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%% Emulation Rambler                                    By Jason Compton %%
%%                                                  (jcompton@tcity.com) %%
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All right!  I'll start off by jumping into the third part of the ongoing
Emplant saga...

Still Dead By Serial Murder
---------------------------

My Emplant serial ports are still dead.  Joe Fenton from UU has faxed me
asking about the part number on the chip, but it's not the one he was
looking for (apparently, ones with ST on them need replacing).  I'll have
to let him know and see what happens...

Half of Jim Drew's Latest Promise Fulfilled!  World Shocked!
------------------------------------------------------------

Actually, I'm not much of a Jim Drew pessimist, but I know some people
never believe what he says.  He told the Emplant community that serial
and parallel (Amiga side) support was the top priority, and half of
that has been realized in Emplant Mac V3.91, allowing you to print
through the Amiga parallel port.  You DO need the relevant driver on
the Mac side (my Epson FX driver is apparently too old, since it kept
bus erroring any program that wanted to do a Page Setup.  System 7.1
drivers don't crash the machine, but they also don't do much for my
Star NX-1000II, since I only have the Image and StyleWriter ones on
there.), but new drivers don't crash the Mac.  Serial is promised for
V4.0, so it'll be a matter of time.

Scummy...er, SCSI peripherals...
--------------------------------

Nobody has been really excited about the prospect of letting me rip
out their hard drive to connect it to the Emplant, but I've done what
I think is the next best thing:  I hooked up a Logitech ScanMan
greyscale hand scanner and put it through some paces.  It performed
like any greyscale hand scanner without a scanner guide and a user
with an unsteady hand would:  decent, some of the time.  In all
seriousness, the scanner was completely accurately recognized and
worked flawlessly.  SCSIProbe correctly acknowledged it, and the 
scanning went as well as my hand was moving at that particular moment.
I considered scanning the Emplant logo from the box, but the box had
gotten dirty in the shipping, so I didn't think it would be the best
of ideas.  (Thanks to Dave Alexander, my esteemed friend, for trusting
me with this piece of hardware).

Boy, does this red herring taste good!
--------------------------------------

What can I say?  In a fit of boredom, I got the idea to hex-scan
through the Mac II executable.  It's filled with neat stuff. Here's
a partial list of the red herrings, hints, and other sundry items...

"This video driver requires AAA ChipSet!"  Well, that's very nice, 
considering I can't imagine any video drivers anywhere that would need
them, unless CATS and/or C= marketing has been working overtime...

"This video driver requires PCMCIA Emplant!"  This red herring I
find very difficult to swallow.  What sort of video driver would need
a PCMCIA card in a 1200 to function correctly?

Taken from the Emplant shipping box:  checkmarks for "Emplant model for:"
A500 and A1000.  What, just in case?  I can understand planning ahead,
but...

Finally, either Joe or Jim loves Chauna...at least, the Mac II program
proclaims "I love you Chauna!"

Benchmarks Revisited! 
---------------------

I know, I know, you're probably sick to death of these damn benchmarks
already, but my good friend Mauricio has come up with a new set based
on updated Emplant software in which the FPU routines are apparently
much improved...unfortunately, I've lost them and his net address: 
I'd like to get both of them again.  Sorry, but I once again have to
blame my Usenet site.


ResEdit: The PREMIER (read: only) Mac HACKER TOOL!
--------------------------------------------------

It works.  Unfortunately, since I don't want to sit down and learn the
setup of the program and Mac programs in great depth, I basically
play around with it a little and get LOTS of opportunities to edit
icons.

RAM Doubler!
------------

I'm trying to get this sucker to work.  The latest Emplant update file
seems to say that "virtual memory has been patched out of the emulation"
for the time being, but RAM Doubler was not mentioned.  I need to get
my hands on the disk and I'll see if I'm in business.

Feeling Guilty at 16 Colors...
------------------------------

I'd really like to be able to review things like Photoshop, Illustrator,
various paint programs, etc...but I just can't get my hands on a 24-bit
video board.  If one of you gentle readers happens to be a friend of
an individual who can help me obtain a 24-bit video board for the
purposes of this review (and, hey, I'd even review the board separately,
too!), please have them contact me, either at the Internet mail address
above or at:
1203 Alexander Ave.
Streamwood, IL 60107.

In the Other Corner...
----------------------

That should do it for Emplant for the week.  Next time, I'll try to
mess with a CD-ROM drive, try to get the serial ports to work, run
RAM Doubler, and anything else I run into inbetween.

My A-Max IV has arrived, so it's only a matter of time
before I can plug it in and get to work.  Hopefully, neither board 
senses the other and melts the appropriate Zorro slot on power-up.

Not a Mac emulator, but an Apple all the same...
------------------------------------------------

In other news, Mr. Kevin Kralian has sent me a beta version of his
Apple II+ emulator, tentatively named Apple 2000.  It emulates about
as thoroughly as anyone could ask for.  He enclosed about 40 programs
with my setup and describes how others can be transferred to the 
emulation: either as single-files if they are indeed that sort of
program, or through Dalton Disk Disintegrator format if they are
full disks.  My first-glance review says that this is a pretty 
thorough job, although not quite out of the bug spray yet.  More
details and information will be provided in upcoming issues.

Mr. Kralian is also interested in writing emulators for other formats,
such as the C= 64, Atari 400/800, Gameboy, and even the Atari 2600.
If anyone can help him with some technical specs, or simply wants to
get in touch with him, get him at Kevin_Kralian@Sacbbx.com.

That does it for me this week.  Look for more Emplant Mac reviews,
an upcoming A-Max IV feature, then some serious comparisons, both
based on statistics and just the look and feel I get out of the two.
In the meantime, I'll probably ramble on and on about the Apple
emulator, and see what Elite MicroComputers might be up to.  See
you soon.  Keep the emulators warm.