I am very impressed of the Plantronics driver Benedikt made.
So i have made a video on the Plantronics on my EuroPC. Take a look: https://youtu.be/QbRq35s12yg

Enjoy.

That information is really usefull. Thank you!
Beside that plantronics color plus support in those sierra-sci-games , what about the old AGI versions. Would it be possible too to get the ega-version converted to plantronics?

Another thing I am thinking about is an image/picture-viewer with plantronics-support.

Doc

Jinxter wrote on 2021-03-28, 19:12:

I am very impressed of the Plantronics driver Benedikt made.
So i have made a video on the Plantronics on my EuroPC. Take a look: https://youtu.be/QbRq35s12yg

Cool video!

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-03-30, 05:39:

Beside that plantronics color plus support in those sierra-sci-games , what about the old AGI versions. Would it be possible too to get the ega-version converted to plantronics?

Another thing I am thinking about is an image/picture-viewer with plantronics-support.

Unfortunately, the AGI video drivers contain function calls to magic addresses outside the driver itself, i.e. somewhere in the engine code, which makes them a lot harder to reverse engineer and potentially version-dependent.
Since there are way fewer AGI games than SCI games, I didn't bother to pursue it any further.

AFAIK, CompuShow (command name: cshow) supports the ColorPlus modes natively.

Is there an older version of cshow860 that supports plantronics?

here you are 8.33 with nice gfx 😀
Ready for EuroPC with mce-adater connected to a tft 😀

There is mention that this works with LSL1 (SCI) version however I am unable to find one that it works with. The original release obviously doesn't, but the "VGA" remake spits out an error if I have the PCPlus.drv file in the directory. Says that there is text missing in the install file or something. I tried to trick it by renaming one of the VGA driver files but it of course crashes. Anyone know where I might fine the correct SCI updated version? Thanks!

It would be a hell of a thing, if AGI could also work with PLT.

DigitalMan wrote on 2021-06-03, 23:46:

There is mention that this works with LSL1 (SCI) version however I am unable to find one that it works with. The original release obviously doesn't, but the "VGA" remake spits out an error if I have the PCPlus.drv file in the directory. Says that there is text missing in the install file or something. I tried to trick it by renaming one of the VGA driver files but it of course crashes. Anyone know where I might fine the correct SCI updated version? Thanks!

PCPLUS.DRV is a 16-color driver for SCI0 games and the dedicated 16-color (i.e. EGA) versions of SCI1 games, only.
The 256-color VGA versions use a slightly different driver format with an internal 256-color frame buffer.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-06-04, 11:07:

It would be a hell of a thing, if AGI could also work with PLT.

As mentioned before, AGI drivers contain call instructions to magic addresses in the engine itself, which complicates reverse engineering, significantly.

Next target. Getting Mt32 to work on EuroPC without MPU or Soundcard 😀

Well, off the top of my head, you could take the open source General MIDI driver from here, remove the MT-32 to GM remapping, send the output to the serial port and use an external RS-232 to MIDI adapter.

I have bought a midi-programers cable and use this to go in a MU50 and from that to the MT32.
The drivers/patches that are required I will get from cloudschatze. I think I will check that out in the next view days.

Benedikt wrote on 2021-06-04, 11:17:

PCPLUS.DRV is a 16-color driver for SCI0 games and the dedicated 16-color (i.e. EGA) versions of SCI1 games, only.
The 256-color VGA versions use a slightly different driver format with an internal 256-color frame buffer.

Yes I understand that, but does a SCI version of Larry 1 exist that has 16 colour support? I can only find either the original AGI, or the VGA remake.

The List of Sierra's Creative Interpreter games does contain an entry for an EGA version of that game, but the dedicated EGA versions of VGA SCI games tend to be hard to track down.

EDIT: I just rechecked and LSL1 (SCI EGA) has already been tested successfully with PCPLUS.DRV.

