Played SimCity and won the Rio scenario. Had to play it on my 80286. The game uses the 80287. On my Pentium Overdrive it is too fast. Right now I am playing Jones in the Fast Lane.

Installed pfSense (awesome open source firewall/router with commercial features) on an Inspiron 500M laptop. It has a Pentium M 1.3ghz, 512MB RAM, a couple missing keys, a broken SODIMM slot, and a dead battery. Not that great of specs, but for a router its absolutely beastly and is working out nicely so far.

I got another set of Virtual i-O i-glasses that included the PC interface box this time, so I set it up and messed around with some games and demo apps in preparation to resurrect this thread in detail, in the hopes that I'd find games that have native support much like how TrackIR-enhanced games handle more modern releases.

games w/head mounted display support/head tracking??

Part of that process involved banging my head repeatedly upon realizing how much a default Windows 98 SE install leaves out of DOS mode by default. No CD drive, no mouse, not even EMM386 for those things that need extended memory; it's been so long since I had to mess around with that stuff that I spent a while just working all that out.

Then I realized that my AWE64 Gold's EMU8000 AWE MIDI synth only works properly in Windows for some stupid reason. Boot directly to DOS and games suddenly can't see it at all. What a pain...one that would be significantly more of a pain were it not for most of those games working in Win9x DOS boxes in the first place, although that can be pretty hit-and-miss with getting the head-tracker working right.

I wonder if I'd have less headaches if I had a case with modern ventilation and yet enough free space to fit the garganguan AWE32 in the seventh expansion slot.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

Part of that process involved banging my head repeatedly upon realizing how much a default Windows 98 SE install leaves out of DOS mode by default. No CD drive, no mouse, not even EMM386 for those things that need extended memory; it's been so long since I had to mess around with that stuff that I spent a while just working all that out.

You might like this video:

MS-DOS Mode Windows 95 98 Tutorial

It shows you how to get the proper MS-DOS mode going (not DOS Windows) and has a download with a boot menu, CD-ROM driver, Mouse driver. The boot menu lets you choose between all sorts of options, basically to get any DOS game going 😀

I've been looking for some of those ioGlasses for a very long time! I was in a bidding war for a pair a few years ago, but it got too rich for my blood.

Played Duke Nukem 3D on my Pentium 233 MMX that arrived today. Worked great in 800X600 until it went grey and froze the PC at the end of level 3 when the cage comes down. 🙁

I've been trying to get Falcon 3.0 to install on my Win 95 machine. The install fails after the third disk finishes, it just CTDs back to Windows.

Wanted to post a thread about it in Deep Thought, but I'm not allowed to, and I'm not sure why. 😁

PeterLI wrote:

Played Duke Nukem 3D on my Pentium 233 MMX that arrived today. Worked great in 800X600 until it went grey and froze the PC at the end of level 3 when the cage comes down. 🙁

On the upside, you've avoided electrocution! 🤣

philscomputerlab wrote:

You might like this video: […]
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NamelessPlayer wrote:

Part of that process involved banging my head repeatedly upon realizing how much a default Windows 98 SE install leaves out of DOS mode by default. No CD drive, no mouse, not even EMM386 for those things that need extended memory; it's been so long since I had to mess around with that stuff that I spent a while just working all that out.

You might like this video:

MS-DOS Mode Windows 95 98 Tutorial

It shows you how to get the proper MS-DOS mode going (not DOS Windows) and has a download with a boot menu, CD-ROM driver, Mouse driver. The boot menu lets you choose between all sorts of options, basically to get any DOS game going 😀

Found out my problem: AUTOEXEC.BAT wasn't set up to run CTCM like it should have. Now the AWE64 Gold works fine in DOS mode.

But yeah, now that I think about it, DOS boot disks are actually a viable fallback option in case the Win98SE environment doesn't work out for whatever reason.

I also got EMM386 to actually work on this machine in native DOS, but it seemed to screw with proper 98SE booting, so I took that back out. That's probably best left to a boot disk.

AidanExamineer wrote:

I've been looking for some of those ioGlasses for a very long time! I was in a bidding war for a pair a few years ago, but it got too rich for my blood.

They pop up on eBay now and then, though the real tricky part is getting one with the needed PC interface box and the head-tracking module. There seem to be far more composite video-only versions popping up on eBay.

My first set was real cheap and actually in my area, but while it had the glasses and the head-tracker, it didn't include any sort of interface cable or AC adapter. That's where the second set came in, and now I know both work. I just need to figure out how to create my own PC interface box, just like how custom Forte VFX1 external linkboxes have been made. Then I'd have two complete working sets, one of which I could either keep as a spare or pawn off for cash.

However, it turns out that someone was crafty enough to implement the VFX1 head-tracker in DOSBox and have it work with TrackIR enhanced mode, if EF2000 Reloaded is anything to go by. If that DOSBox build turns out to work with System Shock, Terra Nova and a bunch of other games that support the VFX1 natively, then I won't even have to maintain a retro rig with these retro HMDs just to have head-tracking.

Seriously, Terra Nova with the +vr and +neck arguments works so much better. Just make sure to center your HMD tracking with the F key, and you're good to go. It's almost like playing ArmA with TrackIR and the floating reticle, and that's how I want it implemented in an FPS, not as my main means of turning, but as my main means of looking while other peripherals control the steering. Important difference.

Found my original CDs for both Phantasmagoria AND The Daedalus Encounter!

Don't know if this is retro... The hardware is old though.
I managed to learn how to make an NAS server, using an old G4-PPC computer and Ubuntu Server for PPC.
Runs good enough for small files (text documents and drivers).

Assembled this thing:

733MHz Coppermine x2 , 256 ECC SDR 100MHz CL3 , 40GB WD x2 , CT4540 /w SPDIF , USB 2.0 addon , SUMA GeForce 2 Platnium MX400 64 MB SDR.
Also replaced the cable on the big fan on the casing with a different one. Fun stuff.

Looks like a mean machine! 😀

Feels like it too 😀
It is definitely a mean machine because it decided to troll me and the AGP adapter did not work at first, but now its all good 😀
Also, added a total of 512MB ECC RAM, 100MHz for now.

Currently installing Windows 2000.

Very nice...time for some SMP action 😎 . What programs or games will you try out that take advantage of SMP?

I tried copying all the files from Falcon 3.0's four install diskettes and installing them from the hard drive. Turns out the 3rd disk has a corrupt file. So that explains why it wouldn't install.

Crap.

EDIT: I was actually able to pull the files from the disk using a USB floppy drive on my primary desktop. Maybe the drive is in better shape, or maybe Windows 7 is willing to try a little harder than 95. 😉

The only problem I have now is getting 600KB of free conventional memory by booting DOS. I can't get more than 582kb even by omitting CD drivers, and using HIMEM. Any secret tricks for getting 600+ Kb free?

I have a USB floppy drive and I must say, it's never let me down. Some of the really old drives i take in px are so dirty that it's almost impossible to not get errors.
Fitted a small fan ( the 80mm looked ridiculous) to the V3 3000 and finally got round to making a back up iso of my original Tomb Raider cd, so that I can mount it and play with Dosbox SVN Daum and not fiddle about with cd's all the time.
Not sure of the legality, but it sure save a lot of mucking about.

Splinter wrote:

I have a USB floppy drive and I must say, it's never let me down. Some of the really old drives i take in px are so dirty that i […]
Show full quote

I have a USB floppy drive and I must say, it's never let me down. Some of the really old drives i take in px are so dirty that it's almost impossible to not get errors.
Fitted a small fan ( the 80mm looked ridiculous) to the V3 3000 and finally got round to making a back up iso of my original Tomb Raider cd, so that I can mount it and play with Dosbox SVN Daum and not fiddle about with cd's all the time.
Not sure of the legality, but it sure save a lot of mucking about.

I like using the Titan copper heatsink/fan and copper ram heatsinks with my Voodoo cards. It keeps them nice and cool. Here's a photo of one that I sold a few months ago on eBay. It's a little hard to see the card due to the plastic I sealed it in but you can make it out.

EDIT: Another photo of this card in action.

AidanExamineer wrote:

The only problem I have now is getting 600KB of free conventional memory by booting DOS. I can't get more than 582kb even by omitting CD drivers, and using HIMEM. Any secret tricks for getting 600+ Kb free?

SHSUCDX as a replacement for MSCDEX and VIDE-CDD.SYS as a replacement for your existing Dos CD-Rom driver. Also use CTMOUSE.EXE (Cute Mouse) as your Dos mouse driver.

What have you currently got loading in your AUTOEXEC.BAT? Better yet, could you provide your current AUTOEXEC.BAT configuration or even a screenshot?

Sorry to jump in, but if you have less than 582KB free without even loading any cdrom drivers then you're probably missing some basic "devicehigh" and "lh" statements in your config.sys and autoexec.bat, rather that drivers with smaller footprint. Getting a lot of free conventional memory can be tricky, but just having more than 600KBs should be pretty easy.