                          Console Menu V1.9b
                       Written By Andrew Bond
                        (c)1996 Andrew Bond
                email : digidev@cix.compulink.co.uk

       HomePage - http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/aak55/

                           4 November 1996

What is it ?
------------
Console Menu is a front end for console emulators, originally written 
for COLEMDOS, the coleco vision emulator.
Menu has since grown into a universal emulator front end, compatible with
countless emulators.
It will display all game files in any specified directory or zip, then run
your selection using a specified emulator, with any parameters you wish.
It can even read the game description right out of the rom!

Tried and tested emulators
--------------------------
Menu works great with all the following emulators :-

	Colemdos	- Coleco Vision
	Fmsxdos		- MSX
	vcs			- Atari 2600
	a26			- Atari 2600
	vectrex		- Vectrex
	uae			- Amiga
	vgb-dos		- Gameboy
	massage		- Master System / Game Gear
	genem		- MegaDrive / Genesis
	megad		- MegaDrive / Genesis
	pokey		- Atari 800xl (use menu for feeding it cartridge images)

Please mail me if you find any new DOS based emulators.

Installation
------------
Copy menu.exe either into the same dir as your emulator, or anywhere
described in your dos path.
Copy example.cfg into the same dir as your emulator, then rename this
to menu.cfg. This will give you a good starting file, you can then
customise it yourself for your particular system.

configuration file
------------------
Menu is very flexible, it uses a text based configuration file called
menu.cfg. This file tells menu everything, from where the files are stored
to which emulator you are using. You can edit this yourself with any text
editor, the msdos editor 'edit' will do just fine.
Try 'edit menu.cfg' at the dos prompt.
If you have used the example.cfg file as a base, all possible commands
will be described, just read the comment against each and decide what
you require. Placing a # at the start of a line, comments that line out
i.e. menu will ignor it.

Firstly I know colemdos now supports independent rom cfg files, i.e. if you
load a game dkong.rom it will look for a file dkong.cfg containing the
parameters for that rom.
However I don't like that method of configuration for one big reason, it
requires lots of tiny files. Most modern PC's have a cluster size of
16 or 32k in size. Taking a 32k cluster size for example, a 1 byte file
actually takes 32k of disk space, not 1 byte as reported by dir.
If you have 100 .cfg files, each of say 20 bytes, they will occupy a whopping
3.2mb, yes mega byte of disk space!
It is for this reason that I have extended the config file for menu, now
every setting you desire for all your games can be stored in one file,
occupying at most, 32k of you disk, instead of 3.2mb

Commands :-

	Please see example menu.cfg for an example of all commands.
	This is called example.cfg!


ZIP Support
-----------
You can now play games directly from a .zip file, greatly reducing required
disk space and file count.
To use this option you must specify a zip file, with the ZIP command, and a
temporary directory with TMP.
PKsoftware's PKUNZIP must also be accessible in you dos path.
Make sure the zip file you use only contains MSDOS filenames, some ZIP files
you find may contain long files from other OS's.
To be sure, I would suggest creating any zip file yourself, with pkzip.
BOY ROM names can't be read from ZIP files, as this would be just too slow.

How much ?
----------
Its freeware, however if you like it please mail me a list of your game files!
Seriously, please drop me an email so I can get some idea of how many people
are using menu.

Menu is NOT Public Domain, it is a copyrighted software product and may not be
disassembled, reverse engineered or otherwise modified in any way.

Thanks to Marcel de Kogel & Marat Fayzullin for a great emulator!
Thanks to Dave W for a great Emulation Page!

Updates
-------
You will always find the latest version at the following site(s) :-

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/aak55/   (UK site)
http://www.gamepen.com/gamewire/classic/classic.html (USA site)


Technical
---------
There is no fixed limit on the number of games that menu can display. However
as the number of games rises, so does the memory consumption. There will be
a point where menu will be using so much memory that there is not enough left
for the emulator to run. This may be resolved in a later release by paging out
menu when invoking the emulator.
Note : If and when you have enough roms for this to be a problem, you can 
now split them up into sub-directories which will overcome this.
Menu has been deliberately written as a 16bit program, using only base memory,
this means that its small, and should not upset COLEM's dpmi usage.

Remember kids, what ever happens, its a feature not a bug!

digidev@cix.compulink.co.uk

New in 1.9b
-----------
More of a little twiddle really, 15 mins spent, now you can delete files
from a zip file, and the display does not reset when you delete or
add a description anymore.
Just got a PC version of our latest Playstation game to code now, after
that, I'll revamp menu, honest guv! Yes you've guessed right, programming
Playstation games is what occupies all of my time, Menu v2.0 will be
cool, just wait until i've got the time.

New in 1.9a
-----------
Files stored in a .zip archive are now filtered through the EXT commands.
Menu can now read Megadrive / Genesis game descriptions directly from roms.
Max description length has been increased from 32 to 48 characters, please
 let me know if this causes anyone any problems.

New in 1.9
-----------
Upto four file extensions may be specified with the ext command, as some
 emulators handle more than one file type. Emulator in case is massage, the
 master system / game gear emulator. You can now have two EXT lines so menu
 will list both .sms and .gg roms.
 ** YOU NOW MUST SPECIFY AT LEAST ONE EXT COMMAND **
List generator, CTRL-L. Makes a text list of all your games.

New in 1.8
-----------
New feature CTRL-E shows command used to execute rom.

New in 1.7a
-----------
Stupid memory allocation bug fixed.

New in 1.7
----------
Vastly improved menu control, hit an a-z key and you will automatically
 be placed at the first entry starting with that letter, hit the same
 letter again and it will cycle though all entries starting with that letter.
Description editor now built in, no more fighting with a text editor! (CRTL-D)
Disabled text cursor when in menu.
Support for 50 line mode.
F1 now displays help screen.

New in 1.6
----------
Files can be deleted from within menu, 'delete' key.
New command PAF, which places any parameters after the filename
for use with vcs.exe


