VOGONS


Reply 60 of 112, by Neville

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dr.zeissler wrote:
according to my tandy 1000 RL/HD gaming thread here: - F-16 Falcon => Tandy-Disk/Version found :) - North&South => Tandy-Disk/V […]
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according to my tandy 1000 RL/HD gaming thread here:
- F-16 Falcon => Tandy-Disk/Version found 😀
- North&South => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- Operation Neptune/Hostages => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- TestDrive1 => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- Rockford/BoulderDash => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- Pitstop2 => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- Ninja (Tandy-Disk/Version quits to Dos after playing a short while)
- SkiOrDie (Tandy-Version start but quits to Dos after starting a game ingame)
- Xenon1 (Tandy-Disk/Version starts but freezes after the IntroScreen)

A few weeks ago, I doubted there were Tandy versions (or any kind of Tandy support) in "North & South" and "Operation Neptune / Hostages". Well, I shouldn't have been such an sceptic. Turns out my version of "North & South" does support Tandy:

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It's the regular game version, not a Tandy exclusive.

I'll check out "Hostages" later.

EDIT: No Tandy support in "Hostages", at least in my version:

GSSbYjD.png?1

I wouldn't rule out a Tandy exclusive version because I've been wrong before.

Last edited by Neville on 2017-03-28, 22:44. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 63 of 112, by coolhaken

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Neville wrote:

So either there is a Tandy / PCjr specific version or those users were supposed to run the game in CGA mode.

The early Europe version of Hostage(s) lists "TANDY 4 colors" indeed.
It uses the CGA executable directly. I think this game doesn't match this thread's title.

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Reply 65 of 112, by Neville

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On a related note, has anyone gotten "The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants" to work under PCjr / Tandy modes? According to MobyGames the game supports that, but the only version of the game I've seen only seems to support VGA. There are also TGA.OVL and VGA.OVL files, which may prove MB is right about the game.

EDIT: Turns out it works if you execute the game directly using SIMPSONS.EXE.

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The Tandy mode is...adequate, I guess. What really pays off is to run the game through a DOSBox build with MT-32 support.

The game itself is OK, despite its bad reputation. If only it was more arcade-y rather than an adventure game in the 8-bit fashion we may be speaking of a classic.

Reply 66 of 112, by Neville

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More Tandy testing... today's turn is "Chuck Yeager's Air Combat". It's "one of those" games that require you to stack arguments after the game executable in order to access other setups than VGA + PC Speaker. In our case, the game launches with either YEAGER.EXE TGA TANDY or YEAGER.EXE TGA TANDYDAC if you have one of the later Tandy models with a DAC.

First surprise, regular DOSBox v0.74 gets you garbled graphics:

x2mlYvs.png

The issue seems to have been corrected in SVN r4008:

Pg9q8xd.png 4Oldvxa.png

However, a bug seems to persist regarding the Tandy DAC... while regular Tandy sound works fine, selecting the Tandy DAC freezes the game after the first instance of speech. I can't tell if it's the game fault or DOSBox.

Reply 67 of 112, by ripsaw8080

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Neville wrote:

However, a bug seems to persist regarding the Tandy DAC... while regular Tandy sound works fine, selecting the Tandy DAC freezes the game after the first instance of speech. I can't tell if it's the game fault or DOSBox.

Try setting sbtype=none in the conf (not at runtime), as it can eliminate a possible port conflict. In any case, the Tandy DAC probably has no advantage over some other kind of DAC in DOSBox, so you could try a COVOX1 parameter instead of TANDYDAC.

Reply 69 of 112, by Neville

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For those interested, the bug has been corrected in the latest DOSBox SVN:

r4009
Handle errant IRQs as a real BIOS does. Fixes Tandy DAC in Chuck Yeager's Air Combat. Also remove r3263 workaround, as it's no longer needed.

Reply 70 of 112, by liqmat

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Hey Neville, A sealed copy of Jumpman went for an impressive price at a Goodwill auction the other day. One of my favorite 16 color PCjr games.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180101220607/ht … B-40842744.html

Last edited by liqmat on 2021-08-18, 13:13. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 72 of 112, by olddos25

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$117!?What a hell of a price!

Just another user that likes old OSes and videogames, nothing interesting to see here...
Other places to find me:
DraStic: http://drastic-ds.com (as dsattorney)

Reply 73 of 112, by Neville

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Maybe we should rename this thread to "Tandy / PCjr woes" or something... anyway, I'm posting because I can't play "Super Tetris" in Tandy mode. Either my copy is faulty or it can't detect DOSBox' Tandy mode:

mQVTEPV.png

Has anyone of you got it working?

You can access the options menu at startup by deleting the file SUPERTET.CFG.

EDIT: It was an installlation issue... seems that the install program will only copy the necessary files for your current PC setup. If you upgrade, you then need to reinstall. Re-installed the game from scratch and could enjoy Tandy mode:

mhTmoaV.png

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Reply 74 of 112, by liqmat

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Neville wrote:
Maybe we should rename this thread to "Tandy / PCjr woes" or something... anyway, I'm posting because I can't play "Super Tetris […]
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Maybe we should rename this thread to "Tandy / PCjr woes" or something... anyway, I'm posting because I can't play "Super Tetris" in Tandy mode. Either my copy is faulty or it can't detect DOSBox' Tandy mode:

mQVTEPV.png

Has anyone of you got it working?

You can access the options menu at startup by deleting the file SUPERTET.CFG.

EDIT: It was an installlation issue... seems that the install program will only copy the necessary files for your current PC setup. If you upgrade, you then need to reinstall. Re-installed the game from scratch and could enjoy Tandy mode:

mhTmoaV.png

2ZDxPRn.png

Funny you say that because I just noticed that myself and was about to reply. Glad you found the answer.

Reply 76 of 112, by Neville

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To make up, here's a small finding I made a while ago... turns out "Cruise for a corpse" had a separate 16 colors release. Actually there are EGA and VGA options in the setup program, but all you get are the same graphics with extra flickering. The Tandy option works fine, but it is advisable to choose an AdLib device or above because otherwise the music sounds garish. The graphics look pretty weird, although ocassionally the panache of the originals shows through.

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My guess is that Delphine imitated Sierra on this one, because certain Sierra games of the same period (such as "Heart of China" or "King's quest V") also had separate 16 color releases. The trend stopped when Tandy machines started their final decline and, if an interview I once read is to be believed, when Sierra suspected some VGA users were buying the cheaper 16 colors versions.

Last edited by Neville on 2018-04-01, 10:36. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 77 of 112, by Scali

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Neville wrote:

My guess is that Delphine imitated Sierra on this one, because certain Sierra games of the same period (such as "Heart of China" or "King's quest V") also had separate 16 color releases. The trend stopped when Tandy machines started their final decline and, if an interview I once read is to be believed, when Sierra suspected some VGA users were buying the cheaper 16 colors versions.

I wonder if the reason for the separate versions is the cost. As long as everything fits on a single floppy, there's no reason to separate them.
In fact, there are some games where even multiple platforms were sold together on a single disk... eg, the C64 version on the front of the disk, and the PC version on the back (PC having double-sided drives, so you could just insert it as normal).
But Sierra games often were multiple disks, some of them even up to 8.
Most of that was because of all the graphics. So splitting up into separate versions could make the game much cheaper to produce, because each copy only needs about half the disks.

http://scalibq.wordpress.com/just-keeping-it- … ro-programming/

Reply 78 of 112, by Neville

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Production costs could be a reason, indeed. We're talking about a period right before CD-ROM drives became common, so such a decision would make sense.

BTW, I mentioned this on another board, and an old timer mentioned he did buy 16 colours versions despite owning a VGA computer. But not for the reduced prize, but because they came in less disks and made installation less cumbersome.

Reply 79 of 112, by yumagah

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Thank you Neville for including Darwin's Arena, and for the screen grabs in 2016. I am happy that what was a spare time project for me back in 1991 still has a little life because of Dosbox.

I love DOSBOX in all its forms! I have Dosbox running on Windows 10, Mac OS 10, Linux (LXLE distro), and Dosbox Turbo on Android. I enjoy seeing my old Tandy graphics running smaller and much sharper than they ever did back in the 1990's, and I like experimenting with different scalers and emulations. There is even a little TSR utility called chgcolor.exe that allows one to make the monsters different colors, with some messing around. Il like changing the red tanks to violet in the old Firepower game Tandy mode.

I know questions about Dosbox Turbo are discouraged here, because it is a commercial product. It works just like Dosbox on Android (4 to 7) phones, but I cannot get it to change any setting on my Android 6.0 media player. Must be something screwy with the write permissions? Anyone have an idea?

thanks again for this thread.