CompuServe Messages

I'm a very new 3DS user (about three days). I'm using a 386 33mhz with mcp, 8 megs ram and 210 meg HD (the mcp is Intel). I know that everyone strongly suggests that a 486 w/ Weitek be used for faster operation but I thought I'd just start with my 386 system. My first hours with 3DS were extremely painful. The operation has been so slow and clunky that the program was almost unusable. I'm not talking about slowness in rendering or anything high-powered but just to move the cursor arrow from a port to the side menu would take four or five seconds! The screen redraw took minutes to complete. I was about to put 3DS away until I got a 486 system but two things happened: I read these messages about the using 3DS with DOS 5.0 (which I have) and a conversation with the very kind and helpful Laurie Steele during which I told her that I was really dissapointe in the model A slowness of the program. She asked me if my HD was active much of time and the next time I used 3DS I noted that it was. So, when I saw the messages about 5.0/Qemm/Pharlap: I first updated the pharlap driver which did nothing discernable and then I installed Qemm 386. WHAT A DIFFERANCE !!! It may be slow to you 486 people, but 3DS is now quite useable with an increase in speed of more than 10X (its hard to calulate but maybe even 20x) I CAN use 3DS on my 386 and (for now) I have been spared from having to rush out and buy a 486 to complete the tutorial and you all have been spared from hearing my complaints about the slowness of 3DS. God bless us all, everyone. Alec Jason