ftp.ardi.com
in /pub/Executor_
DOS. However, when you log on to ftp.ardi.com
, a list of mirrors will be provided and the mirrors are usually much
faster than ftp.ardi.com
. However, once we're happy with the stability of an
Executor/DOS release, we put a copy on the SimTel mirrors.
The primary SimTel mirror is ftp.coast.net
, and you can find the Executor/DOS demo within the /SimTel/msdos/emulator
directory. Look for exec199?.zip (where ? is a letter, the further into the alphabet
the letter, the more recent the experimental release). Other SimTel
mirrors are:
wuarchive.wustl.edu
(128.252.135.4) : /systems/ibmpc/msdos
(St. Louis, MO) archive.orst.edu
(128.193.2.13) : /pub/mirrors/simtel/msdos
(Corvallis, OR) archie.au
(139.130.4.6) : /micros/pc/oak
(Australia) src.doc.ic.ac.uk
(146.169.2.10) : /pub/packages/simtel
(England) ftp.funet.fi
(128.214.248.6) : /pub/msdos/SimTel
(Finland) ftp.ibp.fr
(132.227.60.2) : /pub/msdos
(France) ftp.uni-paderborn.de
(131.234.2.32) : /SimTel/msdos
(Germany) ftp.cs.cuhk.hk
(137.189.4.57) : /pub/simtel/msdos
(Hong Kong) ftp.technion.ac.il
(132.68.1.10) : /pub/unsupported/dos/simtel
(Israel) ftp.cyf-kr.edu.pl
(149.156.1.8) : /pub/mirror/msdos
(Poland) ftp.sunet.se
(130.238.127.3) : /pub/pc/mirror/SimTel/msdos
(Sweden) ftp.switch.ch
(130.59.1.40) : /mirror/msdos
(Switzerland) NCTUCCCA.edu.tw
(140.111.1.10) : /PC/simtel
(Taiwan) ftp.nectec.or.th
(192.150.251.32) : /pub/mirrors/msdos
(Thailand)
See also Q1.20 `Where can I pick up the Executor demos?'
Question 2.2. What are the hardware requirements for
Executor/DOS?
For Executor/DOS 1.2 you need a '386 or better, VGA, 7 MB disk space,
a 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy drive, and 4 MB RAM. A SCSI Controller is needed only
if you want to access external Macintosh hard disks or PowerBooks.
Executor/DOS 1.99<x> should work in sixteen colors on any VGA,
although we do not have the facilities to test more than a few in house. In
addition, if you have a Super VGA that is VESA 1.0 compliant, Executor/DOS should be
able to provide 256 colors and a range of screen sizes. Beginning with E/D
1.99n, if you have a video card that is VESA 2.0 compliant, Executor's graphics
will be even faster.
Question 2.3. What do I do if my Super VGA card isn't VESA
compliant?
There is a shareware SVGA utility that provides VESA compliance for
SVGA cards that normally are not VESA compliant. At the time this FAQ was last
modified, univbe51.zip was the most recent release of this extender.
It is not a product of ARDI, but as a convenience to people picking up
experimental versions of Executor, the file univbe51.zip is available
on /ftpon ftp.ardi.com in /ftpin /pub/ardi/Executor_DOS. If you use it,
you should pay the shareware fee as described in the documentation
included in the zip file. If you have a recent SVGA card you probably don't need
univbe. There may be a more recent version of univbe on /ftpon oak.oakland.edu
in /ftpin /SimTel/msdos/graphics. This directory also has several other
card specific VESA drivers, some of which can be found in vesa-tsr.zip and
vesadrv2.zip.
Question 2.4. E/D dies during startup.
Why?
The most common cause of E/D not running under DOS is the lack of file
descriptors that you might get if you don't have the line:
FILES=30
FILES
in your config.sys [see Q2.4 `E/D dies during startup. Why?'].
NOTE: If you run Executor with the "-info" switch, Executor
will print out information it finds out about your video card. That information may
be helpful in tracking down your problem.
Question 2.7. What's "GrSetMode ; unknown adapter type in
driver." mean?
You must be running an old version of Executor; this error cannot occur in versions >= 1.99h.
1.99b had problems when Microsoft's display.sys driver is in
config.sys. We have updated the code that had this problem and hope that the problem
is now fixed. If it is not, you must remove display.sys from the config.sys
section you use when you're using Executor/DOS. Please report this bug if you
see it in E/D 1.99e or later.
Question 2.8. Does E/D require an ASPI driver to access
SCSI?
