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Connectix Compact Virtual 3.0 RC4 readme

CONNECTIX CORPORATION 2655 Campus Dr. San Mateo, CA 94403

This ReadMe summarizes the key points to know when using Virtual 3.0:

If you have any questions, problems, or comments please contact Connectix. This is the fc (final candidate) release, so you are holding the version we expect to become the final shipping version. Therefore, we need to be informed AS SOON AS POSSIBLE of any irregularities. If it is at all possible contact Connectix in writing (fax) it would be greatly appreciated. Contact Derek Shaw at:

AppleLink : CONNECTIX.TS
America On Line : Connectix
CompuServe : 75300,1546
Fax : 415-571-5195
Voice : 800-950-5880.

Using Compact Virtual

  • For almost every brand of accelerator card, you must also update to the very latest set of accelerator INIT software. Not having the most recent versions almost invariably leads to crashes on boot. Since we do not manufacture this software, we cannot include it in this package, so you must contact your accelerator board supplier to receive the latest updates.
  • Holding down the tilde key (~) will disable Virtual. This can be useful if you are having problems booting with Virtual installed.
  • Compact Virtual 3.0 works with System 6.0.x and System 7.0.x on the Macintosh Plus, SE, and Classic with just about all accelerators.
  • For many of the accelorators Compact Virtual 3.0 supports a pseudo-nonvolitile RAM disk. The size of the RAMdisk will be the amount of memory on your original Mac’s motherboard, plus any amount above and beyond 4 Megabytes that you have installed on your accelerator card which is not being used to run applications. For example, if you have an accelerator with 16 MB of DRAM installed, and you have 4 MB on the original Macintosh’s motherboard, you have a total of 20MB in the machine. If you set the slide lever in the Virtual contol panel for 8 MB of application space, you would be left over with a 12 MB RAM disk.
  • The RAM disk can be configured to survive both restarts and shutdowns. If you place a System Folder on the RAM disk, it will automatically become the Startup Volume the next time you reboot. You do not have to use the ‘Select Startup’ control panel to boot off the RAM disk; it assumes that if you went to the trouble of putting a System Folder on the RAM disk, you intend to use it (this can be overriden by holding the option key down during boot – the RAM disk will then NOT be not the Startup disk, but will still retain its information). Please feel free to experiment with different RAM disk configurations.
  • Compact Virtual 3.0 only supports accelerated machines having real RAM configurations of at least 4 MB.
  • Click in the VIRTUAL part of the cdev to see the effect of the MoveIO switchbox.
  • You can now choose to use either contiguous or dis-contiguous disk space: Check the Virtual File settings in the Virtual Control Panel.
  • The DiskSaver feature can be useful in limiting the amount of disk space you lose to use virtual memory. When it is on, Virtual will take from your disk only the difference between the amount of real RAM in your machine and the amount of application memory you requested.