First post, by FFXIhealer
Anyone else have the same issue as I am?
Tried on 2 different systems, a Windows 95 Pentium (P54C) system and a Windows 98 Pentium III (Katmai) system. I have 5 Carmen Sandiego games: Where in ..... the World Deluxe, the USA Deluxe, America's Past, Time, and Space. I have configured them all or configured DOS itself so that all 5 games run with VGA graphics and Sound Blaster sound (except in Time where it's so old it still uses the little PC speaker in the case for certain noises). The problem I have is with the two Deluxe games (World and USA).
Both of them will start perfectly fine and I can get into a case and start working it. But at some random point - and I haven't been able to associate a specific cause (button press, animated graphic, sound clip, etc.) to unify the events - the game will LOCK UP the whole DOS system. If I'm in Windows, it will be caught as an ending to the DOS session with an error of an "illegal operation" having been performed and the program force-ably shut down. If I'm running in straight DOS mode, it locks the whole system (keyboard and mouse) and I have no choice but to kill the power (holding the pwr button for >4 seconds or switch off the PSU) and restart.
I don't recall these programs having this issue back on the original 486 MS-DOS system I had as a child (that had Windows 3.1 on it and probably NOT DOS 7). No, I haven't tried running it in DOSBox on a newer system, but maybe I should. I don't want to run DOSBox on an older Windows 95 system, as I built it SPECIFICALLY to run these older type games. All of my other DOS games run beautifully (Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 2, Duke Nukem 3D Atomic, Quake, The Elder Scrolls: Arena, etc.).
The main system I'm working with is the Windows 95 OSR2 system. I'll give you the details here.
CPU: Intel Pentium P54C 200Mhz (no MMX, that's the P55C)
RAM: 40MB 72-pin (I don't know if it's 70ns or 60ns)
HDD: 20.4GB Maxtor
Motherboard: Micronics M55HI+
Video: ATI Rage IIc 4MB PCI + Diamond Monster 3D II Voodoo2 8MB PCI
Sound: Creative Labs Vanta 16 (fully Sound Blaster 16 compatible chip)
Operating System: MS-DOS 7
Windows Overlay: Windows 95 OSR2
Contents of my DOS files
CONFIG.SYS
DEVICE=C:\Windows\himem.sys
DEVICE=C:\Windows\EMM386.exe NOEMS I=B000-B7FF
DEVICEHIGH=(location of CD-ROM driver) /D:MSCD001 /P:170,15 /L:US
DOS=HIGH,UMB
LASTDRIVE=F
NUMLOCK=ON
AUTOEXEC.BAT
SET SOUND=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\CTSND
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
DOSSTART.BAT
LH C:\WINDOWS\CTCM
LH C:\mscdex.exe /D:mscd001 /l:D
LH C:\Windows\Command\mouse.com
With these settings, I only use 19KB of Conventional Memory (640KB total) and the Mouse and CD-ROM drives both work properly (as tested by Duke Nukem 3D Atomic).
If anyone has suggestions, let me know here. If not, whatever. Carmen Sandiego games aren't exactly a high priority, if you know what I mean. It's nostalgia, after all.