Monkey Island is a big NO. Think about all those CGA arcade conversions of the early days, like Zaxxon, Digdug, etc. You may also be able to run a few AGI Sierra games off of just the floppies. Text-mode dungeon crawler stuff and BASIC games were also popular on that platform.

EGA stuff's more appropriate for far beyond 4.77MHz with a hard drive.

Hoyle card games 1 by Sierra was running pretty good in herc on my 5150

Wheel of Fortune
Oregon Trail
Tetris

I had a similar system, and I remember playing these games. I'm assuming you have CGA.

SimCity : It was slow, but it does work.
Digger
Big Three : A WWII tile based strategy game. Two player only
Alleycat
Paratrooper
Wheel of Fortune
Zaxxon
Mean 18
Hunt for Red October (slow, but works)
Tetris

Probably many others, but they were the ones I had.

We had an equivalent clone system when I was a kid. I played several of the games BoraxMan lists. Some others I can remember:

Ace of Aces
The Dambusters
Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain (slow)
Arctic Fox
Impossible Mission
Many of the Sierra games of the period of course (SQ, PQ, KQ, LSL)

As has been said, lots and lots of arcade conversions and clones were produced for the PC in the early 80s. Think of your favorite arcade games from that era (Qix, Moon Patrol, Stargate, Pengo, Pac-Man, etc.) and there will be a PC version somewhere, official or otherwise.

The system has an 8088 cpu at around 4Mhz, since I was playing monkey island on an Amiga 500 that had a little faster cpu I thought it also worked on my IBM.

Currently the computer has the basic graphics card of the 5150 the MD (monochrome display) which shows only text and not graphics, for this I have to change it and taking a CGA or EGA or VGA was the same for me in terms of price. I was more oriented on EGA because CGA is very limited in colors.

Another big problem is that these computers have 64k or 128 / 256k ram (I don't know which model I have to check) so the games I know certainly require much more ram under the famous 640kb

I know very little about this type of systems because my first computer was a DX2 and my first contact with a PC was with a 386DX40 with VGA, two extremely better performing machines.

For this reason, in addition to a piece of advice on the software to be obtained, I also needed a piece of advice on which graphics card and possibly how to expand the ram if necessary. Instead, I think the CPU should remain what it is. However, I would not want to distort this computer too much.

5150, aka original IBM PC you're looking at cga & cga composite. below isn't exhaustive and doesn't include games that can run better than cga aside from errant inclusion, but in my ranking of games, listed are from 2 stars and up.

81 donkey, rocket
82 microsoft decathlon, paratrooper, astro-dodge, bit-bat, cosmic crusader, artillery,
crossfire, floppy frenzy , msfs 1.0, pc-man, snack attack ii, rockert lander, space strike,
voyager i, apple panic, anti-ballistic-missile
83 lode runner, wizardry iii, buzzard bait, dangerous dave in: dave goes nutz, freddy fish,
master miner, moon bugs, beneath apple manor, epidemic, night stalker,
mystery master: murder by the dozen, oil barons, sailing, pipes, night mission pinball,
fleet sweep, miner shaft
84 championship lode runner, wizardry i,
montezuma's revenge, boulder dash, bruce lee,
hard hat mack, jumpman, in the chips, microleague baseball, microsurgeon,
oil's well, one-on-one, out on a lem, river raid, rocky's boots, run for the money
shamus sky jaguar, sopwith, touchdown football
85 borrowed time, ultima iii, where in the world is carmen sandiego
ram!, the seven cities of gold, tournament tennis, the world's greatest baseball game,
archery, boulder dash ii, the dam busters, f-15 strike eagle, disk crash, hacker, jet,
mystery master: felony, pylon racer, robot odyssey, striker, temple of aspshai trilogy,
trek
86 karateka, where in the usa is carmen sandiego, wizardry iv, l'affaire, mean 18,
psi-5 trading company, summer games ii, tass times, world games, world karate,
the american challenge: a sailing simulatin, championship golf, football, hacker ii,
lunar explorer, night fire, orbital, portal, the red baron, super booulder dash,
super bowl sunday, triclops invasion, zapshot, elevator
87 dark castle, deja vu, soko-ban, breach, oo-tropos, prohibition, project: space station,
search and destroy, shadowgate, the sydney affair, winter games, wizardry ii
10th frame, ace 2, crazy cars, dakar 4x4, destroyer, eden blues, elite, the fourth protocol,
game over ii, the last mission, lucky luke, mach 3, magnetik tank, mission, oligopoly,
pirates of the barbary coast, sdi, sky runner, starglider, street sports baseball,
street sports basketball, strike, tau ceti, tomahawk, where time stood still, wizard's crown,
88 uninvited, la crackdown, psycho, quadralien, sdi: strategic defense initiative,
summer challenge, winter challenge, wizardry v, aliants, awesome earl in skaterock,
the california raisens, charlie chaplin, circus games, the colony, death sword,
dr. sleeptite and the nightmare factory, fire and forget, freddy hardest, game over,
life & death, livingstone, i presume, mad show, motorbike madness, off shore warrior,
operation: clean streets, phantasm, rubicon trail, scavengers of the mutant world,
space racer, space spirals, spy vs spy iii, street football, street sports soccer,
superstar soccer, turbo cup, vectorball, western
89 demon's winter, the qeust for the time-bird, freddy hardest in south manhatten, mayday squad,
perico delgado maillot amarillo, santa paravia and fiumaccio, silpheed, tintin on the moon,
uss stinger, fallen angel, motor-mania

I am making a spread sheet for myself for noting things about old games. In my collection I am only up to 1986, so at the moment it works great for this question 😀.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hVLM9 … dit?usp=sharing

Mostly it is shitty arcade ports, text based adventures and a few early point and click games. Probably the best of the lot are the ultima games and zork, imo.

thank you very much! looking on the internet I discovered some interesting things about hardware which is the critical part:

1) the CPU can be changed with a NECv20 which is faster and the clock generator can be changed by bringing the CPU to 8mhz.

2) IBM provides both the CGA card and the EGA for this computer. The latter has the possibility of being connected to the original CGA 5153 color monitor without the need to purchase an expensive 5154 EGA monitor.

3) the doubt remains on the amount of usable ram and on the effective power of the NECv20 at 8mhz together with the EGA card. Obviously all the changes are not invasive and satisfy the period-correct philosophy

CD Man ran OK on AN XT with ega from what I remember

There are many EGA games that run slowly but will run anyway on an XT as well and contrary to the comments above were run obsolete machines “backin the day”

I recall a couple Windows 2/3 games And a few games that ran on an XT into the early 90’s

Now days that we have access to any speed PC we want we forget that back in the day once you had a computer that was it, you might upgrade peripherals but you made due quite possibly for over 10 years with the same machine and things inevitably ran slow and just because it was slow didn’t mean you would or could replace the machine

AlessandroB wrote on 2020-07-12, 09:07:

thank you very much! looking on the internet I discovered some interesting things about hardware which is the critical part: […]
Show full quote

thank you very much! looking on the internet I discovered some interesting things about hardware which is the critical part:

1) the CPU can be changed with a NECv20 which is faster and the clock generator can be changed by bringing the CPU to 8mhz.

2) IBM provides both the CGA card and the EGA for this computer. The latter has the possibility of being connected to the original CGA 5153 color monitor without the need to purchase an expensive 5154 EGA monitor.

3) the doubt remains on the amount of usable ram and on the effective power of the NECv20 at 8mhz together with the EGA card. Obviously all the changes are not invasive and satisfy the period-correct philosophy

(I realized that my google doc was restricted earlier, sorry about that).

The NECv20 can be a good upgrade, but it depends on the games you are trying to play. There are lots of games that will run too fast on anything other than an 8088 @4.77mhz., but it will help a little with games like Space Quest I & II and a few late XT/286 era titles.

EGA monitors are basically impossible to find, and the number of EGA games that you would want to run on an 5150 is pretty small. I would do CGA or get an 8 bit VGA card instead.

I don't think RAM will be a problem. If you have 640k or 550k or whatever you have as much as you can use on that platform anyway.

Did 3D games use the math coprocessor? It would seem a logical thing to do.

AlessandroB wrote on 2020-07-12, 05:55:

Another big problem is that these computers have 64k or 128 / 256k ram (I don't know which model I have to check) so the games I know certainly require much more ram under the famous 640kb

I'm speaking under correction, but I think 256KB is about enough to boot DOS 3. 3-6.22.
An ISA RAM card, like that 1MB board from Lo-tech can be used to get 640 to 736KB of RAM (depends on video card type).
It can also be used to provide UMBs. 🙂
https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_1MB_RAM_Board

Errius wrote on 2020-07-12, 20:10:

Did 3D games use the math coprocessor? It would seem a logical thing to do.

That was uncommon as math coprocessors were expensive at the time so few people (outside specific professional fields) had them.

Jo22 wrote on 2020-07-12, 20:28:

I'm speaking under correction, but I think 256KB is about enough to boot DOS 3. 3-6.22. An ISA RAM card, like that 1MB board fro […]
Show full quote

AlessandroB wrote on 2020-07-12, 05:55:

Another big problem is that these computers have 64k or 128 / 256k ram (I don't know which model I have to check) so the games I know certainly require much more ram under the famous 640kb

I'm speaking under correction, but I think 256KB is about enough to boot DOS 3. 3-6.22.
An ISA RAM card, like that 1MB board from Lo-tech can be used to get 640 to 736KB of RAM (depends on video card type).
It can also be used to provide UMBs. 🙂
https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_1MB_RAM_Board

There is a way to upgrade an IBM XT motherboard to a full 640kb of RAM, I'm not sure if it works on the original 5150 board, but the procedure is explained here. It is from the book "upgrading and repairing PCs" by Scott Mueller.
IIRC I have a spare board labeled "64kb-256kb system board" with 256kb RAM onboard and I'll try this hack soon as I have all the parts required.

