VOGONS


Reply 20 of 112, by Neville

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I didn't know about CGA Composite until I saw it here at VOGONS. In my defense, my first PC already had a SVGA, and from I gather CGA Composite was not possible in European PCs anyway.

Last edited by Neville on 2016-12-05, 13:51. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 22 of 112, by Great Hierophant

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liqmat wrote:
Neville wrote:

In addition of the titles liqmat and Anonymous Freak mention...

You need to add the PCjr carts "Crossfire" and "Mine Shaft" from Sierra On-Line which are both 16 color.

Note that those games and some others only show 4 colors at a time, but the colors shown in many instances cannot be duplicated on a CGA card. Of course, Mine Shaft doesn't have a PC disk version and Crossfire's PC disk version uses composite artifact colors for more colors. Crossfire's PCjr disk version does show more than 4 colors at a time.

I have long sought to generate a definitive list of games that support better than/different from CGA but do not support a more advanced graphics adapter than the Tandy or PCjr. Soon I realized that such a list was not very meaningful unless I distinguished games that displayed better graphics on a PCjr. and just displayed CGA graphics on a PC or Tandy. Typically these were games being released in 1983 and 1984 before the Tandy 1000 became popular.

On the other end of the scale I was also interested in titles that displayed in 16 colors on Tandy but not on PCjr., but in many cases the game can be patched or the PCjr. can use a hardware modification to display all the graphics without losing every other line. But other games may not work because of some other incompatible issue and the PCjr. has plenty of them. A bit too much for one person really.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 23 of 112, by Neville

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About "Crossfire", I don't think I've found the correct versions yet... this is what I get under v0.74:

LPyOzBa.png

DOS version, machine=cga.

f1gjgmB.png

PCjr cart, machine=pcjr.

I thought they should show CGA Composite and more colors, respectively.

Reply 24 of 112, by liqmat

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Neville wrote:

About "Crossfire", I don't think I've found the correct versions yet... this is what I get under v0.74

Strange. Either DOSBox is not emulating the jrc correctly or the cart version was limited to CGA which I would find hard to believe since jr carts usually showcased its abilities. I did not own Crossfire so someone with the cart would have to chime in. Could also be it was a bad dump or there is some key to press for the extra colors? Anyone have the PCjr cart manual? I did find out after playing it under DOSBox it needs CPU cycles to be about ~200 to prevent joystick drift. I had my conf file set to 300 for the PCjr version of Pitfall 2 to prevent the same issue, but Crossfire needs it a tad slower.

Mine Shaft may not be using all 16 colors on screen at once, but it most definitely is using the PCjr enhanced color abilities which I think would qualify that cart for the list. The "disk" version of Mine Shaft floating around is a hack/dump from the cart version. This is stated in the nfo.

As far as what GH said about the PCjr and Tandy 1000 variations and sorting it all out brings up the point of why I believe the PCjr was one of the worst marketed platforms in the early 80s. Considering I owned one back in the day and only found out about the Activision and Imagic carts about six months ago proves to me IBM was not marketing that machine very well and developers were obviously one foot in/one foot out with it. When I tell collectors that Imagic made Demon Attack and Microsurgeon in a PCjr cart form factor they always come back with, "Really?" The fact my family had to buy one from our local IBM sales center which looked like a drab insurance office with suits running around did not help its mass distribution or image either. 🤣

Sorry for getting off subject.

Reply 25 of 112, by Neville

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Don't apologise, it's an interesting topic. It says a lot about marketing that the PCjr failed almost inmediately while the Tandy 1000 and derivates sold until the 1990s. Of course, they weren't exactly the same, with the Tandy being cheaper and having learned from some of the mistakes of the PCjr, but I still wonder if people expected too much from IBM and less from a different manufacturer.

