95DosBox wrote:
Ahh. That's what I thought. I didn't recall any hidden directory with a free copy of Win 3.1. That would have been a handy easter egg.
But 98 could/should run 95 and 3.1 programs just fine which is why I didn't see any real need to go back to 3.1 as MS Word 6.0 and Excel worked
in 95 and also those famous After Dark screensavers. There was a Star Trek one that I loved.
Ah, I see. Sorry to disappoint you. The only easter egg I could think of is the Win9x installer. It contains a cut-down version of Windows 3.1.
I'm speakin' under correction, but I think it is named mini.cab and runs in one of the two Standard Modes. 😉
The only real "free" copy of Windows for Workgroups 3.11 came with Windows NT Server, I believe.
95DosBox wrote:
Ahh you mainly played shareware type stuff then probably they were not as advanced.
Yes, I think someone could say so. The DOS versions of them mainly ran in the famous 320x200 mode.
I bet some of them weren't even true VGA, but just MCGA. 😉
And since that shareware type stuff was very popular in the first half of the 90s (when they shipped on shareware compilation CDs),
most newly written games had no support for Hercules and CGA anymore.
About the same time Windows 3.x games had their hey-day, I think. While they weren't so sophisticated in visual terms,
they had easy to read GUI elements and in-game help(!) files. Some games I liked to play were GNUChess, Warpath, WinTrek,
SpaceExploration Alpha and SolarVengeance. Also Dare to Dream and several puzzle/logic games. Some of them can be played at atchive.org now..
Yeah, looks boring, I know. But to my defense, I also played "real" games on my NES/SNES, MegaDrive (a friend had it, I got mine later on) and the Gameboy. 😁
95DosBox wrote:There was one game called "Space War" that had a CGA version and a Monochrome version of the same game.
But the two ships were […]
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There was one game called "Space War" that had a CGA version and a Monochrome version of the same game.
But the two ships were different in each version which made it unique. You could run the CGA version on the Monochrome display with a special CGA emulation software.
But you couldn't run the Monochrome version on the CGA display. 🙁
For those games that were 640x480 or higher I think you had to either choose the config setting in the game and it
had its own driver built in or you had to preload it before running the game.
Cool! SpaceWar was one of the earliest games, btw. 😀 I didn't play the DOS version, but I knew a Windows 3.1 (again) version named "Duel".
But if you want to play the Hercules version, then there's a way. Some ISA VGA cards do have the ability to emulate Hercules.
I know of the Paradie PVGA, Trident 8900 (hald-mode only ?) and ET3000/ET4000, for example. Other cards can maybe do it, too.
95DosBox wrote:
Yes the Spectrum Holobyte ST:TNG A Final Unity was one game I can remember that allowed high resolution VGA.
I spent much time letting it idle on with the warp core engine room hum sound. Unfortunately it ran off a CD so it was more of a pain getting that game to work.
Yup, that game was neat. 😁 I heard there was a Macintosh version also.
I wonder if that one also had full motions videos and if so, whether or not these FMVs were in a higher resolution
(AFAIK, the DOS version always played them in 320x200).
But back to the DOS version.. I managed to get it to run on a 386 mainboard (486DLC-40 with 387 math co-processor).
And to my surprise the game was quite playable. Not fast, but playable. Only the space combat was too stressing for it.
At this point, the game became a very laggy slide-show and I had to abbort my little experiment.
Anyway, that game has a special place in my heart. It was excellent from both the story line,
as well as from the technical point of view. Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites were also good, though.
Especially with MT-32 sound track. 😉
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