/vr/ - Retro Games

Field was too long, guess this'll have to be broken up like this from now on

Useful links:
Atari computer museum: http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/computers.html
MSX community website: http://www.msx.org
Apple 2 history website: http://apple2history.org
Attic Time machine: http://www.itoi.jp/time.html
World of Spectrum: http://www.worldofspectrum.org
PC98, x68k, and other system's Game database: http://mercenaryforce.web.fc2.com
Hall of Light Amiga game database: http://hol.abime.net
Alicesoft games: http://retropc.net/alice/menu.html
XM6 Pro-68k x68000 emulator page: http://mijet.eludevisibility.org/XM6%20Pro-68k/XM6%20Pro-68k.html
Jap computers emulation center: http://www.jcec.co.uk/index.html
C64 tapes: http://tapes.c64.no
C64 equivalent to WOS: http://c64tapes.org
C64 cracks and demos: http://csdb.dk/
Apple II Disk Server: http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver
Cyber1 - the PLATO network: http://cyber1.org
SDF - the public access UNIX system: http://sdf.org
TWENEX access: http://www.twenex.org/
S100 resources: http://www.s100computers.com/
x68000 drivers and software: http://retropc.net/x68000/
PC/XT/AT drivers and support: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com

As always, don't hesitate to suggest links to be added to the new thread

Random Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9887joVqT7c
Random Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUH8nR-_Jfc

>>2407236
I think so.

Gotta love the General Instrument AY-3-8910

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhsaziIz4Mg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z29JWABX_ec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Np262oKA8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSVvm5aCZpg

this is the best thread on the entire site!

Anyone playing any MUDs?

Perhaps one of you knows the game I'm talking about, I hope so.

I had it on the C64, I'm about 95% sure it was called "Labyrinth" or at least that's what was written on the cassette tape, never been able to find mention of a game under that name.

The game was very simple, you would give it some dimensions like 16 wide by 10 high or whatever and it would randomly generate a maze based on those statistics that you would then walk through using the arrow keys in very similar style to pic related. I think the maze was in shades of blue but I'm probably wrong, you could cheat and look at a map if you got hopelessly stuck but you got no score any more and after solving any maze it showed you what the entire thing looked like and how many steps it took you to beat it in, there were no monsters or anything else like that in the maze.

It was wonderfully simple and I've yet to see anything that could hold a candle to it in pure, fun simple gameplay. Anybody know what I'm talking about or better yet knows where I could download it?

>>2407685
Forgot my pic.

>>2407689
was david bowie in it?

>>2407756
I'm pretty sure nobody was in it, it was literally just an empty maze you went through in 1st person view.

>>2407782
Is this it?

>>2407919
>WAS MACHEN WIR JETZT ?

WIR TANZEN!

*untz untz untz untz*

>>2407919
Found another version.
This one is in English, has more colour, and plays an SID rendition of Greensleeves at the title screen.

>>2407236
>>2407285

Yeah, a bunch have been posted in previous threads.

Also
>that phenomena's raytraced scene rip and tune in this Atari ST demo.

Anyway, some more useful links to be added to the OP list:
MSX 1/2/x68000/PC-98 homebrew games: http://541y.free.fr/
Retro Japanese retro computer game music radio: http://gyusyabu.ddo.jp/MP3/MP3.html

>>2406181

thinking of setting one of those up too, but the system I would use would also make a nice games box if I added in a voodoo card, not sure what to do yet

ultimately I'd rather wait for a nice microchannel system like a PS/2 Model 95 to show up at the recycler for the full "experience" though

>>2407938
It might be, my memory is very fuzzy and I've not played it this millennium bu
>and plays an SID rendition of Greensleeves at the title screen.
I think we may have a winner! What the hell is it and where can I get it?

>>2407932
Germanfag?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG6Qb231bU0

Gotta love FM synth on MSX. I think those tunes can also be played on PC with the right music drivers too.

>>2408161
http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=4234&d=18

>>2409013
Note that there's also a couple other extremely similar games listed there such as
http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=10745&d=18
http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=11238&d=18

>>2409014
Mmmm, that makes it tricky to figure out which specific one it is. There's various small details I remember or think I remember but I doubt I could come up with anything especially definitive, though 'Greensleeves' sounds incredibly plausible as my mother's a piano teacher so it's a song I know well and I think it did have that music.

First time playing emulated C64 games btw, what emulator should I go for?

>>2409027
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/ is pretty much the best there is but you should buy a C64, they aren't that much

>>2409783
>but you should buy a C64, they aren't that much
Not again, for various reasons I'd prefer not to talk about here. Plus pretty much all I'd be getting it for is that since Buggy Boy wouldn't be worth endlessly playing, ZZZzzz I'd just use a walkthrough to get past the road at last and beat it once and for all, chuckie egg would raise a deep, boiling, seething hatred from my gut again and my memory is too faulty to remember any others.

>>2408161
>I think we may have a winner! What the hell is it and where can I get it?
I forgot what ROM site I got it from, so I uploaded it to my Dropbox.
Here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/imkwfo1gh6tz4qr/Labyrinth%20%281983%29%28W.%20Owen%20Murcott%29%5Ba%5D.t64?dl=0

>>2409027
>First time playing emulated C64 games btw, what emulator should I go for?
I agree with >>2409783
VICE is the way to go.

>>2409904
Thank you, friend!

>>2409919
No problem.

Apparently, it was also available on one of the links in OP's copypasta.
http://c64tapes.org/title.php?id=2026

>>2409904
>>2410050
Well, been playing it a bit now that I just got home and it looks and feels very similar to my memory, the only things that feel "off" at all are:
1: I could be completely wrong but I remember it being monochromatic, as in it would be different shades of one colour and that's it, possibly changing to a different primary colour with each maze. I'm 80% sure it was shades of blue and maybe 40% sure it was shades of pink.
2: Holy shit, was it really controlled with F = forwards, L = left and R = right? It makes sense from a naming aspect if you completely ignore that L is on the right, R is on the left and F is below them. Is there a way to rebind keys or something? Because I'm way too used to WASD and the arrow keys to work with this, I can't concentrate on the maze with my movements feeling so ass backwards, kept turning right when I wanted to go left or forwards and left when I wanted to go right.

tl;dr: Is there key rebinding in VICE or some other solution?

>>2410367
>key rebinding
joy2key maybe

Do any schools use PLATO anymore? The rights were purchased by an education company if I recall correctly, so I wonder if they ever did anything with that. There were always other networks running the PLATO/CYBER software other than the main one at University of Illinois, I know there are at least 2 emulated CYBER networks, but are they aren't really used for educational stuff

>>2410748
Pearson uses PLATO courses under their NovaNET service but I hear they're shutting down the service this year. Don't really know much about NovaNET though, never used it.

A few demos for your enjoyment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSS08co8zvA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI-8YPfXAgA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJosZfm560Q
And after this Z80 goodness, here's some 68k stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oVdb_H3n9g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVD-nR8t9C4 (dat Razor 1911's voyage tune)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjwb7YDQCkA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHqRUq7fxf4

Why do eBay listings even go down? If you don't sell something on eBay what compels you to just take it down and never bother again?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/371049670077?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&autorefresh=true

>>2407636
yep

>>2412115
Shit, didn't actually go down I don't know why eBay had the counter. Can't delete posts this old too, sorry about that.

>>2412242

>>2412245
I think a TV Typewriter will be my next project, I've wanted to do one ever since I read the TTL Cookbook and it had a section on character generators, it's always seemed like an easy cool build.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjgWaBOUAKU

Best title song to grace the speccy period

>>2412263
How do you go to that...

https://youtu.be/MZYuGUCrkoU?t=3m25s

from this?

How do you find vintage equipment in the wild? Can you still find them at garage sales? The most exciting thing I've found at garage sales is 5th gen console shit. I went to a flea market and they had a toy computer which was a really nice 8086 SBC when you took the case off and then some nice electronic typewriters. Where should I look?

>>2412253
I work with a really neat guy who built his own NTSC signal generator, built a rudimentary computer able to TV type, and wrote up a BASIC like programming language to run things on it. Looked like a kick ass project.

>>2412287

Sometimes some random computer appear in thriftstores, sometimes some local association that recover used IT equipment have some really nice stuff available (that's how I got my VT-420). You can also try to find the IT recycling plant of your area.

>>2412287

I have a deal with a local thrift store where I can go straight to the pallet of shit they send to the recycler every week and pick anything I want for $5 regardless of what it is.

It's pretty sweet, well, for me, not my garage.

Who finished Captain Blood here ?

>>2412287

Over the years I've gotten an Atari 800XL, a VIC20 and 2 TI94as from my local thrift store. They all got destroyed a couple of years ago, and I feel awful about it. I didn't like any of those consoles, but vintage computers are a non-renewable resource.

>>2412245

>32*16 console

That's better than nothing, but still, it's not that good considering the fact that it was the time businesses were starting to get rid of ASR 33 teletypes (which could display 70 characters per line and as many lines as the paper you feed it allows it).
It's still a pretty cool project though.

>>2413063
nuked a lot of planets if thats finishing. no instructions.

hi crazies!

thunderstorms force me to unplug my XT and i am worried about it

>>2415010
You don't have a surge protector or you dont trust it?

>>2412316
The amazement of the TV typewriter is lost on most people today. Simply being able to print characters on a screen is amazing. People are too desensitized these days, if that's a good word. They have all these electronic things but not the slightest how any of them actually work, they take them for granted where as when TV Typewriters were first popular everyone was amazed such a thing could even exist and they wanted to know more, I miss times like that.

>>2415267
While most engineers and programmers can come up with some ideas how things works. Most don't know exactly how many things work. There's a lot of general foundational knowledge that helps, but most of the things produced are abstracted in a way that they work like black boxes/APIs. You don't need to know how it does what it does, just that it does what it does. The same was often true even of the older generation. You don't need to know how everything works, you just need to learn how to learn how things work.

