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

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  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    edited June 2013
    I nearly forgot about that!

    EDIT: You'd probably want to use Win 95 instead for DOS as I don't know if you can even get 98 running on a non Pentium.

    EDIT 2:Nope, just found the minimum requirements. That should work if just barely.

    Xenogears of Bore on
    3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    I nearly forgot about that!

    EDIT: You'd probably want to use Win 95 instead for DOS as I don't know if you can even get 98 running on a non Pentium.

    EDIT 2:Nope, just found the minimum requirements. That should work if just barely.

    My copy of windows 95 came on floppy disks lol

  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    It still boggles the mind that you don't have a working 3.5" drive around you could just slot in for a few minutes and take out if you want.

    I sometimes put them on more modern rigs just because I like the noise they make and the look they provide.

    3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    Also it better be a Roland MT-32 or you're just wasting your time.

    Whatcha using for Gamepads and Joysticks?

    That actually brings up a question I've had for a while now. What is generally the best sound card emulation to use with DOSBox? The MT-32? I've always just used SB16 since I only had an SB Pro and I figured the SB16 was better.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Well, I decided to accept fate and try to install from floppy. Except apparently disk2 of my windows 95 set is corrupt.

    Fuck it, I've ordered dos 6.22 from a dude on ebay with a warranty. Apparently dos cost $25 now because there are several stores selling it at that price.

    I also saw a guy selling "newly manufactured" 500mb ide hdds thay are guaranteed not doa and come with a warranty. Ive ordered one to try it out.

  • YoshuaYoshua Registered User regular
    If I was doing this, I would probably look at OS/2 Warp. It ran DOS and Windows 3.11 stuff well and is/was a rather modern OS for it's time (actual 32 bit OS where 3.1 just faked it and 95 did it poorly). I know it will run on 486's because that was the first machine I ever installed it on.

    Apparently there is even an up to date version still out there, but I have no experience with it.

  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    Well, I especifically said finding an MT-32 wasn't gonna be easy. I never mentioned cost.

    And Dos 6 + Win 98 is the best combo.

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  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Fuck yeah, I should have just bought the dos disks from the beginning. Installed 6.22 on my CF card no problem, thing is running full dos now.

  • FoomyFoomy Registered User regular
    Fuck yeah, I should have just bought the dos disks from the beginning. Installed 6.22 on my CF card no problem, thing is running full dos now.

    Nice, now what is the first game your going to play on it?

    Steam Profile: FoomyFooms
  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    6.22 is where it's at

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  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Foomy wrote: »
    Fuck yeah, I should have just bought the dos disks from the beginning. Installed 6.22 on my CF card no problem, thing is running full dos now.

    Nice, now what is the first game your going to play on it?

    I installed Doom last night and had a go at it, without the soundcard. Tonight, I'll try and get that working.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    new and unique problem popped up - all the other CF cards I have? The ones I bought in bulk a long time ago? Yeah, apparently there is a bit inside them which identifies them as either removable media, or fixed disk. These things won't get recognized as a fixed disk drive unless that bit is set correctly. Apparently, the first card I tried, a transcend 133x, has the extremely good fortune of coming with the bit already set to fixed disk. All my other sandisk cards... not so lucky.

    Sandisk apparently used to release a utility that would set the bit. It has seemingly been scrubbed from the internet. How the hell am I going to set these CF cards to fixed disk? I don't want to have wasted my money.

  • YoshuaYoshua Registered User regular
    edited June 2013
    I assume you have done the same thing I just did, so did GPartEd and Bootit not work ?

    Bootit: http://www.getusb.info/flip-your-bit-usb-utility-to-make-local-drive/
    GPartED : http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

    Yoshua on
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Yoshua wrote: »
    I assume you have done the same thing I just did, so did GPartEd and Bootit not work ?

    Bootit: http://www.getusb.info/flip-your-bit-usb-utility-to-make-local-drive/
    GPartED : http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

    Yeah, I actually made that post after trying BootIt. It gives me the message about "reinsert media for the effect to take" but the media is never unmounted, and it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

    I didn't try GPartED, though, I'll try that later today.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Well, my 486 won't be giving me any more problems, happy to say













    ...because an enormous chunk of the motherboard just broke off while I was trying to unplug the ide cable to move the CF kit. son of a bitch. Now my dog is laying in his bed with his ears back because I just let out a loud string of curse words usually reserved for when I come home and he's ripped a hole in the carpet or something.

