/vr/ - Retro Games

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
Amstrad sources:
http://cpc-live.com/data/index.php

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

Did you guys know that the Tandy TRS-80 Colour Computer was originally intended to be used by farmers? They intended for farmers to be able to connect it to an ordinary television and a phone line and then be able to see things like weather reports, crop stocks, agriculture news, et cetera

>>2520845
Source? If that's true that's an especially weird market to appeal to, the last demographic I'd consider selling a computer to

And here's my TRS-80 model 100

I really want to get real use out of this, the keyboard is the best keyboard in a portable hands down. I'm thinking maybe tracker/keeper or something. Maybe I can get it online and get some news/weather on it.

Only thing that sucks is the lack of backlight? How hard would it be to hack up a makeshift backlight or maybe replace it with a new LCD that had one?

>>2520852
https://books.google.com/books?id=DcV1qYrg6ekC&pg=PT85&lpg=PT85&dq=tandy+color+computer+agriculture&source=bl&ots=E7nhQ7Xsd1&sig=3WCJTPl6vAox9atuez4SPtVD5V8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ui2bVe3bO4njoAS1w4C4Cw&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=tandy%20color%20computer%20agriculture&f=false

It was part of a government funded project, that's why it doesn't make much sense

>>2520845
Correct. It was originally designed as a terminal, but then made into a full-fledged computer and introduced in 1980 to replace the TRS-80 Model I, which had to be discontinued due to FCC regulations being extended to cover microcomputers.

The CoCo used the Motorola 6809 CPU, which was the most powerful 8-bit microprocessor available. Unfortunately, this power came at a price as Tandy had to skimp on the computer's audiovisual capabilities to keep the price down, unlike Atari and Commodore who used the cheaper, more primitive 6502 and thus could devote more of their budget to the sound and graphics hardware. CoCos were never terribly successful, one reason being a lack of advertising by Radio Shack. The Tandy 1000 effectively superseded them in 1985 as Tandy's entry in the home/educational computer market.

>>2520857
Woops, I thought I edited out the part where I forgot you needed to double press run

>>2520865
If the CoCo was supposed to replace the Model I, why were there three more models of the standard TRASH-80 afterwards?

>>2520865
Err, wasn't the Model III the successor to the Model I?

>>2520845
I can't help but think that it was a plot made up by Compu$erve to get money from farmers. They offered an incredibly limited amount of time for free every month but after that you had to pay.

>>2520871
>>2520870
Dat hivemind!

Anyway, the Model 3/4/4P were really more targeted at the small business market. Properly speaking, the CoCo was the Model I's replacement as Tandy's home computer line even though the 3/4/4P were enhancements of the Model I's architecture.

I have to wonder who thought black text on lime green was a good idea.

I've been enjoying Cybernoid, but I can't decide which version I want to play it on. The Spectrum is sharper, but the C64 has better animation. What do I pick?

>>2520852

I've seen lots of new computer systems market themselves to farmers. It's like the smartwatch - it never catches on, but people keep trying.

>>2520857

I nearly got one of those, but my ebay sniper chose a Timex Sinclair 1000 for me instead. The TRS-80 was probably the better item.

>>2520879
Is something wrong with mine?

>>2520893
Other than the fact it's sideways fucks sake it showed it right in the thumbnail

Will a few blacklight CFLs (real blacklight not just purple paint) work for a UV source for retrobright? Also what are my options for keeping yellow out? Any discrete anti-UV coatings?

>>2520865
>The CoCo used the Motorola 6809 CPU, which was the most powerful 8-bit microprocessor available. Unfortunately, this power came at a price as Tandy had to skimp on the computer's audiovisual capabilities to keep the price down

Which is weird when you look at machines like the Thomson TO9, or even the Fujitsu FM7 family, which have nice graphic capabilities.

>>2520880
Spectrum man, It's got sounds and music at the same time plus I prefer the color palette

>>2520880
Games with limited color palettes always seem more impressive to me, like how the artists and programmers worked around the limitations of their systems, more impressive I think than something that's technically more graphically impressive

CoCos normally power on to their ROM cassette BASIC, and if you had disk drives, you could have Color Disk BASIC (essentially an overlay that added disk functions to cassette BASIC) and Extended Color BASIC (added additional features to disk BASIC). Most CoCo 1s just used cassette storage, but disks became standard by the CoCo 2 and cassette BASIC mostly existed for backwards compatibility.

The CoCo was rather limited in terms of sound/graphics and is in fact a lot like the Apple II (NTSC artifacting used to generate color in graphics mode and the sound generator isn't interrupt driven).

>>2520874
How does the Tandy MC 10 fit into all this? Nobody ever talks about it much. I've been keeping my eye out for the french version (Alice Matra) that I can hopefully find with matching red cassette deck and cute little red printer, and all the original manuals... The original machine is pretty wimpy (although it can be expanded with more RAM), but they also released later models that don't seem to have a Tandy equivalent.

Pic-related is this game:
http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=icvpkdpw8x73lhnd
And there's a lot more interesting 8-bit Tandy games on that site...

>>2520857
I can't tell if the device is really large or your hand is really small

I hate cartridges so much

Everything else was standardized so it's easy to swap and re-use media. Carts are always 100% read only and they're always different system to system

>>2521783
>Carts are always 100% read only

Which is wrong -- RAM carts and mass storage carts (ferrite cores, Bubble memory or eeprom/flash) are also a thing.
Also, cartridges aren't only used for storage, but are used in many cases as expansion devices, such as FDD/HDD, serial, parallel, MIDI or network controllers.

> and they're always different system to system

Well it's like complaining that you can't use an ISA card in an Apple II.

What are some good TRS 80 games? Is there anything NOT monochrome?

>>2521857
>Is there anything NOT monochrome?

Well, there's a reason why Tandy called the computer line meant to replace the TRS-80 "Color Computer".

>>2521857
Text games, your imagination is in at least 256 colours

>>2521940
Is there a TI-99 flashcart? There's that floppy emulator but what if I have cart dumps?

Also can someone give me the truth here: does TOSEC comply with C&D orders? Am I missing things if I download a collection from them? People complain the console ones are missing but that might be because they haven't finished that certain pack. Is no-intro missing ROMs? Some of their selection seems sparce.

>>2521947
Didn't mean to reply

Some computer game tunes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An9ba-CcXtU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka6FK9KqqeY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8B1BapyJQc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiU5RnDvJ2o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgYKPO8hmfE

Daily reminder

>>2521857
Everyone should play this game:
http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=w2o2dfbpj9cfyhmo

>>2520857
Nice looking condition.
Mine was pretty defaced (emblem and 10 keys were missing) and I tried to make the best of it, the function keys come from a Olivetti M10 with a missing "." key.
I also just reproduced the quick reference guide, editing sure took long enough and I also added C0 control codes to page 40 and fixed a few typos.

Next thing I would do is to go from 32Kbytes of RAM (made of 16x 2Kbyte SRAM chips) to a single 512Kbyte SRAM chip and reverse engineer the RAM+ software to make it easy to use.
Just think about it, a Model 100 with 16 banks and files can be copied to the other banks or accessed via BASIC from other banks.

>the keyboard is the best keyboard in a portable hands down.
Yes, typing on this is actually fun and enjoyable.
But I still want to know how it compares to the IBM Model M.
>Maybe I can get it online and get some news/weather on it.
Everything is possible with the RS-232C port, if that's not "fast enough" then custom hardware could be attached to the 40pin system bus socket.
>Only thing that sucks is the lack of backlight?
Is turning some lights in your room not good enough?
>How hard would it be to hack up a makeshift backlight
Quite hard, there's no room for an frontlight and I don't know if it's possible to take the LCD apart without breaking it.
>or maybe replace it with a new LCD that had one?
That's a good one.

The BCR port on the left (D-Sub 9) outputs regulated 5V. You could hack up some USB lamp designed for notebooks.

What's a really complicated piece of classical music? I want to use something that's classical for demo I'm doing and I want it to be impressive

>>2522713
Little Harmonic Labyrinth would be really difficult to work out by ear unless you had perfect pitch

>>2522724
>>2522713
Speaking of Bach, something like crab cannon would be impressive if you could get it to an insanely small number of lines using loops

>>2520865
6809 uses the 6800's instruction set with enhancements, but the opcodes are completely different so 6800 code must be recompiled for it.

Are there any retro computers that you can get actually cheaper than a new computer?

It's amazing how active communities for the CoCo, TI-99, and Speccy are, just to name a few, still going at it and getting new members too. I went to a TI-99 meeting and they were in general thrilled to have someone new to the community there was no elitism or ageism, I had a great time hacking on a great old computer with a cool group of people. There were more newer people there too. Gives me hope that the retro computer community at large will keep carrying on for decades.

>>2522807
You what? Are you going off eBay prices? I got an Amiga 500 at the charity shop for 25 dollars, came with cable, got a full Tandy 1000sx with keyboard, joysticks and a commodore CRT for 50 at a flea market. You can usually pick up what ever your country's most popular computer was for tuppence, I've gotten VIC-20's and C64/128's for almost nothing. He'll I got 5 free 286 CNC computers for free from the dump

>>2522837
This was over months of bi-weekly rounds however, you do have to look hard, places like thrift stores and garage sales always have something new, but it's usually shite

One thing I'll grant ebay is they have a fair amount of old system manuals, programming books and software manuals for next to nothing and most people listing those kind of things offer best offer and will accept almost anything, especially if it's a real obscure system because they know they're never gonna sell it

>>2522837
Nice score. Maybe one day I'll be as lucky as you.

>>2522837
Not in America where most thrift stores have banished computers a long time ago.

>>2522908
Banished computers? I live in Indiana and they still have them here. Why banished?

>>2522939
Either they don't want to pay to recycle the things or else concerns about people's personal data being compromised.

>>2522945
May be a local thing for you? I've lived in 3 states in the past 5 years and I've never noticed it, they always have the obligatory broken eMachine, peripherals, walls of CRTs, and sometimes a good couple old consoles/computers

Goodwill has absolutely banned computers a long time ago; idk about other thrift stores.

>>2522975
Don't see them on the banned list online, and the no CRTs thing is bullshit because I went there yesterday and they had a dozen

>>2522985
>>2522975
Yeah acceptable items are on a store by store basis, not even based on city/state law.

Exhibit A.

They're even a Microsoft approved distributor (said lower in the page) ffs

>>2522995
>They're even a Microsoft approved distributor

Story I've heard is years ago MS lawyers went after Goodwill saying they would have to purchase a new Windows license for every computer they sell, (regardless if it could actually run Windows.)
Not having the money to take on high priced lawyers, Goodwill stopped taking computers. I would suppose entering into some kind of MS approved agreement could've been part of the deal to still sell computers in a limited manner.

I actually used to run Macs as my primary machines that I picked up from Goodwill. Sometime in the early 2000s I stopped seeing computers at the major thrifts almost entirely. I finally gave in and bought my G5 iMac new.

Does anyone know some good books for early to mid 80's PC stuff, like general info/repair? Own a 3rd edition of U&R but even the first edition is a bit sparse when it comes to really early stuff.

I remember one local Goodwill having a poster board in the front of the store listing what items they don't take and it explicitly said no computers (but apparently accessories like printers were ok).

>>2523020
Salvation Army has had them in more recent times.

>>2523020
That's as much bullshit as the "we can't take computers because compromising people's data" line.

>donate Timex Sinclair which has no internal storage
>hurr u cnt don8t that becuz some guy's tax records cud be on it

>tfw

>>2523061
>Does anyone know some good books for early to mid 80's PC stuff, like general info

What particular info are you needing?

>>2523087
Info about parts and expansions, stuff like pin-outs for ISA and VESAP and such, expansions, generally how they're constructed, basically everything U&R would include about later AT and ATX stuff, but about PC, XT and early AT. I only started building and repairing IBM PC's in the late 90's, before then they were to expensive and I was too poor. Now I'm going back and building machines for every major milestone in PCs, but I want to build up a background in early stuff like I have in later stuff

>>2523316
*VESA

Posting on my phone

>>2522816
Speaking of which

http://club100.org/

Got a new link for the OP

Great resource for the model 100 owners in this thread (all 3 of us)

>>2523316
This is way too broad of a question, but I will tell you the principle models/revisions of the IBM PC/XT/AT.

>IBM PC (5150)
Three BIOS revisions dated April 1981, October 1981, and October 1982. The early IBM PCs had what's known as the 16-64k motherboard, meaning that the first 16k of RAM is soldered to the board and the remainder socketed. Additional RAM requires an expansion card. These had the first two BIOS revisions (identical except for bug fixes) and do not scan expansion cards for ROMs, thus they cannot use a hard disk, EGA, or VGA card, also only 544k of RAM is supported. They could be purchased either in a diskless cassette model or with 1-2 floppy drives, either single or double sided. All IBM PCs made from March 1983 onward have the 64k-256k motherboard (64k soldered to the motherboard and the remainder socketed). The BIOS otherwise offers the same functionality as the IBM XT. Cassette and single sided floppy models disappeared.

