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- 1.99x DENOTES EXPERIMENTAL VERSIONS OF EXECUTOR
-
- In an effort to keep our customers in the development loop, we are
- periodically releasing experimental versions of Executor. These
- experimental versions are numbered 1.99a, 1.99b, 1.99c, etc. We try
- not to break features with new releases, but sometimes that happens,
- so be aware that anything mentioned in these notes may fail to work.
- To keep totally up to date, you should join the Executor Interest
- mailing list. To do so, send e-mail to "majordomo@nacm.com" with a
- blank subject line and a mail body of "subscribe executor" and then
- you'll have access to a more timely forum concerning the latest
- developments in Executor.
-
-
-
- HOW TO INSTALL
-
- This distribution has an installation program which will automatically
- install Executor from two floppies. To run the installation script, make
- sure that the first floppy (the one with this README.1ST file on it) is in
- your 3.5" floppy drive. If that drive is drive "A:", all you need to
- do is:
-
- C:\> A:\INSTALL
-
- Unlike previous versions of Executor's installer, starting with 1.99i,
- the installer program will allow you to install Executor anywhere on
- your hard drive.
-
- IMPORTANT:
-
- If you are using disk cacheing you should set it to only do read
- caches. Write caches can result in the ".hfv" files being
- corrupted if Executor dies unexpectedly. (NOTE: if you forget to
- turn off your write cache, you may have to reinstall the ".hfv"
- files after Executor crashes).
-
-
-
- MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE AFTER YOU INSTALL
-
- The installation process creates a "docs" directory that contains
- other files that may help you to better understand Executor. The most
- important of these is called "faq", which stands for "answers to
- Frequently Asked Questions".
-
-
-
- EXECUTOR NEEDS A MOUSE DRIVER TO WORK
-
- In addition to needing a mouse to be physically connected to your
- computer, Executor requires a mouse driver to be loaded before it can
- run. If Executor complains that you don't have a mouse installed,
- even though you have one connected, the problem is that your
- autoexec.bat does not load the mouse driver for use with DOS programs.
- Since many people only use their mouse with Windows, which has its own
- mouse driver, they don't have the mouse driver commands in their
- autoexec.bat.
-
- The exact changes that need to be made to your autoexec.bat varies
- depending on what type of mouse you have, and where the mouse driver
- has been installed on your system. In general, anyone knowledgeable
- about your particular configuration should be able to give you simple
- instructions for modifying your autoexec.bat, whether that's the
- technical support line of the company that made the machine, or your
- local DOS wizard.
-
-
-
- HOW TO GET STARTED COPYING MACINTOSH FORMATTED FLOPPIES
-
- Executor/DOS can only read High Density (1.4 MB) formatted floppies.
- Most older Macintosh applications were distributed on 800K floppies
- which can't be used with Executor, so MAKE SURE you use 1.4 MB
- Macintosh formatted floppies with Executor/DOS. Executor/DOS doesn't
- format floppies for you; you'll have to do that on a Macintosh, for
- now.
-
- The key to copying Macintosh formatted floppies is the "Desk
- Accessory" called HFS_XFer. Desk accessories are little programs that
- piggyback off other programs to do their work. It's like the old
- Vermont joke (beware, provincial humor does not always translate well)
- "You can't get there from here (pause) you have to go someplace else,
- first". The upshot is that you must run a program, almost any
- program, in order to find and use "HFS_XFer". I usually start up the
- "Mines" program. Once Mines is started, and the initial "OK" box is
- clicked, you can find "HFS_XFer" under the Apple menu at the far left
- of the menu bar.
-
- Internally at ARDI we have a file browser that allows you to
- graphically copy, delete and rename files. It will be included with
- E/D 2.0, but it is not yet available to the general public.
-
- It is important to note that you have three different areas that you
- can copy to/from. In addition to Macintosh formatted floppies, you
- can copy Macintosh files to your hard disk, either as DOS files, or as
- Macintosh files within a single DOS file which represents a Macintosh
- "volume". This fully-enabled version of Executor/DOS 1.99x also
- allows you to copy to/from Mac formatted SCSI drives (if you have a
- SCSI adapter) and copy from Mac formatted CD ROMs if you have a CD ROM
- drive.
-
- When you copy Mac files as DOS files, they are broken up in two
- halves. One half will have the original name of the file, the other
- will have a "%" prepended to the original name. The file with the
- original name represents the "data fork" of the Macintosh file, and
- that's where data that can be used in both Macintosh and DOS
- environments resides. The other half, the one with the "%" prepended
- is the "resource fork" and it contains information that only makes
- sense in the Macintosh environment.