    Fuck this, I'm gonna wait a few weeks to buy a new 486 before I try this shit again. This is infuriating.

  • JimboJimbo down underRegistered User regular
    Ah that really sucks. Was it cracked or weak?

    404 not found
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    No clue. I was just tugging on the ide cable - with one hand, I'll admit, that is on me - and then CRACK. An entire corner of the motherboard hanging on by tiny threads.

    Ugh.

    Keep in mind that my CF kit problem still is unsolved. So even when I get my new 486, I'm basically purchasing a headache.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    man, and now I'm thinking about how many 486 motherboards I've thrown away over the years as I look on ebay. Goddamn it.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    edited October 2013
    These projects never die, they just get temporarily shelved. Major success building an entire new system from scratch. Works exactly like I said it should, with swappable cf cards that auto boot. I have a few more days of setting up stuff, and I am making a custom case for it with some ports in the front, but this project is back on track. It's late, so I'll hold off till tomorrow until I post pics and specifics.

    I'm installing doom 2 from floppy right now, tho.

    TheSonicRetard on
  • AshdudeAshdude Registered User new member
    I remember it taking almost 2 hours to install the floppy version of Win95 on a 486SX.

  • DarmakDarmak RAGE vympyvvhyc vyctyvyRegistered User regular
    edited October 2013
    I wouldn't want to try and do what you're doing TSR, but I sure think it would be cool if I could build a new PC using an old case. Or a new case that's made to look like the old beige ones, I'm not picky. I haven't found much wherever I've looked though. I mean, I've found a few mid-size towers but I want a full-sized tower if I can because new video cards tend to be gigantic.

    edit: oh, and I think what you're doing is totally awesome. I have a friend that's been wanting to do something similar for the past several years but he doesn't have the disposable income you seem to have.

    Darmak on
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  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    edited October 2013
    Well I'm not quite done yet - I still have to get the soundcard working, and I'd still like to throw a CD-Rom drive on this thing. Buying a quality motherboard seems to have fixed a lot of my problems. I'm thinking I'll have more success getting a CD-Rom drive working this time. I have two different soundcards to work with at the moment. However, for the first time in what feels like ages, this computer has a reliable harddrive again, and that will let me concentrate on other problems.

    I installed epic pinball on one CF card and Doom 2 on another, and edited their autoexec.bat files to startup their respective games at boot up. It's pretty neat being able to switch games like this by just popping in a card, no typing required.

    I'm also about to begin building a special controller for this PC. It's going to be a hacked up keyboard I made to be used as an IPAC built into a large joystick made with arcade parts. 6 face buttons mapped to shift, ctrl, alt, space, and z and x, plus 24 small buttons at the top, mapped to f1-f12 and 1-0, plus - and +. In addition, I have two yellow buttons for enter and escape, surrounded by a few more tiny buttons mapped to stuff commonly used in games, like P, N, E, N and Y. I bought a ball-style joystick to be mapped to the arrow buttons.

    Because this is a keyboard and not a real gamepad, this will be compatible with every game in DOS, including older titles that lack gamepad support. Plus, in fighting games like Mortal Kombat 2 or Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, I can use this controller for player 2 while player 1 uses a gravis gamepad. I've got a bunch of the parts in the mail on their way to me, so hopefully I'll get it together soon enough and I can show the PC off with the special controller.

    EDIT: As for my case - I actually bought a slim AT case that I've cut large portions off of. I have the mobo mounted into it, and I'm using the face almost entirely as-is. The video card and soundcards for the case are too big, however, so I'm going to have to build the top part of an enclosure for it, and I'm adding a few ports to the portion that'll sit over the original face, including a serial mouse port, a gamepad port, and a keyboard port. I'm thinking I'm going to build my enclosure out of plexiglass and polish it smooth. The face and ports have a black and white motif going on.

    TheSonicRetard on
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Snapped this pic last night of DOS installing onto the CF card:

    1XT5ruz.jpg

    I also bought myself a copy of Windows 95 on floppy:

    sSlAjY4.jpg

    24 floppies, lol. According to a vintage computing forum I go to, it should be about a 2 hour install time.

  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    Why 95??? You should go 3.11.

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  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Why 95??? You should go 3.11.

    I already have 3.1, but there isn't much I want to play that actually requires 3.1 (Dare to Dream is the only thing that comes to mind), most of those games are DOS.