>IBM XT (5160)

Two BIOS revisions dated October 1982 and March 1986. XTs made in 1983-84 shipped standard with 128k and a 10MB hard disk. In 1985, floppy-only models became available. The later XTs (1986-87) had the 256k-640k motherboard, so an expansion board isn't needed anymore to reach the full 640k. Half-height floppies and hard disks (now 20MB) replaced the full height models and 3.5" floppies became available. Support was added for 101 key keyboards.

>IBM AT (5170)

Three BIOS revisions dated January 1984, October 1984, and March 1986. The early models only shipped with 512k of RAM from the factory. Standard hard disk was a (trouble-prone) 20MB unit made by Computer Memory Technologies. Later BIOS revisions added support for 3.5" floppies, more hard disk types, 101 key keyboards, and fixed bugs.

The video card was not included in the base price of IBM PCs and you could have your pick of MDA, CGA, or EGA (after the latter became available in 1985). In addition, IBM offered a special card, the PGA, for the CAD market; it had its own 8086 CPU and hardware support for 3D clipping and rotation. Very expensive at $3000 and had two sandwiched boards so in practice, it occupied two slots in the computer. It needed a special monitor as well. In addition to CGA and text modes, it had a 640x480x256 mode that is not BIOS supported. Only AutoCAD and a handful of other software packages supported PGA.

PGA was replaced by the XGA standard on the IBM PS/2 line.

>>2523551
The IBM XT's Slot 8 (the slot closest to the power supply) is wired differently from the rest because it was designed to work with an adapter that allowed the computer to be used on IBM mainframes/minicomputers as a terminal. Some cards don't work in Slot 8 as a result and others had jumper switches you had to set if you wanted to put the card in there. This feature is unique to the XT and not found on the PC, AT, or any clones.

IBM for a time offered a card known as "Baby Blue" that allowed PC users to run 8-bit CP/M software, which essentially had an entire Z80 computer on it (CPU, RAM, and supporting chips). Unfortunately, it was of limited usability since the user had to manually edit CP/M programs and attach header bytes that would cause the 8088 to pass control to the Z80. Needless to say, a dumb idea. The card is extremely timing sensitive as well and will not run on anything but a 4.77Mhz 8088 machine.

>>2523551
>Two BIOS revisions dated October 1982 and March 1986. XTs made in 1983-84 shipped standard with 128k and a 10MB hard disk

XT-class machines do not support hard disks in the BIOS, thus the controllers had to have their own ROM on them, which generally maps into the C000 segment.

As for floppy drives, this gets a little complicated. XT-class PCs do not have any CMOS RAM and use strictly DIP switches for system settings, which are read at startup and put into the BIOS parameter table. DOS versions from 3.0 onward (when the AT was introduced) also check the BIOS machine ID byte at F000:FFF0 to see if they're running on an XT or AT. If the former, it just assumes 360k 5.25". Although later XTs could have 3.5" floppies, the BIOS switches can't provide any information other than the number of drives present, thus DOS still thinks that they're 360k 5.25" after reading FFFF:F000 and detecting that it's running on an XT. To get around this problem, DOS 3.2 and 3.3 added the DRIVER.SYS and DRVPARM utilities which can be used to alter the BIOS parameter table and inform the OS that a 3.5" drive is present (DRIVER.SYS could also be used to get 3.5" floppies working on the earlier AT machines). This doesn't mean that 3.5" drives won't work on an XT, just that DOS will treat them as 5.25" 360k and you can't access data beyond the first 40 tracks of the disk, unless DRIVER.SYS is used.

Note that this is strictly a limitation of DOS. The BIOS doesn't care about the drive type and will simply access any track/sector you tell it to. Some games made from 86-88 are on self-booting 3.5" floppies and will work on any machine (regardless of the BIOS revision) just fine because the internal code in them tells the BIOS where to find data on the disk.

>>2523614
>DOS versions from 3.0 onward (when the AT was introduced) also check the BIOS machine ID byte at F000:FFF0 to see if they're running on an XT or AT.

Forgot - the machine ID check actually started on DOS 2.1, which was introduced with the PCjr.

>>2522945
The old computers aren't that much different than the game consoles. They use similar components, so why do they single out just computers? I mean, unless your places also don't sell the consoles...

As far as data goes, just rip out the HDD's. It's really that simple. A lot of the really old systems didn't have one anyway (or was relatively rare, like Amiga 500).

>>2523020
>new Windows license
What's wrong with the OS license that came with the computer when it was new? Sure, maybe it only had DOS and Windows 3.1 (or even earlier) but you're not gonna run XP or whatever on a 386SX with 2 megs RAM...

>>2523020

Goodwills around here still accept and sell donated computers. You just don't see them on display often because they sell quickly.

Even a decrepit old P4 makes a passable email/web box for someone of modest means, and they let those go for $20.

>>2523768
Because it's Microsoft. There was a time when billing for site licenses, they'd include any Macs in the seat count. Not for the Mac version of Office and such, but for Windows licenses.

A little bit about IBM PS/2s. Since there were multiple dozens of models, we will only cover the Model 25 and 30 here:

The PS/2 line debuted in the spring of 1987 and replaced the PC, XT, and AT. In addition to introducing the PS/2 mouse and keyboard interface, the line also introduced VGA graphics, the MCA bus, and 1.44MB floppies. Most PS/2s also had a so-called "reference disk" which had to be in Drive A at startup and contained certain info the BIOS needed.

The Model 25, meant to replace the original IBM PC, used an 8086 CPU clocked at 8Mhz. It had a monochrome monitor and what was called MCGA, essentially a cut down VGA that supports only the CGA modes, Mode 11 (640x480 monochrome) and Mode 13 (320x200x256), plus a smaller keyboard with no separate cursor control keys. The floppy drives were 3.5" 720k and one could be replaced by a proprietary 20MB hard disk.

The Model 30 came in either 8086 or 286 models, both with MCGA, but a full Model M keyboard and color monitor. 8086 models have 720k floppies while 286 ones have 1.44MB. The 286 Model 30 can run software that uses the 286's real mode instructions, but is still an XT-class machine and does not support extended memory. A 20MB MFM hard disk was optional.

More advanced PS/2s had 286 or 386 CPUs and full VGA. Some also had XGA or 8514/A, two early attempts at expanding VGA to resolutions over 640x480.

>>2523321
About VESA...

Essentially, this was an industry agreement to support standard SVGA resolutions (800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024). However, the exact implementation of the extended graphics modes varies between manufacturers, thus specific drivers are needed for a given card. Because of this, VESA compliant cards also include a BIOS extension that lets you set the modes via the INT 10h function. Another part of the VESA spec was extended memory support, which means that in protected mode, the VRAM on the card can be accessed in a linear block. The BIOS extension mentioned above is for real mode, which means that the card simply swaps VRAM pages in and out of the A000 segment in 64k chunks.

Windows versions up to 98 only support 640x480x16 if no video driver is present, but XP finally introduced built-in support for extended modes. Also, Windows 3.x could support all of the older video modes, but because the CPU is running in protected mode, accessing them requires a little programming trickery - the A000 segment is in the first megabyte and cannot be directly accessed from protected mode. Instead, Windows simply swaps data in and out of the first megabyte (which you can do freely in protected mode).

>>2523852
Why did the PS/2 come before the PS/1?

>>2523865
I...don't know.

>>2523865

Maybe they used the number 2 to show that it's supposed to be a follow-up from their PC architecture, but then when they tried to make consumer oriented models later (without the MCA bus), they just decreased the number and called it a day.

>>2523893
>but then when they tried to make consumer oriented models later (without the MCA bus),

In fact the Model 25/30, which were part of the first PS/2 group introduced, were both ISA (only PS/2s that weren't MCA). IBM licensed the MCA bus to anyone willing to pay for it, but Tandy and NEC were the only takers.

I'm the guy who asked earlier thanks for all the posts appreciate the info

>>2523865
PS/2 name was to imply the *next* generation of PCs. A bit of marketing to hopefully sway people away from clones back to IBM, and to their Micro Channel architecture which they could control.
The PS/1 line was later introduced as a low-end entry PC line,

>>2523904
>IBM licensed the MCA bus to anyone willing to pay for it, but Tandy and NEC were the only takers.

Well, it's understandable, by 1987 it was too late to regain control over the architecture. And on top of that, instead of making a proprietary bus, it would have been smarter to put some custom chips. I mean, unless it's only the fact that you're implementing this bus that was restricted, How the hell did they expect this machine to have a good expansion card library? I don't know any computer of the time where you couldn't easily get the documentation of the expansion port(s) from the computer's manual/manufacturer's official books about this computer.

>>2524690

I guess the interpretation I gave here >>2523893 is true then.

>>2524860
Part of Micro Channel's motivation was for control over hardware which IBM had lost. It was technically better than ISA, but ISA was "good enough" and less restrictive, so the industry at large stuck with it.

Compaq developed EISA as an open-source alternative to MCA, but it largely remained limited to servers and workstations.

PS/2s were a mess anyway. Dozens of different models and sub-models and lots of proprietary hardware everywhere.

>>2522975
U wot? LGR gets old computers and hard/software from Goodwill all the time in his YouTube videos.

>>2525131
Well I haven't seen any in hundreds of years.

Later model IBM XT with the XT version of the Model M keyboard. It works on XTs with the older BIOS, but the extra keys won't be recognized unless you write your own code to read them. Also the standard Model M works on XTs by automatically switching to the XT keyboard protocol if it detects it's running on one (later Model Ms made by Lexmark had XT support removed).

>>2523614
While XT-class PCs normally don't support high density floppies in the BIOS, one could install special HD floppy controllers which had a BIOS extender ROM on them.

>>2525134
Depends on your local Goodwill's policies.

In some cities the local Goodwill may have a store (or corner of a store) specifically for computer parts. They may still whimsically throw out anything they decide is too old.

>>2522293
>But I still want to know how it compares to the IBM Model M.
Model M is buckling spring clicky with a sharp snap when you go down far enough
The Model 100 keyboard is more like what you would get with a high-end keyboard today. Nice smooth feel with a good amount of travel and a nice thwack sound at the stop if you type hard on it.

>>2524904
>>2525110

And then ISA+VLB happened.

>>2520857
Holy crap, I didn't think I'd see another Model 100 fan here. I love my M102 and Tandy 200 to bits. I've been thinking about doing the rechargeable battery mod for my 200, but I'll need some NiCads first. I'm also going to try to get it online, I have a cable to connect it to the phone line and a list of dial up BBSs that are still active. Should be fun.
I wish Club 100 wasn't dead though.

>>2523330
And http://www.trs-80.com
This site is great. Ira will send you tons of software diskettes if you donate a few bucks, it has info on everything Tandy, even the calculators, and unlike Club 100 it's still updated.

>>2524904
>Part of Micro Channel's motivation was for control over hardware which IBM had lost.
Yeah, I know right? But What I meant is that if IBM wanted to have control over their architecture, they should have though about incorporating custom chips to begin with instead of waiting 6 years before trying to protect their work from unlicensed copy.

>>2525113

Proprietary hardware isn't a problem though. Hell, many architecture were better documented than the IBM PC to begin with (IBM never really gave the specs of the ISA bus, I guess they hoped it would stop clone manufacturers).

>>2525157

Does the PC-XT support the additional function keys though? I see that the model F keyboard and my laptop XT clone lacks the F11 and F12 keys.

>>2525975
>(IBM never really gave the specs of the ISA bus, I guess they hoped it would stop clone manufacturers).
???

All that stuff was printed from day one in the IBM PC tech manuals - by the PC's first birthday in late 1982, manufacturers were already pumping out hardware accessories like crazy.

>Does the PC-XT support the additional function keys though?

If it has the 1986 BIOS, yes.

>>2525856
I found a Model 100 in an antique shop once, but it was kind of beaten up and the serial port was hanging out by the wires.

>>2525975
IBM rushed their first PC to market just to get their foot in the door, thus why nearly everything in it was off the shelf. If they went through their usual process, they would've had those custom components you suggest. And they'd make it to market in the late 80s instead of 81.

>>2526017
Early in my thrifting, I found one at Salvation Army for $50. I was a little off put by the price, and decided to "think about it." That week was when I learned BUY IT NOW, FAGGOT.

I do have a PC-8201a, which is a sister model from NEC.

>>2526070
The IBM design team had not only a limited amount of time allotted to them, they also had a limited budget, which necessitated everything being off-the-shelf. Also they looked at several different microcomputers for ideas, most notably the Apple II and TRS 80 Model II.

IBM did however introduce two widely-criticized innovations on the PC, one being the floppy cable twist and the other being a parallel port that did not exactly follow the Centronics standard because they had a scam running with Epson to force you to buy their printers.

>>2526006
>All that stuff was printed from day one in the IBM PC tech manuals - by the PC's first birthday in late 1982, manufacturers were already pumping out hardware accessories like crazy.

