VOGONS


First post, by darkjezter

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Newbie

Greetings all!

I've come across this gem from my youth and decided to get it running again. After getting Dosbox configured appropriately, I played for a bit and noticed an issue where key presses and releases get missed, particularly when pressing multiple keys.

This is not a call for help, but an opportunity to share my findings and solution.

After trying a few things, I reverse engineered the keyboard logic in the game and found the issue which technically is a bug in the game, but one that seems to be exacerbated by Dosbox emulation. In short, I added a queue to the binary which buffers keystrokes and feeds them into the game loop.

While I was at it, I also fixed an issue where exiting the game would leave the screen blank.

I don't know the best way to share my modifications, but thought I'd reach out here in case anyone is interested, or has suggestions. I just recall this being one of the best arcade games for my old XT clone as a child, and am currently sharing the nostalgia of it with anyone who will let me.

Cheers!