virtual pc

[Stuart Thiessen]

I don't have an XP machine to work with that.  My only experience is with a
Linux machine running the xdos emulator.  It works under that.  Maybe if
Virtual PC will not work, set up one of the newer Linux distributions (I
happen to prefer SUSE, but whatever you might prefer) on another partition
and just make sure that xdos is one of the programs installed.  Then copy
SignWriter files to that partition and it should just work ... At least it
did for me.

If there is sufficient interest, I can create a set of instructions for
setting a simple Linux installation for the purpose of running SignWriter.
I know this has worked for me.

Another alternative is setting up a partition with one of the other DOS
clones out there ....  It's never easy, is it?

Thanks,

Stuart

> -----Original Message-----
> From: SignWriting List [mailto:SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA] On
> Behalf Of Jerry Spillman
> Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 20:07
> To: SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
> Subject: Re: virtual pc
>
>
> Dear Valerie and List,
>
> My apologies if I sound argumentative, but I am frustrated
> and heartsick
> concerning Virtual PC.  I am not running an old or out-dated, or
> under-built machine.  Here are the facts:
>
> 1.  My computer is based on an AMD Athlon XP2100+ processor.
> 2.  I get automatic updates to my XPHOME whenever Microsoft puts them
> out and implement them.
> 3.  My computer has 512 MEGABYTES of RAM.
> 4.  My computer has 86 GIGABYTES of storage space.
> 5.  I downloaded the program once again (third time), and installed it
> and the goodies for making the drives work with it.
> 6.  I installed a clean MSDOS 6.22 on the virtual drive (even
> named the
> expanding drive image Valerie.vhd for good luck, and gave it 132MB of
> RAM to use.).
> 7.  I copied 400 plus dos files, bmps, SignWriter DOS, etc.
> into the SW
> directory.
> 8.  I edited the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files according to the
> instructions and help files.
> 9.  Virtual PC will not give me VGA or EGA.  It sets up as CGA. MSDOS
> 6.22 runs just fine, as it would on a real DOS computer, and
> looks fine
> and normal on the screen (17 inch SuperVGA).  In the Virtual PC
> properties screen, it says that this is one of the parameters that
> cannot be user adjusted. Please see the attached screen shot,
> if it came
> through.   I can't work with this, and don't know how to fix the
> problem.  Has anyone on the LIST successfully run SW DOS on an XP PC?
>
> So far, I have spent 23 hours on this version.  I have about 40 hours
> history trying to make the older versions work.  I have not yet been
> able to contact Microsoft support, but any positive input will be
> accepted from any of you having experience making this run
> properly, and
> very much appreciated.  ANGUS?  STEFAN?
>