[Coco] MESS at 16k non-ext was Terminal program for 16K non-ECB coco?

[Robert Gault]

Bill Pierce wrote:
>
> Mr Gault... I should have known better <laughing>
>
>   I'm not trying to change ANY hardware into any others. I mearly want to set a Coco 2 or Coco 1 to 16k, Color Basic. (no ext basic), as was a standard retail configuration (I own one). I tried 2 versions of MESS, "Mess0125b" & "mess0143b_x64" (I have a 64 bit machine), both in Windows Home Premium 64 bit.
>
>   When the "Ext Basic" roms are removed from the rom zips, NO version of Coco 1 or 2 will run at all. MESS reports missing Roms and exits the emulation. The Coco 1 will actually set to 4k, 16k, 32k, & 64k.... BUT....
> Did anyone ever successfully run Ext Basic in 4K?
>
> I do not know how to set the "ini" file in ANY version of MESS, and maybe this is what I should have asked in the beginning. Can you turn off the "Ext Basic" rom check? If so, How? And what version would do this best? I can and will run any Windows or Dos version to achieve this.
>

OK, I've tested with MESS .143 .

With MESS, if you don't want Extended Basic present, you should use coco 
emulation not cocoe, coco2, coco2b or anything else. I've tried coco2 emulation 
and while you can remove the disk11.rom you can't get rid of the extbas11.rom 
and get emulation to start.

This version still supports messui.exe and with my Windows system, I find it 
easier to set parameters using messui.exe than mess.exe. Even with coco2, I can 
set and get PCLREAR1 PRINTMEM 13095.

Now, I find MESS .143 slightly buggy. That's because setting parameters for 
specific emulations does not always take. It helps when using messui.exe to set 
the paramters for say coco and then kill messui.exe. The next time it starts the 
parameters usually take.
MESS uses the sub-directories cfg and ini to store parameters. If you set 
parameters or even used coco emulation, you should find a coco.ini file. Right 
clicking on an emulation in messui.exe permits selection of properties and there 
is a configuration panel for selecting memory size.
ROMs are stored in the sub-directory roms which either holds zip files or more 
sub-directories for each emulation with .rom files.

When coco is set for 16K and started, you should see
COLOR BASIC 1.0
Enter the following
PRINT MEM
and see
  14631

I think that further discussion would be better off this list by direct e-mail.