>>2415321
That's part of the beauty of the device, it's so simple that you can understand how it works at a most basic level, but with computers you have to use abstraction to understand the general idea, with simple devices like the TV Typewriter you can understand every minutiae and still not lose site of the bigger picture

>>2415321
Buy an electronic device in the 70s and you get complete schematics in the manual.
Buy one in this decade, and if you're lucky you get a picture where your cables go.
Nothing wrong with keeping the inner workings away from the don't-care public. Plenty wrong with keeping it from the curious tinkerer

>>2415341
This applies even to electronic devices not aimed at the broad public, like computer components

>>2415341
>Buy an electronic device in the 70s and you get complete schematics in the manual.
Not most. Some.. but sure. Though the issue is the schematics would generally be block diagrams for things these days since many IC's are more dense than SSI. Even with SSI circuitry you're better off replacing whole ICs, so having the schematics for high density chips would be ridiculous. Also, having the schematics and being able to replace the parts doesn't mean you understand all the principles behind the concept. Even creating the thing doesn't mean you understand every single principle behind the things. Many people create DIY projects off schematics without understanding the electronic principles, mathematical underpinnings, physical abstractions. Shit they don't even really bother to go over transistor channel dopings, let alone the physics and chemistry behind it in college classes before you get thrown into intro digital design. They also don't give you full mathematics classes to give you a rigorous underpinning for discrete mathematics and boolean/fuzzy logic. You get a rudimentary introduction and off you go. The point being, knowing some things allows you utilize complex concepts without understanding how they work, it's a part of how all of our civilization works. You don't need to know and there's nothing wrong with that, because no human as the time or ability to master everything.

>Plenty wrong with keeping it from the curious tinkerer
Which is why there are dedicated sites to opening products, showing components, and listing off device parts you can look up including IC numbers if you wanted. Also, it's hard to blame modern developers when that's basically what the electronics industry did, the complexity outweighed the time and effort into troubleshooting many devices. It was easier and cheaper to replace things. Though I would agree it would be better if there was better support for integrated diagnostics built in to allow for more sustainability.

>>2415373
>Though the issue is the schematics would generally be block diagrams for things these days since many IC's are more dense than SSI
So you look up the IC spec sheets. Oh right, they're hardly available nowadays as well.

>Also, having the schematics and being able to replace the parts doesn't mean you understand all the principles behind the concept
Probably not, but it at least gives you the chance.

>You don't need to know and there's nothing wrong with that
Fully agreed. The problem is when you want to know, but are denied.

>Which is why there are dedicated sites to opening products, showing components, and listing off device parts you can look up including IC numbers if you wanted
While you raise a valid point I want to point out a fundamental difference: It used to be the manufacturer providing this info as value. It nowadays is "consumers" voiding their warranties and possibly breaking a few devices in order to reverse-engineer that info. The business-customer relationship has changed, from one where the customer was considered an interested and capable human being, to one where the customer is at best a walking wallet, and at worst a trade spy.

You are correct about components being complex and isolated enough to make replacement easier than troubleshooting. I don't necessarily consider this a bad thing. My problem really is with the manufacturers denying interested people the opportunity to learn and study.

Think of it as the hardware equivalent of FLOSS. It's in the interest of everybody to share and disclose the inner workings of electronics. Even if the vast majority may not have a use for it, a tiny minority of skilled and interested people has the opportunity to learn, improve, and create better stuff for that vast majority.

>>2415341
For example, for a single DSP IC you can have a bunch of technical docs like this. The one linked purple is 551 pages long which specifies timings, signals and so fourth.... etc. You can feel free to look up individual ICs. But then realize every item you open you'll need to look up interconnecting ICs and come up with just as much documentation for their interacting processes and so fourth.

This shit is a bit more complex than simple 'tinkering.' There are projects and things you can do if tinkering is your thing like picking up an RPI and reading over some docs and some small ICs etc... You can kind of test, some of this but troubleshooting data inputs with IC's and a simple logic tester is significantly more complex than it used to be and even back in the early 80's you could end up with an FPGA package that you need a significant amount of experience to troubleshoot let alone understand.

This should give you a perspective in why it doesn't matter if you 'understand everything.'
http://blog.codinghorror.com/there-aint-no-such-thing-as-the-fastest-code/

>>2415392
>why it doesn't matter if you 'understand everything.'
Maybe there's a subtle misunderstanding here. I don't advocate for every mortal to be required know the deep inner workings of a transistor to listen to their iPod. I'm just pointing out that the people with interest were provided with the info, by the industry, while nowadays the industry considers these people a problem, and that relationship turned into a hostile one.
Of course with the complexity of modern technology you got to find your niche and dive into that, and that's fine. I just would appreciate for electronics manufacturers to be less hostile and engage in more of a peer-to-peer relationship with customers, should they wish so. Who knows, it might even make a few skilled people more curious to learn how their devices work, on the level they're interested. When manufacturers are actively working on denying that info though, you're forced to stay ignorant, or do legally questionable things.

>>2415391
>So you look up the IC spec sheets. Oh right, they're hardly available nowadays as well.

Actually they mostly are because most devices get their generic IC's third party with generic and those manufacturers typically have IC sheets available because they want them used in more than one device. They don't stick URLs on the damn things though, if you know how to find it, you usually can.

Obviously, they can scrape numbers or have some customized chips that aren't available, but that's less common.

> The business-customer relationship has changed, from one where the customer was considered an interested and capable human being, to one where the customer is at best a walking wallet, and at worst a trade spy.

That was kind of always a thing, but I will agree it's 'more of a thing' now which is ironic because it's a fuck ton harder to reverse engineer a product and there's almost no reason too.

>>2415408
>and there's almost no reason too.
Barring of course, lock/DRM/encryption etc... That's really the sole reason to reverse engineer anything these days - to break lock in functionality on an existing product. Usually if you're good enough to reverse engineer it anyway, you can find documentation for most of what you're looking for.

>>2415413
funny enough, that lock-in functionality only exists because manufacturers treat their customers like potential criminals.
The customers in turn acknowledge the lack of respect given, and don't give a fuck when breaking the devices. It's quite a sick arms race.

>>2415405
> I don't advocate for every mortal to be required know the deep inner workings of a transistor to listen to their iPod. I'm just pointing out that the people with interest were provided with the info, by the industry, while nowadays the industry considers these people a problem, and that relationship turned into a hostile one.

>People are too desensitized these days, if that's a good word. They have all these electronic things but not the slightest how any of them actually work, they take them for granted where as when TV Typewriters were first popular everyone was amazed such a thing could even exist and they wanted to know more, I miss times like that.

These two statements seem rather in conflict. One states a very specific people might want information. The other states people otherwise known as 'every mortal' human.

>>2415416
It's really an issue with capitalism and the fact that data sets are effectively printed money now. Have a game or some code? Copy it a million times for a penny, sell each copy for 50+ dollars and so fourth... Protecting that data is protecting virtualized money loss in an anti-intellectual hostile economic system.

>>2415419
>These two statements seem rather in conflict
I would dare make the argument that they are related. When manufacturers actively work to subdue any curiousity and interest in the inner workings, it leads to a largely uninterested populace. Provide the info and you won't convert everybody, but you may not existinguish the occasional spark of curiosity, and in fact kindle it.

>Have a game or some code? Copy it a million times for a penny, sell each copy for 50+ dollars and so fourth
That right there is the broken business model. It's actively trying to fight the nature of digital information, that duplication is effectively free, and trivial to perform by even non-specialists.
In my opinion the solution would be to pay for something that is not trivial to do and actually takes a lot of human work: the creation of this information. Writing a game, or any code, is a complicated endeavor, that takes tons of experience, infrastructure and time. That's something that is worth a lot of money and should be paid for. Copying what's created though? Let me press ctrl-c and ctrl-v. Why should that cost $50? It should not, it can not. The locking mechanisms that exist (DRM) are all lackluster and disenfranchise the customer. I find that fairly unacceptable.

Kickstarter, Patreon, and development-as-a-service are business models that are touching the subject at least, trying to find alternative solutions. Even if these approaches may fail occasionally, I applaud that a heapload more than any new DRM effort, that's actively sabotaging the nature of digital information.

>>2415252
i do!

>>2415436

>When manufacturers actively work to subdue any curiousity and interest in the inner workings, it leads to a largely uninterested populace.

I don't really think they're actively working against it, it's just not worth their time to make it available. The populace has always been largely uninterested in the inner workings of their electronics, in fact from almost a decade of collecting and laughing/contemplating suicide while performing "forensic examinations" on new recycler rescues I would wager to say that the general populace is actually probably more knowledgeable about their hardware now than back then, even if only a little bit.

People just had different expectations of their hardware in the '70s, and the market was completely different, with computers especially, with the exception of some odd-ball "portables" like the IBM 5100 pretty much every home system of note back then was built for hobbyists well versed in electronics or people interested in learning to work with larger minis and mainframes, they were for learning, not for work (not to say they weren't perfectly capable of doing that as well). The hardware was also so expensive (yet still simple enough to work on) that you were kind of expecting it to last you much longer than the very cheap, easily replaceable systems of today.

Not to mention modern hardware is simply so complicated, it's not really going to be as useful to an interested hobbyist as they used to be when pretty much everything was implemented as a removable discrete chip. (pretty much what >>2415392 already said)

not the same anon, by the way

>>2415419
>Have a game or some code? Copy it a million times for a penny, sell each copy for 50+ dollars and so fourth...
It costs hundreds of thousands, millions or tens of millions of dollars to develop a game these days.

>>2415569
>It costs hundreds of thousands, millions or tens of millions of dollars to develop a game these days.
Developing games is cheaper than ever, because development tools have no upfront cost (including major engines like Unreal 4 or Unity), the hardware is almost in every household (trust me, a 5 year old PC is plenty to develop an entertaining game), and the libraries are highly comfortable (no mucking about with dirty assembly bits, it's all IDEs with scripting languages, graphical editors for assets, realtime previews and all that jazz).
This largely applies to PC gaming, but still.

What's expensive is developing what's called "triple A games". Games that put the vast majority of its funds in asset production and marketing. That kind of development is not sustainable, and lead to a lot of devolution, in terms of distribution (DLC, first day DLC, season passes, exclusive editions, preorder bonuses) and product quality (your average triple A title has cookie cutter 1980s gameplay and plays a bit like a mix of choose-your-own-adventure, sandbox and minigame collection).
So I would dare say, these expensive games are a dead end, and one I won't miss too much, once its unsustainability either kills it, or mutates it into something even more gross than it already is.

>>2415419
>It's really an issue with capitalism

Uh, not really, nothing is stopping any competition from making non-locked up products.

Also, let's not mix copy-protection and paying extra to unlock stuff that is already available but hidden -- the first one is a legitimate way to protect devs work while the second is just brainless jewing.

>>2416445
>the first one is a legitimate way to protect devs work
No, sorry, it really isn't. Their work is being creative, and producing artifacts, not more. After that, reproduction is unrestricted by nature of the medium. If they can't handle that, they're in the wrong business. The concept of IP is broken, simple as that.
Yes, that means a creator won't be able to "profit" from their product in the long run. Just like every other worker, they may only get money for the work they do, once.

>>2416472
If you want to pirate all your games then just fucking do it, but don't come here and defend it with some edgy teenager pseudo-philosophy shit.