    By contrast, there are windows 95-only games that I'd like to play. Stuff like Earthworm Jim SE or Pitfall the Mayan Adventure. Or, you know, Space Cadet Pinball.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    I didn't make a topic about it, but recently I built a phoneline simulator. It lets me connect a telephone modem to a modern broadband router and dial out, tricking the modem into thinking it's online. The end result is, for example, a constant 56k connection on my dreamcast.

    I have a ton of 28.8 and 56k modems lying around, I should pop one into this machine and take it back online. Go to that space jam website and listen to some midis or something and absolutely geek out.

  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    Install Netscape 4.01, and let the whole computer freeze for minutes every time you go to a site with Java.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Install Netscape 4.01, and let the whole computer freeze for minutes every time you go to a site with Java.

    I probably still have Netscape 4.01 put away, actually. I also have a super old dot matrix printer with a few boxes of reems of paper. I'm thinking about connecting it all up, then hitting up the internet wayback machine and printing out some Mortal Kombat FAQs like old times.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    edited October 2013
    In terms of internals, this thing is done and ready. It seems that swapping out all my parts has made the entire process much easier from top to bottom. I bought a 16x Hitachi CD-Rom whose specific drivers I had located prior to purchase and it installed without a hitch. Similarly, I have a soundblaster 16 that I dug up from my parents place that had a model number on it. I looked it up, and it turns out its the single best soundblaster OPL3 card they ever put out and is sought after by chiptunes makers:

    http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/8892/so-you-wanna-rock-out-with-msdossb16/

    that's pretty bitchin. It has a yamaha ymf262 inside that apparently outputs in super high quality. I popped it in and it installed without any hassle at all. The installation even went so far as to edit my autoexec.bat and config.sys to get it loaded automatically.

    I have to repeat this process for every single CF card I have, which is pretty tedious, but the entire machine works exactly as I envisioned it. To change games, I just swap out cards and they auto boot into the game. I have a few cards set up already - Doom, Duke Nukem 2, Commander Keen, Jazz Jackrabbit, epic pinball, one must fall, etc. I'll be spending a while actually setting these up. Beyond that, everything works. I played a quick game of Jazz Jackrabbit on my CRT with a gravis gamepad earlier - that game is just as much fun as I remember and the music is incredible.

    All that's left in this project is cosmetic work. I need to build a custom case for the thing - I want a gamepad port, a serial mouse port, and a keyboard port in front, and I also need to print up some custom label stickers for these CF cards.

    For the time being, however, I'm gonna play some actual dos games tomorrow evening on a real 486 for the first time in decades.

    EDIT: Oh, one last thing - either my memory is blurry or at 66 mhz, it's the wrong speed because One Must Fall is extremely fast. Like Street Fighter on the Genesis at the maximum speed. I have everything set to the highest detail settings to try and slow it down, but nothing. The game flies by. It's not unplayable, just a lot more difficult than I expected. Every other game I've tried runs at the speed I remember it running, particularly Doom 2 and Jazz Jackrabbit. The music in OMF still sounds the same, so maybe I honestly misremember the pace of the game.

    TheSonicRetard on
  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    EDIT: Oh, one last thing - either my memory is blurry or at 66 mhz, it's the wrong speed because One Must Fall is extremely fast. Like Street Fighter on the Genesis at the maximum speed. I have everything set to the highest detail settings to try and slow it down, but nothing. The game flies by. It's not unplayable, just a lot more difficult than I expected. Every other game I've tried runs at the speed I remember it running, particularly Doom 2 and Jazz Jackrabbit. The music in OMF still sounds the same, so maybe I honestly misremember the pace of the game.

    At full speed, OMF2097 was a very fast game. Though if I remember correctly, it depends on what mode you're playing. I think career is generally slower due to different upgrade levels on the robots, until you get to the highest tournament.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    EDIT: Oh, one last thing - either my memory is blurry or at 66 mhz, it's the wrong speed because One Must Fall is extremely fast. Like Street Fighter on the Genesis at the maximum speed. I have everything set to the highest detail settings to try and slow it down, but nothing. The game flies by. It's not unplayable, just a lot more difficult than I expected. Every other game I've tried runs at the speed I remember it running, particularly Doom 2 and Jazz Jackrabbit. The music in OMF still sounds the same, so maybe I honestly misremember the pace of the game.

    At full speed, OMF2097 was a very fast game. Though if I remember correctly, it depends on what mode you're playing. I think career is generally slower due to different upgrade levels on the robots, until you get to the highest tournament.

    now that you mention it, in the short amount of time I played it last night, I only played in 1 player mode when, as a kid, I almost exclusively played in career mode. So maybe that indeed was the difference.

