Thoromation / DosBox

[Forego]

i just wanted to post about my experience very early on with the program. thank you again to jeff and bill for getting me going.

before using it i went into bill's reading room and found the followups ( i believe 28 is the start) pertaining to thoromation and exdc.

btw a donation to the site for access to the fu's has to be considered the best value possible. total access to the pro's tips on using the programs.

what the heck is 30-40 bucks when you get all the help you need from the creators and pro's in their prime?

what i read early on that have produced very good results so far
1) the absolute need to limit contenders to four in thoromation

2) bradshaw statement that all races should be looked at raw first and serious reasons have to be present to consider using the 2 adjust. this from the fellow who wrote the software. he says to ask is the horse truly deserving of contender status. i have yet to use the 2 adjust

3) not entering favorites that are trying something for the first time. yesterday's sa turf race perfect example as i did not even enter the 6/5 favorite #2 horse. result is thoromation screen has the exacta cold

[Houndog]

Forego, good to see someone working with this program. I am going to try to use this program to work the Saturday's Fairgronds race. Some comments and observations about THOROMATION after working with it, and attending a Sartin Seminar where they first demonstrated the program.

1) Automatic vs Alternate Adjustment. It is much easier to use the Alternate Adjustment than it is in Energy. In Energy they call it the Alternate(E) adjustment. In Thoromation you just have to select #2 (alternate adjustment) and it is done for you. In Energy you had to manually enter the number that came up. Both of these adjustments equalize Total Energy which is a BIG adjustment in many cases. Whenever TOTAL ENERGY differs by more than 1.75 Energy Points from the Top Horse to any other horses entered a warning will pop up suggesting you may need to use the Alternate Adjustment. It also warns that you should make sure the horses you entered are true contenders.

In the THOROMATION seminar Jim Bradshaw demonstrated the use of the "Opposite Screen" approach as an alternative to the #2 (Alternate Adjustment). We are talking about 3 screens here. The first screen is the THOROMATION screen where you see the animated horses running across the screen. The next 2 screens are the ones when you select pre-play. These screens were called the "Confirmation Screen" and th "Opposite Screen." The confirmation screen is the screen that most closely resembles the order of finish of the THOROMATION animated screen. The opposite screen simply put is the other screen. What Jim Bradsahaw demonstrated at the seminar was to use the "Opposite Screen" instead of using the #2 Alternate Adjustment. I don't think Doc or Jim were big fans of the #2 Adjustment anyhow as they felt it was overused by many clients.

2) In the animated THOROMATION screen try hitting your pause button 3/4's of the way into the finish to see where horses are positioned. I have noticed sometimes the top finisher in THOROMATION comes up at the very end. You may notice a difference between the 2.

3) The numerical readouts in many of the Thoromation screens are the same as they are in Energy.

4) On the Pre-Play screens keep track of the horses that are first at the second panel. Doc called this horse the DPH (Desiginated Place Horse). This horse will be the same in both the EXDC and SP Pre-Play Screen. Doc later commented that they should be called the desiginated ITM (in the money horse).

5) Look at your 100's horses and try to keep track how they finish. These are horses that have 0 deficiencies in certain parts of the race. Similiar to Energy but in this case higher numbers are better as opposed to Energy where lower numbers are better. In Energy the horse with 0 deficiencies would be represented by 0.00 in the EXDC Match-Up Screen.

Any comments or suggestions are always welcome. Thanks Forego for posting your screenshots.

[Houndog]

As many know it is very hard to capture graphics in a DOS based program in full screen mode using windows XP. My version of THOROMATION will always go into full screen mode regardless if I hit alt-enter to try to switch modes it will not work. The version that Forego uses at least allows screen captures of the text, but not the graphics.

On the other hand if I use Windows 98 I can capture the text and graphics on my version of THOROMATION. Windows 98 complains when I try to switch the graphics to a DOS window, but I am able to do so although it is a tedious process.

I just found a program that Microsoft supports that works under Windows XP Professional which some people may find helpful if you are still running certain DOS applications. It is called Microsoft Virtual PC 2004. From what I have read on the web site it allows you to load other operating systems (DOS, WINDOWS 95, WINDOWS 98) on a "Virtual" machine and seems to avoid some of the headaches involved in a Multi-Boot system.

This may come in handy for some people who want to switch to Windows XP and still be able to run the older Dos based programs. They do not mention if it will work on Windows Home Edition so that might be a consideration also.

The link if anyone is interested is http://www.microsoft.com/windows/vir...rview2004.mspx

[shoeless]

Interesting observations by both of you on Thoromation.I guess then you both prefer it to Energy.Jeff

[Houndog]

Originally Posted by shoeless

Interesting observations by both of you on Thoromation.I guess then you both prefer it to Energy.Jeff

Jeff, in many read-outs they are almost the same. I think Doc introduced THOROMATION for clients who preferred graphics over numerical readouts.

The greatest improvement that THOROMATION has over Energy is data entry. In THOROMATION you see all your lines as you are entering them, instead of one at a time as you do in Energy. Much easier to see if you have made a data entry error when using THOROMATION. THOROMATION also supports the 4 call format as opposed to Energy's 3 call format.

If you can work with Energy you can work with THOROMATION and visa-versa.

[Forego]

thank you so much for the information you provided. very much appreciated. i put up a race from santa anita later today that is a rough one.

again your thoughtful posts are most appreciated

[gillb]

Houndog

I've used Thoro since 1990. until I installed Win XP.

I just can't get it to run.

I downloaded Virtual PC 2007 ... but am confused.

Would appreciate any help in this regard.

melvaruth

[Dumptruk]

Originally Posted by melvaruth

Houndog

I've used Thoro since 1990. until I installed Win XP.

I just can't get it to run.

I downloaded Virtual PC 2007 ... but am confused.

Would appreciate any help in this regard.

melvaruth

I use a DOS emulator program called DOSBox. It is a free program and can be downloaded here:

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/download.php?main=1

[gillb]

Dumptruck:

Thanks a million ... about the DOS BOX it works.

I had given up on Thoro until I received this software advice.

Melvaruth

[Houndog]

Thanks Dumptruk for the information on the Dos emulator program. I think this solution will work better than my suggestion. Melvaruth I think Dumptruk has solved your problem.