>>2416505
you know what? I occasionally pay for my stuff, for the developers that treat me respectfully, and when I consider their offer fair. I don't do that because I have to, but because their current business model uses that as primary income and I want to support them. I consider DRM a very disrespectful treatment, and have no issues bypassing it, if I am interested. DRM is a pretty good mechanism to make me NOT give you a single cent.
It has nothing to do with pseudo-philosophy. Copying digital data is trivial and inherent. DRM and copy protection consists of mechanisms that intentionally break normal operation of computer components, introduce attack vectors, violate established data standards. I see no reason to support any company that damages their products out of misguided fear

Some MSX conventions in Netherlands :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ9WIFkvABM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydIbqJiKLL4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-mEvJ_gevw

Also, for those who can read runes, an archive of MSX Fan magazines from 1988 to 1992 :
https://www.mediafire.com/?b7d0kdv3k71m6#j6zj55mmoqjvj

>>2415419
Not like it will do any good at this point, but I'm not him, and I'm the one who said

>People are too desensitized these days, if that's a good word. They have all these electronic things but not the slightest how any of them actually work, they take them for granted where as when TV Typewriters were first popular everyone was amazed such a thing could even exist and they wanted to know more, I miss times like that.

and I didn't mean it the way he took, I just meant to comment on the prevalence of electronics in peoples day to lives, he sort of picked up where I didn't leave off

Copy protection is annoying but can we keep these threads just about the topic and not something only secondarily related?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsuWgLEQBxM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKtP-SPjqxk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRXLaiRmdS0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dphbGMn9So

It's ironic to see that the very same price war they're mocking in this ad is what killed the MSX and any other micro-computer architecture that wasn't made by Atari, Commodore, Apple or IBM.

It's ironic to see that the very same price war they're mocking in this ad is what killed the MSX and any other micro-computer architecture that wasn't made by Atari, Commodore, Apple or IBM in the US.

>>2415436
> When manufacturers actively work to subdue any curiousity and interest in the inner workings, it leads to a largely uninterested populace.
The populace was already largely uninterested, the same was true in the mid to early 90s and long before. If you have an education in a technical field and there's say an open house, 99% of the people who would stop in don't give a fuck if it doesn't entertain them with blinking, noises or interaction. That is the general populace. That is the consumer electronics demographic. Most early technologies start with the hobbyists as a primary demographic because early technologies are in effect designed by hobbyists and the advancements are fueled to hobbyists. It is harder to maintain electronics as a hobby since the demographic has shifted so has the influx toolsets, radioshack and so fourth don't care and are largely outmoded as retail stores. Shopping online is really where you'll find most of your parts now. Hobbyists are less about discrete and more about overall design, digital interfacing/software etc... Learning and sparks of interest come from the internet and hobbyist groups online.

>That right there is the broken business model. It's actively trying to fight the nature of digital information, that duplication is effectively free, and trivial to perform by even non-specialists.
Well, yeah that's why they want to make it non-trivial to do. Also, I'm not suggesting that's the economic model we pick up, that's simply what it is right now, whether you find it acceptable or not. You're solution isn't apt because it doesn't address the infrastructure that causes the benefit of doing so in the first place. Until that is addressed it doesn't matter. You need to deal with relatively unchecked capitalism with legal protection for copyright and IP which makes it beneficial to operate in that fashion. Your "solution" if it can be called that, addresses a symptom not the cause.

I need some help finding an old game on the PC. If ANYONE knows the name of this game please tell me I've been looking all over for it... This is what I know:

1. Its a point and click adventure game
2. The first level has you collecting parts to build a floating robot thing
3. The second level is a tanker with an oil spill
4. The game is photo realistic


That's all I can remember.... Please help me /vr/, I could never beat that game as a kid and I want to bury those old bones.

>>2419783
Seems like Ecoquest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvCJiHj9P94

>>2419792
Its not, I thought it would have been that as well when I heard the name, but nope

>>2419796
Are you absolutely sure?

Here is some kind of oil spill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiVSVQ_CL2s#t=3m40s

Seems unlikely that there'd be more than one adventure game with such very specific features.

>>2419802
That's not it. My game was a first person point and click... I specifically remember one of the puzzles on the ship was you having to repair a fan blade in the control room...

I promise you this is not my game.

>>2419804
When did you approximately play it, and was it DOS or Windows?

I don't know too much about old adventure games but it can be possible to figure out via Google if there's enough information. Or maybe someone here can make a more educated guess.

>>2419823
Well me being 22 now, I must have been 5-8 years old when I played it... Can't remember if it was DOS or not... But I'm 68% certain it was PC

>>2419838
If it came out the same year you played it, it would have been 1998-2001. So it's highly likely it was likely a windows 95/98 game rather than windows 3.1 but if you had an older machine lying around it could still be the case. Worth checking around for both.

I can't make anything out with google so check these and see if any titles and screenshots ring any bells. They won't for me because uh... well... you know - I'm not you.
http://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/win3x/adventure/1st-person-perspective/offset,0/so,1a/list-games/
http://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/windows/adventure/1st-person-perspective/offset,0/so,1a/list-games/
It might be possible to filter them down a bit but unless you know that it's specifically horror genre or scifi or something it's unlikely you can. If you knew when the game came out, it'd help as well. Knowing when you played it gives at least a maximum range - it absolutely positively came out before 2001. Given that myst was the hotshot photorealistic first person adventure game, it's likely after 1993. Best to start early and work your way up. The site has some screenshots in the individual games - you know open them with tabs and shit so you can check fast - if you don't know already middle clicking a link opens it in a tab and middle clicking a tab closes it. 14 pages on the second link is as far as you'd need to go. Past 2001 is as mentioned a waste of your time.

If you find the name of the game it'd be cool if you at least drop the name back on the rare off chance someone else recognizes it or it might be interesting to see at least. Maybe someone will talk about it, closure and shit, whatever... call it posterity.

>>2420272
Pre-Windows 95 games were more likely to run in DOS.

>>2420272
OH MY FUCK.

Its Team Extreme operation weather disaster.

Anon you are a kind and gentle soul and I would have your babies. Thank you guys so much for helping me...

Time to finally play and beat this game.

>>2420843
Actually it was the sequal to that, operation eco-nightmare.

Again I cannot thank you guys enough.

>>2419838
Mmm, might be a little after the scope of this thread, you might find more information and discussion in the 9x/2000 thread if that's still around

do you guys think we should have a wiki like the emulator and mods people do?

>>2420640
god I love this one, is there in significance to the hex code in it?

>>2420982
I thought there already was one...

>>2421010
Doubt it, it's not sjis code for kana or kanji, probably just random. But it is cute.

>>2420320
The good games, yeah. Even after, still kind of yeah. But does a first person adventure game sound like a good game to you? Their track records say differently. And where do you attempt to look for lesser games? Where they were touting the banner for 'multimedia' progression more than ever, windows. I wasn't so must suggesting that more games weren't running on DOS pre windows 95 - but the likelihood of 'that specific type of game' with those kind of attributes would veer towards what windows was doing.
Also, if his time frame was 1998 through 2001 that is more likelier windows territory with 98 very much being a likely candidate, as games started to really pick up for windows in 97-98 where it finally overtook the amount of DOS games being made. DOS really did hang in there.

>>2420843

Good luck with beating it.

>>2421010
>>2421062

It means "Put 1F in the accumulator and put the content of the accumulator in memory at the address 00CF" in z80 machine code.

>>2421010
>>2420640

Here's the other one disk label sheet
One of these have been used in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gZ0vvJUj2M
The Parallel to MIDI cable he's using was made according to some schematics published in the 10/1994 print of MSX Fan Magazine.
Here's an archive of prints of this magazine from 1988 to 1992:
https://www.mediafire.com/?b7d0kdv3k71m6#b7d0kdv3k71m6

>>2421010
>>2420640 (You)

Here's the other one disk label sheet
One of these have been used in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gZ0vvJUj2M [Embed]
The Parallel to MIDI cable he's using was made according to some schematics published in the 10/1994 print of MSX Fan Magazine (well, that's according to some sources).
Here's an archive of prints of this magazine from 1988 to 1992:
https://www.mediafire.com/?b7d0kdv3k71m6#b7d0kdv3k71m6

>>2422313
I didn't post >>2420640 wtf. Stupid 4chan being silly.

>>2422347

I did post it, why would you try to impersonate another poster in an anonymous chinese cartoon picture forum?

>>2422313
Has anyone scanned all the missing issues of MSX Fan yet. I'm looking for the September 1990 issue.

>>2423041
This ad hits me right in the I-don't-even-know-what. "Weebstalgia" or something like that.

>>2423153

>>2423291

Fun to see that Fujitsu made their own computer architecture as well as making models of a competing architecture.

>>2424530
They still do that with SPARC/x86.

>>2424582

Fujitsu has it's own SPARC-based architecture? Didn't knew it, I'll look it up.

Anyway, this practice wasn't really uncommon when we look at it -- Commodore, Atari and Amstrad all had their own computers architecture but did make PC clones.

>>2407264
How do you guys prefer sound on IBM Elite Plus? PC x86 speaker sound? Adlib, or with Soundblaster card? I go for Soundblaster.

>>2424582
HEY! Where did everybody go?

>>2425053
Hmmm... Where are you guys?

I just bought a Timex Sinclair 1000, without thinking the purchase through. It comes only with the 16K RAM expansion, so there's no power adapter.

Would it be safe to use a modern 9V DC adapter? Also, how would I connect this to the coaxial input of my TV?

>>2424875

I play to this game using my Roland MT-32.

>>2425826

For the DC adapter, any 9v ones that fit and has the right polarization can be used, there's no reason for them not to.
As for the coax input, try to chec for an male RCA to female RF adapter, or just get a male RCA cinch, remove one of the jacks of an RF coax cable and solder the RCA cinch instead.

>>2414013

Naah, you need to find your clones and absorb them to finish the game. Anyway, I should give it a try.

>>2426378
What I meant in that previous post is which sound type do you prefer for Elite on the IBM PC? The 8-bit x86 speaker, the adlib chipset, or soundblaster sound card?

>>2428694

Well, if you meant only these devices, then I'd say Soundblaster.

>>2415267

True, however people are still amazed when their $1 AM radio works in places where they get no cell service.


>>2415345

>implying

Even sites like sparkfun and adafruit will give you the pinout for what they sell, they even have tutorials for using some of them. Enterprise/commercial-based sites like Jamesco offer spec sheets for anything that requires power.

Even then, the only stuff that came with schematics in the 70s were things that were sold to hobbyists. Things like computers are common today, in 1970 they weren't. Do you think Tandy sold a schematic for every transistor radio they sold? Of course they didn't. Once the solid-state transistor chip was (more or less) standardized by the 70s you didn't need to make it replaceable like you needed to do with vaccum-tube based appliances. And that was the thing: back then, electronics were seen as appliances, not the glorified toys they are now. Even in 2015 you can get a guy to repair your washing machine or refrigerator especially if you buy it new and it's still under warranty.

