[Coco] Question about DriveWire 4 and MESS

[Robert Gault]

Rick Taylor wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am trying to get Drivewire 4 working, both in an emulator (MESS or
> VCC, either will do), and I'm running into problems.
> I have downloaded the latest version of MESS from here
> http://www.mess.org/download.php
>
> and I have the latest version of drivewire 4 (the beta) from here
> http://sites.google.com/site/drivewire4/beta
>
> I have MESS booting up from the coco3 and DECB1.1 roms, and when I
> boot (ie, type "DOS" from within DECB) from the sdlmess_dwboot.os9
> image, it comes up to the 'development build/not for distribution'
> initial screen for NitrOS-9, and then hangs, no prompt.
>
> One of the reasons why is because I have not applied the
> sdlmess-coco-dwsck-ffe0.patch file to MESS. I am running under
> windows, and have my choice of XP, Vista, or Win7(64 bit) -- this
> machine boots to a couple of different images.
>
> So here's my question: Under Windows, how the heck do you apply the
> patch file? There is no patch.exe in the MESS distribution that I can
> find. Do I go get a copy of MAME or something? Or do I just put it
> somewhere special?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> -- Rick

SDLmess is intended for Linux systems, far as I can tell, so you ought not to want the SDL 
patches running under WinXP, Vista, or Win7.

However, ignoring the above, the sdlmess patch is a text file. Change the extension and 
read it with any Windows text program. This patch is intended for people who are able to 
compile their own custom versions of MESS. It can't be applied to any existing version of 
MESS.
Based on my own problems with MESS (which has frequent source code changes which changes 
can and do effect Coco performance) there is no way to predict that the patch would work 
even if it were for the Windows version of MESS.

Must you use Drivewire4? Have you tried Drivewire3?