=================================================
PC-98 BEGINNERS GUIDE BY DAVZZ
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Copyright (c) 2004 Davzz. (Contact info at bottom of Faq)

Do not sell this or edit it by removing my name from it.
Do not post it on any other website without my permission. 
Do not incorporate any part of this guide into your own guide
without obtaining my express written permission.

=================
TABLE OF CONTENTS
=================

 1.  History
 
 2.  What is the PC-98
 
 3.  Getting started

 4.  Setting up Anex86

 5.  Setting up T98-Next

 6.  Misc & Contact info

==========
1. HISTORY
==========

09-17-2002

Version 0.1
(Enough for beginners to start.)

====================
2. WHAT IS THE PC-98
====================

The PC-98 is an ancient PC/Console bastard hybrid that was pretty 
popular in Japan. 

Most of the games on it are H. Ironically, the h-game genre started 
on this console, went onto the PC-Engine and for a very short time on 
the Sega Saturn before they got whammied and banished to become PC-only 
games because apparently consoles are much easier for children to get 
their hands on or something similar.

In the emulation scene, games for the PC-98 are usually distributed
in 2 formats, the HDI and FDI files.

You can think of HDI (Hard Drive Images) as the rom files of other
console emulators. When you open them with your emulator, it's sort
of like putting a cd-rom in the drive and autoplay will automatically
run the game for you, because they're really a bunch of folders with 
the game data in them,including save data, so if you wanted to back
up your saved game of n3kkid chickies, you'll have to back up the 
whole thing.

And the other is FDI (Floppy Disk Images). For this, just imagine
the previous, except with a multiple cd-rom game instead. Once in a
while, they'll ask you to change floppy disks, which for some games,
could get really annoying.

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3. GETTING STARTED
==================

First download some emulators, there are 2 big ones currently.

Anex86
http://homepage2.nifty.com/ans/

This one is VERY simple to use and has an english GUI, even though
it's made by the Japanese (never came to english people AT ALL,
unlike say the PC-Engine)

Unfortunately it's pretty bare-bones as far as features go.

T-98 NEXT
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Bay/2754/

This one's much more powerful and complicated, luckily you don't
have to screw around with most of the features... Most important
feature is probably that it has SAVE STATES (OMG!). Japanese GUI
UNLESS you download this translation patch...

http://www.zophar.net/Files/next_rb131e.rar

Which should you get? I recommend both, since they both have
different compatibility rates for different games. Assuming that
the game runs fine on both emulators though, I would highly
recommend T-98 NEXT.

Finally no matter what emulator you got, get this.

Japanese Font
http://www.zophar.net/Files/font.zip

This is the Japanese Font, unless you want to look at a bunch
of gibberish while playing... Well, if you can't read Japanese,
I suppose it'll be gibberish anyway, but at least you want to
be able to remember phrases like "Load game" and "Save Game".

===================
4. SETTING UP ANEX86
===================

This is pretty simple, first, press the config button, go to font
and load your font file.

Now go back a screen. Depending on what you want to load, press
the ... button and select the file (FDD for FDI files, HDD for
HDI files). 

Ignore the checkboxes at the bottom and the NEW button. Don't need
to screw around with those if you're new. Press the Start button
and enjoy.

=======================
5. SETTING UP T-98 NEXT
=======================

Go to DISK tab and click on the long bars thing where the filename
would be to select a file, then click on the icon in the most
top left to start.

If you need savestates, just click on the other window and use
the SAVE tab. View is to view a screenshot (BMP file) so you know
what you saved in that state.

You can configure other stuff in the other tabs, but for beginners, 
I recommend not doing it.

----
Misc
----

To be continued

------------
Contact info
------------

You can e-mail me at Gourrysama@hotmail.com if you have anything to add to 
the faq.

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END
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Faq copyright (c) Davzz 2004.
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