GSport
The required ROM for GSport is not part of the distribution, as it is not freely distributable. You must own a IIgs ROM (i.e. a IIgs machine) in order to legally use a ROM file that you may find on the internet.
GSport can use the ROM image from either a ROM01 or ROM03 IIgs machine. By default, that file should be named rom and be placed in the same folder as the GSport program/app. The name and location are configurable options, but it will "just work" with the defaults.
On all platforms except Windows and Mac, you must start GSport from a terminal window. GSport will open a new window and use the window you started it from as a "debug" window.
GSport will look in a number of places for two files it requires: config.txt and rom. The suggested place for these files is right alongside the GSport application itself.
Start GSport by Double-clicking the GSport icon on a Mac, or by running the executable (gsport.exe on Windows, and gsportx on Linux). GSport can be run from the Terminal window on a Mac as well (which enables access to more debug information) by typing: ./GSport.app/Contents/MacOS/GSport from the folder GSport is in. This also enables the automatic mounting/booting feature by allowing you to specify a disk image of your choice on that command line; for example:
./GSport.app/Contents/MacOS/GSport /path/to/my/disk.po
Assuming all goes well, GSport will then boot up but probably not find any disk images. Hit the "F4" key and see below for how to tell GSport what disk images to use. Tip: Hitting "F8" locks the mouse in the window (and hides the host cursor) until you hit "F8" again.
See the the developing page for information about developing GSport and compiliing it for yourself.
The Configuration panel is accessed by pressing the F4 key at any time. (If GSport couldn't find a ROM file when it started, you will be forced into the Configuration Panel mode until you select a valid ROM file).
To select a ROM file, select "ROM File Selection" and then select your ROM file. If you were not forced into the panel at startup, then GSport found one and it is working.
The primary use of the Configuration Panel is to select disk images. To change disk images being used, select "Disk Configuration". Each slot and drive that can be loaded with an image is listed. "s5d1" means slot 5, drive 1. Slot 5 devices are 3.5" 800K disks, and slot 6 devices are 5.25" 140K disks. Slot 7 devices are virtual hard drives, and can be any size at all (although ProDOS-formatted images should be less than 32MB).
Just use the arrow keys to navigate to the device entry to change, and then select it by pressing the Enter or Return key. A scrollable file selection interface is presented, letting you locate your image files. To quickly jump to a particular path, you can press Tab to toggle between entering a path manually, and using the file selector. Press Return on ".." entries to go up a directory level. When you find the image you want, just press the Enter or Return key.
If the image has partitions that GSport supports, another selection dialog will have you select which partition to mount. You will probably only have partitions on direct devices you mount (or on a Mac, of .dmg images of CDs). For instance, on a Mac, /dev/disk1 can sometimes be the CDROM drive.
GSport can handle "raw", .dsk, .po, 2IMG, 5.25" ".nib" images, most Mac Diskcopy images and partitioned images. The .dsk and .po formats you often find on the web are really "raw" formats, and so they work fine. GSport uses the host file permissions to encode the read/write status of the image. GSport can open any image file compressed with gzip (with the extension ".gz") automatically as a read-only disk image.
An image is the representation of an Apple IIgs disk, but in a file on your computer. For 3.5" disks, for example, a raw image would be exactly 800K bytes long (819200 bytes). GSport directs the emulated GS accesses to the image, and does the correct reads and writes of the Unix file instead.
If you do not have any disk mounted in s7d1, GSport will jump into the monitor. To boot slot 6 (or slot 5), use the Apple IIgs Control Panel by pressing Ctrl-Command-ESC.
Support for 5.25" nibblized images is read-only for now (since the format is simplistic, it's tricky for GSport to write to it since GSport has more information than fits in that format). Just select your image, like "disk.nib" in the config.txt file like any .dsk or .po image.
In addition to changing disks, you can also just "eject" and image by moving the cursor to select that slot/drive and then press "E". The emulated IIgs will immediately detect changes to s5d1 and s5d2.
Care should be taken when changing images in slot 7--GSport does not notify GSOS that images have changed (or been ejected), and so it's best to make changes when GSOS is not running.