If your SCSI drivers patch the "INT 13" BIOS calls, then an
ASPI driver is not needed. As long as "INT 13" can allow Executor to read a
SCSI drive, there is no need to use ASPI.
Question 2.9. Have you released Executor for OS/2
yet?
We plan on making an OS/2 specific version of Executor, but only after
we get Executor 2.0 shipping. However, Executor 1.99l is reported to work
well under OS/2 Warp.
Question 2.10. Why won't Executor/DOS work with my Diamond Viper PCI
card?
Executor/DOS requires VESA compliant graphics cards. Many cards are
not directly VESA compliant and need a tsr to be run before they will work
with Executor/DOS. On a Gateway computer, you can do this with the
"vprmode VESA" command [see Q2.3 `What do I do if my Super VGA card isn't VESA
compliant?'].
Question 2.11. Why doesn't my mouse work when I run Executor under
OS/2 Warp?
If it's not already there, you may need to add this line:
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MDOS\VMOUSE.SYS
Also, you may need to load MOUSE.COM in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, for example:
LOADHIGH C:\OS2\MDOS\MOUSE.COM
I haven't been having any problems with running Executor/Dos in OS/2. What he needs to do (assuming he has Warp) is to run "Add Programs" object in the "System Setup" folder. This will make a object for Executor on his desktop (usually in the "Additional Dos Programs" folder). Go into the settings for that object, and select the "Session" tab. Set it to "Dos Full Screen", and choose "Dos Settings". He wants "All Dos Settings". Primarily, Executor needs the "DPMI Memory Limit" set to 16 megs, and "DPMI Memory Limit" set to enabled. Since it defaults to 4 megs and automatic, it won't work. For additional performance, he should set "Dos High" to on, "EMS Memory Limit" to 0, "Video 8514a XGA IOtrap" to off, "Video Retrace Emulation" to off, "XMS Memory Limit" to 0, and "XMS Minimum HMA" to 63. The biggest boost comes from "Session Priority". Set this to at least 16, and if he is going to run no other programs, set it higher. If he is going to run other programs, this should be left at 16, and the "Dos Backround Execution" needs to be set to on.
Under Windows '95, there is a different way to access CD-ROMs -- a way that Executor doesn't use. However, Windows '95 can also use mscdex. To do so, you need to find and remove the:
rem - By Windows 95 Setup
FILES=30
bugs@ardi.com
.
If Executor only dies on a particular application, try increasing the amount of RAM dedicated to the application by using the "-applzone" switch when you run Executor. Also try turning on "Pretend Sound" [see Q1.38 `Are there other parameters I can adjust? [aka "Preferences Panel"]'], or if the screen seems to be only partially updated, try turning on "Refresh".
Once you've done as much as you can to figure out the problem, send a
bug report to bugs@ardi.com
. Run Executor with the "-info" switch and
include that information. Make sure you also include the version of
Executor you're running (e.g. Executor/DOS 1.99n), the name and version of the
application that is dying (e.g. HyperCard 2.1), the name and version
of the operating system you're runing (e.g. DOS 6.22) and enough details to
reproduce the crash (e.g. "start the application, choose the "more
Elvis" from the "adjust music" menu and the applicaton will crash").
If the application you are running is publicly available via anonymous ftp, telling us where
we can pick it up for testing purposes also helps.
We accept bug reports from everyone, although paid customers bug
reports are almost always higher priority than those of potential customers.
Question 2.16. Should I have sent in my registration
card?
Yes. We use that card to assign your serial number and authorization
key so you can continue to download and unlock experimental versions of
Executor. In general, we do not assign such numbers when you first purchase
Executor because we do not know if you're purchasing Executor as a gift for
someone else, or if it's being purchased through a company purchasing
department, or what. We want to make sure that we have the address of the eventual
owner of Executor and the surest way to avoid mistakes is to send in that card.
Question 2.17. How does printing work under
E/D?
Executor/DOS will print directly to a PostScript-compatible printer if
started with the switch -printer lpt1 (or lpt2, lpt3, or whatever as
appropriate). Otherwise, it prints to a PostScript file. The first
time you print, the file will be named execout1.ps
and will be located in the same directory that executor.exe
is located in. You can then print this file on a PostScript printer, or
if you have a PostScript compatible driver, you can use a
non-PostScript printer. Two popular PostScript compatible printer
drivers are "GhostScript", available for free, and
"ZScript", a commercial program from ZenoGraphics.
Question 2.18. Why does E/D under Windows 3.x have problems
hot-keying?
