Hi, I think they either downloaded the games (pre-installed) or installed them on an other computer or in an emulator/VM.

Tipp: The Sound Blaster CT1350B is best to be set to Port 220h, IRQ 7 and DMA1.
Old games assume IRQ 7, because it was the original default value.

(IRQ 5 became common in the 1990s when ATs were around.
IRQ 5 in an XT class PC often did conflict with HDD controller on IRQ 5.)

For testing purposes, you can use the SB drivers on Vogons drivers.
https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1633

PS: The fun thing with old Creative stuff is, that things such as sndblst.dll will even work on Windows 3.0 in Real-Mode.
So you can have (somewhat limited) sound support on Windows..
Re: Adventures with Windows 3.0

The sndblst.dll Windows drivers for various Sound Blaster models are included with Sound Blaster Pro diskettes, I think. In windows.lzh file.
Example: https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=63

amstradus wrote on 2025-10-08, 20:23:

I've tried to install several games on the 1512 via the CF, but have had no luck.

From this I assume you already have some XT-IDE card and a CF that acts as a hard disk, if this is the case it's enough.

amstradus wrote on 2025-10-08, 20:23:

The install files usually ask me to insert a disk anyway, and so I can't complete the installation or run the files.

Games from this era can usually run directly from the floppy (because most computers didn't have a hard disk) but can also be copied or installed to the hard disk. What they usually don't do is installing from the hard disk.

So for games that don't require installation (the majority), simply copying the contents of the disk(s) to a directory is enough.
For the games that need to be installed you can complete the installation on your modern machine using for example dosbox, and then copy the installation directory to the CF.
Finally yes, there are a few original/uncracked games that ask for the floppy disk but they are not too many and I don't think you are referring to those.

If you 'have no diskette drive at all' there are silly tricks you can use with either subst or 'fakecd', or you can hunt for a disk image mounting program for dos, like turboimage (but it needs XMS to work. There's a very new and novel ems->xms driver floating around the forums here that 'might maybe work' if you have ems available. The driver is known to work with XT hardware)

Since you have an xtide, this may also be an option.

https://code.google.com/archive/p/xtideuniver … rialDrives.wiki

Jo22 wrote on 2025-10-09, 09:51:

Hi, I think they either downloaded the games (pre-installed) or installed them on an other computer or in an emulator/VM. […]
Show full quote

Hi, I think they either downloaded the games (pre-installed) or installed them on an other computer or in an emulator/VM.

Tipp: The Sound Blaster CT1350B is best to be set to Port 220h, IRQ 7 and DMA1.
Old games assume IRQ 7, because it was the original default value.

(IRQ 5 became common in the 1990s when ATs were around.
IRQ 5 in an XT class PC often did conflict with HDD controller on IRQ 5.)

For testing purposes, you can use the SB drivers on Vogons drivers.
https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1633

PS: The fun thing with old Creative stuff is, that things such as sndblst.dll will even work on Windows 3.0 in Real-Mode.
So you can have (somewhat limited) sound support on Windows..
Re: Adventures with Windows 3.0

The sndblst.dll Windows drivers for various Sound Blaster models are included with Sound Blaster Pro diskettes, I think. In windows.lzh file.
Example: https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=63

Thank you. I think you are right re: the games were pre-installed. I was messing around last night and just launched the execution files (rather than the installation files) for some games and voila!

I would still be curious to learn how to unpack IMG files and transfer them onto the Amstrad. I am considering creating a Windows partition on my 2012 Macbook, but I still wouldn't know what to do with the files once I'm there. For another day.

The Soundblaster is now working! I installed the VOGONS drivers yesterday and ran the test. I currently have my SET BLASTER = A220 I5 D1 T3. You may be correct, it seems to be only working on the later games. Though maybe some of these early games don't have sound. There are no sound effects in Double Dragon but there is music/sound in Prince of Persia. Would that mean I would need to physically switch my IRQ every time I wanted to use older games?

