Dreaming of Brazil - an MP3 Filemanager for the Diamond Rio and Windows NT RELEASE NOTES and LICENSING INFORMATION Please read the license accompanying this software (see license.txt). Make sure you understand it and agree with it or don't use this software. You should also read the remainder of this document completely, as it contains the only thing resembling a manual even remotely. If anything goes wrong with your Rio in connection with this software, you should never assume the Rio is broken. This software is based on reverse engineering. It is not possible to obtain a specification from Diamond, therefore it is more surprising than anything that it is possible at all to communicate with the Rio. Please don't bother Diamond support with problems before having tried the Windows 95 software that accompanies your Rio. ----------------------------------------------------- Troubleshooting Hints: - Try to set the parallel port to EPP mode in the BIOS - If the application gives you timeout errors during transfer -- I have no idea what causes them. If you can reproduce the problem and are willing to try some things out send me an email at rio@parkverbot.org - "Privileged instruction" messages are the result of insufficient privileges. You should have administrator rights in order to use the software. If you don't, but your Administrator likes you, she can install the driver permanently by starting the application once (the Rio is not needed for this). After that the driver "Dev_DirectNT" needs to be set to start automatically. In Windows NT this can be done pretty easily using the "Drivers" Control Panel. In Windows 2000 you can use the driver manager, activate the "View|Show Hidden drivers" option find the driver in the "Non Plug-And-Play drivers" and set the startup mode in the second page of the driver properties. If your Administrator doesn't want to do this (since the driver gives application limited access to the hardware) you are out of luck. Sorry. - If you have any other problems, don't hesitate to let me know. ----------------------------------------------------- Notes for Version 3.0 beta 6 (released on 2000/05/07) This version has the following fixes: - Directory names with only one letter and references to a drives root directory (like C:\) should now work as download locations. [The bug was the usual off-by- one error in a check to see whether the path ended in a backslash. Borland C++ Builder string objects are really pascal strings and start at index 1, not 0 as everywhere else in C++. Thanks to Christopher who analyzed and reported this bug.] - SmartMedia cards inserted into a newer Rio PMP 300 were not recognized correctly. [The old Rio PMP 300 and Rio PMP 300 SE always had 4 internal memory devices (8MB each for the standard model, 16MB each in the SE) and this was assumed to be true in all cases. An earlier fix for the newer Rios did not take this difference into account. Thanks to Scott who reported the problem and helped me pinpoint it.] Everything else should be unchanged. ----------------------------------------------------- Notes for Version 3.0 beta 5 (released on 2000/05/07) This version has the following fixes: (based in parts on patches submitted by Phil K., thanks!) - higher upload and download speed (This fix also means that my automatic speed measurement code is basically useless, since there is almost no busy waiting in the code anymore.) This might also mean that transfers could break on *really* fast machines. (I tried a 600MHz Athlon, no trouble there.) - songs are now put in the right place when dragged into the title list (sorry, but there is still no visual feedback for now). Songs can be added before or after an existing song in the list. Practice aiming right. - The last block of songs was clipped if the size of song was divisible by 32768. This bug was inherited from the SBA code. - Display of download/upload rate now starts lower (instead of higher) than the actual rate. - SmartMedia restore should work better now. The SmartMediafy feature doesn't work for 32MB cards, but with a backup of another card, it should be possible to restore a Rio-formatted SmartMedia card. - Files spanning the gap between two flash chips in the Rio had a corrupt block on the boundary between the two chips. This problem did not exist in the SBA code. (This would either happen when a file was larger than 8/16 MB or just by accident, if it happened to lie on the border.) There is still another problem on these boundaries: the Rio will jump to some other place when it encounters this boundary while scanning backwards through a song. I am still researching the problem, any hints are welcome. Does the SBA have this problem, too? ----------------------------------------------------- Notes for Version 3.0 beta 4 (released on 2000/02/29) This version contains a few bugfixes: - the new Rio PMP300 should now be supported (has only 2 16MB flash devices, instead of 4 8MB devices) - a small bug that let the application hang if no Rio was connected at startup - 32MB (or greater) SM cards should now have the proper size ----------------------------------------------------- Notes for Version 3.0 beta 3 (released on 1999/07/14) This is the first release after some time that gets the full treatment - new splash screen, release notes and so on. This is the third version of Dreaming of Brazil supporting the Special Edition Rio. I have heard different things about these versions, for some people they seem to be working just great, others are having trouble. If you are part of the "having trouble" group, don't hesitate to send me a bug report. What is new in Version 3: The software looks at the Rio and adapts all the Block sizes automatically to the size of the used memory chips. It *should* even work with a custom Rio that uses four 32MB flash chips or one that uses four differently sized chips (although I can't tell for sure, since I didn't try it.) Deleting more than one file no longer deletes the wrong files, this should also prevent the problem with the directory getting invalidated. I have also included limited support for ID3v2 tags at the beginning of the file. These are created eg. by MusicMatch and were confusing the bit-rate display on the Rio. If you got a display of 24Kbps instead of the true data rate, this fix is for you. I have tried to improve the timing of the parallel port, if you are getting a lot of transmission errors let me know about it. If you have this problem, please mention any and all special drivers you have installed, especially if they are for printers or devices attached to the parallel port (like ZIP or JAZ drives, e.g.). ----------------------------------------------------- Notes for Version 2.1.1 (released on 1999/04/05) Minor update: this Version can open playlists and downloads all the files mentioned (as far as they fit into the Rio). It understands .m3u (Winamp) lists and .pls (Sonique and maybe others) Files. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to upload .m3u files into the Rio. Of course you can rename them, if you really want to carry them around in the Rio. If this is too inconvenient for anybody, drop me an email. ----------------------------------------------------- Notes for Version 2.1 (released on 1999/03/26) Some stupid bugs have been fixed: - SmartMedia cards should now work most of the time (sometimes cards that seem to work are not recognized by either the Rio or the RioManager - I have no idea what causes that) - Defect blocks in Rio's memory are recognized and avoided - this is necessary because otherwise the Rio may produce strange sounds or stop playing. - Deleting a song frees all the memory that was used by the song and the directory entry. It was possible to "lose" memory in the Rio by downloading the first song and deleting it immediately. Also new: "Dreaming of Brazil" now includes a utility to backup and restore the contents of your memory cards. It is also possible to rewrite SmartMedia cards so your camera likes them again. Access this function in the context menu of the application or directly from the Start menu. The speed of delay loops is now measured and adjusted to the speed of your computer. This takes place while you stare at the amazing Splash screen at application start. Don't touch that Turbo button afterwards! (Does anyone still have one?) The new style single click explorer interface is now (hopefully for real) only used on machines that have it enabled. Download / Upload speed is displayed along with the percentage. I needed it for debugging, DoB should now be at least as fast as the other Rio Managers when uploading, download may be slower. I hope data is still transferred correctly. Let me know if not, I could create a slower riodll. ----------------------------------------------------- Notes for Version 2.0.2 (released on 1999/02/26) This Version looks like 2.0 in every respect - the only sure way to recognize it is by looking at the file version (Properties|Version) of the "Dreaming of Brazil.exe" and "riodll.dll". The program is at least 2.0.2.2, the dll is at least 1.0.6.2. Two problems are fixed by this release: When the Rio memory is corrupted (because a download has been interrupted, for example) it was not possible to re-initialize it with "Dreaming of Brazil". The program now performs a more reliable check to detect whether a Rio is connected and lets the user initialize the Rio. Also, when the table of contents doesn't contain sane values, garbage would be displayed in the list of songs. This has been fixed to just show a message that the directory doesn't look good. ----------------------------------------------------- Notes for Version 2.0 (released on 1999/02/21) This is the third public version of Dreaming of Brazil. *** Please remove any previous version of this software from the computer before installing this version *** This version adds support for the SmartMedia cards that Diamond Rio supports. I have only tested one 8MB card, but I hope that it will work with cards between 4MB and 32 MB. The size of the card is automatically detected. Usage: for access to the SmartMedia card check the "external:" Checkbox in the UI. All Buttons apply to the currently selected part of the Rio. I'm not quite sure how an uninitialized card affects the program. The initialize Button should work, though. If it doesn't, drop me a note. I have also fixed another problem with downloading files where changes to the selection in the listbox would affect the download while it was already going. The List of Songs is always in the new "point to select" mode, that the internet explorer introduced. (I think the Explorer settings do not affect this, if they do, you might consider telling me.) Has anybody noticed the fact that the panel on the right can be made to toggle between a hidden and the normal mode by double-clicking it? This version also remembers most settings and attempts to be rather smart. The first time you run the application it tries to find your "My Documents" folder and lets both upload and download boxes start there. Afterwards it just remembers where you last up- /downloaded from/to and suggests those directories as source or destination. If you change the windowsize too much and want the old size back, try to make the window riculously small and then quit and restart the application. Harald (rio@parkverbot.org) ----------------------------------------------------- Notes for Version 1.2 (released on 1999/02/18) This is the second public version of my Rio Manager for NT. The software is supposed to work on Windows NT and 95/98, it is only tested under NT. Installation: Run the downloaded DoB_installer.exe. Follow instructions. Usage: Just start up the Application by chosing it from the start menu. Upload Files by dragging them from Explorer or by using the "Upload..." button or the context menu (right click in most places). Download stuff from the Rio onto your computer. At least one file needs to be selected for the "Download..." button to work. You are asked to chose a directory to put files into. (I was to lazy to remember what you chose here, you'll have to do it again next time.) Delete files from the Rio memory by selecting them and pressing "Delete" - either the button or the menuitem in the context menu. Delete all files in one go by chosing Initialize. Take Care! You will never be asked for confirmations. (I think the asking gets pretty useless anyway, since most people will click "Yes" without even reading the message.) Refresh re-reads the contents of the Rio. When you didn't have it connected to lpt1: (port 0x378) and changed the port address you need to push this one. Usually you will be shown the addresses of parallel ports attached to the computer while it starts up. I recommend connecting the adapter to lpt1: since the software doesn't remember what you put in the "port" field and puts 0x378 there when it is next started. Titles can be rearranged by drag-and-drop, you can have non-continuous selections (like, songs 1, 12 and 15). Experiment a bit and you will see how it works (I hope). ----------------------------------------------------- What is this Software made of? Pure recycled bits, of course! :-) The software has three components: the riodll.dll, directnt.sys and the rio_gui.exe riodll.dll is a workover of the SBA (http://www.world.co.uk/sba) software for the Diamond Rio. directnt.sys is a driver for direct access to the hardware on NT. This is taken from an article in the german c't magazine. rio_gui.exe is my GUI that sits on top of the DLL. The riodll takes care of using the device driver and communication with the Diamond Rio. It is possible to drag songs around in the main window, but nothing happens when you do. It is possible to configure the parallel port by entering its port address in the edit field named "port". After you change its contents you need to press the Refresh button, in order to display the contents of the Rio. Enjoy! Harald (rio@parkverbot.org)