;-------------------------------------------------------------------------
; This is the README.TXT file for SMARTCD CD-ROM cache device driver
; 
; (C) Copyright FarStone corp. 1993, All rights reserved.
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Preface :
=========

  Have you an experience running MS-Windows(TM) without disk caching drivers
(without SMARTDRV command in AUTOEXEC.BAT) ? What a terrible hard work for
hard disk in this situation ? 

  How about your CD-ROM drives ?

  It seems to be over loaded when running MS-Windows (TM) multimedia 
applications or titles (such as Microsoft(R) BookShelf(TM)). 

  SMARTCD (TM) CD-ROM cache device driver is target to resolve this problem.
SMARTCD can easily increase CD-ROM performance by 2 to more than 30 times
faster, and free as much available conventional memory as without it.


System requirement :
====================

  To get the benefit from SMARTCD, you need:

  1. A CD-ROM drive compliant to MPC (Multimedia PC)

  2. At least 256 KB of extended memory.


SMARTCD Overview
================

  SMARTCD is a professional and experienced cache device driver for CD-ROM 
devices. It will improve CD-ROM performance from 2 to more than 30 times
faster than without it dependent on applications. (please refer to "test
report section" in this file).

  In addition to good performance improvement, SMARTCD also has many
other smart features. SMARTCD has an integrated installation program,
well test with existing hardware, software and related systems,
has on-line help, device driver status and statistics report program,
intelligent memory allocation strategy, easy to unload from system,
and plus all above, SMARTCD may incredibly use none extra conventional 
memory of system !


SMARTCD features :
==================

  1. Dramatically improve CD-ROM device performance from 2 to 30 
     times faster.

  2. SMARTCD is a professional, experienced product and support the
     largest cache size up to 64 MB.

  3. Command line startup, with unload capability.

  4. Integrated with install, status check, unload, on-line help, 
     and others.

  5. Automatically detect and allocate memory.

  6. Very small and efficient resident code (TSR), at least 7 KB.

  7. Can configured to eat nothing of extra conventional memory.


Installation
============

  It is quite easy to install the SMARTCD CD-ROM device driver, run next
at DOS command prompt :

  > SMARTCD /SETUP

  Follow the setup program to install SMARTCD onto your system. If you want
to change the configuration of SMARTCD, you can run setup program again,
SMARTCD setup program will keep track of your current setting and setup the
new configuration.

  Note : You have to reboot to make the new setup active.


SMARTCD command syntax :
========================

 SMARTCD has the following command line syntax :

 1. > SMARTCD /SETUP  : setup onto your machine.

 2. > SMARTCD [dddddd]: Start SMARTCD (TSR) and use [dddddd] KB of memory
                        as cache, ddddd from 256 to 65535 KB. [dddddd] is 
                        option, see note for detail description.

 3. > SMARTCD /UN     : unload from memory, free all memory used by SMARTCD
                        to system.

 4. > SMARTCD [/? | /ST | /ON | /OFF | MAX | MIN]

      /?   or /ST  : Help or show SMARTCD driver status

      /ON  or /OFF : Enable or Disable SMARTCD cache driver

      /MAX or /MIN : Cache all or directory only, Default is MAX if 
                     cache buffer size > 512 KB

  Note : SMARTCD is started by command line  "SMARTCD [dddddd]", where ddddd
         size is optional, it tells SMARTCD allocate how much of system
         XMS memory for the CD-ROM buffer. The larger the buffer the better
         CD-ROM performance gained. The size can from 256 to 65535 (256 KB to
         64 MB). If you do not specify dddddd, SMARTCD will use the following
         table to  allocate system RAM (XMS RAM) as cache buffer.


         Free XMS memory              SMARTCD allocates
         ----------------------------------------------------------------
         less than  256 KB            none (fail to load)
         less than 1024 KB            allocate all

         > = 1024 KB                  allocate half of available
                                      with maximum buffer size = 2048.

  Note : If you want to allocate cache buffer size larger than 2048 KB, you
         have to specify the [dddddd]. SMARTCD will allocate maximum of 2048
         KB without this parameter.

  Note : /UN unload command will free all of the memory occupied by SMARTCD,
         include cache buffer and program code.

  Note : /MAX will cache all of the data read from CD-ROM, and /MIN cache
         the directory information of CD-ROM only. You can change
         it at any time. By default, SMARTCD will use /MAX methodology
         except cache buffer size less than 512 KB.


Free more conventional memory
=============================

  After you have installed the SMARTCD CD-ROM device driver, you can release
the buffer allocate for MSCDEX.EXE (TM). There is an "/M:number" parameter
with MSCDEX.EXE command line. The "number" means to allocate how many 2 KB
buffers for MSCDEX, which allocates memory from conventional memory 
(under 640KB) and that decreases your free conventional memory. In general
the buffers allocated are 12 ("/M:12"). If we install SMARTCD onto system,
then these buffers have no benefit to CD-ROM performance according to the
speed test, so actually we can decrease it to 4 without inferring performance
of CD-ROM drives if SMARTCD is loaded.

  If we reduce the number to 4 then we can free 8 buffer space (16 KB)
of conventional memory from MSCDEX. We recommend to update the MSCDEX buffer
number to 4 if you need more conventional memory. Next is an example MSCDEX
and SMARTCD commands in AUTOEXEC.BAT after you installed SMARTCD and
changed MSCDEX buffer number to 4:

  in AUTOEXEC.BAT

  C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /M:4 /D:SONY_000
  C:\SMARTCD.EXE  1024


Performance test report :
=========================

  Please find detailed performance test report in file "report.txt"


SMARTCD developer :
===================

  SMARTCD project leader had been given an excellent comment for his disk 
cache driver developed for a famous world wide PC company in 1988. In the
LanTime NSTL test reported in 1990, his cache driver was outstanding the
other competitors, such as Microsoft SMARTDRV, and Multisoft PCKwirk cache.


Technical highlights :
======================

  Intelligent cache method used, which include the read-ahead, data hashing
technology, priority data handling, and many others.


Notes: 
======

SMARTCD is a trademark of Far Stone Technology Corp. Microsoft is registered
trademark of Microsoft corp. Acer is registered trademark of Acer inc.