Wow, I didn't realize you could run Windows on this machine. I am reading functionality is fairly limited

konc wrote on 2025-10-09, 10:14:

From this I assume you already have some XT-IDE card and a CF that acts as a hard disk, if this is the case it's enough. […]
Show full quote

amstradus wrote on 2025-10-08, 20:23:

I've tried to install several games on the 1512 via the CF, but have had no luck.

From this I assume you already have some XT-IDE card and a CF that acts as a hard disk, if this is the case it's enough.

amstradus wrote on 2025-10-08, 20:23:

The install files usually ask me to insert a disk anyway, and so I can't complete the installation or run the files.

Games from this era can usually run directly from the floppy (because most computers didn't have a hard disk) but can also be copied or installed to the hard disk. What they usually don't do is installing from the hard disk.

So for games that don't require installation (the majority), simply copying the contents of the disk(s) to a directory is enough.
For the games that need to be installed you can complete the installation on your modern machine using for example dosbox, and then copy the installation directory to the CF.
Finally yes, there are a few original/uncracked games that ask for the floppy disk but they are not too many and I don't think you are referring to those.

Yes indeed--I'm booting from a Monotech XTIDE deluxe, which has a CF reader.

Thanks, I finally figured that out yesterday re: copying the contents of the directory and just running the game.exe rather than trying to run the install.exe. Derp. That makes sense. Though I am still trying to figure out how I can mount the raw disk IMG files, and get them running on my machine. The only way I would know now would be to load them on the CF and then write them to a floppy, but most of them will not fit on a 5.25. I suppose that's the point of the Gotek. Don't much like the aesthetic though. If anyone could point me in the right direction as far as how to unpack those in Windows and successfully put them onto my Amstrad, that would be great help. Or even just a pointer where to start.

amstradus: I'm wondering if you'd benefit from disk compression. It could significantly increase the logical capacity of a disk or drive. It can do the same with floppies. There's a utility included with MSDOS 6.x called DoubleSpace, but it is bulky and slow and provides only okay compression. There's another utility called Stacker. It provides a better compression ratio and should be easier to use but didn't work properly on two Win98SE computers. Try it out!

wierd_w wrote on 2025-10-09, 11:29:

If you 'have no diskette drive at all' there are silly tricks you can use with either subst or 'fakecd', or you can hunt for a disk image mounting program for dos, like turboimage (but it needs XMS to work. There's a very new and novel ems->xms driver floating around the forums here that 'might maybe work' if you have ems available. The driver is known to work with XT hardware)

Since you have an xtide, this may also be an option.

https://code.google.com/archive/p/xtideuniver … rialDrives.wiki

Thank you. A lot of this sounds like French to me, though I did arrive at trying the subst command at some point, but to no avail. I will see about fakecd next time it comes up.

I don't figure I have EMS available. As I understand I would need an expansion card. Not quite understanding where this comes into play with regard to the disk stuff...?

Harry Potter wrote on 2025-10-09, 23:32:

amstradus: I'm wondering if you'd benefit from disk compression. It could significantly increase the logical capacity of a disk or drive. It can do the same with floppies. There's a utility included with MSDOS 6.x called DoubleSpace, but it is bulky and slow and provides only okay compression. There's another utility called Stacker. It provides a better compression ratio and should be easier to use but didn't work properly on two Win98SE computers. Try it out!

Great to know. I already ordered another floppy drive that I plan on putting into the A: drive. From my research it's supposed to be configurable to run at 720k:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/135896571297

Though I suppose if at any point I wanted to boot from the A: that would be a problem. But then at least I may be able to create disks with some later-era IMG, and finally be able to run this sequencer software, which so far I haven't been able to find other than in IMG form. I am probably doing things the hard way as per usual!

