How to Run RUSSELL'S "P11" ANIMATION MACHINE Applications from Windows 95 with low memory (16meg or less)
To run P11 applications from WINDOWS 95, especially machines with low memory
(16meg or less), you may need to write a shortcut (or 'PIF') file. This
is because although Microsoft claims to fully support DOS applications, they
have put a couple of important "speed bumps" in the way. For example, they only
give DOS a small part of a machine and DOS has to explicitly ask for the rest.
That's really not so bad, but it means you, the user, might need to become a
little familiar with how the software systems work in order to launch our DOS
programs. Also, you need to be aware of other limitations Microsoft has created
(noted below) so you can decide how you want to resolve them. So here goes.
Although we are generally very pleased with the way our software runs inside
of Windows 95, and recommend Windows as the preferred platform for our products,
it appears that Windows 95 sometimes takes resources it doesn't need, in particular
if you have less than 16 megabytes of RAM on your system. Despite Microsoft's
promise to DOS developers that they would maintain complete compatibility
for properly written DOS programs, if you run our largest multimedia programs
on some WIN 95 configurations, you will have to either shut Windows down
or create a 'shortcut' to force Windows to give our programs real
memory, not swapped hard disk space. Yet we don't actually request
all that much hardware!
Most of our animations use either Expanded Memory (known as EMM or EMS) or
Extended Memory (known as XMS), and run very smoothly with NO hard disk
access. If you download one of our programs and the animation is jerky and the
hard drive light flashes on, here are instructions on how to force Win 95 to
give up some resources, or how to shut it down completely while you run our
software. And please, I encourage you to COMPLAIN TO MICROSOFT! Tell them to
leave DOS alone and not try to cripple it! It's really rude of them to
treat hard working developers like us the way they have, after enticing
us for a decade to program in DOS with promises of future support! DOS is a
direct-to-hardware programming environment and allows for some wonderful multimedia.
Microsoft should not be allowed to try to convert it to an emulated, slow, Windows
application. It defeats the purpose. I love Windows, when it behaves itself.
In machines with less than about 12 Megabytes of EMM or XMS
you may not be able to run our applications without shutting WIN95
down completely and restarting in DOS mode. This is because WIN95
will not give up enough EMM or XMS without shutting down for our
application to run. Worse, it may do disk swapping of screen memory
or other memory during execution of our animation routines which
normally run from EMM or XMS, causing delays and jerky animation.
Please be aware of these things if our animation is not ideal on your
WINDOWS system.
This application shows writing a shortcut (or 'PIF') for a "fictional"
P11 program. The program still exists, but is now available in FLASH MX (as of
2003).. Shortcuts for other "P11" other applications can be written essentially
the same way, but with different memory requests. Many P11 applications use less
than 1 megabyte EMM or XMS. When this is the case you normally should be able
to simply run the application from WINDOWS 95. You would not need a shortcut.
WINDOWS 95 STEPS TO WRITE A SHORTCUT FOR "P11"
This explanation assumes you have already downloaded and unzipped the P11 application of your choice. Also, it assumes you have some familiarity with WIN95. Lastly, we cannot assume any responsibility for WIN95 problems. Please call Microsoft FIRST if you need to learn how to start DOS applications from WIN95.
First, click your right mouse button (mouse button #2) on a blank background part of your Win95 screen.
A new menu should appear with the following choices, approximately:
Arrange Icons
Line up Icons
Paste
Paste shortcut
New
Properties
You want to choose NEW because you're going to make a new shortcut.
Click your left mouse button (button #1) on NEW.
A new menu should appear with the following choices, approximately:
Folder
Shortcut
Wave Sound
Bitmap Image
Text Document
WordPad Document
Briefcase
You want to choose Shortcut because that's what you're creating a NEW one of.
Click your left mouse button (button #1) on Shortcut.
A new screen should appear saying, approximately:
Type the location and name of the item you want to create a shortcut
to. Or search for the item by clicking Browse.
You want to type the path and name of the batch file that runs the
application you choose. For example, to run ALL ABOUT PUMPS, you
would normally have placed the program in the \P11\PUMPS directory.
If it is on the C: drive, you would type:
c:\p11\pumps\pumps.bat
and press ENTER.
A new option will appear:
Select a name for the shortcut.
This option can be anything you want, for example:
All About Pumps
One of the buttons at the bottom of this window will be
FINISH. You are finished with this step, so click on
FINISHED.
A new icon should appear on your screen called ALL ABOUT PUMPS.
Click your right mouse button (button #2) on this new icon.
A new menu should appear with the following choices, approximately:
Open
Send To
Cut
Copy
Create Shortcut
Delete
Rename
Properties
Click your left mouse button (button #1) on PROPERTIES. This should
bring up a window called ALL ABOUT PUMPS Properites.
