MegaPatch (MP3) News

28/10/2000...
MegaPatch Programming information
Wolfgang Grimm has put on his site information needed to programme in MegaPatch, it is in HTML format and in German, but thats should not present any problem ;) It is also available in my

26/10/2000...
MegaPatch news:
For all, who want to program with MegaPatch, there will be soon a programming package, which includes a new version of MegaAssembler and many sources of MegaPatch. It will be possible to program MegaPatch extensions and applications.

The customers which have ordered MP3 directly from Megacom, will get the updates per email like you. The others, these are only the USA customers, will get the updates directly from the developer in USA (Merlancia), they could also contact me per email to get the latest update. In a few weeks there will be a update site on my homepage. I will make a new setup for updating MP3, so everybody will get the update directly from my page (today the update is always a full version and so I can not put it to my site...)

The new WinDesk V1.0
(state: 04/14/00)As a new DeskTop for MP3 WinDesk is today in development state. This new DeskTop will set standards with GEOS/MP3 relating to operating comfort, functions and speed. It was optical and functional adapted to known PC-DeskTops. In 128-mode you could furthermore jump between the VIC- (40-character) and VDC-mode (80-character with colour). WinDesk exists only in one version for C64 and C128. The menus are auto-active, this means that sub-menus will open automatically when you put the mouse pointer over the according main-menu.

WinDesk-Error-Handling:
With this special WinDesk-Error-Handling-Routine all errors from IO-operations or user-mistakes will be intercepted.

26/03/2000...
MP3 and 64Net
The Geos.Editor apart from reading all the CMD Real Time Clocks, it now reads the 64Net Clock in the PC.

04/12/99...
A new Version of TopDesk V4.1 "R0.06" is available. This fixes the small bug when exiting Geos with TopDesk in another Partition and TopDesk was not found.
And the saving of the "TopDesk.win" file is now saved to the correct Boot Partition.

26/11/99...
The update of MP3-128 contains accelerated access to RAM expansion units, in the 80-character mode the access to RAM expansions will be at 2Mhz, This is a speed up of nearly 20%.

Markus Kanet works on the new DeskTop for MegaPatch and GeoDos V3.
Changes are being made so that the "Flash8" can be used with the MegaPatch system.

Wolfgang Grimm is working to include the 64net (use a PC as a HD for our Commodore's with a parallel cable connection) into the MegaPatch system. There will be a special page for this on his site.

1. MP3 now supports the parallel cable for CMD-HD with RamLink. Probably Fastest! access to CMD-HD under GEOS!
2. Native-RAM disk driver for SCPU/RAMCard up to 16MB.
3. Optional use of two or more DACC-areas of a RamLink also under MegaPatch128.
4. 64net-access with SCPU with 20MHz is now possible. With MP3-64 (only with TopDesk V4.1 R05).

21/11/99...
I am currently testing the new MP3-128 that supports the Parallel Cable. The Drivers used, HD-1581 and RL-1581 with a SuperCPU at 20Mhz. The test's were done using TopDesk128 V4.1 "R0.05" 51 files 699k in total.

    Function/Mode        MP3-128/PPort  
    File Copy RL-HD         157s
    File Copy HD-HD         231s
    Validate RL             4s
    Validate HD             32s

03/11/99...
As well as the the new Parallel Port drivers (All Partition Formats) A new version of geodos (GeoDOS3) is under way. It has been mentioned to me that the new GeoDOS3 will require some of the DACC.

02/11/99...
A new Native Driver for the SuperRam, allowing the full use of the 16 Meg if you have it installed.
Example..

This new driver will function independantly of the Ramlink DACC allowing a total of 15600k in the SuperRam to be used.
However if you choose to use the SuperRam as the DACC, then only 11540k will be available to use as a Ramdrive. This is because MP3 uses the First and Last Banks for internal functions, such as the Taskmanager, the File Selection box and so on..
You can create an additional ramdrive in the reserved 4 meg though, as in the current version of MP3.

02/11/99...
Speed Comparison Test's with the new Parallel Port Drivers.. The test was done using GeoDos V2.951 as the Desktop, 46 files of around 698K. Data supplied by Markus Kanet.

    Function/Mode        MP3/PPort      Wheels    MP3/standard
 
    File Copy RL-HD        157s          188s       263s
    File Copy HD-HD        248s          280s       400s
    Validate RL            2s            13s        2s
    Validate HD            42s           44s        50

01/10/99...
The latest version of TopDesk128 V4.1 "R0.04" (for MP3 only) fixes the small bug when Manually setting the Clock.
You can now see and copy between CMD SubDir's. To create SubDirs use GeoDos.

Werner Weicht has created Patches for MP3 (MegaPatch) the geos upgrade to enable us to use 4 Disk Drives and improved operation with the TaskManager. These Patches are for all of the "main" geos Applications, calc, file, pub, write etc.

The Y2K Patches are now ready!!. If you set your clock to the year 2000 you will see it defaults back to 1900. These Patches will fix this, so when you use the "date" command in geoWrite it will print out correctly. The Y2K Patches can be used in geos and MP3 and Wheels.