There's also a utility called 2M. It can significantly increase the capacity of floppies. They will only work on systems with 2M installed, though. You can find it at http://www.retroarchive.org/garbo/pc/diskutil/index.html. BTW, your system may not be able to use the compression software I recommended. If not, you can find JAM125SW at http://www.retroarchive.org/garbo/pc/arcers/index.html. It's small and fast and produces a very good compression ratio but is hard to use, as everything has to be done from the command prompt.

amstradus wrote on 2025-10-09, 23:34:

wierd_w wrote on 2025-10-09, 11:29:

If you 'have no diskette drive at all' there are silly tricks you can use with either subst or 'fakecd', or you can hunt for a disk image mounting program for dos, like turboimage (but it needs XMS to work. There's a very new and novel ems->xms driver floating around the forums here that 'might maybe work' if you have ems available. The driver is known to work with XT hardware)

Since you have an xtide, this may also be an option.

https://code.google.com/archive/p/xtideuniver … rialDrives.wiki

Thank you. A lot of this sounds like French to me, though I did arrive at trying the subst command at some point, but to no avail. I will see about fakecd next time it comes up.

I don't figure I have EMS available. As I understand I would need an expansion card. Not quite understanding where this comes into play with regard to the disk stuff...?

Turboimage is a program that loads a diskette image into memory, then mounts it with a drive letter.

(Turboimage can be found here as 'ti101a.zip')
https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/simtel.net/ … msdos/diskutil/

It needs memory to put the image file into.

The kind of memory it wants is XMS. This is normally only found on 286s and newer.

There is a new driver that was posted here on vogons, that can take a LIM 3.5 or 4.0 EMS memory manager, and then provide int15 based XMS memory using that.

I dont know if it would work with turboimage or not, though.

Several games are listed as working with it (on an xt even!) In its thread.

EXMS86 (XMS for your 8086)

I have a few posts in that thread, and mention an awful 'ems using disk swapping' manager there.

I'd really suggest adding a lotech 2mb EMS card instead, but...

Harry Potter wrote on Yesterday, 00:05:

There's also a utility called 2M. It can significantly increase the capacity of floppies. They will only work on systems with 2M installed, though. You can find it at http://www.retroarchive.org/garbo/pc/diskutil/index.html. BTW, your system may not be able to use the compression software I recommended. If not, you can find JAM125SW at http://www.retroarchive.org/garbo/pc/arcers/index.html. It's small and fast and produces a very good compression ratio but is hard to use, as everything has to be done from the command prompt.

Appreciate this. I can look back to this as issues arrive. I reckon I should do find once I have the larger floppy, at least for my main goal which is to run the Voyetra Sequencer.

As for games, I reckon I was just trying to ‘install ‘ them, not knowing they had already been installed via dosbox or whatever.

I suppose what I’m asking myself now is: how are these img files unpacked in order to create a folder that I can write directly onto my XT-IDE and run from the C:? I’m not a Windows user for a very long time now. I imagine this is something basic for all of you. Is this Winimage or DOSbox or? Maybe I can roundabout and do it that way, especially for bigger files.

wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 00:13:

Turboimage is a program that loads a diskette image into memory, then mounts it with a drive letter. […]
Show full quote

amstradus wrote on 2025-10-09, 23:34:

wierd_w wrote on 2025-10-09, 11:29:

If you 'have no diskette drive at all' there are silly tricks you can use with either subst or 'fakecd', or you can hunt for a disk image mounting program for dos, like turboimage (but it needs XMS to work. There's a very new and novel ems->xms driver floating around the forums here that 'might maybe work' if you have ems available. The driver is known to work with XT hardware)

Since you have an xtide, this may also be an option.

https://code.google.com/archive/p/xtideuniver … rialDrives.wiki

Thank you. A lot of this sounds like French to me, though I did arrive at trying the subst command at some point, but to no avail. I will see about fakecd next time it comes up.

I don't figure I have EMS available. As I understand I would need an expansion card. Not quite understanding where this comes into play with regard to the disk stuff...?

Turboimage is a program that loads a diskette image into memory, then mounts it with a drive letter.

(Turboimage can be found here as 'ti101a.zip')
https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/simtel.net/ … msdos/diskutil/

It needs memory to put the image file into.

The kind of memory it wants is XMS. This is normally only found on 286s and newer.

There is a new driver that was posted here on vogons, that can take a LIM 3.5 or 4.0 EMS memory manager, and then provide int15 based XMS memory using that.

I dont know if it would work with turboimage or not, though.

