Neat. Got anything in mind that you want to run on it?

I've got a few vague ideas about trying some of the old Lucasarts adventures, maybe some of the ultima titles and x-wing if its the right kind of speed. And lemmings - which reminds me I will have to dig out a 5 1/4" drive; hope the disks still work.

Those should all run fine.

I ran the floppy version of X-Wing on an 8MHz 286, which didn't allow digitized sound because it didn't have any memory beyond conventional 640K. Later I ran it on a 386DX-33 with 8MB of RAM and it worked great.

Your statement about Lemmings is ironic to me. My 8MHz 286 had only 5.25" drives, and I bought a SoundBlaster 2.0 (8-bit ISA) for it that came with Lemmings on a 3.5" disk. I was pretty bummed because I wasn't able to play it until a year or two later when I got the 386DX-33 with a 3.5" drive.

Come to think of it, I have an sb2 on the shelf that I was going to install in this box...

The subject I was trying to avoid is networking on such an old machine but that's a bit like saying "don't think about elephants". I think warcraft 1 will run on a 386 so I will have to have a go connecting it to my old mac at some point.

The subject I was trying to avoid is networking on such an old machine

Actually, it's a lot easier than you may think. If you're gonna be running WfW3.11 anyway, about all you have to do is install the MS TCP/IP patch, add it to the list of protocols for your NIC, enter your network settings like you would any other Windows box (which usually just involves ticking the 'use DHCP' box), and you're good to go. Sharing is done through File Manager, works pretty much the same as later versions of Windows.

Took me about 5 minutes to set up, and now I can drop whatever files I want over the network from my Win7 machine. Beats the hell out of dealing with floppy disks.

Warcraft 1 will run fine even on a 286. MobyGames lists the Mac version as only being single-player - did they patch in multiplayer later?

Back in the day I didn't have access to passable LAN hardware, so I had to network computers using null-modem serial cables. I used to play Doom and Descent multiplayer that way with my brother.

I was sure I used to play warcraft 1 mac against a windows machine, but I'll check it out in case i'm thinking of warcraft 2.

Doom I remember was annoying because there was a mac version but it couldn't play against pc's and that issue was never fixed, at least for ipx or tcpip or whatever it used. Unlike quake 1, quake 2 [cant recall if my mac could handle q2], starcraft, diablo 1 & 2 and warcraft 2, all of which could play mac vs pc across a lan.

Well, all of the Blizzard games make sense because Blizzard has always supported Mac and PC equally. Doom was probably the first shooter to support multiplayer at all, so iD probably screwed up or had some other company port it.

HunterZ wrote:

iD probably screwed up or had some other company port it.

Yes, I think it was another company ported it.

edit: it was Lion Entertainment Inc I guess, as thats what appears on the splash screen

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

If you're gonna be running WfW3.11 anyway, about all you have to do is install the MS TCP/IP patch, add it to the list of protocols for your NIC, enter your network settings like you would any other Windows box (which usually just involves ticking the 'use DHCP' box), and you're good to go.

Thanks, I'll be getting an isa nic soon in that case.

However, I have that upgraded version of 3.1 that shows 3.11 on the about screens - not WfW3.11. Does that make any difference?

Hm, I'd forgotten about the regular 3.11 version. I don't remember for sure what it can and can't do, but I'm thinking you do need WfW. Not that it's really hard to get ahold of a copy, though.

As for an ISA NIC, I'd recommend some variant of a 3Com Etherlink III (3C509). They're natively supported in WfW, and versions with RJ45 jacks can be had readily and cheaply on eBay.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Hm, I'd forgotten about the regular 3.11 version. I don't remember for sure what it can and can't do, but I'm thinking you do need WfW. Not that it's really hard to get ahold of a copy, though.

As for an ISA NIC, I'd recommend some variant of a 3Com Etherlink III (3C509). They're natively supported in WfW, and versions with RJ45 jacks can be had readily and cheaply on eBay.

Ok thanks I'll look out for these items.

HunterZ wrote:

Warcraft 1 will run fine even on a 286. MobyGames lists the Mac version as only being single-player - did they patch in multiplayer later?

Just called up my Mac version. You can play 2 player across a network using ipx or the communications toolbox. Can't test it as I seem to have left my mac in a complete mess network-wise, will take a few hours to get it straight 😵 .

Now I have WfWG 3.11 and a 3c509 installed in this box, I have 2 problems with warcraft 1:

- the mouse doesn't work in the game even when running under WfWG [in DOS I need to load the driver, but in Windows too?]

- attempting to start a network game under wfwg causes a system crash, general protection fault

IPX is installed in windows, I haven't tried to get it running in DOS

Edit Now have networking running in DOS, or so my system claims, usin the ms client and loading ipx and tcpip. Can't connect to other boxes in wc1 though. Set 802.3 and using node 0 for all.

DOSBox emulates a mouse driver, so you shouldn't need to load one. But Warcraft 1 is a DOS-only game, so why are you trying to run it under Windows?

The 386 is running DOS 6.22 + WfWG 3.11, not Dosbox.

I thought running Warcraft from within Windows might save me having to find a mouse and network driver for DOS. Looks like either that's only for later Windows versions, or it's more complicated than simply double-clicking the program file.

Anyhow, it looks like the system may just be too slow compared to my other boxes as I get "Remote system is not responding" when trying to connect now.

Whoops, I missed the context of this thread - sorry! I don't believe that Win 3.x provides mouse driver emulation to hosted DOS sessions unless you load a DOS mouse driver prior to loading Windows.

For the networking, have you tried having the 386 be the game host? It's not optimal because it will put extra processing load on the 386, but it might help determine what the problem is.

Ok thanks, I didn't know that about the mouse driver.

After a few hours tinkering and even trying to run dos networking from another box as well, I've now got things working.

On the 386 and the Mac I set to frame type to 802.2 as the mac seemed to want to do that automatically. Maybe makes no difference. I also removed netbui and tcpip from the 386 network configuration and after that it seemed able to connect in the game. Again, may not actually be relevant.

I now find that if I start the game from the Mac, I can connect from the 386 under DOS. Problem solved! Doesn't seem to work the other way round but that doesn't especially matter.

Got the mouse working too 😀 .