uses 22 I/O ports. These ports are not remappable. The ports are: 01D0 01D1 05D0 05D1 09D0 09D1 0DD0 0DD1 11D0 11D1 41D0 41D1 51D0 51D1 81D0 81D1 91D0 91D1 C1D0 C1D1 D1D0 D1D1 Spectrum/24 VL requires no IRQs nor DMA lines. Technical Support For technical support for this product, you may call Radius Technical Support at: 1-408-541-5700. For priority access to technical support for assistance with this product, please call Radius Technical Support at: 1-900-555-6275, or 1-800-573-6275. Also virtually all of the information about this product, including compatibility and common questions and answers can be found, free of charge, on our technical faxback system at (800) 332-9225.