It's not what I've read on the Micro application's PC bible -- according to them the ISA bus wasn't well documented and expansion cards manufacturers had trouble making stuff that actually worked at first. Anyway, maybe they were wrong on that point too (they told in that same book that the technology of the time couldn't allow Intel to make REAL 20bit address registers in the 8086, while Motorola in the same years were able to put 16 32bit registers in their 68000 CPU).

>>2526070
>IBM rushed their first PC to market just to get their foot in the door, thus why nearly everything in it was off the shelf. If they went through their usual process, they would've had those custom components you suggest. And they'd make it to market in the late 80s instead of 81.

Well true, it make sense, seeing that the IBM's PC division already gave birth to 2 big failures, that the company put so much pressure on them. But still, it's a bit too bad (and the overall computer micro market).

>>2525975
>(IBM never really gave the specs of the ISA bus, I guess they hoped it would stop clone manufacturers)

Could have been an oversight as well; the Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference Guide didn't cover a lot of stuff either, especially interrupt handling.

>>2526181
>>2526190
Oh well, people can figure out how to reverse engineer stuff very easily - Atari never publicly gave out programming info for the 2600, but it all got leaked to electronics magazines by 1981 and since there was no lockout system on the console like the Intellivision and Colecovision, it was open season.

Sorry for the offtopic post, but most of the projects I'm working on lately are all mid-90s workstations and portables. I'm trying to make a compilation disk of essential software/utilities for DOS, NT and Windows 9x systems (like USB drivers, service packs, etc) and I think there's a little overlap here with people running later 9x systems for compatibility, not to mention we all know /g/ is totally useless for this kind of thing.

Since pretty much every post-486 system I have runs NT, I have that down, as well as service packs and updates for 95/98, but there's still a ton of space on the CD to fill.

I know there's probably tons of threads about stuff like this on Vogons and the like, but what do you believe are some essential pieces of software to have on every DOS or 9x system?

Just discovered Great American Cross-Country Race through Activision's Win95 C64 collection.

Man, this is a cool game. It's like OutRun but with some neat mechanics.

I just wish the draw distance was greater, I feel like I can't avoid hitting the cars. I probably just suck though.

>>2523573

Man, I want one of those for my XT now (along with a set of XT/370 cards too) but I'm assuming they were probably incredibly rare.

Were there any other interesting "emulator" SBCs made for XTs/ATs?

>>2523904

NCR made some pretty serious microchannel systems as well, unless that was what you meant by NEC.

>>2527178

For anyone else who might be interested, here's an Infoworld review of the card:

https://books.google.com/books?id=VDAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA59

Apparently adding the header to a program isn't as bad as it looked, just a simple command and it's ready to go.

Sage for double post

>>2527213
Fail to see the point anyway. The Big Three CP/M applications (Wordstar, dBase, and SuperCalc) were ported to the x86 very early on.

>>2527758
Read the linked review carefully. The Baby Blue card came out less than a year into the IBM PC's run when it didn't yet have a decent software library, so it provided a way to let you use the proven CP/M software base.

>>2527178
>Man, I want one of those for my XT now (along with a set of XT/370 cards too) but I'm assuming they were probably incredibly rare.

The card by itself isn't enough, you'd also need the CP/M version that it came with and accompanying utilities. Good luck finding those.

>>2527758

Yeah, as anything other than an novelty as far as collecting in the modern era goes it's not supremely useful, but still interesting nonetheless, I always had a thing for stuff like that.

>>2527802

It's never that easy. However, this seems like the kind of thing you'd find still boxed in an old computer store or already in a functioning system.

But now that I think about it, would one of these even support running CP/M from a hard disk on an XT? The PC software base was probably at least somewhat more appreciable by the time XTs started shipping in volume.

>>2527809
>The PC software base was probably at least somewhat more appreciable by the time XTs started shipping in volume.

Lotus 123 debuted a month before the XT did (though the very first release was designed for DOS 1.x and didn't support disk directories). By that time, what had been a trickle of IBM PC hardware/software became a flood.

>>2527770
One of the original Wordperfect programmers had said that "We originally wanted to develop the program using C, but at this time (1982), there was really no usable C compiler available for the IBM PC. We looked at the other available programming languages, but none of them were suitable for a word processor, so we just decided to write it in assembly language. To put it in layman's terms, using a compiled language is like baking a cake with premade cake mix while assembly language is like baking it from scratch. It's more difficult and time-consuming, but you have greater control over the ingredients. However, Microsoft hadn't yet made their x86 assembler available to the public, so we had to wait a few months for that to go on sale."

>>2525856
>list of dial-up BBSes that are still

I wouldn't post it here directly, but if you have it hosted anywhere or I could post a burner email or something, I'd be interested in seeing it.

>>2523330
>>2525865
Links should be in the OP for sure. I don't know why TOSEC hasn't done the TRS-80/Model 100 yet but these sites are the easiest places to find sources, tape files and disk images

Also, I can kind of understand why club100.org is kind of dead, the guy running it literally died, his mates are just keeping it around for posterity

>>2528121
http://www.telnetbbsguide.com/dialbbs/dialbbs.htm
Club 100 had one at one point, and the page about it is still up, but it's gone, unfortunately...

>>2527976
The first release of WordPerfect also supported a mere three printer types (plus Generic Text Printer if yours didn't match them), also printer support was hard-coded into the main program executable. On subsequent releases, they began using add-on drivers that even allowed the user to create his own printer driver for WP.

Man I still need an acoustic coupler and a TTY, I let a DECWRITE slip away cause they wanted freight shipping.

Really want to get into RTTY too,

>>2528143
That is a printer terminal, I believe. Assuming it uses RS-232, should work on any PC.

>>2528147
Correct, it is standard RS-232. I'd love to see someone use that on a Windoze 8 box (though recent PCs you'd have to get a separate PCI-e serial card).

>>2528147
Yeah I know, it wasn't really related to wanting to get into RTTY, it just reminded me.

>>2528157
>>2528143
How's the ARC in general doing anyway? People still get into radio or is it just greybeards at this point?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT4xBmc6iYM

It's interesting to see that if the x68000 was sold in France, it would've cost roughly 15331.42 FF without the custom and shipping fees (I think you can add something between 2000 and 2500 FF), which is way less than an Amiga 1000 (it was sold 28000FF), almost the price of an Amiga 2000 (18000FF), and 75% more expensive than an Atari 520ST (price on pic related).

Got this for almost nothings. Works but the antenna thing broke the second I tried to move it, it's fine I have to get at least a direct RF cable, if not composite.

I like the beige version a bit better than the black and silver or one.

>>2530181
Now to get all this shit

>>2520880
>ebay sniper
wtf
is this like paying people to buy stuff on ebay for you without your involvement or something? fucking retarded

>>2530217
Would you really be surprised? I mean since it was created there have been people who have, I can only imagine because there is no other explanation, steadfastly refused to learn how ebay actually works. There are so many people who don't understand how ebay works that their ignorance of the way it works ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE, because they're literally sitting there bidding against each other in the last minutes.

http://www.1000bit.it/support/manuali/trs/Introduction%20to%20TRS-80%20Level%20II%20BASIC%20(1980)(Michael%20Zabinski)(pdf).pdf

Nice book about TRS-80 Level II BASIC. I tried some of the programming examples on QBASIC and noticed that it has somewhat different number handling. For example, multiplying double precision variables resulted in an overflow error which is very weird. Why can an 8-bit BASIC handle this operation, but a 16-bit BASIC can't.

>>2530210
TI/99-4A was not a huge success because:

>retarded expansion system
>nobody knew how to program the 9900 CPU
>Texas Instruments tried to maintain tight control over software development
>horribly slow double interpreted BASIC

>>2530623
It's a decent machine I think, the community is really surprisingly active I I have no idea what draws people to this mediocre thing. At least there's plenty of support and information online and lots of third party and repro peripherals that you either have to make yourself or pay to be on a waiting list for a year until they get enough people to buy parts in bulk, and there's STILL no general flashcart from what I've seen

>>2531043
>It's a decent machine I think, the community is really surprisingly active I I have no idea what draws people to this mediocre thing
I guess the CPU is kind of cool since it's a break from the usual mundane 6502/Z80/x86/68000 stuff that 90% of retro computers/game consoles used. The sound and graphics chips were used by all different stuff though, so they're hardly unique or interesting.

>>2530623
And they were trying to sell it for the same price as the Atari 800 and Commodore 64, but its 16-bit architecture cost more to build so they lost a lot of money.

>>2531059

This. They tried to concurrence other machines that had the advantage of being way cheaper to produce.

10 CLS
20 PRINT @ 23,"That dog did not eat your homework, liar."

Just ordered an S100 board from a guy from N8VEM, any other S100/N8VEM homebrewers here?

SHIFT-838

>>2532465

Never owned any kind of S100 system, but find them pretty interesting.
What kind of configuration are you planning to use with it?

>>2532932
"By mid-1976, MITS was the world's largest microcomputer manufacturer. The company made a total profit of $5 million for the year and to founder Ed Roberts, it seemed like a lot of money, but this concealed the fact that MITS was far from a healthy outfit. Customer service was weak, MITS's reliability and quality control were nowhere near the best, deliveries were slow, and customers were constantly complaining. While all of these problems affected the early microcomputer companies to one degree or another, somehow MITS's problems were more publicized as due to the company's name and status, customers somehow expected more from them."

"During the year, Ed Roberts decided that MITS was to release a second microcomputer line, this one based on the Motorola 6800 CPU. Paul Allen vehemently protested the idea. 'No, Ed. It's a bad idea. All the software will have to be completely rewritten.' But Roberts insisted and so MITS debuted the Altair 6800b, a machine that was totally incompatible with the Altair 8800."

"By early 1977, Roberts was growing tired of the daily grind of managing his company and decided to sell off MITS's operations to Pertec, a Silicon Valley-based disk drive manufacturer. The Pertec sale was accompanied by a brief, but nasty lawsuit with Microsoft over ownership of BASIC and other software written for MITS's computer line. As Bill Gates explained, 'They thought they owned all the software, but they didn't. We owned it and merely licensed it to them.' Moreover, Gates, unlike Paul Allen, had never considered himself an employee of MITS. The lawsuit came and went, after which Pertec absorbed MITS. They continued to produce and sell the Altair line for a time after the sale, but then dropped them from production entirely, the MITS name disappearing into the pages of history."

>>2520820
Hey guys

Anyone have any info on this?

>>2532465

I'm very interested in becoming one, there's something about the more "technical" nature of S-100 systems that I just love, even if I would be in way over my head.

>>2533024

It's a 95/200LX palmtop PC, basically just a CGA XT that fits in your hand.

There's a ton of information on them, I'd post some links if I had more time. I used one for a while (well, fucked around with it more so, they're not as useful without the serial cable or other methods of data transfer)

>>2532932
Probably going to buy the Z80 board first because I'm most familiar with that processor but I'm probably going to end up buying at least the 8080 board in addition, want to really use it as a control system, planning on just buying 9 or so prototyping boards and just experimenting around

>>2520820
my dad got us an apple 2e (IIe) in early 90s or something.

>black screen
>green lighting

Jumpman
Lode Runner
some game with cars that jumped on/over other cars
someone's random homebrew RPG with necromancer as a class and "Roo" as a race
Starblazer

i'm having trouble thinking back this far

>>2533521

I see. Isn't the Z80 supposed to be 8080 and 8085 compatible though?

>>2533531

>Apple IIe

Noice! Too bad these cost like an arm where I live.

>>2533636
Yes, it does have an enhanced 8080 instruction set.

Still haven't watched the movie Wargames, I think I really should give it a try, seeing how nice the MC's computer setup look like.

What kind of switch is this anyway?

>>2536020

I dunno, what kind of computer is this from? Look like some hybrid switch or rubber stuff.

>>2536513
It's from
>>2530181

I once found a TI-99/4A in a thrift store complete in its original box. Hooked the RF output to one of the TVs there, pressed the power button, and aside from the LED coming on...absolutely nothing happened.

>>2533531
Up & Down?
>>2520820

>>2530181
That thing is immaculate, no real yellowing even, nice find if it came like that, good job if it didn't

>>2536020

That's definitely Hi-Tek manufacture. They also made the space invader switches found in some PC keyboards (namely NMB).

Nice find. Most of those have Mitsumi membrane keyboards.

>>2536020
>>2537610

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Hi-Tek_linear

>>2537610
Think it's just another good revision the model 2 (beige one) has over the original black and silver one, the black and silver one may look cooler, love the late 70s design but the beige model has a lot of little things it does better

>>2530181
Missing the function key label bar, fyi, that's not terrible, I've yet to buy anything that actually had their function key label unless they were actually printed directly on, I swear people peel them off for fun

Thinking about getting an X-Arcade for my Amiga 500 and other micros (and consoles too but that's not OT for this thread), I think if I read right it needs to go from USB -> PS1 -> Genesis (DB-9), and from that to any proprietary ports if applicable.

will that cause any noticeable input lag?

Really want to start a real dial-up BBS when I move for hopefully the last time in a few years and can get a stable land-line, any books or guides for it? Best software? Thinking of using a spare XT

>>2537687
You don't really need a book, it's not hard or something. I ran a couple different BBS systems back in the early 90s on a modified version of Telemark 2.5, the source code had been leaked or released, I don't know which. That one had good documentation, most of the major software did. They all had their own appeal and feel, try some out on a DOS system and see what you think. The most popular ones I remember were Telegard, Citadel (with approximately one million variations), Prodoors, Wildcat, WWIV, and that one that all the warez boards ran whose name escapes me. I liked Telegard because it could be heavily customized, almost everything could be changed and redesigned.

>>2537707
>Telemark 2.5
whoops, I meant Telegard. And the other one I was thinking of was Celerity, all the hack/phreak kids used that one. Obviously there's tons of others on other platforms, but those are all DOS.

>>2537717
>>2537707
Awesome thanks, is there a way to let people who reasonably don't have dial-up or an acoustic coupler access the same BBS on TELNET?

>>2537724
Meant to say landline period not dialup

>>2537724
>reasonably don't have an acoustic coupler

Not having an acoustic coupler isnt reasonable

>>2537724
>access the same BBS on TELNET
That I don't know anything about. My BBS/net experience ends with Fidonet back in 1993. I understand that some software allows telnet access, Renegade is an old one that has been updated and ported to Linux and has telnet support. Try that one, that was another popular system back in the early 90s.

I still have a 120mb hdd with my old BBS on it! Someday I should hook it up and transfer everything to a new computer. Still lots of cool old files on it.

>acoustic coupler
Hah.

>>2537757
I'd be interested in seeing those files, exploring BBSes, gopher holes and FTPs is still a major hobby of mine, amazing what's still around. I usually download any files I find, have tons of CP/M programs, and old UNIX stuff, stuff I never could have found just Googling, really useful things too

>>2537728
I'd legitimately like one to use but shits on eBay jack the bids up because they just want a display piece and will never use it, "collectors" infuriate me sometimes

>>2537778
They pretty popular in the amateur radio community, you don't know what they do with what they buy, I will admit though a lot of people on eBay, buyers and sellers, overestimate what their junk is worth.

That said you could really easily make one, honestly not terribly hard

>>2537771
I do happen to have some things saved from some old floppies. Here's a bunch of ANSI BBS advertisements, these are all from the 206 area code (before we even had 360).

>>2537836

This one is pretty great, it's advertising the guy's 486/33mhz computer speed.

>>2537843

>>2537848

>>2537867

>>2537874

>>2537879
I'll stop dumping now, sorry if I'm annoying anyone. This doesn't even scratch the surface of how many BBS systems there were just in the 206.

>>2537886
One last one, the font is nice for ANSI. They actually drew in the Orion constellation with a reflection, too.

>>2537886
Liked these, 206 is still Seattle though innit?

I wonder how many local BBSes still operate completely unknown to the world, not listed on that site. At least packet radio and RTTY are getting a little more popular these days, at least I don't see them dying anytime soon.

Non-Internet networks and decentralized stuff like radio are really what I'm into

>>2537662
>will that cause any noticeable input lag?

Analog conversions won't, but any digital conversions will.

Since it's starting out as USB anyway, you're paying for at least one polled digital signal no matter how it's used, even on a modern PC.

>>2537707
>>2537717
> I ran a couple different BBS systems back in the early 90s on a modified version of Telemark 2.5, the source code had been leaked or released, I don't know which.

You mean Renegade? Most of the warez boards I knew ran that one. Telegard was itself based on the WWIV source so I guess it was a natural progression.

I also saw a lot of Maximus boards. Not so much Citadel or Wildcat. Maybe one or two Roboboard/FX or RIPTerm BBSes sprang up in the area and then died once the novelty wore off.

>>2538340
Oh it also puts out PS/2 I think

>>2537046
This was a Sega arcade game, ported to the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari 800, Atari 2600, and Colecovision. An IBM port came out in 1987, nearly three years after the other home versions and appears to be one of those budget releases along the lines of Wheel of Fortune and Pole Position II, as the game only supports CGA graphics (most PC games would have had EGA/Tandy support by this time).

>>2537650
See then how black and silver came back in the 2000s.

>>2538820
I don't know how I feel about that to this day. By the late 70's beige was coming to be the standard in terminals, non-IBM micros went there own way sometimes but most of the time were black, grey or beige, when the PC took over nothing but beige in micros (which tended to be only IBMs or Apples). Even minis weren't immune, VAX and Alpha boxes were beige. Big irons tended to still be black or painted sheet metal still until plastic took hold in the 90's, since system/390 big irons haven't deserved the name. When minis disappeared into "Mid range computers" which were rack mounted like AV equipment and the name "server" unfortunately took hold, beige was starting to die and sterile, futuristic black took over. Now they're going to plain white and silver which is arguably worse.

>>2539284
>beige was starting to die and sterile, futuristic black took over.

And at a price premium, as I recall.

Want a black CD drive to match your l33t black case? $5 more for exactly the same hardware in black.

>>2539284
>computers will never be these colours again

>>2539284

I remember my school picking up a big pile of these in the early 90s just before we switched over to Mac Performas and LCs. Most of those have become beige as they've yellowed over the years but I remember them as whitish or off-white.

>>2540615
The Apple // was beige in the 80s but switched to the whitish, "platinum" color with that model with the keypad.

I think I recall reading somewhere that Apple went with that beige color for the Apple // and early Macs so the inevitable yellowing wouldn't be as noticeable.

>>2540628

Oh yeah, I know. The school primarily had older Beige ones and I even owned one myself for awhile. Just found this to be an odd bridge between Apple's 80s and 90s visual designs. We also had a single IIgs that was criminally underused. I don't think we had any actual IIgs software and all the IIe stuff ran too fast so no one liked using it.

>>2540630
I guess nobody knew to control-closedapple-reset (or was it option because of the new keyboard?) to get into the control panel and set it to 1MHz.

Though the //e Wings of Fury was fun at 2.8MHz.

Some noice raytracing stuff on x68000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNrCwYjkZAk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te2eD0mpxG4

>>2540645
Awesome game!

This is the Amstrad PCW file manager...
Nice readable fonts, 4 directory listings visible at once, RAM disk, limbo storage (deleted files that can still be recovered until their storage space is needed).
Wow! All this running on a little Z80... Even today's Unix console file managers are crappy in comparison.
And it sounds like the rest of the software was simple and easy to work with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_PCW
Not like Microsoft Word and others where people take cla$$e$ to just be able to do basic stuff at their job.
Things sure changed in the computer world, and not for the better. I for one can't wait to retire one day and never touch modern software again. I'll just tell my bank to send paper statements, and use only Lynx for browsing, and run a dialup/telnet BBS and shit like that. Amiga had some good ones...

>>2541495

File manager utilities often don't need a huge amount of resources, but yeah it's alway pleasing to see such nice example of file managers (though I think they weren't that uncommon on CP/M machines, just like for DOS).
Also, it's pretty interesting to see that many French Amstrad CPC oriented fanzines were made on. Too bad these are hard to come by today compared to the omnipresent CPC 464/6128 or the Amstrad branded PC clones.

As for Microsoft Word, I never had any problems with it (though the last version I ever used was the 2000 one).

>>2541495

>>2540645

I sure as hell didn't, but I was also like, 6 or 7.

>>2541736
I know...I too was befelled by childhood ignorance:

>be in the first grade
>sometimes my dad would boot up Astro Grover on his Commodore 64 so I could play it
>well one day I decided I wanted to play it
>so being the studious little neckbeard I was, I read all the manuals
>insert disk
>type LOAD"*",8,1
>blinking drive light, error, won't load it
>tried 2-3 times and it never worked

If only I realized that that game was on one of those flippy disks with an Atari and a Commodore side and I was inserting the former into the drive and if I'd only put it in upside down instead of right side up, it would have run.

>>2541495
>Amiga

How's that comic going Mr. Schwartz?

>>2541495
Agreed!

>>2541749
Arthur C. Clarke also was big Amiga user back in the day...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ01RcY7IkY
Maybe you prefer his fractals to comics? Anyway the comics don't bother me. But I find it strange how so many people make a big deal out of it now. Didn't notice this kind of judgemental behavior in early Internet days. Of course a lot of other things were better too back then. Now it's mostly commercial 2.0 crapnet sites everywhere.

I like how someone thought that filling this hole with glue was an acceptable alternative to replacing the screw

>>2541749

>trying to bring this shitty /g/ maymay in /vr/

Just stop already. We've alway been able to talk about the Amiga peacefully in these threads, so fuck off with your "Amiga users are furry" shit.

report and ignore

>>2541869
People went from just making fun of extreme members to thinking there was a legitimate moral reason to not like them. Made up stories of animal abuse did a lot to rile people who were really moral reactionaries at heart and just chomping at the bit to tell off "those freaks." And this is on the WWW exclusively, I've never seen any hate at all, even towards the really obsessed people, no one cared or cares on BBSes and IRCs and Newsgroups

>>2541495

The default Amiga font is really well suited to make menus and boxes in text without needing the IBM extended ASCII character set.

>>2541495
I use w3m exclusively, I haven't loaded X on my main Slackware machine in weeks, graphics are for games and multimedia, not interfaces. Curses stuff is really the flashiest I'm willing to go, and even then I only really use stuff like midnight commander when I'm poking around on an FTP or remote server, I don't usually find I need a curses program even for what you can do with the command line. Textual interfaces are so much better I honestly can't see why they died out as much as they did among the technical crowd, I mean most programmers, computer scientists and real sysadmins (see: not windows ones) are comfortable with a command line and hopefully at least use an editor and not an IDE, but it makes little sense to use a WIMP environment at all. You can launch graphical programs like games and video players and "modern" browsers with out having a whole environment that distracts from the actual media anyway, or you have it full screen anyway

>>2543072
You can't even make the "command prompt" fullscreen on windows since XP, it's like they actively want to discourage people who like text interfaces, I just use cmdemu as my main shell on windows do it boots directly to a good old CP/M-like command line.

I think at least the command line will live on in hobbyist communities and among the best computer scientists and electrical engineers. It's still a huge part of Linux, UNIX, BSD, and OSX, screw the windows only users

>>2543075
The limit to screen size for the command prompt is because windows is is a fucking mess, but while they might not actually have it out for hobbyists and the technically inclined, they certainly don't give a shit about us. They want to lock down their system with proprietary code and enough arbitrary, confusing, and down right stupid qualities so no one tries to mess with anything ever. At least OSX is Unix. Makes me cringe when idiots on /v/ and /g/ think they can ridicule Apple users while using exclusively Windows

Can you slot in a 486DX in replacement of an SX? If they're both 33mhz will I notice a huge difference in performance? Games and general home software don't really use the FPU anyway of I remember right

>>2543092
>The limit to screen size for the command prompt is because windows is is a fucking mess
It is. Windows 8 still has lines and lines of code for supporting 5.25" floppies and Epson FX-80 printers.

>>2543352

As long as you don't mix the kind of socket (Socket 1 and 2 for example), the 486SX is a 486DX with a defective and/or cutout FPU, so it's supposed to work.

>>2543352
Pretty much only spreadsheets and engineering/scientific software needs the FPU. As for games, some flight simulators use it but that's all.

>>2543393
Good backwards compatibility is never a bad thing, supporting old hardware is fine if it's well written and optional but window's vestigial code bits is neither. They don't legitimately support most of the things they were meant to, they just couldn't be assed to clean your their code.

That said the thing that gets me the most of all about windows is the system wide caselessness. Windows is the only operating system in existence today that still has this because it's based on a 40 year old toy OS. Z/OS and *Nix don't have problems like this despite the fact they are now over 50-55 years old because they were always designed to work on real computers not hacked up microcontrollers. CP/M at least has the benefit of being simple and easily hackable, DOS to a lesser extent, but hackjob has been a ham-fisted hack job since it stopped being just a shell. Merging NT with the consumer DOS line was the final straw. I haven't used Windows regularly for anything but games for 10 years now, Mac and *nix software support gets better by the day even now. There's only so long they can keep building on principles that were never designed to be extended passed the 8080, at some point they have to change fundamentally, and if that means more of their own proprietary bullshit like NT I don't see them staying competitive long into this century

>>2543484
Meant to say Windows instead of "hackjob" that first time, got ahead of myself

>>2543484
>here's only so long they can keep building on principles that were never designed to be extended passed the 8080

Examples?

Windows is a horrible mess because the original programmers of the NT core are long gone and nobody who works at Microsoft now actually knows how anything in it works.

>>2543489
He's saying that Windows traces its roots back to DOS which traces its roots back to CP/M, an OS designed around 8-bit microcomputers. This is totally unlike Unix (the underpinning of Linux and OS X) because it was designed around minicomputers/mainframes.

