There is something I should get off my chest in here...

I plug any old mouse into any old machine, I've got IBM mice plugged into Toshibas, Acer mice plugged into Compaqs, Dell mice plugged into Acers, Compaq mice plugged into Thinkpads.... sorry, I'm a monster.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-27, 04:03:

Y'all are reminding me of this classic http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/ probably NSFW lewd image and f-bombs in the vids. First vid in particular when he does the desktop snapshot thing.

No idea how I ever missed this - it's brilliant!

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-27, 21:17:

I plug any old mouse into any old machine, I've got IBM mice plugged into Toshibas, Acer mice plugged into Compaqs, Dell mice plugged into Acers, Compaq mice plugged into Thinkpads.... sorry, I'm a monster.

Can't be as bad as me ... where I plug optical mice into 486 computers.

canthearu wrote on 2021-08-27, 22:19:

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-27, 21:17:

I plug any old mouse into any old machine, I've got IBM mice plugged into Toshibas, Acer mice plugged into Compaqs, Dell mice plugged into Acers, Compaq mice plugged into Thinkpads.... sorry, I'm a monster.

Can't be as bad as me ... where I plug optical mice into 486 computers.

Using a mouse without balls is just not right.....

Using a mouse without balls is just not right.....

Depends on how authentic you want to be, or masochistic…

A PS/2 optical mouse with a mouse wheel is the best kind of mouse.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2021-08-28, 07:32:

A PS/2 optical mouse with a mouse wheel is the best kind of mouse.

Seconded.
I like Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse for its most recent releases still come with a green USB-PS/2 adapter in every single package, making it compatible with any system that supports MS-DOS and PS/2 port (and theoretically it could be adapted to serial port if necessary, although I haven't tried it myself).

In XP and up i would like to have a optical mouse with a wheel.. before that my dream mouse is the Logitech mouseman with three buttons.

I really never liked Microsoft's gear that much.

Joakim wrote on 2021-08-28, 08:51:

I really never liked Microsoft's gear that much.

I'm just the opposite. 😉 I bought a Logitech G102 as many reviewers had endorsed it being a very good e-sports mouse with an attractive price tag, but I felt it 1) too heavy 2) too "hot" due to its RGB lighting 3) with a "waist" too "fat" for my hand, so I headed back to Basic Optical that few people liked. 😅

Joakim wrote on 2021-08-28, 08:51:

In XP and up i would like to have a optical mouse with a wheel.. before that my dream mouse is the Logitech mouseman with three buttons.

Nu3WE9B.jpg

I really never liked Microsoft's gear that much.

People always say that out of convenience, one is adviced to use SATA SSD or fast CF card for retro PC-s over slow and loud period correct(-ish) hard drives. Same with period correct slow (1-4x speed) optical drives. I don't really mind of the (natural) sound and slowness of those hard drives and optical drives. For me the critical point is the mouse. Even low DPI optical mice is, that is basically anything below 1200DPI. My default retro mice are Genius NetScroll Eye with only 400DPI and I need some time to adjust.

This may have already been posted, but I just watched this and thought of this thread - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz93yrWxA8M (Secret Confessions of a Tech Hoarder)

I played and loved most Lucas Arts adventure games but I never liked either Sam and Max Hit the Road or Full Throttle.

Joakim wrote on 2021-09-03, 18:00:

I played and loved most Lucas Arts adventure games but I never liked either Sam and Max Hit the Road or Full Throttle.

Same with me, but I loved Sam and Max but never managed to like Full Throttle (despite being a metal head) and Grim Fandango (the art and execution always reminded me of the catastrophe that was Monkey Island 4..)

appiah4 wrote on 2021-09-04, 07:13:

and Grim Fandango (the art and execution always reminded me of the catastrophe that was Monkey Island 4..)

Well those were the only two LucasArts games based on the GrimE engine. An apparent attempt to make adventure games more "gamepad/console-friendly," the removal of mouse curser enraged old timers of point-and-click PC adventure games (myself included); fortunately the remastered Grim Fandango has the mouse curser returned.

I like grim Fandango. The settings, the music and humour made me look past the clunky controls. But generally, the imagined requirement on 3D in everything almost killed of the adventure game genre.. monkey Island 4, I have never replayed it. I have no fond memories of it..

Joakim wrote on 2021-09-05, 08:40:

I like grim Fandango. The settings, the music and humour made me look past the clunky controls. But generally, the imagined requirement on 3D in everything almost killed of the adventure game genre.. monkey Island 4, I have never replayed it. I have no fond memories of it..

It still destroys me that right as technology was finally catching up and allowing for the kinds of intricately-detailed environments that adventure games had always aspired to in their pixel art, the hand-drawn style was almost immediately abandoned in favor of primitive 3D that was almost always so flat and lifeless in comparison. My recent (and still ongoing, just on hold for the moment) journey back through the Monkey Island series, playing Curse and Escape back to back, makes that loss all the more plain. I don't hate Escape, but compared to Curse, it's so thoroughly lacking in charm. To this day, I yearn for more games like The Curse of Monkey Island. But most modern adventure games are too focused on that "DOS sprite-based throwback" style and things that attempt a more high-fidelity visual style like Deponia are few and far-between.

It was a very strange experience being a child first getting into 2D adventure games during that brief wondrous period at the twilight of the genre before its failed transition to 3D and subsequent years-long death. Gives me some complicated feelings.

Yes, going 3D was a decision that I've never understood. Even at the time, it was ugly as sin.

Refine CMI graphics for the sequel, and then you get a hit game !

Instead we got a bland game with awkward controls... Meh.

I killed a perfectly working mint condition p55t2p4 board with an AMD k6-3+, socketed DS cmos chip, and the modified bios to allow for bigger harddrives. Also had a 64mb PCI mx400 in that system. Sad to see it go.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2021-09-05, 19:25:

Yes, going 3D was a decision that I've never understood. Even at the time, it was ugly as sin.

Refine CMI graphics for the sequel, and then you get a hit game !

Instead we got a bland game with awkward controls... Meh.

It's just way cheaper (or more precisely - was way cheaper back when you had a low-poly models and low-res textures, no PBR materials, shaders and so on). You made a single environment and you could have unlimited camera angles. With a 2D game you have to draw everything. Also customers demanded games to be 3D. Everything was 3D back then.

I never loved CRT. Never did, never do, and perhaps never will. First, even with excellent CRT monitors like Mitsubishi Diamondtron, I can always see individual pixels. Yes, I can always see that the picture displayed in the monitor is made up of pixels. Less noticeable in dynamic scenes like games, but annoyingly noticeable in more "static" screen like desktop and word processors.

With LCD, on the other hand, it's harder to spot the pixels. Even with crappy LCDs like laptop screen.

Also --and I don't know how to explain this properly-- pictures displayed on a CRT screen always look "pulsating," as if they are periodically glowing according to certain frequencies. Pictures on LCD screen, on the other hand, looks more properly "still." Again, less noticeable on games and films, but annoyingly noticeable on desktop applications like browsers and word processors.

Based on the two factors above, I always find LCD more relaxing than CRT, especially when you spend hours in front of your PC.

And I just cannot tolerate curved screen. Give me flat surfaces any day. And that's one of the reasons I love playing old DOS games in DOSBOX on modern LCD screens, to see those games displayed on a properly flat surface.