This page, written by the eternally helpful Michael Koenig, gives information as to how to get various systems in MESS up and running. It gives details of resources needed and where to get them, how to set up MESS to run, and then details of how to manouver the emulated system's OS to run the software, detailing various quirks that may get in your way.
For Color Genie ROMs and disk images consult Jürgen Buchmüller's MESS page.
All ROMs that shall be active must be somewhere in the start path!
Start the emulation with this line eg.:
MESS cgenie games1/dsk
Be aware of the fact that every disk image after the first one seems to be not recognized correctly, thus producing disk errors although the image is ok. So use only one disk at a time till that problem is solved. Also note that the /dsk extension is needed by the emulator to classify the file as disk image.
After the few info screens you should see a message reading:
MEM SIZE?
At that moment press F9 to reboot the emulated machine. After the next start the disk is recognized and the following message is displayed:
DISK-BASIC
FILES ?
Press Return for that query. The following actions depend on the ROMs you are using.
If you have the DOS Extensions (NEWE000/ROM) the Colour DOS-Interface should appear. The supported commands can be listed with HELP, and DIR lists the disk catalog.
To start a machine program just use its name as start command, eg. to start CHOPPER/CMD type CHOPPER. For BASIC programs start the interpreter via BASIC and use the commands explained in the next section.
If you only use DOS (CGDOS/ROM) answer the MEM SIZE? query that appears again with Return. Then Color BASIC is started.
You can get the disk catalog with:
CMD"I"
and the same program as above can be started with
CMD"S CHOPPER/CMD"
To run a basic program type:
RUN"NAME/BAS"
Without DOS only cassettes can be used, which shall not be discussed here.
For the MESS TRS-80 emulation TRS80/ROM and TRS80/FNT are needed, which can be found at Dave's Classics.
If you've started the Model I emulator without a disk image you should have observed that the screen is filled with @ while the machine seeks for a disk. So when you want to use the emulation without a disk, start the Model III (trs80_m3) instead.
To access disks images with the TRS-80 emulator the first disk images must be a NEWDOS/80 boot image. This and other disk images are available from www.trs-80.com. It seems that the emulator only works with Apparat's NEWDOS/80 Version 2.0 for Model I.
The emulation should be started with NEWDOS/80 as first disk, eg.
MESS trs80 newdos80/dsk disk2/dsk disk3/dsk disk4/dsk
The /dsk extension is obligatory that the emulator recognizes the files as disk images! Upto four disks are supported.
Now NEWDOS/80 should boot and you can get the list of available commands with LIB and some explanations with HELP.
The directory of the first disk is listed with DIR. For the other disks use DIR,drive#, eg. DIR,1 lists the catalog of the second disk.
Start programs by typing their name (the /CMD extension is optional). All disks are searched for that program. If you want to start a program from a special disk use name:drive#, eg. TEST:2 starts TEST/CMD from the third disk.
To run BASIC programs use BASIC,RUN"NAME/BAS".
If you get the error message ILLEGAL OR MISSING DRIVE # try to set the number of drives on the boot image to four with
SYSTEM,0,AL=4
then reboot by pressing F9 and try again.