disabling accessories on a Mega STE?

[Gunstar]

How do you disable desk accessories on a Mega STE? There are several desk accessory progams installed on my Mega STE HD that I want to keep, but I don't always want them to be resident in memory when I'm not using them and want the memory for other things. So, since I never got a manual with my Mega STE, I don't know how to disable them from the desktop, which, from my understanding is possible, since I have one game in particular that sometimes crashes and says it's out of memory, and that I should disable any unused desk accessories and then restart the program.

[krupkaj]

it is easy, TOS try to start every accessories which are available. All active accessories has suffix acc. If you want disable them, just change acc to acx.

[Mindfield]

ACCessories are stored on the root of the boot drive. Either remove them or change the extension to ACX or something and they won't load on next boot.

[Gunstar]

Thanks, I knew I could change the suffix, I was just hoping there was a way to do it without changing the suffix, becuase that means that every time I want them or not, I have to go through and change the suffix. I was hoping there was a way to "close" them without going through that trouble, and having to reboot every time I want them loaded or not.

[krupkaj]

you can install some boot manager. It starts usualy as 1st program from AUTO, and you can select here which AUTO programs and accessories you want to start for session.

[+DarkLord]

Thanks, I knew I could change the suffix, I was just hoping there was a way to do it without changing the suffix, becuase that means that every time I want them or not, I have to go through and change the suffix. I was hoping there was a way to "close" them without going through that trouble, and having to reboot every time I want them loaded or not.

964377[/snapback]

 

Some desktops, like Thing will allow you to load an ACX as if it were labeled ACC. It doesn't load up at boot time though. I think you can unload it as well.

 

I don't know if Thing needs to be sitting on top of MINT to do this though.

 

Anyone else?

[krupkaj]

It depends on acc. Some of accessories can run also as normal programs. If you are in single TOS Thing can start such accessories in program mode. In case the MiNT environment is running under the Thing, it can load any accesories without problem. If you want to unload certain accessory, just click to its item in the GEM menu line together with pushing Control key. This is possible only with MiNT (or Magic - not sure)

Edited November 13, 2005 by krupkaj

[+Stephen Moss]

You could try tracking down a copy of MakeCPX and use it to convert a copy of your accessory file to a CPX module. Then you can run it from the Control Panel whenever you like.

 

Not all software will run as a CPX and those that wont usually send your computer into a constant crash-reboot cycle that can only be broken by either booting from floppy and loading you HD software from there prior to deleting the file or by booting from another drive partition so be warned if you want to try that route.

[krupkaj]

Interesting, I have not known this program.

 

But there is also great accessory called CHAMELEON. It can load other accessory to itself and you can use it as long you want. And if you need other one you can just change it on the fly without rebooting, very usefull. I used it very often in the days I had only STFM without possibility to run MiNT properly.

[+DarkLord]

Interesting, I have not known this program.

 

But there is also great accessory called CHAMELEON. It can load other accessory to itself and you can use it as long you want. And if you need other one you can just change it on the fly without rebooting, very usefull. I used it very often in the days I had only STFM without possibility to run MiNT properly.

965446[/snapback]

 

Thats right! I had forgotten about that one. Too long gone from the "Scene, I reckon.

 

IIRC, since it is an ST with memory limitations, Neodesk and Geneva are also possible considerations. I've always been impressed with both. They run pretty good on my 4 meg Mega ST. Neodesk/Geneva handles ACCs in a much better manner than the stock TOS desktop.

[tjlazer]

I think there is a better solution for you. Why not just leave them as is, and when you want to load a game or app that needs all your mem reboot while holding down ALT and that boots you right into TOS with HD Drivers loaded a hopefully a C: drive, then load the game and you are all set. If you need a D: or other drive then you will have to add the icon... But C: should be there right off.

[Gunstar]

I think there is a better solution for you.  Why not just leave them as is, and when you want to load a game or app that needs all your mem reboot while holding down ALT and that boots you right into TOS with HD Drivers loaded a hopefully a C: drive, then load the game and you are all set.  If you need a D: or other drive then you will have to add the icon...  But C: should be there right off.

965481[/snapback]

 

 

becuase that is not how ALT works. when you hold down ALT it boots the disk in the A drive from it's boot sector and runs the game program directly and you don't get the desktop, it boots the game in 8mhz mode. My whole point here is to play a game in 16mhz mode, and booting it from the HD where it has been installed.

Edited November 15, 2005 by Gunstar

[+DarkLord]

Duh...now how come me no tink of dat? Maybe because special me wants to run game in 16mhz mode. DUh.

965621[/snapback]

 

Okay, I'm a little confused. Doesn't the Mega STe run in 16mhz mode all the time?

 

I mean, no matter what graphic resolution you boot up into, it should still be running at 16mhz, right?

 

Thanks.

[Gunstar]

Duh...now how come me no tink of dat? Maybe because special me wants to run game in 16mhz mode. DUh.

965621[/snapback]

 

Okay, I'm a little confused. Doesn't the Mega STe run in 16mhz mode all the time?

 

I mean, no matter what graphic resolution you boot up into, it should still be running at 16mhz, right?

 

Thanks.

965627[/snapback]

No, it automatically boots in 8mhz mode when usint ALT to boot from the A floppy drive, it only boots in 16mhz mode if you have the desktop.inf set to start up in 16mhz mode when the computer boots from the C: drive to my knowledge. Right after I posted what you quoted above, I edited it to explain more, unfortunately you were right here the second I posted it and quoted me before I had finished editing. \

 

Though I'm not sure if I've explained it right yet, so from the top:

Holding ALT down is to boot a commercial floppy disk from drive A that boots from it's boot sector, and the game will automatically load in 8mhz mode, if you want to play the game in 16mhz mode you have to go through the desktop if possible, if it's a program that boots from the boot sector (not the same as an autoboot from an auto folder) then you have to try using a progam I was recently given to cold-boot in 16mhz mode called Boot.TOS or something like that, which lets you load the desktop in whatever mhz you have it set for (or change from the desktop's control panel) and then run Bott.tos so the floppy will boot from it's bootsector in 16mhz mode instead. Though not all games are compatible with this. If the disk doesn't boot from it's boot sector, you will still go to the desktop booting from the C: drive, which in turn will boot all the ACC that you have ready to boot on that C: drive and in whatever speed you have it set to boot in, e.g., 8mhz, 16mhz, 16mhz w/cache. As far as I know, that is all ALT is for; to boot a disk that boots from it's boot sector. ALT does nothing when booting if there is no boot-sector boot on the disk, it looks at the disk and says, o.k. there is a disk there, merely recognizing it and moving on to boot from the C: drive anyway.

 

I feel like I'm a student in Mega STE 101 class and I'm explaining this to a fellow student who missed yesterdays class covering this, so if I'm wrong here, anyone, feel free to jump in.

Edited November 15, 2005 by Gunstar

[Tempest]

This is all great stuff since I'm now the proud owner of a Mega STE myself. I never needed to worry about this when I was using a Mega ST...

 

Tempest

[+DarkLord]

Duh...now how come me no tink of dat? Maybe because special me wants to run game in 16mhz mode. DUh.

965621[/snapback]

 

Okay, I'm a little confused. Doesn't the Mega STe run in 16mhz mode all the time?

 

I mean, no matter what graphic resolution you boot up into, it should still be running at 16mhz, right?

 

Thanks.

965627[/snapback]

No, it automatically boots in 8mhz mode when usint ALT to boot from the A floppy drive, it only boots in 16mhz mode if you have the desktop.inf set to start up in 16mhz mode when the computer boots from the C: drive to my knowledge. Right after I posted what you quoted above, I edited it to explain more, unfortunately you were right here the second I posted it and quoted me before I had finished editing.

965632[/snapback]

 

Ah. Timing. Something we all know us men are horrible at. <grin>

 

Anyways, how about some software solutions like "Booter"?

 

http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/Ste/0index

[Gunstar]

Duh...now how come me no tink of dat? Maybe because special me wants to run game in 16mhz mode. DUh.

965621[/snapback]

 

Okay, I'm a little confused. Doesn't the Mega STe run in 16mhz mode all the time?

 

I mean, no matter what graphic resolution you boot up into, it should still be running at 16mhz, right?

 

Thanks.

965627[/snapback]

No, it automatically boots in 8mhz mode when usint ALT to boot from the A floppy drive, it only boots in 16mhz mode if you have the desktop.inf set to start up in 16mhz mode when the computer boots from the C: drive to my knowledge. Right after I posted what you quoted above, I edited it to explain more, unfortunately you were right here the second I posted it and quoted me before I had finished editing.

965632[/snapback]

 

Ah. Timing. Something we all know us men are horrible at. <grin>

 

Anyways, how about some software solutions like "Booter"?

 

http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/Ste/0index

965646[/snapback]

 

HAH! again, edited to mention the booter and other things and here you are. The booter is great, but it has nothing to do with running an installed program from the HD. And nothing to do with getting rid of ACC. to free up memory.

 

What I'm atttempting here is to play Zero-5, which is now installed on my E: (games) partition of my HD, installed with the Zero-5 installation program. Zero 5 is made to be compatible the the faster speed you have available, e.g., it's compatibvle with the Falcon and 030 at 30+mhz, it's compatible with the MSTE at 16mhz or if you have an upgraded STE/MSTE with a faster processor to take advantage of any speed possible. I've been having a problem with it crashing when I'm trying to make a pilot disk and it says it's "out of memory" and the manual says to disable acc. to free up memory if it tells you you are out of memory. It's strange anyway, because my MSTE is 4megs and the game only requires 1meg on the STE. But the game runs fine on my 4meg MSTE otherwise, I just cant' make a data disk. So the "out of memory" thing may just be a side affect of some other problem.

Edited November 15, 2005 by Gunstar

[Gunstar]

Is there something wrong with that linik? nothing is downloadable when I go there, it's just like plain text listing. I thought I'd try one of the other versions, but it doesn't let me select anything.

Edited November 15, 2005 by Gunstar

[+DarkLord]

Is there something wrong with that linik? nothing is downloadable when I go there, it's just like plain text listing. I thought I'd try one of the other versions, but it doesn't let me select anything.

965658[/snapback]

 

Oops sorry about that. Thats just the link to the Index. Here is the actual link to the files in that section:

 

http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/Ste/Mega/

 

:-)

[Gunstar]

Is there something wrong with that linik? nothing is downloadable when I go there, it's just like plain text listing. I thought I'd try one of the other versions, but it doesn't let me select anything.

965658[/snapback]

 

Oops sorry about that. Thats just the link to the Index. Here is the actual link to the files in that section:

 

http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/Ste/Mega/

 

:-)

965663[/snapback]

 

Thanks.

 

by the way, I figured out the problem with Zero-5 just now; it wasn't acc. taking up too much memory, it had something to do with flolders and how many I had or could open or something. I had to copy a file called 'folder100.prg' from one of Zer0-5's data disks into my auto folder and reboot.

[Tempest]

Is there something wrong with that linik? nothing is downloadable when I go there, it's just like plain text listing. I thought I'd try one of the other versions, but it doesn't let me select anything.

965658[/snapback]

 

Oops sorry about that. Thats just the link to the Index. Here is the actual link to the files in that section:

 

http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/Ste/Mega/

 

:-)

965663[/snapback]

 

Thanks.

 

by the way, I figured out the problem with Zero-5 just now; it wasn't acc. taking up too much memory, it had something to do with flolders and how many I had or could open or something. I had to copy a file called 'folder100.prg' from one of Zer0-5's data disks into my auto folder and reboot.

965678[/snapback]

 

Yep that's a patch file. There's a bug in TOS that causes it to crash after 40 folders are opened up (it runs out of memory). That file will allow you to open 100 folders up before that happens. You can actually change that 100 to any number, and that will be the number of folders you can open. I thinK 100 is the default.

 

Tempest

[+DarkLord]

[Thanks.

 

by the way, I figured out the problem with Zero-5 just now; it wasn't acc. taking up too much memory, it had something to do with flolders and how many I had or could open or something. I had to copy a file called 'folder100.prg' from one of Zer0-5's data disks into my auto folder and reboot.

965678[/snapback]

 

Its known as the "40 folder bug" or something like that, IIRC.

 

You should upgrade to HDDriver. It will take care of all those little problems like that.

 

Glad to hear that you did get it resolved though!

 

See ya. :-)

[krupkaj]

You have done it the right way. The 100 in the name is number of aditional folders. You can set other number with renaming the file if 100 is not enough.

 

As DarkLord wrote HDDRIVER can do it for you. In case you are using it just set the number of folders in HDDRUTILS menu and you don't need the FOLDRXXX.

Edited November 15, 2005 by krupkaj

[tjlazer]

Well it was some key combo that let you boot to the disk with out booting it, you can even leave a disk out of the drive first and it will ofcourse not boot the bootsector.

 

But with 4MB that is plenty or RAM so I was confused what the out of memory error was anyhow, glad you got it working. With 4MB you are all set man! No need to disable ACCs. On the Falcon030 with 4MB you definately have to do that, and that is what I was doing to get games to work, holding down ALT or CTRL (cant remember 100%) then load the game directly. Worked good. I since then got a 14MB card, just have to install it now.

[Gunstar]

[Thanks.

 

by the way, I figured out the problem with Zero-5 just now; it wasn't acc. taking up too much memory, it had something to do with flolders and how many I had or could open or something. I had to copy a file called 'folder100.prg' from one of Zer0-5's data disks into my auto folder and reboot.

965678[/snapback]

 

Its known as the "40 folder bug" or something like that, IIRC.

 

You should upgrade to HDDriver. It will take care of all those little problems like that.

 

Glad to hear that you did get it resolved though!

 

See ya. :-)

965702[/snapback]

 

I had known about the 40 folder bug on the ST's, but I had thought it was only in the 1.x versions of TOS and had thought it to be long since fixed by 2.05 TOS.