F1: Alias of Command F2: Alias of Option F3: Alias of ESC F4: Configuration Panel F5, Shift-Insert: Paste from clipboard (on Windows and Mac) F6: Toggle through the 4 speeds: Unlimited, 1MHz, 2.8MHz, 8.0MHz Shift-F6: Enter GSport debugger F7: Toggle fast_disk_emul on/off F8: Toggle pointer hiding on/off. F9: Invert the sense of the joystick. Shift-F9: Swap x and y joystick/paddle axes. F10: Attempt to change the a2vid_palette (only useful on 256-color displays) Shift-F10: Toggle visibility of the debug status lines (on Windows only) F11: Full screen mode (on Mac OS X and Windows). F12: Alias of Pause/Break which is treated as Reset F2, Alt_R, Meta_r, Menu, Print, Mode_switch, Option: Option key F1, Alt_L, Meta_L, Cancel, Scroll_lock, Command: Command key Num_Lock: Keypad "Clear". F12, Pause, Break: Reset "Home": Alias for "=" on the keypad (since my Unix keyboard doesn't have an =).
The host computer mouse is the Apple IIgs mouse and joystick by default. By default, the host pointer is not constrained inside the window and remains visible. Press F8 to hide the cursor and constrain the mouse. F8 again toggles out of constrain mode. When the GSOS desktop is running, GSport hides the host cursor automatically and enables special tracking which forces the emulated cursor to follow the host cursor. If this doesn't work right under some program, just press F8 for better compatibility.
The middle mouse button or Shift-F6 causes GSport to stop emulation, and enter the debugger. You can continue with "g" then return in the debug window. You can also disassemble memory, etc. The section "Debugging GSport" above describes the debugger interface a little more.
GSport has no pop-up menus or other interactive interfaces (other than the debug window, and the occasional error dialogs on Mac OS X). Input to the debug window is only acted upon when the emulation is stopped (Shift-F6, middle mouse button, or hitting a breakpoint).
Just close the main GSport window, and GSport will exit cleanly. Or you can select Quit from the menu. Or enter ctrl-c in the debugger window. Or press the middle-mouse button in the emulation window, and then type "q" return in the debug window.
If you have a keyboard with the special Windows keys, you can use them as the command/option keys. For those without those keys, there are several alternatives.
The following keys are Option (closed-apple) (not all keyboards have all keys): F2, Meta_R, Alt_R, Cancel, Print_screen, Mode_switch, Option, or the Windows key just to the right of the spacebar. The following keys are Command (open-apple): F1, Meta_L, Alt_L, Menu, Scroll_lock, Command, the Windows key left of the spacebar, and the Windows key on the far right that looks like a pull-down menu. You can use F1 and F2 if you cannot make anything else work (especially useful if your OS is intercepting some Alt or Command key sequences).
Note that X Windows often has other things mapped to Meta- and Alt- key sequences, so they often don't get passed through to GSport. So it's best to use another key instead of Alt or Meta.
The joystick/paddle buttons are just the Command and Option keys.
The reset key is Pause/Break or F12. You must hit it with Ctrl to get it to take effect (just like a real Apple IIgs). Ctrl-Command-Reset forces a reboot. Ctrl-Command-Option-Reset enters selftests. Selftests will pass if you force speed to 2.8MHz using the middle button or F6 (and also set Enable Text Page 2 shadow = Disabled for ROM 01). Watch out for ctrl-shift-Break--it will likely kill an X Windows session. Also note that the Unix olvwm X window manager interprets ctrl-F12 and will not pass it on to GSport--you'll need to use Break for reset in that case.
GSport can run in full screen mode--which is especially useful when letting small kids use GSport (but it is not really a lock, so do not let a 2 year old bang on the keyboard while running GSport).
Full Screen mode is toggled with F11 (or Ctrl-F11, since Expose on a Mac is intercepting F11). If GSport stops in the debugger for any reason, full screen mode is toggled off automatically.
The default joystick is the mouse position. Upper left is 0,0. Lower right is 255,255. Press Shift-F9 to swap the X and Y axes. Press F9 to reverse the sense of both paddles (so 0 becomes 255, etc). Swapping and reversing are convenient with paddle-based games like "Little Brick Out" so that the mouse will be moving like the paddle on the screen. "Little Brick Out" is on the DOS 3.3 master disk. The joystick does not work properly if the pointer is constrained in the window.
You can also select from a "Keypad Joystick" or a real joystick from the Configuration panel. Press return on the "Joystick Configuration" entry, and then select between Mouse Joystick, Keypad Joystick, or one of two native joysticks. The Keypad Joystick uses your keypad number keys as a joystick, where keypad 7 means move to the upper left, and keypad 3 means move to the lower right. Pressing multiple keys together averages the results, allowing finer control than just 8 directions. Also, joystick scaling is selectable here for games which require a greater range of motion to work correctly, along with trim adjustment which moves the centering point. Adjusting scaling usually means you will need to adjust the trim as well.
The left mouse button is the mouse button for GSport. The right mouse button (if you have it) or F6 toggles between four speed modes. Mode 0 (the default) means run as fast as possible. Mode 1 means run at 1MHz. Mode 2 means run at 2.8MHz. Mode 3 means run at 8.0MHz (about the speed of a ZipGS accelerator). Most Apple //e (or earlier) games need to be run at 1MHz. Many Apple IIgs demos must run at 2.8MHz or they will not operate correctly. Try running ornery programs at 2.8MHz. 3200 pictures generally only display correctly at 2.8MHz or sometimes 8.0MHz.
GSport by default now continues emulation even when it detects buggy programs running. (Now I know why Appleworks GS always seemed to crash!).
GSport divides buggy programs into two severities: Code Yellow and Code Red. The status is displayed in words in the text area under the emulation window. If nothing's wrong, nothing is printed.
A Yellow bug is a mild bug where an Apple IIgs program merely read an invalid location. Although completely harmless, it indicates the potential for some Apple IIgs program bug which may become more severe shortly. For instance, closing the "About This Apple IIgs" window in the Finder causes a code yellow alert, but it seems quite harmless.
A Code Red bug is a more serious problem. The Apple IIgs program either tried to write non-existent memory, entered an invalid system state, or perhaps just tried to use an Apple IIgs feature which GSport does not implement yet. Note that entering GSBUG tends to cause a Code Red alert always, so if you intended to enter it, you can ignore it. My recommendation is to save work immediately (to new files) and restart GSport if you get into the Red mode.
GSport also supports breakpoints and watchpoints. In the debug window, you set a breakpoint at an address by typing the address, followed by a 'B' (it must be in caps). To set a breakpoint on the interrupt jump point, type:
e1/0010B
The format is "bank/address" then "B", where the B must be in caps and the address must use lower-case hex. For Apple IIe programs, just use a bank of 0.
To list all breakpoints, just type 'B' with no number in front of it. To delete a breakpoint, enter its address followed by 'D', so
e1/0010D
deletes the above breakpoint. The addresses work like the IIgs monitor: once you change banks, you can use shortcut addresses:
e1/0010B 14B
will add breakpoints at e1/0010 and e1/0014.
This is a "transparent" breakpoint--memory is not changed. But any read or write to that address will cause GSport to halt. So you can set breakpoints on I/O addresses, or ROM, or whatever. Setting a breakpoint slows GSport down somewhat, but only on accesses to the 256 byte "page" the breakpoint is on. Breakpoints are not just instruction breakpoints, they also cause GSport to halt on any data access, too (usually called watchpoints).
Frederic Devernay has written a nice help screen available in the debugger when you type "h".
Useful locations for setting breakpoints: 0/3f0B - Break handler 0/c000B - Keyboard latch, programs read keys from this address
There are others, but the Configuration panel provides a better way to set them so they are no longer listed here.
-skip: GSport will "skip" that many screen redraws between refreshes.
-skip 0 will do 60 frames per second, -skip 1 will do 30 fps,
-skip 5 will do 10 fps.
-audio [0/1]: Forces audio [off/on]. By default, audio is on unless
the X display is a remote machine or shared memory is off.
This switch can override the default. -audio 0 causes GSport to
not fork the background audio process, but Ensoniq emulation
is still 100% accurate, just the sound is not sent to the
workstation speaker. Audio defaults off on Linux for now.
-arate {num}: Forces audio sample rate to {num}. 44100 and 48000 are
usual, you can try 22050 to reduce GSport's overhead. On a reasonably
fast machine (>250MHz or so), you shouldn't need to mess with this.
-dhr140: Will use the old Double-hires color algorithm that results in
exactly 140 colors across the screen, as opposed to the blending
being done by default.
X-Windows/Linux options:
-15: GSport will only look for a 15-bit X-Window display.
-16: GSport will only look for a 16-bit X-Window display (not tested, probably
will get red colors wrong).
-24: GSport will only look for a 24-bit X-Window display.
-display {machine:0.0}: Same as setting the environment variable DISPLAY.
Sends X display to {machine:0.0}.
-noshm: GSport will not try to used shared memory for the X graphics display.
This will make GSport much slower on graphics-intensive tasks,
by as much as a factor of 10! By default, -noshm causes an
effective -skip of 3 which is 15 fps. You can override this
default by specifying a -skip explicitly.
You can get to the Apple IIgs control panel (unless some application has locked it out) using Ctrl-Command-Esc.
The file config.txt describes the images GSport will use. Although you can edit the file manually, in general you can use the Configuration Panel to make all the changes you need. This information is for reference.
GSport by default will boot s7d1 (unless you've changed that using the Apple IIgs control panel), so you should put an image in that slot.
GSport, by default, runs the IWM (3.5" and 5.25" disks) emulation in an "approximate" mode, called "fast_disk_emul". In this mode, GSport emulates the hardware "faster" than real, meaning the data the code being emulated expects is made available much faster than on a real Apple IIgs, providing a nice speed boost. For instance, the 5.25" drives run 10x the real speed usually. Almost everything will work except for nibble copiers, which don't like the data coming this fast. (Meaning, unless you're using a nibble copier, you shouldn't run into an issue. All games/demos/etc run fine in this mode). To make nibble copiers work, Press F7.
GSport can read in the ".nib" nibblized disk format, but as read-only mode. If the emulated image is no longer ProDOS or DOS 3.3 standard, GSport will automatically treat the image as "Not-write-through-to-Image" from then on. This mode means GSport will continue to emulate the disk properly in memory, but it cannot encode the changes in the standard .dsk or .nib image format. It prints a message saying it has done so. However, the "disk" in emulation is fully useable as long as GSport is running. A standard reformatting will not cause an image to flip to not-write- through-to-Image, but running things like a "drive-speed" test will cause further changes not to propagate to the Unix file. You will need to "eject" the image and re-insert it before writes will take effect.
In full accuracy mode (i.e., not fast_disk_emul), 5.25" drive accesses force GSport to run at 1MHz, and 3.5" drive accesses force GSport to run at 2.8MHz.
GSport supports running at four speeds: 1MHz, 2.8MHz, 8.0MHz, and Unlimited. Pressing the middle mouse button cycles between these modes. The 1MHz and 2.8MHz speeds force GSport to run at exactly those speeds, providing accurate reproduction of a real Apple IIgs.
GSport will always run at 1MHz at least. If it is unable to keep up, it will extend the emulated time to maintain the illusion of running at 1MHz. That is, it may do just 40 screen refreshes per real second, instead of the usual 60. This happens rarely.
If you force GSport to run at 1MHz, it will strive to run at exactly 1MHz (well, really 1.024MHz). If it is running faster (almost always), it will pause briefly several times a second to maintain the 1MHz speed. It does this in a friendly way that makes time available to other tasks. This makes older Apple II games very playable just like a real Apple IIgs on slow speed. GSport is running at exactly the same speed as an Apple //e when in 1MHz mode. The 1MHz mode you set through the right mouse button overrides the "fast" mode you can access through the control panel. But, 3.5" accesses will "speed up" to 2.8MHz to enable that code to operate correctly while the 3.5" disk is being accessed.
If you force GSport to run at 2.8MHz, GSport tries to run at exactly 2.8MHz. But like a real unaccelerated Apple IIgs, if you set the control panel to "slow", it will really be running at 1MHz. Accesses to 5.25" disk automatically slow down to 1MHz, when running the IWM in accurate mode (F7). GSport may not be able to keep up with some programs running at 2.8MHz due to video and sound overheads on lower-end machines. If that happens, it effectively runs slower by extending the emulated "second", like in the 1MHz mode. You can tell this is happening when Eff MHz in the status area falls below 2.8MHz. If GSport is running faster than 2.8MHz, it takes small pauses to slow down, just like in 1MHz. Many Apple IIgs demos must be run at 2.8MHz. The built-in selftests (cmd-option-ctrl-Reset) must run at 2.8MHz. Many Apple IIgs action games are more playable at 2.8MHz.
