First post, by that1crzywhtguy
Hey there everyone!
I've been dinking around with my lovely toshiba laptop, and I've rediscovered how capable of a Dos/win9x machine this thing is. It has a quality TFT screen, the (imo) wonderful ESS688 sound card, and I've rarely run into a problem using it (with the exception a faulty backlight inverter I recently swapped and a pair of internal batteries I really oughta get around to changing).
I figured out that if you disable the l1. Cache, it drops the performance almost exactly in line with a 386-25!
So naturally, the next step was to install Wing Commander, and after fighting some issues (irq conflict, not enough conventional memory, adding extended memory), I got it working and working perfectly!
Naturally the next step was to find my Sidewinder 3D pro. I quickly realized that the tecra doesn't have a gameport! My moment of sorrow came and went however, my trusty port replicator II (thank goodness I have the docking station 🤣) to the rescue!
But then this is where I've hit the snag... It didn't work still, not in either mode.
I then booted to windows, and upon trying to add it under Game Controllers, I got an error: YOU ALREADY HAVE THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF SUPPORTED CONTROLLERS INSTALLED. TO INSTALL THIS CONTROLLER, YOU MUST REMOVE A PREVIOUSLY INSTALLED DEVICE.
Of course I have no game controllers installed, so this is nonsense. I tried my Sidewinder Gamepad and same thing. The correct drivers for the ES688 are installed in windows, confirmed no issues in Device Manager. So now...I'm stuck.
Anybody hopefully have any ideas? It will be sad if this pc won't support a stick or a controller, but the port replicator Game Port even has a little joystick symbol above it, so clearly it should be supported and there should be a way.
Thanks in advance.