Strange Fusion issue

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24bit
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Strange Fusion issue

Post by 24bit »

Fusion was running on my side from W98SE without issues.
Today after a garbled setup screen, I deleted Fusion.prefs and started again.
Setup and Fusion are working, but my mouse on the Mac side is dead. The mouse works as far as the setup screen and stops working in MacOS 7.6.

Is there anything you could advise?
Its not a matter of the mouse, same issue with USB or serial mouse.
I did try to re-install the driver, but no dice.

Edit: I had to delete the Macxx.prm files in Fusion as well. Mouse is working again!
The garbled setup screen shows up occasionally, but thats a Windows display switching thing most certainly.
Last edited by Cat_7 on Mon Apr 17, 2017 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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24bit
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Re: Strange Fusion issue

Post by 24bit »

Seems I spoke too soon. :(
Mouse is dead as soon as the MacOS takes over. Deleting config and prm did not help any more.
I guess not many here will be riding this hobby-horse, but still, any thoughts to re-enable mouse?

This is the garbled Fusion screen btw. It can be circumvented by pressing right CTRL and entering Fusion setup again from Windows.

Image
Last edited by 24bit on Tue Apr 18, 2017 6:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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adespoton
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Re: Strange Fusion issue

Post by adespoton »

Hmm... that looks like a screen resolution/video memory conflict of some sort; have you tried messing with resolution settings at various layers?
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Re: Strange Fusion issue

Post by 24bit »

The "art" screen comes up at 1600x1200 and a smaller resolution.
I´ll try a few lower resolutions to see how I fare. I´ll also swap the monitor with the last 4:3 one I have.
Got a mouse once in MacOS when starting Fusion.exe directly, not via setup.exe.
But it was just that one time.

Is it possible to tell a DOS app where to look for mouse input in 98SE?
As said above, mouse is working in setup.exe and than dies.
Never encountered that on my old PIII and the P4 did not have issues either until the art-screen was triggered.
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adespoton
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Re: Strange Fusion issue

Post by adespoton »

Before the art screen, I believe you're in a limited resolution line mode; the art screen is in 640x480.

I think DOS apps just take the info from the mouse driver, unless they're old enough to just poll the serial port for input.
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24bit
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Re: Strange Fusion issue

Post by 24bit »

Thanks for caring!
I tried several resolutions, beside 1920x1200 - e.g. 1600x1200, 1024x768, even 640x480.
No dice so far.
I will change mouse, keyboard and monitor soon to rule them out.
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24bit
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Re: Strange Fusion issue

Post by 24bit »

The monitor seems to be the culprit, kind of. (Medion MD20094)
Questions remain
- why was the Mac mouse working at all with that display before the "art" screen as it is a no go now?
- is the "art" screen related to the dead mouse or is it an error of its own?
Maybe rather a question for a DOS forum, but I doubt there will be any Fusion users this days.
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adespoton
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Re: Strange Fusion issue

Post by adespoton »

PCs have multiple video display modes, sort of like the two display modes in the Apple ][. The "art" screen is the first place the bitmapped display mode is used; but there's more going on there than just this. This is also where the Hi RAM is loaded, so the OS can address more memory. As such, the driver stubs used in the simple display mode are also replaced with full DOS (or Windows) drivers at this point, as they now have access to upper memory.

So the mouse driver after this screen is usually a completely different driver than the one used before. The one before is usually a direct serial interface that takes a certain type of signal and interprets a mouse position on the limited screen. The one after is a full hardware driver that feeds location data back to the OS, which then figures out screen resolution and places the pointer. So they work in a significantly different manner.
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Re: Strange Fusion issue

Post by kikyoulinux »

You'd better quit to DOS and run FUSION. Check config.sys and don't load EMM386.exe.
If you're using PCI sound card that emulates a SoundBlaster card, load the driver first.
Here's two universal device driver: OAKCDROM for IDE CDROMs and CTMOUSE for PS/2 and Serial mouses.
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24bit
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Re: Strange Fusion issue

Post by 24bit »

Thanks for the input, both of you!
I understand that much is going on under the hood in W98, especially when switching to a full screen DOS Window.
I´m getting the art screen too with my 4:3 monitor oldie, so I guess there were two obstacles at one time.
What triggered them remains a mystery to me. ;)

Being a lazy guy, I liked the way W98SE "managed" Fusion as long as it was working flawlessly.
Mouse, ASPI, CD-ROM, sound, its all there and just handed over to the Mac.
I do have Fusion in FreeDOS too on a Optiplex 745.
Mouse is jittery to not working, CD-ROM is missing, as the usual drivers only look for pATA devices, sound is not working,
as the Dell´s ADI sound thing is missing DOS drivers seemingly.
I did not install ASPI in FreeDOS, guess I won´t use SCSI devices in the future any more.
Even if I added a PCI sound card, FreeDOS looks like some tinkering to me with uncertain results.

Maybe we should have a new thread about Fusion under FreeDOS - or would DR-DOS be first choice?
A collection of needful things might help breathing some life into this really good and fast Mac emulator.
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