Re: Crystal Audio Chips.. any fans?
Posted on 2019-03-26, 23:19
No fans necessary! The Crystal CS423 chips can be passively cooled. 😎 ...Okay, I'll see myself out. 😉
Re: The Unofficial OPL2LPT and OPL3LPT demopack (for convienient testing of Adpatch)
Posted on 2019-03-24, 16:24
I may do a second smaller pack for 286 users if anyone wants that? As others here have also said: good idea! :) But perhaps not call it a 286 pack? Maybe some more general name such as "MS-DOS 16-bit" or something? After all, pretty much every game that runs on a 286 will run on an 8086/8088 PC/XT …
Re: dune 2 mouse issue
Posted on 2019-03-16, 17:37
Selecting multiple units by dragging a rectangle over them was a feature that was introduced by Blizzard in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, the first game in the Warcraft franchise. It was such an improvement in terms of playability, that Westwood quickly adopted it in their RTS games as well, starting …
Re: Advanced Disney Sound Source prototype
Posted on 2019-03-11, 14:25
I love DIY projects like this. :) Great job so far. Some things I would very much like to see in a DSS-on-steroids: * 100% downwards compatibility with the actual Disney Sound Source (duh) * A Covox Speech Thing (and possibly also stereo-on-one) compatibility mode by bypassing the FIFO buffer, as …
Re: Sony ending downloads for anything prior to Windows 7
Posted on 2019-03-03, 01:23
Thank so much for preserving all of this stuff, cyclone3d and others! Perhaps it would be a good idea to build some kind of internet archive specifically for drivers and manuals. One that periodically scrapes the sites of the manufacturers hosting this stuff. On the other hand, automating this might …
Re: Games that show 16 colors ONLY in Tandy / PCjr mode?
Posted on 2019-02-24, 10:27
dr.zeissler wrote: I would be more interested the other way round. Patching EGA Games to work with tandy. Were there many 16-color games that supported EGA, but not Tandy/PCjr in 16-color mode?
Re: Games that show 16 colors ONLY in Tandy / PCjr mode?
Posted on 2019-02-23, 17:11
That's a fascinating hack, NewRisingSun! :) Do you know of any utilities that actually existed back in the day to implement Tandy 16-color emulation on VGA systems in such a manner? And how many of the Tandy/PCJr-only 16 color games would support this, considering the B800 area limitation you …
Help wanted: developing a Sound Blaster emulator for both older and modern hardare
Posted on 2019-02-22, 00:37
Alright everyone, So there's this "pet project" that I have been trying to work on in my spare time for the last few years now, but haven't been able to make much progress with on my own. Namely, I've been wanting to dust off the assembly sources of VSB ("Virtual Sound Blaster" by Andrew Zabolotny), …
Re: programming environment for dos
Posted on 2019-02-21, 00:31
Have you considered going the cross-compiling route and using DJGPP with a modern IDE in a newer OS? On GitHub I found build-djgpp , a script that downloads, builds and installs DJGPP as a cross-compiler on modern operating systems (Windows, macOS and Linux). It takes a lot of the tedious stuff out …
Re: Games that show 16 colors ONLY in Tandy / PCjr mode?
Posted on 2019-02-20, 23:24
The biggest problem is that EGA has an entirely different memory layout. So the quick-and-dirty way would be to have the Tandy/PCjr code write to a temporary buffer in system memory, and then periodically convert the framebuffer on-the-fly to the EGA ram. Actually, the Tandy/PCjr graphics system …
Re: What was the first DOS game that required a hard drive?
Posted on 2019-02-17, 15:31
I purchased a very expensive second-hand 20MB MFM (RLL) hardrive for a friend to be able to play Crime Wave on my Amstrad PC2086. That thing wasn't even faster than a floppy drive but capacity was enough for ms-dos. I know MFM and RLL drives weren't particularly snappy in performance compared to …
Re: Steam and XP
Posted on 2019-02-14, 18:58
gordon-creAtive.com wrote: Also I wonder: Am I allowed to post links/upload these DLLs here? That would be legally questionable. But instead, you could just share the SHA256 checksums here. 😀
Re: Need help setting up VM with GPU passthrough
Posted on 2019-02-13, 14:58
It does make me wonder how many games there are out there that work properly (or optimally) only on Win9x, and not with Wine, ReactOS or later Windows versions. Most Win9x games also run on Windows XP and higher, be it directly, in compatibility mode or with patches. Failing that, Wine has better …
Re: Need help setting up VM with GPU passthrough
Posted on 2019-02-10, 17:18
1) GPU passthrough is really only a thing for PCI-e cards. Windows 98 doesn't really support PCI-e and/or PCI-e era graphic cards. The PCI-e limitation in GPU passthrough may be lifted once hypervisors start supporting GART, which currently wreaks havoc with IOMMUs. Of course, there is not a lot of …
Re: NOTICE FOR IBM XT OWNERS
Posted on 2019-02-10, 13:41
The last time I tried to start up the Olivetti M24 I grew up with, it would refuse to boot. I measured the voltages of the PSU and they were extremely low, so probably a few capacitors in the PSU had given out. I never heard anything pop, though. But at this point, the machine is well over 30 years …
Re: A quick look at an Obscure Tandy computer - The Tandy 3000 HL!
Posted on 2019-02-10, 13:24
I wonder... Since many Tandy 1000 supporting games used a simple detection routine that basically searched for the presence of the string "Tandy" in the BIOS code, did many games trip on machines like these? Tandy 2000 and Tandy 3000 systems had no support for the special graphics and sound …
Re: Steam and XP
Posted on 2019-02-08, 23:38
Have you tried uploading those DLLs to VirusTotal ? In case you're not familiar with it yet, it's an on-line free virus scanning service owned by Google. It'll use a large number of different virus scanners, including all of the well-known ones, to scan your upload for possible malware. You can also …
GoFundMe to help Scott Murphy (of Space Quest fame) with cancer treatment bills
Posted on 2019-02-08, 23:09
Scott Murphy, one of the famous Two Guys from Andromeda, who brought us the Space Quest adventure games, was recently treated for prostate cancer. :depressed: Chris Pope, who has worked with him on the Spaceventure project on Kickstarter, has set up a GoFundMe page to help him out with his medical …
Re: Milton, my new retroworkstation for the office
Posted on 2019-02-08, 21:39
It's truly heartwarming to see you run Quest for Glory I on that thing. I have quite a fondness for that game. :) It's also hillarious how that "PC II" logo is such an obvious IBM ripoff. :lol: A nice looking machine, and decent specs for some nice DOS retro gaming. Congrats! And brilliant how you …
Re: Need help setting up VM with GPU passthrough
Posted on 2019-02-08, 17:12
I don't know if Klingon Honor Guard supports Glide (3dfx), but if it does, this topic might be of interest to you: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=60950 Alternatively, have you tried running that game under Wine? You'd be surprised how well Wine on Linux supports older Windows games. It …
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