9. Known bugs and problems

There are some known bugs and limitations in OpenCBM:

• cbmcopy is still known to have some protocol races, especially with 1581 drives; thus, it does not always work reliably.
• cbmctrl detect as well as cbmcopy and d64copy do not recognize the drive type if some custom ROM is used. Whenever this happens, use --drive-type for cbmcopy and d64copy. Furthermore, I would be happy if you could send me a ROM dump of the floppy ROM so I can update the drive type recognition for some future version of OpenCBM.
• Windows with XA1541/XM1541: If you have any other devices connected to your parallel port, you cannot use them as long as OpenCBM is installed. In this case, either remove OpenCBM whenever you want to access that other device, or install OpenCBM with instcbm --lock=no and make sure to issue cbmctrl lock before accessing the drive, and cbmctrl unlock afterwards.
• Windows with XA1541/XM1541: No third party PCI or PCIe parallel port card does work with OpenCBM on Windows currently; to say it with other words: there is no proof or positive report that any third party PCI or PCIe parallel port card does or did work with OpenCBM on Windows. The exact failure reason is not known to date, but we are investigating further since that feature is a must, when integrated parallel ports were removed from mainstream mainboards in the future. Thus, it would be best if you use XU1541 or XUM1541 adapters instead of XA1541 and XM1541!
• Linux with XA1541/XM1541: PCI or PCIe based parallel port cards might work, but there is no guarantee for this. Thus, it would be best if you use XU1541 or XUM1541 adapters instead of XA1541 and XM1541!
• All with XA1541/XM1541: An XA1541 or XM1541 cable will definitely not work with a USB-to-parallel-port adapter. These are commonly used to connect parallel port printers to modern PCs. However, neither do they offer full access to all parallel port lines, as it is needed for the XA1541/XM1541 cables, nor do they allow for the tight timing needed for XA1541/XM1541 cables.
• Windows: The Star Commander is supported on 32 bit versions of Windows. For this, a special VXD driver is installed. The Star Commander then uses the VXD to communicate with the drive. This does not work for 64 bit Windows variants, though.