>>2543493
Also I'm not sure if MS does it, but a lot of proprietary software houses have people work in just parts of the code so no one person actually knows exactly how the program works, presumably they do this to protect their "intellectual property" but in reality it just means the code take longer to debug and they don't debug it fully

>>2543484
>if that means more of their own proprietary bullshit like NT I don't see them staying competitive long into this century

I don't see any problem making their own proprietary OS as long as it's stable and powerful enough, don't hog resources just for the sake of it's GUI, is well documented, and if they have a library of powerful and useful softwares ready for it.

>>2543536
I meant proprietary central design, not code, proprietary code is understandable but nothing they can hack up can legitimately compete with POSIX compliance.

>>2543542

Well, a proprietary design isn't that bad either if it's well though to begin with and is powerful enough when implemented.

So I found this Packard Bell in the attic and I can't get it to do anything. It says I have invalid configuration information, but I don't see what's wrong.

>>2543590
Well now it says no boot device.

>>2543590
>>2543597

Do you know what that means? Dead BIOS battery. If you're unlucky enough, it's one of those Dallas all in one RTC/Battery/NVRAM chip that isn't produced anymore (but hopefully have fully compatible chips produced by the same company still sold today).

>>2543590
>>2543608

Also, it seems that you didn't specified the right floppy drive type nor you did specify ANY HDD.
What are the other video options?

>>2543590
>Packard Bell
That's your explanation.

>>2543608
>>2543619
Okay I put the video on VGA and set the HDD type but now it says "fixed disk 0 failure"

>>2543637

Is the HDD IDE or not? If yes, is it in Master mode and the CD-ROM drive in slave? Is there actually installed on it?
Also, did you change the floppy drive options to 3"1/2 DSHD or DSDD? Did you connect the floppy drive to the plug, after some of the lines twist or in the middle one (if there's a middle one)? did you plug it in the right side?

>>2543665
>Is the HDD IDE or not?

It's a mid-90s shitbox. That thing's not gonna have SCSI in it.

Seriously, P-B was a piece of shit computer sold at Wal-Mart and other such places to tech-illiterate nitwits.

>>2543393
Not just the OS, but PC chipsets still have all the floppy/parallel port/RS-232 support in them, it's just not connected to anything. Easier to just leave the shit go than try to remove it.

>>2543770
RS-232 is still the standard for controlling CNC equipment and microcontrollers, although the average PC user has no need of these capabilities so they took the serial ports off of motherboards after the XP era. If you need RS-232, you can get a PCI-e card with the ports on it. My dad uses one at work.

>>2543772
True, but can't think of much use for a parallel port anymore unless you needed to run a printer from the 90s.

>>2543770
>>2543772
Support for older hardware was gradually phased out in the late 90s; by the XP era, ISA slots were gone and BIOSes only supported one floppy drive. The actual stuff to interface with it was never removed from the motherboards however.

>>2543779
I have a Dell Pentium box (date of manufacture stamped on the inside of the case is February 1996) and this would be the last generation of PCs to retain full compatibility with the DOS era. Still has a full complement of ISA slots (six of them along with two PCI slots) and the floppy ribbon cable with 5.25" connectors.

The BIOS in this thing even has a neat option where you can select which floppy drive (A or B) is on top and which is on the bottom so you don't have to move cables around. :^)

>>2543782
Pentium III and IV motherboards actually didn't have real hardware ISA slots anymore; the ISA slot just patches into the PCI bus, which means cards that use DMA won't work.

>>2543782
>I have a Dell Pentium box (date of manufacture stamped on the inside of the case is February 1996) and this would be the last generation of PCs to retain full compatibility with the DOS era
Made sense. People in the Windows 95 era were still transitioning out of DOS hardware/software and lots of that shit was still in use. By 1999, most users had upgraded and DOS support wasn't necessary anymore.

>>2543775
That's completely the opposite for me. I use the (3) parallel ports on my modern PC for all kinds of stuff but not for printing.

>>2543779
The P4 machine from 2001 that I used till 2007 had support for 2 floppy drives including 5.25inch types.

Started with atari 2600 as a small kid. then I got an atari 520st, after that an atari 1040 and finally an amiga 1200 before I switched to PC. Any questions?

>>2543772
Those serial PCI-e cards exist mostly for convenience purposes since as you said, the motherboards still support serial ports, they're just not connected to anything and you have to rig a port up yourself.

>>2543795
I had a Compaq Presario P4 from 02 to 06 and it didn't support two floppies, nor did the ribbon cable have more than one connector on it.

>>2543862
>Compaq Presario
That's a shitbox sold to tech illiterates ala Packard Bell. No real neckbeard would use that thing.

>>2543694
>It's a mid-90s shitbox. That thing's not gonna have SCSI in it.

I was asking in case the controller was MFM

>>2543815

What did you play on the 520ST and 1040ST?
It's on my list of computers to buy (but not for gaymen reasons though, I already have an Amiga)

>>2543895
>MFM hard disks
>any year after 1988
Educate yourself!

>>2543904

It was supposed to be a joke m8.

>>2543779

Hell, even modern Z97 motherboards still use Super I/O chips that contain a complete floppy controller. They just don't wire it up or support it in the BIOS/EFI.

>>2543637

Your HDD is fucked or you didn't configure it in the BIOS properly.

With a CMOS dead battery your BIOS will be completely unconfigured when you power the machine on.

>>2543784

There were a few slot-1 boards that still had native ISA, but that was around the turning point to running all slaved ports.

Sound in DOS was one of the more common reasons to need DMA. You either needed an SB-Link capable board and card, or a card that used TDMA like an Aureal.

>>2544459
The other day I saw this thing at barnes and nobles which was calling itself a "digital typewriter", all it was was just a Model 100, had the same screen size and about the same form factor but it was made to look like a typewriter and had an awful rubber dome keyboard. Not only that but it didn't have MBASIC or any interfacing options except IEEE1394 (is this 2006?), it was bizarre, do new computers even have firewire? I don't own any made after 2010

>>2544391
>All slot-1 boards still had native ISA

FTFY

>>2544469

Sounds reminiscent of an AlphaSmart.

This guy

>>2545220

This way you can confuse newcomers by telling them you own one of the early prototypes of IBM PC-AT.
Joke aside, I like this PC's case. I just wonder how many expansion cards it allows though.

>>2545220
Anytime the words "as is" are used, 100% of the time the product doesn't work.
>the shipping cost switcheroo

>>2544391
>Sound in DOS was one of the more common reasons to need DMA. You either needed an SB-Link capable board and card, or a card that used TDMA like an Aureal.

My Dell Pentium box had Windows 98 SE on it and yeah, you couldn't get sound card support from DOS games unless you had Windows running. Luckily most DOS games I tried did work in Windows. Bubble Bobble fucked up, but otherwise I tried LucasArts games, Sierra games, X-Com, and some other DOS stuff that has sound card support and had no issues running them inside Windows.

Yeah the diehard autists would get an ISA Soundblaster 16 card for DOS games, but since I rarely encountered a DOS game that didn't cooperate with Windows, I never found a pressing need for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uR2MxE95K0

The Amiga port of Atomic robo kid look rather nice --the graphic conversion is correct and most of the tunes are well rendered (well maybe with the exception of the stage 2 music, too bad). I think I'll try it on my Amiga just to see if they messed the gameplay though.

>>2545352
It's still recommended you have a SB16 because they have a real Yamaha YM3812 on them for Adlib support while onboard sound and PCI SoundBlaster cards emulated it in software and typically sounded "off".

>>2545572

Well, I checked the game, and while gameplay-wise it's decent even compared to the arcade version, I have to admit that the 25FPS animation isn't pleasing at all. Like, it fell a bit jerky and not so enjoyable on the long run. Too bad, it looked like a nice decent port at first.

>>2545339

Shipping cost may well be accurate considering how much those fuckers weigh.

"as is" loosely translates to: "I tested it and it didn't work, then I tried to fix it and now it's completely fucked beyond repair"

>>2530217

>paying people

Nope, it was a free service. I put in a dozen different ebay listings and told the site to bid on whatever was cheap enough and cancel the rest.

Dropping some computer FM tunes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REQN326weGs (I like the little tribute to the Amiga demogroup Wild Copper at the end)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcG0Ysh4NrM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLSa6aKIdIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_5jPX5CqSM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk1xrbwjni8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deP1YntadRQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UDxZ1oMj54
Do you guys enjoy the Computer Chronicle? I find it interesting to have an insight of how was the computer world back then. Also, having an actual computer guy in it give a it some credibility imo (for those who don't know, Gary Kildall is the man who gave birth to CP/M and is the founder of Digital Research).

>>2547897
>I find it interesting to have an insight of how was the computer world back then.

how was the computer world in the US*. I should have said it this way because, well, it was totally different from how it was here in France.

Anyway, some mo5 games:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAMy7Qqffko
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4c1GtefN2I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v7oiyNXCn4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwpK4_K0ygQ

>>2549401
The video game crash happened in 1983 and then computing became reduced to an IBM/Apple monoculture. The end.

>>2549410

Well, I know what happened to the US computer market, but it's alway interesting to see how the specialized media presented the various actors of the time.

Pic was made out of the scans of 2 pages from a magazine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ1tb-uW_xw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z27a9tXlnz4

>>2552642

The prices on the ad in US$ of the time (1986) are:
- $647.91 for the Philips VG8020 + Monochrome monitor + external floppy drive.
- $864.36 for the same setup with a Color monitor instead of the monochrome one.
- $330.45 for the first setup without floppy drive.
- $503.61 for the second setup without floppy drive.

Needless to say that it's pretty expensive compared to the average MSX1 of the time.

Anyway, some MSX networking stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMYugdIKF4M

By 1979, Apple were the largest microcomputer company in the world, but already they were considering a successor to the Apple II. Few believed it could continue to sell strongly for much longer. The planned successor, the Apple III, ended up being a near-legendary fiasco. It was the first computer that Apple had attempted to develop as a company instead of Steve Wozniak in his garage, and the results showed.

Eventually, the finished Apple III emerged as a professional computer targeted at the business market and competitors such as the TRS-80 Model II. It was a comparatively advanced machine compared with the Apple II, featuring vectored interrupts, a real-time clock, and an OS with hookable device drivers. However, backwards compatibility forced the continued use of the primitive 6502 instead of a more advanced CPU. Even so, the Apple III had only limited backwards compatibility with the Apple II. It was the product of many hands and it showed. As Steve Wozniak observed, "They think they have the compatibility down pat, but they don't."

When the computer went on sale in the summer of 1980, serious design flaws quickly emerged. For one thing, the mainboard in the Apple III used very fine circuit traces to reduce its size, however these were straining the limits of contemporary manufacturing technology and ended up resulting in small bits of the traces coming loose and forming a bridge with adjacent traces, causing a short circuit. Even worse, the Apple III had no case fan at Steve Jobs's insistence, so the case quickly overheated and caused the main board to warp, which led to ICs coming out of their sockets and the computer freezing up. This resulted in Apple issuing an infamous tech support bulletin directing users to lift their computer a few inches above the desk and drop it back down to force the loose chip back into place. Aside from these design flaws, the 6502 CPU made the Apple III unappealing for the business market as it was unable to run CP/M. Subsequent modifications fixed most of the computer's problems, but its reputation was already damaged. The Apple III lasted into early 1984, after which it was discontinued.

In 1982, Apple went to work on their next-generation computers which would be based around the 16-bit Motorola 68000 CPU. These would be the Lisa and Macintosh. Under original company plans, the Lisa would be the successor to the Apple III and a high end machine targeted at the professional market, while the Mac would succeed the Apple II as the cheaper, simpler low-end machine for the home and educational market. Steve Jobs was placed in charge of the Mac development team, but he had other ideas.

The Lisa debuted in mid-1983. An impressive machine with a full mouse-driven GUI operating system and 3.5" floppy drives, it sadly had no chance of succeeding due to its towering $10,000 price tag. It lasted into 1986 before being discontinued and eventually replaced by the Mac II as Apple's flagship line.

>>2554886

The thing about the Lisa is that it's the slowest 68k machine (5MHz 68k CPU + GUI, even the Sinclair QL is faster) but has an enormous amount of RAM for 1983 (1MB was huge, even for PC users). The latter characteristic isn't enough to save it from it's sluggish performances, which was as much of a drawback as it's price. It never stood a chance against the company's own Machintosh that was cheaper, faster, and with a huge marketing campaign, even though they advertised the Lisa as the "mac developing machine" after releasing the machintosh.
Wasn't the Lisa equipped with 5"1/4 floppies though?

>>2554925
>Wasn't the Lisa equipped with 5"1/4 floppies though?

Early models had a proprietary type of disk known as "Twiggy drives", but these were soon replaced by conventional 3.5" disks.

I'm convinced everyone of you are virgins or married a 5/10

>>2554943

Oh I see. The last time I ever watched a video involving an Apple Lisa I remembered seeing something like 5"1/4 floppies, that's why I was surprised when you said they had 3"1/2 floppy drives.

Anyway, It's surprising that they didn't put more than 128kB of RAM in the first Mac models, seeing how much RAM they poured on the Lisa.

