Re: Xy on XP

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Being about to install Xandros Linux on the unpartitioned 19.7 G of my
hard drive, I thought I would take the opportunity to TEMPORARILY
install the office copy of XP (it's off now, if there are any M$ or
Business Software Alliance spies lurking here) and try Xy on it, to see
if the infamous jerky cursor occurred.
I have to say it is real. And I am not a visually sensitive person. But
there is a definite jerkiness. Oddly, not so much a lag between
keystroke and screen (at one point I tried Robert's expedient of typing
away like mad, not caring whether I was typing anything intelligible;
the screen kept up with the keys) as a sort of discontinuity in screen
behavior--exactly what one would expect if it is caused by the sharing
of CPU cycles.
I tried all the expedients I could find in the archive: with and without
the "Compatible timer for hardware emulation" box in the
Program->Advanced tab of the pif. properties checked (didn't see that
one in the archive, but it seemed like a logical thing to try); checked
and unchecked in turn the various Edit options in the NTVDM properties;
entered KS=0.0 on the command line; set mode con in a bat file before
running Xy.

One thing that struck me: config.nt had an entry
files=40
That strikes me as rather low, but my Xy Getting started manual was over
in the office, so I didn't mess with it.
In any event, we are still left wondering whether there are really
hardware platforms that DON'T have this problem, or just users who are
less sensitive to it. (FWIW, I could probably get used to it if I had
to, but as I loathe XP for many other reasons, I have no intention of
doing so.)
SO... Would those who run Xy on XP and think it runs fine please at
least let us know what make and model of PC they're running on? I'll
keep a list. Those who experience jerkiness should watch for these posts
and let us know if they are using any of the same models. At that point
we'll have to investigate BIOSes and other components (PCs of the same
make and model do NOT always have the exact same components). On the
other hand, if none of the people with problems use those PCs, we may
have evidence of real hardware differences.
One final mini-rant: it is not technologically respectable (that's
putting it mildly) to not know what hardware you're running. One cannot
be expected to recall one's BIOS date and version off the top of one's
head, but one should know how to find it out--and keep a record of that
and other such facts for future reference.

Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx