Applewin and savegame files

[Michael Crewe]

I'm semi-adept at PCs but don't know a thing about Apples. My
problem is that about 80% of the game images I run in Applewin always
ask for a "Create or load character disk" or a save game disk before the
game even will start. I've figured out that the best thing to do is
create an empty image file on a floppy or my HD for the image to be
stored in. But the authors rather short paragraph on that subject is
very vague and loses me completely half-way through it. he says to
simply create a newly named file and when prompted that it can't find
that file hit OK and an empty one will be created.

What happens with me is I put in a name with the .dsk extension and
it tells me that the file does not exist. Create it? Yes. Then it
immediately comes back and tells me that it couldn't find the file
again. Hit OK to acknowledge that dialog box and then a search of the
floppy or HD location where I tried to create it shows nothing!

If in the game itself, like Battletech or one of the RPG's I just
put a disk in Drive I like it asks for it then press return, there is no
floppy activity at all and then an error message comes up in the
Applewin screen as error code: $11.
Anybody know what this means? i would really like to figure out how to
get your floppy drive to interface through Applewin because most of
these games want a saved configuration disk of somekind and won't even
start without them. Also I just might like to play around with some
word processing or one of those simple drawing programs I saw for it
sometime and need to know how to save to disk.

If you look in the Help section of Applewin under "Creating a new
disk image", somewhere around step 3 or 4 is where I run into problems.
I never even get to step % where he tells me to type in some commands
because as soon as I get to the part where it asks me if I want to
create a new file with the name I give it, it tells me it can't find it
and gives up on me1

I know that the problem of trying to create a disk within the game
and trying to create an empty image just through the interface are
related. Is there some way I have to set drive A as drive II? As I
assume the master disk I references to my HD? Any help would be greatly
appreciated. I apologize for not being more succinct, but I'm new to
newsgroups too and always feel I have to explain problems at great
length. Technical support people just love me ;-) !
Thank you again.

[Zaphod1342]

I'll walk ya through it.

Here is what you have to do (from MSDOS):

You have a disk-image called GAME.DSK containing the game.

type: COPY GAME.DSK SAVEGAME.DSK

Now you have a disk-image called SAVEGAME.DSK which (right now) contains
another copy of the game, but will eventually be reformatted and made into
a character disk.

So, now go into the emulator, load the game and use its "initialize
character disk" function to format your newly made SAVEGAME.DSK file.
(Not the GAME.DSK file which is your game disk!)

Now, just use SAVEGAME.DSK whenever you want to save your character.

Hope this helps.

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