Reply 26 of 112, by liqmat

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Neville wrote:

About "Crossfire", I don't think I've found the correct versions yet... this is what I get under v0.74

So I did some DOSBox testing and I think what we are dealing with is a DOSBox emulation problem. Even though The Activision and Imagic carts emulate well on DOSBox with the PCjr enhanced 16 colors the two Sierra On-Line carts do not. Since Mine Shaft was converted we can test this in different machine modes. When Mine Shaft is run in PCjr mode it runs in pure CGA graphics mode. Even under machine type Tandy it runs in CGA. Set DOSBox to machine type EGA or even AUTO and Mine Shaft suddenly becomes 16 color. Since I can't seem to boot a jrc file outside of the PCjr machine type in DOSBox I am assuming the same goes for Crossfire. Someone with much more knowledge than I would have to explain why DOSBox is interpreting these two PCjr cart titles as CGA only.

Reply 28 of 112, by liqmat

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Neville wrote:

It seems to have been corrected in the SVN... sometimes I'd kill for a DOSBox v0.75:

Cool. Yeah, out of the eight game carts made for the PCjr only the two Sierra On-Line carts have the CGA only issue in 0.74. So excellent. Which SVN build are you using?

Last edited by liqmat on 2016-12-06, 20:25. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 31 of 112, by liqmat

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liqmat wrote:
Anonymous Freak wrote:

What's funny is that back in the day (mid '80s) when I first had a CGA computer, I didn't know that composite mode existed.

Nor did I until I got this ICON demo on a BBS way back in the day on my shiny new ITT XTRA PC. Luckily this guy posted it on Youtube as I had forgotten about it completely.

https://youtu.be/EABHIv0K56M

I was mistaken. This demo was actually a unique 16 color text mode and is well explained on this site, about half way down under "Graphics Forged From Text Mode":

http://www.oldskool.org/shrines/lbd/

Also the site has a copy of the ICON demo that is in the above Youtube video for you to try out for yourself, which I attached. Of course you have to run it in CGA machine mode in DOSBox for it to display correctly. This was a slideshow style demo to showcase the unique "graphics" style text mode used for the game ICON: Quest For the Ring. It was quite effective and fooled me into thinking this was a composite demo/game.

Reply 32 of 112, by liqmat

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This seems appropriate for a 16 color Christmas. One of my favorite old Christmas demos (I'm sure some of you have this already) and it only works on a Tandy, so set your machine type to Tandy and run the bat file. It also catches us all up to their latest 1980s models! haha Hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year!

tndyxmas.jpg
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tndyxmas_2.jpg
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Last edited by liqmat on 2019-12-14, 17:15. Edited 5 times in total.

Reply 34 of 112, by Scali

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Neville wrote:

and from I gather CGA Composite was not possible in European PCs anyway.

Well, yes and no. In Europe, NTSC devices are rare, most of it is PAL. There never was a PAL version of CGA composite, only NTSC.
However, at least some of the PCs sold in Europe still had these NTSC composite outputs. The original IBMs did at least, and my Commodore PC20-III also has a working NTSC composite output on the back.
All it took was an NTSC-compatible display. Not your average TV, but it certainly was possible to get one.
I use the PC20-III on an old Samsung LCD TV these days. It's a regular European PAL TV, but apparently it also supports NTSC input.

http://scalibq.wordpress.com/just-keeping-it- … ro-programming/

Reply 35 of 112, by arromdee3

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dr.zeissler wrote:

F-16 Falcon (Tandy Disk-Version) Never found it yet, but it exists.

Not sure if this is what you want, but Total DOS Collection 12 contains a "1987/Falcon (Tandy) (1987)(Spectrum HoloByte, Inc.) [Simulation][!].zip".

Reply 36 of 112, by dr.zeissler

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Wow THIS sounds VERY interesting, but I am not able to DL 22GB just only for one small file. If anyone knows where to get it alone (FTP or whatever) then PLEASE send me a PN.

Many Thx!
Doc

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 37 of 112, by dr.zeissler

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Thx! for the great find. I am searching about 5 years for this! I owned it 1988 but I could not do anything with it, because I had an EuroPC (CGA)
and not a Tandy. Now I own both machines, but the Tandy-Disk was gone and could never be found. But now 😀

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 39 of 112, by dr.zeissler

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A bit off topic, sorry, but I found the index-file, so here all "tandy-marked" versions from TDC12

