Wen.Suite, even in it's version 3, is not very memory hungry. A single megabyte is enough to start it running. The only other requirement is to have an RSVF serial driver installed (see below) and the serial buffers extended to 4Kb. A high-resolution monochrome monitor is the lowest display requirement, as Wen.Suite, as well as most Web sites need at lease a 640x400 resolution. A VGA display such as those on the TT, Falcon, Hades and Milan, is necessary for a colour display.
However, additional hardware considerably improves the use of Wen.Suite. With more RAM it is possible to keep pictures in memory without the need of downloading and uncompressing them each time. A vector font manager such as SpeedoGDOS or NVDI allows a much prettier text display. A hard drive allows you to save data from the Internet for later use. Wen.Suite only needs 1Mb of disk space, but the flow of collected data means a much larger storage capacity will be needed. A more advanced video mode will provide a much better display.
Wen.Suite's speed allows it to be used on a standard 8MHz 68000-based ST. However, for regular use, a Falcon seems much more appropriate (the DSP can even be used for decompacting JPEG images). If you want to have performance equivalent to a modern PC, you will need a Hades 040/060 or a Milan 040/060.
Choose a partition with enough free space (at least 20 Mb, the more the better). Avoid the C: partition, which should really be considered as a system partition. Copy the entire Wen.Suite folder included on the main floppy over to the target partition. Once copied Wen.Suite will finish installing itself on the first time it is run.
You still have to copy some additional programs into the AUTO folder. The AUTO folder is on the C: partition and contains all the programs that run when the machine is booted. See section 3.4 for this procedure
You should free up as much space as possible on the floppy disk so that Wen.Suite has enough room to store it's own data. This is why it is recommended to install Wen.Suite on two floppies. Format 2 floppies, the first of which will be a boot disk on which you must create an AUTO folder, then continue to section 2.4. The second floppy will be Wen.Suite's main diskon which you will copy the following files: WENSUITE.PRG, WENSUITE.RSC, WELCOME.HTM and the RSC directory including it's contents. This is all, Wen.Suite will finish installing itself the first time it is launched.
It is essential to install an RSVF compatible serial driver, like HSMODEM, in the AUTO folder and to increase the serial buffers to 4Kb (there are several ways to acheive this, including use of SERBUF4K, which is provided with Wen.Suite).
First, you need to decompress the HSMODEM archive and copy several files to the AUTO folder. The files needed depend on your machine. First copy DRVIN.PRG, which is the driver support program. Then, copy over the actual drivers needed for your machine, as explained in the following table:
|
ST, Mega ST, STE |
MFP.PRG |
|
Mega STE |
MFP.PRG, SCC.PRG |
|
TT, Hades |
MFP.PRG, MFP_TT.PRG, SCC.PRG |
|
Falcon |
SCC.PRG |
The TT has 4 serial ports, and the Mega STE has 3. For these machines the best ports for high speed communication are Modem 2 and Serial 2. On the TT they are also controlled by the DMA.
After copying DRVIN and the drivers into the AUTO folder, you must increase the size of serial buffers. There are several ways of doing this (like reconfiguring HSMODEM with SETTER.PRG), but the easiest way is to add the SERBUF4K.PRG program to AUTO folder after the HSMODEM drivers. A
The order in which these various programs are run is crucial. If they are mixed up, Wen.Suite will no longer work. The actual execution order is the order in which they are copied to the AUTO folder. You can reorganise your AUTO folder with utilities such as XBOOT, SUPERBOOT or AUTOSORT, but if you don't have any of these programs, rename your AUTO folder to AUTO.OLD, create a new AUTO folder, and copy the files over, one by one, in the correct order. In later TOS versions it is possible to view the actual file order by selecting View/No Sort. Once all the files have been copied to the new AUTO folder, you can delete the AUTO.OLD folder.
During it's work, Wen.Suite tends to open a large number of windows. Depending on your OS, this can be limited to 7 windows in a single tasking environment. To raise this limit, you can install WINX in your AUTO folder, like this: first, copy GEMRAM.PRG to the AUTO folder, then copy WINX.PRG, and restart your machine. You now should have the ability to open 40 windows simultaneously. Additionally, WINX offer such features as real-time redraw when scrolling or moving windows. If you machine is too slow for this, then do scrollings and window moves with the right mouse button. You can also install the WINX.CPX in your Control Panel so as to select individual WINX enhancements you wish to use. WINX is available on BBS systems, the Internet and several freeware/shareware CD-ROMs. You'll also find it on the CD-ROM edition of Wen.Suite.
The first time you run Wen.Suite, it will finish the install by creating several directories.
Wen.Suite will also creat several files in it's own folder. These are for Wen.Suite's own internal use and should not be edited by hand.