>>2541743

Talking about early mistakes, I happily typed-in some longish BASIC program from a computer magazine only to understand it wouldn't run on my C=64. It was for some other system, but don't remember which anymore. I was 11 I guess.

>>2555049
woman you didn't even plug it in

>>2554943
>>2554963

Back in the day, like 98 or so I had the chance to buy a Lisa 2 at a swap meet. I knew it was rare but all I could really think about was that finding software would be an even bigger bitch than it would be otherwise so I went with a Mac SE they had instead. I think both were like 30 bucks a pop at most, maybe a little more for the Lisa. CSB and all that shit.

>>2554886
>This resulted in Apple issuing an infamous tech support bulletin directing users to lift their computer a few inches above the desk and drop it back down to force the loose chip back into place.

Dat fuckin Drop Test.

Steve Jobs took over the Macintosh development team like a whirlwind, bullying, badgering, and praising them mercilessly. He told them they were pioneers, visionaries, revolutionaries who would change the world forever. Jobs's messianic language made it hard to believe that he was talking about a piece of office equipment. And in turn, he made sure to insult Apple's other divisions and let them know they did not measure up to the Macintosh team. The Apple II team were told that they belonged to the past and the Lisa team that they were losers.

The original Macintosh made its debut in January 1984, accompanied by a soon-to-be-legendary Super Bowl commercial parodying Orwell's "1984" directed by Ridley Scott, which depicted a woman in a red dress bursting into a room filled with mindless gray drones and throwing a hammer into a screen of Big Brother. The advertisement was meant to represent Apple heroically destroying the Orwellian conformity of an IBM-dominated computer world.

Yet for all the hype, the Mac proved to be a less-than-adequate computer. Per Steve Jobs's insistence, it lacked a case fan or any internal expansion capabilities. Even worse, he insisted on limiting the computer's memory to a mere 128k. While this was not a small quantity of RAM at a time when most people had 8-bit computers with 64k, it was clearly insufficient for a 16-bit computer with a memory-hogging GUI operating system. The Mac also had no hard disk and an external floppy drive was an extra-cost option. While it sold well at first, sales tapered off after a few months. The problem being that the early purchasers were primarily technophiles who enjoyed the thrill of being the first to use any new product, no matter how unproven it is. After that, customers were hard to come by and the inadequate memory on the Mac made software development difficult.

As 1984 drew to a close, both of Apple's much-hyped 16-bit platforms were failing to attract any interest and to the company's great embarrassment, the redoubtable old Apple II continued to account for at least 80% of total sales volume. During early 1985, an upgraded 512k model of the Mac debuted which at last permitted usable software to be written for it, however the lack of a hard disk continued to be a liability. Throughout this period, Steve Jobs refused to listen to complaints about the Mac's design deficiencies, even going so far as to argue that they were advantages. To many at Apple, it seemed as if Jobs was living in a dream world. Finally, one day in September 1985, Jobs had a meeting with Apple CEO John Scully which led to the former resigning from the company in tears.

With Jobs gone from the company he'd co-founded, Apple immediately began efforts to salvage the Macintosh. In early 1986, the Mac Plus was introduced which featured a new interface for the mouse and keyboard (the Apple Data Bus, which Steve Wozniak himself was commissioned to design) and an optional external hard disk, as well as a better keyboard with a numeric keypad. Some of these improvements had been in the works for a few months prior to Jobs's departure, but the Mac design team had kept them a secret so as not to incur his wrath.

>>2554954
You're the one with the dedication to post this in every thread

>>2543010
Hey speaking of BBS, has anyone tried to run the Linux/*BSD port of DayDream (originally for Amiga)?
I downloaded the code some years ago but didn't have a shell to run it on. I have daydream-2.14.9.tar.gz (file timestamps inside the tarball are 2003-2004) but there's some kind of newer versions out now:
http://daydreambbs.com/
The github page seems to indicate they're planning to use an SQL database backend, whereas the old code I have just uses plain text files, as was common in the 80's and 90's. Frankly, I'd rather keep it that way myself...
Pic is kinda related, but this one here even more so:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amiga3000UX.jpg

>>2545339
I use as-is because I don't want the scumsucking niggerfaggot to try and get a refund because he found one little blemish on a 10 year old PC

yes i mad

>>2554963
Purportedly it's because Jobs felt 128k would be sufficient based on experience with the Apple //e.
Fortunately their engineer snuck in a way to expand the RAM, and left it when it was discovered and ordered to remove it.

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Diagnostic_Port.txt

>>2555256
ADB was introduced with the Mac SE. The Plus still used the RJ-11 and DB-9 connectors for the keyboard and mouse.

>>2556150
>Steve Wozniak believed expansion was important to a good computer

He did mention in iWoz that he found the Commodore PET an extremely inadequate machine the first time he saw one running at a computer show, one reason likely being that it was just such an appliance computer with no expansion capabilities.

>>2556163
This is correct. The main hardware difference between the Mac 128/512 and the Plus was the addition of double sided floppies.

>>2556181
And SCSI port.

So I have an old Atari 1040 STFM, but it seems it's refusing to read diskettes (not that I actually have any Atari ST diskettes) and it's giving me an "Disk Drive not Responding" error. Is my floppy drive unhealthy?

Is yahoo auctions the only place to get a PC-9801?

>>2556178

But the Comodore PET DOES have expansion capabilities -- Comodore left empty ROM sockets so that users could add custom ROMs in it, put an IEEE-488 port so it could use all the already existing laboratory stuff available at the time, as well as a user port allowing you to do everything you can imagine that is within the realm of this computer.

>>2556338

The ST is capable of reading CP/M and DOS floppies if I recall correctly, so yeah, the floppy drive might have some problems. Check the wiring and the controller.

>>2556352

There's one website I forgot the name, but in general, yeah, you'll only find them at a reasonable price on Nip' websites.

>>2556423
>The ST is capable of reading CP/M and DOS floppies if I recall correctly

I forgot to say only if the floppies are double density formatted (and single sided if your ST model only has a single sided drive). A 1.44MB-formated floppy wont be readable on it, so you'll have to put a piece of tape on the non-write protection hole to disguise it as a 720k floppy for PC drives, then format it like a DD floppy. If your 1040 STFM drive is single sided, well then, I don't know if these are supported by PC floppy drives.

>>2556423
>>2556428
so I opened it up and it seems the head just bounces a little back and forth about 2-3 mm when it's trying to read/write disks. i'm starting to think head servo is shot.

There was some suspicious new solder on the cables going to the head servo so it seems this drive has been repaired/attempted to be repaired before. In particular there was a blob of solder between a component (i'm not sure if it's a resistor or a capacitor or whatever, but it's got 390 written on it) and two brown cables that go to the servo. I removed some of the solder but it's starting to look like all that stuff was supposed to be bridged to begin with judging from the solder pads I exposed.

If it helps I'll snap a picture.

>>2556469

Hmm, that's quite problematic. Maybe the drive have been modded, something like that. Nonetheless, some pics might be helpful yeah.
As for the component, it might be a diode or a capacitor, because there's usually nothing written on a resistor, it's characteristic are given by a series of color rings.

>>2556469
I replaced the drive with a PC one were I'd bridged pins 10 and 12 (internet told me to do so). I can now format disks and create folders, yay.

Now I just need to find a way to write Atari ST disks from a PC. Preferably Linux, but windows works too. Would a USB floppy drive cut it? it can read/write PC-98 1.2 MB floppies fine, anyway. It seemed to be able to read a 720k floppy formatted in I don't know what, until I formatted it on the Atari anyway.

>>2556535
it's an SMD component

>>2556626

Good to see the problem being solved. As for a a way to write Atari ST disks from floppy images, you can try to use an emulator that support using a directory as a floppy, else most of the stuff I find are either DOS or Windows utilities.
You should check on Atari-related wiki and forums:
http://www.atari-wiki.com/?title=Disk-Imagers

>>2556626
But where do you even find floppy disks these days?
Anyway I wouldn't trust the later batches of stuff made after mid 90's anyway. They were very poor quality, and even back then many of mine tended to go bad very quickly. Granted, I wrote to them a lot, but I also did the same with my Amstrad CPC disks in the 80's and those were nearly indestructible. I only got errors on those when I tried to format them beyond "normal" size (so probably going out of spec...)
I think today the only decent option is floppy emulator, unless you can fit everything on HDD (which can be flash storage as well). Well I guess CDROM also, if your machine can read those (but no saving files...)

>>2556716

Not him but I have a decent supply of good floppies. There are still new old stocks available for cheap, stuff like that.
3 years ago for example, I bought 3 packs of brand new 50 DSHD floppies manufactured by Fugifilm in Germany, and none of them have any problems at all.
But yeah, I agree with you, the vast majority of floppies made in the 00s are just trash (one day I bought a pack a 10 verbatim floppies, but 5 were already dead, that's what I get by buying junk).

>>2556716
I have some spare DD's lying around that I found left over by a retro computing club after they moved. Probably old Mac disks.

I also have loads and loads of HD diskettes from my old PC days, that I really should get around to dumping before they rot (if they haven't already)

>>2556716
>They were very poor quality, and even back then many of mine tended to go bad very quickly. Granted, I wrote to them a lot, but I also did the same with my Amstrad CPC disks in the 80's and those were nearly indestructible. I only got errors on those when I tried to format them beyond "normal" size (so probably going out of spec...)

The quality of floppy drives and media went downhill fast after about 1995.

so I got floimg working under an old win2k machine with an intenal floppy drive. after I wrote an image to a floppy I first had formatted and created a few folders on using the atari I know have a very peculiar situation where it will show the folder I created using the atari when I put it in the atari but it will show the files it wrote from the .st-file when I put the floppy in a windows machine...

>>2557007
Those problems dissappeared upon changing to another pc floppy drive, very strange.

Does /vr/ know any Atari ST games that don't require a joystick, since I lack one for the time being?

I managed to get Burger Time running, but that doesn't seem to work without one.

>>2557392

I think Lemmings use the mouse instead of a joystick (and even allow 2 mouse for 2 player games). Same for some point and clicks I guess.

>>2556205

Pushing SCSI on Macs was one of the smartest ove-- sure, SCSI drives are more expensive, but they're usually better than their IDE counterparts, and you can add more than 2 drives to your setup. Also, I doubt that IDE tape drives are a thing.

>>2520836
Here is something I just found that might be valuable to this list. It's an archive of a massive amount of Atari computer (including the 8-bit area machines) related stuff, digital magazines, games, demos, emulators, etc.
http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/

>>2558871
also, another interesting archive, this time of old computer and gaming magazines
http://dl.oldgamemags.com/

>>2558883

Thanks anon, that archive is pretty interesting. Also, there's another useful website that isn't in the link pasta yet:
http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/
It's full of Commodore-related books.

I know it's been lamented before, but I wish the individual topics posted in these threads would be posted to the main board as discrete threads rather than ghettoized in a general.

The rest of the board is almost entirely filled with console discussion because of this concentration camp/general.

Just dropping in to say, Amiga turned 30 today.

>>2556352
Well, eBay.

The PC-9801 was actually released in the United States as the NEC APC-III. Does anyone know if these are, or can be modified to be, compatible with PC-9801 software? It wouldn't surprise me if the APC-III was missing a Kanji ROM or something.

But if they could, it would be cheaper and easier to buy an APC-III instead of importing a PC-9801. Theres actually quite a bit of them on eBay due to their use in a factories as controllers for CNC milling machines in the late 80s.

I've been playing Super Mario Bros. Special for PC-88 on the m88 emulator.

Is the fast speed and timer in this game something that was normal on a real PC-88?

>>2561091

Are you playing in 4MHz or 8MHz mode? Because if the latter, well, yes it's normal that everything is super fast.

>>2560854

After checking some of these machines, they seems more expensive than their PC-9801 counterparts from nipland without the shipping fees, and having to ship them make them WAY more expensive in my case (livin' in Europe and all).
Too bad, that would have been a nice alternative.

>>2559786

Happy Birthday Amiga.

>>2560854
Why are so many of the PC9801 listings on ebay well over a grand? Gouging?

>>2537874
Oh shit, you reminded me of INSANITY. A game I could never get too far on, I would reach the star field and then the area after would prevent me from advancing.

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

>>2561186
also, this game was probably my favourite growing up because, well, dinosaurs!

you really had to work for it though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el95iD176S0

>>2561163

Because muh rare exotic japanese hardware. Anyone who know where to search for one also know that you can find some models for literally 5 bucks.

>>2561163
Because they're not consumer PC98s. Use Yahoo! Auctions if you wanna track down a PC98.

>>2562073
I buy on YJA (not PC98 computers, though), but in the narrow realm of stuff I do buy I've noticed prices spiral out of control lately, so I'm beginning to wonder if the days of good prices on Yahoo have died as a result of newbies flooding in thanks to Buyee ads and Japanese getting scared of foreigners taking their stuff away resulting in higher prices.

>>2562073

Not him but for me "refurbished" means "got it for free".

