Gemini000: Great episode, I remember Abuse "fondly", but then again. As you said, you are going to hate it, love it and play it for a few moments every now and then. And whether it is only the shareware episode or not , when it comes to the levels. Then On Linux you are going to enjoy the game , none the less. LISP aah that language rings a bell of one of my old mates who dug/delved into the SCI language, back then too. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra%27s_Creative_Interpreter ) (heck he even found people online who tried to code in SCI). But he also coded in deplhi, Pascal , LISP (he he 😀 ). He hated C, but he could still code in it. But he also coded in Assembler.

Interesting episode. I always thought Abuse was made Freeware by its makers... and it looks like what i was playing was some bizarre fan made thingie 😁
And i agree, for 1st hour it looks like such a great game because you use mouse and keyboard and then you realize its just HARD crap.
Much better game of this type (sort of) is Walker for amiga
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzmEJWjcwms

... in how many games you start by killing nazis in giant mech 😁?

The combination of Nazis and Mechs instantly reminds me of the 13-minute CGI indie-movie "C.O.D.E. Guardian", which can be downloaded from here: http://www.cee-gee.net/Movies/Movies.htm

If you like action, giant robots and explosions then trust me, you need to watch this. ;)

Gemini000 wrote:

The combination of Nazis and Mechs instantly reminds me of...

I just realised that combination of nazis + something will instantly remind someone about something. Amount of games, movies, comic books etc. made with nazis is so friggin big...

Oh yeah Walker for the Amiga, if you have played Lemmings 2, then you will see Walker in one of the levels . Training levels I think. Great game actually.

WolverineDK wrote:

Oh yeah Walker for the Amiga, if you have played Lemmings 2, then you will see Walker in one of the levels . Training levels I think. Great game actually.

Oh yeah, if i remember correctly it started shooting lemmings if u were to close 😁

Ancient DOS Games Episode 57 - Impact / BlockBuster is online!

Personally, I don't like it when I stump everyone. Only a single person even attempted to guess what today's episode would cover and they didn't get it right either. Hopefully the hint for next week is a little easier. ^_^;

I guess that's what I get for picking some obscure European title from the 80s. There's virtually no information on the entire internet about this game, save for MobyGames, but even there it's referred to as BlockBuster when its original name was Impact, so it just goes to show how obscure this one really is. :P

Doesn't help that the game doesn't work in DOSBox 0.73 or 0.74 either. The latest version it runs in is v0.72. Not quite certain why though I think it has to do with mouse detection.

Gemini000: Good episode 😀 but I disagree with you, when it comes a better breakout/arcanoid clone with an editor DX-Ball is one I would recommend. Anyway while I saw the episode (the time is 6:15 while I am writing this post), then a thunder storm started. So now that was definetly a crazy experience, and it is still hammering away right now.

Gahhh! You didn't show if you menaged to hit last block... you faded to black just before end of level. I NEED TO KNOW HOW IT ENDED!!!!

😜

WolverineDK wrote:

Gemini000: Good episode :) but I disagree with you, when it comes a better breakout/arcanoid clone with an editor DX-Ball is one I would recommend.

I wanted to stick to DOS titles. ;)

nerka99 wrote:

Gahhh! You didn't show if you menaged to hit last block... you faded to black just before end of level. I NEED TO KNOW HOW IT ENDED!!!!

It ended indifferently. ;D

Haha, a game that needs *100* cycles? That's... around one-third the speed of a 4.77MHz 8088 normally 😳

VileRancour wrote:

Haha, a game that needs *100* cycles? That's... around one-third the speed of a 4.77MHz 8088 normally 😳

I don't see how any game can require anything slower than a 4.77mhz 8088 since that is the baseline CPU for very old DOS games. There is nothing slower than that unless 8080/8085 code is compatible with the 8088.

Hmmm...speaking of the 8080/8085, I wonder if you can run CP/M-86 under DOSBox.

sliderider wrote:

I don't see how any game can require anything slower than a 4.77mhz 8088 since that is the baseline CPU for very old DOS games.

exactly, hence my surprise that any game would need such a low cycle count. ~280 cycles makes most games run as they would on a PC/XT with that cpu.
Of course, the game might be timing itself in a funny way. Freaky stuff such as video RAM transfers, for example... those always seem to be faster in DOSbox than on real hardware.

I used to undercycle to reach new parts of Sci soundtracks QuestStudios missed out on with their MPU-401 captures. Space Quest V has an unheard piece in the intro.

leileilol wrote:

I used to undercycle to reach new parts of Sci soundtracks QuestStudios missed out on with their MPU-401 captures. Space Quest V has an unheard piece in the intro.

Video?

VileRancour wrote:

Haha, a game that needs *100* cycles? That's... around one-third the speed of a 4.77MHz 8088 normally :shocked:

I like how you said "normally", implying that the speed estimate you gave is indeed, just an estimate. ;)

As the DOSBox creators have said themselves, the "cycles" setting isn't really fixed to any sort of baseline and is completely relative to how a game works internally. For instance, when I reviewed Bubble Ghost, I suggested a cycles setting of 500 with Tandy graphics enabled, which achieves a speed relative to what you would get on an old Tandy 1000 system. If you try using a cycles setting of 500 with Impact or BlockBuster, it's completely unplayable. Even a setting of 200 is virtually impossible to handle given the tiny size of the paddle. The DOSBox core being used plays a role too, as the Dynamic core usually results in much faster performance. (I leave it set to auto unless the game isn't running properly or at a normal framerate.)

But, considering the lag in the powerup selector and the way the graphics were flickering, combined with the fact that the music was actually playing too fast relative to the speed of the game, I think Impact/BlockBuster is doing something timing-related that's confusing DOSBox. The CGA executable doesn't seem to have the music/powerup problems, but still doesn't boot in newer DOSBox versions no matter what DOSBox settings you use. :P

EDIT: 256th post! I need to move up to 16-bit variables! ;D

Block Buster has an issue with DOSBox's PIT emulation that causes it to hang in recent releases, and for the timing to be off in older releases such that unusually low cycles are needed to make the game playable.

I've reported the issue to the DOSBox devs, and they'll probably investigate it at some point. I wouldn't hazard a guess on if/when it might be fixed, because the PIT is a tricky beast... fix one thing and break several others.

With a small hack to the game code that bypasses the unusual PIT stuff, the game appears to be running correctly at ~300 cycles in all 0.7x versions of DOSBox. The speaker sound seems better as well. In BUSTERE.EXE at offset 11EB change bytes 75 DD to EB 1F.

@Gemini - sure, a game's mileage may vary with the cycles setting, but since DOSBox has to have some consistency in emulating hardware - and games had to have some consistency in using it - it isn't completely up in the air... ~280 or so does work best for the vast majority of 8088 games, and someone else here has arrived at a very similar result with some testing, so I know I'm not just pulling stuff out of my nether regions :P

Didn't many Tandy 1000s use a faster-clocked 8088, 8086, even a 286 on a 8-bit bus? 500 cycles would definitely make sense then.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Block Buster has an issue with DOSBox's PIT emulation that causes it to hang in recent releases, and for the timing to be off in older releases such that unusually low cycles are needed to make the game playable.

I've reported the issue to the DOSBox devs, and they'll probably investigate it at some point. I wouldn't hazard a guess on if/when it might be fixed, because the PIT is a tricky beast... fix one thing and break several others.

The interim solution then with DOSBox would be to have several PIT modes that can be selected between, at least until PIT emulation can be perfected.

VileRancour wrote:

Didn't many Tandy 1000s use a faster-clocked 8088, 8086, even a 286 on a 8-bit bus? 500 cycles would definitely make sense then.

Original Tandy 1000 systems had an 8088 processor, though mine has an 80286 add-on which roughly doubles its speed when active, though the disk with the software to make the add-on card work is dead so I haven't been able to use the add-on card for awhile now, nor do I currently have the ability to transfer data to the system from another system. :/

Enjoyed the BlockBuster video! I was also quite surprised to see 100 cycles recommended, I'll have to give the game a shot on my IBM 5150 to see how it runs at 4.77MHz.
As for the next video, the first DOS game that comes to mind is Carmageddon (censored "zombie" story vs uncensored "human" story) which can be switched with a password.