Re: HELP - Emulator Newbie - SHK and BXY files

["Roger Johnstone" <rojaws@mac.com>]

In article <3ca5f885.35002380@news-east.newscene.com>, chris@CosmicWolf.com
(Chris Morse) wrote:

> Can you help with another (probably) easy Question?
> How do I read a text file in either DOS 3.3 or ProDOS?
> I can't remember that far back! =)  I need some sort of text viewing
> program, I'm sure, but what should I use or what would you recommend?

ShrinkIt can do it, select Type Files from the main menu. The catch is it
can't read DOS disks though, only ProDOS. A utility like Copy II+ can view
files on either format disk.

> Here's what I had to do for the TANK game I mentioned:
>
> - Download TANK.SHK from the web page, saved to my HD
> - Used Apple Oasis Emu to copy TANK.SHK into a ProDOS .DSK file
> - Booted ShrinkIt, and extracted the TANK.SHK files to a ProDOS disk
> - Used Apple Oasis Emu to copy the game files to a DOS 3.3 disk

It will probably work, but if it was written for ProDOS only you could
encounter problems. Why not leave it on the ProDOS disk?

> Wow- Cool, the Apple Oasis EMU lets me easily select and copy text;
> here's the CATALOG for the TANK game:
>
> ]CATALOG
>
> DISK VOLUME 254
>
>  A 002 HELLO
> *A 053 TANK.COMBAT
>  A 019 TANK.COMBAT.INS
>  B 004 TANK.S
>  T 002 TANK.START
>
> I assume that TANK.START is a text file explaining how to start it??
> So far, I can't figure out how to read the file under DOS 3.3..
>
> Thanks for all your help!
> // CHRIS

Very few instructions were distributed as text files since there was no
command to easily read them. It could be a file used to start the game, try
EXEC TANK.START this will execute any instructions in the text file (same as
a PC batch file). Possibly it runs Tank.Combat.Ins (the instructions?) then
runs Tank.Combat (main program?).

--
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand

Apple II - FutureCop:LAPD - iMac Game Wizard
http://homepage.mac.com/rojaws
________________________________________________________________________
"But what is it good for?"
    Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM
    commenting on the micro chip, 1968