hi I actually had a copy of Amstrad 1512 software disks from eBay and they worked fine but then the disks got damaged and now
they wont load that's why I was trying to use the downloaded version but the actual normal version seem to
work on my system fine until they got damaged

I've looked on eBay for a norther set of Amstrad 1512 system disks unfortunately cant find any so that's why I've resorted to try and get the downloaded version of it to work
on my original pc

Errius wrote on 2025-06-17, 16:31:

Software probably requires specific hardware. I know 1512 used unusual CGA video adapter which supported non-standard video modes. Software written for that isn't going to run on modern VGA cards.

Yes, the video adapter in the PC1512 is proprietary.
It's a superset of CGA, basically. A few French games had support for it, I think.
If the PC1512 4 colour video driver for GEM is used on plain CGA graphics card, it will show a black/white picture, I think.
That's because the other layers of pixels meant for colour are being ignored, I believe.

But really, if it's just about GEM..
Running GEM 3 or FreeGEM/OpenGEM is much better in terms of hardware support.
The old GEM 1.x applications be kept, they still work. I've used GEM 1 Desktop application on GEM 2!
That way, I get the movable windows back! Looks like Mac OS! 😆

Edit: About the PC1512 disks..They're in *.CFI image format (some of them are), which PCem and other emulators can't read.
It's necessary to run FDCOPY program on a DOS system.
Then, the image content can be written back to a floppy, be it physical or simulated (an *.IMA file mounted in drive A: or B: of an emu/VM).

Edit: I'm trying to get 86Box to work on macOS right now..
I'll still try to get PC1640 GEM installed. Because, the PC1640 had optional EGA support.
So there's a chance to get that old GEM running in ordinary EGA resolution.

hi interesting its strange I find I don't have to use FDCOPY I can put in disk 2 and it starts up fine but as I said when I try and put in disk 3 it gives a message witch is ,put in disk 3 and it goes to desktop but then a message comes up saying
The Gem desktop cannot find the documents
DESKLO.ICN or DESKHI.ICN or DESKTOP.INF in the dos search path
then nothing happens so I'm not Shure whether I should be doing something to fix this problem it really does confuse me

You do not need FDCOPY unless you're working with physical disk drives. Find IMA images of the disks instead. Google is your friend.

+1

Not having to use CFI images makes it easier.

FDCOPY.COM is a program supplied on Amstrad's website to convert DOS-formatted floppies to/from disc image files.
When using image files, there are two formats it can use - compressed and uncompressed.

https://netdiag.pl/artykuly/floppy/progs/cfi.html

thanks for the suggestion will have a look and give that a try and let you know

hi I've tried looking for the Amstrad ima files on google but cant seem to find any is ima short for image files as there on google or is ima files different to image files

[mansplaining]Hi there, it's about image files that end with IMA or IMG extension (sometimes BIN or FD).

They are so-called RAW images. Like raw meat, they're unprepared, so to say.
They're an 1:1 dump of the physical medium, in short. A stream of information stored in a file.

In case of floppies, they do contain all the bits and bytes from the magnetic surface.
There's no information block (header), whatsoever.

It's as if you had recorded a whole side of a vinyl to a music cassette.
You did set the arm at the beginning and push the play+record button on the cassette side
and the cassette deck did record everything to the end.

Other floppy formats like *.CFI (FDCOPY) or *.TD0 (Teledisk) have extra information or do group the sectors/tracks into different blocks.
Some use compression, too. They can be supported by some VMs or emulators, if the author has provided special support.

Or to use a different comparison, it's like with plain text files and MS Word documents.
The MS Word documents do contain formatting that can'tbe understood by an ordinary text editor. [/mansplaining]

thanks for explaining that I didn't know all that so its good to know many thanks

hi all I was wondering if someone can help me with the way the Amstrad 1512 disk 3 folder should look like
as when I start disk 2 it says to insert disk 3 it goes to load and then comes up with a error message such as this
The Gem desktop cannot find the documents
DESKLO.ICN or DESKHI.ICN or DESKTOP.INF in the dos search path
I'm just wondering where the DESKLO.ICN -DESKHI.ICN-DESKTOP.INF file should go as
if some one could send me a pic of where these files should go or a pic of the arrangement of the files of disk 3 such as how all the files are
ide really appreciate it as I think this could fix the problem I'm having.

^in GEMDESK folder? 🤷‍♂️
Re: need help with running 1512 amstrad system disks

I'm still trying to get 86Box on M series Mac going..
I'm currently configuring that 86Box Manager for Mac, then I'll try do get my old images files over.
Needs some time. The weather where I live isn't nice (too warm).

Edit: In the meantime, I did test my GEM installation in DOSBox-X.
It works, except for the mouse. The GEM on the PC1512 disks does support Amstrad mouse.
Mouse support can be started with the different start-up batch files.
But since I don't have that mouse emulation in DOSBox-X (PCem, 86Box has it) I had to use keyboard.