Ace of Spades HQ

May 05, 2013

Vintage PC gaming intro [Purp]
— Open Blogger

For now I'll forcus on IBM PC compatible games and hardware. They're still not impossible to find (at a price), and present a vaguely familiar aspect to anyone who's worked on configuring a modern'ish desktop PC.

In the beginning... there was the IBM model 5150 Personal Computer, at a base price of $1,565 (in a virtually unusable minimalist configuration).

Having an actual IBM PC (5-expansion slots) or XT (8-expansion slots + HDD) is the "gold standard" when it comes compatibility for vintage PC games. Those are the platforms the software was developed and tested on - hard to beat that.

The Intel 8088 microprocessor those machines were fitted with has a few obscure quirks that could thwart attempting to run some of the earliest PC games on faster Intel 80286/80386 and later microprocessors. Most programs won't run into those incompatibilities, but when you do you're at a hard stop without the real thing.

You're probably not going to find too many original PC's and XT's (or even Taiwan clones) out at the curb on garbage day for free anymore; that era started waning about the time the 486 chip showed up. The more likely scenario is you got some old 486 or Pentium class machine stashed in a closet, or find one out at the curb on garbage day pleading for salvation from the smelter or landfill. The original stuff is getting kinda pricy on eBay these days. This 5-slot PC has been bid up over $200 and there's still a few hours to go.

So, if you don't want to drop 3 or 4 figures collecting up the parts for a pimped out vintage original, that 486 or Pentium stuffed in the closet is looking more and more attractive if all you want to do is play a few old games.

The problem with a new(er) computer, other than the obscure 8088 CPU incompatibilities noted above will be that, well...its often TOO NEW. Many older games, while they "run", will run at a frenetic, weasel on crack pace and be virtually unplayable on the faster CPU's. They were written without any throttling because a balls out 4.77Mhz 8088 was just barely enough. Nobody in the early 1980's ever thought anything like a Pentium was possible. The first 80386's were considered to be pretty much miraculous, and so pricy that no ordinary user would ever need one.

If you're lucky enough to have an old 80286 (like an IBM AT or AT clone) stashed in hole somewhere, its a better starting point than the newer 486/Pentium, there's a lot less performance to try and kill to slow it down. Chances are an old 286 is fitted with a 1.2M 5.25" floppy drive too -- which is what you'll be wanting when loading old games. Compaq kept using the 1.2M 5.25" drives on their 386 machines for a while too.

A 5.25" 360k floppy is handy to have too. Many offered a 360k drive as an optional 2nd floppy on their 286/386 class machines. Most of the old games and other DOS software shipped on 360k format diskettes.

Slowing a fast beast down

Games, being heavily video oriented, a SLOW video card can go a long way towards taming a "fast" machine. Most of the earliest games will be written for the original IBM CGA video card, which is pretty slow. Its an 8-bit card which slows it down even more. For the casual person looking to play a few old games, the CGA presents a problem though; its video plug is completely incompatible with the VGA standard, and used CGA monitors have become kinda pricy

If you can find one, an 8-bit ISA VGA card will usually work OK, and it'll be capable of driving any old VGA compatible monitor. Most new'ish EGA games (like EGAroids, and Asteroids clone and Captain Comic) will work OK on a VGA too. But even those are getting kinda pricy with people starting to ask crazy money for them.

OS/2 -- a possible solution for some old games.

If you've got an old 386 with 4M of memory in it, another approach presents itself -- IBM's OS/2 operating system. With a plain 386 (or 386SX) or 486, common16-bit VGA card, and common IDE drive, you can usually get OS/2 to load and run. The 386SX chip is good for slowing things down A LOT when running a 32-bit operating system. It only has a 16 bit path to memory and is considerably slower than a 386DX or 486. The first 32-bit OS/2, 2.0 is an exercise in pain. Lots of bugs, and many install issues. If you can scam up a copy of Warp 3 off a umm... torrent site somewhere, you'll have something that's not too bad. Search around on the IBM FTP support site for the last Warp 3 fixpack and you have something kinda good.

OS/2, unlike Windows NT and later versions, has pretty good "DOS box" support with a myriad of settings for configuring it.

Suppose you got a game that refuses to run with more than 512k of memory available (not uncommon), there's an OS/2 setting that lets you jack the available memory down below that. Suppose a game refuses to run on the VGA? OS/2 has a setting to make the DOS box video present a CGA. If some game uses 320x200 graphics mode (very common) and the window it runs in looks postage stamp sized, OS/2 has a setting to double the pixels and scan lines so the window is more reasonable sized. That setting also slows down the "crack weasel" games quite a bit as the video driver is copying a lot of data.

DOSBOX -- a solution for some old games on modern Windows.

Suppose you got only one machine, a new 64-bit whatever CPU running Windows Vista, 7/8, whatever.. and you don't want to get into building a dedicate vintage game machine? Then what?

Look into DOSBOX its not too bad. Not perfect, but it'll be good enough to run a lot of the old DOS games, and its under active development and maintenance.

enough for now, maybe more next week...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:36 PM | Comments (189)
Post contains 1035 words, total size 6 kb.

1 Haha

Posted by: NativeNH at May 05, 2013 02:37 PM (ANKVD)

2 The Stompening Begins

Gaming or Needle Nose plyers? I need to take a nap.

Posted by: Tobacco Road at May 05, 2013 02:40 PM (4Mv1T)

3 This should be double posted for effect .

Posted by: Bill D. Cat at May 05, 2013 02:43 PM (TQOZk)

4 Still have my 25MHz 386 in the closet.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot Jr. at May 05, 2013 02:43 PM (BqEo0)

5 True Geek,

In 1979 there were no strip clubs in my part of South Carolina so when my bachelor party was winding down when went to a friend's work site so we could play a text based Star Trek game on a DataPoint computer.

Posted by: tmitsss at May 05, 2013 02:44 PM (rdav6)

6 3 This should be double posted for effect .
Posted by: Bill D. Cat at May 05, 2013 06:43 PM (TQOZk)
You could use the pliers on the computer.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot Jr. at May 05, 2013 02:44 PM (BqEo0)

7 DosBox works quite well. I use it as a "toy platform" for teaching basic Intel Assembly language, since it allow the students low level access, albeit to a virtual machine. You can't do that with today's multi-tasking OS's. Plus, it works on a wide variety of platforms, including Unix & Mac as well as Windoze.

