[Coco] Dummy's guide to DriveWire?

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 4:37 PM, Chad H <chadbh74 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> The PC I have dedicated to support my CoCo (.DSK imaging real disks, EPROM
> burning, etc.) is running Win'98.
>
> On that note, I've taken a glance at the DriveWire 4 site.  Looks
> interesting....if complicated.  I think I grasp the idea behind DriveWire,
> essentially to give it remote access to virtual drives, virtual modem, etc.
> I'm not sure if I could get it up on a Win'98 box.  I guess I would need a
> serial cable from my CoCo to the PC, so I would have to make one or figure
> out where to acquire one...and what about programs or ROM's to actually
> enable the DriveWire support on the CoCo?  I didn't see any discussion of
> this on the site or in the DriveWire download files.
>
> I apologize though, I realize I might have a better idea of how to go about
> getting it running if I had been paying real attention to the DriveWire
> related threads.  Just trying to determine if it would be worth the effort
> to add in DriveWire ability to my setup.

I think there is definitely a need for a "intro to drivewire" type of
guide.  it has been around a long time and I think far too much of
what little documentation we have assumes too much familiarity.

If somebody wants to contribute to the drivewire project in a non
programming role, that might be a good small project.

You are correct that DW4 is a bit complicated, especially the really
fun stuff :)   I would highly recommend to start with a DriveWire 3
setup.  Once that is working well for you, install the DW4 server
alongside.  They are good friends and don't mind being together on the
same machine at all.  They talk to exactly the same hardware, same
software on the CoCo, etc so its very simple to switch back and forth
(just close one program and open the other).

-Aaron