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Re: VirtualBox: Can't start VM - Followup

Hi Paul, in VMware settings you can establish a fixed screen resolution,
which may be the ticket. I will experiment. However, there is this
dilemma: while you really need something like VGA or super VGA to make
full screen XyWrite look great (so it seems to me), Windowed XyWrite
looks better the higher your resolution is. I will continue experimenting
because I want to get back to the full-screen capability on the theory it
might be psychologically beneficial to have only that one screen visible.



Only one screen visible? No other windows visible?


Well, there must be something profound to it, psychologically speaking,
or Microsoft would never have done what seemed so totally inexplicable in
Windows 8, make the default style for new apps to be full-screen only.



Furthermore, there is a real sense that, because of smartphones, we
are, preferentially, regressing back to full-screen 'thinking'.


I have always been one to embrace as many open windows and tabs as
possible, but the fact is that I don't like to concentrate on any one
thing for very long, so this technical capability impedes my
concentration by making it so easy for me to wander and dither.


We really do seem to be stepping backwards. I remember being thrilled
with my pre-Internet banking app, and appalled by my post-Internet
banking webpage. Now, with the smartphone version, I am back to the
uncluttered simplicity of the pre-webpage application. It's an
interesting trend, and it seems to be unstoppable, as nobody wants to use
a phone that is large enough to make multiple simultaneous windows
possible.


The other possibility is to enlarge the XyWrite window to the maximum
possible area, and then figure out a way to black out the rest of the
screen. One of the problems Carl does not have to face, having stuck to
his ten year old monitor, is that nearly all monitors sold today are
ultra-wide, with an aspect ratio around 16:9, rather than the old 4:3 (or
16:12)


I would aver that these wider aspect ratios impede word processing,
because for word processing you need a fully portrait screen orientation,
since increased line length impedes comprehension. (Something around 66
characters per line seems to be ideal.) The last thing you want,
perfectly possible to arrange with XyWrite or any other word processor,
is lines that go the full width of one of the new wide-aspect-ratio
landscape screens.


At 28/07/2014 23:49, you wrote:


Bill, sorry I missed the email
prior to the one I replied to, and I now realize you have VMware. A quick
look online suggests that there isn't a scaled mode. It might be worth a
try with Vbox again, depending on your needs and desires.


I would point out, though, as I said earlier, that what Carl's and my
screenshots show is not a true fullscreen.


I wonder if you would get XyWrite fullscreen in your VMware setup if you
degraded your video resolution to the old VGA dimensions?


Paul

On 07/28/2014 06:10 PM, Paul Lagasse wrote:


Are you using Virtualbox or
VMware?



In Vbox I would establish Scaled Mode first by using Host-C, or
Right-CTRL+C by default, or using the View pulldown menu to select Scaled
Mode, then try ALT-Enter.


Be sure that you have the current Virtualbox additions installed. Every
time Vbox is upgraded to a new version, they need to be
reinstalled.


I no longer have a functioning VMware setup, so don't know what might be
the equivalent there, if anything,


Paul

On 07/28/2014 05:39 PM, Bill Troop wrote:


Paul, is there some way for me
to enter full screen other than pressing Alt-Enter? Doing that gives me
the mini-full-screen which I don't like. Honestly, I'm happy enough with
the top-to-bottom-XyWindow, but I would like to experiment with full
screen if it were possible to get it to work. Hasn't full screen always
been a challenge with laptops for some reason? (I am on a laptop.) - -
B


At 28/07/2014 22:02, you wrote:


Carl and all,


I think I know what's going on. It's not really a true fullscreen,
because the window title bar and the taskbar are visible. I believe this
is Scaled Mode (activated thru a menu or with RightControl-C, AKA Host-C)
with XyWrite fullscreen. I can achieve something similar in Ubuntu; see
Fullscreen-Xy4-in-VBox-Scaled-mode.jpg.


True fullscreen mode (RightControl-F, AKA Host-F)  produces a dismal
XyWrite with ALT-Enter,  see
Fullscreen-Xy4-in-VBox-Fullscreen-mode.jpg.




On 07/28/2014 04:14 PM, Carl Distefano wrote:


Bill:



If you can achieve fullscreen,
which is what you want, that's OK, but you should find it easy to make
any VM (that is, W2K and higher) any size you want.


Makes sense; I need to play with that. After I discovered full screen,
though, I was also somehow able to make windowed XyWrite bigger. I must
say that, although I'm elated about getting full screen, I'm nervous
about the fact that I don't quite know *how* I got it, other than at some
point hitting Alt-Enter. One of the side effects of doing so was to
change the resolution of the virtual Win 7 desktop from whatever it was
down to 800x600. This appears to be related, and may even be a sine qua
non, for getting a full-screen DOS session. It's a little disconcerting
because all of this happened without my consciously changing any
settings. I'd really like to identify the necessary steps and settings so
that I can replicate it on other machines. A quick search of the
VirtualBox user forums did not provide much enlightenment. It seems that
other people have stumbled on this phenomenon, but so far I haven't found
a step-by-step procedure for achieving it. And I confess I haven't yet
cracked the VBox documentation.



Does lag decrease in
fullscreen?


No, when I experienced the lag, it was about the same in a window and
full screen. But the lag substantially disappeared in both window and
full screen after I rebooted the VM. And I've rebooted the VM several
times since then, and the lag has not come back. When I'm typing in
full-screen, I can barely tell the difference from Xy running full-screen
under WinXP.