Archipelagos (Tandy) (1989)(Logotron Ltd) [Strategy][!].zip
B.A.T. (CGA-EGA-Tandy) (1990)(Ubi Soft Entertainment Software) [Adventure, Role-Playing (RPG)].zip
Black Cauldron, The v1.1k (Tandy) [DC] (1985)(Sierra On-Line, Inc.) [Adventure].img.zip
Bo Jackson Baseball (Tandy) (1991)(Data East USA, Inc.) [Sports].zip
Combat- Conflict Simulation (PCjr or Tandy BASIC) (1985)(PC-SIG) [Strategy].zip
Dark Queen of Krynn, The v1.1 (Tandy 16) (1992)(Strategic Simulations, Inc.) [Role-Playing (RPG)].zip
Drakkhen (Tandy) (1990)(Infogrames) [Action, Adventure, Role-Playing (RPG)].zip
Expo (Tandy 1000) (1990)(Brooks Deforest) [Role-Playing (RPG)].zip
F-16 Combat Pilot (EGA-Tandy) (1989)(Electronic Arts, Inc.) [Simulation, Strategy].zip
Facemaker (Tandy) (1984)(Spinnaker Software Corporation) [Educational].zip
Faces ...tris III (VGA-EGA-Tandy) (1990)(Spectrum Holobyte, Inc.) [Strategy].zip
Faces ...tris III (VGA-EGA-Tandy) [a1] (1990)(Spectrum Holobyte, Inc.) [Strategy].zip
Falcon (Tandy) (1987)(Spectrum HoloByte, Inc.) [Simulation][!].zip
Fluf! (Tandy 1000) (1990)(Brooks Deforest) [Action].zip
Fraction Fever (Tandy) (1985)(Spinnaker Software Corporation) [Action, Educational].zip
Galaxian [h1][DC] (Tandy) (1983)(Atarisoft) [Action].zip
Global Thermonuclear War (PCjr or Tandy BASIC) (1985)(PC-SIG) [Strategy].zip
HardBall! (Tandy) (1987)(Accolade, Inc.) [Sports].zip
Kids on Keys (Tandy) (1984)(Spinnaker Software Corporation) [Educational].zip
King's Quest v1.01 (Tandy) [DC] (1984)(Sierra On-Line, Inc.) [Adventure].img.zip
Microsoft Flight Simulator v2.12 (Tandy) [DC] (1985)(Microsoft) [Simulation].img.zip
Pitfall II- Lost Caverns (PCjr, Tandy 1000) [DC] (1984)(Activision Publishing, Inc.) [Action, Adventure].zip
Savage (CGA-Tandy) [b1] (1989)(Firebird Software Ltd.) [Action].zip
Toad Road (Tandy 1000) (1990)(Brooks DeForest) [Action].zip
Touchdown Football (Tandy) [DC] (1984)(IBM) [Sports].img.zip
Trains (Tandy) (1984)(Spinnaker Software Corporation) [Strategy, Simulation].zip
Transylvania (Tandy) (1987)(Polarware - Penguin Software, Inc.) [Adventure, Interactive Fiction].zip
TV Sports- Basketball (EGA, Tandy) (1990)(Cinemaware) [Sports].zip
Zaxxon [DC][h1] (Tandy) (1984)(SEGA Enterprises Ltd.) [Action].zip

according to my tandy 1000 RL/HD gaming thread here:
- F-16 Falcon => Tandy-Disk/Version found 😀
- North&South => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- Operation Neptune/Hostages => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- TestDrive1 => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- Rockford/BoulderDash => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- Pitstop2 => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet
- Ninja (Tandy-Disk/Version quits to Dos after playing a short while)
- SkiOrDie (Tandy-Version start but quits to Dos after starting a game ingame)
- Xenon1 (Tandy-Disk/Version starts but freezes after the IntroScreen)

- Summer-Games/World-Games (CGA) do not start. executing the com-file leeds directly back to dos. (The startfile (COM) is about 400byte and the diskimage? is about 360KB)
- I also have a "special?" Version of WinterGames (CGA). The startfile (COM) is a bit bigger (about 2KB) und the Diskimage? is smaller then 360KB, round about 320KB, this cga-version runs fine on my tandy1000rlhd.
- I don't know if there exits also a version of Summer- and Worldgames with the bigger start-file. (com)

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Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines