Interesting problem. I can actually play the entire game with PC sound through Windows but when I exit the game the entire system locks up and I have to reboot my computer. Through DOSBOX I am experiencing the same problems. I hope someone can help us. I had this game ages ago but the 5 1/4" disks I had went bad and I could never get another copy until recently. It would nice to replay it after all these years.

Some debugging revealed:

Starting at 8000:9573, the game is copying data byte for byte to 8000:0000 (probably some unpacking). It keeps the target position of the next byte to write as FAR pointer at 8000:0126.

Unfortunally, that pointer is eventually overwritten and then points to the middle of the interrupt vector. So the remaining copying is completly messing up most of the vectors. As soon as the game try to call the next interrupt (int 0x81 to be precise), it ends in a non-code area and crashes.

No idea so far why this is happening though..

A little more information...The 'information' window that remains in the backgroung provides the following with different CPU cores:

Using "dynamic" CPU Core, a message appears stating:
Exit to error: Illegal Option

Using "normal" CPU Core, a message appears stating:
Exit to error: CPU:GRP5: Illegal Opcode 7

Using "full" CPU Core, no messages appears, the game just freezes up.

Again, all of the above occurs when the "Insert Reel 2 - Press any key to continue message appears", and then you procede to press any key.

Thanks for the replies - I would really *love* to play this game with Tandy sound and EGA/Tandy 16-color graphics - It is one of my favorite games of all time - And my favorite "port" of the game as well (gameplay wise).

The enhanced Tandy sound really gives the game the audio it deserved on the PC when it first came out - The PC speaker sound is really lousy especially when compared to its C64 and Amiga counterparts.

Thank you again for looking into this. I really appreciate it.

I'm sorry, one last thing...Again, concerning DOSBOX 0.57 the game runs fine, and never crashes. However, there is only PC speaker sound support and there is an "annoying" background high pitch sound once you're in the game playing. Nonetheless, perhaps it may be useful to compare how it handles/runs under version 0.57 as to why it crashes with version 0.61.

Same happens to me. What a bummer. If i run it natively (under WinXP) it runs (with speaker, ouch! - Tandy sound rocks) but colours are totally messed up (as with every EGA/VGA 16c mode game a try) thanks to my *great* GF4 Ti4200. What a crap card. I will never buy a nVIDIA card again.

That's a rather petty thing to say, eL_PuSHeR. Doesn't work properly with an operating system that doesn't allow direct hardware access with programs that used direct hardware access a lot so they must suck?

I am just complaining about my GF4 Ti4200 lack of backwards compatibility, because it cost me 200€ not so long ago.... 😁

My older ATi Radeon 9100 was much more "backwards compatible".

I remember when i had a TNT2. It was a fairly decent card. Newest nVIDIA cards have sacrified compatibility for speed/features. Not the best ones for old-timer like most of us here.

Sorry for the rant, i am moving out of the topic here....