Posted by: Tim at May 05, 2013 02:46 PM (ou4cD)

8 Early OT - the 2A essay linked in the sidebar lives up to the hype. Go and read.

Posted by: StPatrick_TN at May 05, 2013 02:48 PM (un8zR)

9 for a time I had a '386 running Debian linux working as a router, until there was one OS upgrade to many. Now that '386 is a combination door stop/foot stool. Put a cushion on it and call it an ottoman.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at May 05, 2013 02:48 PM (JBB2s)

10 MDK!

Posted by: eman at May 05, 2013 02:49 PM (cQ4xo)

11
If I said, "This is a job for a pair of dykes," how many of you would know what I meant?

Posted by: soothsayer at May 05, 2013 02:49 PM (LVtr+)

12 Soothsayer, quit playing with your wire cutters. Might cut something important off...

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at May 05, 2013 02:50 PM (eXTRT)

13 Wait...So old computers are now becoming valuable? I friggin' give up. I guess I should just stop throwing stuff away and just save everything from now on.

Posted by: rickl at May 05, 2013 02:51 PM (sdi6R)

14 DosBox's emulations have come a long way since I started looking at it some years ago...

http://www.dosbox.com/status.php?show_status=1

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 02:51 PM (/gHaE)

15
Remember when MAVIS BEACON taught you how to TYPE?

Posted by: soothsayerwing plover at May 05, 2013 02:51 PM (1WM2H)

16 Maybe the hoarders know something that we don't???

Posted by: NWConservative at May 05, 2013 02:51 PM (GyUpb)

17
ah, but dykes are more than just wire cutters

everyone should have a pair of dykes in their toolbox

Posted by: soothsayer at May 05, 2013 02:52 PM (052zE)

18 I am not dragging out of the closer the old AST 486SX25 with Windows 3.11 to play the original Sim City... nope not gonna happen.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at May 05, 2013 02:53 PM (eXTRT)

19 I used dosbox to play lords of the realm II the other day. Fun game, but the windows version sucks ass.

Posted by: NWConservative at May 05, 2013 02:53 PM (GyUpb)

20
what, I'm the only one who bought a Mavis Beacon CD for my pre-Pentium-class 386 tower pc with Windows 3.1?

Posted by: soothsayer at May 05, 2013 02:55 PM (vanqS)

21 I remember gaming on a TRS-80 "Co-Co". The computer mags came with games you had to input manually...line by line, and then save on a casette.

Posted by: Icedog at May 05, 2013 02:56 PM (ZolUS)

22 Best dos game ever on a slow pc Scorched Earth

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 02:57 PM (jmVS/)

23
DOSBOX

Almost temped to go rummaging around for those Harpoon II files I have somewhere and give it a whirl.

Relive the days of using a salvo of Harpoon missiles fired by a squadron of P-3 Orions for a tactical "nuke" strike on Reykjavik.

Good times, good times....

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at May 05, 2013 02:58 PM (kdS6q)

24 Back when Win 3.x was out, just before Win95 I played a game at work called Scorched Earth. Basicly you and your opponent (or the computer as an opponenent try and lob bombs over and kill the other guy. We played for 25 cents a kill.

Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 02:59 PM (FmFB3)

25 I threw away 100s of Pcs and Ats that cost 2-4$k new. That was years ago. Still got a P3 with win 98 though. Maybe a laptop with 95.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 02:59 PM (jmVS/)

26 Yea Scorch is great. My boys and I still play it. Its the Funky bomb!

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:01 PM (jmVS/)

27
I remember gaming on a TRS-80 "Co-Co". The computer mags came with games you had to input manually...line by line, and then save on a casette.

Hahaha! I used to do that on my Vic-20. The first one ever, from the back of the included user manual, took me an hour and a half to type in, and I had at that time, no cassette. So I left my computer on for about a week, so I wouldn't lose all that work.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at May 05, 2013 03:01 PM (0IhFx)

28 .So old computers are now becoming valuable?

They're getting crazy money for some stuff on eBay. Its hit or miss. Find two people who want something and a bidding war can drive prices through the roof.

A lot made its way to the landfill or recycle over the past 20 years, so some things have gotten kinda rare. If I'd kept some of the hardware I had 15 years ago, I could retire comfortably unloading it on eBay.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:02 PM (/gHaE)

29 Open source games n stuff.

http://sourceforge.net/directory/games/os:windows/freshness:recently-updated/

Posted by: 13times at May 05, 2013 03:03 PM (fGPLK)

30 Scorched Earth was amazing. Then they went and made it all complicated with a bunch of extraneous bs. There was an updated SE-type game (played with animals instead of tanks, I think) on the recent consoles, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it is.

Posted by: The Mega Independent[/i] at May 05, 2013 03:04 PM (Lq5WC)

31 My first PC was a WIN 286 with a 20 MB hard drive. It had only a 3.5" floppy drive, not a 5" one, so in that sense I guess it was advanced for 1990.

Favorite games at the time (all pirated): Deathtrack, Ultima VI, Shinobi, Command HQ.

Posted by: logprof at May 05, 2013 03:05 PM (fOFYL)

32 Check out GOG.com - Great Old Games. Grabbed Sim City 2000 SE for 3.29. Look for the Zork series as well...

Posted by: Tex Murphy's Foreskin at May 05, 2013 03:05 PM (B0YpT)

33 15 Remember when MAVIS BEACON taught you how to TYPE?

----------

Nope. I learned on manual Underwoods. The teacher would put a reel-to-reel tape on the recorder with a voice saying "a a a a s s s s" etc. and then open her newspaper.

Posted by: Assault Citizen Anachronda at May 05, 2013 03:05 PM (U82Km)

34 I sold a bunch of old Powerpcs to a guy to run os2 for $200 each about 5 yrs ago. I literally saved them from the dumpster.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:05 PM (jmVS/)

35 There's a lot of DOS games that have source code available that were written in Turbo Pascal 3, and Turbo C.

Borland/CodeGear/Inprise has a compiler museum where you can get some of the old Turbo Pascal and Turbo C compilers for free.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:06 PM (/gHaE)

36 DOSBox is Pretty Darned Good. though mostly for games, it can also salvage some old apps that won't run on new hardware - it emulates hardware to an extent as well. I have a slightly older laptop running PC DOS 7.1 right now, and not really for games (I use DOSBox for that). And a true nerd might say "Wait, there was no PC DOS 7.1!" And they would be right-ish. PC DOS 7.0 was PC DOS 2000, their last Y2K-compatible effort. But they did make a core and key utilities later for an SDK, and if you have that you can hybridize Y2K-compliant and 32-bit (largely for large disk support) DOS. There are post-DOS DOSes that support those things, but frankly none of them are 100% compatible - honestly DOS was not 100% DOS compatible.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 03:07 PM (qyfb5)

37 Forgot to mention for all you wanna-be psychos that Postal 2 can be found at GOG in all its bloody glory as well...but it's not all that old.

Posted by: Tex Murphy's Foreskin at May 05, 2013 03:08 PM (B0YpT)

38 No wait, Command HQ I bought outright. It was worth it (I believe $25).

Posted by: logprof at May 05, 2013 03:08 PM (fOFYL)

39 I sold a bunch of old Powerpcs to a guy to run os2 for $200 each about 5 yrs ago

You got the better end of that deal. OS/2 on the 601 PPC's sucked ass real hard. That project was a total disaster, with IBM delivering strictly on contractual obligations and doing no further development.

Windows NT on those machines was viable though.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:09 PM (/gHaE)

40 I play a lot of DOS games on my Linux with DOSemu...though KROZ games run way too fast. Rogue plays great, because it's turn-based.

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 03:09 PM (MMC8r)

41 Turbo pascal. Gawd ive forgotton so much stuff. Like dbase basica Pip Wordstar Visicalc Night Racer Steve Gibson Cpm

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:09 PM (jmVS/)

42 I wish they'd update Battle of Britain. I played the shit out that game back in the day and have NEVER found a flying battle game that I enjoyed like that. Well...

there was the flying in the original BF1942.. but good god, all the glitches and fixes and crashes...

Posted by: Yip at May 05, 2013 03:10 PM (/jHWN)

43 WASTELAND rulz

Posted by: Blacksmith8 at May 05, 2013 03:10 PM (Yzu6e)

44 Let's talk about the greatest keyboard ever made: The IBM Model M.

Posted by: FART at May 05, 2013 03:12 PM (erQJO)

45 They ran IBMs Cad software and were replaced with conventional pcs. They were hated. I couldnt believe i sold em on ebay either. No accounting for taste.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:14 PM (jmVS/)

46 honestly DOS was not 100% DOS compatible.

There were 2 instructions in the DOS 5 file system that IBM tentatively reversed the order of in one of the PCDOS 6x/7x builds to eliminate a 486 pipeline stall.

Identical semantics, the change should have been completely harmless and made DOS run a bit faster.

It broke Autotester. Those fucking morons were binary scanning the DOS kernel looking for THAT specific instruction sequence and ripping the address of an undocumented kernel data item out of one of the instruction.

When that sort of thing is the compatibility standard you have to abide by, its pretty tough.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:15 PM (/gHaE)

47 For me it was racing with my buddies online on EA's Porsche Unleashed on Friday nights at the turn of the century after much alcohol...

Posted by: Tex Murphy's Foreskin at May 05, 2013 03:16 PM (B0YpT)

48
Let's talk about the greatest keyboard ever made: The IBM Model M.
Posted by: FART

Early Dell keyboards. So firm, so crisp....

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at May 05, 2013 03:16 PM (kdS6q)

49 Back to a Scorch. Theres no thrill like that of dropping a nuke on your opponent.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:17 PM (jmVS/)

50 I love playing with old hardware but I'm starting to get used to the idea of emulation. I can run DOS, Mac, Windows, OS/2, Lunix, BSD, and Amiga software on one PC box. Oh, and C64 and some/most consoles, too. There are limits, specialized hardware. Pretty sure there's no Video Toaster emulator for PC. But still... Then again, every time old free or cheap hardware crops up, I grab it, even if I have to get rid of it later.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 03:18 PM (qyfb5)

51 I bought pallets upon pallets of computers and monitors from the Army. Filled the largest U-Haul I could get for about $2000 on the gov auction site. Dicking with those was like working hard labor. All the monitors in my office had "Property of US Army" stickers on the monitors. It made gaming a little more realistic. Then when it came time to get rid of them someone told me that there was a place that was kind of like "make-work" for people with mental deficiencies that took monitors and salvaged them. I call the place and they say " Oh yea, we take monitors for free, just bring it down! so I pull up with my pickup and a huge mound of monitors in the back. The guy comes running out, telling me NO, we only take a couple at most. So I had to take them to the dump.

Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 03:18 PM (FmFB3)

52 When that sort of thing is the compatibility standard you have to abide by, its pretty tough. Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 07:15 PM (/gHaE) It's impossible. Some companies *lurv* themselves undocumented features. Shit, that's PC, they should be called illegal features.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 03:19 PM (qyfb5)

53 Eclipse on the ipad, it's awesome if you've played the game before or a good amount of 4X gaming experience. If you haven't/don't, expect to spend a good 4 hours or so to learn. Game is an awesome translation of the boardgame and it's Big Daddy's Creation's best game. Worth the $7.

http://tinyurl.com/cymzjf8

And if you dig Choose Your Own Adventure books, they knocked the Sorcery book out of the part. I love the books Tin Man has been translating but this is on a whole nother level

http://tinyurl.com/cye5d3f

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 03:19 PM (vJdyz)

54 I've got some knock-off clone down in the basement that has an 8088 processor I bought back in 1986 for about $500. The power supply in it kept burning out, which is where it is now. The power supply burned out, which was external to the box. That's intact. And it has a 5-1/2 " floppy drive. And I still have the green screen monitor. I used it mostly for word processing back in the day. Mostly.

Posted by: Reader C.J. Burch writes more nonsense..... at May 05, 2013 03:19 PM (Md8Uo)

55
Also, don't know if you can do it with modern keyboards, but back in the day much fun was had with hunt-and-peck typists by levering off a couple of keys and switching them around.

Good times, good times....

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at May 05, 2013 03:20 PM (kdS6q)

56 I have a 101 model M for the last generation of XT's that shipped in the 86'-87' timeframe.

No LED's just like the original. You need a late model BIOS for it to work.

It looks like this one on eBay

http://tinyurl.com/bnj9hhv

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:20 PM (/gHaE)

57 Wordstar wordperfect electric pencil?

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:21 PM (jmVS/)

58 I've got an Compaq Presario 5520 that was built for Win95. I got it for $5 at a thrift store, and is one-piece desktop computer and monitor. I upgraded the P1 75mhz to 133mhz and maxed the ram out to a whopping 72M. Loaded an oooold version of Corel Linux and freeDOS onto it and have a bunch of old DOS games on it. Managed to find an ISA network card and even logged on to the HQ here once...

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 03:22 PM (MMC8r)

59 Model M's were awesome when they were $2 at a yard sale instead of $50 on eBay - just get me a new Cherry MX instead. Not as heavy, which can be a slight drawback... but then lead is not expensive (though the EPA might send a SWAT team).

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 03:23 PM (qyfb5)

60 Scorch on a Hercules adapter with amber monitor was awesome.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:24 PM (jmVS/)

61 that Neverwinter MMO isn't all that bad but I do wish they had completely ripped off the Dragon's Nest battle system instead of half assing it

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 03:25 PM (vJdyz)

62
Daisy wheel printers. So undeniably loud, but such beautiful text.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at May 05, 2013 03:25 PM (kdS6q)

63 Before I wised up and started denying knowing anything about fixing computers a friend called me wanting to install Windows 98 on his used computer. Said he didn't have a cd drive in the computer and needed that put in too. I get there and see the computer is an old 286. I'm like, sorry dude, Win98 won't install on that.

Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 03:27 PM (FmFB3)

64 Perfect text. So slow like 12 cps. Lawyers loved them until lasers came along.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:27 PM (jmVS/)

65 OT because it's a new game - playing Neverwinter, the new Cryptic / PerfectWorld game, based on D&D 4th Edition. It's Pretty Darned Good, especially considering it's in Open Beta instead of full release (mostly done with improvements to come). Basically improved and simplified Cryptic engine (it needed simplification). A lot of people are having aggro over the fact that it's not a WOW copy, but that pleases me to no end. I wish more companies would split off PVP and PvE so that PvE wasn't wrecked by the constant screaming of PvP players over Things Not Being Perfect. I'm sure it's not a great PVP game, and I also don't care, and hope they don't wreck it for the rest of us in the process, like so many others.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 03:28 PM (qyfb5)

66 Oh, and I've got an Atari 800XL, and two TI99/4As, but I'd really love a Commodore, too.

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 03:28 PM (MMC8r)

67 The game I'm currently playing is Quantum Mechanics, version ih

Posted by: chemjeff at May 05, 2013 03:29 PM (BBWjt)

68 The TI is the one shaped like a door stop? Anyone remember Kaypro? They had a Pc compatible toward the end.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:30 PM (jmVS/)

69 So PC ATs sell for $200 nowadays? Huh. I used to have an old one. Of course it went to the dump a long time ago. Ahh well

Posted by: chemjeff at May 05, 2013 03:31 PM (BBWjt)

70 No that was the Timex Sinclair?

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:31 PM (jmVS/)

71 Anybody here remember "Eternal Darkness" for the Game Cube? It was a great horror spin-off of the Cthulhu mythos and the "sanity" meter was very innovative. Well, a sequel to that masterpiece may be in the works. Shadow of the Eternals: crowd funding for Â“spiritual successorÂ” to Eternal Darkness starts May 6 http://tinyurl.com/d8czl4j

Posted by: Thrawn at May 05, 2013 03:31 PM (JqnAE)

72 I will never see the $4000 -- 1984 dollars -- I paid for an IBM PC and printer. I kept the receipt but the old dinosaur is in a landfill somewhere.

Posted by: Die Trying at May 05, 2013 03:31 PM (KcDqR)

73 Oh, I forgot the Timex Sinclairs, too. Boy is that one an ordeal to use...!

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 03:33 PM (MMC8r)

74
Perfect text. So slow like 12 cps.
Posted by: Freak Out!

12 cps -- if you enabled bi-directional printing. If you wanted perfect character alignment, you turned that off.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at May 05, 2013 03:34 PM (kdS6q)

75 I have a Kaypro 4. The reason (some) old PCs are selling for a bundle is *because* all'y'all threw yours in the dump.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 03:34 PM (qyfb5)

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at May 05, 2013 07:28 PM (qyfb5)

Mazzy (level 22 tank)

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 03:34 PM (vJdyz)

77 I liked the rolling bombs in Scorch. And the nukes. Pretty hard to miss with a nuke. Or wait till you got almost no wind and shoot a missile straight up at full power and let it slowly drift (offscreen) and fall on the guy. Extreme lobbing.

Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 03:36 PM (FmFB3)

78 The XT version of the Model-M I got cost a princely $1.20 at the Palm Beach county surplus store. The AT and PS/2 versions were $2.

I bought as many as I could find.

They should have kept their Model M's and thrown out the Dell/Gateway shit with the new PC's they were buying.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:37 PM (/gHaE)

79 I currently have about 50 pcs of various types in my shop. I have to purge once in a while. Im not keeping that old crap. 2000lbs of old pcs brings about $225 at the scrapyard.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:38 PM (jmVS/)

80 When the IBM Boca site was closing down, they were unloading AT's to the employees for $10. I bought a stack of them. Still got a couple.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:39 PM (/gHaE)

81 41 Turbo pascal. Gawd ive forgotton so much stuff.

Like dbase
basica
Pip
Wordstar
Visicalc
Night Racer
Steve Gibson
Cpm

---------

Good news everyone! I have an ARM port of CP/M-68K running on a couple of machines. I hope to get it running on the Raspberry Pi some time this summer. I've swiped PIP, STAT, and ED from CP/M-8000 because the CP/M-68K version weren't written in C.

Posted by: Assault Citizen Anachronda at May 05, 2013 03:39 PM (U82Km)

82 I still remember playing the original "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of Lounge Lizards" on an old "portable" computer back in the '80's...

Posted by: The Political Leisuresuit at May 05, 2013 03:40 PM (Vk2pI)

83 Sold Kaypros new in the early 80s. Z80 baby. Always buy rollers first.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:40 PM (jmVS/)

84 I bought an old XT a while back for $2 and tore it apart for interesting parts. Inside the floppy drive was a $10 Target gift card, it looked like some kid's birthday present, still valid, that I used toward buying Bioshock 2 for PS3.

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 03:40 PM (MMC8r)

85 I prefer to have a less cluttered life -- especially when moving. I will watch you collectors on the selling end of "American Pickers 2033". :-)

Posted by: Die Trying at May 05, 2013 03:43 PM (KcDqR)

86 One of my Boca firesale AT's turned out to be a prototype machine (codenamed "Skyrocket") that was never sold in the market.

It had a motherboard with a full 640k on it. AT's never had that.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:43 PM (/gHaE)

87 Caution with 14 to go at Talladega, in a race delayed 3 1/2 hours by rain. The track has no lights, so they're racing the sun as well.

Posted by: Methos at May 05, 2013 03:43 PM (hO9ad)

88 Mazzy (level 22 tank) Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 07:34 PM (vJdyz) A lot of people are getting screaming-frustrated because they are thinking "tank-dps-healer-caster" and the roles in D&D 4 are slightly different. Interestingly, the D&D peeps said they wanted to make a pen & paper game more like MMOs but still suited for tabletop, and now *that* has been made into an MMO. The screaming about Strikers (DPS) is *epic*. I have been experimenting with roles and haven't kept all the characters, but currently Ancelyn Thelis is my Striker (Rogue) and Diete Seludot the Defender (GWF or Great Weapon Fighter). Striker/Defender/Leader/Controller are *not*& just synonyms for DPS/Tank/Healer/Caster. This is making things a little harder.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 03:44 PM (qyfb5)

89 86 i think they did have 640 on the last Ats but could be wrong. Sold a ton of those before the PS2s.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:48 PM (jmVS/)

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at May 05, 2013 07:44 PM (qyfb5)

control wizard and rogue are probably the most fun IMO. And Rogue has the best dps. Didn't care for the GWF, the first 35 levels are way too boring for me. Rolled Guardian after the wipe due to curiosity on how it works in the game, it's okay I guess though some of the trash mobs just will not stick to me no matter how hard I try

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 03:48 PM (vJdyz)

91 Rember inserting memory chips?

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:49 PM (jmVS/)

92
2000lbs of old pcs brings about $225 at the scrapyard.

There are several websites that show you how to extract the gold used in the manufacture of integrated circuits. Some of those older chips used quite a bit. It might be worthwhile to do that, then scrap the rest of the hulks.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at May 05, 2013 03:49 PM (0IhFx)

93
Creative Computing magazine was your girlfriend, fun to be with and very entertaining.

But once you wanted a serious relationship, you read BYTE.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at May 05, 2013 03:49 PM (kdS6q)

94
Rember inserting memory chips?

I remember desoldering the 16k video memory DRAM chips from my C= 128, and replacing with 64k.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at May 05, 2013 03:51 PM (0IhFx)

95 Interestingly, the D&D peeps said they wanted to make a pen & paper game more like MMOs but still suited for tabletop, and now *that* has been made into an MMO.

Is it at all solo friendly?

Posted by: Methos at May 05, 2013 03:51 PM (hO9ad)

96 Is it at all solo friendly?

Posted by: Methos at May 05, 2013 07:51 PM (hO9ad)

outside of dungeons, yeah. It's kinda rote as a solo experience though

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 03:52 PM (vJdyz)

97 Did anybody else ever notice that 'Amiga' is Spanish for 'girlfriend?' I'm bettin' some marketing guys were laughing their ass off over that one.

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 03:53 PM (MMC8r)

98 Hm. I still have an IBM XT out in the garage. It has duel 5.25 inch floppy drives and a hard drive. 5 mb I think? I still have a bunch of games that go with it too, including Maniac Mansion.

Posted by: Mitchell at May 05, 2013 03:53 PM (SUGVc)

99 86 i think they did have 640 on the last Ats

The XT/286 (an AT compatible) had a 640k motherboard running at 6mhz and zero waite states.

The 5170 mobo was always 515k max even on the last cost reduced more compact format ones in some of the 8mhz 339's.

Curiously, the 6mhz XT/286 mobo was somewhat faster than the "high end" 8mhz AT-339 due to its zero wait state memory on the mobo.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:54 PM (/gHaE)

100 I'm still kicking myself for assisting in dumping my father's old Zenith Z-100. There were games for that system I'd love to play again (Vega Bound, The Vault, Mystery Mansion, Advanced D&D). Alas, I think they're lost forever.

Posted by: Sandra Fluke's solid gold diaphragm at May 05, 2013 03:54 PM (7xeJQ)

101 59 Model M's were awesome when they were $2 at a yard sale instead of $50 on eBay - just get me a new Cherry MX instead. Not as heavy, which can be a slight drawback... but then lead is not expensive (though the EPA might send a SWAT team).

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at May 05, 2013 07:23 PM (qyfb5)

Why do you need to a heavy keyboard? Makeshift weapon to fend off legions of busty babes? = P

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at May 05, 2013 03:55 PM (rm+Am)

102 Advanced DD == Advanced D(ampersand)D

Posted by: Sandra Fluke's solid gold diaphragm at May 05, 2013 03:55 PM (7xeJQ)

103 I love the old rogue. The extravagance of NetHack is a bit much.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 03:57 PM (/gHaE)

104 And...The Big One part two

Posted by: Methos at May 05, 2013 03:57 PM (hO9ad)

105 I looked into trying to get but its too much of a pita. If you bust some of those old cpus open with a hammer you can get the juicy gold bearing bits. Hard way to make a livin though.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 03:57 PM (jmVS/)

106 Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 07:48 PM (vJdyz) It's designed around a team dynamic, which I kind of break by playing solo most of the time. Haven't even done any skirmishes or dungeons (team events). Rogue is the easiest to *start* playing solo, because of DPS and decent defense. Wizards are awesome too, a little more complex. GWF is harder than GF and I'm thinking I may settle on GF for that role. Looks cool, though.

Basically GWF is for crowd DPS, GF for tanking and single DPS. Abilities and items affect that a lot.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 03:57 PM (qyfb5)

107 Advanced DD oh wait not (

) (

)

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at May 05, 2013 03:57 PM (eXTRT)

108 Advanced D & D?

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 03:58 PM (MMC8r)

109 Re: Neverwinter - any chance of that shaping up to be a Moron MMO?

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at May 05, 2013 03:59 PM (rm+Am)

110
Remember inserting memory chips?

Recall having to kludge together a printer cable using a cheap generic, adapters and switching pin outs, all because you couldn't afford the usurious price the OEMs wanted for their official cables?

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at May 05, 2013 03:59 PM (kdS6q)

111 Is it at all solo friendly? Posted by: Methos at May 05, 2013 07:51 PM (hO9ad) Start with an Elf or Half-Elf Trickster Rogue until you learn more about the roles. IMHO that's the best solo class. Control Wizards are okay, too. It depends on your play style. There are plenty of missions and "Foundry Missions" (player-made) to level adequately and get your story playing on - some of the player-made missions are quite rich in story.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 04:00 PM (qyfb5)

112 Re: Neverwinter - any chance of that shaping up to be a Moron MMO?

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at May 05, 2013 07:59 PM (rm+Am)

after the weekend kinks, it's going to be a single server shard so choosing the right server won't be needed

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 04:00 PM (vJdyz)

113 So many pcs have come and gone I cant remember the specs. I do remember add on boards to get the last 128k and extended mem boards that would get you to 2.5mb!

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 04:02 PM (jmVS/)

114 Neverwinter, the MMO for Morons?

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at May 05, 2013 04:03 PM (eXTRT)

115 91 Rember inserting memory chips? Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 07:49 PM (jmVS/) I remember Gateway manuals that said, roughly, "Do not be afraid to upgrade cards or memory, opening the case will not violate your warranty, these machines are designed for that. However, the warranty does not cover sucking all of your memory chips out with an industrial wet/dry vac." I remember buying tubes of memory chips for my 386/25. And a 16550 UART.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 04:03 PM (qyfb5)

116 If anyone needs an awesome CGA monitor I have a 19" Multisync. Also does Vga.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 04:04 PM (jmVS/)

117 Z100s The Air Force had a zillion. We replaced full height floppy drives by the hundreds. Back then you could actually fix a floppy drive.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 04:06 PM (jmVS/)

118 after the weekend kinks, it's going to be a single server shard so choosing the right server won't be needed

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 08:00 PM (vJdyz)

Alright, giving it a download. It can join the other MMOs I have installed and which I don't play. = P

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at May 05, 2013 04:07 PM (rm+Am)

119 oh and thank you Purple for filling in this week. I've got the shit back so I can resume the waifu & weebo gaming shit next week

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 04:07 PM (vJdyz)

120 The freaking Win32 NetHack is like a 1.8M EXE.

Outlandish. To try and jam that codebase into an 8088, I'd be looking at compiling with some EMS trickery or overlay loader.

Blech.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 04:08 PM (/gHaE)

121 Xt 286s Forgot those too. Tried to forget Model 25s.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 04:10 PM (jmVS/)

122 First computer I actually bought was a Packard Bell, w/100mhz processor and Windws 95a, which pretty much had to be restored weekly. It was on the Internet so much that the wife complained the phone line was always being used, so I ordred a second phone line. She was happy until I figured out to put a second modem in the computer and use both to dial up, doubling my download speed.

Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 04:11 PM (FmFB3)

123 Some old DOS based games can be found on Vetusware. It's that with a dot com after it. You have to sign up and you only get one download per day, though.

Posted by: BeckoningChasm at May 05, 2013 04:11 PM (xjpRj)

124 Remember inserting memory chips?

I remember clueless Oblivions stuffing chips into memory boards and not being aware the chips had to be oriented properly and not have pins folded under or sticking out.

I wound up reworking about a dozen AT memory boards that didn't work this one dude slammed shit into.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 04:12 PM (/gHaE)

125 oh yeah, GOG has a killer deal this week

http://www.gog.com/promo/ea_weekend_promo_030513

personally, these are worth the price of admission:

Wing Commander series
Ultima 7
Theme Hospital
Dungeon Keeper
Alpha Centauri
Nox
Syndicate

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 04:13 PM (vJdyz)

126 Actually I have to do some other stuff, but there are a ton of older and retro gaming sites out there. With a little patience you can find the entire archives of old BBSes from the 90s including all their downloadable games, some of which to my knowledge are not preserved elsewhere. Roguelike games: http://preview.tinyurl.com/d6vn3sn RPG mass list: http://preview.tinyurl.com/cnejphh (some freeware, many older games) http://cd.textfiles.com/directory.html (it says textfiles, but as I mentioned there are whole BBS file section dumps from the 90s here)

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 04:14 PM (qyfb5)

127
Recall having to kludge together a printer cable using a cheap generic, adapters and switching pin outs, all because you couldn't afford the usurious price the OEMs wanted for their official cables?

Ugh....yes. But, overall, it was a quick, and cheap way to get the cables you needed...and once you had one, you could make more, and sell them.

I also remember lucking into a 1200 baud modem for.....I think an Atari?...that had TTL input/output, and a proprietary 'cartridge' style connecter, and soldering a makeshift cable directly to the UART in my C=128. It not only worked, but I was able to push the modem to 2400 baud. The modem chip was rated at that speed, but the max to the Atari it was intended for only allowed 1200 baud.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at May 05, 2013 04:14 PM (0IhFx)

128 I just got back from my running my regular thrift store circuit, during which I mostly check for books and vintage games I missed, never got around to playing, or didn't think they looked worth the full price. I got back with SimCity 4 Deluxe and a couple expansion packs for the Sims 2.

With a few mods in Sims 2, I've set up a house that pushes the boundaries of horrible taste, with Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Han Solo living as roommates. Picard works as a pick pocket and now, with the Open for Business expansion, Han can finally run the day spa he's always wanted to, when he's not too busy cruising for chicks in his car that looks like a bathtub and toilet fused together.

I'm really digging the old Sims games right now. I've always sort of been interested in the Sims, but EA tends to milk it as far as expansions are concerned. If you want the full experience, with the current version, you'll have to shell out a small fortune to get the base game and all the expansion packs. I like the Sims, but they are games I like to play in small burst once in a while, so I prefer just getting the old games for just a few bucks each.

Posted by: Thulsa Doom at May 05, 2013 04:16 PM (yEPg5)

129 I would dearly love to find a copy of EGATrek, but an early version (say 2.0) before they redid the graphics and terminology to satisfy Paramount's copyright division.

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 04:18 PM (MMC8r)

130 Long before those tiny 5 1/4" floppies, there wee 8" and 14" floppies. My old Series/1 lab system had both. But that was long before the PC was born.

Posted by: Jason Collins at May 05, 2013 04:19 PM (cxNOF)

131 129 I would dearly love to find a copy of EGATrek, but an early version (say 2.0) before they redid the graphics and terminology to satisfy Paramount's copyright division. Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 08:18 PM (MMC8r) Check out the "textfiles" link a few posts up - sorry it's *not* easily searchable, but you can look through and download from a collection for a year you think is correct. I know I passed over very old copies of EGA Trek there that you can download.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 04:19 PM (qyfb5)

132 Grrr, EGAroids don't seem to work in DOSbox

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 04:20 PM (/gHaE)

133 300 baud on a Kaypro to the local bbs looking for ascii pron. Those were the days!

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 04:20 PM (jmVS/)

134
maybe next week we'll debate/flamewar Gerber vs Leathermen

eh?

Posted by: soothsayer at May 05, 2013 04:22 PM (Ba6aP)

135 126 Merovign, you rock-- Those links got me to an EGATrek 2.0 archive in just a minute. Thanks!

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 04:23 PM (MMC8r)

136 Color Computer News, bitchez.

Every month there'd be a kickass game for me to type in and play. Maybe two.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at May 05, 2013 04:23 PM (QTHTd)

137

Those were the days!

Anxiously waiting till 7 pm each night to use the PC Link network to hit my fave BBS's. I think it was PC Link that eventually morphed into AOL.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at May 05, 2013 04:24 PM (0IhFx)

138 130 Long before those tiny 5 1/4" floppies, there wee 8" and 14" floppies. My old Series/1 lab system had both. But that was long before the PC was born.
Posted by: Jason Collins at May 05, 2013 08:19 PM (cxNOF)
Used 8 inchers on IBM 3274 controllers up until 2000.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot Jr. at May 05, 2013 04:24 PM (BqEo0)

139 CoCo Ads was pretty good too. Color Computer Magazine . . . meh.

If you're up for a trip down nostalgia lane:
http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco /Documents/Magazines/Coco-Ads/

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at May 05, 2013 04:25 PM (QTHTd)

140 Saw this on failbook last week: With Great Power Comes Plausible Deniability While playing Rollercoaster Tycoon onetime, I remember that I was tasked with the mission of getting a higher approval rating than the park next door. Rather than make my park better, I instead built a rollercoaster that launched people at 100mph into my rival's park. Since technically those people died in my rival's park, their approval rating would plummet and people would rush to my park and straight onto my deathcoaster, which only caused their rating to drop lower and lower. I did this for an hour until the game said I'd won. And that ladies and gentlmen, is why I can never be given any modicum of power ever.

Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 04:25 PM (FmFB3)

141 Anxiously waiting till 7 pm each night to use the PC Link network to hit my fave BBS's. I think it was PC Link that eventually morphed into AOL.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at May 05, 2013 08:24 PM (0IhFx)

yeah, that was one half of AOL, Don't remember what the second half was

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 04:26 PM (vJdyz)

142 and people would rush to my park and straight onto my deathcoaster

Obviously democrats

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 04:28 PM (/gHaE)

143 Those links got me to an EGATrek 2.0 archive in just a minute. Thanks! Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 08:23 PM (MMC8r) (does happy dance!)

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i][/b][/s][/u] at May 05, 2013 04:28 PM (qyfb5)

144 Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 08:25 PM (FmFB3)

Sounds like the Mexican government's solution to their internal problems :^x

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at May 05, 2013 04:28 PM (QTHTd)

145 140 Wow, I would never have pegged Alexthechick for a Rollercoaster Tycoon player

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette, assault Hobbit at May 05, 2013 04:31 PM (lVb7s)

146 Oh, I just remembered playing some old sea battle scenario game from 5 1/4" disks...You'd play out actual scenarios like battling the Yamato, or the Bismark, but it got a LOT more fun when you went in to the data files and doubled or tripled your ship's maximum speed and did the same with its guns.

Posted by: zsasz at May 05, 2013 04:33 PM (MMC8r)

147 140

Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 08:25 PM (FmFB3)

That is awesome. The RCT series was ruined when they removed the capability to kill patrons from the sequels.

Posted by: Sandra Fluke's solid gold diaphragm at May 05, 2013 04:33 PM (7xeJQ)

148 Any of you Neverwinter guys run into ChaosD1 (the mmo grinder guy) in the last week or so?

Posted by: Methos at May 05, 2013 04:34 PM (hO9ad)

149 and people would rush to my park and straight onto my deathcoaster Obviously democrats Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 08:28 PM (/gHaE) Democrats treat society, government, &c. like its one big sim game. The "deathcoaster" is a perfect example of why the socialists' utopia are all doomed to failure.

Posted by: The Political Hat at May 05, 2013 04:34 PM (Vk2pI)

150 My first computer was a commodore 64 and then an Amiga 500, but my first PC compatible was an 8088 based computer I bought from a friend. It was hopelessly outdated by then (Pentiums were less than a year away), and didn't even perform anywhere close to my Amiga 500, but it had a hard drive, which was an amazing step up from having to constantly swap floppy disks around, and best of all it featured VGA graphics. I had to wait until I saved up enough to get the monitor, but when I did my days of typing reports for school while staring at a small flickering, interlaced TV were finally over!

It was arguably the ultimate out-of-the-box XT, with it's 10mhz cpu, 1 meg RAM, 3.5 inch floppy, (I think) 20MB hard drive, VGA graphics and a friggin CD-ROM that had it's own dedicated full-length controller card. Yes, it had a card that stretched all the way from one side of the case to the other that did nothing but control a single caddy feed CD-ROM. And this PC couldn't handle anything considered "multimendia" so it was a dedicated DOS-based, text-only encyclopedia reader.

It was made by Maganvox, under their Headstart line, which was advertised in TV ads featuring no less a man than King Kong Bundy.

Posted by: Thulsa Doom at May 05, 2013 04:35 PM (yEPg5)

151 After AOL when everyone started getting on the Internet and the emails started rolling in demanding to be replied to ad nauseum. (I'm not a big email person) I invented (in my mind) a program that would take information you pre-loaded about friends & family and converse with them automatically. My idea never got off the ground since I can't write a single line of code.

Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 04:35 PM (FmFB3)

152 Deathcoaster for cutie. Good name for a band.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 04:36 PM (jmVS/)

153 486 Dx-2, 66, Dos 6.2, Win 3.11. Still used from time-to-time. I can not imagine how many hours it has on it. 1000's.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at May 05, 2013 04:36 PM (aDwsi)

154 If only those roller coaster cars looked like Chevy Volts...

Polliwogette! I would think AlextheChick would have a theme park run by raptors and emus.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at May 05, 2013 04:36 PM (eXTRT)

155 I had an IBM Portable-in-name-only. It was a suitcase fitted with a CPU, Keyboard, dual floppies and 9" monitor. I dreamed of an XT.

Posted by: Zombie John Gotti at May 05, 2013 04:36 PM (1hekh)

156 @129 Another good Trek game from those days is "the Warp Factor", which was based on the Star Fleet Battles board game. A few months back I was able to run it via DOSBox.

Posted by: Gran at May 05, 2013 04:38 PM (0pcT0)

157 John We called that a "luggable"

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 04:39 PM (jmVS/)

158 I loved "Marble Madness" on the Amiga, but the other available platforms (i.e. GameBoy) it was a waste of time.

Posted by: Milton Friedman at May 05, 2013 04:39 PM (e8kgV)

159 I loved "X-Wing" on the old Macintoshes, but it doesn't run on the current Macs.

Posted by: Milton Friedman at May 05, 2013 04:40 PM (e8kgV)

160 I loved "Marble Madness" on the Amiga, but the other available platforms (i.e. GameBoy) it was a waste of time.

Posted by: Milton Friedman at May 05, 2013 08:39 PM (e8kgV)

eww, Marble Madness sucks without a trackball

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 04:40 PM (vJdyz)

161 While playing Rollercoaster Tycoon onetime, I remember that I was tasked with the mission of getting a higher approval rating than the park next door. Rather than make my park better, I instead built a rollercoaster that launched people at 100mph into my rival's park. Since technically those people died in my rival's park, their approval rating would plummet and people would rush to my park and straight onto my deathcoaster, which only caused their rating to drop lower and lower. I did this for an hour until the game said I'd won. And that ladies and gentlmen, is why I can never be given any modicum of power ever. Posted by: U.W.P. at May 05, 2013 08:25 PM (FmFB3) And you sir, have won the motherfucking internetz.

Posted by: BCochran1981 - Credible Hulk at May 05, 2013 04:40 PM (GEICT)

162
I had a Commodore when I was a kid. Had no idea what to do with it.

With it was the floppy Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game. I couldn't make it do anything. So it sat on my desk for a year collecting dust before I put all away in the closet.

The next time I had a computer was in 1995 when this thing called the world wide web was just getting to be a thing.

Posted by: soothsayer at May 05, 2013 04:42 PM (+oin+)

163 I dreamed of an XT.

You pretty much had one ;->

The IBM Portable used a bone stock XT motherboard, floppy controller, and ever so slightly modified CGA video card (that would work fine in an XT), with the composite being used to drive the internal display rather than the TTL signal connector.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 04:42 PM (/gHaE)

164 Aglet thread up!

Posted by: EC at May 05, 2013 04:42 PM (doBIb)

165
yeah, that was one half of AOL, Don't remember what the second half was

I migrated to GEnie about the time PC Link changed it's name to....Q, I think....Qlink, or something. GEnie was just a better deal, and for only 30 bucks a month, it gave you 20 hours of off prime time useage! I wasted most of my included hours playing Gemstone III. Great multiplayer text based FRPG, tight community. Very fun....until GE let AOL in, and those whining, whinging petulant griefers destroyed the game. Sigh!