Gotta love Microprose's Gunship Intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eThVlWL_Gw

>>2561186
If you like text mode games, this page has a few:
http://www.reenigne.org/blog/machines/

I tried Mr X and Cool Dude. Not bad, and kinda tricky actually.

I just found his page while searching for Amstrad CPC stuff. Anyway he wrote a bunch of DOS stuff in Turbo C on an Amstrad PC1512 with two floppy drives. Those were pretty nice machines for their time. I even know someone who used one throughout the 90's for dialup Internet access (and other basic stuff like word-processing). Obviously it was limited to whatever programs were on the ISP's Unix shell (Lynx, Pine, and such) but it worked well enough those days, before all this Web 2.0 crap.

>>2565237

Too bad Amstrad didn't put a 5"1/4 floppy drive on their CPC and PCW machines like they did with their PC clones (even though it's possible to hook any shuggart-compatible 5"1/4 floppy drive on a CPC as the second disk drive).

I've a zx spectrum with a box full of games cassettes and one of those funky printers that uses an electrode to burn characters on aluminium covered paper. The most exclusive looking games are "marsport" and "Knightlore" for which I both have box and manual.

Worth anything?

>>2565772
The vast majority of Spectrum games also exist on the C64 and Amstrad, the Speccy having no advantage over those platforms aside from costing less.

>>2559691
there are plenty of threads about individual PC games and series and adventure game and shareware/weird PC games threads pop up once in a while...

>>2537919
I've been pretty surprised by the recent revival of packet radio and RTTY activity and really HAM activity as well, a few years ago everyone was declaring that sort of stuff dead technology.
Also, if you don't already know about it, you might be interested to this
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

>>2565772

>funky printers

Thermic printers? They're not that funky when you think about the fact that they're still in use in every grocery stores or supermarkets at the cash registers.

>>2566567

No, not a thermal printer. A spark printer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark_printing

>>2563530

Refurbished means fixed/cleaned-up and being resold for a return. Whether it was free for the seller to pick up is immaterial.

It's an important distinction for buyer protection. Refurbs can't be sold as-is and must work properly.

>>2520820

Why no late 90s games? Board rules state anything before 2000 is allowed

>>2566416
I know that - amateur radio used to be just written off as an old guy hobby not practiced by anyone born after 1951.

>>2567045
Those games seem to have their own threads, that's why.

>>2567056
Doubt there's much hope for model railroading though. Once the boomers are dead, that's the end of that.

It's been a while, but I'm going to crack open Commander Keen and play it through tonight

>>2567189
feels so good

I can't get into retro computer gaming because it's too complicated for me but I really like learning about old PC games. They're just so interesting

>>2567261
Try downloading Dosbox and downloading a copy of Commander keen or something from myabandonware.

You should just be able to extract it and open with dosbox and it'll work.

If you do get commander keen, arrow keys move, ctrl jumps, ctrl + alt shoots

>>2567290

I'm more into owning physical games tbqh. Old PC boxes and manuals are pretty fabulous as well. But pc gaming has always been too complicated for me, especially retro stuff

>>2567301
Well it doesn't really feel like emulation if that's what you are on about, but I understand the whole big box thing with all the little goodies.

I would do it too except I spend too much money on retro consoles, so I just emulate.

>>2567301
>But pc gaming has always been too complicated for me, especially retro stuff

Trying to play 80s-90s PC games on real machines is hell. 8-bit machines and Amiga are cake though, since you mostly have to do nothing more than insert the game floppy in the drive and reboot.

>>2567313
I'm not kidding. Just use DOSBox for retro PC games. It's nearly indistinguishable from the real thing in most cases.

>>2567313
Even easier now since you can use Flash floppy emulators on most retro systems.

>>2567318
This.
seriously fucking dosbox man, I swear to god, if not have fun paying hundreds and that shit being a bitch to work, you can still collect pc games and all, but why let it be a hassale to use when you can just shred open an executable

>>2567261
>I can't get into retro computer gaming because it's too complicated for me but I really like learning about old PC games. They're just so interesting

Guess you're not that interested in it afterall. It's not complicated at all when you read documentations about DOS itself and surround yourself with it.
Even though I'm a real hardware freak, I'll just say do as the other anons said -- get DOSBox or a VM where you can setup the equivalent of a 486 PC clone so you can install MS-DOS 6.22 yourself. Then, type Help, check the various commands and parameters, tweak your DOS virtual machine, and learn. You'll see that it's not complicated at all, as everything is documented.

>>2567352
I have more knowledge of 80s-90s PCs in one pinky than many here have in their entire body, so believe me when I say that no one in this day and age would ever, ever want to spend hours fucking around with a CONFIG.SYS file to get a game to run. Some things are best left in the past where they belong. And let's not even get into the literally hundreds of different hardware/OS configurations that PC compatibles of that era could have, all of which may affect what games a given machine can and cannot run.

Besides, it would take about 5-6 different machines to cover the entire gauntlet of PC compatible games from 1982 to 99 (the cutoff date for /vr/).

Was John Romero's work prior to anything he put into Doom any good? It would be interesting to know from someone that has checked any of that stuff out first hand.

>>2568058
It didn't take hours, maybe 5-10 minutes max. At most you'd need to make a boot floppy if you couldn't free up enough conventional RAM. Most game manuals would give basic instructions too.

In 1994, I had a 486DX/33 with DOS (and shortly after dual-booted to Linux). It could basically play every game, but older ones needed throttling with mo'slo or similar program. Eventually I got my hands on QEMM, which made the memory configuration stuff a breeze. Was also pretty nice to have DESQview for multitasking when I was messing around with BBS softtware (I ran a single node board using Celerity, but it was never very popular, pretty much just a project to tinker with).

As for Amiga, with the A500 you were basically set, except for some really old games that needed you to unplug any additional floppy drives and maybe even remote your trapdoor RAM expansion. But with later machines like A3000 or the AGA chipset stuff, there was a bit more fiddling around with boot menus if you wanted to play old OCS/ECS games.

The easiest machine I had was Amstrad CPC 6128. Everything just worked out of the box, without any kind of config changes. At most, some games required you to type |CPM to boot the disk, rather than loading a program from within the ROM BASIC.

>>2568424
>tfw back in the day got daggerfall bootleg with no instructions
let me tell you about hell

>>2567045
Why is this exact post verbatim made in every thread?

>>2567148
I'd still like to get into that but my interest is solely from a systems design point of view, I don't have any real interest in trains in particular

I'd like to get into vintage computers, but money. I was thinking about picking up a Poqet PC, any suggestions about how to get into the hobby?

>>2561163
The market for these PC98's is owners of very expensive Japanese CNC machine tools (like lathes, milling machines) that are controlled by these computers. These machines cost five-six figures and when the CNC computer goes down on a factory floor, it needs to be replaced yesterday so businesses with these machines will pay those super high eBay prices to avoid downtime.

>>2568913

Where do you live? Depending on the answer you might have that super cheap 8-bit micro that tons of people had (C=64 in the US and Germany, ZX Spectrum in the UK, Amstrad CPC in France and Spain, MSX in Netherland and Spain too I think).

>>2569105
USA, I have 300$ to work with atm.

>>2569112
If needed I should be able to scrape another 200-500$ in a week or two for it's games and whatever peripherals I need.

Doriath. The first Metroidvania, made before either of the genre-naming games ever existed.

>>2569565
Shit, meant to post in the C64 thread. Whatever, enjoy it.

Is there really much for me here if I'm not into RPG, Strategy, Adventure, Simulation, and strongly believe that both Europlatform and Euroshmup exist and are terrible?

>>2569608
porn games?

>>2569565

>the first metroidvania before either metroid or castlevania being released

Sometimes this genre's name is top silly

>>2568424
>It didn't take hours, maybe 5-10 minutes max. At most you'd need to make a boot floppy if you couldn't free up enough conventional RAM. Most game manuals would give basic instructions too.
>In 1994, I had a 486DX/33 with DOS

Bloody hell, of course it seemed "easy" when you were 5 years old and your dad was the poor sap spending hours trying to free enough RAM to get Reader Rabbit working.

>>2569608
You just eliminated most of old computer software library. Maybe the machines are still interesting if you like to code and/or make pictures or music, but otherwise it sounds like you're happier with console system.

>>2569645
Idk maybe the designers of those games just had different taste, but if I were making games in that era, I'd probably make the most Treasure-Core games imaginable.

>>2569649
I mean Amigas were used to program Genesis games by non-japanese developers. How could Treasure-core games be impossible?

Also would it be possible on the C64? Because if all that demoscene stuff is possible, wouldn't it be possible to make a game with the same pacing and depth as Alien Soldier?

>>2569640
At 5 years old the most advanced thing we had was a Pong console hooked up to a small black & white TV (the big color one in living room was for normal TV stuff). One of my relatives also had some kind of electronic bowling table that looked very close in form to a full-size pinball machine. There weren't any real physical pins to knock over though, it was just a matter of running over some lights with this hockey-puck type thing (instead of a bowling ball). There were all kinds of other cool electromechanical games like that in the arcades back in the 70's. I doubt many of those survived though, and they can't be easily emulated... I mean there were things like baseball games with pieces that actually moved around!

>>2569672
>Treasure-Core
I don't know what you mean by that?

>>2569640

Not him but

>launch memmaker
>it optimize both autoexec.bat and config.sys for you and leave 600kB of conventionnal RAM free after all drivers and TSRs are loaded.

It wasn't rocket science, many utilities did the job for you, and some of the were shipped with the system itself. And appart from that, magazines or just some abuse of the "DEVICEHIGH" and "LH" directives helped too.

>>2569112
>>2569120

Check the prices of C=64 in your area, and be sure to get a 1541 floppy drive or a floppy emulator if you don't like buying bulks of floppies and discovering what's among them. This platform was the most popular non-IBM PC or clone computer around.

>>2569685
Games similar to those made by the company known as Treasure, such as Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier, Mischief Makers, etc. Generally refers to fast-paced sidescrolling action games with sci-fi/fantasy elements, and usually bosses made of multiple sprites.

>>2569690
One time I found an original copy of Ultimate Football '95 in a thrift store. Tried to install it on this old IBM Thinkpad with Windows 95. I could not do it. After hours of head-banging attempts, I couldn't get enough free RAM so I said "Fuck this shit." and just ran it on DOSBox.

Even on DOSBox, this game was a terrible headache and required several patches to run.

>>2569693
Well I'm not familiar with those particular games, even though I had a Sega Genesis at one point and heard about Gunstar Heroes.

But anyway, the Amiga does have hardware to control sprites and playfield, so it's possible in theory to make the kind of games you talk about. It comes down to the coding and game design. Maybe have a look at Turrican and see if that's what you're thinking about...

>>2569704
I've played them and they're enjoyable, but just okay imo. Personally any game that has up to jump bothers me, and if I were making a game for Amiga I would just have people use WASD and whatever keys were on the right side. Did Turrican ever get a quickdash or anything like that in the sequels that I may have missed?

>>2569672
Genesis games wouldn't be too hard to port to the Amiga. Its hardware isn't all that much more advanced and (obviously) same CPU helps.

>>2569696
Fuck you, kid.

>>2569725
Don't know, I only played (briefly) the very first game. You could transform into this spinning thing (a bit like Metroid) but it didn't speed up like Sonic and such.

I think the only platform game that really held my interest was Lionheart, and I couldn't stop playing it until the end. You might like even though it's not fast-paced, it's more like a Castlevania game. Oh, and this one supports gamepads with two buttons. Some of the later games did (early ones only used one button joystick because that was the common device in 8-bit computer era). And of course all CD32 games let you use multiple buttons... It's also possible to buy some special gamepads (sorry I don't recall their brand name) that let you remap stuff like "up" to one of the buttons, which make it nicer to play the older stuff.

>>2569731
Ditto with Atari ST games. Actually some have been ported over by a fan:
http://meynaf.free.fr/pr/index_en.html
But these are not as optimized as possible, so won't run well on a stock A500.

>>2569765
I agree with that sentiment. He's just a typical 4chan troll trying to dilute the signal/noise ratio in this excellent thread. The only rational response is to "report and ignore" such behavior.

>>2569565
Trying to get this to run on Vice and can't any suggestions?

First time using it, also on linux.

>>2569785
Alright got it, was just impatient as fuck that's why

The original Deluxe Paint source code was released last Wednesday:
http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/electronic-arts-deluxepaint-early-source-code/

It's pretty small (only 17K lines of ANSI C) and looks well-structured with comments and everything, so it could be useful as a learning example. I don't know how to build it though. There's no Makefile, but instead something that looks kinda similar but more primitive (prism.txt). I guess it probably needs SAS/C or Aztec C or one of the other early C compilers for Amiga.

Pic is some artwork recently posted on eab.abime.net by an Amiga user who found some of his old disks or something. This one would be great in an RPG!

Also just found out about this nice-looking game:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140328054521/http://oagd.net/amiga/paradise-lost
http://hol.abime.net/6017
It was actually uploaded a couple years ago, but only sold a few hundred copies, so it's pretty obscure. I wonder how many other nice lost thing there are out there...