When you use a hot-key to switch away from Executor, Windows 3.x
doesn't know how to save the screen, because it only knows about the original VGA
screen modes, but Executor uses SVGA/VESA screen modes. So when you switch
back, Windows 3.x doesn't know how to replace the screen with what it used
to contain.
This problem is further compounded by the fact that Executor has no way of knowing when it's been switched out and switched back. To make matters worse, some Windows drivers (ATI Mach 32, for example) don't even restore the mode properly, so not only will the screen be incorrect, but Executor will die shortly after you switch back.
Luckily this is not a problem in Windows '95 or OS/2.
Question 2.19. Why can't I eject or format my DOS formatted
floppy?
1.99n is the first version of E/D to allow you to see DOS drives other
than the drive you install Executor on. It's also the first version to
allow you to format floppies in the Macintosh format (it used to read and write
Mac formatted floppies, but it wouldn't do the formatting itself).
Currently, the two abilities conflict. What we do is if a DOS
formatted floppy is in the drive when E/D starts, we treat that drive as a fixed
drive from that point on. You can no longer eject the floppy, nor can you
convince Executor to consider that floppy as a Mac formatted floppy or a
candidate for Mac formatting. This is confusing and ugly; we hope to change it in
1.99o.
Question 2.20. Why the white border on the
screen?
There is not yet any standard way for an application to set a video
board's "overscan" (i.e. border) color. Some video boards set the
overscan color in a way that interferes with Executor's ability to write directly to the
screen. This is because internally Macs and PCs use different bit values to
represent white and black. We hope to fix this problem at least for most
popular video boards by the time 2.0 ships.
Question 2.21. Do E/D and QEMM fight?
We don't have QEMM in house for testing, but apparently QDPMI is an
incompatible DPMI provider for Executor, starting with Executor 1.99n.
DPMI providers that are known to work are the supplied CWSDPMI, the DPMI
provider in Windows 3.x and Windows '95 the DPMI provider in OS/2, and 386Max.
We are investigating the incompatibilities between Executor and QDPMI.
For now, if you have lines similar to these two:
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /R:1 /SIZE=8880 C:\QEMM\QDPMI.SYS SWAPFILE=DPMI.SWP SWAPSIZE=1024.
in your config.sys file, you should "rem them out" -- i.e.
add "rem " to the beginning of each line -- at least when using Executor:
REM DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /R:1 /SIZE=8880 C:\QEMM\QDPMI.SYS REM SWAPFILE=DPMI.SWP SWAPSIZE=1024.
This is another compatibility problem that we're looking into,
although it has been reported that some other well known programs crash under DPMS's
DPMI support (PKZIP, Geoworks and Logic Magician's Oberon System).
Question 2.23. How can I speed up Executor/DOS?
Executor/DOS is of course dependent on the speed and type of CPU in
your PC. Obviously you can make E/D run faster if you upgrade your 386 to a
Pentium. However, there are other, non-obvious ways in which sometimes you can
dramatically improve Executor's speed.
Use the "-info" switch to see how much DPMI memory you have compared to how much physical memory you have. In general, Executor itself will consume approximately 2 MB of memory even if you could have an applzone, syszone and stack size of 0 (which you can't). So on a 4 MB system, you can only allocate another 2 MB total to applzone, syszone and stack if you want to avoid paging (paging slows Executor down considerably), and that's only if you don't have drivers in your config.sys file or autoexec.bat tying up more of your memory. If you are low on memory, you should use DOS's "mem" command and see how much Extended (XMS) memory DOS thinks you have. The more you can increase that figure before Executor starts up, the more DPMI memory Executor will have and the easier it will be for Executor to avoid paging.
If you have plenty of memory, then you can also speed Executor up a little bit by running a disk cache. However, you should only run the disk cache in a write-through mode -- in other words you should enable the disk cache so that all disk writes are immediately sent to the disk. Failure to do so may result in corrupt HFV files after Executor dies.
Executor can access video cards in three different ways. The slowest
is by using VGA calls. This is also the least flexible -- you are often
limited only to 16 colors when using VGA calls, since the only VGA mode that
supports 256 colors is too small to use with Executor. If your card is VESA
compliant, or has a driver that makes it VESA compliant, Executor can drive the
video card more efficiently. There are two major levels of VESA compliance
-- VESA 1.x and VESA 2.x. Executor is even more efficient if it can drive
your video card using a VESA 2.0 driver, *if* that driver supports "linear
mapping". The UniVBE driver allows many popular video cards to be linear mapped. If
you want Executor to run quickly, you should probably pick up a copy of
UniVBE and test it on your system to see if it improves things. You can use
"Speedometer" or "Globes" to get a rough
approximation of how much it helps. On many cards, use of UniVBE can double Executor's graphics speed.
