aVd wrote on 2026-03-15, 06:53:

Also, the prebuild 32-bit GROGMENU.EXE from the archive with the v.3.1 binaries release shows itself as the better version "16-bit Port", but in its source file it contains the correct string "32-bit DPMI".

After installing DJGPP for DOS I built G.R.O.G. 3.1 from the source, and the problem remains. But I found the culprit. I'm using normal language "translation" ENG.LNG file. Its line 68:

1BADGE_L_TEXT="16-Bit Port"

EDIT: Added missing quotation marks.

Tested the latest version on a couple of pc's. On one it works correctly. On another one I got an error (see screenshot). Tried with Emm386, only himem and also a totally clean boot. All gave an error.

The pc where it's not working is a standard pc with MS DOS 6.22 with default memory manager. The one were it was working is a bit more exotic with MS DOS 5.0 and QEMM memory manager. On both the 16-bit version worked correctly btw.

Also one feature request. If no csv file exists it doesn't want to start (error message is not nicely lined out in that case btw). It would be nice if it created an empty file if the file does not exists.

kahuna wrote on 2026-03-15, 05:51:

Hello again, everyone!

Following up on the recent discussions, G.R.O.G. v3.1 is now officially live!

The main focus of this update is hardware compatibility. I know some of you have been wanting to run GROG on original XT/AT hardware (8086/8088/286). I hope I'm not forgetting anyone, but I'm tagging a few of you who showed interest because I'd love to hear your feedback if you have a real XT/AT machine ready to go: @Ozzuneoj ; @vetz ; @aVd ; @douglar ; @zyzzle

I’ll break out the XT w/ MDA graphics this weekend and give the tantalum capacitors a stretch. I shouls also put a usb reader in it since it’s a little challenging for me to get software from the internet to a computer that only has 360kb drives.

aVd wrote on Today, 08:45:

After installing DJGPP for DOS I built G.R.O.G. 3.1 from the source, and the problem remains. But I found the culprit. I'm using […]
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After installing DJGPP for DOS I built G.R.O.G. 3.1 from the source, and the problem remains. But I found the culprit. I'm using normal language "translation" ENG.LNG file. Its line 68:

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1BADGE_L_TEXT=16-Bit Port

I'm not sure, that "16-Bit Port" or "32-Bit DPMI" strings will need any translation. But why two almost identical language files just to fix this little bug in v.3.2?

One common language file with two different replacements for "BADGE_L_TEXT=......" lines:

1BADGE_L_TEXT_16="16-Bit Port"
2BADGE_L_TEXT_32="32-Bit DPMI"

And in the source files the proper string will be read through "get_lang" function: "get_lang("BADGE_L_TEXT_16")" or "get_lang("BADGE_L_TEXT_32")" for the corresponding 16 or 32-bit release source file. This seems like better solution, than doubling the language files. Also this will keep the translation flexibility, if someone decides to use language with non-latin alphabet (for example "16-bit port" to "16-બિટ પોર્ટ").

I'm not forcing anyone to do anything, just giving a simple solution for a small harmless bug.

Is there a switch to change the display for flush right languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, Urdu ?

Not urgent for me at all, I'm a Left to Right guy, it's just one of those things that's easier if you get started early. It was a headache for me to retro fit into my multi language DOS projects--

A quick report from test on real hardware. G.R.O.G. 16-bit v.3.2 runs fine on my XT clone with Juko ST, NEC V20-12MHz (it's actually a factory overclocked V20-8MHz), 1MB of RAM. The lagging begins, when I switch off the "turbo mode" button (seems like "turbo mode" is more than 4.77MHz, but never bothered to measure how much), but I think, it's still bearable. If this matters, I have only 28 game titles in the database added (I don't use most of the data fields, 3/5 of them are empty). And after all I'm a normal retro PC user, not a web-scraper with obsession to build some enormous database with several hundreds of records, just because I can write my own Python script to scrap data from the MobyGames site 😀

I'm very happy with 16-bit build. It runs fine on XT-class PC and PIII too.

P.S. Just forgot to mention. Finally I found an appropriate usage of "Volume" data field. Now I can sort the games according to which CPU they use as a minimum: 8086/88, V20/30/186, 286, 386, etc. 😀