-
- Using the DOS filesystem to represent Macintosh files is very awkward.
- In fact, if the names contain funny characters, you might get an "I/O
- error". The alternative is to store files within a single "Macintosh
- Volume". This demo version of Executor comes with a 5 MB Mac Volume.
- It should be sufficient to allow you to explore Executor. While
- Executor is working within a Macintosh volume, files can have upper
- and lower case names with lengths up to 31 characters, but your DOS
- programs can't see the individual files. More about what's going on
- is in the printed documentation.
-
-
-
- USING MKVOL TO CREATE A NEW VOLUME
-
- Although we don't supply documentation with this demo version of
- Executor, you may notice the "MKVOL" program in the "\EXECUTOR"
- directory. If you are adventurous and want to use mkvol, it is
- important that the new volume that you create have the suffix ".HFV".
- If you do not call your new volume "something.HFV", Executor will
- ignore it.
-
-
-
- RUNNING PROGRAMS DIRECTLY OFF FLOPPIES
-
- Running programs directly off floppies is incredibly slow. You will
- find it much quicker to use HFS_XFer to copy a program from a floppy
- into one of your ".hfv" files and then run the program directly out of
- the ".hfv" file.
-
-
-
- UNIXISMS LEFT IN EXECUTOR
-
- Executor was developed originally under UNIX. A few "UNIXisms" have
- remained in Executor; they will be gone in 2.0. Sometimes you will
- see "/" used where "\" would normally be used in DOS. In addition,
- switches are introduced with a leading "-" instead of "/". We
- apologize for this annoyance.
-
-
-
- USE WITH WINDOWS
-
- Executor/DOS 1.99x will run under Windows 3.1.
-
- You can make a double-clickable icon for Executor by using the
- Program Manager in Windows:
-
- Choose "New..." from the Program Manager "File" menu
-
- Click the "Program Item" radio button
-
- Click "OK"
-
- Enter "Executor" in the Description field
-
- Enter "c:\executor\executor" in the Command Line field
-
- Enter "c:\executor" in the Working Directory field
-
- Add a Shortcut Key if you wish
-
- Click on "Change Icon...
-
- Click on "OK" when the error message comes up
-
- Find, Select and Click OK on an Icon you like
-
- Click on "OK" to leave "Program Item Properties"
-
- Remember, Executor is its own windowing system. It does not need
- Windows to be effective, although the only way you can run two Mac
- programs at once it to do so under Windows. Once you have one copy of
- Executor running under Windows, you can use "Left_Alternate-Tab" and
- "Right_Alternate-Enter" to hot-key back and forth between different
- programs and screen modes.
-
-
-
- USE WITH OS/2
-
- Executor/DOS 1.99x works with OS/2 2.11, but not with previous versions.
- To get E/D 1.99x to run you'll need to adjust use these settings:
-
- DPMI_DOS_API ENABLED
- DPMI_MEMORY_LIMIT 16
- EMS_MEMORY_LIMIT 0
- XMS_MEMORY_LIMIT 0
-
-
-
- USE WITH NT
-
- Currently, Executor/DOS 1.99x does not run under Windows NT. This should
- change soon, I believe.
-
-
-
- IF EXECUTOR RUNS SLOWLY
-
- Executor needs about 4 MB of memory to work efficiently. If it does
- not have enough physical memory, it will make do by writing
- infrequently used parts of itself to your hard disk and only "paging"
- them in when they're actually used. However, DOS systems can have
- their memory artificially eaten up in too many ways to describe here.
- If think Executor is running slowly, you might want to have a DOS guru
- check to make sure that it's not being memory starved.
-
-
-
- CREDITS
-
- Executor is a product of ARDI (Abacus Research and Development, Inc.).
- The majority of Executor proper was designed and implemented by
- Clifford T. Matthews. The synthetic CPU and DOS port were done by
- Mathew Hostetter. Executor was originally written under X-Windows,
- then ported to NEXTSTEP and finally ported to DOS using DJGPP, a port
- of the Free Software Foundation's gcc compiler done by DJ Delorie.
- The file "EXECUTOR.EXE" is actually a modified version of DJ's "GO32"
- DOS extender, the source to which is freely available, from us (for
- the cost of a floppy plus postage).
-
- More information about the Free Software Foundation and DJGPP is
- included in our documentation.
-
-
-
- Thanks!
-
- Clifford T. Matthews questions@ardi.com
- Founder +1 505 766 9115 Phone
- ARDI +1 505 247 1899 FAX
-