[Coco] Emulator problems

[KnudsenMJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/31/04 6:32:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time, twixt at cstone.net 
writes:

> My OS is Windows 98 SE. I have all the necessary updates from
>  the WindowsUpdate website.

So do I.  I was able to access every file on the CD.

>  When I try to read any HTML or PDF file, my system crashes. It
>  crashes so hard, I can't even reboot. I have to turn the compute off.

This may be a problem reading the CD in your old CD-ROM drive, or maybe a 
problem with your Netscape or IE or whatever would normally open a .htm file on 
your PC.  You should also have some version of Adobe Acrobat to open the .pdf 
files.  If you don't, your Win98SE should not crash, but pop up a query as to 
what app to open the file with.
 
>  When I try to open the folder "CoCo3 512k emulator v2.0" the
>  system hangs and probably crashes, but I have learned to quickly
>  reboot at the first sign of trouble, so I'm not sure if it would
>  have crashed or not.

Just plain opening a folder (as opposed to executing a program) should never 
crash or hang anything.  As someone else suggested, your CD-ROM drive may be 
due for an upgrade.  My cheap old CD-R drive works fine.

>  If I try to access the disc within DOS, the folder names are much
>  shorter and not very informative. And I sure can't read any HTML
>  or PDF files (at least, not the way they were intended to be
>  viewed.)

DOS is pretty useless for that, granted.

>  Uh, this is an **emulator** here. How am I supposed to insert anything
>  into a multipak slot?

I briefly scanned the HTML doc files, and there is a Windows GUI screen where 
you "insert" virtual Paks into the graphically represented virtual "MPI 
Slots."  I haven't tried to exec it yet, so can't say how it works.
  
>  Then it tells me to execute the file "COCO" well what folder is it in?
>  Am I supposed to search around under DOS for this file, with the
>  truncated and confusing directory names?

Actually, there is a set of folders for each model and size of Coco.  In each 
one is an .exe file, which is what you would execute (I assume).
I suspect that you should copy your favorite model and RAM-sized Coco to your 
Program Files (or whatever) folder, namingit "coco.exe"
. 
>  I notice there is a file "rs405eng.exe" on the disc. RS might mean
>  Radio Shack, but I'm not about to execute a file without documentation
>  telling me to. And why is winamp206.exe on the disc also? What do I
>  need winamp for? Is this a virus?

Someone already explained that RS405eng.exe is Acrobat for reading the PDF 
files.  If you don't have it, you'll need it, once you can read the CD.

WinAmp is a competitor of Real Audio, a universal player for WAV, MP3, etc. 
sound and movie clip files.   Both of these apps like to take over lots of your 
PC, setting themselves up as the default for everything, and bugging you with 
pop-up ads -- so while they're not viruses, some folks treat them like one :-)
  
>  Someone else mentioned a FAQ. Where is this FAQ?

If there is one, I'd like to know too.
The docs on the CD are admittedly out of date, don't cover the Coco3 version 
at all, but they appear to be enough to get started.

Get your CD reading issue solved, then we can help.  --Mike K.