Windows 95!

caver01

I have been loosely following along here wondering, what are the chances that the Ultimarc WinIPAC utility could be installed? This handy utility is strictly for configuring the IPAC boards, setting up the keys used for each switch etc. There is some question about which version of Windows it requires, but assuming it works in 3.1 or 95, it is only worth the effort if it can write to the USB port. Thoughts?

edmaul69

@supercatfooz having installed every microsoft application i could on windows 3.1, i will say this, install office 4.2 and fakshar. Set your config to run fakshar before windows. Then make a backup of your windows folder. Any time you install a non game software, test office programs like word. If it crashes, put your backup windows folder back on (you can just overwrite old folder) the reason why i say this is you will find some programs possibly including internet explorer will cause this and the easiest way to test is with word. You dont want to have programs or games not work and not know why and it is because you installed a program that dosbox doesnt like some time in the past. Fakeshar is also needed for a lot of programs (not games) to run.

Semper 5

@supercatfooz I'd have to agree with the move back to 3.11. Once all the necessary software was installed, it ran my small collection perfectly. I just made custom .conf files for each game - for those that need the disc in the drive I just edited the autoexec to mount the iso I had stored in a directory before executing windows.

Sorry to say, the win95 was a cool idea and surprising to see boot up after MUCH labor, but too buggy and very sparse compatibility.

SuperFromND

@semper-5 Yeah, bit of a shame with 95.

My only gripes with this 3.1 setup so far is that you can't control the mouse using a controller, (at least not in DOSbox standalone without some hacky software method; I've heard that the lr core allows it natively at the cost of poor performance & possible compatiability & configuration issues) and that it runs kinda slow, (even if you set cycles to max and increase RAM, and especially with a shell that isn't Program Manager) but otherwise it's pretty good and runs most of the games I've thrown at it.

So far I've tested (and confirmed works):

After Dark
Chu-Teng
Eastern Mind: Lost Souls of Tong-Nou
Full Tilt Pinball
The Best of Entertainment Pack
Win/V Utility

simonwking

Just out of interest did anyone try PCem on the Pi? I am just starting to use that within Emulation Station on the PC for Win95 and Win98

SuperFromND

@simonwking Funny you mention PCem; they just released an update yesterday that includes "Experimental ARM and ARM64 host support" as one of the bullet points.

I might try it out; according to redditor /u/lei-lei it can run a 486SX just fine (albeit with a bottleneck at high resolutions).

I would also like to note that, at least in theory, lr-np2kai should be capable of booting Windows 95, 98, NT 4, and 2000. I have yet to find a way to successfully boot into any of these (and I doubt it would run anywhere near full speed; PC-98 emulation is rather slow on the Pi 3, even with overclocking), but I still think it's worth looking into.

tiagop

@SuperFromND Any instructions on how to compile PCem on the RPi?

SuperFromND

@tiagop The PCem Linux download includes instructions in the Readme-Linux.txt file:

You will need the following libraries :

SDL2
wxWidgets 3.x
OpenAL

and their dependencies.

Open a terminal window, navigate to the PCem directory then enter

./configure --enable-release
make

then ./pcem to run.

(Do note that I have yet to test whether the Pi is even capable of running PCem at the moment; support for ARM hosts is labelled as Experimental, after all)

tiagop

@SuperFromND Thanks, will try tomorrow and post results

edmaul69

@Semper-5 i use real discs in windows 3.11 so i havent had a need to make any win 3.11 conf files yet. I have probably around 100 games and software that run great on the pi in win 3.11. I havent found anything that has given me any troubles yet other than certain ms software that cant run in dosbox and trashes and crashes your windows folder install...