

Gemulator Classic 3.80 Release Notes
====================================

Atari ST emulator for MS-DOS compatible PCs, 04/28/98

This is a free program. It may not be sold or redistributed!

Emulators Inc.
14150 N.E. 20th Street, Suite 302
Bellevue, WA 98007
U.S.A

email: info@emulators.com
web page: http://www.emulators.com


This Gemulator Classic upgrade is provided as a free service to our
existing Gemulator Classic customers. It is provided AS-IS. Limited product
support is provided by emailing us at support@emulators.com. For full
instructions on using Gemulator Classic, consult your printed Gemulator
3.0 user's manual.

Gemulator Classic is designed for use on MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and OS/2
based computers, computers with less than 8 megabytes of RAM, or on
computers with slow 386 and 486 processors. If you are running Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows NT, or your computer has a Pentium or Pentium compatible
processor, you should use the latest Gemulator 98 product for Windows. It
runs faster, has more features (such as Apple Macintosh emulation), and
is much easier to use thank to its Windows interface. Gemulator Classic
does not run on Windows NT 3.5x and may not run properly on Windows 4.0
due to limitations of the MS-DOS subsystem in Windows NT.

To install the Gemulator 3.80 Atari ST emulator, copy the GEMUL8R.EXE
file and other files from this ZIP file to a directory on your PC's
hard disk. If you have a previous version of Gemulator Classic installed,
overwrite the existing GEMUL8R.EXE file.


Features
--------

Gemulator Classic 3.8 emulates an Atari ST computer on a PC, with support
for up to 8 megabytes of Atari ST RAM, support for all versions of TOS
from TOS 1.0 to TOS 2.06 (including KAOS TOS and Magic), modem support,
printer support, support for reading Atari ST formatted floppy disks as
well as MS-DOS formatted floppy disks and Magic Sac 10-track Macintosh disks,
and support for up to 4 32-megabyte Atari ST disk partitions (stored in the
form of 4 .VHD disk image files provided).

Gemulator 3.80 is a minor upgrade to the Gemulator 3.0, 3.02, and 3.6
Atari ST emulators for MS-DOS released between 1993 and 1997. In addition
to many bug fixes and Pentium speed improvements that we added to the 3.6
release last year, version 3.8 has several more important bug fixes:

- new NOLPT option allows you to disable the printer port. This allows
  Gemulator Classic to run on a multitasking operating system without
  hogging the printer port when it is not needed.

- new support for disk based Atari TOS versions, such as KAOS TOS, MagiC,
  and TOS boot disks, allowing Gemulator Classic to be run entirely without
  the use of hardware. See the comments in the GEMUL8R.INI file for details.

NOTE: Use of the Gemulator ROM card with real Atari ST ROMs is still the
best and most compatible way to run Gemulator Classic.




Tips to fix some common problems
--------------------------------

1) Gemulator boots the ST desktop but no C: drive icon appears.

  Gemulator 3.8 is automatically configured to use 4 virtual hard disk
  partitions (the files CDRIVE.VHD, DDRIVE.VHD, EDRIVE.VHD, and FDRIVE.VHD)
  as ST drives C: D: E: and F:. You do not have to edit your GEMUL8R.INI
  file if you wish to use this configuration (which we recommend).

  However, regardless of the hard disk configuration you decide to use,
  Gemulator cannot access the hard disk unless first run an Atari ST hard disk
  driver like HDX (AHDI.PRG) Supra (SUPBOOT.PRG) or ICD booter (ICDBOOT.PRG).

  These drivers can typically be downloaded from bulletin boards, online
  services like Computer and GEnie. HDX 5.0 (the driver we recommend) can be
  downloaded from Rising Star Computer's BBS at 513-254-7970. Simply log on
  and go to the files section.

2) Gemulator runs slower than expected.

  We cannot stress enough - if you use EMM386.EXE, disable it! There are
  bugs in EMM386 that a) slow down the computer, b) cause Gemulator and other
  32-bit programs to crash. EMM386.EXE is useful for squeezing more memory
  out of 16-bit DOS programs originally designed to run on 8086 and 286
  processors. It creates additional conventional memory (memory in the first
  640K of RAM, or in the upper memory blocks under 1 megabyte) by stealing
  memory away out of extended memory which is used by 32-bit software such as
  Gemulator. If you are using DOS 6 or 6.2 you can use the F5 or F8 keys to
  skip over your CONFIG.SYS entires when the PC is booting up.

  Another common cause for Gemulator running too slow is that on some PC's
  there is a TURBO button (or a TURBO setting in the CMOS configuration)
  which was not pressed in. Also, make sure that the 486's cache is enabled.


3) Gemulator does not print to the printer.

  If your PC uses a bi-directional parallel port for the printer, configure
  the port to uni-directional mode (i.e. disable the bi-directional feature).


4) The right mouse button does not work.

  Several users have reported that using the Microsoft Mouse Driver 9.0 they
  lost use of the right mouse button. When they switched back to an earlier
  version of the driver, such as 8.2, the mouse button worked fine.


5) Gemulator's SuperVGA modes do not work with GDOS/G+PLUS.

  They do, but because the ASSIGN.SYS file requires an entry for each different
  screen resolution, you must add entries to support the SuperVGA modes.
  The standard 3 Atari resolutions are numbered 0 1 and 2 and those are the
  resolutions that appear in your GDOS CONFIG.SYS file. Higher screen
  resolutions (such as TT modes, Moniterm modes, Gemulator SuperVGA modes, etc)
  require entries for higher numbers.

  One of our users described the process in this email message on GEnie:


  Category 19,  Topic 15
  Message 188       Sun Dec 05, 1993
  C.RUBEL2 [C.RUBEL]           at 00:00 EST

  Darek,
          I also sent a reply to the Codehead group about my G+Plus problem
   and it seems that the problem was not with G+PLus afterall.
          The problem was in my old ASSIGN.SYS file.  The file only had
   fonts for resolutions up to res 03 so G+Plus didn't have a font to load
   at a res higher than that.
          All I had to do per Codehead was to copy the fonts from the 04p area
   to an 05p, 06p, etc for the rest of the resolutions I might be using.
          I did as above and all is well now, but its probable still
   worth mentioning to people just in case they run into a similar situation.
   According to the folks at Codehead the old Atari GDOS <UGH> would have
   had the same problem.


6) Backslash key does not function properly with U.K. TOS ROMs.

  If you are using U.K. TOS ROMs and you have a non-U.K. keyboard you
  will find that the backslash key "\" generates instead the "#" character
  and that you are not able to generate the "\" character itself. This is
  because the U.K. keyboard has an extra key which is not found on say,
  U.S. keyboards. In this case press the F11 key to generate the "\"
  character and Shift+F11 to generate "|".


7) The Aladdin terminal program does not logon properly.

  If you use GEnie and tried using the Aladdin terminal program, you may
  find that it dials the number fine but does not logon on. This is a
  common problem with Aladdin users and is caused by the modem not being
  configured to output its carrier detect pin. Aladdin uses the hardware
  carrier detect pin instead of the usual "CONNECT" message. To activate
  your modem's carrier detect pin, type the Hayes command:

  AT&C1&D2

  before dialing. This activates the carrier detect and DTR pins and allows
  the program to function correctly.

  Thanks to Timothy Purves (the author of Aladdin) for this tip.



Try the Gemulator 98 Demo
-------------------------

Windows 95 and Windows NT users - enjoy even faster Atari ST emulation, with
improved sound and joystick support and new Apple Macintosh emulation. Download
the new Gemulator 98 Demo from our web site and see for yourself.

http://www.emulators.com