The 8.0MHz setting means follow the ZipGS-selected speed, but don't go faster than 8.0MHz. If your host computer cannot keep up, then the emulated second will be extended. You can use the ZipGS control panel, or ZIPPY.GS on the sample disk image to set the emulated ZipGS speed to anything from 1MHz to 8MHz in .5MHz increments.
The Unlimited setting means run as fast as possible, whatever speed that is (but always above 1MHz). Eff MHz gives you the current Apple IIgs equivalent speed. Many games will be unplayable at the unlimited setting. Setting the IIgs control panel speed to "slow" will slow down to 1MHz.
Sound output has an important relationship to GSport timing. GSport must play one second of sound per second of emulated time. Normally, this works out exactly right. But as noted above, if GSport can't maintain the needed speed, it extends the emulated second. If it extends the second to 1.4 real seconds, that means GSport only produces 1.0 second of sound data every 1.4 seconds--the sound breaks up!
In all cases, 1MHz to GSport is 1.024MHz. And 2.8MHz to GSport is 2.56MHz (trying to approximate the slowdown causes by memory refresh on a real Apple IIgs). It's just easier to say 1MHz and 2.8MHz.
Basically, just about every Apple II program works.
Some old Apple II 5.25" games require the old C600 ROM image, and don't work with the default Apple IIgs ROM. This is not GSport's fault--these games don't run on a real Apple IIgs either. GSport has built-in the old Apple II Disk PROM which you can enable by using the IIgs control panel to set Slot 6 to "Your Card". This allows many more Apple II games to run, and is the recommended setting.
The NinjaForce Megademo mostly works, but sometimes hangs in the BBS Demo. Just skip that demo if it happens.
The California Demo hangs at startup unless you use the IIgs control panel to boot from slot 5, and then do a ctrl-Open_Apple-Reset to boot--doing the above lets it work fine. This seems to be a bug in the demo.
On a ROM03, GSport makes a patch to the ROM image (inside emulation, not to the ROM file) to fix a bug in the ROM code. Both ROM01 and ROM03 are patched to enable use of more than 8MB of memory. It then patches the ROM self-tests to make the ROM checksum pass. But other programs, like the Apple IIgs Diagnostic Disk, will detect a ROM checksum mismatch. Don't worry about it.
Sound breaks up if GSport is unable to keep up--it should only be happening if you are trying to force GSport to run at 2.8MHz, but cannot due to sound and video overhead.
GSport supports very accurate classic Apple II sound (clicking of the speaker using $C030) and fairly accurate Ensoniq sound.
When GSport determines that no sound has been produced for more than 5 seconds, it turns off the sound calculation routines for a small speedup. It describes that it has done this by saying "Pausing sound" in the debug window. However, when sound restarts, it sometimes "breaks-up" a little.
If your display is not using shared memory, audio defaults to off unless you override it with "-audio 1".
You may use the SCC ports as either a LocalTalk networking connection or as traditional serial ports. GSport emulates the two serial ports on a IIgs as being two Unix sockets. Port 1 (printer port) is at socket address 6501, and port 2 (modem) is at socket address 6502.
By default, slot 1 is emulated using a simple receive socket, and slot 2 emulates a Virtual Modem.
A Virtual Modem means GSport acts as if a modem is on the serial port allowing Apple II communcation programs to fully work, but connected to internet-enabled sockets. GSport emulates a "Hayes- Compatible" modem, meaning it accepts "AT" commands. You can use GSport to connect to free telnet-BBSs, or run a BBS program on GSport and become a telnet BBS yourself.
The two main AT commands are: ATDT for dialing out, and ATA for receiving calls. To dial out, enter "ATDThostname", or for example, "ATDTboycot.no-ip.com" (which is down at the moment, unfortunately). You can also enter an IP address, like "ATDT127.0.0.1". On a Mac, to create a telnet server to allow telnet connections (do not use over the internet, but on a private network behind a firewall, this should be fine), in a Terminal window type: "sudo /usr/libexec/telnetd -debug". You must then enable telnet on port 23 through your Mac OS X Firewall in the System Preferences->Sharing->Firewall page (just add port 23 as open--you'll need to use the "New..." button and then select Other for Port Name, and enter Port Number as 23). Then from GSport in a communications program, do "ATDT127.0.0.1", and then log-in to your Mac.
