Re: Getting 'Get Lost' by Tom Bombadil working on real MS-DOS

Posted on 2021-05-13, 16:15

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I've found the real reason why the filenames were broken copying Get Lost. The reason is that whatever I was using to burn the CD was renaming files with dashes to underscores. I've noticed it happening with a few other games. It could be a limitation of the DOS-compatible filesystem of a CD? Safest …

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Scitech Display Doctor: What DOS games and video card combinations benefit most?

Posted on 2021-05-12, 11:10

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I've always been curious about SDD but I've never found a reason to use it. The intersection of SVGA fast-paced games and MSDOS was really small to my knowledge, so I never understood how SDD would be a benefit. The only games I can recall playing at the time in SVGA would be Theme Hospital and …

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Re: When using a Win 98 boot/rescue disk, is it necessary to shut down the computer?

Posted on 2021-05-12, 10:00

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Having fdisked and surface scanned the hard drive and found no problems, I think I'm going to put this weird behaviour down to moving the PCI cards about and rebooting windows.

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Re: When using a Win 98 boot/rescue disk, is it necessary to shut down the computer?

Posted on 2021-05-06, 18:35

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Anyway, what motherboard are you using? An atrocious MS-6534 from a Medion cheapo supermarket pc from 2000. The bios menu has a strange bug where when you cycle through the 'Halt on: All Errors/No Errors/Keyboard' option, sometimes random colours appear and the screen shifts up by a row of …

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Re: When using a Win 98 boot/rescue disk, is it necessary to shut down the computer?

Posted on 2021-05-06, 04:45

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I was aware of that :) but I wasn't sure what would be loaded and what wouldn't. I have a faint memory of things like mouse.com having an effect on Windows 98 when left in the autoexec, so I didn't want to worry what sbeinit or a network packet driver would do. This way seemed cleaner (and less …

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When using a Win 98 boot/rescue disk, is it necessary to shut down the computer?

Posted on 2021-05-06, 01:50

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I have a WIndows 98 Pentium 4 machine with an SB Live! SB0100 PCI installed. My intention is to dual boot with Win 98 and Win 98's own MS-DOS (for FAT32 support) by using a modified bootable Win 98 rescue floppy disk. I've made the disk, and edited its autoexec.bat and config.sys so it doesn't have …

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Re: Creating a CD with freeware DOS games - Any game suggestions?

Posted on 2021-04-18, 21:58

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Surprised nobody suggested Amulets and Armor!

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Re: Force TSR to load in Conventional Memory

Posted on 2021-04-04, 14:49

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

If it's smart enough to detect that there's no UMB available, maybe you can temporarily load a dummy that fills up the UMB first, then load your sound card TSR which will see no free UMB and go into conventional memory, then unload the dummy.

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Re: TOP 100 applications for MS-DOS ? can you share some to the list?

Posted on 2021-03-24, 05:45

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by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Thanks for the recommendation 4xtx - I personally think D has the edge here. :p D is prettier, and hotdir under Dosbox is showing directories as being 256MB sized files.

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Re: TOP 100 applications for MS-DOS ? can you share some to the list?

Posted on 2021-03-23, 02:03

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by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

It makes me shudder to see people doing dos stuff on YouTube still using regular MSDOS DIR when D.COM exists . Automatic sorted output, files highlighted by extension, two characters fewer to type ;) The very first thing I copy to DOS (or Dosbox even) is D. Glance is very nice. I've since switched …

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Re: Music / Midi Software for Win98SE

Posted on 2021-02-11, 16:40

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Cakewalk's a good MIDI editor, with more wav-style DAW stuff included as you get newer. I'm fairly certain there were many full-featured 'lite' versions of Cakewalk for Win98, they'd be given away with midi keyboards, sound cards, coverdisks etc, maybe look up 'Cakewalk Express'. (Modern Cakewalk …

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Re: I just got a "rig" to play some old Win 3.1/95 and DOS stuff. But I am having a few problems with sound and DOS. (PI

Posted on 2021-02-09, 08:17

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

First off, the Thinkpads, whilst fabulous machines (no kidding, I have an old 385ED, 600X and a modern T440P) they are most definitely not gaming machines. They were sold as business machines first and foremost, to running Windows (or sometimes OS/2 LOL) and had windows-compatible sound hardware. I …

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Re: Best tools for disassembling/debugging Win 3.1 games?

Posted on 2021-02-08, 09:57

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Were you using that on Win98SE? Yes, disassembling the Win 3.1 game on 98SE with IDA Free 4.1, using the IDA interface in a console window. I had success with IDA Free 4.1 in the end. I thought it wouldn't be useful since it runs in a console, but it disassembled the Win 3.1 executables I wanted to …

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Re: Best tools for disassembling/debugging Win 3.1 games?

Posted on 2021-02-05, 22:29

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I had success with IDA Free 4.1 in the end. I thought it wouldn't be useful since it runs in a console, but it disassembled the Win 3.1 executables I wanted to manipulate fine. It helpfully linked together string constants and jumps with neat labels, so I could find all the button handlers easily, …

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Best tools for disassembling/debugging Win 3.1 games?

Posted on 2021-01-30, 16:16

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I have a few 16-bit Windows 3.1 shareware games I'd like to investigate and fiddle about with. I'm fairly certain that they're not written in Visual Basic. I tried OllyDbg and IDA Pro free 4.9 but both of these seem to be focused around 32bit executables. I'm running Win98 se on a real MMX machine. …

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Re: Notoriously difficult-to-run DOS games?

Posted on 2021-01-26, 18:10

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

In my experience Tyrian (2000) 's digitised sound will take a few restarts of the game to get working fully with SB clone cards. I always have to boot into the setup to make sure.

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Re: 16Bit Color Dos Games

Posted on 2021-01-24, 14:30

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I believe Psychic Detective supports 16bit colour.

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Is there a trick to stop games dumping stuff in C:\ ?

Posted on 2020-12-04, 16:25

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by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

My C:\ root is accumulating stuff like LM3D.CD for Lemmings 3D, KRISALIS.CD for Starfighter 3000, CARPET.CD for Magic Carpet, etc. It's annoying, but at least they keep their stuff in directories. KKND has put its KKND.CFG and KKND.MEM in the root though, which is really annoying. Is there any neat …

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No briefing voice in StarFighter 3000?

Posted on 2020-11-30, 02:11

by

by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I've noticed an odd thing about StarFighter 3000, on DOS 6.22 or Dosbox 0.74-3. When you select a mission from the planet pyramid and get the text screen, there's supposed to be a spoken voiceover reading out the text, but it doesn't play. (You can hear the voice in the Saturn, 3DO and PS1 ports.) …

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The Machines (Merit Software) incompatible with Avance card, intermittent freezing

Posted on 2020-11-25, 04:59

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by MrD

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I'm trying to play the top-down Alien Breed-like shooter 'The Machines' on my real DOS computer, but it seems to be incompatible with my ALS100+chip sound card for digitised sound effects. The issue is that when sound effects play, there will be alternating periods of the gameplay freezing and …

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