[Ham-Mac] Virtual PC and Digipan

[Jerko Golubovic]

>I have Virtual PC 3.0 with Windows 98.  My primary purpose for getting
>it was to run Digipan.  I'm using a 300 Mhz G3 Mac computer.

With VPC - barely on edge for CPU power.

>I down loaded Digipan and loaded it just fine.  I hooked the radio audio
>into the audio in on the computer and get the waterfall display and
>everything seems to be working.  But when I click on a PSK signal, all I
>get is garbled text.

You are loosing pace.

>I have increased the memory allotted to Virtual PC and it did not make a
>difference.

Will not help at all... but you may try following...

>Has anyone run Digipan and Virtual PC 3.0?  Any hints or help would be
>appreciated.

I tried simmilar things and they worked but here are helpful tips I found 
out using EAGLE CAD (and its redraw which is annoying when slow so you 
need to optimize if you want to work with):

1. trash 98 and get early 95.
-> earlier it is, less bloated with everything. If you can get first one 
and selectively update DLLs you need - better. Avoid OSR 2. 95 -> 98 at 
me (G3/400) is significant performance downgrade. You will not have USB 
but... you can have it in second setup.

2. Leave IE3 installed, DO NOT load IE5
-> also bloatware, blame Billy for that. We used PII/300 (Celeron) for 
music production - anything other than original IE3 gave us glitches and 
slowness. 

3. Give 75 Mb physical RAM in VPC and turn off virtual memory in 95
-> giving more than 75 Mb to 95 does not pay-off - its memory manager 
looses itself out with more. It works, but here is the edge where 
performance improvement stops. This was extensively tested on real PCs 
and in VPC

4. Unload everything you do not need in 95
-> although having better scheduler than Classic, it is not so better to 
handle things in low-end situations (Linux is, 9x is not) - always 
remember that it is designed in the way requiring you to purchase new 
machines (as opposed to MAC)

5. Use SB16 generic driver in 95

6. Disable MMX, Network, CDROM and all other emulations in VPC
-> if you do not need them (and you definitely not with Digipan) they eat 
cycles so disable them.

7. Run VPC in low resolution (800x600 max) with 256 colors only - full 
screen
-> forget manual stories about matching depth - 24 or 32 bit depth is 
maybe good for MacOS nad VPC (they at least not suffer or I did not 
noticed that :) ) but not for 95 itself - it suffers a lot on higher 
depths (Windows internally operate on 24 bit - later they went on 32 bit) 
- to be honest it suffers more than you gain by unloading VPC depth 
conversion during emulation.

8. Use Connectix S3-Trio64 videocard driver - NOT GENERIC ONE!!
-> it is more optimized in accessing emulated card

9. I heard (but not tried since I am Classic die-hard although I switched 
on Mac recently) that OS X + VPC 5 combination suffers (still) some 
problems.

I have vast experience with OSes on PC platform (before my MAC age :)) ) 
including Linux (fortunately) and Windows (unfortunately) my specialities 
were:

1. running those on low-end and really-low-end machines
2. installing as much as possible network protocols on DOS machine

If you need advice for Windows try to ask - I will be glad to help :)

73!


Jerko Golubovic
9A6JGJ

APPLE - Think different