>>2569703

Too bad for you, in Windows 95 (and even 3.1) you can make PIF files to specify how much conventional memory, EMS and XMS you want your DOS program to have freed for him.

>>2570418
I once found on an abandonware site an early version of the PC DeluxePaint from 1988 (version 1.x something). It supported CGA, EGA, Tandy, VGA, Hercules, and AT&T/Olivetti and was under 300k in size. But that was a long time ago and I can't find that version online, just the later DP that supports SVGA modes and is more like 700k in size.

>>2571306
Nigger, I tried all that shit. It wouldn't run from DOS or Windows.

>>2569731

Nope, the Megadrive clearly have an advantage over the Amiga when it comes to sound and graphics.

Yes, the CPU is the same,, but at the same speed, it can't do the job of the megadrive's 68k + it's Z80, because even though the Amiga CPU has little to do to tell Paula how to play music, it still has to tell it some way, while the 68k in the megadrive just tell the Z80 when change the tune and stuff like that. The megadrive has way more hardware sprites, the Amiga only 4, and even though it has a blitter and can make bobs (blitter objects) to replace sprites, it's not so fast and it steals the main CPU's memory cycles. The megadrive has 4 planes instead of the 2 allowed by the dual playfield mode, and each planes have 16 colors instead of the 8 on the Amiga. Yup you can have 1 plane and 32 or 64 colors at once on the Amiga, but you'll suffer if you want to make parallax effects. Also, the Amiga use bitmaped framebuffers, while the megadrive is tile-based, which is faster.

Porting megadrive games to the Amiga is like porting arcade games to this same computer -- the former platform is a generation ahead. It doesn't mean the Amiga is a bad machine, but you need a faster CPU if you want it to be in the same league as the megadrive. And this is coming from an Amiga freak.

>>2571341
It's kind of like the Atari 8-bit computer line. On paper, an Atari 800XL is comparable to the Commodore 64 (same CPU, RAM size, and whatnot), but on the other hand the POKEY/ANTIC chips have a number of limitations that the VIC-II does not have, especially the weaker sprite capabilities.

The C64 was at its peak during the late 80s when the Atari 8-bits had died out. That was because it only predated the NES by a year while the POKEY/ANTIC chips were almost four years older. The TMS 9918/19 chipset used in the Colecovision/MSX was a contemporary of the Atari chipset (both class of '79) and neither of those were able to handle 3rd gen gaming, which demanded smooth scrolling and 8 sprites per line.

>>2571341
>The megadrive has 4 planes instead of the 2 allowed by the dual playfield mode, and each planes have 16 colors instead of the 8 on the Amiga. Yup you can have 1 plane and 32 or 64 colors at once on the Amiga, but you'll suffer if you want to make parallax effects.

Amiga has more colors in total (4096), but can only display 32 at once. The Genesis has 512 colors, but can display 64 at once.

>>2569731
>>2571341
>>2571353
It would be the same as trying to port classic Mac games to the Amiga. You could keep some of the code for things like enemy AI, but everything else needs to be totally rewritten.

>>2571356
The first generation Macs are much less of a computer than the Amiga as they have bleeper sound and dumb frame buffer monochrome graphics.

>>2571349
The NES does have several advantages over the C64 such as a hardware sprite multiplexer, faster CPU, and much simpler screen scrolling. On the other hand, the color/attribute system of the PPU is utter bullshit. Also the sound hardware has a number of annoying limitations that don't exist with the SID, such as each sound channel being limited to one waveform.

The more advanced NES games like Kirby really wouldn't be possible on the C64 as they used mapper chips that allowed features like real-time streaming of graphics data from the cartridge. However, many of the MMC1/NROM games are entirely doable.

>>2571363
I always thought that NES games look and sound extremely sterile compared to the C64.

>>2571368
80-90% of NES games can be summarized as "Run around scrolling level punching/shooting/stomping enemies. Beat up boss at the end of the level. Collect magic talisman that you use to beat the next boss. Repeat until you reach the final poss."

There's nothing on the NES that resembles Wizball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK82X9VlE38

>>2571370
>>2571368
Well...that's a product of a few things. Unlike a computer, the NES hardware wasn't readily accessible to any neckbeard and its games were expensive to develop, so devs didn't want to risk deviating from safe, established formulas. Many C64 games were made by autistic Yuropoor neckbeards who just did whatever they found fun or interesting.

>>2571349
Rambo First Blood on the C64. This game is not that much unlike a run-of-the-mill NES game. Trying to do it on the Atari 8-bit or Colecovision was out of the question as they had only monochrome sprites and a four per line limit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4l3ZVSon_4

>>2571363
>The NES does have several advantages over the C64 such as a hardware sprite multiplexer, faster CPU, and much simpler screen scrolling.
And what about the fact that majority of the games came on cartridges and not floppies or tapes.

>Also the sound hardware has a number of annoying limitations that don't exist with the SID, such as each sound channel being limited to one waveform.
But there also features that the SID doesn't have, like 7bit DAC which can be feed by the CPU to playback PCM or an automatic DPCM playback which fetches it's data from the PRG ROM by using DMA.
Playing samples through the volume register is more an hack as the later 8580 doesn't support it by default, the audio circuits of the NES stayed pretty much constant through it's lifetime (earliest CPUs lack that certain "looped noise" support).

>The more advanced NES games like Kirby really wouldn't be possible on the C64 as they used mapper chips that allowed features like real-time streaming of graphics data from the cartridge.
Who the fuck told you that?
The MMC3 allowed banking up to 512Kbyte PRG and 256Kbyte CHR with 2 configurations for each side and has a scanline counter which generates an IRQ after N rendered scanlines has been drawn (but the C64 also has one as well).

http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/MMC3

>>2571419
>And what about the fact that majority of the games came on cartridges and not floppies or tapes.
That's kind of like the N64/PS1 debate. PS1 was better for linear stuff like Crash Bandicoot while the N64 was better at open world games.
>But there also features that the SID doesn't have, like 7bit DAC which can be feed by the CPU to playback PCM or an automatic DPCM playback which fetches it's data from the PRG ROM by using DMA
Yeh it is better at running sampled sounds although they're fuzzy compared to the SID which sounds really nice and clear on the few games that use digitized sound (eg. Transformers).
>The MMC3 allowed banking up to 512Kbyte PRG and 256Kbyte CHR with 2 configurations for each side and has a scanline counter which generates an IRQ
It is. You can swap tile data on the fly with the MMC3. This was what I meant by "streaming". Maybe not the best choice of words?

>>2571363
There's also no bitmap mode on the NES.

>>2571419
Without an MMC3, the only way to generate a raster interrupt on the PPU is via a programming hack that costs you one of your sprites.

>>2571363
>On the other hand, the color/attribute system of the PPU is utter bullshit. Also the sound hardware has a number of annoying limitations that don't exist with the SID, such as each sound channel being limited to one waveform

Also each sound channel has a fixed hardware envelope that isn't redefinable, which limits the range and frequency of sounds that can be generated.

>>2571429
>although they're fuzzy
I think that the "Sunsoft bass" sounds pretty awesome but I can hear that fuzziness only if nothing else plays.
>Maybe not the best choice of words?
More like a misconception of different working system architectures.
The C64 just has one single bus for everything while the NES has 2 independent bus each for the CPU and PPU which also access their own ROM/RAM.
This could be seen as streaming when one compares it to the generic C64 setup (1541 drive and/or tape) but I think it's possible to make C64 cartridges which just could do pretty much the same as the NES carts with their mappers. Just map tiles and code from a ROM to the C64 bus by switching dynamically to Ulitmax mode if accessed or something like that.

>>2571442
>programming hack
Nah, Sprite 0 hit flag was very well documented but the idea itself is sure weird.
A real programming hack is to set/scroll the picture by writing to the PPU address register instead of the PPU scroll register.

NES sound works as follows:

Channel 1=pulse/square wave
Channel 2=pulse/square wave
Channel 3=triangle wave
Channel 4=white noise
Channel 5=PCM

Most NES music uses the pulse channels for the main register and the triangle wave channel for the bass, as it's pitched an octave below the pulse channels. A few games however do use the triangle wave channel for the main register (Dragon Quest 1 comes to mind). You can also generate square waves with the pulse channels, but it's not commonly done (Lode Runner I know does it).

The SID has sawtooth, square, triangle, and white noise and each channel can use any of them. Similar to the NES, most SID music uses sawtooth for the main register and square waves are much less commonly seen. As the other guy mentioned, there's not really a good way to play samples except with an extremely CPU-intensive hack.

>>2571457
The PPU was mostly inspired by the TMS 9919 (tile graphics, sprite multiplexing, and have a separated video bus). In fact, Nintendo were basically trying to make a better TMS 9919.

>>2571467
yeh playing sampled sounds on the NES uses about 5% of the CPU cycles while on the C64, it takes something like 50%.

>>2571368
There weren't a lot of good PPU musicians except for the Capcom guys. I would blame it on Japan's lack of home computers. A lot of European SID musicians worked from home with their own custom tools while the typical Japanese game programmer never touched a computer outside of work.

>>2571503
True, but then again the US also had shite musicians. Boot up almost any NTSC Commodore 64 game and the music will just be bleepy shit using the default SID envelopes. I mean, the US Ikari Warriors versus the European Ikari Warriors. Come on. The US version was pathetic.

>>2571503
Or the general lack of Japanese devs really pushing the hardware or exploiting bugs/undocumented features like European guys did.

>>2571503
>I would blame it on Japan's lack of home computers.

Source? There was like 9 million MSX computers sold in Japan alone, 18 million PC-98, 16 million x68000, before these there was the PC-88 series which seems to be a popular machine in 80s Japan when you see the software library they have..
I'd say it's more like >>2571516 said, if Japanese lacked computers, there wouldn't have been so many games made on them.

>>2571503
But the Japanese home computer enthusiast scene did produce a ton of music, and they also played a big part in the popularization of MML, and the emulation of old Japanese PC sound hardware.

A lot of it is buried and maybe potentially lost forever, since the Japanese doujin scene has always had a stronger respect for paying artists. Also the fact that a lot of it existed only as sound disks, and the relative lack of popularity of Japanese PCs outside of Asia, meant that it was harder for people in other parts of the world to access, especially before emulation.

>>2571503
>. I would blame it on Japan's lack of home computers.

Source? In Japan alone there was 9 million MSX units sold, 18 million PC-98 units, 16 million x68000 computers, and I can guess there's the same amount of PC-88 solds as it seems that this was the most popular architecture in Japan during the 80s.

>>2571357

The 1st generation machintosh don't only have a bleeper, but also one 8bit@22kHz PCM channel.

Guys I have this PC-7000, but it's missing the keyboard cable. Does anyone happen to know the pinout? It's supposed to be a coiled cord with 6P6C plugs on both ends, and I'm wondering if a 4-pin phone cable would work too. I'm guessing there can't be much more than vcc/gnd/clk/data in there. Would anything go up in flames if I get the pinout wrong or short it?

Also got an A1200 with 68030 and 16MB, but most games I tried so far seem to run too slow on it. Lion King for example is really smooth in the beginning but then once you go up the first rocks the framerate drops significantly. Happens both with whdload and straight from floppy. Is this normal?

>>2572514
>Does anyone happen to know the pinout?
If google can't help you then it's easier to find it out by measuring.
>I'm guessing there can't be much more than vcc/gnd/clk/data in there.
Very likely but don't count on it.
>Would anything go up in flames if I get the pinout wrong or short it?
You could damage a special/proprietary IC and be unable to find replacement which is almost as bad as catching fire.

If you have a multimeter then you can measure it but better make some breakout adapter to make it easier.
Ground will be very likely be connected to the metal chassis.
VCC will be 5V and the data lines will between.

You better open the keyboard to measure that as well. There will be likely a polarized capacitor on the supply rail which will tell you where VCC and ground goes.

>>2571341
Then again, A1200 and CD32 have faster CPU and more colors. Those machines are really the ones of Sega Genesis era. Earlier OCS/ECS machines are from NES era.

That said, I'd still prefer an A500, because it can play a much larger variety of games, and do other things like paint, music, coding, etc.. It's effectively both a computer and console at the same time. I guess you could say the same for many home computers from the 80's with specialized hardware and a uniform platform (so you don't have to guess which graphics and sound card is in the machine, etc) but Amiga was probably the last and most powerful such hybrid system. Besides the CDTV and CD32 are effectively consoles you can upgrade with keyboard and floppy disk to turn into full computer.

>>2571353
Only the very early machines are limited to 32 colors. The other ones can use extra half brite mode to effectively display 64 (you just don't have full access to the 4096 palette for the extra 32 colors):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Halfbrite_mode

There's also the special HAM mode:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify
You can see that in even early pictures like famous one...

Ok, /prog/ autists. Write a program to move an 8x8 ball from the left to the right side of the screen. Do it on the Apple II, C64, Atari, NES, PC*, Amiga whatever (just pick whatever is your favorite platform).

*Use VGA Mode 13 here as it's the easiest to program with