DEAT wrote on 2023-10-13, 03:28:

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-10-13, 02:09:

Looked up a couple of your bolded ones like Alien Breed and they say 640k min EMS optional for digitised sound.

Retested and you're correct - looks like I had a typo in my spreadsheet. Corrected, thanks for that!

Excellent work with that 286 games list. It reinforces what those of us with 286 machines from new already know - there are plenty of reasons to own one!

Jo22 wrote on 2023-10-12, 03:39:

Interesting thoughts! 🙂

Indeed!

Personally, I often still wonder why the plain 68000 was still kept being used in home computers and consoles for so long,
considering that the 68010 was a worthy successor that's pin-compatible and slightly more elegant.

Good point. It makes me wonder why for instance Atari and Commodore didn't quickly move on from the 68000 to the 68010 in later models, for instance the Amiga 600 or the Atari STE. Having a new CPU in there with a higher number would have helped with marketing, in addition to providing at least a modest increase in performance.

I read about how people would sometimes swap out the 68000 CPU in their home computers for a 68010 to give them a bit of a performance boost, in the same vein as swapping out 8088 and 8086 CPUs in PC/XT systems for V20 and V30 CPUs.

It was even done on Sega Mega Drive and Genesis consoles. It actually helped some games run smoother, although there were also a few games that would not run properly with this upgrade, which was to be expected.

Hm. Maybe that was because of the clone chip market, not sure. 🤷‍♂️
By the time, the original 68000 was heavily being cloned/manufactured by other companies under license.
Being an 1970s technology, it maybe was easier to mass produce, lower reject rates etc.

That could indeed be an explanation for this. By the way, the longevity of the m68k architecture continues to amaze me. It continues to be supported by the Linux kernel maintainers, and a lot of effort continues to go into emulation and virtualization support.

You're lucky. Some individual had converted an IBM PC to M68k not long ago. 🙂

https://hackaday.io/project/190838-ibm-pc-808 … -motorola-68000

https://hackaday.com/2023/05/02/ibm-pc-runs-b … 00-cpu-upgrade/

Oh wow, I didn't know about that project! Thanks for sharing. 😄 So cool to see that someone actually had gone ahead and implemented such a hypothetical beast. A bit disappointing that there was no apparent performance improvement compared to the 8088. I guess a lot of what held the IBM PC back as a platform performance-wise wasn't just the choice of CPU, but the entire architecture as a whole, including the choice of support chips, the awkward 4.77MHz frequency, just for the sake of NTSC compatibility that didn't even matter after CGA, DMA having to be limited to 5Hz even on newer systems to maintain compatibility with the Intel 8237 DMA controller, etc.

Seriously, though. Having someone actually put such nostalgic "what-could-have-been" lamentations to the test with a proof-of-concept is a good thing in terms of getting rid of misconceptions. But it's also educational and downright entertaining. I hope to see more of this from talented and determined tinkerers! 🙂

What I've always found most interesting of the PC platform was how it endured. It's literally an hacky interim solution that out […]
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What I've always found most interesting of the PC platform was how it endured.
It's literally an hacky interim solution that outgrew itself.
Though not pretty, it became a platform with an actual heritage and family tree, sort of.
I think that's what made it human, it some way or another. It evolved over time.

These things continue to happen. At work, I'm currently refactoring some code that I wrote myself a few years ago, which started out as a "quick and lightweight" implementation, but got increasingly complex as we extended its functionality over time. Investing more time and effort into design and future-proofing, even if it initially feels like overkill, is often a prudent decision, and your future self will thank you for it. 😅 But of course a well-thought-out and future-proof architecture wasn't the priority of those IBM Engineers in Florida. It was all about developing a "good enough" cheap-to-manufacture computer for home and office use and getting it to market in time before losing out to the competition.

Edit: I just remember, the original Macintosh platform eventually had issues with the Motorola 680x0, too. It was about 32-Bit a […]
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Edit: I just remember, the original Macintosh platform eventually had issues with the Motorola 680x0, too.
It was about 32-Bit addressing. Older applications were written with 24-Bit address space in mind and not 32-Bit ready.
So there was an A20 Gate like problem, too.
The solution was a product named "Mode32".

That's really unfortunate. On the one hand, having the foresight of a 32-bit address space with the upper 8 bits not yet being necessary, and then having creative people making "creative" use of it to store and pass information in, since it's not currently being used for anything else. Sigh...

digger wrote on 2023-10-14, 12:05:

These things continue to happen. At work, I'm currently refactoring some code that I wrote myself a few years ago, which started out as a "quick and lightweight" implementation, but got increasingly complex as we extended its functionality over time. Investing more time and effort into design and future-proofing, even if it initially feels like overkill, is often a prudent decision, and your future self will thank you for it. 😅 But of course a well-thought-out and future-proof architecture wasn't the priority of those IBM Engineers in Florida. It was all about developing a "good enough" cheap-to-manufacture computer for home and office use and getting it to market in time before losing out to the competition.

It's easy to say that something should be "future proofed", but it practice it can be really hard to do so without wasting a lot and time an energy trying to account for things that never happen or falling into a swamp of endless redesigns or getting you product hijacked by non-technology related requirements from the marketing department.

In the 1980's, first to market was a big deal. I'm just happy that IBM rushed so fast that they didn't have time to try to make it a closed eco system and didn't try to start from scratch again every 5 years with limited backwards compatibility.

douglar wrote on 2023-10-14, 13:39:

In the 1980's, first to market was a big deal. I'm just happy that IBM rushed so fast that they didn't have time to try to make it a closed eco system and didn't try to start from scratch again every 5 years with limited backwards compatibility.

Yes, in 1981 it was rushed, so only off-the-shelf components were used, making it impossible to close.

But they *did* try to start from scratch at least two times:
1987 - PS/2
1992 - PowerPC

Something I remembered the other day, prices!
January 1989 https://bitsavers.org/magazines/Micro_Cornuco … %2345_Jan89.pdf
256KB SIPP $125-145
256KB SIMM $175
1MB SIPP $475
1MB SIMM $525
January 1989 PC Mag https://books.google.pl/books?id=C6VFJIbxX7MC … &q=simm&f=false
1MB SIMM $400-490
256KB SIMM $165

Dec 1989 PC Mag https://books.google.pl/books?id=-Xr7Ic-ivyMC … &q=simm&f=false
1MB SIMM $124-144

In this one Year 1989 ram price went down 4x from ridiculous to acceptable, just in time for Windows 3.0.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-10-16, 03:45:

Something I remembered the other day, prices! January 1989 https://bitsavers.org/magazines/Micro_Cornuco … %2345_Jan89.pdf 256K […]
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Something I remembered the other day, prices!
January 1989 https://bitsavers.org/magazines/Micro_Cornuco … %2345_Jan89.pdf
256KB SIPP $125-145
256KB SIMM $175
1MB SIPP $475
1MB SIMM $525
January 1989 PC Mag https://books.google.pl/books?id=C6VFJIbxX7MC … &q=simm&f=false
1MB SIMM $400-490
256KB SIMM $165

Dec 1989 PC Mag https://books.google.pl/books?id=-Xr7Ic-ivyMC … &q=simm&f=false
1MB SIMM $124-144

In this one Year 1989 ram price went down 4x from ridiculous to acceptable, just in time for Windows 3.0.

Thanks for the information! 😃
Yes, it's indeed a bit of a weird coincidence that it happened exactly then.

I mean, if it was about anything else, the Christmas season could be an explanation here.
But RAM isn't exactly something to find under the Christmas tree. Weird.

__
Btw, there was sort of a RAM crisis a bit before, too, I remember.

In (very) simple words, if I understand correctly, it had to do with overproduction of low-capacity chips (256kbit) first,
which caused a massive price drop and made some chip companies close their doors.

Which in turn had caused a RAM shortage shortly after and users/businesses were desperately looking for RAM..

And then, secondly, later on it had to do with moving away from making low-capacity chips (256kbit) to more expensive, high-capacity chips (1mbit)..

After that crisis happened, the chip industry was very cautious with production and that in turn kept the price from falling so quickly again.

In former GDR, the switch from 256kbit to 1mbit even caused production to halt, which created a shortage over there.
The higher failure rate of the new, high-capacity chips also was a factor, I suppose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxrkC-pMH_s

Back in 1985/1986, before the crisis, the popular+affordable Amstrad/Schneider PCs have had 512 to 640KB installed.
That was when hundreds of KBs of memory was cheap, apparently.

So there was a moment in time in the mid-80s, when RAM was cheaper than in the following years.

It's being described in detail in this article :
https://tedium.co/2016/11/24/1988-ram-shortage-history/
(^thanks to the3dfxdude for the link)

Jo22 wrote on 2023-10-16, 06:59:

So there was a moment in time in the mid-80s, when RAM was cheaper than in the following years. […]
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So there was a moment in time in the mid-80s, when RAM was cheaper than in the following years.

It's being described in detail in this article :
https://tedium.co/2016/11/24/1988-ram-shortage-history/
(^thanks to the3dfxdude for the link)

This was very interesting read, thanks! I personally never thought this late 80s situation before and suffered from it in any way as I got my first PC (XT class system) around 89/90.

I wonder how this situation affected memory prices globally in general. I mean, at that time we had other popular systems with large-ish 512kB onboard memory such as Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. Those systems were build to the absolute cost, so I’m thinking how badly RAM prices hit the profitability of micro manufacturers at that point. Commodore was of course struggling more or less all the time for other reasons, but sky high chip prices probably didn’t help.

digger wrote on 2023-10-14, 12:05:

Jo22 wrote on 2023-10-12, 03:39:

Personally, I often still wonder why the plain 68000 was still kept being used in home computers and consoles for so long,
considering that the 68010 was a worthy successor that's pin-compatible and slightly more elegant.

Good point. It makes me wonder why for instance Atari and Commodore didn't quickly move on from the 68000 to the 68010 in later models, for instance the Amiga 600 or the Atari STE. Having a new CPU in there with a higher number would have helped with marketing, in addition to providing at least a modest increase in performance.

I've also wondered about this and my current theory is that it's because the 68000 had many second sources that the rest of the lineup didn't have. 68000s were made by Hitachi, Toshiba, Rockwell, etc. creating some price competition. The successors were perhaps only made by Motorola, and fetched a much higher price. For instance, it was said that the 68020 was considered too expensive for the Jaguar. That's a machine that already had a 64-bit bus, so putting in the plain 68K likely didn't even save money on the memory/PCB. It would have just been the cost of the chip itself at issue.

Starting with a 68010, with its fast loop mode, instead of 68000 might have reduced the need for fancy DMA controllers and blitters. It would also avoid the forward compatibility issue with MOVE xx,SR and MOVE CCR,xx.

Excessive RAM volatility in the 80’s could have a book written.

Japanese companies were subsidized by their government to dump cheap ram.

By the time our government reacted (years later) and legislated our way out
the market had changed which caused a massive spike as there wasn’t domestic production to step in followed by ram and electronics from further “East” coming online

rmay635703 wrote on 2023-10-17, 17:53:

Excessive RAM volatility in the 80’s could have a book written. […]
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Excessive RAM volatility in the 80’s could have a book written.

Japanese companies were subsidized by their government to dump cheap ram.

By the time our government reacted (years later) and legislated our way out
the market had changed which caused a massive spike as there wasn’t domestic production to step in followed by ram and electronics from further “East” coming online

That's a very interesting point here!
I can be wrong, but I think I've watched a report in an old episode of The Computer Chronicles that talked about that.
A main difference between east and west is (was) that eastern companies plan ahead in a longterm.
They try to win (or lead the market) over a longer period of time..

Edit: I think it was an episode about Japan and/or MSX computers..

DEAT wrote on 2023-10-13, 01:47:

Yes, though after confirming with a few runs via HIMEM I recommend setting the /TESTMEM:OFF switch to significantly improve the […]
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aries-mu wrote on 2023-10-03, 08:38:

Will Himem make it XMS?

Yes, though after confirming with a few runs via HIMEM I recommend setting the /TESTMEM:OFF switch to significantly improve the time it'll take for HIMEM to load. FDXMS286 will also work for FreeDOS, though paradoxically despite being designed for 286 PCs it requires the /PS switch to initialise correctly on generic AT boards.

Will Smartdrv or other caching software be able to utilize it?

Yes. I've noticed an improvement with benchmarking on WinTune 2.0.

Assuming I can source a 286 PC, what would be the best way to upgrade it?

Replacing a soldered PLCC68 CPU with a socketed one is a good start, same with replacing soldered oscillators with socketed ones. High-quality RAM is a must for faster CPU speeds.

RAM like 4 MB or even 8 MB?

Extremely chipset-dependent, as other people has pointed out. The Headland HT18 chipset will allow the full 16MB that a 286 CPU can access, but compared to the Headland HT12 it does not have built-in EMS support and it is not as fast clock-to-clock, if wolf_286 benchmarks are any indication. For reference, I believe I was getting 17.1 FPS with a Cirrus Logic GD5429 with a Headland HT12 @ 25Mhz and 0-wait states (that mobo died) while I get 15.6 FPS with the Headland HT18 @ 25Mhz with unknown wait states.

With very careful management of EMS and XMS memory on a Headland HT12 w/4MB of RAM, you can run Master of Magic and 1830: Railroads & Robber Barons without issues.

ISA SVGA, what? Cirrus Logic?

If you only care about DOS, any Cirrus Logic GD542x or WD90c3x card will be sufficient. Tseng ET4000 is overrated and has compatibility issues. I'm still in the process of determining what is ideal for a Win 3.1-centric build or a mix of DOS and Win 3.1.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-10-03, 21:58:

Are there any non Windows VGA games requiring more than 1MB that will run acceptably on 286? I mentioned Sam & Max: Hit the Road because that is one of those rare games with VGA/>1MB and 286 requirements.

The floppy versions of Sam & Max and Day of the Tentacle will both run on a V20 without EMS, confirmed with my NuXT. Curiously, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Monkey Island 2 both require a 286 since they do an explicit CPU check. Neither game requires XMS or EMS.

Here's a dump of commercial/shareware games from my spreadsheet of games installed on my CF card that have an explicit 286 requirement and will utilise XMS, those that require XMS are bolded:

Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold (v1.0 only, all subsequent versions have a soft 386 requirement where it'll hang while loading any level)
Champions of Zulula
Disciples of Steel
Dune II
Electranoid
Legends of Valour
MicroProse Formula One Grand Prix
Nomad
Operation Body Count (allows higher screen sizes)
Revolt of Don's Knights
Rules of Engagement 2
Spear of Destiny
The Clue!
Wolfenstein 3D

And here's the list of games with an explicit 286 requirement and will utilise EMS, those that require EMS are bolded:

1830: Railroads and Robber Barons (may work on a V20, requires 2.7MB of EMS but my 8MB EMS card is 16-bit only)
Arcy 2
Armour-Geddon
Battle Bugs
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold (v1.0 only)
Challenge of the Five Realms
Corridor 7 (floppy version) (without EMS, sound produces glitchy noise)
Darklands
Darkstrike ATF - Advanced Tactical Fighter
Devil Land
Gene Splicing
King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table
Lode Runner: The Legend Returns
Master of Magic (may work on a V20, requires 2.7MB of EMS but my 8MB EMS card is 16-bit only)
Mystic Towers
Nomad
Reunion
Spear of Destiny
The Aethra Chronicles: Celystra's Bane
The Clue!
The Incredible Machine 2
Total Carnage
Wing Commander 1
Wolfenstein 3D
Yendorian Tales Book I: Chapter 2

Additionally, Ashes of Empire also requires XMS or EMS, but it will run on a 8088. Speaking of, here's a list of games that will run on a XT with EMS, once again those that require it are bolded:

8088

Aces of the Pacific (v1.0 only, all other versions and the 1946 expansion require a 386)
Alien Breed
Ashes of Empire
Diggers
Igor: Objective Uikokahonia
Hoyle Classic Card Games (1993)
Ken's Labyrinth
Lemmings 2: The Tribes
Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame
Quick Majik Adventure
SEAL Team
The Summoning
Veil of Darkness
Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant
Wolfsbane
Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams
Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire

V20

Bram Stoker's Dracula
Doofus
Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard
Hired Guns
International Tennis
Laser Squad
Master of Orion
Monster Bash
Populous 2: Trials of the Olympian Gods
Space Hulk (03/03/1993 version only - all other versions require a 386)
Spaceward Ho!
Star Wars: X-Wing
Super 3D Noah's Ark
The Terminator 2029 (including Operation Scour expansion)
Wing Commander 2

So yes, with a motherboard chipset that has built-in EMS support there is more than enough justification for having more than 1MB of RAM without even needing to mention Windows 3.1 as a reason.

Finally, without XMS there are several more games that will need UMB drivers and DOSMAX to free up enough conventional memory for the following games to run, sorted by CPU requirement and going with the assumption of BUFFERS=20 or higher in CONFIG.SYS, as some will run with BUFFERS=10 or lower but is not recommended with spinning rust:

8088

Aces of the Pacific (v1.0 only)
Catcher
Cybergenic Ranger: Secret of the Seventh Planet
Heartlight
Igor: Objective Uikokahonia
International Sensible Soccer
Lemmings 2: The New Tribes (if using MSMOUSE.COM and EMS for digitised sound)
SEAL Team
Sensible Soccer: European Champions - 92/93 Edition
Tex Murphy: Martian Memorandum
Ultrabots
Wolfsbane

V20

D&D Stronghold: Kingdom Simulator
Daemonsgate
Enigma
Hannibal
Maelstrom
Operation Europe: Path to Victory 1939-45
Protostar: War on the Frontier
Romance of the Three Kingdoms III: Dragon of Destiny
Sid Meier's Colonization
Siege
Space Hulk (03/03/1993 version only)
Tegel's Mercenaries
Walls of Rome

286

Battle Bugs
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold (v1.0 only)
Challenge of the Five Realms
Frankenstein
Nippon Safes Inc.
Nomad
Stack Up
Star Control 2 (claims to require 566KB of conventional memory, but this is incorrect)

The following 286 games that require EMS I can not confirm if it requires UMB+DOSMAX or XMS, as I can't use EMS and UMB at the same time with my motherboard:

Armour-Geddon
Darkstrike ATF: Advanced Tactical Fighter (explicit requirement of 563KB conventional, which I barely reached but it crashed after a couple of minutes in-game)
Darklands (explicit requirement of 576KB conventional)
Gene Splicing (explicit requirement of 580KB conventional)
The Incredible Machine 2 (explicit requirement of 560KB conventional, crashed while loading)

wooow man! Thanks!!!! And thanks to everyone else