Old Computer Appreciation Thread

ecto

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood Ah well that's good to hear!

Speaking of recommendations, what games would you recommend for DOS? Outside of the obvious.

Dosbox is a really great tool, but getting DOS games to work is quite involved... Although I grew up with an Amiga (this you should try, too! It's an old computer and full of great games!) and a pc, it still is not an easy task!
Right now, I just want to leave some recommendations for some DOS games:

Alone in the Dark trilogy (that started the whole survival horror genre)
Blood (if you like ego shooters)
Dungeon Keeper (Real time strategy)
Heroes of Might and Magic (Strategy)
Mines of Titan (an RPG, quite old and a remake of Mars Saga on the C64)
Sim City 2000
Ultima (THE western RPG if there ever was one ;) especially 6, 7 and 7 part 2)
Wing Commander 1-4 (Space shooter simulation by Chris Robers who now works on Star Citizen
System Shock (was already mentioned, but I have to repeat the recommendation! ;)

Zering

@folly Could my BIOS be outdated then?
Which version are you using?

@ecto Thanks for the recommandations! I tried Blood briefly, I got my ass handed to me minutes after the beginning of the game, but I'll press on ^^ Are you meant to be able to look up and down? I feel like I should be able to, but can't. Ultima is awesome! I finished the first one a few months ago, intent on playing through the whole series in order but 2 is horrible, so I think I'll skip ahead to UItima 3 and then replay 4 and 5 (possibly my favourite 8-bit RPG). What little I played of 7 is incredible, but I managed to put myself in a position where progressing the main quest was impossible so I stopped ^^
System Shock is awesome, need to play more. And I do intend to try the Wing Commander games, although they seem fairly difficult!

So far I've only found a few games I couldn't get running on DOS, all games with weird installs : The Magic Candle series, Darklands and Wizardry 6 and 7 mainly. And Alien Trilogy won't let me mount its bloody CD!

The thing about the Amiga that's intimidating to me is the amount of games! I don't know where to start! I played some Turrican but that's about it.

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly Could my BIOS be outdated then?
Which version are you using?

With Xanado I have a sort of crack too in the sound.
I can't swap disks. When i go to the directory I don't see disk files.

md5sum .
eaea301747715a0542dfb1c74583f286 ank.fnt
851e4a5936f17d13f8c39a980cf00d77 fnt0808.x1
59074727a953fe965109b7dbe3298e30 ipl.x1
5eb77365f4fc7dfec01212ab5b8166a8 x1.zip

Zering

@folly I managed to swap disks with no issue. You need to press Scroll Lock on your keyboard, Tab and then into File manager. I managed to play some Xanadu although there were some pretty bad visual glitches.

I'll check the BIOS now.

Edit : What do you mean by disk files? .d88 etc?

Edit 2 : My BIOS is fine, it must be one of my settings.

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly I managed to swap disks with no issue. You need to press Scroll Lock on your keyboard, Tab and then into File manager. I managed to play some Xanadu although there were some pretty bad visual glitches.

I'll check the BIOS now.

Edit : What do you mean by disk files? .d88 etc?

Edit 2 : My BIOS is fine, it must be one of my settings.

these extensions are all supported bu mame .

Zering

@folly If you leave the files zipped you can swap disks easily, regardless of their extension I think.

ecto

@zering Yeah, I remember a bug in Ultima 7 that made keys dissappear. So at one point (I think it was the last dungeon) I coudn't progess further. So I cheated ;) BUT if you're daring, you can get Exult as a port to run on the Pi. Most of those Bugs have been squashed, I think.
Ultima 4 and 5 are quite hard IIRC. U6 is really nice and has a great story. You can run that one on the latest ScummVM, too!

As far as Amiga goes you can start with the Cinemaware adventures (Defender of the Crown, It came from the Desert and Rocket Ranger). Then there is Shadow of the Beast (ultra hard, but nice art and music). Pinball Fantasies, Rick Dangerous, Great Giana Sisters (a cool Mario clone), Millenium 2.2, Populous ans (as you said) lots others.

Oh, and I forgot another DOS game: Pro Pinball Timeshock! is a must if you like Pinball games.

Zering

@ecto Exult is how I played Ultima 7, although it was on a desktop computer. Come to think of it, Ultima 7 is one of the games I can't get to run on the Pi through DOSBox, something about needing to take out my expanded memory? I'll try Exult. That game is worth many headaches, from what I've played it seems like a strong runner for best computer RPG of the early nineties. Ultima 6 runs beautifully in DOSBox. I think I've even got 8 running although I've heard nothing but horrible things about it.
Thanks for all the recommandations! I'll add them all to the top post. Are there any games that were released on DOS that are better on Amiga?

@Folly Tried your .m3u method, it works a treat.

Folly

@Zering

Seems that x1 can also run tape.
Log did not say unsupported, but it did not work.
Perhaps we also have to look at the BIOS :

80c48 NOT FOUND (NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN) (tried in x1)
ank.fnt ROM NEEDS REDUMP
WARNING: the machine might not run correctly.
Fatal error: Device Cassette load failed: Invalid image

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@Folly Tried your .m3u method, it works a treat.

