textfiles/apple/DOCUMENTATION/unify

The Screamer
June 1, 1987     

Unify - A Unidisk Checksum Utility version 1.1
----------------------------------------------

Well this new Unify 1.1 has several errors corrected in it and also some
needed improvements. 

The main function of this program is to be able to check and make sure
that the disk you have received (via modem) is exactly like the original
that was sent to you. Although Unify 1.0 was not used often, I hope that
this one fairs better as I have had many many bad transfers - if I would
have had a UNI.CHK.xxxx file then I would have been able to find this
out after unpacking and then get the "bad blocks" over again. 

New features: 
-------------

 - Fully supports multiple drives, and auto-ejects disks for single
drive
   users. 
 - Now has the capability to Save and Patch a range of blocks, simply
specify
   the starting and ending and Unify will do the rest, including
prompting you
   for disk swaps if necessary. 
 - Now a "SYS" (SYSTEM) file. 
 - Faster in speed and also now has the option do not display the blocks
and
   checksums to even further the speed. Approximately three times
faster. 

Options: 
-------- The following documentation will describe, in detail, how to
operate Unify. 

Main Menu options: 

 [S] Save a Block
 [P] Patch a Block
 [U] Unify a disk
 [A] Auto-Unify a disk
 [C] Change slots, drives
 [Q] Quit

Save a Block: 
------------- Upon selecting this option you will be asked if you wish
to [S] Save Selected Blocks or a [R] Range of Blocks. If you only wish
to save single blocks or non-consecutive blocks then select "S", if you
want to save a consecutive range of blocks (ie: from 100-110) then
select "R" to save a range. After choosing an option you will be
prompted for the block number to save (or the starting block number and
the ending block number for a range).  Unify will then read in the block
you specified from the source drive and save it under the name of
UNI.BLK.xxxx where xxxx is the block number on the target drive. 

Patch a Block: 
-------------- Upon selecting this option you will also be asked if you
wish to [S] Save Selected Blocks or a [R] Range of Blocks. The Selected
Blocks and Range of Blocks are exactly as mentioned in the Save a Block
option. After choosing an option you will be prompted for the block
number to patch (or the starting block number and ending block number
for a range). Unify will then read in the UNI.BLK.xxxx file from the
source drive, where xxxx is the block number, and then patch the target
disk. 

Unify a Disk: 
------------- This is perhaps the most important option of Unify, it
allows you to Unify a disk and then saves a file UNIFY.name which holds
all of the checksums for each block of the disk. This is done so that
you can upload the UNIFY.name file along with the ware and when people
download it they can use Unify to check to see if their copy matches
your copy (Auto-Unifying). If you do not want to save a UNIFY.name file
then press ESCAPE. When selected Unify asks you if you wish to output
the blocks and checksums to the screen, if you select yes then each
block and corresponding checksums will be printed out on your screen, if
you select no Unify will tell you to please wait and will Unify the disk
without printing any blocks or checksums to the screen (selecting no
will speed up Unifying the disk). 

Auto-Unify a disk: 
------------------ This option is for checking a disk against a
UNIFY.name file. If you suspect you have a bad copy then use Unify to
Auto-Unify your disk against the UNIFY.name file and Unify will notify
you of any non-matching blocks (or if you're copy is perfect). If there
are some bad blocks then you may print them out to any slot or your
screen (slot 0) by pressing the slot to dump to.  The output is
formatted for 80 column printers, and can also print out to an 80 column
card as well. 

Change slots and drives: 
------------------------ This option allows you to change the slots and
drives Unify is set up for. SRC denotes the source and TRG denotes the
target, the source is always the first asked for disk. A RAMdrive works
fine with Unify, but Unify does not support subdirectories. All files,
being saved or loaded, must be on the main root directory (ie: not
within any subdirectories). 

Quit: 
----- Well this is pretty self-explanatory, when selected Unify will
either exit into BASIC (if BASIC.SYSTEM has been loaded) or will exit
via a ProDOS quit call if BASIC.SYSTEM has not been loaded. 

Closing Comments: 
----------------- Unify works on ALL Apple's which can handle ProDOS, if
you cannot display lowercase simply press ^A at the main menu and
everything will then be formatted for uppercase only.  Unify works with
just about all versions of ProDOS (including ProDOS 8) and also works
perfect with Diversi-Cache for speeding up disk access. 

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