Question 2.24. What problems do 1.99n and 1.99o have under
OS/2
Executor/DOS 1.99n was the first release that trys to survey all the
disks connected to your system, looking for DOS and Macintosh filesystems.
The new code had some severe problems with OS/2, and so 1.99o was released
with fixes to some of the bugs. Some other bugs still remain. We do not
currently have OS/2 installed on a test machine, although that will change before 2.0
is released. In the meantime, here are two bug reports in our OS/2
users' own words.
I have installed Executor 1.99o and for the first time tried to access my CD. I found out the following problem: Under OS/2 Warp I have drives C:-I: which are FAT J: is HPFS K: is my CDROM and L: is a removable magneto optical drive. Executor access without problem the drives C:-I: and L:, however when I try to access the CDROM or the HPFS partition I get an empty folder. I would like to remark that from a standard DOS box under OS/2 I access the CDROM and the HPFS (only files with short names) without any problem. When I boot plain DOS I do not have the HPFS partition and my drives are: C:-I: FAT drives J: my magneto optical drive and K: the CDROM. In this configuration I can access all drives including the CDROM without any problem. I did not try a Macintosh CD. So, the problem seems to be accessing the CDROM and HPFS partitions under OS/2 Warp.
> OS/2 User> As I am sure you are aware, 1.99n with patch 4 is still > OS/2 User> very buggy under OS/2. If any files are placed on the HDD > OS/2 User> directly [ i.e saving to the c:/ volume ] there is a > OS/2 User> crash. Also trying to "cd" to a directory makes the word > OS/2 User> "error" appear with question marks around it in the > OS/2 User> directory box. Sorry if this is vague, as I am not near > OS/2 User> my machine right now. 8-) I also get random errors when > OS/2 User> trying to unzip files. ( error -48 ?? ) and "Unexpected > OS/2 User> ROMLIB error" when dealing with direct drive volumes [ > OS/2 User> not HFV files ]. I have never gotten any of these kinds > OS/2 User> of errors under OS/2 before, and I was wondering if part > OS/2 User> of it had to do with my HDD not being completely HPFS > OS/2 User> instead of FAT. Of course, this is supposed to be > OS/2 User> seamless to DOS, so.... any guesses? I hope I didn't > OS/2 User> confuse the issue further. 8-) Hopefully all of these > OS/2 User> problems will go away with patch #5. Again, I appologize > OS/2 User> for the vagueness of this note. > > ARDI> Have you tried 1.99o? I think some of these errors are fixed, but I > ARDI> don't know which. OS/2 User> Yes I have, and the most annoying bug about saving directly OS/2 User> to the hard drive has not gone away. anytime one tries to OS/2 User> "cd" to another directory e.g. executor, the text "?error?" OS/2 User> comes up in the directory box and will not let you cd...
Also, when I have a (non-mac) cdrom in my SCSI CDROM drive and start up E/D 1.99o in Windows 95 Gold. Executor (-nosplash) runs but all I get is a black screen and I never see the browser or anything appear. So I have to kill that process and return to Windows 95. If I remove the CDROM from my drive executor then boots fine, althought the local drives still freeze it when I click on them.
Ok, here goes all. As pointed out by the person who first mentioned this problem, The drive problem does not show up when Windows 95 is botted into MS-DOS mode. So it is obviously surronding a change in Windows95 dealing with disk access, etc.My guess would be it had something to do with Executor trying to make direct disk access, which is a no-no in Win95. Anyways, here is the best work around. Create an icon on your desktop for executor. Then edit it's properties (right mouse button on icon then select properties). Click on the Program Tab in properties. add whatever Executor command line switches you want. Then Click on the box that says "close on exit" (this will automatically exit MSDOS when executor is done). Hit the "Advanced" Button next. In this area you want to click on the "MS-DOS Mode" button and then the "use current MS-DOS configuration" button". I have all the other button un-checked. Now, the trick to this is you need to put a DOS mouse driver in your standard autoexec.bat or Executor won't run. Reboot and now when you click on the icon Windows will exit to DOS (without rebooting), run executor, and then when you exit it will start Windows 95 again (without rebooting). If you don't load the mouse driver and try to use "specify a new MS-DOS configuration" in the "Advanced" section to load the mouse driver, it will work, but the machine will reboot before running Executor each time (to load the new MSDOS config you specified) and reboot and again when you exit Executor (to reload the old MSDOS config for WIN95)....... P.S. since you are in DOS you would also need to load mscdex, etc. for your cdrom to be visable......
- 23 September 1995