I still remember the great squirrel invasion of the town square oak tree, and their exploding acorns.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at May 05, 2013 04:43 PM (0IhFx)

166 only good Rollercoaster Tycoon was 3 as it was a rollercoaster sim rather than a theme park sim

Posted by: The Dude at May 05, 2013 04:43 PM (vJdyz)

167 It was a mono cga as i recall. One of the worst displays ever.

Posted by: Freak Out! at May 05, 2013 04:44 PM (jmVS/)

168 Internally, it was an amber color composite display with too short a persistence phosphor...

Yea, they kinda sucked. Even the old green composite Ball displays you see in salvage yards were more attractive.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 04:50 PM (/gHaE)

169 My first computer was an HPWith Windows 95. My favorite game was Shivers. I would love to play that one again. It had lots of fun mini games. Anyone know of anything similar now? Or if there is any way to play that one again?

Posted by: Auntie Doodles at May 05, 2013 04:54 PM (JcN7j)

170

You'd think someone would recognize the money to be made.

Loved the C64 games. Gettysburg, Normandy, Silent Service and Red Storm Rising were awesome.

Posted by: DVG93 at May 05, 2013 04:54 PM (UCHlg)

171 Okay for Neverwinter, did you use their server? Torrent? Or partner site? Tried their server twice, started to download, and then get '****.exe has stopped working.'

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at May 05, 2013 05:13 PM (eXTRT)

172 I was a part owner of the original Altair in 1975 First one in Austin

Posted by: Mr Wonderful at May 05, 2013 05:20 PM (lD8ju)

173 Okay for Neverwinter, did you use their server? Torrent? Or partner site? Tried their server twice, started to download, and then get '****.exe has stopped working.'

I'm using the basic downloader (generally don't want torrent programs running around my computer due to a rough time with Pando Media Booster), and it's working but it's ... well, let's just say the speed is highly variable

Posted by: Methos at May 05, 2013 05:25 PM (hO9ad)

174 Am currently using their torrent, Anna. Took a while to get started, but I think that's probably going to be faster than the alternatives.

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at May 05, 2013 05:32 PM (rm+Am)

175 Yeah this is increasingly looking like an overnight download

Posted by: Methos at May 05, 2013 05:34 PM (hO9ad)

176 Anyone know of anything similar now? Or if there is any way to play that one again?

There's several on eBay right now at modest prices. Search on "shivers game".

I spent about 15 minutes going down worthless rabbit holes trying to find an online abandonware download for you that wasn't a sucker trap.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 05:35 PM (/gHaE)

177 Anybody play Dead Island? The sequel is out now but i thought the first one would be more popular, which it seemed that most were let down.

Posted by: RWC at May 05, 2013 05:36 PM (Wl/Ht)

178 Huh. Maybe the downloader throttles you at the beginning to make sure you really mean it? It was hopping between 25 and 110 k/s but is now up around 800.

Posted by: Methos at May 05, 2013 05:52 PM (hO9ad)

179 Oh look, a torrent on TPB for Shivers...but it seems dead. Maybe the one claimed seeder has their PC turned off.

http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/5029641/Shivers_by_Sierra

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 06:03 PM (/gHaE)

180 Oh, another Shivers torrent -- this one checked out as live and working.

http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/3904828

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 05, 2013 06:09 PM (/gHaE)

181 I spent several nights a year my freshman year of college at the engineering computer lab with a handfull of Zip disks trading software on IRC.

Good times.

Posted by: Walter Sobchak at May 05, 2013 06:37 PM (Y1Mgm)

182 Gotta say, OP ... I'm surprised by your opening sentence! This may seem a bit of a nitpick ... but ...

"In the beginning" ... um, what about the Apple II? Isn't the Apple II generally regarded as the machine that paved the way for having computers in the home? Note: guess I should say here I'm not a rabid Mac user, I've been using PCs exclusively for twenty years.

In the fall of 1983 we had a lab full of brand new Apple ][e machines in our high school; everyone I knew, who had a computer in their home ... had an Apple ][e, except for one guy whose Dad was an engineer of some kind; he had an IBM. That fall I began to cut my teeth on these old-school game series: Wizardry, Zork, and Ultima, all on an Apple ][e.

But it's not like there weren't games for the Apple II. Just two quick examples: Richard Garriot released Akalbeth (precursor to the Ultima series) in 1980, and Ultima I itself was released, for the Apple II (well duh, he wrote it on an Apple II), two months before the 5150 was released.

Posted by: Bill in TN at May 05, 2013 07:06 PM (mJh3Z)

183 Um ... and only now do I realize that OP said this would focus on IBM PCs ... in the opening sentence. Okay, time for me to cash in my chips for today and hit the sack ... lol my apologies.

Posted by: Bill in TN at May 05, 2013 07:08 PM (mJh3Z)

184

Wost gaming thread ever... I dont want to play a crappy game from 1979. You didnt even include a random gratutious hot cosplay female pic.

Sunday gaming column has really fallen.

Posted by: Listic at May 05, 2013 08:40 PM (lzDQF)

185 what about us with PCjrs?

Posted by: joeindc44 at May 05, 2013 09:43 PM (k2Jn7)

186 I dont want to play a crappy game from 1979

Yo tard -- The IBM PC didn't exit in 79'

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 06, 2013 12:31 AM (/gHaE)

187 what about us with PCjrs?

The PCjr is a curious beast unto itself. If you're into hardware hacking there are some things that can be done to it to make it more PC compatible though...like changing the 8088 socket wiring so its configured in a "maximum" mode rather than "minimum" mode. That will allow an 8087 socket (missing in PCjr) to be grafted on

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 06, 2013 12:37 AM (/gHaE)

188 I'm about 20 years off here, but there was an awesome shareware game for the Mac in the mid-90s called Escape Velocity. It played exactly like Asteroids, except that your ship was equipped with a hyperdrive and you could travel to different systems. You could also do things like buy and sell commodities and dig core samples on unexplored planets to make money to upgrade your ship or buy a new one. All of this took place against the backdrop of a galactic civil war, and choosing a side granted you access to their kick-ass military ships. That game consumed MONTHS of my life after I spent 5+ of my 20 monthly AOL hours on the download. Sadly it doesn't work on OS X, and the more modern sequel isn't nearly as fun. Might be worth digging my day's Power Computing Mac out of the closet for...

Posted by: Mr_UNIVAC at May 06, 2013 03:44 AM (S8y+1)

189 PurpAv. ... Many thanks!

Posted by: Auntie Doodles at May 06, 2013 07:23 AM (JcN7j)

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