The subwindow titled GENERAL should be on top, now. You do not need
to change anything in GENERAL. Instead, click you left mouse button
(button #1) on Program to bring that subwindow to the top.
On this page, you will see several lines you can modify. First is
the Cmd line. It should have the directory and batch file
already listed. For this example, that would be:
C:\P11\PUMPS\PUMPS.BAT
You can add the option /Q to the Cmd Line if you
like, this will skip the introductory batch file screen all our
programs normally start with, and let you go right into the P11
application.
The next line on this page should say Working. This should
have the directory structure (c:\P11\PUMPS in this example) for the CMD LINE above it, but without
the batch file name (PUMPS.BAT in this example.) You normally
shouldn't need to touch this line.
The next line, batch file can be left blank for P11 applications.
The Shortcut Key is next. It should say None and can remain that way.
The last line should say Run. You can pick from three options here:
Normal Window
Minimized
Maximized
Minimized is not correct, but either other option seems to work. It may not make any difference, but Maximized is probably correct.
You can click on Change Icon now if you like. We plan to supply Win95 Icons soo, but right now you can choose a stock icon from Win95 if you like.
Next, click on Advanced.
A new window will appear called the Advanced Program Settings window. We have tried several combinations but the
default, Prevent MS-DOS-based programs from detecting Windows
seems to work fine. Suggest MS-DOS mode as necessary works as well,
as does MS-DOS mode. If you choose MS-DOS MODE (the third
choice) you can the choose additional options, which may be
appropriate to your situation. (You'll hopefully know if you need
these things.)
Click on OK to close the Advanced Program Settings window.
Now, you should be back at the Program page of the ALL ABOUT PUMPS
Properties screen. You can leave the page FONT alone in most
cases. Click on MEMORY which is to the right of FONTS.
A page should come up with several MEMORY options. Here, the
requirements vary a little for each application. In general, though,
you will need to give the P11 application at least 560K of
conventional memory (sometimes 512 or even less is enough for
some applications.)
Initial Environment can be left set to AUTO.
Protected can normally be left checked or unchecked.
For Expanded (EMS) Memory you should check NONE if you are
using XMS memory, or specify the amount if you are using EMS. P11
will use either type but not both. It will use the one it finds
first that has enough available, but for speed, EMS is probably the
better choice. However, it may not make any difference and either
will suffice. The amount to specify depends on the P11 application's
needs but if you specify 1024K of either EMS or XMS, your P11
application should be able to load. It will normally tell you if it
needs more memory. For Version 3 of ALL ABOUT PUMPS, you should give it at least
1984K of EMS or XMS memory. 4096K (4 megs) is preferred for ALL ABOUT PUMPS.
NOTE: Windows may not give the program more than 1984K of XMS without
shutting Windows down and restarting in MS-DOS mode. In that case you
might prefer to use EMS memory if possible, so you do not need to shut
Windows down.
If you do not use EMS memory, then use XMS instead which is listed
next. You can set XMS to NONE if you use EMS memory, and vice-versa.
For MS-DOS protected-mode (DPMI) memory we leave in on AUTO but
we're not sure what this does. WIN95's own help on the subject is useless.
We are done with the MEMORY page. Move to the right and click on the
SCREEN page. Here, the first option is USAGE. Click
on Full Screen. You can leave Initial Size as Default.
Below that is WINDOW. Both options can be checked, Display
Toolbar and Restore Settings on startup.
Following through the list of options, here are suggested entries:
Below that is PERFORMANCE. Fast Rom emulation can be checked.
As far as we can test, the box for Dynamic memory allocation can be checked or left unchecked.
We are finished with the SCREEN page.
The last page is MISC. Click on MISC and it will bring up the final
page for the ALL ABOUT PUMPS Properties window.
The first option on this page is Foreground. You can allow or disallow the screensaver.
The next option is Mouse. Leave both options there blank, QuickEdit and Exclusive Mode.
The next option is Background. We checked Always Suspend.
The next option is Termination. We checked Warn if still active.
The next option is Idle Sensitivity. We didn't touch it, but if anything, low is probably correct since NONE doesn't seem to be an option.
The next option is Other. We recommend leaving this off.
The final options are Windows Shortcut Keys. No need to mess with them at all, so you're done.
Now double-click on the new icon and your "P11" application should
run just fine!
To exit P11 properly, use the ESCAPE key followed by "y" or, in all
our newer programs, ALT-Q (quit) will exit immediately to DOS.
Please contact us if you have any problems running any P11 application from within Windows or WIN 95. But please contact Microsoft if you need to learn more about Windows. Thank you.
For Windows 3.1 users, please see Windows 3.1 PIF files.
F.A.Q.'s. Master list of FAQ's for "P11" users.
