VOGONS


Reply 40 of 112, by Neville

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dr.zeissler wrote:
according to my tandy 1000 RL/HD gaming thread here: - F-16 Falcon => Tandy-Disk/Version found :) - North&South => Tandy-Disk/V […]
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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)

Interesting list. However:

- North & South --> Made by Infogrames, an European developer. I doubt they made Tandy specific versions.
- Operation Neptune / Hostages --> Same.
- Rockford/BoulderDash --> The "Super Boulder Dash" (Boulder Dash I amd II) compilation supports PCjr and Tandy. The separate games, however, probably not.
- Test Drive --> No mention of Tandy version from MobyGames. Still could exist, but...
- Xenon --> There was a fix for Tandy mode here at VOGONS... can't find the thread.

Reply 41 of 112, by NewRisingSun

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The separate versions of Boulder Dash 1 and 2 support PCjr, but not Tandy. This applies both to the U.S. releases by First Star Software and the European releases by Prism Leisure Corporation. The First Star releases are booters, the Prism releases are DOS executables (encrypted with keydisk protection). Prism's 3.5 inch releases omit the PCjr executable though, likely because the PCjr has no 3.5 inch drive.

Test Drive 1 was released in a separate Tandy 16 color version, which I have right here. While the regular CGA/EGA version displays a 1987 copyright date, the Tandy 16 color version displays a "1987/88" copyright date.

Pitstop2 => Tandy-Disk/Version not found yet

Are you expecting a separate Tandy version? Because the regular version has a special PCjr mode; DOSBox just doesn't emulate it because it uses a very odd method of PCjr detection.

Last edited by NewRisingSun on 2017-01-05, 21:12. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 42 of 112, by Neville

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NewRisingSun wrote:

Test Drive 1 was released in a separate Tandy 16 color version, which I have right here. While the regular CGA/EGA version displays a 1987 copyright date, the Tandy 16 color version displays a "1987/88" copyright date.

Now that you mention it, the regular version of "Test Drive" doesn't have any option for PCjr / Tandy graphics at startup. This would explain it.

Reply 43 of 112, by liqmat

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By the way, Neville, I found this interesting in relation to the PCjr carts. Over at the Intellivision Lives! website they have a quick list of PCjr carts that were slated for development and release, but were all cancelled at various stages of completion. Never knew Mattel Electronics had such an aggressive future plan for the PCjr before the video game crash of 1983 happened.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120206035806/ww … nchor-IBM-39850

Last edited by liqmat on 2021-08-18, 13:07. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 44 of 112, by Neville

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Not that surprising, if you consider the PCjr was supposed to become the-next-big-thing when it came to PC gaming... I remember reading the first "King's Quest" game was a contract job from IBM to show off their new hardware. But we already know how that went, so I guess many PCjr cartridge games at the time were either abandoned or turned into floppy games instead.

Now, the mention of the 1983 videogame crisis is very interesting... I was too young at the time to notice it, and now I wonder if it had anything to do with the premature failure of the PCjr, or if by the time the computer was released (1984) it had already ended. Can any veteran visitor tell us a bit more about that?

Reply 45 of 112, by NewRisingSun

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There seems to be a lot of fakelore about it, including the term "crash" itself (most of the contemporaneous press that I have read uses the term "shakeout" instead, referring to the fact that there were too many companies in the market that should not be there), and the utter nonsense that Nintendo invented the Robot solely to fool American toy store owners.

This show from January 1985 is about computer games, but touches the subject as well, in particular starting at 17:45.

Reply 46 of 112, by liqmat

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NewRisingSun wrote:

There seems to be a lot of fakelore about it, including the term "crash" itself (most of the contemporaneous press that I have read uses the term "shakeout" instead, referring to the fact that there were too many companies in the market that should not be there), and the utter nonsense that Nintendo invented the Robot solely to fool American toy store owners.

This show from January 1985 is about computer games, but touches the subject as well, in particular starting at 17:45.

