Re: running Xy on a Mac

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Yes, that's one road you can go down. The other is to install a DOS
emulator only, without the Windows baggage; fewer moving parts.
Which one is right for you depends, I think, on whether you intend to run
only Xy or lots of other Windows-based apps too on the Mac.
I did install DOSBox, but I found it hard to do and a bit confusing. It
depends on how much hand-holding you want to get from the software.
Parallels has much more.
Win7 is said to be quite a different creature than all previous Windows
versions, so it may come to pass that future versions of Parallels
(or other simulated environments) cease to support previous versions of
Windows.
I installed Win7 on Parallels a year and a half ago. No problem. I didn't
want to bother with re-installing on Win7 everything I have running
nicely on XP, so I eventually just removed the Win7 virtual machine. (You
can have as many different virtual machines as you want, each with its
own OS.)
Snags? You mean in addition to the usual snags of installing Windows
(missing DLLs and so on)? Virtual Windows may not recognize peripherals
attached to the Mac (scanner, camera, stereo, etc.). My VPC, for
example, doesn't share USB sticks with my PPC-Tiger--one OS throws
the other off the stick. Maybe Parallels doesn't have that particular
problem though.
Nope, it recognizes everything I've thrown at it (including a
scanner).
Xy-specific snags:
getting Xy to print from a simulated environment to a

network printer or a USB-attached printer is probably going to be
dodgy.
I do that the same as in Windows--i.e., via NET USE LPT1:
\\...\...
Getting Xy to 'see' the Mac's file structure is tricky (nothing in
the Mac world corresponds to c:\).
Parallels gives you a drive letter for it that shows up in Windows
Explorer. On my system, it's Y:. BUT though Xy sees Y: and allows me to
"switch" to being logged in to Y: (by entering Y: on the
command line), when I do a DIR in Xy, it says "File not found,"
even though in Explorer I see those files. Strangely, CMD.EXE shows the
Y: files. but COMMAND.COM does not.
Flash
Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx