VOGONS

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IRC channel recommendations, and maybe a VOGONS IRC?

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First post, by dada

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Hi everyone. I've been interested in doing MSDOS game development for some time now, and with some free time coming up I was wondering if anyone knows of a good IRC channel on which I can discuss this and ask questions. Or maybe a forum, or something. Is there an active MSDOS game dev community?
I'm probably looking into developing using DJGPP, but we'll see. 😀

Or maybe a VOGONS IRC channel? 😀

Last edited by Stiletto on 2020-09-23, 06:16. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 1 of 136, by [ROTT] IanPaulFreeley

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I don't really use IRC, but if I had to guess, I doubt there are any DOS dev communities. People ran away from the DOS platform as soon as they possibly could. The fact that the AAA games of the time like Doom, Duke3D, etc. started using a 32-bit extender like DOS4GW is a sign that DOS never was a great platform.

That said, I myself have done some DOS development recently. Obviously, it's just for fun and nostalgia.

I showed off one of my simple games in this thread: My Borland Turbo C++ game! [video]

And only a couple months ago I wrote a simple visualizer on my 386 which you can see here: http://youtu.be/vgkH1zVXdoo

Both projects you see above I wrote in Borland Turbo C++ with the BGI graphics library, but shortly into that visualizer project I realized I need to dump that library forever. It is just not good for fast animation like games. After some research into what is out there, I ended up installing DJGPP with the Allegro graphics library, although I have yet to do anything with it.

Most recently I've been learning x86 assembly for the first time with the intention of eventually doing some simple but fun graphics programming in assembly, sort of like old school demos.

If you do find any sort of DOS dev community, or start one, let me/us know!

- AMD 386 DX/40, 8mb, DOS 6.22 / WFW
- 486 DX2/66, 16mb, DOS 6.22 / WFW
- 486 DX4/100, 16mb, Win98se
- Pentium 166, 32mb, DOS 6.22 / WFW
- Pentium Pro 200, 64mb, Win98
- Athlon 500 MHz, 192mb, Win98

Reply 2 of 136, by dada

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Thanks for your reply. Yeah, I wonder—maybe there are people who just like the platform and do stuff like what you're doing for fun. Obviously it's not for anything beyond just simple fun and maybe nostalgia. I know there's an active NES dev community for example. But I'm interested in this because I just really like the DOS era, so I'd like to see if I could do some simple programming for it.

I'll do some more searching but if this place can't think of anything then I doubt if anything is out there 😀

Reply 3 of 136, by Solarstorm

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Sooooo, is there a VOGONS IRC chan yet? 🤣

Last edited by Stiletto on 2020-09-23, 06:16. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 4 of 136, by Skyscraper

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If someone creates one I will idle in it 😉

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Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 6 of 136, by DosFreak

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leileilol wrote on 2014-10-01, 12:22:

freenode #dosbox has been pretty much it for ages. and i'm not in it

Usually about 50+ of us on the chan on average.

Last edited by Stiletto on 2020-09-23, 06:17. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 8 of 136, by Dominus

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40 are idling
2 post nonsense
2 flame each other
6 speak Dutch to each other
😉

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 9 of 136, by Solarstorm

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Dominus wrote:
40 are idling 2 post nonsense 2 flame each other 6 speak Dutch to each other ;) […]
Show full quote

40 are idling
2 post nonsense
2 flame each other
6 speak Dutch to each other
😉

Isn't that the point of IRC? 😁

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Reply 10 of 136, by laxdragon

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I'll start hanging around the freenode channel. I'm on freenode anyway because of the CodeWeavers (#crossover) and Wine (#winehackers) channels.

Feel free to ping me. I'll be online during office hours 09:00 - 17:00 CST|CDT.

laxDRAGON.com | My Game Collection | My Computers | YouTube

Reply 11 of 136, by armankordi

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Maybe vogons should start an IRC chat?
Sounds like a good idea to me, personally

Last edited by Stiletto on 2020-09-23, 06:00. Edited 5 times in total.

IBM PS/2 8573-121 386-20 DOS6.2/W3.1
IBM PS/2 8570-E61 386-16 W95
IBM PS/2 8580-071 386-16 (486DX-33 reply) OS/2 warp
486DX/2 - 66/32mb ram/256k cache/504mb hdd/cdrom/awe32/DOS6.2/WFW3.11
K6/2 - 350/128mb ram/512k cache/4.3gb hdd/cdr/sblive/w98

Reply 14 of 136, by Dominus

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Isn't irc something from the last century or decade? 😉

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 17 of 136, by Dominus

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Is it? I think it will lookto them like any other chat program... I was about to mention the candy look of Trillian, but that stopped supporting irc years ago, didn't it?

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 18 of 136, by Unknown_K

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I recall being on IRC and ICQ (instant messenger) in the late 90's to mid 2000's every day.

Collector of old computers, hardware, and software

Reply 19 of 136, by Dominus

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Yup, that's exactly the time frame I mentioned 😉 (mostly because I've been nonstop on irc since then 😉)

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper