From: kr-lund@nogarbage.online.no   
      
   Ira wrote:   
   > 1) It is one of only 2 which are Windows compatible (Dave Keils is   
   > NOT)   
      
   It was not my main point to promote David Keils emulator. It is too   
   difficult to set up. It is especially difficult to set up on XP. How it   
   is on Vista I do not know and I have heard that even windows programs   
   don't work on it.   
      
   But it *is* windows compatible. I use it on several machines under   
   Windows XP and also Win98SE. Win98SE because real disks can only be used   
   when the os is not NT based i.e. MS-DOS, Win95, Win98, Win98SE and WinME   
   (WinNT, Win2k or WinXP won't allow programs to accesses the floppy   
   controller).   
      
      
      
   How to set up David Keils emulator on WinXP then: Usually using one of   
   the MS-DOS emulators it comes with; CMD.EXE is one and COMMAND.COM is   
   another. I have had best success with COMMAND. The problem seems to be   
   the graphics driver and how the emulator changes screen mode. Anyway you   
   need to set up a link, an icon on your desktop and set the command to   
   something like this:   
   C:\windows\system32\COMMAND.COM C:\windows\system32 /c TRS80.EXE   
   with the workpath to where the emulator is installed for example   
   D:\TRS-80\M3   
   Memory tab Conventional mem Auto, EMS None, XMS None, uses HMA ticked,   
   DPMI Auto.   
   Screen tab: Usage Full.Screen, Performance both off.   
   Misc tab: Screen saver off, Background suspend on, Mouse exclusive off,   
   the rest on (default).   
   Compatibility tab: use compatibility mode for Win98/ME, Display all off,   
   input settings tur off advanced on (ticked).   
      
   Here is the help for XP's COMMAND.COM   
   COMMAND [[drive:]path] [device] [/E:nnnnn] [/P] [/C string] [/MSG]   
      
      [drive:]path    Specifies the directory containing COMMAND.COM file.   
      device          Specifies the device to use for command input and output.   
      /E:nnnnn        Sets the initial environment size to nnnnn bytes.   
      /P              Makes the new command interpreter permanent (can't exit).   
      /C string       Carries out the command specified by string, and then   
   stops.   
      /MSG            Specifies that all error messages be stored in   
   memory. You   
                      need to specify /P with this switch.   
      
   So we specify the path to COMMAND.COM which is the system32 directory   
   then /c to exceute a command, our emulator.   
      
   To get help do the command with /? for example CMD /? to see the last   
   page you need to do this from a command prompt window (which you can get   
   by executing CMD from the Run command in the start menu.   
      
   Tricky but it works. Some people have had better luck using CMD.EXE   
   exactly how they did that I do not know.   
      
   So when you are in the emulator you meet another problem and that is   
   long filenames and directorynames they will unfortunately come out with   
   their 8.3 names and can be quite cryptic. Keeping diretory names and   
   file names short does help.   
      
   <\howto>   
      
   I have also created an MS-DOS boot floppy that will run the emulator on   
   ramdisk, this is for use on XP machines and real floppies. One just have   
   to remember to copy any changed or created files over to the floppy   
   after running the emulator. This also works very well. You might need to   
   enable booting from floppy to do this. The catch is that MS-DOS can't   
   access NTFS harddisks so it needs to communicate with the surroundings   
   by floppy. Maybe to make an image and you could host it? I could   
   probably make it a little more user friendly too before that.   
      
   --   
   Knut   
   (delete 'nogarbage.' for email)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)