The Fine Print. This software and manual are sold "as is" without warranties as to perfomance and fitness to a particular purpose. Neither the authors of Fast Eddie nor Kagi Shareware are liable or responsible for loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by this software product. The user, and not the manufacturer, distributor, or retailer, assumes the entire cost of all necessary repair, servicing or correction and any incidental or consequential damages.
Copyright. Fast Eddie is copyrighted and all rights are reserved by André Horstmann and Henrik Gudat ("Fast Eddie Labs" hereafter). Fast Eddie is shareware - you are encouraged to distribute Fast Eddie by electronic means or on disks of 2Mb or less, provided that you do not modify or omit parts of the software and/or documentation. Distribution of Fast Eddie on CD-ROM and all other high capacity (over 2MB) media is strictly prohibited. If you have questions regarding this license agreement, would like to bundle Fast Eddie on a CD-ROM or get a site license, please send e-mail to both andre.horstmann@unifr.ch and gudath@ubaclu.unibas.ch .
What is Fast Eddie?
Welcome to Apple IIgs emulation! Fast Eddie is a Apple IIgs emulation software for Power Macintosh computers. With Fast Eddie, you can run virtually all Apple II software (some restrictions apply) on your Power Macintosh. At time of this writing, Fast Eddie is not compatible with pre-PowerPC Macs (680x0 family). We are looking into backward compatibility and hope to release a version that runs on Power Macs and fast 68030 and 68040-based Macintosh computers.
About This Public Beta
Why release an incomplete emulation software? This is a good question you might ask yourself. However, we think that Fast Eddie is complete enough to provide most former Apple IIgs users with a reasonable replacement. In fact, Eddie emulates a pretty sophisticated Apple IIgs. The emulator is running very stably on both the Mac and IIgs layer, and chances are high that Fast Eddie supports everything you need for running your favorite software, including entertainment software.
The reason why we have released Fast Eddie earlier than expected is the obvious demand for a solid Apple IIgs emulation software. The masses of mails from people waiting for Apple IIgs emulation were reason enough for us not to hold back a piece of software we believe is ready for public consumption.
Needless to say, Fast Eddie is not perfect. There are still a few things to fix (see "Miscellanous" at the end of this Read Me). You will see frequent updates to Fast Eddie, and we will turn it into the most complete, most enjoyable Apple IIgs emulation software. Hold your breath!
Shareware Notice
Fast Eddie is shareware. We have really spent an incredible amount of time with this software. Basically, we have been working on Fast Eddie in 1996 during almost all week-ends and weekdays after returning from work or university. The price we have set does not reflect at all the tremendous amount of time we have dedicated to this project, but we have created Fast Eddie because we love this machine and really enjoyed working on it. If you find our emulation software useful and/or appreciate our work, please support this shareware product and pay US $25. The shareware fee may increase slightly when the final version will be released.
Registration
The unregistered version of Fast Eddie has one limitation: it quits after running for 15 minutes. Except for that, the registered and unregistered versions have exactly the same functionality.
To turn your copy into a registered version, you only need to pay the shareware fee. In order to make this process as simple as possible for you, Fast Eddie Labs has signed up at Kagi Shareware, a company specialized in processing shareware fees. You can pay with credit card, check and cash. You will find a "Register" application in this archive that automates shareware payment. This Register application outputs an order form that you can fax (+1 510 652 6589), e-mail (shareware@kagi.com) or snail mail to Kagi Shareware along with your check, cash or credit card number. DO NOT FORGET TO INCLUDE YOUR SERIAL NUMBER. We need this code to unlock your copy. In the register program, there's a very small balloon to the left of the text "Fast Eddie by Andre Horstmann & Henrik Gudat" - if you click it, Register allows you to enter a comment. This is a perfect place to include your serial number in the order form.
Fast Eddie has the following pricing.