The thing is, the devices that hobbyists collect now were consumershit 30 years ago. Already I know people who complain about how their old walkmans and CD players aren't fixable. Why? Because they were designed to be replaced, especially when a company like Sony or RCA wanted to sell people on a new product every 2-3 years (Apple does this too nowadays as well).

>>2428725

The more I look at the various TRS-80 models, the more I find them sexy as hell.

>>2407285
this the love for this stuff just plain nostalgia to you euros or something? Personally I think specy games and music are offensive to the eyes and ears.

>>2422313
could you reup that stuff to mega? mediafire is slow as hell these days.

hey guys, have the content of a weird clipart cd from 1995 that I found, it's not that one that used to get posted once in a while a long time ago.
https://mega.co.nz/#!jVREHQjL!sD4f_bu75l2DDqHhk4jx2TNwPGfcsvUDzTDR_RtRUyo

>>2430682

>>2430696

>>2430682

You have to be a super elitist nerd to be into this shit

>>2430719
you have to be a super elitist nerd to make a comment like that

>>2430682
thanks man, i love this kind of stuff

i'm always intrigued when I see this stuff at flea markets and thrift shops, but at the same time I can't ever really justify spending a buck or two on old clip art so thanks for this

>>2430719
Not elitist, but I agree with nerd. Prior to Windows PCs were mostly command line interfaces; you needed to have some technical knowledge or have time and be willing to learn. Computers used to be a hobbyist activity for "nerds" and most people shunned them. Those were fun times for me as a youth, meetups and LAN parties and such.

>>2430773
eh... it's just a buck or two though... it's not like you would be making a huge purchase or anything...

>>2430784
it's not the price, it's more that i don't want a house full of flea market crap

>>2430793
so it's crap simply because it came from a flee market? people with this stuck up mindset actually exist on this board? are you one of those fucks that will pay hundreds of dollars for a game simply because buying it from other sources would be below you or something?

>>2430802
Not him, but I take it more as a "I don't want my house filled with stuff that I bought just because it was kinda neat and super cheap." But I could be wrong.

Not gaming related, but here's a hacking tutorial from the 80s. It also features a very unusual 3.5" disk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEkrWRHCDQU

>>2430675

Sorry, but I'm not the one who created the mediafire and uploaded all of these, I only posted the link here, so reuploading everything to Mega with my not so good connection will take more time than you simply downloading them.

Anyway, Mediafire isn't that slow either if you only download one or 2 issues here and there.

how can I make a bootable hardfile of game installs for amiga emulators to use?

>>2431576

I was about to tell you to check ADF opus, but you can't create a bootable hardfile with it, only plain ones.

>>2407264
Of the first 2 versions of Maniac mansion, shich do you prefer? Apple // family, or C64?

>>2410367
I remember Wizardry used flr for walking and turning, but also wad for easier movement.

What made games gravitate to wad anyway? Why not esf?

>>2431710
I'm not sure, but I would imagine that people on average who say they're "too used to WASD" are fairly young compared to people who used to superior layouts like HJKL and arrow keys

Hey fellas can you help me ID this old black and white mac adventure game

1) 1st person point and click adventure set in a medieval/fantasy castle, like shadowgate

2) it's not shadowgate

3) you got points for picking up items, which I thought was pretty strange

will floppy drive emulators work on any machine that used 3.5in floppies? can they be adapted to work with machines that used 3in, 5.25in, or 8in floppies?

Anyone have any luck running an ISA backplane off a consumer ATX motherboard? I could never find card edge connectors to link it up to the mobo's ISA slot, so I had to improvise by cutting two pieces of veroboard of the same pitch and soldering together with ribbon cable. Takes a while with 98 pins on each end.

>>2432730

Radical Castle?

>>2432764

The generic cheap ones meant for synthesizers and embroidery machines are 3.5" only but should work on any machine capable of using that format over the 34pin connector.

There are more specialized ones for other systems. I know there's one for early Apple Macs that can emulate both 3.5" floppy and hard drives on those systems.

>>2412253
>Radio Electronics
>For Men
ahh the 70's

>>2432985

Check these links:
http://pinouts.ru/Power/MotherboardPower_pinout.shtml
http://pinouts.ru/Power/atxpower_pinout.shtml
Or just try to get some AT power supply off ebay, I don't think they're that hard to find. Maybe making your own one might be a nice DIY project.

>>2433250
What I wouldn't do to go back

>>2433981

Oh, power isn't an issue. I'm just curious if anyone else has extended their ISA bus this way and whether they found any ready-made edge connectors to hook the backplane up to the mainboard ISA.

>>2434718

Ah, that's what I get for not reading properly your post.
Anyway, never actually tried to do so, but I might as well do it one day to my 486 PC if I feel the need.

>>2436007
Is that Star Blade by Silmarils? That was pretty good.

>>2436031

Nope, it's the Amstrad version of Captain Blood.

>>2436007
Amstrad should have had a port of elite.

>>2437703

Yup, it does have a port of Elite :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpgDqqbGd_g

Some nice tunes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xuy3tjx4M8k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RboFN2ggpD4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChbecJ_UB0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FvLLJcSJoU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2ncf1eilRQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fgq8rQpl7o

>Want to play Brandish 4 again
>colors are fucked
>remember I had to use some software to force window mode
>but can it work well again
What am I missing again?

>>2432985
>Anyone have any luck running an ISA backplane off a consumer ATX motherboard?

Yes.

>>2440478
>Radiation King
Also, man, I loved the look of those PIIs.

What was the most popular 8-bit computer in your country? In France it was pic related (along with the 6128 model), even though the competition was rough with other brits micros (the Oric mainly), French ones (Thomson MO5 and Matra Alice), US machines (Commodore 64 mainly) and a few Nip and Dutch machines (a few Sharp MZ models, as well as Sony, Sanyo and Philips MSX).

>>2440921

I loved my CPC464. I'm in the UK though... definitely wasn't popular here. I think it was most popular in France, as you said, and Spain.

>>2440478

Those look like manufactured edge connectors. Where did you get those?

Sorry for the really grey-area question, but /g/ is pretty useless for this kind of thing and I guess this hardware probably falls into the unpopular/uncommon area, it's not too far over the 1995 limit anyway.

I just finished rebuilding this thing, it's currently running two Pentium Pros and a trio of 7.2K RPM Seagate SCSI drives along with the usual complement of graphics/ethernet PCI cards and I'm kind of worried about the 220W supply on this thing. Everything's date-matched (and HP OEM on top of it) and the system included provisions for up to three hard disks in the stock configuration but is the PSU really enough for that much hardware? I've never really worried about this kind of thing before and the hardware is kind of difficult to find the numbers on besides the CPUs.

>>2441957
which pentium pro's? they could be 30-50 watts each and the disks are around 25 each. Doesn't leave you much headroom for peripherals and pci stuff.

>>2441967

200 MHz + 256K cache, I think they run at around 36W for each CPU when I checked

currently have a modem, etherlink, USB controller (that probably won't work with NT anyway) and a Matrox Millennium in it on top of the drives and CPUs

looking up the technical reference again to see if it will at least give me info on the stock drives that are already in it, I might have to move the data drive to an enclosure I guess.

when did old computer shit get so expensive? used to be you could get a whole apple II including monitor on ebay for 50 bucks. now people try to sell you a shit-ass 486 motherboard for 200 bucks because it's "vintage".

>>2441976
I would just put it all together and try. I can't imagine it's easy to find a higher wattage power supply that would fit in there.

>>2441982

feels like it's always been like that, it's not even just old tech, people think their shit's worth millions just because it's old

fuck the history channel and eBay for ruining collecting forever

>>2441986

I've got it running right now, it seems to be going fine. I'm assuming I would notice if components weren't getting enough power? I've never pushed something like this so I really don't know what to expect.

I checked out the technical reference again, one copy I looked at last night says the power supply can deliver 160W (meaning I'm fucked since the PCI cards put me over that) but the copy I'm looking at right now gives me 200W which is somewhat comfy for this hardware, beats me.

>>2441982
>people try to sell you a shit-ass 486 motherboard for 200 bucks because it's "vintage"

And with eBay's free re-list policy, they'll continue to try selling it for $200 indefinitely.

>>2441957

A 220W PSU is fine for everything up to PIII computers. Anyway, you better run some Netware or OS/2 stuff on that piece of hardware.

>>2441982
>>2441992

Hopefully 486 PCs or older aren't that expensive here, they usually go between 10 and 20 bucks (I already found an IBM PS/1 for that price), with the exception of Commodore PCs and the kind because they have the Commodore tax.

>>2441986

25W is a gross overestimation of each drive's power consumption. They'll run at most 12W, likely less. Idle will be lower still. Maybe if they were 15K drives they might hit 20W.
Hard drives do have a power spike when they initially spin up, but the rest of your system will be completely idle while this happens, leaving most of the PSU output available.

Your processors have a TDP of 35W each, and the Matrox draws something like 10W.

So that's around 120W max, at full load for those components.

The unknowns are your motherboard/memory and any peripherals.

>I'm assuming I would notice if components weren't getting enough power?

If you were to overtax the PSU during operation the computer would experience a brownout and reset.

If you have separation on your power rails between vitals (cpu/ram/mobo) and peripherals, and only a peripheral rail gets overtaxed, then the peripherals on it just go away. In virtually all cases this will cause an OS crash or system reset.

>>2441991

25W is a gross overestimation of each drive's power consumption. They'll run at most 12W, likely less. Idle will be lower still. Maybe if they were 15K drives they might hit 20W.
Hard drives do have a power spike when they initially spin up, but the rest of your system will be completely idle while this happens, leaving most of the PSU output available.

Your processors have a TDP of 35W each, and the Matrox draws something like 10W.

So that's around 120W max, at full load for those components.

The unknowns are your motherboard/memory and any peripherals.

>I'm assuming I would notice if components weren't getting enough power?

If you were to overtax the PSU during operation the computer would experience a brownout and reset.

If you have separation on your power rails between vitals (cpu/ram/mobo) and peripherals, and only a peripheral rail gets overtaxed, then the peripherals on it just go away. In virtually all cases this will cause an OS crash or system reset.

>>2441338
I had them custom made at OSHPark. Here's my thread about it: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=41599

>>2442153

I'm running NT4 on it at the moment, might roll it back to the stock 3.51 though if I can find something running dual PII-400s or maybe PII Xeons (hahahaha... good luck, me)

>>2442221

excellent, 25W per drive did seem a little over the top

I'm not really sure what vital information I could give about the motherboard other than the integrated peripherals (SCSI and an SB16) but I have the RAM fully populated with 128 MB of 16MB EDO sticks.