Several games are listed as working with it (on an xt even!) In its thread.

EXMS86 (XMS for your 8086)

I have a few posts in that thread, and mention an awful 'ems using disk swapping' manager there.

I'd really suggest adding a lotech 2mb EMS card instead, but...

Ah, so then for example the diskette image would be loaded into the expanded memory/EMS IDE, and the Amstrad could recognize this as a disk? But I would a special program to do this?

Curious to me that the XTIDE would not be able to act in this capacity. But maybe I am not comprehending.

Can you give an example of an EMS IDE that would be appropriate here? I do have one last expansion slot…

'EMS IDE' is not ... right.

Rather, think of what EMS 'is.'

EMS is a bank switching technology. A chunk of memory 64kb in size is used as a 'window', through which a larger pool of memory may be accessed, by paging bits of that memory in and out of this window. Each '64k slice' of this bigger memory is called a 'page', and EMS is a specification/service for moving pages in and out of this window. A program asks EMS for a specifically numbered page, and EMS puts it in the window, then informs the program it's ready. The program can then do whatever it needs with that bit of memory.

With a physical EMS card, the location of this memory can be above the base system memory. This is the ideal location, since it does no 'Rob Peter to pay Paul', --Steal base system memory to create the window.

HOWEVER, for systems that dont have such a card, and only have the base 640k of memory, but DO have free hard disk space- there exists a driver that will steal 64k of base memory to create the window, and then feeds the contents of a 'pagefile' in and out of this window. It responds to EMS paging commands, and 'looks to programs using it' like EMS memory.

One such driver is called Memsim32. It was freeware on simtel's ftp, and is OK for me to link to here. It is vintage software.

https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet … il/memsim32.zip

You can make a page file of whatever size you want, and it will cheerfully provide 'EMS-like services' with it.

It robs base memory, and is slow, because it's fetching to and from the disk to do it. But, it can provide 'EMS' on a system without a card.

Turboimage does not use EMS. It uses XMS.

XMS memory is served a different way. It's a service that accepts and returns the contents of physical memory higher than the 1mb address mark, and this is why it is *normally* only found on 286 class machines or higher.

It is accomplished with a software interrupt handler that hooks software intrrupt servicing vector number 15. A program that wants XMS, calls this handler, and gets/writes to memory using interactions with this handler. Normal XMS managers switch to protected mode, access the physical address above 1mb requested, then read or write the data requested, then returns to real mode and returns control to the calling program.

The new, and novel driver I linked the vogons discussion page for, does not work with physical memory above 1mb. Instead, it takes XMS int15 interaction requests, then calls EMS's paging system to service it instead.

Effectively, this 'emulates XMS' using EMS.

That all said...

It *may* (i have NOT tested) be possible to string together a combination of memsim32, to get 'fake EMS', at the expense of some system memory and disk space, THEN, provide emulated XMS using that, with EXMS86.

Then, Turboimage might be able to be run.

Turboimage has useful features for switching which disk image is 'active' at the mounted drive letter, using a keyboard key combination. So for instance, if a game's installer expects you to swap disks, you 'can'.

Clear as mud now?

*personally*, I would recommend getting a lotech 2mb EMS card, and then using EXMS86 with it.

This has little to do with turbo image; many games that assert they want a 286, only want one for access to XMS memory. With EXMS86 running, using such a card, you can run them on your XT. Many such games have been tested on XTs with this configuration, and they are documented in the linked discussion thread.

Adding a 2mb lotech, and using that free driver, will increase the size of your possible game library.

It's a worthwhile upgrade.

wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 08:02:

'EMS IDE' is not ... right. […]
Show full quote

'EMS IDE' is not ... right.

Rather, think of what EMS 'is.'

EMS is a bank switching technology. A chunk of memory 64kb in size is used as a 'window', through which a larger pool of memory may be accessed, by paging bits of that memory in and out of this window. Each '64k slice' of this bigger memory is called a 'page', and EMS is a specification/service for moving pages in and out of this window. A program asks EMS for a specifically numbered page, and EMS puts it in the window, then informs the program it's ready. The program can then do whatever it needs with that bit of memory.