GSport also accepts incoming "calls". Start GSport, and initialize the Virtual Modem with some AT command (ATZ resets all state, and is a useful start). GSport now has a socket port open, 6502 for slot 2, which you can connect to using any telnet program. In a Terminal window, then type "telnet 127.0.0.1 6502" and you will connect to GSport. The Virtual Modem then starts printing "RING" every 2 seconds until you answer with "ATA". You are now connected.
On Windows XP SP2, when GSport tries to open this incoming socket, you'll need to enable it and click Unblock to the dialog that Windows pops up. If you do not want incoming connections, you can block it instead.
Once connected, you can go back to talking to the Virtual Modem by pressing + three times quickly (+++), and then not type anything for a second. This goes back to the AT-command mode. You can now "ATH" to hang up, or "ATO" to go back online.
On Windows, the socket code is very preliminary and there are problems receiving connections.
GSport also supports an older, simpler socket interface, which it defaults to using on slot 1. In GSport, from APPLESOFT, if you PR#1, all output will then be sent to socket port 6501. You can see it by connecting to the port using telnet. In another terminal window, do: "telnet localhost 6501" and then you will see all the output going to the "printer".
Under APPLESOFT, you can PR#1 and IN#1. This gets input from the socket also. You can type in the telnet window, it will be sent on to the emulated IIgs. You may want to go to the F4 Config Panel and set "mask off high bit" for serial port accesses to make PR#1 work a little nicer.
You can "print" from BASIC by using something like PR#1 in GSport and "telnet localhost 6501 | tee file.out" in another window.
The status area is updated once each second. It displays internal emulation information.
Line 1: (Emulation speed info)
dcycs: number of seconds since GSport was started
sim MHz: Effective speed of GSport instruction emulation, not counting
overhead for video or sound routines.
Eff MHz: Above, but with overhead accounted for. Eff MHz is the
speed of an equivalent true Apple IIgs. This is extremely
accurate.
sec: The number of real seconds that have passed during on of GSport's
emulated seconds. Should be 1.00 +/- .01. Under 1
means GSport is running a bit fast, over 1 means GSport is
running slow. When you force speed to 2.8MHz, if GSport
can't keep up, it extends sec, so you can see how slow
it's really going here.
vol: Apple IIgs main audio volume control, in hex, from 0-F.
pal: Super-hires palette that is unavailable. GSport needs one palette
for the standard Apple // graphics mode on an 8-bit display,
and it grabs the least-used palette. Defaults to 0xe.
You can try changing it with F10. If you change it to a
palette that is not least used, GSport changes it back in
one second. Any superhires lines using the unavailable
palette will have their colors mapped into the
closest-matching "lores" colors, to minimize visual
impact.
Limit: Prints which speed setting the user has requested: 1MHz, 2.8MHz,
or Unlimited.
Line 2: (Video and X info)
xfer: In hex, number of bytes transferred to the X screen per second.
xred_cs: Percentage of Unix processor cycles that were spent in the X
server (or other processes on the machine).
ch_in: Percentage of Unix processor cycles spent checking for X input Events.
ref_l: Percentage of Unix processor cycles spent scanning the Apple IIgs
memory for changes to the current display screen memory,
and copying those changes to internal XImage buffers.
ref_x: Percentage of Unix processor cycles spent sending those XImage buffers
to the X server. Very similar to xred_cs.
Line 3: (Interpreter overhead)
Ints: Number of Apple IIgs interrupts over the last second.
I/O: Rate of I/O through the fake smartport interface (hard drives).
Does not count 3.5" or 5.25" disk accesses.
BRK: Number of BRKs over the last second.
COP: Number of COPs over the last second.
Eng: Number of calls to the main instruction interpreter loop in the
last second. All "interrupts" or other special behavior
causes the main interpreter loop to exit. A high call
rate here indicates a lot of overhead. 12000-15000 is normal.
20000+ indicates some sort of problem.
act: Some instructions are handled by the main interpreter loop returning
special status "actions" to main event loop. This is the
number over the last second. Should be low.
hev: This tracks HALT_EVENTs. GSport returns to the main loop to recalc
effective speed whenever any speed-changing I/O location is
touched. See the code, mostly in moremem.c
esi: This counts the number of superhires scan-line interrupts
taken in the last second.
edi: This counts the number of Ensoniq "special events" over the last
second. A sound that stops playing always causes a GSport
event, even if it doesn't cause a IIgs interrupt.
Line 4: (Ensoniq DOC info)
snd1,2,3,4: Percentage of Unix processor cycles spent handling various
sound activities. snd1 is the total sum of all sound overhead.
st: Percentage of Unix cycles spent starting new Ensoniq oscillators.
est: Percentage of Unix cycles spent looking for 0 bytes in sounds.
x.yz: This final number is the average number of oscillators playing
over the last second. Up to 4.00 is low overhead, over
20.0 is high overhead.
Line 5: (Ensoniq DOC info)
snd_plays: Number of calls to a routine called sound_play, which
plays Ensoniq sounds. Always called at least 60 times per sec.
doc_ev: Number of Ensoniq (DOC) events in the last second. A sound
stopping is an event, but changing a parameter of a sound
while it is playing is also an event.
st_snd: Number of sounds that were started in the last second.
snd_parms: Number of times a sound parameter was changed while it
was playing.
Line 6: (IWM info)
For each IWM device, this line displays the current track (and side for
3.5" disks). If a disk is spinning, there will be an "*" next to the
track number. Only updated once a second, so the disk arm moving may
appear to jump by several tracks. "fast_disk_emul:1" shows that GSport
is using less accurate, but faster, IWM emulation. Press F7 to toggle
to accurate disk emulation.
If GSport fails to start under Linux, first try the following options:
GSport -audio 0 -noshm
There may be a bug with drawing the border on x86 Linux with Shared Memory-- add the options "-noshm -skip 0" to fix this up (but lose some graphics performance, sorry). Try GSport without these options first, but use this as a workaround if necessary.
If you want the display to go somewhere different, make sure the shell environment variable $DISPLAY is set, or give the command-line argument "-display foo".
GSport also forks off a subprocess to help handle the sound if audio is active. If GSport crashes in a unusual way (a core dump, for instance), you may have to manually kill the subprocess. ("ps -ef| grep GSport;kill xxxxx").
Geoff Weiss adds some notes for mounting disks/floppies/CDs under Solaris 7 through Solaris 10:
To use a CDROM, insert the CD and let Volume Management mount it. Edit config.txt and use the filesystem that shows up in the "df -k" listing. The volume name of the CDROM must be included. For example, a CDROM in an IDE drive would look like this:
/vol/dev/dsk/c1t0d0/ciscocd
A CDROM in a SCSI drive would look like this:
/vol/dev/dsk/c0t6d0/j1170_10804
To provide low-level ADB emulation, GSport turns off Unix key repeat when the focus is in the GSport window. It should be turned back on every time the pointer leaves the GSport window, but sometimes it doesn't. Re-running GSport (and then quitting it quickly) should turn key-repeat back on, or you can type 'xset r' in another terminal window.
Sometimes the converse is true--key repeat is "on" when the cursor is in the GSport window. Moving the cursor out of the window and then back in should solve it. This is sometimes noticeable when running Wolfenstein 3D GS.
GSport uses a private color-map for its X-window in 8-bit mode. This may cause colormap "flash" when your cursor enters the window.
GSport will work on all platforms with a 15/16-bit, 24-bit, or 32-bit color display. GSport also supports an 8-bit display on X windows only. On all platforms, it autodetects the color depth--no color switching is necessary as long as you're at a supported depth.
Images loaded into slot 6 (drive 1 or 2) are assumed to be 140K 5.25" disks, which is usually have the extension ".dsk". Images loaded into slot 5 (drive 1 or 2) are assumed to be 800K disk images and can be in any supported imahe format (including partitions, if you have 800K partitions). Images loaded into slot 7 (drives 1 through 32) can be in any format and can be any size up to 4GB.
GSport boots s7d1 by default. You can change this using the emulated IIgs control panel, just like a real Apple IIgs. GSport emulates a IIgs with two 5.25" drives in slot 6, two 3.5" drives in slot 5, and up to 32 "hard drives" in slot 7. However, the current Configuration Panel only lets you set through s7d11. ProDOS 8 can access disks up to s7d8, but GSOS has no limit, so it's best to put HFS images past s7d8 in order to leave more slots for ProDOS images.
If you're trying to use a real host device (CD-ROM, or hard drive, or floppy), you should make the permissions on the /dev/disk* files something like (meaning, everyone should have read permission):
brw-r--r-- 1 root operator 14, 0 Jun 10 00:01 /dev/disk2
You can do this on a Mac with:
sudo chmod 644 /dev/disk2