>If you were to overtax the PSU during operation the computer would experience a brownout and reset.

I've had this running for about two days now for about 5-6 hours at a time doing things like web surfing, unzipping archives, running emulators and large file transfers and haven't noticed anything like that, so that's good. The PSU also apparently has overload protection if the components try to draw too much current, so I guess that would have kicked in by now.

>>2442387

that's pretty sweet, I wanna get one of those for my test bench now.

anyway, thanks for the help /vr/! I feel a little less afraid of one of my best systems blowing up in my face.

>>2442387

Is there any limit to ISA backplane daisy-chains?

>>2440923

Is it true that they were considered as yet another Speccy knockoff in the UK?

>>2444614
they are, not just conidered

>>2445054

Nope, they aren't, they're way more capable machines with more interfacing possibilities, better video hardware and compatibility with CP/M softwares (versions with integrated floppy drives were shipped with CP/M 2 or +).

between win95, 98, and 2000, which is the best for old vidya?

>>2446049

MS-DOS, also, read the OP.

>>2446581
i intend to play 80s and 90s games on it though

why early 90s though? we can discuss anything here up to late 90s

>>2446585
>why early 90s though? we can discuss anything here up to late 90s

Because late 90s stuff is already discussed everywhere on the board, and when you make a computer thread including that period, most of the time, late 90s computer stuff flood the thread and the anons who post this usually shitpost when people start talking about anything else than PC clones. At least, that was what happened before.

As for 80s & 90s vidya, 95 offer no advantage over 98 and real mode games don't work in 2000, so the best choice is 98 (though the real best choice is still MS-DOS 6.22)

>>2446601
oh, makes sense
thanks

>>2442387

Damn, wish I'd known about that project before I went to the trouble of hand-wiring my ghetto connectors. So much neater with a clean PCB and pin connector strips. And who cares about shrouds or keying? Half our shit didn't have those until socket4 anyway.

>>2443226

Depends on what you're hooking up. The power and bandwidth are shared and you need to juggle IRQs, so those will dictate your limitations.

>>2442893
>I'm not really sure what vital information I could give about the motherboard other than the integrated peripherals (SCSI and an SB16) but I have the RAM fully populated with 128 MB of 16MB EDO sticks.

EDO SIMMS with stacked chips can pull 5W each, less for non-stacked modules as they're more efficient. The mainboard itself is probably in the vicinity of 30W.

All of this is at max load, mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQHdh0ysNOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZbb8DJ7vT4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfIqi4YgkYE

>>2441982
You can find people who legitimately know what they have and don't overprice it, people selling vintage SBC's and 8-bit computers usually charge fairly unless it's Apple or Commodore.

You have shitty "collectors" to blame for Apple and Commode prices though, because they will never use the things and just want them for status.

>>2407264
what should the specs be if I pick up an msdos machine for gaming?

>>2447908
Let me restate this, where should I start with vintage computing.

>>2447908
>>2448067

Check as much informations on old computers as possible, not only old PCs & clones (though it's a good start), check their specifications, check their advantages and drawbacks, check their game libraries, stuff like that.
When you have enough informations on a few machines and feel ready to get one, choose the computer you think you'd enjoy the most playing and tweaking on (because the computers themselves can be a game too) and find one at a reasonable price, because fuck resellers selling 16kB Casio MSX 1 computers for 200 bucks when they bought it for 10 bucks in nipland.

>>2447803

>You have shitty "collectors" to blame for Apple and Commode prices though, because they will never use the things and just want them for status.
There are also those "musicians" who buy C=64s just to trash them and use the SID.

>>2447803
>Commode
Don't know if you meant that or not, but I called mine a Commode 64 a lot back in the day.

>>2407264
name me off some obscure rpgs and dungeon crawlers for msdos

>>2449292
Why obscure? Stick with the classics, Ultima and the SSI Gold Box games like Pools of Radiance.

>>2448627
I knew someone who was going to do this, luckily I was able to help him set up a synthesizer that used a SID I already had instead of him ruining a perfectly good computer

>>2448642
I didn't do it on purpose that time, but I remember a lot of people using that joke now that I think of it

hey /vr/

huge memory model data storage and retrieval in C for 8088 real mode?

I can use some assistances!

>>2449292
The Magic Candle

>>2448627
going to roll with msdos, going to expand on some build.

>>2449292
Checkout crpgaddict

Comprehensive overview of old DOS rpgs and dungeon crawlers from that era, guy writes up a review, gives each one a score based on a well-thought out rubric.

best fucking joystick for flying games?

>>2449980

Just include ASM code in your C source code, it'll be way easier that way.

>>2450435
>the Magic candle
Which also came out for the apple ][ family, and I think the C64.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPsfwq25FiA

>>2440078
for the colors, maybe the process explorer.exe is the problem.

>>2446769
Ever installed an isa card the wrong way around though...? Can't recommend, smells bad.

>>2443226
If you make it long enough I imagine the whole thing would turn into an antenna and start picking up interference. I think impedance matching should help with that but I don't know if backplanes are designed with any specific impedance in mind.

>>2449980
openwatcom

>>2453512
>If you make it long enough I imagine the whole thing would turn into an antenna and start picking up interference. I think impedance matching should help with that but I don't know if backplanes are designed with any specific impedance in mind.

Wouldn't an active termination prevent it? Wasn't it already a problem with S-100 buses?

Okay I've got a pretty stupid question here. Is it possible to play old dos games on windows 98?
If it can what are some good dos games?

>>2432730
Castle Master?

>>2453512
Ever installed an isa card the wrong way around though...? Can't recommend, smells bad.

Can't say I have. Even on a case-less backplane the card bracket is going to make it obvious. Not to mention you quickly learn the card facing by the parts side.

Inverting an IDE connector, on the other hand...

It's a mistake you only make once.

>>2453512
>I think impedance matching should help with that but I don't know if backplanes are designed with any specific impedance in mind.

Backplanes and bus extenders have termination built-in for this very reason.

>>2454416

You can still boot directly to DOS under Win98.

That said, some DOS games work fine within Win98 itself. For the rest Win98 will set up a DOS application shortcut for you, which temporarily shuts down Windows to launch the game and then starts Windows back up again automatically once you exit.

>>2441957
>/g/ is kind of useless

/g/ is the worst board on the website hands down, there's no reason to ever go there anyway

>>2450661
Thrustmaster stuff was good back just like it is today

>>2455001
It's surreal to go there now after having fled to better communities in 2011, nothing is the same I'm certain every single one of use from the early days already left, it's a completely different place now

>>2455013

These flight control accessories look damn nice. Are they PC & compatible only or they could work on, let's say, an Amiga with more than a 68020 CPU and a bunch of fastRAM?

>>2455013
Why did most of the good guys on /g/ leave to other sites?

>>2450661

Got a CH F-16 Combatstick here, gameport interface. Still use it on modern OSes via USB adapter.

24 years of abuse and still kicking. It's my go-to for Elite and mech games.

>>2456620

/g/ - Consumer Electronics

I stopped going there because nobody was even talking about technology unless it was to get into an argument about superficial aspects of some consumer product like a cell phone.

>>2456304
I just got that pic from a craiglist ad, in general they're pretty good and easy to find

I only have the throttle and stick from that group (same company, maybe not that exact one), I haven't dug them out in a while, but the drivers are for DOS, pretty sure the joystick is DB9 and the throttle is 5-pin DIN there were probably other models, I'm not huge into flight sims, I only use them for the few DOS space sims that support them

>>2456620
too many idiots came in, so it was bad from like 2009-2012 and then by that time it had become so bad mostly everyone left

>>2457151
/vr/ gets pretty dicey outside of the generals, no where near /v/ or /g/ though but it's really obvious when an escapee from /v/ makes it here unprepared. The general quality of posts has gone down as well

>>2457151

I see. Thanks, i'll check on Aminet if there are Amiga drivers available (some peripherals weren't shipped with them but had them available on the manufacturer's BBS/Compuserve/FTP).

>>2457151
/g/ was always full of fucking morons since it's inception. Discussing even rudimentary shit about computers was absurd. They were in general even less knowledgeable about them than /v/ was, and /v/ was fairly lacking as is.

>>2407264
Trying to find the name of an old macintosh (I think) game, probably from the late 80's.

Simple game, black and white only, featured a single screen. White background, with several vertically stacked levels of terrain, similar to the classic donkey kong screen, but minus ladders.

Onto this level would spawn many small stick figure NPC's, which would wander across the terrain.

These NPC's would serve essentially as targets for the player to destroy with a number of exotic weapons like black holes they would place on the screen, thunderclouds that would zap the stoick figures, bombs that would blow them up, and the like.

Very simple game, but can't for the life of me scrounge up any evidence of it's existence beyond the childhood memories of my brother and I.

>>2457985
That sounds kind of like Lemmings but I'm probably wrong.

>>2446585
>i intend to play 80s and 90s games on it though

Most 80s stuff on the PC is inferior to the Atari 8-bit/Commodore 64/Amiga.

>>2446601

>and the anons who post this usually shitpost when people start talking about anything else than PC clones

wait, what?

never saw any of that even on the old autismfest /g/ retro threads that allowed late '90s stuff

how tolerant are these threads anyway of OT posts if they're at least not one-liner shitposts/banal questions? I have a lot of on-topic material but I'm mostly working on some systems from 1996/7 right now and /g/ - smartphones is a total piece of shit as people have said already, maybe I should just start a late '90s thread?

>>2432985
>The generic cheap ones meant for synthesizers and embroidery machines are 3.5" only but should work on any machine capable of using that format over the 34pin connector

34 pin is the Shugart standard which nearly all 8086 and Z80 machines use.

>>2418725
Atari was killed by the price war too.

At least 80-90% of pre-1991 PC games are not worth playing.

>>2458819

FDC, 34-pin or Shugart (manufacturer, de-facto standard), yes.

But that doesn't necessarily mean everything with that bus is capable of talking to a 3.5" floppy drive (or something emulating one).

>>2458937

That ratio applies to pretty much any era or platform.

>>2458947
>But that doesn't necessarily mean everything with that bus is capable of talking to a 3.5" floppy drive

Any standard soft-sector controller will work with 3.5" drives. Some early computers had hard sector controllers which do not work with 3.5" however you're unlikely to ever encounter such a machine.

>>2458961
>however you're unlikely to ever encounter such a machine.

Have you forgotten where you are?

>>2458968
Hard sector floppies were always rare to begin with and no machines that are part of the retro game community had them. It was mainly just business machines.