• 1-9 single user licenses, $25 per user
• 10+ single user licenses, $20 per user
• Site Licenses, World-Wide Licenses and special pricing for educational institutions are available. Please contact Fast Eddie Labs directly (FastEddie@kagi.com).
Paying for Fast Eddie is fairly simple. Open the Register program that accompanies Fast Eddie. Enter your name, your email address, and the number of single user licenses you wish to purchase. Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to Kagi. More specifics on the Register program to follow. Kagi handles our payment processing.
If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save the data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.
Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive an email acknowledgement.
If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-XF
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical.
If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment.
Kagi can not invoice your company, you need to act on Kagi's behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed. Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.
Protection
Fast Eddie has a protection scheme and when you pay, we tell you how to indicate to Fast Eddie that you have paid the registration fee. If you do not have an email address, please enter your complete postal address and please remember, we do not know what country you live in so please enter that into the postal address also.
If your copy (previously registered) copy of Fast Eddie suddenly reverts to unregistered state, contact Fast Eddie Labs. Please include your old registration code and the serial number displayed in the registration box. We will provide you with a new code. (At no charge, of course.)
Installation Procedure
Fast Eddie comes as a self-expanding Compact Pro archive. To install Fast Eddie, turn the BinHex file into a executable Macintosh file (you can use utilities such as StuffIt and CompactPro) and double-click the Fast Eddie.cpt icon.
Since Fast Eddie is a software-only emulator, it requires a copy of the Apple IIgs ROM. We are not allowed to include this code due to the copyrights that prevent us from doing so. Consequently, you have to create an image of a Apple IIgs ROM yourself. Fast Eddie can handle both ROM 1 and ROM 3.
Follow these simple steps to make a ROM image:
• turn on your Apple IIgs and boot into Prodos 8
• If you have a ROM 1 Apple IIgs enter the following text (do not enter the "]" and "*")
]call -151
*0/800<FE/0.7FFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000
*0/800<FE/8000.FFFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$8000
*0/800<FF/0.7FFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$10000
*0/800<FF/8000.FFFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$18000
• If you have a ROM 3 Apple IIgs enter the following text (do not enter the "]" and "*")
]call -151
*0/800<FC/0.7FFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000
*0/800<FC/8000.FFFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$8000
*0/800<FD/0.7FFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$10000
*0/800<FD/8000.FFFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$18000
*0/800<FE/0.7FFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$20000
*0/800<FE/8000.FFFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$28000
*0/800<FF/0.7FFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$30000
*0/800<FF/8000.FFFFM
*BSAVE APPLE2GS.ROM,A$800,L$8000,B$38000
• Copy this file on a disk and move it into the Fast Eddie application directory.
• Done!
Memory
Fast Eddie has a small memory footprint. The factory setting is approx. 4Mb RAM. This application size is about the equivalent of a 1.5Mb Apple IIgs system. (Ca. 2.5 megabytes are reserved for Fast Eddie, all remaining free RAM will be allocated for Apple IIgs memory.) If you would like to increase available Apple IIgs memory, follow these steps:
• Make sure Fast Eddie is not already running. If it is, choose Quit from Fast Eddie's File menu.
• Locate the Fast Eddie application on your Mac and highlight its icon in the Finder window
• Choose "Get Info" from the File Menu (in the Finder)
• Enter a new application size in the "preferred" text box. Each additional 64 kilobytes will translate into 64 additional kilobytes of Apple IIgs memory.
• Close the window
The next time you start Fast Eddie, the changes in memory allocation will take effect. Please keep in mind that Fast Eddie will not allocate more than 8 megabytes for Apple IIgs memory.
Working with Fast Eddie
Fast Eddie is a stratospherically easy-to-use application with a straightforward point & click interface.This documentation will show how certain procedures such as inserting/ejecting disks etc. work with Fast Eddie. However, to learn more about how the Apple IIgs system software works, you should consult the manuals that came with your Apple IIgs. (You must own an Apple IIgs in order to legitimately use the ROM image.)
Keyboard
Some keys have a different meaning:
• The Apple IIgs Reset key is the backspace key on the Mac keyboard. The Mac's shutdown/startup key retains its original function. The backspace key allows you to reset (control+backspace) and reboot (control+command+backspace) the system.
• The keypad may not work as expected. If you are trying to type on the keypad and nothing happens, make sure you have disabled joystick emulation via the keypad. To turn it off, choose "Joystick Support/None" from the Setup menu.
• To access Macintosh menu key commands, press command-shift-[key] instead of command-[key].
Mouse
You have to turn on mouse emulation in order to use it as a Apple IIgs mouse. There's a easy shortcut to swap between Mac and GS mouse: Command-shift-click into the video window.
Fast Eddie is incompatible with the Kensington mouse driver. You will notice jerky, unreliable mouse movement. Disable the Kensington extension before using Eddie.
Starting Emulation
As soon as Fast Eddie is loaded, emulation is running. To pause emulation, choose "Halt" from the Setup menu.
Video Support
Fast Eddie supports virtually all text, graphic and mixed modes. High resolution graphics (280x196) is monochrome only - this will change in the final release.
Eddie's super-hires emulation bases on indexed colors, the same color scheme the Apple IIgs is using. Due to the way how the Mac is handling colors you might want to deactivate a few palettes. Why? When reserving all colors for Fast Eddie, you will notice that all background applications and Fast Eddie windoids will be redrawn in black&white, or using only very few colors. Typically, you do not need all 14 palettes and can reduce the number of active palettes. By not enabling all 14 palettes you allow for better display of background application, desktop and Fast Eddie auxiliary windows.
For example, when working with desktop applications, 1 to 8 palettes are sufficient. Note that activating more palettes does not have an impact on execution speed. Fast Eddie offers you the possibility to cut back color support for cosmetic reasons only.
But - that's not the whole story. Fast Eddie features a special video mode called Power Mode. The Power Mode makes your Apple IIgs emulator look like an actual Apple IIgs. The Power Mode has the following characteristics:
• the Video window will be centered and the space around the Video will be covered by a border
• all 16 palettes will be activated for 100% reproduction of GS video. Remember, Fast Eddie can only display up to 14 palettes otherwise. The Power Mode takes over all available colors of your Macintosh.
• Screen updates are significantly faster because Fast Eddie skips some steps and directly updates the video. You will experience a speed increase of 10-20%.
To quit Power Mode push Command-Shift-P. You have to remember this keystroke because the menu is not visible.
One of the most time-consuming tasks are video refreshes. Except when being in Power Mode (see above), Fast Eddie maintains a separate memory chunk for drawing the Apple IIgs video. Sporadically, this off-screen memory is copied to the Video window.
Because you do not always need frequent video updates, Fast Eddie allows you to reduce the frequency at which it is redrawing the Video window. Usually, you can set the speed control in the Speed window to a position within the red range ("Fast").
Working with Disks
Formats Supported
Fast Eddie supports various disk formats:
• DiskCopy: disk copy is a popular disk copier from Apple Computer. Disk images created with Disk Copy are compatible with Fast Eddie.
• CoolMedia: Eddie's own disk format. CoolMedia is backward compatible with Harddrive images ('hdrv'), but we will eventually add more information to CoolMedia files in future.
• "Real" disks: Eddie can read and write disks you insert into the Mac's built-in SuperDrive. You need not install PC Exchange for this as the emulator is accessing disks on a pretty low level. The physical layout of the disk does not matter - actually, Eddie processes Prodos, HFS and MS-DOS disks.
Disk images can be of virtually any size. The CleverPort (Fast Eddie's SmartPort emulation) can work with disk images ranging from 512 bytes to several gigabytes.
Mounting Disk Images
Fast Eddie maintains a dynamic chain of up to 8 SmartPort devices. When mounting a new disk image, Fast Eddie allocates the lowest-numbered free device. To mount a new disk, choose "Mount Volume" from the Setup menu or push the "in•out" button in the Volumes window. (The "in•out" button is explained in detail below.)
