Update: See Re: HP Vectra ES/12 (286 12Mhz) skips title screens in Wolfenstein 3D (solved) for solution!

I encountered the following problem with this machine:

On the above screen the system doesn't wait with the "Press a key" message but instead skips to the next screen instantly. The rating screen (light blue) also gets skipped automatically. The "Wolfenstein 3-D" screen also get skipped. Then i'm at the main menu and the game is working normally from there on. I testen with Shareware v1.4 so far.

It is as if some key is constantly pressed down, but only in Wolf 3D.

What i already did:

-Tried 5 different keyboards
-In EDIT.COM, editing works normally.
-In Wolf 3D keyboard setup, when i remap a key no key is recognized until i actually press it (which is good). All special keys (CTRL, ALT, Shift...) work normally there too.
-Tested a handful of "Keyboard Tester" programs that show current scan codes. All showing nothing special.

Does anyone have an idea what this could be? I never tried Wolfenstein on this machine before so i don't know if it ever worked.

Update:

-Booted without config.sys and autoexec.bat, problem persists.
-Installed Wolf3D v1.1 full version, same behavior.

About the system configuration:
-No Soundcard
-No Mouse
-No CD-ROM

After trying ANOTHER Keyboard, removing my Intel Above Board, re-seating the Keyboard Controller and using different ISA slots for all cards i came up empty again and the problem remained.
I also disconnected the keyboard after starting Wolf, but it is skipping title screens even without a keyboard connected.

I then tried Keen 4 - it also has a technical "intro" screen where it detects the machines capabilites and waits with a "Press any key..." message. This one works like expected. I have to press a key to continue.

Also couldn't find anything online after 3 days of Googling around.

So i went and grabbed a nice CT2910 SB16, configured the jumpers and added SET BLASTER to Autoexec.bat - and the problem is gone. Wolfenstein 3D now works 100% as expected.

This problem doesn't happen in DOSBox if SB is configured as "none" btw, it only happens on real hardware!
I don't know if anyone is able to reproduce this bug but i would be glad to hear about it.

can that computer play wolf3d ?

Playing with largest screen size is too slow, but 2 steps smaller is playable by 1992 standards.
It probably helps that it has a rather fast aftermarket Cirrus Logic CL-GD5402 / Acumos AVGA2 VGA card from 1992 though. But stock HP VGA card would have worked too.

Will post some benchmarks early next year.

It seems that not having a soundcard installed makes Wolf 3D erroneously detect a joystick (with active fire button). Since the SB16 features a joystick port, this issue is fixed when the card is present.
Both Wolf 1.1 retail and 1.4 shareware have the same issue with skipping the title sequence but only 1.1 retail shows a detected joystick in the hardware detection screen when no SB16 is present.

Interesting.

I have this skipping issue when my Gravis Gamepad Pro is connected in GrIP mode, but if I move the switch to 1-controller mode so it's like and original Gravis Gamepad, it stops. In fact, I've been having some fun playing Wolf3d with the gamepad, because as a kid I always used the keyboard and now playing the old school way puts a lot of stress on the muscles on the back of my hands. It's just easier to play with the controller.

Here are the Wolfenstein 3D benchmarks for this machine with different hardware configurations.

Speed of stock HP D1180A ISA VGA card (Paradise PVGA1A) in CheckIT:

Speed of NoName Acumos AVGA2 VGA card (CL-GD5402) in CheckIT:

Notes:
Values for screen size '-13' are real, but not at the end of the demo run as B.J. always got stuck in a wall shortly before the end. If this happens, Wolfenstein 3D ends demo playback and reports FPS anyways up until this point.

Using the HP D1180A (PVGA1A) there is a slight rendering problem which occurs with Wolfenstein 3D fade-effect between menus (pixel snow).
Reference of this from thandor.net:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220125141051/ht … .net/object/515
This graphical glitch also leads to stability problems as sometimes during gameplay, when the glitch appears, the machine locks up with pixel snow on top of the screen and the words „Divide error“ visible. This seems to be a compatibility problem of the Paradise PVGA1A and Wolfenstein 3D.

I will buy a ET4000 ISA VGA card to try out in this! Not that it will make a difference but i will report here with the results soon!