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The Vintage PC thread: Because MS-DOS gaming still rules

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Posts

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    *have 12 mb ram*
    *only 530kb base available*
    *minimum executable ram size required: 533kb, please set ems or install more ram."

    Lol

  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    Rolo wrote: »
    emm386

    himem

    LOADHIGH=C:\dos\mscdex.exe D:mscd001
    DEVICEHIGH=c:\NEC_IDE.SYS /D:mscd001

    You have 344464 bytes free... You do not have enough memory to run Betrayal at Krondor. Try using the Make Boot disk option from INSTALL.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Rolo wrote: »
    Rolo wrote: »
    emm386

    himem

    LOADHIGH=C:\dos\mscdex.exe D:mscd001
    DEVICEHIGH=c:\NEC_IDE.SYS /D:mscd001

    You have 344464 bytes free... You do not have enough memory to run Betrayal at Krondor. Try using the Make Boot disk option from INSTALL.


    I have my autoexec.bat and config.sys set to load no drivers initially and then i have batch programs to launch games that'll reboot the pc and temporarily replace my system settings to provide driver support when necessary. I BARELY had enough for xwing. I needs like 560 kb, and i managed to get 561 kb.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    My internet is down, btw. I've been doing everything through my phone. When i have a keyboard available next time i have internet, i'll detail the ridiculous process i went through to transfer this 1 kb driver to this 486. I used 3 pcs, 2 usb drives, 2 floppy drives, and went through dozens of floppies before i found one that still worked.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Fun fact: windows 7 x64 cant write floppies. It can read them fine, but trying to write them will destroy the disk. The problem is two fold. First, the floppy disk driver, sfloppy.sys, is a newer, broken version. Replacing the file in c:\windows\system32 with sfloppy.sys from windows vista or earlier will fix this. It's an unreported bug because who the fuck still uses floppies?

    Second, windows will, without asking, convert the flopy to a newer version of FAT to read it when accessed. This version of FAT isnt compatible with dos, so a floppy written in windows 7 cant be read under dos. The trick is to use dosbox, mount your floppy, and write to it under dosbox instead of windows 7.

    The above took me a good 8 hoursto figure out thanks to poor documentation. I hope nobody else ever has to go through that.

  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    XWing is probably the game I had to do the most batch file writing for in my entire life. The boot disk probably took me a good six weeks to get perfect.

    It doesn't help at all that the later windows 95 patched together version isn't as good, unlike tie fighter in which both windows versions are just plain better.

    3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    XWing is probably the game I had to do the most batch file writing for in my entire life. The boot disk probably took me a good six weeks to get perfect.

    It doesn't help at all that the later windows 95 patched together version isn't as good, unlike tie fighter in which both windows versions are just plain better.

    Yeah, i dont want to go to the windows version because, as you said, it's inferior. My longest config was always for mortal kombat 2, that game was picky about resources.

    Speaking of batch writing, thats a skill i picked up early and never lost. It's still useful even in windows 7. The dos/windows command line syntax is surprisingly flexible and powerful.

  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    It is!

    MK 2 always worked right out of the box for me. Recognized both gravis gamepads quickly, took a little bit to get the sound right but it stayed installed on my PC for quite some time and was my favorite version despite being 4 buttons.

    3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
  • NocrenNocren Lt Futz, Back in Action North CarolinaRegistered User regular
    Ultima 7, and later Ultima 8.
    And Privateer...

    getting all those to run WITH SOUND. We (my dad and me) could get them to run fine, until we tried to add in the sound card. So many boot disks, each clearly labeled and with their respective CDs. Or writing several different batch files that would rename various config.sys/autoexec.bat variants and then rebooting...

    And playing Gabriel Knight 1, first the Windows version and encountering a game crashing bug that I could not get around (Gabe goes through the Shadow Hunter ritual in Germany, and then the house keeper comes in with a vacuum, that's where my game always crashed). Took me years before I decided to sit down and play it again in DOS format (no bugs).

    newSig.jpg
  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    Oh god I had completely blanked out U7. That is actually the hardest game to get running in DOS without a doubt. So big and meaty, so glitchy.

