Shell on AMD

[Jim Funderburk]

I have posted this question for several weeks to the gnu.emacs.help listing.
One responder, Eli Zaritskii, having looked at the details of the problem as
listed below, suggested I try posting it to this  forum.

Let me describe a bit of background of the problem before stating some
details.  I had used EMACS-20.7 for windows on a Pentium II computer.
Since then, I got a Pentium III computer from Dell, copied the EMACs
directory to CD from the PII, then to the PIII Dell.  Thus done, EMACs
works fine on the PIII Dell.
Then, I upgraded the PII computer by having a local dealer install
an AMD K7 (Thunderbird Chip-set, A-Open motherboard).  He installed
the OS (Windows 98, Standard Edition) from the same disk as was on
the PII.  Then I copied the Emacs CD to the new system.

On the AMD system, EMACS works fine EXCEPT THAT M-x shell
does not work.  In my early experiences, the AMD system crashed. In
recent tests, doing things in a more controlled way, the following describes
what happens when I try M-x shell.  Mr. Zaritskii used the term 'dead shell
window' which seemed apt, so I have adopted it in the description.

The current status:  I use EMACS for editing functions and for some ELISP
code on the AMD, and it works fine on all these.  However, I still cannot
use
the shell, which is a serious limitation since I like to use EMACS as the
development environment for program coding, mostly in JAVA for now.
Thus, I hope the problem is just some obscure configuration problem.  Please
note that there are no files '.emacs' or 'default.el' on the system -- I
have done
no customization in this way ( I prefer to just load  elc libraries when
needed).
There are no such libraries loaded in the test described below.

If there are any other things I could do to help the Emacs guru who
(hopefully)
will examine this problem,  just let me know.  If it is just some limitation
of
AMD systems, I need to know that so that future system purchases will allow
my full use of EMACS (by avoiding the AMD).

Thanks for considering this problem.


a. Here are some details regarding the dead shell window:
 1. message line  says 'Loading shell ... done'
 2. line above msg line says : *shell*  (Shell:run)-L:1-A11
b. Also, menu bar has the usual shell menus : complete, In/out, and Signals.
c. When I do Ctrl-Alt-Delete to see what tasks show, the expected 'Cmdproxy'
    shows.
d. When I exit Emacs via C-x C-c, I am prompted to end the active process,
 which shows
  Proc     status    Buffer    Tty   command
  shell       run      *shell*  (none)
C:/EMACS/EMACS-20.7/bin/cmdproxy.exe -i
If I say 'yes', then Emacs exits.  On some tests, when all I did after a
restart was
 start EMACS, do M-x shell, then C-x C-c,  then EMACS exited cleanly.

I normally get a 'bell' sound while M-x shell  is trying to start .
Note that the usual 'Microsoft Windows ...' message does NOT appear in shell
window.
When I try 'date' then return, the cursor goes to next line but no usual
response appears.
When I try 'show command history' from 'In/Out' Menu, 'date' shows up.

I have tried 'Cmdproxy.exe' outside of EMACS by double-clicking on it, and
it seems to work fine.

If there are any other details that you think might help resolve this
mystery, I'll be glad
to find them and report them to you.
Thanks for considering the problem.  I do so much in Emacs (e.g., Java
program development)
with the shell, that I hope this can be resolved for the AMD system I have.