Does anyone know when that last time that the FAQ was updated? I don't want
to be picky but I just got FTP access from my desk here at work and I decided
to check out the "other" Apple ][ emulator at Wilbur. The emulator that the
FAQ "raves" about. One on the reasons that this emulator is preferred is
because the file APPLE.ROM and FLOPPY.ROM are "not required". However when I
ftp'ed that package I noticed two "VERY" familiar files. One was APPLBIOS.COM,
it was suspiciously 12,288 bytes long, just like APPLE.ROM. A quick file
comparison revealed only five bytes difference in the files. What the heck
I said and took a chance. I copied the APPLBIOS.COM file to APPLE.ROM and
fired up my emulator, guess what...it works just fine. Hey, if he can
distribute the Apple ][ ROM why can't I? I also noticed a small file called
slot6.crd, again suspicipously 256 bytes in length, just like FLOPPY.ROM.
Another quick compare revealed absolutely no differences. So my question
is why can't I ship the ROM's with my emulator....anybody? Next I decided
to give the emulator a try on some of my disk images. First thing I noticed
was that the emulator has no color. Am I doing something wrong, if not the
games are *really* boring in black & white. I also noticed that it would
not bring up ProDOS, is it supposed to? Anyway back to the FAQ, I noticed
that a couple of features of my emulator are not mentioned. I thought
that I might mention them and see if they were general knowledge. First
is that there is a complete 65C02 debugger built into the emulator which
you can access at any time with the F9 key. It supports both "hard" and
soft breakpoints, expression evaluation, trace, register display and edit,
instruction disassembly, stack display, Apple screen display, etc. It really
is a complete debugger. Second is that the emulator will run on a CGA, EGA,
or VGA. Unlike the Applemu emulator you get four color graphics while on
an EGA or VGA you get the full range of Apple colors. Also during hi-res
graphics modes there are two different methods of updating the display
screen. If an application is doing page flipping then one method is
preferrable over the other, however, the other modes work better with the
other method. You can see the different with a program like DROL. If you
use the scroll lock key to change the update method while the program is
running you will notice that updating the screen is about twice as fast and
makes the game much more playable. One other thing I would like to mention.
I haven't worked on this program in a least two years. Are there still 
people out there using it, people that would really like to have the ability
to change disks and other card slot settings "on the fly" while runing the
emulator. If so please e-mail me and if I get enough responses I might get
enough motivation to finish the user interface. I was really hoping one
of you would complete it but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.
Well enough ranting and raving for one evening, thanks for your time and
patience to read this letter. I hope someone out there has enjoyed the
emulator and the source code.


						Thanks,

							Randy Spurlock

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          - Randy Spurlock -	    |      Compaq Computer Corporation    
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These opinions are mine...ALL MINE... | He fired his hyper-jets and...  
just ask anyone who's heard them!     | blasted into the 5th dimension!
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INTERNET: randys@twisto.compaq.com    |                     Space Man Spiff
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