    3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    Ultima VII is the worst, bar none. Privateer a close second. They used proprietary memory managers. JEMM

    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
    camo_sig2.png
  • AchireAchire Isn't life disappointing? Yes, it is. Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    Speaking of Betrayal at Krondor, it's pretty great. Probably the best writing in an RPG until Torment came along. Fairly impressive 3D engine, perhaps from a flight sim originally? Reminds me of the early Microprose flight sims. Of the SSI games, I think Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is really worth a try. It's like a proto-Fallout. The sequel, sadly, is more like a proto-Baldur's Gate.

    My biggest regret was being stuck with SB16 and never hearing a Roland MT-32 in real life. Incredibly advanced game sound technology for 1988, just at a very high price point. Also limited game support, mostly by Sierra, but when it works it's brilliant.

    Isn't Ultima VII's memory manager called Voodoo or something? It was a real pain to get to work.

    Achire on
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Welp, the harddrive just died. Anybody want to recommend a cf->ide kit?

  • Mr_GrinchMr_Grinch Registered User regular
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    @maximumzero, It was pretty awful though--then again, the same could be said about SimCopter, and I enjoyed the hell out of that.

    Of course it was awful. I knew that then, even at the age of 12. But being able to zip around the dozens of cities I had built in Simcity 2000 was nothing short of amazing.

    At least it looked nice (by the standards of Need for Speed II and the other driving sims of the time). You couldn't say the same thing about SimCopter compared to the flight sim market.

    Then again, SimCopter had an insane number of things to do, even when compared to Streets with its deathmatch mechanic.

    Insane number of things? I never got beyond dropping a bucket on someone's head.

    Steam: Sir_Grinch
    PSN: SirGrinchX
    Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
  • NocrenNocren Lt Futz, Back in Action North CarolinaRegistered User regular
    Mr_Grinch wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    @maximumzero, It was pretty awful though--then again, the same could be said about SimCopter, and I enjoyed the hell out of that.

    Of course it was awful. I knew that then, even at the age of 12. But being able to zip around the dozens of cities I had built in Simcity 2000 was nothing short of amazing.

    At least it looked nice (by the standards of Need for Speed II and the other driving sims of the time). You couldn't say the same thing about SimCopter compared to the flight sim market.

    Then again, SimCopter had an insane number of things to do, even when compared to Streets with its deathmatch mechanic.

    Insane number of things? I never got beyond dropping a bucket on someone's head.

    There were helicopter tours, VIP transport, Search and Rescue, air support for fires, calling out traffic reports, and tracking down criminals for the police ("We have you surrounded!" "Stop running!" "Does your mother know what you're doing?").

    newSig.jpg
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Just got one ordered. What a frustrating weekend. Still never got the cd rom working, either. It'd always hang on boot after loadng the driver. Tried several ones and none worked, some would get farther than others but none were acceptable.

    The upside to having a cfkit, though, is that i'll never have to use this fucking floppy drive again. And, i could actually forego the cd rom drive too.

  • Mr_GrinchMr_Grinch Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    Nocren wrote: »
    Mr_Grinch wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    @maximumzero, It was pretty awful though--then again, the same could be said about SimCopter, and I enjoyed the hell out of that.

    Of course it was awful. I knew that then, even at the age of 12. But being able to zip around the dozens of cities I had built in Simcity 2000 was nothing short of amazing.

    At least it looked nice (by the standards of Need for Speed II and the other driving sims of the time). You couldn't say the same thing about SimCopter compared to the flight sim market.

    Then again, SimCopter had an insane number of things to do, even when compared to Streets with its deathmatch mechanic.

    Insane number of things? I never got beyond dropping a bucket on someone's head.

    There were helicopter tours, VIP transport, Search and Rescue, air support for fires, calling out traffic reports, and tracking down criminals for the police ("We have you surrounded!" "Stop running!" "Does your mother know what you're doing?").

    I think I refused to do anything that didn't involve the bucket.

    I was a weird child.

    ::edit:: Isn't CF->IDE 'cheating' Mr Retard? :p

    My good 'ole 250mb Amiga hdd is still ticking over thankfully.

    Mr_Grinch on
    Steam: Sir_Grinch
    PSN: SirGrinchX
    Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    Mr_Grinch wrote: »
    Nocren wrote: »
    Mr_Grinch wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    @maximumzero, It was pretty awful though--then again, the same could be said about SimCopter, and I enjoyed the hell out of that.

    Of course it was awful. I knew that then, even at the age of 12. But being able to zip around the dozens of cities I had built in Simcity 2000 was nothing short of amazing.

