[Coco] Newbie Questions

[Bill Nobel]

Hi Stephen,  I just want to add a note that I find VCC runs much better on a Mac when used with Wine & Winebottler.  I tried Parallels on my Mac but, for myself having the overhead of Parallels just for VCC I ended up dumping Parallels.

  I have also found that some programs don’t work week under some emulators.  I have used Mame, VCC and others but VCC seems to be the best overall.  Wrapped in Wine VCC on my Macbook Pro is 637.5MB complete.

Bill Nobel

On Jul 3, 2014, at 3:33 PM, Stephen Pereira <spereira1952 at comcast.net> wrote:

> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I have been lurking here for a few months, and I see the awesome amount of CoCo knowledge you all have.
> 
> About me:
> 
> Long ago, when they first came out, I purchased a 16K Extended Basic Color Computer to use at home.  I had a blast with it.  I remember doing the piggy-back memory modification to increase the memory to 32K.  Alas, I was not a rich man back then (still have not made it there!) and I could not afford to keep up with floppy disks and the like.
> 
> Fast forward to the present.  I am a vintage computer collector of sorts, purchasing and trying out many different computers that I wished I could afford, back in the day.  Recently, I came to see the avid CoCo community and the active support from places like Cloud-9.  I purchased a CoCo 3 from Cloud-9, and I have been having a blast playing around with it, and refreshing my memories of my old CoCo in the past.  I am currently using a CoCo RGB-to S-Video converter that I purchased from Chris Hawks.  I am also currently loading HDB-DOS from a .WAV file, and I am using Drivewire 3 as my virtual disk drives.  I also purchased HDB-DOS in an EPROM from Cloud-9, and I purchased some ROMPAK PCBs from here: CoCoEPROMpak GitHub Repository so I could make an HDB-DOS cartridge one day.
> 
> Here are some newbie questions:
> 
> With my physical setup, I have run into problems running some programs available in .DSK files.  Most recently, I downloaded Zork I from the color computer archive.  I load and run HDB-DOS, and then insert the Zork I disk into my Drivewire virtual drive.  When I type LOADM"0:GAME.BIN":EXEC the screen clears, prints "THE STORY IS LOADING ..." in the middle of the screen.
> the computer, a few seconds go by, and then I get:
> 
> INTERNAL ERROR 14
> END OF SESSION
> 
> and the computer is frozen.
> 
> I have done this very same thing on the VCC emulator running on my MacBook Pro under Parallels running Windows XP, and it works fine there.
> 
> The difference is that I do not have a physical disk drive controller, nor do I have Tandy Disk Extended Color Basic.  I am running with HDB-DOS and Drivewire.
> 
> I have a similar problem with my copy of Disk EDTASM.  It will not run in my setup either.
> 
> So, I am assuming that for some reason, Zork requires something that would have been there in DECB.
> 
> Has anyone run into this problem?  Is there a solution, or should I make some more investment in a Tandy floppy disk controller and a real physical floppy disk?
> 
> If I do go with a real floppy disk controller, what is the best suggestion for it?  Can I still run HDB-DOS and Drivewire along with the real floppy disk controller and drive?
> 
> Thanks very much, in advance for your patience and attention.  One more thing:  Where can I go to learn more about how HDB-DOS works and what's going on in there?  What are the differences with Tandy DECB?
> 
> Thanks for listening...
> 
> smp
> 
> 
> -- 
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>