>>2458968
Hard sector floppies were always rare to begin with and no machines that are part of the retro game community (Apple, Commodore, PC, etc) had them. It was mainly just business computers and mainframes/minis.

>>2458812
>never saw any of that even on the old autismfest /g/ retro threads that allowed late '90s stuff

Yeah, that was some pretty rough shitposting when it came to computer threads. There was even shitposting from people who though this board was only for consoles only and wanted us to "fuck off back to /g/".

>how tolerant are these threads anyway of OT posts if they're at least not one-liner shitposts/banal questions?

Well, it's kind of tolerated unless there are too much posts about it and/or encourages other OT discussions.

>>2458824

It did lost a whole lot of market share, yeah, but it still survived unlike TI, Timex and the kind (Atari computers still sold, though they weren't popular) they still had the musician's niche market, and didn't really die until the early 90s.

>>2458979
I know someone who needed Hard sectored floppies for his Osborne portable computer.
Also, though these are meant to be business computers, let's not forget that even the PDP-1 had games on them.

>>2459432
>I know someone who needed Hard sectored floppies for his Osborne portable computer

Osbornes didn't used hard sectored disks. The one machine I can specifically think of that needs them is the North Star Horizon, but the controller can be replaced with a soft sector one.

>let's not forget that even the PDP-1 had games on them
I'm sure the three people who play them would be interested.

>>2459459
>Osbornes didn't used hard sectored disks. The one machine I can specifically think of that needs them is the North Star Horizon, but the controller can be replaced with a soft sector one.

Well, I dunno, he was claiming to be in need of hard-sectored floppies.

>>2459465
Well no, the Osborne was soft-sectored single density which stored a meager 90k per disk (later double density upgrades were offered).

North Stars used hard sectored disks and I think some Heathkit 6800 machine. Can't think of any others.

>>2459472

Well then maybe he had one of those, I said Osborne mainly because we were talking about this kind of computer before he started asking for these floppies. Anyway, thanks for correcting me.

>>2459459
>The one machine I can specifically think of that needs them is the North Star Horizon, but the controller can be replaced with a soft sector one
Which is a necessity anyway since hard sector disks were hard to find back then (usually had to be ordered from a catalog as stores didn't typically stock them) and completely unobtainium now. North Star were idiots anyway for continuing to cling to this format when it made porting software to their computers difficult.

Any S-100 soft sector controller can be swapped in and allows the use of standard 3.5" floppies and media (or a flash card reader). You'd have to rewrite the OS software for the different controller, but this was kind of a normal thing to do on S-100 machines.

Found it. Heathkit H89. These definitely did used hard sector disks.

>>2458768
I really wish the answer was that obvious. It's kinda lemmings-like, but without any real objective beyond blowing the shit out of the little stick people. At least as far as my then-six-year old self could tell.

I just remember bringing the poor old machine to a crawl by putting a half-dozen black holes on the screen, since it actually attempted to run realtime physics calculation on all of the objects on screen. I remember being quite impressed with that.

>>2459459
>>2458979
>declaring machines that were or were not part of the "retro game community"
>attacking the relevance of a machine

>>2460521
Really, what games can you play on >>2459495 except text adventures?

>>2460989
roguelikes, mazewar, that ship game, chess, other text games

For most people I know it's more about the hardware than the games anyway, I understand this might not always be the case but that's a nice machine, and there's no real reason to ignore it.

>>2461008
>I understand this might not always be the case but that's a nice machine, and there's no real reason to ignore it.

Sure, but you can't really use machines like a North Star Horizon anymore unless you replace the original floppy controller with a soft sector one so you can either use common 3.5" media or a floppy emulator.

But hey, if you restore antique cars, you gotta keep in mind that today's tires, roads, and gasoline aren't the same as they were in 1941 either.

>>2461034
I'm pretty sure all collectors have replaced the original controllers by now.

>>2460989

and what's wrong with text-based games?

>>2461046

wouldn't say all of them, I know I wouldn't if I could help it (even then I would still keep the original for a rainy day) since half the experience for me is using the hardware exactly as the manufacturer and time period intended it

>>2461115
In this case, since there's no place where you can still obtain hard sectored floppies (and they were not common to begin with), it's a necessary compromise to make the machine usable.

>>2461187

Yeah, I'm assuming you would be able to use 5.25'' disks as well?

Using things like drive emulators and 3.5'' disks on systems way before that period just rustles my autism.

I think I actually have some NorthStar hard sectored disks laying around somewhere though, I wonder if they still read.

>>2461192
>Yeah, I'm assuming you would be able to use 5.25'' disks as well?

If the controller is soft sectored, then sure, why not.

>Using things like drive emulators and 3.5'' disks on systems way before that period just rustles my autism

Actually if you want to nitpick, 3.5" floppies were introduced in 1979, so it wasn't 10+ years after the 8-bit era.

>>2461115
>use the hardware as they did when they made it

I used to pursue this, but I gave up, maybe your a better man, but the cost of collecting physical media prevented me from buying other computers that I wanted for my collection.

Right now I either use floppy emulators or just use a laptop to play the raw sound data from .tap files, which has worked with very little trouble across a variety of systems.

I hope to at some point get a giant audio switch and program it so I run a command on my primary terminal and then it automatically turns on the target computer and loads the data via sound, or USB to floppy emulator.

I settled that my goal was to use period hardware, with modifications, in a sort of giant mesh, which in my mind is the best of both worlds. It requires a lot of tinkering, enables me to use original hardware, repair original hardware, et cetera, which is the only reason I like this in general, the games are definitely a side-effect, and I feel like a lot of people who into just retrocomputing think the same. At least the people who are in my computer club.

>>2461209
Like I said earlier, nobody would put actual 1950s tires on their 55 Chevy. They'd put on modern ones (that are designed to simulate the appearance of vintage tires) which are much safer and more durable.

Or Flash carts. Without them, you'd never be able to play Dragon Quest IV or Chase the Chuck Wagon on a real console.

t. it's not blaspheme to use modern gadgets like Flash cards on your old shit, it's adapting your old shit to the modern world

>>2461209
This tbh, you can buy a good SBC for the price of like 2 boxed games or 5 loose ones, not to mention the ones on floppy are ticking time bombs anyway

>>2461202

>Actually if you want to nitpick, 3.5" floppies were introduced in 1979, so it wasn't 10+ years after the 8-bit era.

According to Wikipedia they didn't start really seeing the light of day until 1983, but that's still not so bad.

But when you think about it, the nature of S-100 systems means upgrades like that aren't really as bad as far as "the experience" goes anyway, it was pretty much the rule.

>>2461209

> the cost of collecting physical media prevented me from buying other computers that I wanted for my collection.

Yeah, I have a lot of space and I can acquire hardware and media cheaper than most of /vr/ is able to. But I'm pretty lucky that way, some people don't have the space or the money or simply the desire to go full purist with their gear, I totally get that.

I've always been more for the hardware than the software anyway.

>>2461215

not a bad analogy, but you bet your ass that there are car collectors who would run original tires if it wasn't dangerous to do so.

>>2461232

And it's probably easy as fuck to make them look authentic if you want, too.

>>2461250
Of course. S-100 machines were pretty much based around DIY which often did mean writing custom OSes. There were countless mods of CP/M for different hardware configurations.

>>2461250
>According to Wikipedia they didn't start really seeing the light of day until 1983

The HP-150 was one of the earliest production computers to sport 3.5" drives, a few months before the Apple Lisa.

didn't get to play Beats of Rage in it's ealy days on DOS. Were clones as rampant as they once were some years ago?

>>2461187
>>2461192
>>2461209

Why is it so hard to find hard sectored floppies when, well, they're like soft sectored ones with punch holes? Isn't it possible just to make this holes the right way to have hard sectored floppies?

>>2461849
>Why is it so hard to find hard sectored floppies when, well, they're like soft sectored ones with punch holes?
Not many machines used them, and most of what did were mainframes/minis from the 70s. t. no reason to sell or produce the things.
>Isn't it possible just to make this holes the right way to have hard sectored floppies?
I wouldn't try it if I were you. You'd fuck something up and destroy the disk drive.

bump

>>2462475
>I wouldn't try it if I were you. You'd fuck something up and destroy the disk drive.

I don't think you'd destroy anything if you did it with the right tools and measures. It's not like hard sectoring a floppy isn't punching 8~9 more holes on the floppy's magnetic surface in a circular manner and with a fixed distance between a hole and the next one.

Hey guys,

I recently found a Commodore PET. I'm wondering if anyone has some resources for BASIC games (pic related). Just some help with BASIC in general or ideas of things to program would be great.

>>2462797
>I recently found a Commodore PET
What model of PET?
> I'm wondering if anyone has some resources for BASIC games (pic related). Just some help with BASIC in general or ideas of things to program would be great.

The BASIC is the same as the Commodore 64, however programs that use low-level hardware access will not work. PETs have no sound (except the 80xx series), color, or programmable graphics characters.

>>2462797
Oh fuck, not 101 Spaghetti Code Games.

The syntax in those is standard Microsoft BASIC, however you can add Commodore-specific features like line compression. Instead of typing 20 IF A=20 THEN GOTO 60, you can crunch it into 20 IFA=20THENGOTO60. You do not have to put spaces anywhere except between the line number and the statement.

On all versions of MS BASIC, PRINT may be abbreviated with a question mark (10 ?"HELLO!" instead of 10 PRINT"HELLO!")

PRINT CHR$(147) clears the screen.

There are three variable types in Commodore BASIC, string, single precision, and integer (the last one only works on array variables).

>>2463059

>What model of PET?
Pretty sure its a 4032, but it's at work so I'd have to check. It does make a little tune upon boot-up
>>2463069
Thats really helpful, I'm having a hard time picking up the little things like this, as there as so many little versions of BASIC with their own quirks. Why is the CHR$(147) needed? Doesn't CLS empty text, and CLG clear graphics?

>>2463131
>Why is the CHR$(147) needed? Doesn't CLS empty text, and CLG clear graphics?

There aren't any graphics commands on Commodore BASIC. None. CHR$(147) is the control code for clearing the screen so you tell it to PRINT that.

If this is a PET 4032, it has BASIC 4.0 which also adds some disk commands. You have to be very careful with games because some of them use The Killer POKE (tm) which will destroy the display on 40xx and 80xx PETs.

>>2463069
>PRINT CHR$(147) clears the screen

This is for in-program. In immediate mode, Shift+Clr/Home clears the screen.

>>2463069
>There are three variable types in Commodore BASIC, string, single precision, and integer (the last one only works on array variables)

Variables may have two character (alphanumeric only) names. You can type longer names, but they'll be ignored except the first two.