I used to watch the Computer Chronicles religiously back in those days. Great pioneering show. I refer to the "crash of 83" lightly as I moved from the Colecovision and Intellivision consoles to the Commodore 64 and eventually the Amiga and Atari ST. I did notice, though, the big three (Atari, Mattel and Coleco) were not coming out with as many titles in late 83. A lot of my friends and I wanted to move on to a computer as we were all getting older and the computers were finally catching up with the consoles in sound and graphics. That may be right there the mindset for many us and which contributed to the shift towards new landscapes.

Reply 47 of 112, by Neville

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NewRisingSun wrote:

This show from January 1985 is about computer games, but touches the subject as well, in particular starting at 17:45.

🤣 Those TV hosts look so stiff inside their suits... They look like they haven't seen, much less played, a single videogame in their lives.

Reply 48 of 112, by liqmat

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Neville wrote:
NewRisingSun wrote:

This show from January 1985 is about computer games, but touches the subject as well, in particular starting at 17:45.

🤣 Those TV hosts look so stiff inside their suits... They look like they haven't seen, much less played, a single videogame in their lives.

Those TV hosts were actually pioneers in their respective industries and have done a lot for the computer industry especially on the journalistic side. Read up on them and you will see they have quite an impressive resume. Unfortunately one of them died early from illness which was very unfortunate. I grew up on these guys and before the Internet this is where I got a lot of my info on new upcoming tech.

Reply 50 of 112, by Neville

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Sorry to hear about the death of one of them. And I wasn't trying to diminish their significance either, but as of 2017 I find the sight of suit-and-tie adults talking so seriously about videogames hard not to laugh at.

I also had conflicting feelings when I reached the interview with the Lucasfilm programmer. A part of me was like "Wow, this is history in the making", and another was like "Wow, nobody ever taugh this guy how to speak in public".

Reply 51 of 112, by liqmat

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Neville wrote:

Sorry to hear about the death of one of them. And I wasn't trying to diminish their significance either, but as of 2017 I find the sight of suit-and-tie adults talking so seriously about videogames hard not to laugh at.

I take that back. It wasn't illness, but an accident that killed Gary. Like I said in an earlier post that was the climate back in those days. Even with gaming you would see suits selling the goods like the PCjr was sold at IBM sales centers full of suits. It was strange, but it was a new industry and was transforming into its own environment from old sales models.

Reply 52 of 112, by Neville

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liqmat wrote:

Like I said in an earlier post that was the climate back in those days. Even with gaming you would see suits selling the goods like the PCjr was sold at IBM sales centers full of suits. It was strange, but it was a new industry and was transforming into its own environment from old sales models.

Ah, yes, I had forget about that. It must have been surreal to be a kid wanting a computer, walk with your parents to the store and be greeted as if you were aplying for a mortgage instead.

Some stores still do that... I take my PC for repairs to a small place, but it's part of a bigger franchise. I always talk to the technician about the job done while he wears a bright red jacket and a tie, and my mind keeps asking if he was opening units packed with dust wearing that.

Reply 53 of 112, by liqmat

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You can add Ghostbusters to your list. It looks like Ghostbusters 2 supported EGA mode, but the first Ghostbusters was only 16 color on the PCjr and Tandy from what I can tell. If you boot Ghostbusters on an EGA machine it displays CGA colors.

Reply 55 of 112, by Neville

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liqmat wrote:

You can add Ghostbusters to your list. It looks like Ghostbusters 2 supported EGA mode, but the first Ghostbusters was only 16 color on the PCjr and Tandy from what I can tell. If you boot Ghostbusters on an EGA machine it displays CGA colors.

Done, thank you.

Reply 56 of 112, by NewRisingSun

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Ghostbusters does not run at all on an CGA/EGA/VGA in its unmodified version; it freezes before the title screen. If you see a CGA-like picture, then you have a copy hacked to sort-of work on CGA. That hack has the side effect of messing up the screen split during gameplay.

Reply 57 of 112, by liqmat

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NewRisingSun wrote:

Ghostbusters does not run at all on an CGA/EGA/VGA in its unmodified version; it freezes before the title screen. If you see a CGA-like picture, then you have a copy hacked to sort-of work on CGA. That hack has the side effect of messing up the screen split during gameplay.

I was wondering about that weird CGA Activision logo screen at the beginning. Game looks great on PCjr/Tandy. I only had the Commodore 64 version when I was a kid (the best version of course 😎 )