Catweasel online manual for the Amiga versions

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You may have noticed that a standard PC-drive can't read the reverse-sides of 1541- disks (we all flipped the disks, didn't we?). This should not be considered as a bug, because the standard PC-diskdrives need the index-hole to check whether the disk is spinning or not. If you flip the disk, the index-hole is in the wrong position, and the drive doesn't recognise the disk's rotation, therefore it won't enable the data line. Only the special disks had a second index-hole, these disks can also be used on the B- side with PC-drives.

If you want to read the reverse sides of your 1541-disks, read the manual on how to hack your diskdrive.

How to open a shell

A Shell or a CLI (= command line interface) is a window on the Amiga's workbench. In this window you can start commands, just like in MS-DOS™. You can find the Shell-icon in the system-drawer of the workbench, just double-click the icon and the window will show up.
If you're not used to using the Shell, take a look at the "Amiga DOS" manual of your Amiga. This manual is shipped with all Amiga-systems and OS upgrade kits. If you don't have the new Kickstart manuals, look at chapter 6 of the Workbench 1.3 manual. Please understand that we're unable to give an introduction to using the shell here, as this would go beyond the scope of this manual.

This document © Copyright 2000 Jens Schönfeld, individual Computers.