>>2462797
This program can be run on the PET with no changes unless you want to add a clear screen command at the start.

>>2463152
Good to know, I must have picked up those other commands somewhere else...

I do have the attached duel floppy disk drive (5 1/4") but the disks all have old biology programs on them (found it at a university).

>>2463158
This I have figured out yes

>>2463160
Thanks for the tip, I think the book that came with it mentioned this.

>>2463169
Yes I stumbled across this on the web looking for some code, I was hoping for some other games I could play

>>2463181
>I do have the attached duel floppy disk drive (5 1/4") but the disks all have old biology programs on them (found it at a university)

Most likely a 4040 drive.

Normally, LOAD"$",8 followed by LIST is used to display disk directories, but since this is a PET 40xx, you can use the CATALOG command instead.

>>2463181
Most likely a 4040 drive which is single sided 170k like the 1541, but read compatible only, not write compatible.

Normally, LOAD"$",8 followed by LIST is used to display disk directories, but since this is a PET 40xx, you can use the CATALOG command instead. Since this is a dual drive, CATALOG only works on the disk in Drive 0. If you want to display the directory of Drive 1, you have to use LOAD"1:$",8.

You can put an optional 0: or 1: tag on disk commands to inform the system which of the two drives you're referring to, but if you omit it, Drive 0 is assumed by default.

>>2463131

>Pretty sure its a 4032

If it's one, then check for IEEE-488 peripherals, some might be pretty useful. Also, if you happen to want a datassette, be sure to alway use normal Type I cassette tapes, Chrome, FerroChrome and Cobalt ones can't be used.

>>2463223
Yes thats it exactly. So you are saying it won't write to disk? I was sort of hoping I could save some of the things I'd programmed to disk. It came with a dictionary/thesaurus but that's
hardly what I intend to use it for...

>>2463652
The duel disk drive is IEEE-488. Are you referring to other devices? I think a printer and cassette drive might be hard to come across.

>>2464149
>Are you referring to other devices? I think a printer and cassette drive might be hard to come across.

Yeah, not only disk drives. There are tons of peripherals using this kind of bus, though it's mostly laboratory stuff.

>>2464149
>Yes thats it exactly. So you are saying it won't write to disk?

No. Just what I said. The 4040s aren't write compatible with the 1541, but you can connect a 1541 to the PET with an IEC -> IEEE-488 adapter or vice versa the 4040 to a Commodore 64.

>>2463059
>or programmable graphics characters

Unless you burn your own custom character ROM and install it. PETs also have a backslash in place of the British pound sign on the Commodore 64.

>>2463152
>You have to be very careful with games because some of them use The Killer POKE (tm) which will destroy the display on 40xx and 80xx PETs

Don't run any BASIC games unless you first comb through the program listing. If you see POKE 59458,62, delete or comment it out.

Specifically, what this does is speed up the video refresh on 2001/30xx PETs. They do not have dual-ported video RAM, so the character display routine in the kernel ROM is set up to wait for the vertical retrace in order to prevent snow on the screen. This slows down the character output a little bit, so if you want, you can disable the flag in memory location $E842 (59458) which tells the kernel routine to skip over the retrace check. That way, if snow doesn't bother you, you can get faster character output.

The 40xx/80xx PETs use a completely different video generator based on the Motorola 6845 rather than discreet logic and they do have dual-ported VRAM. Not only is there no need to disable the refresh check on them, but $E842 instead has one of the CRTC control registers for the 6845. The POKE 59458,62 command instead has the effect of fucking up this register and throwing off the vertical sync of the video display, thus toasting it unless you turn the power off before it's too late.

>>2464149
>I think a printer and cassette drive might be hard to come across

Datasettes are as common as grass, but it would be hard to find one of the printers they made for the PET.

>>2464506

I don't think IEEE-488 printers are that hard to find though.

The 40xx and 80xx PETs were introduced in 1980, a year after the 30xx series and were more targeted at the business market. They had a different keyboard and the enhanced BASIC 4.0 since it was assumed they would be used with disk drives. In addition, a bigger 12" monitor. The whole PET line was discontinued in 1982.

The business models of the PET weren't successful in North America for a few reasons such as lack of CP/M capability, but they sold briskly in Europe.

is there a way to effectively emulate optical disk drives like you can floppy disk drives? I'm not really finding anything on the internet

>>2464957
That would explain it, it's actually an 8032. The screen is pretty big. It was used for science, so it explains why it ended up where I found it (though in Canada).

>>2465080
40xx PETs have the 12" monitor as well. Aside from the 80 column text, the two machines are otherwise functionally identical. Some software designed for 40 column PETs doesn't quite work right on the 80xx's display though.

>>2464957
>The business models of the PET weren't successful in North America for a few reasons such as lack of CP/M capability
Two other reasons:

>PETs used BASIC as the OS
Businesses tended to dislike this setup as it made the computer look like a home and not a professional machine.
>only 32k of memory
Most CP/M boxes had 64k and some even more.

>>2465182

This, if they released the CBM-II earlier (it had a 8088 for CP/M compatibity and between 128 and 256 kB or RAM), they would have still had a chance in the business market.

>>2465752
>a 8088 for CP/M compatibity

After seeing what I posted, I think it's more eager to run CP/M-86 and MS-DOS than the 8bit version of CP/M.

After the failure of the CBM-II line, Commodore essentially gave up on the business market for a few years, then sold IBM clones in Europe (Americans never got those).

>>2457985
>>2460106

http://macintoshgarden.org/games/despair

>>2465182
You forgot the lack of standard Centronics/RS-232 ports.

>>2440921
My dad had one in the 80s and let me every now and then sneak into it to play some games, do some homework and other stuff. Good times...

It was a CPC664 iirc, bought in England. Integrated floppy disc drive to the keyboard and a separate tape drive deck. My dad used to buy tape of games an he taught me how to dump games on a floppy disc for fast loading.

>http://cpc-live.com/data/index.php
>http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=database

I haven't messed around with emulators much, but I recently just tested wincpc with 2 games I remember played a lot:

Feud
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qw2Iab6oak

and Super Hero
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_rgTYxZeZs

>>2467969

>>2467971
>>2467969
The 8296 is such a sexy machine. It's like something out of Star Trek.

Weird that they didn't maintain the aesthetic with the floppy drive, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2IyfI6j9dc

>made the other thread more than 200 posts before the bump limit on /vr/
>tired of looking at an iconic vintage computer
>didn't even include all the copy pasta

I thought we were better than this

>>2468420
The bump limit is 300 posts on here. /v/ has 500.

>>2468420
he started his thread with a picture of an Apple ][

it's not a bad computer but it's also not interesting in the slightest

Also no thread title in it

it's weird to have people come in and pretend like they're part of a group with out knowing anything about it

I mean he's very obviously new to /vr/ in general, let alone these threads, mods should just delete it like they do spurious generals on /vg/

>>2468424
Right, that's why the Doom thread's not getting bumped at 335 posts, nor the Jap PC thread. Oh wait.

>>2468425
>he started his thread with a picture of an Apple ][
>it's not a bad computer but it's also not interesting in the slightest

>>2468424
>the bump limit is 300 posts

It's literally not, I don't understand what your deal is? Just saying things that are verifiable as false as if they were fact.

>>2360973
>>2463627
>>2437383
>>2399271

>>2468432
HoMM general has 475 posts

Oh god, fuck this shit.

>>2468424
reality would like a word

>>2468435
It isn't and there's noting le /v/ face can do about

>>2468446
Please define your idea of an "interesting" computer.

>>2468448
something that is not seen every day, something that people may not have heard about, you know "interesting", like arousing curiosity or interest; holding or catching the attention.

Something that, to someone in the hobby, one of the most popular computers Apple ever made is not

To get this thread back on topic, here's some more PLATO pictures for the guy that's tired of seeing it

>>2468450
Usually such computers have no games and are off-topic for /vr/. Like, I could start a thread with an image of a TRS-80 Model II, but there's no games you can play on there except Infocom text adventures.

>>2468456

>>2468458
>Text adventures are one of the oldest types of computer games and form a subset of the adventure genre

so games? besides, any computer has the capacity to play a game, some people are more interested in the hardware than the software, are you telling me people posting about obscure computers in a designated general are worse than the thousand shitposts in the catalog?

>>2468461
3/?

>>2468463
Technically the board is about retro games. If you want to discuss obscure computers used for CAD design, that could be done on /g/.

>>2468463

>>2468465
>that could be done on /g/

It 100% could not. Have you been to /g/ in the last 8 years?

>>2468467
what game?

>>2468470
We did have retro computer threads on /g/. They're not a bad idea once in a while, but some autists insisted on making them a daily thing and then people started arguing with each other and the threads were ruined.

>>2468472
They were shitposted off of /g/ when /b/ and /v/ came and now this thread will be too

>>2468465
>Allowed : Computers made from the 70s to 1995 (95 not included)

these thread have been on /vr/ for longer than you have and it's never been a problem

>>2468443
I love that game.

>>2468471
It's an interactive lesson on genetics by Paul Tenczar

>>2468465
let's ban 1st and 2nd generation discussion too because no one plays those grandpa games anyways ;^)

>>2468496
Since when was 2nd gen discussion banned?

i'm beginning to suspect this is the same guy who shitposts in the doom threads calling for their removal

>>2468498
It's not. I'm Just Saiyan it should be because people seldom discuss those gaems.

>>2468496
I know this post is a joke but that's exactly what happened in the /g/ generals when we encouraged late 90's DOS and Windows discussion too, it was just rampant shitposting by people who only liked late 90's games and tech.

Oh look it's past 300 posts and we're still not autosaging. Go put a dildo in your poop chute, moron. Herp derp.

>>2468503
I don't know who but there's not doubt in my mind it's one single person. If you go to his troll version of this thread you can see him respond with shitty /v/ one-liners to people who are actually posting on-topic posts. It makes me wish there was a way in the archive to see what posts make the poster number change

>>2468505
>it was just rampant shitposting by people who only liked late 90's games and tech

>>2462968
Here, I found one of them. Hurr I can't play NES Dragon Quest because graphics too primitive 4 me.

>>2468379
>Weird that they didn't maintain the aesthetic with the floppy drive, though.

That makes me think of the Macintosh TV.

I wonder how much they spent to create the exclusive black versions of every visible component, including cables and peripherals, only to leave in the standard light-beige CD caddy.

Shame. These threads were doing so well too. I've been in dozens and this is the first to have devolved like this. Every other thread had people openly discussing obscure systems, homebrew projects, discussion was primarily of hardware and technology which is perfectly on-topic for /vr/ since according to the sticky that includes consoles (computers)

>>2468505
I know...say, you posted about a Commodore 64 game and it was just literal 12 year olds going Hurr caveman shit gtfo grandpa.