Good job,
Now the bulk one ?

Zering

@folly Yes I noticed that, but I don't think there are any exclusives that would justify optimising the setup for tape, especially if they take as long to start up as tapes do on FM7.
I think I definitely have to look at the BIOS anyway, that sound issue I'm having has to be related because I've tried every other setting and it changes nothing. I'll see if I can't dig up a more recent version of the x1 BIOS.

Edit : I'll get to the bulk one very soon, I'm going through the thread in order, it will come up soon. Learning tons.

ecto

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

Thanks for all the recommandations! I'll add them all to the top post. Are there any games that were released on DOS that are better on Amiga?

Yeah, I'd say most of the games from the late 80s to the early 90s. As sound cards weren't so widely spread on the pc at the beginning, Amiga was way ahead. There were games with really great soundtracks / samples on the Amiga while the pc was still beeping away with its internal speaker.

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@ecto Exult is how I played Ultima 7, although it was on a desktop computer. Come to think of it, Ultima 7 is one of the games I can't get to run on the Pi through DOSBox, something about needing to take out my expanded memory? I'll try Exult. That game is worth many headaches, from what I've played it seems like a strong runner for best computer RPG of the early nineties. Ultima 6 runs beautifully in DOSBox. I think I've even got 8 running although I've heard nothing but horrible things about it.
Thanks for all the recommandations! I'll add them all to the top post. Are there any games that were released on DOS that are better on Amiga?

@Folly Tried your .m3u method, it works a treat.

I told you fiddling with EMS setting in the config works for some games, that is probably what you need to do with Ultima 7!

@ecto I'm familiar with most of those games, but never tried Blood. I'll give that a try! Thanks.

Folly

@ecto said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

Thanks for all the recommandations! I'll add them all to the top post. Are there any games that were released on DOS that are better on Amiga?

Yeah, I, say most of the games from the late 80s to the early 90s. As sound cards weren't so widely spread on the pc at the beginning, Amiga was way ahead. There were games with really great soundtracks / samples on the Amiga while the pc was still beeping away with its internal speaker.

Yes Amiga had quite good specs for those days.
I still have a 500 with a separate CDTV cdrom drive.

We played allot pinball dreams and pinball fanasies.

How do you run amiga games on the pi ?

Zering

@adambegood Ooooooooooh right of course! It didn't occur to me that EMS and Expanded Memory were the same thing. Thanks! Having said that using .sh files in the way you described didn't work for me, I got booted back to ES. I'm probably doing it wrong.

@ecto Ah yeah I looked it up and I see that the Amiga was first released in 1985, from what little I've seen the Amiga games from that period blew DOS out of the water in terms of graphics and sound. I always thought the Amiga was later, like early nineties.

I think I may make it a point to make sure my next PC game is an Amiga game. Thanks.

@Folly It seems the latest MAME 0.226 software list bios for X1 is the same as the MESS 0.151.
For Amiga, using amiberry with .lha files is easy and the results, from what I've seen, are pretty great.

Folly

Have to go now.
Will catch up later.

Zering

I've just done a sizeable edit, added an Amiga and FM-7 section, made several changes under DOS, X1, X68000, PC88, PC98 and Misc, and added a heap of recommended games. Enjoy.

Edit : @Folly, tried the .m3u batch command. It worked perfectly. Thanks! It's now in the first post.

Edit 2 : While editing my first post to cover the graphical issues with Final Crisis, I noticed the MD5 sums for the BIOS which allowed me to resolve my problem are not included in your new PC88 documentation. Would it be possible to include those?

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

I've just done a sizeable edit, added an Amiga and FM-7 section, made several changes under DOS, X1, X68000, PC88, PC98 and Misc, and added a heap of recommended games. Enjoy.

Edit : @Folly, tried the .m3u batch command. It worked perfectly. Thanks! It's now in the first post.

Cool

Edit 2 : While editing my first post to cover the graphical issues with Final Crisis, I noticed the MD5 sums for the BIOS which allowed me to resolve my problem are not included in your new PC88 documentation. Would it be possible to include those?

Yes, If you make a post about what I have to change I can put it in.

Folly

@Zering

Just got the idea!
We can generate all the scripts for all those systems that still have no valerino script. (I think there are literally hundreds)
Today i will try to make a bulk lr-mess-<system>.sh generator.

Most, if not all systems can be listed with the standalone MAME emulator with.

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listmedia

This will output all supported media for x1

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listmedia x1

This wil output full information about all:

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listdevices

This wil output full information about x1 only:

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listdevices x1

So if i use the output I can bulk generate.

Isn't that a magnifisent idea ;-)

(EDIT : I see now that the outputs are not what I hoped they would be, will give it a shot anyway.)

Using mame to play, for example x1, is also a possibility in the future.

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood Ooooooooooh right of course! It didn't occur to me that EMS and Expanded Memory were the same thing. Thanks! Having said that using .sh files in the way you described didn't work for me, I got booted back to ES. I'm probably doing it wrong.

Let's talk through an example of yours at some point then.