    The music on these old epic games are still so great, btw. Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball, One Must Fall 2097 - IIRC the same dude did all the soundtracks and man they were humming last night. Jazz Jackrabbit still has one of the best soundtracks of that era.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    I'm currently installing windows 95 from about 20 floppies

    it's terrifying because I'm knee deep now, and if one of the disks is corrupt, I lose hours of work.

    I'm walking on eggshells, afraid to cough.

  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    I'm currently installing windows 95 from about 20 floppies

    it's terrifying because I'm knee deep now, and if one of the disks is corrupt, I lose hours of work.

    I'm walking on eggshells, afraid to cough.

    I'm amazed any floppies still work these days. I've lost count how many I've had fail.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    edited October 2013
    I'm currently installing windows 95 from about 20 floppies

    it's terrifying because I'm knee deep now, and if one of the disks is corrupt, I lose hours of work.

    I'm walking on eggshells, afraid to cough.

    I'm amazed any floppies still work these days. I've lost count how many I've had fail.

    Thats part of what this project is about. I have hundreds of failed floppies across the C64, amiga, and PC. I've been steadily going through and transferring all my PC stuff into more durable media. I have a CF kit installed in my Amiga, for example, and I've actually been going through and turning the floppies into self-booting CDs. I have an SD card reader for my C64 that can emulate a tape drive or floppy drive, and I've backed all my C64 games up into SD cards.

    I've been going through and making copies of these disks onto dos-compatible CF cards, and burning them onto mini CDs as well. Once this is all done, my floppies will just be for show. Hopefully I never have to deal with a floppy again, and I can still access this part of my collection.

    EDIT: And the good thing about these CF cards is that, once I have one made, I can make an image of it and turn any other CF card into it from a modern PC. So once I get windows 95 installed on this thing, these floppies never need to work ever again.

    TheSonicRetard on
  • anoffdayanoffday To be changed whenever Anoffday gets around to it. Registered User regular
    So did you get 95 installed then?

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  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    Yeah, I did, and it took several hours. Now I need an audio line from my CD-Rom drive to go to my soundcard. I'm sure I have at least one in storage.

  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    So that gamelauncher program I posted several months back actually has difficulty running under pure dos 6.22, so I wrote my own quick qbasic menu loader. I wrote a quick 2D rasterizer to draw boxart I have converted by plotting points in screen mode 13 (320x240, 256 color) by plotting single point 1x1 squares. I got the autoexec.bat configured to boot into qbasic with the /run flag thrown so the editor never pops up. From there, I execute shell commands based off of the selected item, and I have it set for the program to wait until the launched program finishes executing before picking back up and looping the whole program, making it so you never see the dos prompt at all. Fun stuff.

    Even more fun is that I've actually sat down and played a shitload of Jazz Jackrabbit. I had forgotten how much I adore this game. I've beaten 3 of the 9 episodes thus far (plus the 2 holiday hare episodes). Terrific music and style. I've always been of the opinion that Jazz 1 > Jazz 2, and replaying it after all these years just solidifies my opinion. That soundtrack is just fucking amazing. Medio had been burned into my brain from the shareware demos - the red castle stage with the lightning eyes in the pouring rain - but man there are some other awesome levels in this game.

    I wish Jazz Jackrabbit would return. It was a good sonic clone, not at all like bubsy or zool 1.

  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    Pretty much the first major PC released platformer with smooth console style scrolling and easily the best PC platformer of that era.

    3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    edited October 2013
    Pretty much the first major PC released platformer with smooth console style scrolling and easily the best PC platformer of that era.

    I dunno, you didn't think commander keen was smooth? Particularly the second engine (the one used in keen 4 and 5)?

    I agree about the best PC platformer of the era, though. this was from that time when epic and apogee were on goddamn fire.

    EDIT: Actually, if we count PC to include all personal computers of the time, there was a stretch there between 1992 to 1994 where the PC market got 3 pretty fantastic platformers which didn't come to consoles - Fire and Ice in 1992, Zool 2 in 1993, and Jazz Jackrabbit in 1994.

    Jazz was the only one exclusive to the IBM PC Compatible, tho. Fire and Ice and Zool 2 both had better versions on the Amiga (and especially Amiga CD32).

    I miss the days when platformers ruled the world like that.

    TheSonicRetard on
  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    The first engine Commander Keen games no, but yes, you are right about the second set which I am far less familiar with.

    Jazz was on a whole different level though.

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