>>2468514
It will only get worse overtime as more people start to assume the definition of /vr/ changes. If 6th generation discussion is allowed I'm out, I don't know where to, I wish I did, but I don't. All I know is not here, because there will be no "here", what we have now will be gone.

>>2468513
>>2468519
Just use the report button, it's not that hard.

>>2468519
I know a few really nice communities but I would be doing them a great disservice by discussing them here.

>>2468519
I don't care about 6th gen discussion as long as everyone is civil and acts like adults.

>>2468528
>acts like adults

Won't happen because most people who would discuss 6th gen aren't

>>2468532

>>2468542
Stop responding to him and report his posts.

>>2468514
There is not a single game on that system worth playing today anyway.

>>2468547
Well, I'm not nuts about all those mediocre British tape games.

>>2468543
>he's the problem

>>2468547

>>2468548
fuck off

>>2468548
Same with Amiga. You've got loads of mediocre shovelware titles like Superfrog that some nostalgic twat who was 10 years old in the early nineties goes "Ah, yes one of the finest bloody games ever."

are we being infiltrated?

>>2468547
Well, a lot of Commodore 64 games have better versions on the Amiga (like all Microprose titles)

>>2468556
Back in those days, C64/Amiga were the primary target platform for most devs. PCs usually came second.

>>2468551
I used to know some women I met in college or on local BBS (in their 20's and 30's) who loved that game (and The Lion King as well). They had DOS version though. I thought game was okay, but I liked other Amiga stuff like Lionheart and Flashback more. But Superfrog was okay for a spin when I was bored. There is really much worse stuff...

>>2468556
There's also a lot of C64 games that are better than their Amiga counterpart. If you read enough of the comments on LemonAmiga website, you'll see that stands true for many games, in fact. I never owned a C64, but I can easily believe this is true, given some downright crappy Amiga ones I played. Castlevania comes to mind (I don't know if there was ever a C64 version of that, but NES and DOS versions were way better, and I suspect MSX version must have been nice too...)

>>2468568
>Castlevania comes to mind (I don't know if there was ever a C64 version of that
Yes there is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zivaZ8sNHZk

>>2468568
Dude wait wut? DOS Castlevania is fucking lousy!

>>2468568
>There's also a lot of C64 games that are better than their Amiga counterpart

Examples?

>>2468578
And it's a good fucking port too

>LOL why did they bother making this?

looks like /v/ made it to the comments

I found most of the arcade ports on the C64 to be rather meh. Except 1942 was pretty good especially if you saw the shitshow that was the Famicom version.

>>2468591
Not really, no. Relatively speaking, I'd say it was better than the PC port, but the programming was pretty poor and the music is godawful. For example, the graphics flicker a lot because they couldn't be bothered to write a sprite multiplexer and instead just rotate the sprites when they hit the 8 per scanline limit.

>>2468592
Remember all the nostalgic idiots on Lemon 64 talking how great Commodore 64 Bubble Bobble is when that's one of the weaker ports of the game.

>>2468609
IDK. Never seen that one.

Actually, some of the comments on Lemon 64 about that port of Castlevania were pretty hilarious.

>Aw what a shite port - typical NTSC programmers should have let some Europeans handle this
>this is typical mediocre Japanese shit - Commodore 64s are supposed to be about great original games not this crap designed to sell a ton of shitty merchandise

>>2468618
The music is horrible abrasive. Play the Amiga port instead.

>>2468582
At least the DOS version is playable. The Amiga port has some strange input lag problems...

>>2468586
It's not like I keep a mental list of these games (especially since I never owned a C64), and I'm just relying on comments from other people, but here's one example:
http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=118
Granted, this is not the best possible example, because it's simply a case where the Amiga port is lackluster (compared to what it should have been, given the machine's capabilities). I've seen reviews that totally slam the Amiga version and people wondering how the coders could fuck up so badly when the C64 game was awesome.

Of course, Amiga is more capable hardware, but you have to invest extra time in programming and making nice graphics. Some of the british software houses back then only wanted to turn a quick buck and move on, hoping that by sheer quantity they can produce a "hit" game somehow...

>>2468618
The music is horribly abrasive. Play the Amiga port instead.

>>2468661
>Some of the british software houses back then only wanted to turn a quick buck and move on, hoping that by sheer quantity they can produce a "hit" game somehow.

I know that...the amount of shovelware produced by British devs was immense. Ocean were some of the worst since they'd grab up as many licenses as possible and produce terrible, phoned-in ports of arcade games and whatnot.

I've played the IBM port of Bubble Bobble which isn't bad although please for the sake of your ears don't use the PC speaker sound.

>>2468504
Well how much is there to say about the typical Colecovision game?

Oh, and here's comments for Amiga port of Castlevania:
http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=241

It looks even worse when you compare it to the nice Sharp X68000 version. So much lost potential...

>>2468631
They're not exactly wrong. You should look at the US and European ports of Bionic Commando. It's amazing how shitty the US one is.

>Uncle works at garbage disposal site

>Old lady tries to throw some stuff away

>Uncle notices some of it is old tech that's in reasonably good condition, buys it off of her instead

>Gives it to me to sort through

>mfw this bitch almost junked a working Vic-20 and a bunch of games including a fucking copy of Escape from Mount Drash

Granted it was just the cassette but what the fuck lady.

where can I find one of these these days? I have some old hardware I can mess with but no way to actually turn it on

also, as a side note, I'm moving in a month or so, and I was wanting to get packing relatively soon, so whats the best way to store circuit boards in boxes? will they be ok to site in a box for a month or two? I have a lot of shit I need to pack up

http://www.ebay.com/itm/331537471267?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

>someone bought this

if only it could've been me

>>2468721
Whoa. What did you do with that cassette?

bump

>>2468879

Don't worry anon, you can have your own PDP8-compatible machine if you rebuild one from scratch, based on the engineering drawings floating around, as they're basically a bunch of switch, resistors, capacitors, transistors and TTL chips (at least the E model)

>>2468686
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utFlAX9RJQM

This is comically bad. Even the music sound sluggish and dissonant like it was copied by an amateur. No wonder I've never heard of the Amiga port.

>>2468568
>I suspect the MSX version must have been nice too

it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGVMM2cpQsg

all these deleted posts in both threads and the mods couldn't simply delete the other thread

>>2461209
This how I intend to run things, I haven't really gotten into collecting too many computers, but I intend to get more as I get more money, my problem like many people is I simply can't find the things, eBay is nice when you get someone who actually knows what they have and doesn't charge 200 dollars for a "vintage" P4 eMachine

>>2469231
>What are the essential games to play on C64?
There aren't. Computers =/= consoles.
>How did CBM manage to have the global computer market by the balls and then let it completely fall out of their grasp?
They really didn't though; if you asked this question about IBM, it would work better.

>>2469362
Actually, asking about "essential" C64 games is not a good question to ask anyway because it will result in an America vs Yurop flamewar. Do you really want to draw out Britbottle autists talking about how great some shitty tape game was because muh nawstalgia.

>>2469362
>There aren't. Computers =/= consoles
Explain.

>>2469368
Basically, any arcade port on the Commie can be just played on MAME and everything else of any note probably has a better version on another computer. For example, most Microprose strategy games, while very good for their time, are better on the Amiga. The earlier stuff from 82-85 that predates Amiga you can just ignore because it's all shitty ports/clones of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.

>>2469370
>For example, most Microprose strategy games, while very good for their time, are better on the Amiga

Microprose started in 84 - their earliest games were designed around the C64 rather than the Amiga (Hellcat Ace, F15 Strike Eagle, Decision in the Desert, etc). I think they began releasing Amiga games in 86 or 87.

>>2469379
Yeah but like I said, those early games are primitive shit and nobody wants to play them outside of nostalgia.

>>2469382
>>2469370
>guy asks for a C64 game recommendation list
>gets told this shit sucks don't play it unless nostalgia
Is this what we've come to on /vr/?

>>2469385
Well it's not exactly untrue.

>>2469370
>can be just played on MAME
if you use emulators
>82-85 stuff you can just ignore
Completely untrue, I mean I can name random games like Ultimate Wizard or Forbidden Forrest or anything really but it's pointless because there are very clearly games that are only good on that system and worth playing.

How do you maintain that newest is best attitude and still enjoy this hobby? Are you the same kind of person that says there was absolutely nothing good that came from the 1st and 2nd generations or the kind of person that says early European computer games like Jet Set Willy or Treasure Island Dizzy aren't worth playing?

It's also a useless fucking comment, I think point-and-click adventures are annoying and have only liked maybe 3 out of the dozens I've tried but I don't say that the DOS/Apple people who post about them, I just don't fucking say anything because I can understand the value of constructive discussion, and at one point people on /vr/ did too, after that went away I thought I could at least count on this thread, and now I have nothing and it's all because of people like you.

>>2469390
Well really, most retro gamers only care about NES and up console games and >1990 PC games because the old shit like this sucks and unless you have a nostalgia boner, there's no reason to still play it. I mean, like, why would you play an Intellivision game in this day and age unless you were some 40 year old manchild who wants to pretend he's 10 years old again for a few hours.

>>2469393

>>2469393
>complain that retro games suck
>on a board dedicated to retro games

>>2469393
>I speak for the entire community when I hold this controversial opinion

That's simply not true though, this argument is done to fucking death on a daily basis and it's entirely pointless, why does it upset you if people talk about things that you don't like? Just fucking post about things you like for fucks sake and let other people post about things they like, is it really a difficult topic?

>>2469404
Well, I mean 90s games are old enough now to be retro, but they're still advanced enough to be easily enjoyed. 80s stuff has, like, three colors and a couple of beeps for sounds.

>>2469412

>>2469409
>That's simply not true though, this argument is done to fucking death on a daily basis
What argument is this?

>>2469393
There are lots of reasons why someone would like an older console or game other than nostalgia. They could be an electronics hobbyist who likes to build and repair electronics so the enjoyment is getting an old broken console to work and this thread has always catered to those people. They could also genuinely enjoy a simpler game. You don't need to complicate things to make them good. Certain games just stand the test of time. There are also entire genres of games where developments haven't been made as far as graphics go for 30 years like text games and roguelikes and MUDs. New ones are good but the old ones also have value and occasionally innovative and unique features that have yet to be reproduced in modern incarnations (like old versions of hack and nethack that have aspects that were later removed, or The Hobbit and it's advanced language parser).

>>2469415
that older games are less valuable >>2469412
can't wait for there to be a line through this post link too

>>2469412
how long can this go on?

>>2469417
>can't wait for there to be a line through this post link too

You mean he's a coward who would delete his own posts when he gets called out on them?