Screenshots: What will happen when you download IP-DOS (tm)
Computer requirements: You can only open the IP-DOS (tm) download on a computer running Microsoft Windows.
You must be logged onto Windows as an "administrator".
Skills required: If you lack some of the skills listed here, just ask someone to be with you.
IP-DOS (tm) is for everyone, including those of us who "just need a little help from our friends".
You'll need to know how to:
If your computer is not too old and is not crammed full of videos and music, you won't need to worry about these technical requirements:
You can reduce the virtual memory requirement to 134 MB by creating a plain text file that is either empty or contains the digit 0.
Put the file in the root folder of drive C: and name it:
When you open the download, it will copy its files to the disk drive with the most free space. If you want it to use a particular disk, just create a folder named "ideafarm.home.1" in the root folder of the drive that you want used.
There are no complicated menus or displays to become familiar with. When you open the download, a new folder will appear on your "desktop", along with a popup message:
This popup message is the beginning of a short tutorial. Prompted by the tutorial's messages, you will open the folder, and inside you will find another folder named "Mouth". Later in the tutorial, another object will appear, which you will drag and drop into the mouth. When you've done that, you will have just, using conventional terms, run your first SOIL (tm) program.
IP-DOS (tm) users do not "run programs". When you have opened the download, you have installed a portal into IdeaFarm (tm) Space. IdeaFarm (tm) Space is a place populated by sentient objects. You will be one of those objects. IP-DOS (tm) is another sentient object. The space itslf is a sentient object. All of you sentient objects can talk to each other using a langauge called SOIL (tm). SOIL (tm) is short for IdeaFarm (tm) Sentient Object Interface Language. Your first SOIL (tm) dialog will be with IdeaFarm (tm) Space. The SOIL (tm) words that you drop into the Mouth will tell an object named "space" to display a popup message that says hello.
SOIL (tm) will seem unfamiliar to you at first. This is mainly because the version that you will be using is not finished yet. When it is finished, SOIL (tm) will be as easy to speak as English is. Many years from now, SOIL (tm) might even replace English as the language that humans use to talk to each other!
The tutorial will end soon after that, leaving you to play with the Mouth if you want to. This version of SOIL (tm) is not really ready for prime time yet, so you probably should NOT play with it unless you are a programmer and are used to playing with software that isn't finished yet.
IP-DOS (tm) removes itself automatically from your computer when you turn your computer off. After doing that, the next time that you turn your computer on, you will see another folder:
When IP-DOS (tm) removed itself, it did not remove its disk files, including any files that you might have created playing with SOIL (tm). Those files take up about 23 MB of disk space. If you want to remove them, the IdeaFarm (tm) Removal Utility will do it for you.
When you open IdeaFarm (tm) Removal Utility, it doesn't do anything without getting your permission first:
IdeaFarm (tm) Removal Utility only looks for files with names containing "IdeaFarm" (tm), which should not be a problem since IdeaFarm (tm) has been a registered trademark since 1992. Your permission is obtained before deleting each file found:
When it has either deleted or skipped all of the files and folders that it found, it reminds you to manually delete the IdeaFarm (tm) Removal Utility folder:
That is all that there is to downloading, opening, and playing with IP-DOS (tm). It is as simple to use as a pencil. If you can drag and drop objects on the Windows Desktop, you can run your first SOIL (tm) program and see the tool that IdeaFarm (tm) Associates will use to "Connect People Wholesomely Globally!"