Installing XGS-DOS

System requirements for XGS-DOS

A Pentium-90 or higher. XGS-DOS will NOT work with 486 systems, and please forget the 386 computers !
DOS 5.0 or higher, Win95, OS/2 Warp 3.0 or higher
8MB RAM minimum for DOS, 16MB minimum for Win95 and Warp
A copy of the ROMs from a ROM01 or 03 Apple IIGS

Compatibility issues
Under real DOS and Win95, sometimes XGS-DOS refuses to start, showing a bunch of numbers and an FPU trap. Try to relaunch it until it works ! I don't understand why it crashes like this and I've never succeeded to localize what is causing the problems under DOS and Win95, whereas XGS-DOS works without problem under OS/2 Warp 4.0...

XGS-DOS will NOT work under WinNT. I've tried it several times and I've got the following results :

got twice the infamous blue screen with a bunch of hexadecimal numbers.
the machine freezes three times : black screen, no mouse and no keyboard. Only possible issue : the reset button.
the usual bunch of numbers and the FPU trap.
Therefore don't try to play with XGS-DOS on your NT server machine. You'll be responsible for what you're doing ;-)

As XGS-DOS is designed and developed under OS/2 Warp 4.0, it works very well without problems.

How to install XGS-DOS

*** IMPORTANT ***
Follow these steps carefully, or XGS-DOS is likely to not execute !

First of all, choose a home directory for the executable and support files (why not the same directory as XGS-Win 32 ?).

Next, either add this line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT, or make an XGS.BAT file that will set the following environment variable:

where x: is the drive that the home directory is on, and xgs_home_directory is the path.

Next, use WinZip, PKUNZIP (with the -d option) or Info-Zip (click here for the Info-Zip web site) into the home directory, to extract the XGS-DOS files into their correct directories. The directory structure in your home directory should be as follows:
\xgs_home_directory\
CWSDPMI.EXE
EMU387.DXE
GO32.EXE
XGS.EXE
\xgs_home_directory\XGSDOS\
XGSDOS.DAT
\xgs_home_directory\XGSDOS\HTML\
INDEX_E.HTM
INDEX_F.HTM
\xgs_home_directory\XGSDOS\KEYBOARD\
SWISS_FR.KEY
USA.KEY
If you have ROM0n (n = 1 or 3), please make a copy of your XGS.ROM to XGS0n.ROM, and place it in your home directory. Example :
XGS.ROM => XGS01.ROM (if ROM01)
XGS.ROM => XGS03.ROM (if ROM03)
You can place both XGS01.ROM and XGS03.ROM in the directory- XGS-DOS will let you choose which machine to emulate on start-up. I like very much the "Sales Demo" made by Apple Computer in 1986 to promote the Apple IIGS, but it doesn't work at all with ROM03 but only with ROM01 ! That's why I've placed an option in order to switch easily between ROM01 and ROM03 for my test purposes.

Also, do the same thing for your XGS.RAM. If it is BRAM from a ROM 01 machine, make it XGS01.RAM, XGS03.RAM if it's from a ROM03. Note that the BRAM isn't the same for ROM01 and ROM03 !

If the BRAM file is missing, don't worry. XGS will generate it automatically for you.

I will use the important note from Joshua M. Thompson :

*** I CANNOT (AND WILL NOT) GIVE YOU A COPY OF THE IIGS ROM!! ***
*** SO DON'T SEND ME MAIL AND ASK ME ABOUT IT. IT WON'T HELP. ***

It is clear for you?

Don't delete your original copies of XGS.ROM and XGS.RAM (assuming you have used the Win32 port of XGS), otherwise the Win32 version will not work ! You've been warned !

Also, your graphics card must be VESA 2.0 compliant. If it doesn't support VBE 2.0, the SciTech Display Doctor from SciTech Software (www.scitechsoft.com) will let most video cards use VBE 2.0 modes. Also, don't forget to install a mouse driver before launching XGS-DOS. Otherwise, XGS-DOS won't continue.

In case of any problems, please take a look at the BOOTLOG.TXT file created in your home directory!

Notes about keyboard, mouse and joystick
For the moment, only the Swiss French and US keyboard are implemented. You can handle the keyboard *exactly* like a true IIGS keyboard.

The mouse is always activated under XGS-DOS and can't be deactivated, unlike the X11 and Win32 versions.

The joystick is implemented in XGS-DOS. The joystick needs to be plugged into your computer before running XGS-DOS. You must calibrate the joystick before you can use it by pressing F5 and following the on-screen instructions. After activating the joystick, the Alt keys are disabled in order to avoid conflicts with joystick buttons. To renable Alt keys, press F5 again and the joystick will be disabled.

Some games like Rastan doesn't work very well with the joystick, so just press F6 and the problem is gone !

In the past, some people complained that their computer freezes up during attempting to calibrate the joystick. The problem is now gone, because I have a digital joystick (Logitech TunderPad Digital) and I used a loop for waiting until the joystick center by itself for each step of the calibration. It is possible that some joysticks aren't precise so the loop becomes infinite and hangs the computer...

Notes about the slowdown features
Especially on Pentium-II computers, games may be quite unplayable. I've implemented a very rudimentary slowdown function. You may increase it with F7, and decrease it with Shift-F7.

As the slowdown is just a sleep() function, it is NOT accurate.

Speed and 640x400 screen
Under the 640x400 screen, the speed is shown on the bottom-left of the screen. Under the MegaII screen modes it shouldn't be a problem. But it can be annoying under the SHGR mode, because the speed status can cover up a small portion of the screen.

To hide the speed status, press F11. To renable it, press F11 again. Under the previous versions of XGS-DOS, the speed status was frozen on the 640x480 and 800x600 modes. Now, the speed status is cleared !

Extra goodies
F7 : increase the slowdown ratio
Shift-F7 : decrease the slowdown ratio
F9 : increase page skip ratio
Shift-F9 : decrease page skip ratio
F10 : XCHANGE to the XGS-DOS world
Shift-F10 : XCHANGE from the XGS-DOS world
F11 : shows/hides speed status
F12 : saves the current screen to a PCX file named XGS_nnnn.PCX

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