Re: Running Xy on Mac or PC?

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Lisa,
Since February, I've been running Xy on a Macbook Pro, under Parallels,
with XP as the virtual machine. I must say I'm delighted with the results.
I use the Mac side little, only for photo-editing in iPhoto and for music
work in Digital Performer. Since I've yet to learn much about the latter,
99.9% of my time is in the XP virtual machine, which feels like a
self-standing, regular PC.
The "virtual machine" is not an emulation, but a true load of XP using the
Intel chip in the Mac, so there's no speed degradation at all. I totally
forget I'm on a Mac. (Why, then, get a Mac? I'll explain in a minute.)
The only area of annoyance is how Parallels handles which side, OS X or XP,
gets to use the USB devices. But now that I've learned how to assign
devices, it's de minimis.
Besides music work, I wanted a Mac to ease the pain of backing up and
migrating to a new machine. Both these tasks become a snap, because your
virtual machine consists of a single file-package, which has the extension
.PVM (for Parallels Virtual Machine). To back up the Windows side, just
copy that file to wherever you want it. To migrate your *100% intact"
virtual windows machine to your next computer (if it's a Mac), just install
Parallels on the new machine, and copy the .PVM file over. It's like you
*always* have a clone of your machine's current state.
On the Mac side, I use a Mac program called SuperDuper!, which I run
automatically late every night, to make a quick clone of the Mac's contents
to an external hard drive. Bear in mind that the .PVM is a Mac file, so it
gets copied too. So, if I want, I can tell the Mac to boot from that
external drive, and it comes up, Mac, Windows, and all, just as it was
before I went to bed.
Or, if my Mac's hard drive fails, I can simply take my external drive to
any other Mac with OS X (e.g., my wife's machine), plug the drive into that
machine's USB, instruct that Mac to boot from the external drive, re-boot,
and be off in running, no sweat, no problem.
Yes, I know there are ways to do the equivalent on purely Windows systems,
but I don't think it's nearly as easy and transparent as on the Mac. Also,
why not have two machines in one, since Parallels costs only about $70?
Incidentally, I'm not one who finds Macs so "user friendly." There's a
learning curve for Mac, just as for Windows. Beneath the Mac, there's Unix,
and it's nice to have that facility there, but so far I've used it about
twice. Of course, I know very little Unix, and that limits my use of it.
On Nota Bene: since your Windows virtual machine is 100% Windows, there's
zero problems running Nota Bene. As to Robert's modifications, I agreed
with his modification of the NBSTART.INT (like STARTUP.INT but for NB), but
decided to make my own modification of the [Startup] stanza in NB.INI. It
turns out that NB has two levels of startup: first it runs NB.INI, then
that calls your *.INT file. But NB.INI has only a few lines to worry about,
and it becomes quite simple. NB.INI loads a bunch of auxilliary programs,
with the extension .AUX. If you delete too many of them, as Robert's mods
do, you can't easily make your screen look really pretty.

In the below, which I use:
&user& means: C:\nb\users\default
&root& means: C:\nb
I moved the .AUX files into C:\NB and changed a lot of "&user&"s to
"&roots&". I just didn't want to have to drill down to get stuff in
\nb\users\default. Where you put them makes no difference, as long as you
tell NB.INI where to find them.



[Startup]
;load &user&nb.kbd=     <=== semicolon comments this out
load &root&nbmacr.kbd=
uwf 3=
load &root&nb.dlg=
load &root&nb.dfl=
load &user&general.spl=
ldpm &root&nbmain-c.aux,&c=
ldpm &root&nbmain-d.aux,&d=
ldpm &root&nbmain-i.aux,&i=
ldpm &root&nbmain-e.aux,&e=
ldpm &root&nbmain-x.aux,&x=
ldpm &root&nbmain-g.aux,&g=
run &root&nbmain-s.aux=
run &root&nbstart.int=
I forget why I have some as load, some as ldpm, and the penultimate as run.
Clearly, the .*INT file at the end has to be preceded by "run."

And why they have an equals sign after each "load," I know not.
By the way, it's best when working on NB's internal files (NB.INI,
NBSTART.INT, etc.) to do the work in XyWrite, rather than from within NB.
Xy can of course read all these files just fine.
And do load the U2. I have ever so slightly modified the Xywwweb.u2 for NB,
and named that version of it NB.U2. In general, it's a good idea to rename
any Xywrite-based internal file, such as the .KBD file, to have NB in its
name, because you'll have a slight divergence between, e.g., XY.KBD and NB.KBD.
With some moderate time on task, I have gotten NB to look as good as Word,
but to have the familiar functionality of XyWrite. It's a blessing. And a
curse. No, two blessings and a curse. Make that three blessings . . .
> Harry,
> As I recall, you've experimented with Xy on the Mac under Parallels, on PC
> under various OS, and also running Nota Bene with Robert's fixes to run
> like Xy. Have you settled on any particular approach? Which do you like
> better?
> I keep trying various things myself, but seem most comfortable with Xy
> running under DOS (on PC) and Dosbox on Mac, though I haven't tried recent
> Parallels upgrades.
> I've noticed a recent Parallels upgrade that allows Windows programs to be
> used on iPad. I am curious about that.
>
> Many thanks,
> Lisa


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx