Please Note: As of January 18th 2011, Aware Electronics Windows program Aw-Radw.Exe version 7.9(i) includes a special version of DOSBox which is automatically launched when running Aw-Graph under 64 bit Windows.

Aw-Graph.Exe is an Aware Electronics program for graphing radiation data. It was written when 16 bit operating systems prevailed. Most 64bit versions of Windows refuse to run 16 bit programs including Aw-Graph. We have plans to write a version of Aw-Graph that will run under 32bit and 64bit versions of Windows but until then here is one method of running Aw-Graph using a free program named DOSBox:

(The following assumes Aware Electronics software is in C:\AWARE folder and the binary radiation data is being stored by Aw-Radw in the folder or a sub-folder of C:\AWARE. It also assumes DOSBox is installed in the C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74 folder).

Step 1: Download and install DOSBox on your PC. The download site is here: http://www.DOSBox.com/download.php?main=1(Click on the Win32 installer, then “RUN” then “RUN”).

Step 2: The installer creates a shortcut on the PC’s desktop named DOSBox. Right click the shortcut and click “Send To”- “Desktop” which creates a second DOSBox shortcut on the desktop.

Step 3: Right click this second DOSBox shortcut and click “Properties”. Click the “General” tab and change the name to something like “Aw-Graph DOSBox”.

Step 4: Click the “Shortcut” tab and change “Target” from "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe"-userconf to:

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -c "mount C C:\AWARE" -c "C:" -c "AW-GRAPH.EXE" -noconsole -exit

Step 5: Make sure the shortcut’s “Start in” box is empty.

Now click “OK” to save the settings to the shortcut. Click the shortcut to start Aw-Graph then use the keyboard to command Aw-graph. (See the file AW-GRAPH.TXT and README-G.TXT to learn more about Aw-Graph).

The README-G.TXT file includes information about command-line arguments to which Aw-Graph responds. Using this information one can setup the DOSBox shortcut to start Aw-Graph and have it plot the most recent file in a folder, with auto refresh of the plot.

Auto-Refresh Example 1:

Assuming Aw-Radw is saving a binary radiation data file to folder C:\AWARE\MYDATA and one desires to click the DOSBox shortcut such that Aw-Graph starts and automatically loads the most recent radiation data file found in C:\AWARE\MYDATA folder, with auto-refresh of the plot, create a shortcut as above but in Step 4, change the “Target” to:

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -c "mount C C:\aware" -c "C:" -c "AW-GRAPH.EXE-rMYDATA\*.*" -noconsole-exit

Save the shortcut (click OK) and then click the shortcut. Aw-Graph starts-up plotting the most recent binary data file in C:\AWARE\MYDATA in auto-refresh mode, using its default settings. As indicated above, when Aw-Radw adds more data to the binary file, Aw-Graph will re-plot it.

Auto-Refresh Example 2:

Same as example 1 but have Aw-Graph load the data twice, first with no compression and then again with a compression of 10 (ten points averaged per point displayed). Change the “Target” to:

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -c "mount C C:\aware" -c "C:" -c "AW-GRAPH.EXE-rMYDATA\*.*,MYDATA\*.*`10" -noconsole-exit

End of examples.

Explanation of “Target”:

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -c "mount C C:\aware" -c "C:" -c "AW-GRAPH.EXE-rMYDATA\*.*,MYDATA\*.*`10" -noconsole-exit

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" tells the shortcut to start DOSBox.exe with the arguments supplied. When DOSBox starts, it examines the arguments. The-c tells it the next argument is a command. The command "mount C C:\aware" tells DOSBox to mount the C:\AWARE folder as a virtual drive C:. The “C:” command tells DOSBox to change to virtual drive C: (which is really C:\AWARE). The "AW-GRAPH.EXE-rMYDATA\*.*,MYDATA\*.*`10" command tells DOSBox to start Aw-Graph and pass it the arguments-rMYDATA\*.*,MYDATA\*.*`10.

Aw-Graph will start in what it thinks is drive C: but it is really C:\AWARE. The Aw-Graph argument-rMYDATA\*.*,MYDATA\*.*`10 tells Aw-Graph to plot the most recent rad file in folder MYDATA twice, the second time with a compression of ten points per point displayed. Note Aw-Graph thinks the data is in C:\MYDATA but it is really in C:\AWARE\MYDATA.

The DOSBox argument-noconsole tells DOSBox not to open a status window. The DOSBox argument-exit tells DOSBox to exit after Aw-Graph exits.

Note if one desires to change the icon of the DOSBox shortcut, right-click the shortcut, click “Properties” then “Change Icon” then “Browse” to the C:\AWARE folder and click on the Aw-Graph icon.

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