The Particle Atlas Electronic Edition (PAE2)

Page Index

Availability

The Particle Atlas Electronic Edition on CD-ROM may still be available from the following source:

McCrone Research Institute
2820 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60616
(312) 842-7100 (voice)
(312) 842-1078 (fax)
http://www.mcri.org

McRI is the only known source of the CD-ROM version of the Particle Atlas. Prospective users are advised that the PAE2 will work on modern Windows systems (see notes here and here below) and that it does still contain a vast amount of valuable information which may be obtained elsewhere only through a laborious collection of many reference works. (The wonderful photomicrographs masterfully produced by John Gustav Delly are available nowhere else.) However, the application is a Windows3-era software system and is quirky at best by today's standards. The economics of the PAE2 simply did not ever justify another edition. (See further notes below.)

Customer Service

For customer service other than technical support, please contact the vendor through which you purchased the PAE2.

 

Technical Support

For technical support, contact Stephen A. Shaffer via email.

Download Install Disks

Click on the link below to download a zipped copy of the Installation Diskette distributed with the Particle Atlas Electronic Edition CD Rom. Unzip the contents of each file to a blank 1.44 Mbyte diskette then install as usual. Note: The demo diskette, originally distributed with the Particle Atlas CD-ROM, is not necessary for installation and operation of the Particle Atlas.

Installation Under Windows® 2000 / XP

Installation under Windows® 2000 or XP is straightforward. (Keep in mind that the PAE2 was developed in the era of Windows® 3 so it is a bit primitive by today's standards!) Here are installation instructions and notes to assist.

Step Notes
1. Insert the "PAE2 Setup" diskette in your 3-1/4" floppy drive, or copy the Setup file set to a temporary drive on your hard disk. If necessary, download the Install disk zip file from the link above. Unzip this file into a temporary folder anywhere on your system. The Demo diskette file set is optional, not required for operation of the Atlas.
2. Insert the PAE2 CD-Rom disc in your CD-ROM drive. If you have more than one CD-Rom drive, or if the program displays an error message indicating that a file could not be found following installation, see the note below on manually editing the PAEEP.SYS file. Under normal circumstances, this is not required.
3. From Windows® Explorer, My Computer, or elsewhere, double-click on the Setup.exe file to begin the setup process. Alternatively, choose "Start | Run", then click on "Browse" and navigate to the disk and/or directory containing the Setup.exe file. Select it, then click on "OK" to begin the setup.  
4. At the MicroDataware dialog box, in the "Installation Options" section, unclick the "PAE2demo Files" box if you are not installing the Demo files. The demo diskette and files are optional and not required for use of the Atlas.
5. Also on the MicroDataware dialog box, you can specify the location where files are to be installed or accept the default choice of "C:\PAE2". Today's convention is usually to install programs in the C:\Program Files\ directory. To do this under the Windows® 3 vintage PAE2 setup program, click on "Change" in the "Install To" section of the dialog box, then enter "C:\PROGRA~1\PAE2" as the Path, then click on "OK" and on "Install" to complete the installation.
6. The Setup program will create a folder in the Program section of the Start Menu. It will contain launch icons for both the Particle Atlas and the Demo program. If the demo program was not installed, you will want to delete the demo icon from the "Start Menu\Program Files\Particle Atlas" folder. This folder is open on the desktop when the installation completes, so you may find it convenient to delete this icon before closing the folder.

That's it! The PAE2 is now installed and should operate without any special problems under Windows® 2000 or XP.

A Note on the "Cannot Read from Drive X ... Cannot find PAEE.DAT" Error Sequence

This error, one of the most annoying legacies of the Windows® 3 era for which we profoundly apologize, occurs when the PAE2 application cannot find the data files or CD-ROM disk containing those files. This can occur when you have multiple CD-ROM drives, when the data disk is in a different drive than it was when the installation was made, or for other reasons. The installation software makes several assumptions which are no longer reasonable for modern systems. It assumes, 1) That there is only a single CD-ROM drive in the system; 2) That the drive designation for the CD-ROM drive will never change; and 3) That you will always run the application using the data resident on the CD-ROM disc rather than copying the contents of the disk to a local or network hard disk drive.

The work-around for this problem is pretty simple although you have to be a bit careful to do it right. Incidentally, this same work-around will allow you to install the PAE2 data files to a hard disk for speedier operation. Here are the steps:

  1. Using a plain text editor such as Notepad only, open the file PAEEP.SYS from the installation folder of the application.
  2. Line 29 of this file reads: .groupFileNames[] = " :\paee.dat"
  3. The paee.dat file is one of the critical data files on the PAE2 CD-ROM disc. Carefully edit this line to insert the full path to this and the other files on the CD-ROM.

    For example, if your CD-ROM disk is now in drive G, this line should read: .groupFileNames[] = "G:\paee.dat".

    If you've copied your files to a folder called "Data" which is below the PAEE folder in your Program Files directory, then line 29 should read: .groupFileNames[] = "C:\Progra~1\PAEE\Data\paee.dat".

    Using this work-around, you can move the CD-ROM data files to a hard disk and run the application from there.

On Pirating (Illegally Copying) the PAE2 Software

Please don't.

The PAE2Economics

When the Particle Atlas Electronic Edition was created way back in 1991 and 1992, the world of software development was a very different place than it is today. For the most part there were no neat, quick tools for developing Windows® applications, database applications, or imaging applications. And there were certainly none of the wonderful tools for CD-ROM development, full text indexing, or most of the other things we take for granted today. Coding was for the most part a laborious, manual process, as was the keying and scanning of text, images, etc. The few tools that could be licensed from others were very, very expensive.

Development of the PAE2 was both a labor of love and a business venture. As a labor of love, it gave it's developer (Stephen A. Shaffer) and the data owners (Walter C. McCrone and the McCrone Research Institute) a good deal of satisfaction. As a business venture for Stephen, it was a disaster. Due to the huge cost of software development back then, and the slow acceptance of CD-ROM technology in 1992-1993, the project quite literally backrupted Stephen. Now, well past the tenth anniversary of the release of the PAE2, he has almost recovered his investment.

So, if you're going to use the Particle Atlas, and we certainly hope you will, please pay for it. It's only right. Thank you.

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