Benedikt wrote on 2021-06-04, 13:05:

The List of Sierra's Creative Interpreter games does contain an entry for an EGA version of that game, but the dedicated EGA versions of VGA SCI games tend to be hard to track down.

So I had looked at that list before, but never thought to use the version number in my search. Luckily, that SCI EGA version is out there. However it's installer doesn't like the PCPLUS.DRV file but renaming the Plantronics driver to EGA320.DRV does work! So now I have the remake version running on my Commodore PC-10 II in 16 colours. Looks great! Runs SLOOOOWW, but still playable. 😀

1.000.058 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.055
1.000.073 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.062
1.000.175 Conquests of the Longbow EGA 1.000
1.000.575 Leisure Suit Larry 1 (SCI remake) EGA 2.0
1.000.744 Space Quest 4 EGA 1.060
1.SQ1.004 Space Quest 1 (SCI remake) EGA 2.000
1.pq3.018 Police Quest 3 EGA 1.000
T.A00.159 Leisure Suit Larry 5 EGA 1.0

Could possibly work on plantronics, but require 286+, so not for my EuroPC II with Nec V20.

Wait, what?

I ran most of them in PCem with an emulated 8088, so I'm not quite buying the "286+" statement. I believe that it applies to the VGA versions, only.

DigitalMan wrote on 2021-06-04, 16:57:

However it's installer doesn't like the PCPLUS.DRV file but renaming the Plantronics driver to EGA320.DRV does work!

The canonical way to change the driver without the setup program is to edit resource.cfg.

Benedikt wrote on 2021-06-04, 17:54:

The canonical way to change the driver without the setup program is to edit resource.cfg.

Ah thank you!

Now to get PQ working. It seems to accept the driver, but then just crashes shortly after launching.

On my XT where every byte counts, I rip the games and let everything aside that is not needed.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-06-04, 17:17:

1.000.058 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.055 1.000.073 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.062 1.000.175 Conquests of the Longbow EGA 1.000 1.000 […]
Show full quote

1.000.058 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.055
1.000.073 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.062
1.000.175 Conquests of the Longbow EGA 1.000
1.000.575 Leisure Suit Larry 1 (SCI remake) EGA 2.0
1.000.744 Space Quest 4 EGA 1.060
1.SQ1.004 Space Quest 1 (SCI remake) EGA 2.000
1.pq3.018 Police Quest 3 EGA 1.000
T.A00.159 Leisure Suit Larry 5 EGA 1.0

Could possibly work on plantronics, but require 286+, so not for my EuroPC II with Nec V20.

In this context "286+" most likely means "186+", which means that your V20 could be good enough.
I doubt that they wrote a separate protected mode engine for VGA and suspect that they simply changed some compiler flags and maybe used some 186 inline assembly to speed up the code.

Benedikt wrote on 2021-06-05, 17:05:

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-06-04, 17:17:

1.000.058 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.055 1.000.073 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.062 1.000.175 Conquests of the Longbow EGA 1.000 1.000 […]
Show full quote

1.000.058 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.055
1.000.073 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.062
1.000.175 Conquests of the Longbow EGA 1.000
1.000.575 Leisure Suit Larry 1 (SCI remake) EGA 2.0
1.000.744 Space Quest 4 EGA 1.060
1.SQ1.004 Space Quest 1 (SCI remake) EGA 2.000
1.pq3.018 Police Quest 3 EGA 1.000
T.A00.159 Leisure Suit Larry 5 EGA 1.0

Could possibly work on plantronics, but require 286+, so not for my EuroPC II with Nec V20.

In this context "286+" most likely means "186+", which means that your V20 could be good enough.
I doubt that they wrote a separate protected mode engine for VGA and suspect that they simply changed some compiler flags and maybe used some 186 inline assembly to speed up the code.

That's possible, though I've also seen DOS Compilers with dedicated /186 and /286 switches.
One of the differences might be,
that the 286 is not limited to a fixed segment size of 64KB anymore.
I don't know for sure, though.