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(c) Copyright 1990, M. A. D. Software, All Rights Reserved.					004161

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We receive queries about our products from time to time and there are some
commonly-asked questions.  This document discusses these issues so
that you can be better-informed on the capabilities and limitations of
our products, and be able to determine which are right for you.

We thank you for your interest in our products and look forward to hearing from you.


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Q:	How does HBUILD6 work?

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A:	HBUILD6 replaces the boot track on 
logical drive 0 (which must be on head 0 on the primary hard disk drive)
with one that contains code capable of booting from the hard disk drive.
When the operating system was originally moved to the hard disk from
the distribution floppy, the BACKUP utility simply copied the boot
track that is used to boot from a floppy drive, and placed it on the
hard disk.  Model 4P owners have to hold down the F2 key when booting
so that the system will not try to use the boot-from-floppy boot track
that was deposited on the hard disk drive. 


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Q:	Is HBUILD6 all I need to boot from the hard disk?

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A:	It depends on what type of system you have.  The Model 4P boot ROM
was designed with hard disk boot-capability in mind.  If you have a Model
4P and a Radio Shack (Western Digital) hard disk controller, then the
HBUILD6 utility is the only item needed. 

If you have a Model 4P and a MISOSYS disk controller (XEBEC or Adaptec),
then the Model 4P boot-ROM must be replaced.

If you have a Model 4 or 4D, the boot ROM must be replaced with one that
knows how to operate a Radio Shack or MISOSYS hard disk system. 

All you have to do is specify the correct part number when you order
HBUILD6 and you will get the software and the ROM (if required) that
your system needs.

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***	Model 4 owners must also make sure they have the correct "A" ROM
in their systems.
The method for determining if you have an old "A" ROM is in the XROM/XDROM
description in the catalog.


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Q:	I have Radio Shack and MISOSYS hard disk systems that I use one at
a time on my computer.  Can I switch back and forth and still
have boot capability?

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A:	The code in the ROM is completely different for the two disk
controllers.  The code that HBUILD6 places in the hard disk
boot track is also written to talk to a single type of controller. 
Both cannot be supported at the same time.  You could boot off the hard disk
automatically with one disk system and continue to use a start-up diskette
for the other.


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Q:	Once my system can boot off the hard disk, how do I force the system
to boot off a floppy?

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A:	On a Model 4 or 4D, the XROM will always attempt to boot from 
floppy drive 0 first.  If there is no floppy present or the drive door
is open, it will then boot off of the hard disk drive.  This identical
to how most MS-DOS systems work.

On a Model 4P, the boot ROM always tries to boot off the hard disk first.
If you don't want that, press the F2 key as you have done in the past.


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Q:	How much memory does HBUILD6 require?

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A:	HBUILD6 requires no more memory than your hard disk drive is using
now.  HBUILD6 simply arranges for your hard disk driver to be loaded when
the system starts to boot instead of later as part of the sysgen configuration.


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Q:	Does HBUILD6 expect certain drivers to be used and do they have to
be placed in a particular location?

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A:	The hard disk driver can either be in low or high memory, but it
must be either the first driver loaded in low memory (lowest address) or
the first driver loaded in high memory (highest address).  If your system
is not already configured this way, it can be with minimal effort.  A
utility is included with HBUILD6 that can be used to force the hard disk
driver into high memory.  (Systems that used the automatic installation
program provided by Radio Shack are correctly configured.)

The currently-supported hard disk drivers are:
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	TRSHD6/DCT	(Radio Shack hard disk drivers)
	RSHARD6/DCT	(MISOSYS hard disk drivers for Radio Shack hardware)
	MSCSI6/DCT	(MISOSYS hard disk drivers for MISOSYS hardware)

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Other types of drivers are not supported at this time.  (We are interested
in hearing which ones should be provided.)


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Q:	Can HBUILD6 and XROM/XDROM be used with the XLR8er adapter?

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A:	The XLR8er adapter is ignored by HBUILD6.  It does not care if
it is present or not.  However, the standard Houde accelerator patches
conflict with HBUILD6.  To avoid this problem, a utility called XLR8SET
is included with HBUILD6 that provides the same improvements that the
Houde patches offer, but uses less than 40 bytes of low memory.  (The
standard Houde patches use over 125 bytes.)

If you have a Model 4 or 4D system, you must indicate that your system
has a XLR8er adapter.  One version of our XROM/XDROMs is designed to be used
with a different 64180-based accelerator that has to be programmed
differently than the XLR8er adapter.


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Q:	Can HBUILD6 and XROM/XDROM be used with a SmartWatch?

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A:	HBUILD6 does not care if a SmartWatch is present.  The sole task
of HBUILD6 is to start the boot process and that code runs for less than
a second.

The XROM/XDROM also do not care about the presence of the SmartWatch as
they are normal EPROMs.  (The code contained within these parts does
not access the SmartWatch.)  However, the combination of a SmartWatch
and a XLR8er adapter has been reported to cause problems.  The problems
occur when accessing the SmartWatch.  The problem is not unique to the
XROM/XDROM, and happens with certain manufacturers masked ROMs straight
from Radio Shack.  The problem is caused by the XLR8er adapter accessing
the ROM too quickly.  Although most people have put faster RAM in their
machines, the ROMs remain as fairly slow devices.  This can be resolved
by using the XLR8SET utility to delay setting the XLR8er adapter to its
maximum operating speed until the clock has been read.

Original Model 4 systems only:
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In addition to the above example of the XLR8er running faster than the
ROMs (and the SmartWatch) can handle, there are some non-Radio Shack
modifications that defeat the wait states that are generated in original
Model 4 systems to ensure that accesses to the RAMs and ROMs (and the
SmartWatch) are long enough to meet the timing specifications of these
parts.  The intent of the modifications was to remove 1 or 2 wait states
that are present in the Model 4 systems (not in 4D or 4P) after faster
RAM was installed.  However, the bypassed hardware was also supposed
to delay access to the ROM's and this function is still needed.  If
your system has these modifications, we cannot guarantee that your system
will work correctly with a EPROM installed instead of a masked ROM.

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