VOGONS

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What made you join VOGONS?

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Reply 21 of 42, by jheronimus

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Oldbie

I've joined 6 years ago, before I got my hands on a first piece of retro hardware. Wow, time flies 😀

At the time there was a surge in Russian fan translations of old adventure games. I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream, Harvester, Phantasmagoria. Which made me aware of their existence in the first place! Up until then I never knew DOS had complex and "mature" games, let alone FMV games. As a kid I've played Doom and Quake on a Windows 98 machine, so I never associated those games with DOS. That's why I thought those older machines were only good for simple puzzle games and arcades/platformers, like Blockout of Prince of Persia.

Anyways, at the time I already was a Mac user, so I used the excellent Boxer to play DOS games. That app was made in the old style of "skeuomorphic" Mac apps that tried to imitate real-life objects as much as possible. In the case of Boxer that meant high-quality icons for floppies, CD-ROMs and one and only Roland MT-32:

vLywLI3WLSVxpKWihb8EX5TMi2Kn81-DvJEksK8wLqg7lKNpBoTuwmkzFfRI0SkLwHJJGPDYqFAS0ivP3Xl7tMoZ35hcsSWncDFiZgEOvZVdYMUdFsjdZf0NBqoFxqG0Qw=s412

I was amazed by the existence of that thing. A very expensive external device that people had to buy to play music in games, and developers actually put some small easter eggs using MT-32's screen — how cool is that?

I don't remember how I've learned about Vogons (I guess it was through Google). I've signed up and posted after a day or two of lurking — I wanted to find a good guide on building my own DOS machine. The community felt extremely welcoming and helpful, so I stayed on this forum to this day 😀

MR BIOS catalog
Unicore catalog

Reply 22 of 42, by keenmaster486

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Rank l33t
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l33t

Always been a tinkering type of guy, and had a lot of old hardware I played around with when I was a kid. Lurked for several years before making an account and posting finally

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 23 of 42, by DracoNihil

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Oldbie

I came here primarily to muse about old hardware and software, and look for and share fixes for older games.

I still remember one of my early posts was about how Fury³ and Hellbender's sound sampling rate were hardcoded in the EXE, so you'd have to hex edit a few bytes to get 22050 to work.

“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων

Reply 24 of 42, by badmojo

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l33t

I can't remember how I came across it but I stumbled across a build thread for a 486 and it blew my mind - all of this hardware and software that was a huge part of my life as a teen and I'd just totally forgotten about it. DOS memory management, Xtree gold, etc. I signed up and starting asking noob questions, picking up hardware along the way and 10 years later I'm still visiting every day and learning new things.

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 25 of 42, by MrFlibble

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Oldbie
vetz wrote on 2021-02-21, 12:59:

There is, click your username, then the search icon in top right corner. You'll then have a chronological list of your own posts, so go to the last page to find the first one.

Hey, thanks, I did not know that.

Turns out my first post was... in the DOSBox Game Launcher thread? I never use DOSBox frontends but apparently I wanted to inform people about some DOS freeware/liberated games. Typical 😜

vetz wrote on 2021-02-21, 12:59:

Beside that I agree that Twitch and Discord is not very good services when it comes to preserving or making information searchable. It's a very much "in the moment" service. In a couple of years, all of it will be lost.

Yes, that is a very good point as well. Forum posts are helpful because other users may find them via simple keyword searches at any time and learn something relevant without the need to ask again. Discord, you don't even see anything if you don't have an account.

DOS Games Archive | Free open source games | RGB Classic Games

Reply 26 of 42, by Cyberdyne

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Oldbie

I just googled stuff and information for my hobby, not Very Old Games On Newer Systems, but computers that can run DOS with compatible sound. Dos games, old programs. Old operating systems. And many times the answer was in VOGONS, so one day I just registered. Maybe I needed to download something from here. I have registered in many places, but it is the only forum I am active in. I am a lazy writer, but somehow in here I feel like home. Only forum really.

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.

Reply 27 of 42, by schmatzler

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Oldbie
gerry wrote on 2021-02-21, 20:04:

found vogons while deliberately searching for forums about old pcs and lurked for several years on and off

Same for me. I had known this forum for quite a while, because I was always interested in retro hardware.
When I finally decided to build a full Windows 98 PC and needed some help, I joined.

I was quickly reminded that a 90MHZ K5 is terrible, I guess nostalgia can really trick you.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 28 of 42, by SPBHM

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Oldbie

got here by accident after googling info on some old motherboard probably, saw that it was a place of people discussing old computer stuff, which is something I've been interested in for a long time before that, and registered.

Reply 30 of 42, by chinny22

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l33t++

I'm not sure what made me sign up to vogons, but was the first forum I did sign up with. no doubt I ended up here a few times when first getting back into old hardware and enjoyed reading all the posts and not just the ones relating to my specific setup.
It helped that most people here are friendly and not l33tist unlike current generation? forums. Even on Microsoft the response to good percentage of the questions is "just upgrade" which is just lazy and not even an answer to the question.

Reply 32 of 42, by Dominus

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DOSBox Moderator
sf78 wrote on 2021-02-23, 13:14:

I like to argue with strangers.

Perfect!!!

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 33 of 42, by brostenen

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I joined, because I had issues with SB Live.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 34 of 42, by digger

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Oldbie

Heh, the other day I stumbled upon my introductory (maiden?) post on Vogons, while Googling for something. To my surprise and amusement, I had started that topic with a whacky suggestion to write DOS sound drivers for newer audio devices, something that for some reason I remain obsessed with to this day.

What absolutely floored me was that I made that post almost exactly 10 years ago! 😅 Did time really fly by that quickly?

Enjoy every day, my friends. Because time truly seems to fly past us sometimes. 🤗

Reply 36 of 42, by BetaC

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Oldbie

I joined up because I had been thinking about making an XP machine, and had been linked to the site while trying to figure out the Shadows features in Jedi Outcast. That XP machine still exists, but is in pieces for the time being. I need to figure out if I am going to use a 280, or if I will keep the 7900 GTX going strong.

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Reply 37 of 42, by Salient

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Member

My love for old MIDI hardware brought me here.

I started out on quest studios forum and somehow and ended up here 12 years ago. 😀

MIDI comparison website: << Wavetable.nl >>
(Always) looking for: Any Wavetable daughterboard, MIDI Module (GM/GS/XG)

Reply 38 of 42, by comp_ed82

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I originally lurked a lot on MSFN's forums for older operating systems, i.e. their Windows 9x and NT4-2K-XP forums.
Posters there would refer to users or posts on here, and I'd hop over here and lurk here a while.
Eventually I decided to sign up here as well.