Disks inserted into the built-in Superdrive need not be mounted. Fast Eddie will check for a disk in the internal 3.5"drive automatically.
Rearranging the Device Chain
You can remap a CleverPort device to another logical unit at any time.
WARNING: remapping a drive may severely confuse the system software. Furthermore, if there are still disk caches with data not written to disk, the disk image may become corrupted. We strongly recommend you to remap devices only during startup, after shutdown, or while working with Prodos 8.
To remap a drive, follow these steps:
• open the Volume window (open the Windows menu and choose "Volumes")
• click the drive you'd like to move to another ID
• click the green up or down buttons at the bottom of the window until it arrived at the right position.
Unmounting/Ejecting a Volume
To eject a volume, you have the following options:
• While in the GS Finder, always drag the disk into the trash. This flushes disk buffers and ensures data integrity.
If you're not in the Finder:
• Click the eject button in the Volumes window. Each disk icon has a fully functional eject button to the right of the disk slot. Clicking this small grey box ejects the disk.
• Select a device by clicking the disk icon. A selected CleverPort device has a red frame and a red title. Then push the "in•out" button at the bottom of the Volumes window.
• Choose "Eject" from the Setup menu to eject a disk in the internal Superdrive.
As you can see above, there are several ways how to eject a disk or disk image.
Booting
When booting, Eddie scans the device chain for bootable disks. If there's no bootable disk in unit 1, the software scans all mounted disks and swaps the lowest-numbered bootable disk with the one in unit 1. For example, if Eddie finds a system software disk in unit 4, it swaps units 1 and 4 and then continues booting from unit 1.
Creating New Volumes
The menu item "Create Volume" allows you to create new disk images of type CoolMedia, Eddie's own disk image format. These disks can have virtually any size. Keep in mind that ProDOS does not work with volumes larger than 32Mb.
Limitations of the CleverPort Disk Interface
Fast Eddie does not support direct, low-level IWM access. The IWM is a disk controller (sort of) built into the Apple IIgs. Software that depends on the availability of the IWM will not run. This includes only very few software titles, notably demos from the FTA and similar groups. IWM emulation is only partially completed and has been disabled in this beta release. Upcoming releases of Fast Eddie will allow you to run these software titles.
Fast Eddie does not support 5.25" disk hardware. Coming soon near you.
Ensoniq Sound Emulation
Fast Eddie features rich, 32 channel stereo/surround sound. The emulator emulates the Ensoniq sound chip for the ultimate sound experience with many games and music software.
Sound emulation can be customized to make efficient use of your Mac hardware. To fine-tune the sound component, open the Preferences window (open the Setup menu) and click the topmost icon (blue "water ripples").
Sound emulation on/off enables or disables sound emulation. Note that sound emulation requires quite some CPU resources - you should turn it off if you do not need it at the moment or activate the SonicSense feature (see below).
The playback mode lets you choose among various settings. Mono outputs a mono signal and is the fastest mode requiring only a fair amount of CPU resources. Stereo provides you with a stereo outpout if your Mac can reproduce two channel sound. If you are connecting headphones, we recommend you to choose Stereo Enhanced - this mode reduces the stereo effect for more relaxed listening with headphones. Dolby Surround is Eddie's state-of-the-art surround sound engine. If you have your Mac connected to a Dolby Pro Logic/THX decoder/preamplifier, this mode outputs 4 channel surround sound (left, right, center, rear). Unfortunately, in order to hear sounds on the center and rear channels, Apple IIgs software must be capable of addressing more than just the standard two stereo channels. See below for information on "Rear Channel Automapping".
Note: we are currently experimenting with output volume. You will notice that Mono playback is a bit louder than all other playback modes. This is simply due to a slightly different approach.
The Xtra Features are a collection of unique functions that make Fast Eddie a top performer:
• SonicSense is a special feature that cuts down sound emulation overhead to an absolute minimum. You should always enable SonicSense. Basically, it means that sound is turned off automatically after 2 seconds of silence and restarted when sound resources are being used again. When sound is turned off by SonicSense, the red light in the "Sound" window is blinking.
• Hi-Fi sound lets you choose between 22kHz (off) and 44Khz (on). Be sure your Mac is set to the same output frequency, otherwise fast Eddie will slow down somewhat.
• Smart Voice Cancelation is a technique for cutting down the number of voices. Often two of the possible 16 pairs of voices can be translated into only one Mac voice, thus this feature can reduce sound emulation overhead by as much as 50% (approx.).
• Rear Channel Automapping screens the sounds played tru the Ensoniq and dynamically maps certain voices to the rear and center channels. This option is only active when used with Dolby Pro Logic sound mode. It allows you to listen to surround sound even if the Apple IIgs software is designed to play stereo only. This is an experimental feature and may not always produce 'good' sound. Check it out!
• Delayed Amplitude Scaling prevents abrupt changes in volume.
Recommendations
Sound emulation may slow down Fast Eddie on low-end Power Macs significantly. For best perfomance, be sure to:
• set sound emulation and your Mac to 22Khz (You can do this in the Sound control panel from the Apple menu)
• enable SonicSense and Smart Voice Cancelation
• use Mono playback
• close the Sound window
The Sound window (see Window menu) displays some fancy controls. However, opening this window eats valuable CPU resources, so better close it when speed is critical.
Limitations of Sound Emulation
The n•sonic sound driver does not support:
• A/D conversion (for digitizing sounds)
• read data register (this feature is only used by the MIDI toolset as far as we know)
Fast Eddie does not support 1-bit sound found in Apple II software. Coming soon near you.
Miscellanous
Fast Eddie requires your Mac to be in 256 colors. Attention: we have found that the automatic color depth switching sometimes does not work correctly in environments with multiple monitors.
The Preferences window contains a Generic Settings panel. To access it, open the Preferences window and click the third icon button (a IIgs with a yellow ruler). Here's a short description of what some more obnoxious items do:
• Special Sound Effects enables "sounds" the Apple IIgs makes, for example when a disk is ejected.
• Power Mode is a special video mode where Fast Eddie takes over your monitor. On larger monitors, it'll add a black border. Power Mode results in noticeable increase in performance. It not only makes your Mac look like a Apple IIgs but also squeezes the last clock cycles out of your PowerPC.
Speedup-Tips summary
• Close other applications, close Finder windows
• Disable all extensions (shift-boot your Mac)
• Hide the "Sound" window and choose mono and 22kHz, or disable sound.
• Use the option "Power Mode" - video will be drawn directly into video memory.
Remember the shortcut command-shift-P!
Other Limitations
Fast Eddie does not 100% support BCD mode. BCD is an encoding scheme for calculating with decimal numbers in hexadecimal notation. This mode is only rarely used.
Feedback
The authors of Fast Eddie hope that you will like their work. If you have comments on this software or encountered problems, we'd like to hear from you. Please understand that we probably can't reply to all the mails. If you are sending us e-mail, we will read your message even if you do not get an answer. Despite our time constraints we'll do our best to answer as many mails as possible. Thank you!
Please send your comments to both andre.horstmann@unifr.ch and gudath@ubaclu.unibas.ch .
Enjoy!
_________________________
André Horstmann
Höhenweg 3d
6300 Zug
Switzerland
andre.horstmann@unifr.ch
Henrik Gudat
Pantelweg 2
4153 Reinach
Switzerland
gudath@ubaclu.unibas.ch
Mac, Apple IIgs, SmartPort, GS/OS, Finder, MacOS, ProDOS, AppleWorks are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc. Dolby Pro Logic is a trademark of Dolby Laboratories Inc. THX is a trademark of Lucasfilm Inc. Ensoniq is a trademark of I-don't-know-who. All other brand names are trademarks of their respective holders.