    At least it looked nice (by the standards of Need for Speed II and the other driving sims of the time). You couldn't say the same thing about SimCopter compared to the flight sim market.

    Then again, SimCopter had an insane number of things to do, even when compared to Streets with its deathmatch mechanic.

    Insane number of things? I never got beyond dropping a bucket on someone's head.

    There were helicopter tours, VIP transport, Search and Rescue, air support for fires, calling out traffic reports, and tracking down criminals for the police ("We have you surrounded!" "Stop running!" "Does your mother know what you're doing?").

    I think I refused to do anything that didn't involve the bucket.

    I was a weird child.

    ::edit:: Isn't CF->IDE 'cheating' Mr Retard? :p

    My good 'ole 250mb Amiga hdd is still ticking over thankfully.

    I dont consider it cheating, it's a storage medium. My amiga has a cf kit installed.

    QPXJhOI.jpg

    I just looked up the price for these cards and found a stockpile of 2 gb cards for under $5. Ordered 20 of them. My idea is that I'll treat each one as its own game - install dos on all of them, give each one it's own specially configured autoexec.bat and config.sys, and put the contents of an entire cd on a folder in each disk, and set each autoexec.bat to launch the installed game at boot. That way, i can treat these things basically like cartridges, pop them in and turn on the pc and it boots into game. I already bough. Bay for my pc for the cf kit.

    Edit: even better, i just looked at a pic of the bay, it's mainly empty plastic with the cf kit hugging one side. The pc gameport i the same s a neo geo gameport, and i have several neo geo extenders. I'll dremel a hole into the bay and rune an extension cable through the case to the gameport on the soundcard. This'll let me ad a controller port to the front of the case, making this 486 even more like a plug and play console.

    I figure i can take my floppy disk labels or cd labels and edit them into a small label to be printed on glossy photo paper so i can label each cf cartridge.

    TheSonicRetard on
  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    2000 MEGASHOCK AMIGA ES.

    3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
  • darleysamdarleysam On my way to UKRegistered User regular
    I'd just hand all the memory management stuff over to my older brother who knew much better what he was doing (yes he hated me). I could, however, set IRQs and DMAs like a champ.

    forumsig.png
  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    My GOD, Retard, what have you done? You turned a beautiful 486 into a monster... A CONSOLE!!!

    (yeah, much better going that route instead of trying to find an HDD from those days that's still alive)

    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
    camo_sig2.png
  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    I remember spending $60 on Under A Killing Moon (as a 10 year old that took a lot of time to save up!) and it being an absolute nightmare to get working properly.

    There were supposed to be backup effects with subtitles and keyboard control if your PC couldn't manage the audio and mouse, but altering any config option caused a hard reboot. And trying to run the game with audio on and mouse control resulted in an out of memory error, no matter how much memory was free.



  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    My GOD, Retard, what have you done? You turned a beautiful 486 into a monster... A CONSOLE!!!

    (yeah, much better going that route instead of trying to find an HDD from those days that's still alive)

    It's probably what i should have done from the beginning. I knew 20 year old hdds are unreliable (someone even mentioned it in this topic), and the ability to swap entireharddrives easily solves a few problems. Instead of writing a ton of batch programes to move autoexec.bat and config.sys and reboot based of off games, i can taylor each game's environment in a self contained space. Plus, being able to take the harddrive an do work in dosbox will be a godsend. I used winuae to help me set up my amiga 1200, and it would hve been much more difficult without that cf kit. Tis way, i dont have to worry about getting a cdrom drive woring.

    I guess i was just rushing through this project. I now have to wait a bit until my new parts arive. I might pick up roland mt-32 soundcard, are they really that much better than soundblaster?

  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    OH MY WORD YES, especially for the era of games you're playing.

    Xenogears of Bore on
    3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
  • MadpandaMadpanda suburbs west of chicagoRegistered User regular
    Oh yea the nostalgia is coming back.

    This aptiva p2/266 i got uses priopriety cards, the floppy/cd were part of an external unit. System would not post by my parents so I took it home. I've stripped it down to the cpu/memory and uhh thats it. Everything else is on board.

    Still won't post. All of the jumpers are right.

    Once my porch isn't covered by snow im going to take the air compressor to it. It might just be a lost cause though.

