Beginners Questions

[Berth]

Maybe these questions are rather newbieish, but I didnt find the answers in existing posts or the manual...so I ask them here...

First question: How do I change the inserted disk?
After starting the emulator I can select drive 8 and "insert" a disk from the list of files on my HD. Then I can either just start the file or go back to the C64 screen and use command lines.
But when I go back to the disk menu, I dont see a way to "take out" the disk. I dont get the list of files on my HD again. I am using the latest version 3.

Second question: Poke and sys
I only very fuzzily remember how this used to work on the original C64. My idea is: you load the game, and instead of "run" you then type the poke commands and then run the game? That doesnt seem to work, though.
I found a post that explained that you start the game, then do a reset, enter the poke commands and then restart the game with "sys". I tried this with the "paradroid" game and it only crashes, but maybe thats just because of this specific game.
But maybe someone can give me a somewhat more general explanation what these commands actually do, and what happens when you do a "soft reset", so that I understand what I am actually doing

Thanks for any help

[farang]

Maybe these questions are rather newbieish, but I didnt find the answers in existing posts or the manual...so I ask them here...

First question: How do I change the inserted disk?
After starting the emulator I can select drive 8 and "insert" a disk from the list of files on my HD. Then I can either just start the file or go back to the C64 screen and use command lines.
But when I go back to the disk menu, I dont see a way to "take out" the disk. I dont get the list of files on my HD again. I am using the latest version 3.

Alt+8 Takes you to the file/disk selection. If its a .D64 image then you have to select the file in the image, Just use the arrow keys to move up'n down in the list. Then press enter to get into the image. select the file and press enter and it will be loaded and autmaticaly started. (You can also use the F-Keys in the menus). Use the Esc (Escape key to return to basic mode)

Second question: Poke and sys
I only very fuzzily remember how this used to work on the original C64. My idea is: you load the game, and instead of "run" you then type the poke commands and then run the game? That doesnt seem to work

No, it doesn't work because the files are usually compressed/Crunched so you poke will be entered at the wrong memory location.

I found a post that explained that you start the game, then do a reset, enter the poke commands and then restart the game with "sys". I tried this with the "paradroid" game and it only crashes, but maybe thats just because of this specific game.
But maybe someone can give me a somewhat more general explanation what these commands actually do, and what happens when you do a "soft reset", so that I understand what I am actually doing

The poke command basically put a value at a specific memory location. Ex Poke 2048,255 (hex$0800) would put the value 255($FF) at memory address 2048 ($0800). For example the number of lives could have been stored at this location. So what you have done in this example, is replaced the number of lives 3 with 255. So you now have 255 lives instead of 3.
The sys (xxxx) command is the start address and this one is different from game to game. You have to use the correct one for the actual game. To get the correct sys then you have to analyze the decruncher to find the start address (sys) in case you don't have it from the begining and that can be rather tricky if you don't understand machine language. In that case it would be more convenient to get a game with a "trainer/cheat mode".
Which almost all of the cracked games have. A good place to search for them would be the Gamebase at www.gb64.com

Hope this helped you a bit, my explanation might seems little messy but I tried to explain in a simple way...