Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Hi Alan,
    
    Yes, several people including myself have run into this.  I read
    in a recent issue of AA&J that there is code in Deluxe Music that
    actually times how long it takes the program to load.  Do you believe
    this?  I have no idea why anyone would program this way.
    
    Anyway, the workaround is to somehow increase the time it takes
    for DMCS to load.  A brute force approach is to simultaneously do
    a "dir opt a" to the same hard disk when DMCS is loading.  What
    I did is write a short C program with a do-nothing loop in it. 
    I use this with Xicon and a short execute file like:
    
    	cd dh1:DMCS
    	run nullloop
    	run DMCS
                   
    Since the loader must share the CPU with nullloop, DMCS takes longer
    to load, but the Score Setup window will work.
    
    A friend tried this same fix with his 2000; it didn't work --- we
    think it has something to do with the way his hard disk software
    works (DMA?).
    
    Cheers

    DMCS is now sold not protected (the same as all of the Deluxe series
    by EA now.)  The last time I talked to them, the cost was $7.50
    plus the original Floppy to get a non copy protected version.  I
    have this version on the hard disk and it works fine, except that
    there is a limitation of about 60 files in a directory before the
    file requestor GURU's.

    Thank Kip I am getting close.
    
    Last June when I first set my hard disk up I formatted it with an
    interleave of 0 DMCS worked back then.   When I bought V1.3 I reformatted
    with an interleave of 3 this must have been when it broke.  Since
    it still fails with SCSI Dos 2.6 and WB1.2.
    
    I am having problems with IconX and DMCS.  This is what I did:
    
    1)    Renamed DeluxeMusic to DMCS
    2)    wrote a small execute file named DeluxeMusic 
          run dir >NIL: sys: opt a
          run DMCS
    3)    from Shell I type "Run execute DeluxeMusic"
          with this everything loads and DMCS appears to function ok.
    4)    Used IconType to change DeluxeMusic.info to a project
    5)    changed the tool to sys:c/IconX
     
    Now when I click the Icon the directory appears to go ok but the
    screen goes blank.
    
    I went back to the partition that I had formatted with nonfastfile
    system and I used SDB to copy the entire deprotected DMCS floppy
    to that partition.  I did the same procedure to this version of
    DMCS.  Now when I click on the Icon I get the grey title screen
    and nothing else.
    
    I am probably doing something silly.
    
    Thanks for your help 
    Alan
                         
    

    Alan,
    This is what works for me: (I am using XIcon, rather than IconX
    --- I have no idea how these differ.
    
    Have DeluxeMusic installed on dh1: (about a 12 Meg FFS partition).
    All the intruments and scores are in subdirectories under that.
    I hacked together a small C program to do an empty loop; played
    around with the loop counter to make it run about a minute when
    it has the CPU all to itself.  I can send you this if you like.
    
    In the same directory as DeluxeMusic, have a small script called
    DMCS:
    		cd dh1:DMCS
    		stack 50000 <-- really not sure if this is needed
    		run DeluxeMusic
    		hardloop
    
    And copied a NotePad project icon to use for this script (renamed
    to DMCS.info).  Edited the icon using Workbench/Info menu selection.
    Set the default tool to "c:xicon" and added 1 tool type "MODE=nowindow"
    so that no extra window is opened when the script is run.
    
    May be too much detail, but something might be the key here.  Sounds
    like when you reformatted and used a different low level interleave
    that you sped up your disk enough to trigger DeluxeMusic's strange
    code.
    
    Good Luck.
    Have Great Holidays!

       Robert, in .2 you wrote.

  > DMCS is now sold not protected (the same as all of the Deluxe series
  > by EA now.)  The last time I talked to them, the cost was $7.50....
  
       I have seen this reference a couple of places and remain confused
       as to whether or not I have the latest and greatest.  The versions
       of DMCS, Deluxe Video, and Deluxe Print II (and I think Deluxe
       Paint) that I have all require the use of a KEY disk at some point
       during their initial load.  Is that what is meant by "not
       protected" or has that encumbrance now been removed as well?
       
       Art
     
       

    Re: .5 & .2
    
    	What I mean by not protected, is that all of the disks can be
    copy using DISKCOPY or just copying the files, no key disk necessary.
    There are still old copies of various DELUXE products from back stock
    that still have copy protection.  DeluxePhotoLab was never copy
    protected as far as I know.  The disk replacement ($7.50) was good for
    all copy protected versions of any deluxe product out of warrenty.  The
    non copy protected versions are supposedly the same as the copy
    protected ones, but they may have minor bug fixes put in as well.
    
    	There will be a DeluxePaint III available in a couple of months.
     I don't remember all the details, however it will support halfbright,
    overscan (I think :-)), and some animation stuff.

       Re: .6
       
       Thanks for the input.  No KEY disk!  Sounds like a call to EA is
       in order.
       
       Art
       
       P.S. when I got home yesterday I checked DPrintII - it isn't copy
       protected nor does it require a KEY disk.  I was using DPrintII
       and DMCS (which requires a KEY disk) over the holiday and got my
       Deluxe's mixed up.
       

    Marauder got rid of the need for the key disk but I still have the
    load problem.  So I guess I will try to get a deprotectred copy from
    EA and hope it dosent have the same trouble with a hard disk.
    
    Also since I slowed down the load my Ami dosent hang occasionaly
    upon exiting DMCS.   All you could see was that the memory was never
    returned and you could not open some or all drawers.  Some times
    the pointer would freeze.  Of course it takes a complete dir of
    the entire disk to keep the load down to speed any less the the
    entire disk (11 mb partition 85% full) is not enough and it dosent
    load properly.
    
    I still can't get past the opening screen with IconX or Xicon. 
    But I defined an Alias that works almost as well as an icon.  
    
    Alan
                                

This is all so strange. I have a copy protected version of DMCS which I
deprotected with MarauderII and copied to my hard disk. The only problem
I have is as mentioned, there is a limit to the number of files you can
have in a directory. I don't need to have something running in the background
to slow the system down or any such hackery.

Frank