With a physical EMS card, the location of this memory can be above the base system memory. This is the ideal location, since it does no 'Rob Peter to pay Paul', --Steal base system memory to create the window.

HOWEVER, for systems that dont have such a card, and only have the base 640k of memory, but DO have free hard disk space- there exists a driver that will steal 64k of base memory to create the window, and then feeds the contents of a 'pagefile' in and out of this window. It responds to EMS paging commands, and 'looks to programs using it' like EMS memory.

One such driver is called Memsim32. It was freeware on simtel's ftp, and is OK for me to link to here. It is vintage software.

https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet … il/memsim32.zip

You can make a page file of whatever size you want, and it will cheerfully provide 'EMS-like services' with it.

It robs base memory, and is slow, because it's fetching to and from the disk to do it. But, it can provide 'EMS' on a system without a card.

Turboimage does not use EMS. It uses XMS.

XMS memory is served a different way. It's a service that accepts and returns the contents of physical memory higher than the 1mb address mark, and this is why it is *normally* only found on 286 class machines or higher.

It is accomplished with a software interrupt handler that hooks software intrrupt servicing vector number 15. A program that wants XMS, calls this handler, and gets/writes to memory using interactions with this handler. Normal XMS managers switch to protected mode, access the physical address above 1mb requested, then read or write the data requested, then returns to real mode and returns control to the calling program.

The new, and novel driver I linked the vogons discussion page for, does not work with physical memory above 1mb. Instead, it takes XMS int15 interaction requests, then calls EMS's paging system to service it instead.

Effectively, this 'emulates XMS' using EMS.

That all said...

It *may* (i have NOT tested) be possible to string together a combination of memsim32, to get 'fake EMS', at the expense of some system memory and disk space, THEN, provide emulated XMS using that, with EXMS86.

Then, Turboimage might be able to be run.

Turboimage has useful features for switching which disk image is 'active' at the mounted drive letter, using a keyboard key combination. So for instance, if a game's installer expects you to swap disks, you 'can'.

Clear as mud now?

*personally*, I would recommend getting a lotech 2mb EMS card, and then using EXMS86 with it.

This has little to do with turbo image; many games that assert they want a 286, only want one for access to XMS memory. With EXMS86 running, using such a card, you can run them on your XT. Many such games have been tested on XTs with this configuration, and they are documented in the linked discussion thread.

Adding a 2mb lotech, and using that free driver, will increase the size of your possible game library.

It's a worthwhile upgrade.

Oof. That is a lot! Thanks for your response. I meant to say 'ISA' not 'IDE', as in the expansion slot.

I'll try to constrain my answer to my particular goals/interests, in order to help clarify needs. In this order:

(1) I intend to use my machine as a dedicated midi sequencer and or composer for the opl2 fm chip. From my research, the Voyetra Sequencer softwares, especially the earlier ones designed for these machines, were designed to operate within the native 512 memory. Upgrade to 640 is supposed to improve performance and push up the note capacity to 50,000. I reckon an EMS expansion may improve performance especially with later versions, but may not be necessary?

(2) I would like to run video through the Amstrad via XDC player created by Jim Leonard, to create visualizers, etc. 😁

https://youtu.be/MWdG413nNkI?si=hNYuXK4RK8gjT3yq

(3) Games and early art software

So here is a photo of my startup. I reckon what you are saying is that the EMS expansion would add memory to the upper register, to improve baseline performance. Though I'm not exactly sure what this entails. Can you tell me specifically what sorts of processes would improved, or which limitations could be overcome by adding the expansion? Would it just be that games, etc. that were intended to run with more RAM would be made available?

Not sure my photo link worked.

But so I take it that if I were to add the 2MB expansion I would add 2MB to the upper register, and increase executable program size to 572KB + 2MB = 2.57MB?

No. Upper memory is the memory available to DOS between 640k and 1024k. EMS memory is extra memory that is outside main memory but gets mapped into a piece of the first 1MB of memory. BTW, I don't like your setup's used memory. I ask you for your config files and can recommend you use the CTMOUSE driver available at https://dosprograms.info.tt/indexall.htm under the Utilities section. It is much smaller than the Microsoft mouse driver.