    On the upside I might be able to salvage the ram and the video card is a diamond with 3dfx chip, pretty sure I actually bought this and it was my first 3dfx card w@w.

    camo_sig2.png
    Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    edited February 2013
    The Roland is a billion times better. I think it has a daughterboard?

    EDIT:
    As I said before, you should read this.

    Stormwatcher on
    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
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  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Im looking at roland cards and they are a fair bit pricier than of the time soundblaster cards, so i guess that indicates quality. I just realized that, with thid cf kit, this will be an entirely solid state machine. No moving parts. Its so quiet, i had forgotten what pcs without a fan were like.

  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    edited February 2013
    My 486 DX2 had a tiny fan on the CPU, kinda like those cheap generic northbridge thingies you can buy.

    Also, this is how amazing the Roland sounded:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZXVqrSo7AA

    the Roland starts on 2:03

    Stormwatcher on
    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
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  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    Mr_Grinch wrote: »
    A friend had a 486 SX computer, I remember trying to get countless games running that shouldn't have (Fatal Racing, FX Fighter). IIRC the SX couldn't do floating point calculations? Anyway, we used to have a blast playing on some stunt game where you could create your own track. The physics were so glitchy you could launch yourself 60 foot in to the air.

    Yeah, the SX didn't have a math co-processor that the DX added. I remember playing EF 2000 before and after and the difference was quite noticeable.
    Esh wrote: »
    No Wing Commander love?

    Funny you should mention Wing Commander because its framerate was locked to the cpu speed. It was pretty much unplayable when the Pentiums came out, until the Kilrathi Saga version fixed that.

    My first computer that I owned was a 486-SX 25. About a year later I upgraded to a 486-DX 66 with a sound card and CD-ROM and had so many great memories. I'm about to leave work so I'll post more later, but even though I had an Atari, NES and SNES growing up and played those constantly, this was definitely my formative years in regards to gaming.

    I bought a 486-DX 66 off of Ebay about 13 years ago for $26 and used it quite a bit to replay those old games, but pretty much when DOSBox got going I got rid of it. I just wanted to play the games and didn't care about the complete authentic experience.

    My one game I wish I could play today is Crimson Skies, but it won't work with modern video card drivers (in hardware). But that's a later game.

  • anoffdayanoffday To be changed whenever Anoffday gets around to it. Registered User regular
    So besides obvious places like ebay, where could you find old computer parts for a project like this?

    Steam: offday
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    anoffday wrote: »
    So besides obvious places like ebay, where could you find old computer parts for a project like this?

    My closet, my dad's closet, really weird specialty shops in houston, and yeah ebay too.

  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    Mr_Grinch wrote: »
    A friend had a 486 SX computer, I remember trying to get countless games running that shouldn't have (Fatal Racing, FX Fighter). IIRC the SX couldn't do floating point calculations? Anyway, we used to have a blast playing on some stunt game where you could create your own track. The physics were so glitchy you could launch yourself 60 foot in to the air.

    Yeah, the SX didn't have a math co-processor that the DX added. I remember playing EF 2000 before and after and the difference was quite noticeable.
    Esh wrote: »
    No Wing Commander love?

    Funny you should mention Wing Commander because its framerate was locked to the cpu speed. It was pretty much unplayable when the Pentiums came out, until the Kilrathi Saga version fixed that.

    My first computer that I owned was a 486-SX 25. About a year later I upgraded to a 486-DX 66 with a sound card and CD-ROM and had so many great memories. I'm about to leave work so I'll post more later, but even though I had an Atari, NES and SNES growing up and played those constantly, this was definitely my formative years in regards to gaming.

    I bought a 486-DX 66 off of Ebay about 13 years ago for $26 and used it quite a bit to replay those old games, but pretty much when DOSBox got going I got rid of it. I just wanted to play the games and didn't care about the complete authentic experience.

    My one game I wish I could play today is Crimson Skies, but it won't work with modern video card drivers (in hardware). But that's a later game.

    Crimson Skies and Mechwarrior 3 are the two last unplayable games. I keep hoping for some crazy fan patch to fix them, like what happened to so many other games.

    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
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  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    Crimson Skies and Mechwarrior 3 are the two last unplayable games. I keep hoping for some crazy fan patch to fix them, like what happened to so many other games.

    Ah, yeah, didn't realize MW3 wasn't playable today. I have it but haven't played it since I switched to Win 7. That's a shame, it's a great game.

    Timeslip did a patch for Crimson Skies that fixed a few of the issues, but it didn't fix the driver issue. Something about both makers removing some deprecated power of 2 function that unfortunately the game needed to display correctly. Otherwise I get these horrible black swashes everywhere. You can grab it here if you want to give it a try.

    Edit: Oh my god. I decided to download it to see if by some chance it was updated and saw this:
    Added a fix for the ATI black squares issue

    WHERE IS MY DISC

  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    OH MY GOD IT WORKS

    IT WORKSSSSSSS

    Ahem. Yeah, 1080p Crimson Skies is a thing. I'm off to bed now but I am so hooking up my joystick tomorrow.

  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    edited February 2013
    Carcass will you marry me

    Timeslip is an awesome human being BTW.

    Stormwatcher on
    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
    camo_sig2.png
  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    Carcass will you marry me

    Timeslip is an awesome human being BTW.

    I thought we were already engaged, but yes!

  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    I'll be damned, I got both games running! amazing!!!

    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
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  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    My CF kit arrived today! I spent the day hanging sheetrock, though, so I'll have to wait till tomorrow to try it out.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    So after a long hiatus, I finally had time to dick around with the CF kit and found a wealth of headache-inducing problems. The first problem - the bios for this motherboard is so ancient, it won't autodetect the CHS for a harddrive. Rather, you have to manually enter the cylinders, heads, and sectors per track. Now, recalling from my youth how to calculate cylinders for a harddrive is difficult when I can look on the thing and pull off the heads or sectors, but how the fuck am I supposed to calculate CHS for something that A) isn't really a harddrive and B) doesn't list any head or sector information? It's like trying to apply the Pythagorean theory to a circle without even so much as a radius.

    Well, several hours later, I finally, FINALLY stumbled upon a table online by someone going through the same problem. The dude had somehow come up with a generic list of CHS info that would work for most CF cards. Unfortunately, it only listed up to 48 mb, but luckily it clued me in to the standard number of heads and sectors a flash card has. From there, I was able to bounce some figures off of some friends and we wound up with a list of CHS values that should work for most CF cards 2gb+:
    Cap     Cylinders    Heads   Sectors
    2GB     3900           16         63
    4GB     7785           16         63
    8GB     15538          16         63
    

    Anything beyond 8GB and you're on your own (although, realistically, when are you ever going to use an 8GB CF card on such an old PC?). Around midnight last night, I tested it out and my CF card was finally recognized as a harddrive on my PC. Next problem? How the hell do I get dos on this thing?

    This isn't so much of a logistical problem, but rather a problem of laziness. I want to install DOS on this card as easily as possible without much work. Unfortunately my options seem limited right now. My old, from-the-day Dos 6 floppies are likely dead by now, given they were stored poorly. Furthermore, the entire point of going to a CF card was to not have to deal with ancient mediums. So, my idea is to pop the CF kit into another PC and install an old version of windows on the thing like it's the primary harddrive. Windows 95 and Windows 98 both came with DOS, either of those should do. Except, oops, I forgot - my copy of Windows 95 came on floppies, and my copy of Windows 98 is an upgrade disk, meaning I can't install it without installing Windows 95 first.

    But no problem, my copy of Windows 95 is legal and legit, and I still have my serial number. Surely microsoft hosts old copies of their OS installation disks on their site, right? I mean, if you're just purchasing a license and the software won't run without the key, what's the danger of putting the entire OS online as an ISO.

    ...except microsoft doesn't do that. You can download Windows Vista and Windows 7 and Windows 8 ISOs from MSDN, but nothing earlier. I dunno if they were ever offered, but not now. So now I'm in a tricky pickle. How in the hell am I going to get DOS onto this card?

    Perhaps I'll cross that bridge tonight. My idea is to use DOSbox to actually install Dos itself on the card, using one of the many DOS floppy disk images floating around. I dunno if that is even legal, but that's likely my only option at this point. It's funny to me, because I own 3 actual, boxed copies of DOS, and numerous versions of windows, and I've installed DOS so many times in the past. yet this time, it seems so much more of a hassle than ever before.

    TheSonicRetard on
  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    Installing DOS is such a funny concept these days. But I remember how daunting and mysterious it used to be when I first started.

    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
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