MMaximus wrote on 2020-07-12, 21:07:

Jo22 wrote on 2020-07-12, 20:28:

I'm speaking under correction, but I think 256KB is about enough to boot DOS 3. 3-6.22. An ISA RAM card, like that 1MB board fro […]
Show full quote

AlessandroB wrote on 2020-07-12, 05:55:

Another big problem is that these computers have 64k or 128 / 256k ram (I don't know which model I have to check) so the games I know certainly require much more ram under the famous 640kb

I'm speaking under correction, but I think 256KB is about enough to boot DOS 3. 3-6.22.
An ISA RAM card, like that 1MB board from Lo-tech can be used to get 640 to 736KB of RAM (depends on video card type).
It can also be used to provide UMBs. 🙂
https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_1MB_RAM_Board

There is a way to upgrade an IBM XT motherboard to a full 640kb of RAM, I'm not sure if it works on the original 5150 board, but the procedure is explained here. It is from the book "upgrading and repairing PCs" by Scott Mueller.
IIRC I have a spare board labeled "64kb-256kb system board" with 256kb RAM onboard and I'll try this hack soon as I have all the parts required.

I don't have PC XT, mine is the first version "IBM Personal Computer" model 5150.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-07-12, 17:23:

(I realized that my google doc was restricted earlier, sorry about that). […]
Show full quote

AlessandroB wrote on 2020-07-12, 09:07:

thank you very much! looking on the internet I discovered some interesting things about hardware which is the critical part: […]
Show full quote

thank you very much! looking on the internet I discovered some interesting things about hardware which is the critical part:

1) the CPU can be changed with a NECv20 which is faster and the clock generator can be changed by bringing the CPU to 8mhz.

2) IBM provides both the CGA card and the EGA for this computer. The latter has the possibility of being connected to the original CGA 5153 color monitor without the need to purchase an expensive 5154 EGA monitor.

3) the doubt remains on the amount of usable ram and on the effective power of the NECv20 at 8mhz together with the EGA card. Obviously all the changes are not invasive and satisfy the period-correct philosophy

(I realized that my google doc was restricted earlier, sorry about that).

The NECv20 can be a good upgrade, but it depends on the games you are trying to play. There are lots of games that will run too fast on anything other than an 8088 @4.77mhz., but it will help a little with games like Space Quest I & II and a few late XT/286 era titles.

EGA monitors are basically impossible to find, and the number of EGA games that you would want to run on an 5150 is pretty small. I would do CGA or get an 8 bit VGA card instead.

I don't think RAM will be a problem. If you have 640k or 550k or whatever you have as much as you can use on that platform anyway.

Explain better: "I would do CGA or get an 8 bit VGA card instead."

VGA can play all game made for CGA, EGA, VGA without the needs of using CGA or EGA monitor? It use regular vga monitor?

AlessandroB wrote on 2020-07-12, 21:51:

mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-07-12, 17:23:

(I realized that my google doc was restricted earlier, sorry about that). […]
Show full quote

AlessandroB wrote on 2020-07-12, 09:07:

thank you very much! looking on the internet I discovered some interesting things about hardware which is the critical part: […]
Show full quote

thank you very much! looking on the internet I discovered some interesting things about hardware which is the critical part:

1) the CPU can be changed with a NECv20 which is faster and the clock generator can be changed by bringing the CPU to 8mhz.

2) IBM provides both the CGA card and the EGA for this computer. The latter has the possibility of being connected to the original CGA 5153 color monitor without the need to purchase an expensive 5154 EGA monitor.

3) the doubt remains on the amount of usable ram and on the effective power of the NECv20 at 8mhz together with the EGA card. Obviously all the changes are not invasive and satisfy the period-correct philosophy

(I realized that my google doc was restricted earlier, sorry about that).

The NECv20 can be a good upgrade, but it depends on the games you are trying to play. There are lots of games that will run too fast on anything other than an 8088 @4.77mhz., but it will help a little with games like Space Quest I & II and a few late XT/286 era titles.

EGA monitors are basically impossible to find, and the number of EGA games that you would want to run on an 5150 is pretty small. I would do CGA or get an 8 bit VGA card instead.

I don't think RAM will be a problem. If you have 640k or 550k or whatever you have as much as you can use on that platform anyway.

Explain better: "I would do CGA or get an 8 bit VGA card instead."

VGA can play all game made for CGA, EGA, VGA without the needs of using CGA or EGA monitor? It use regular vga monitor?

A VGA card with a dedicated CGA mode will be backward compatible with both EGA and CGA, except for CGA composite modes