The author of EXMS86 created this driver out of code that they made for a MIDI player they wrote, so that their midi player could open large midi files.

mateus.viste wrote:

EXMS86 is a specialized TSR that provides XMS 2.0 extended memory services using an EMS 4.0 expanded memory source. Designed for 16-bit DOS computers equipped with EMS cards, EXMS86 enables software requiring XMS memory to run on systems lacking native XMS support (IBM PC, XT, etc).

I wanted my DOSMid MIDI player to support EMS when XMS isn’t available. Sure, I could have added EMS support directly into DOSMid, but that would be so boring. Instead, I decided to take a more versatile route by building a generic XMS driver. It felt like a more rewarding challenge, and one that could benefit other projects too. So here it is.

http://mateusz.fr/exms86/

with emphasis added. (Straight from the thread Ive been harping about)

For the same reasons that the author wanted to provide access to XMS with their software, FOR their software, you would benefit from having an EMS card.

It would allow you to work with much larger music files, if nothing else.

In addition to their DOSMid player, the driver allows the following programs to run (per the thread)

Wolf3d
Dune2
Doom8088
FractInt
SmartDrive in MS-DOS 6.22

There may be others that can benefit from it as well.

Just straight up EMS by itself, would let you run
Commander keen
Sierra's SCI games (so quite a few point clicks there)
and --potentially-- some of these on this list.
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … hat_require_EMS

Harry Potter wrote on Today, 17:11:

No. Upper memory is the memory available to DOS between 640k and 1024k. EMS memory is extra memory that is outside main memory but gets mapped into a piece of the first 1MB of memory. BTW, I don't like your setup's used memory. I ask you for your config files and can recommend you use the CTMOUSE driver available at https://dosprograms.info.tt/indexall.htm under the Utilities section. It is much smaller than the Microsoft mouse driver.

Hmm... I'm afraid I'm a bit out of my depth. So where is the EMS memory mapped? I actually don't have a mouse. I don't intend to use a mouse for the sequencing software, though I'm sure I will later. I've only been able to locate that mouse adapter from that guy in Greece. Here is my config file:

https://postimg.cc/f3fsrJ9y

wierd_w wrote on Today, 17:30:

The author of EXMS86 created this driver out of code that they made for a MIDI player they wrote, so that their midi player coul […]
Show full quote

The author of EXMS86 created this driver out of code that they made for a MIDI player they wrote, so that their midi player could open large midi files.

mateus.viste wrote:

EXMS86 is a specialized TSR that provides XMS 2.0 extended memory services using an EMS 4.0 expanded memory source. Designed for 16-bit DOS computers equipped with EMS cards, EXMS86 enables software requiring XMS memory to run on systems lacking native XMS support (IBM PC, XT, etc).

I wanted my DOSMid MIDI player to support EMS when XMS isn’t available. Sure, I could have added EMS support directly into DOSMid, but that would be so boring. Instead, I decided to take a more versatile route by building a generic XMS driver. It felt like a more rewarding challenge, and one that could benefit other projects too. So here it is.

http://mateusz.fr/exms86/

with emphasis added. (Straight from the thread Ive been harping about)

For the same reasons that the author wanted to provide access to XMS with their software, FOR their software, you would benefit from having an EMS card.

It would allow you to work with much larger music files, if nothing else.

In addition to their DOSMid player, the driver allows the following programs to run (per the thread)

Wolf3d
Dune2
Doom8088
FractInt
SmartDrive in MS-DOS 6.22

There may be others that can benefit from it as well.

Just straight up EMS by itself, would let you run
Commander keen
Sierra's SCI games (so quite a few point clicks there)
and --potentially-- some of these on this list.
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … hat_require_EMS

I see I see! Thank you. Harping is good, it may be the only way I can come to my wits. With any luck, I should be able to get my new floppy drive running and try out the software by this weekend, and perhaps go from there as far as needing expansion or not for these purposes.