[Blindapple] further attempts to play eamon

[Tony Baechler]

Hi,

First, I don't use a Mac, so anything I tell you is based on Windows.  That 
said, the emulator is basically the same on all platforms, so it shouldn't 
matter except in small details.

Yes, I personally would recommend booting the boot disk, switching to the 
Eamon Master and switching again for each adventure.  Yes, it is a pain the 
first time, but it's really not bad once you get used to it.  The biggest 
advantage is you have guaranteed speech and you have a much faster DOS, at 
least on the boot disk I posted here.  Once you actually get the disk 
booted, you can save the state and restore that state all the time, so you 
won't have to go through the boot process every time.  In other words, let's 
say I boot my boot disk.  I exit to BASIC and I have speech.  I just press 
Scroll Lock, 3, ESC.  Now, I can pass "-state 3" on the command line to 
start the virtual Apple II right where I left it in BASIC, so I don't have 
to boot the boot disk again.  For example:

1. I boot the boot disk:

mess apple2ee -flop1 tbbase.dsk

2. I exit to BASIC.  I press Scroll Lock, 3, ESC.

3. I then want to run the Eamon Master:

mess apple2ee -flop1 d:\mess\disks\eamon\e_001.dsk -state 3

I can then type "run" to run the menu already in memory and start the Master 
as normal.

On Windows, you don't need Shift-F7 even though the README says you do.  I 
just press scroll lock, 1, ESC to save the state and exit.  I think the 
reason why you're getting no DOS on the disk is because you're trying to 
boot the adventure disk.  None of the EAG disks have DOS, so that error 
would be expected.  If you try to resume a state which isn't saved, it acts 
like a reboot.  I used that trick to force the emulator to boot a disk when 
I don't want to restore a currently saved state.  I noticed that MESS seems 
to require the full path to the disk.  For example, disks\boot.dsk doesn't 
seem to work, but \mess\disks\boot.dsk does.  It has a disk chooser, but it 
isn't accessible.

Maybe someone who actually uses a Mac can give you better instructions, but 
it sounds like you're not saving the state, probably because you're pressing 
the wrong key.  I don't know what to tell you since I don't use a Mac, but I 
can assure you that I've played through all of the EAG disks at least once 
and they all played fine.  Once you get things working and figure out what 
the right keys are to save the state and exit, I can pass on some tricks to 
make things slightly easier, but until you figure out how to switch disks, 
I'm of limited help.  Some Eamon adventures are on two, three or four disks, 
so you need to figure that out first.  I understand it isn't your fault and 
I don't think you're doing anything wrong.  I think the instructions are 
slightly off.  Once I figured out Shift-F7 doesn't actually do anything, I 
had better luck.  I'm sorry I can't help further.  What I can do is send you 
a zip of my Eamon disks.  Most of them are identical to the EAG, but some 
have speedups added which makes them more playable in my opinion.

On 10/20/2015 6:38 PM, erik burggraaf wrote:
> OK,  I've been able to play the eamon Master disk that Jason sent last week.
>   Then I downloaded castle of doom from the eamon adventurer's guild and
> tried to play that.
>
> I assumed that dos and text talker would carry over.
>
> So, here's what I did.
>
> When it promted me to insert the adventure I want and hit C:
> I pressed fn delete.
> I pressed shift F7.
> I pressed 1.
> I pressed escape.
> I entered the command  ./mess64 apple2ee -flop1 disks/05castledoom.dsk -state 1
> and pressed enter.
> Then I received an error that said dos was not installed on this disk.
>
> So I looked at the collection that Tony sent and it just seems bewildering
> right now.  I mean, do I really have to load a boot disk, then switch to an
> eamon master disk for the main hall and beginners cave, then switch to
> another disk for an adventure?  If there's an advantage to doing that, I
> will, but I'm not sure at this point whether I've fudged the disk switching
> process or if the images from the EAG are missing files.
>
> I've got a day of traveling ahead of me on Thursday and would love to spend
> 6 or 8 hours playing if I can.
>
> I appreciate any help.
>
> Erik
>
>
>
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-- 
--------------------
Tony Baechler, founder, Baechler Access Technology Services
Putting accessibility at the forefront of technology
mailto:bats at batsupport.com
Phone: 1-619-746-8310   Fax: 1-619-449-9898