VCC 1.4.3b and DW4 Installation Guide

by Bill Pierce

Please do not edit this page. This is a work in progress and I would like to finish it before anything is added or deleted.
If you see something in need of correction or would like to contribute to the page, please contact me
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Thank you, B.P

Installing VCC 1.4.3b & DriveWire4

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Introducing Vcc 1.4.3beta with Becker Port Support for DriveWire4

When Joseph Forgione released the 1st version of the Vcc Coco 3 emulator, I was a little sceptical about it. Slowly, he updated the releases from 1.0.0 to 1.4.2. At that point the emulator had matured greatly and would run most Coco software, even OS-9. It was about that same time, the M.E.S.S. Coco 3 emulator started to get more features, but with each feature, introducing more bugs. Vcc 1.4.2 was easy to install, easy to run, and felt like using a real Coco 3. With some help from Robert Gault, Joseph added the RGBDOS system for controlling VHDs (virtual hard drives) just as you would real hard drives. The package was complete. With 4 virtual floppy disk dirves, a virtual hard drive usable in both RSDOS and OS-9, Vcc became the ultimate Coco 3 emulator. But sadly... Joseph seemed to disappear from the Coco community. There were no more updates, no more posts, and even his website eventually disappeared. As luck would have it, there were at least copies of the Vcc installation package in several of the Coco archive sites, so it was still available. It was still (IMHO) the best Coco 3 emulator around. But there were several things missing... like support to interface the outside world.... then came the Becker Port.

Originally, the Becker Port was interfaced in a Coco FPGA project by Gary Becker so the Coco emulation in the FPGA could access the DriveWire interface. All the port really consists of is 2 unused address lines that with proper coding, could access serial input from outside the emulation. But where did that leave Vcc?

Somewhere along the line, a couple of members of the Coco community located and contacted Joseph to inquire about the state of the Vcc source code. In his replies, he stated that he would like to move the Vcc sources to an Open Source project as his age and health would no longer allow him to work on the project. He want the Coco community to be able to carry on with his Vcc project. He sent them a copy of the source code to "play around" with until he finished preparing the sources for public release. He said he wanted to change the copyright statements and also remove the RSDOS ROMS to avoid possible copyright infringements. Much to our dismay, he hasn't been heard from since. Several people have tried to contact him with no response. So until he is contacted, there can be no official release of the sources or an Open Source project. Meanwhile, the holders of the sources had been playing with them. They discovered a way to implement the Becker Port so that Vcc could talk to the hosting PC through a patch to the TCP port. With a little modification to DriveWire, the Becker Port became Vcc's connection to the world. Eventually, the patched version of Vcc was released to the public as Vcc 1.4.3beta. Now with Vcc 1.4.3b and DriveWire4, you can load multiple VHD images, print to DW4's virtual printer, access the internet through TelNet, play Coco MIDI sequences through DW4's virtual MIDI interface and much more!! Vcc couldn't be much better.

With all these new capabilities in Vcc, comes some complexity. The setup to get Vcc going with the Becker Port and DW4 is not so complicated as it is confusing. With this tutorial, I hope eliminate some of that confusion. So let's get on with it!

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Installing DriveWire4

I am not going to repeat the DriveWire4 installation here as there is already a tutorial for that installation. To install DW4, just click the link below and follow the instructions and get DW4 running. Once you have completed the DW4 installation, hit your back button on your browser to come back here and complete the Vcc 1.4.3b installation.

• Installing DriveWire4 - A complete guide for the DW4 installation.

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Installing Vcc 1.4.3beta

To install Vcc 1.4.3b, you must download the Vcc installation package from:

VCC 1.4.3beta Coco 3 Emulator w/Becker Port Support - The latest version of VCC usable with DriveWire4. (installation package)

Once you have downloaded the package, unzip it to a folder and you will fin the Vcc_setup.exe file. Run this file and follow the prompts and Vcc 1.4.3b will be set up on you Windows PC with a shortcut on your desktop. At the end of the installation, you will also be prompted read the "ReadMe-143beta.txt" file. I recomend you do so. Now there are a few things you need to know about this installation before you run the program.

First, using Windows Explorer" (not Internet Explorer), navigate to the directory in which Vcc was installed. You should find these files:

• Vcc.exe - The actual Vcc emulator program
• Welcome to Vcc.pdf - The Vcc User's Manual in PDF format
• ReadMe-143beta.txt - A short explination for using the hdbdos roms and the Becker Port
• Vcc.ini - The initialization defaults for Vcc
• KeyMap.ini - The unfinished (and unusable) keymap file
• fd502.dll - The FD-502 Disk Controller emulation library
• harddisk.dll - The Glenside IDE Hard Drive Controller emulation library
• mpi.dll - The Tandy Multipak Interface emulation library
• orch90.dll - The Orchestra 90cc Program pak and interface library
• SuperIDE.dll - The Cloud9 SuperIDE HardDrive and CF card reader interface library
• hdbdw3bc3.rom - The HDBDOS rom patched for use with the Becker Port
• hdbdw3bck.rom - An alternate HDBDOS rom with hi-speed turned off for Coco 2 game compatibility
• unins000.exe - The windows uninstall program
• unins000.dat - The stored data record for the uninstall program

Familarize yourslef with these filenames as some of them will be accessed later in the tutorial.

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Changing the defaults

First I recommend you read the Vcc manual thoroughly as well as the "ReadMe" text file as it contains important info in regards to using HDBDOS & DW4 with Vcc that is not covered in the manual. You must keep in mind that the Vcc manual was written before the Becker Port enhabcement was introduced and does not cover it's operation, hence the writing of this tutorial.

Once you are familar with some of Vcc's features, you'll want to get up and running. Just double click the Vcc icon on your desktop and you will see the Vcc Coco 3 emulator default screen. You will start in "Disk Extended Color Basic 2.1" just as if you had turned on your real Coco 3 with a Radio Shack disk controller installed... But with a differnece. If you click the "Cartridge" menu item at the top of the emulator, you will see that not only do you have a disk controller, but a Multipak Interface, four disk drives, and a hard drive!!

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RGB-DOS

At the default settings, you have a fully functional Coco 3 super system right at your finger tips (literally). What I would've given to have had such a system in the 80s. But this is only the tip of the iceberg... there's a lot more than just meets the eye. Try this, clcik the "Cartridge" menu and in the pulldown menu,

select the "FD-502 Config" item.

In the top left box, check the "RGB Dos" button and click the "OK" button.

Hit "F9" two times to cold start Vcc and you should now be in RGBDOS for Vcc

Though ultimately, we're going to move away from RGBDOS and into the DriveWire compatible "HDBDOS" which is basically RGBDOS on steroids, I figured this was a good place to set some things in the configuration so that you will be more familar with menus when we get to the good "stuff".

The "Cartridge" menu we were just accessing is where you go to "insert" your rom carts, disks and hard drives. Fro now were' going to leave that menu and move to the "Configuration" menu.

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Configuration Menu

Here you will find the Config panel. This is where most of the Vcc defaults are set,