Stupid computer tricks (or: Why I have new-found respect for IBM compatibles)

[sirpaul484]

(I wasn't sure if I should have put this in Vintage computing, due to the fact that I'm running ancient software, or modern computing, since I'm doing it on a new system.. So I flipped a coin.  It came up heads.  There was no "heads" sub-forum, so I just decided to put this in modern computing.)

The other day, I  was thinking about the AmigaOne X1000.  It's a great computer, but it's lacking... I mean, it doesn't have a 680x0-based processor, nor does it have any of the special chips that the original Amiga 1000 has.  Because of that, is it REALLY an Amiga, if it can only run classic Amiga games via an emulator? My PC can run classic Amiga games with an emulator.  Does that make it an Amiga?

My thoughts then shifted to the modern Macintosh.  It, too, can only run vintage Macintosh software through an emulator.  Heck, it can't even run software that's more than 6 years old without emulation.  Is that still a Macintosh, if it can't do that?

Then my thoughts shifted to the modern Windows machine...

Sure, it uses a processor that evolved from the Intel 8088, but CAN it run software designed for that CPU? I shook my head.  "Of course not", I said to myself.  "The processor has had update after update.  I am sure it can't even CONSIDER loading something written for it!"..

Just then, an idea formed.. Can it? Maybe, just maybe, the processor hasn't evolved as much as I thought.  I was sure that, even though it won't be able to run it perfectly, that I could at least get it to maybe attempt to start.  Maybe I could get some garbled text.. Or maybe I can get a title screen to briefly flash before it spits out a confusing error message and/or lock up.

I knew what I would do.  Armed with a USB floppy drive, a 3.5" floppy filled with some choice programs I remember running on an IBM 5160 I had in middle school, and my laptop (After all, it had a genuine Intel i5 processor, versus my desktop's AMD processor), I got to work.  After a false start had to set up the BIOS to have the floppy drive boot first, I saw a nice, happy command prompt.  Fingers crossed, I typed in "VC" and hit enter.  My floppy drive chugged to life, and got to work loading VisiCalc.  My eyes staring at the screen, I waited for the inevitable error message, lock-up, or brief flash of garbage.

Instead, I saw this:



I was confused! This is software that's over thirty years old! It shouldn't run on my modern laptop.  Thinking it was a fluke (after all, it is a text-based app.  If my laptop can display a command prompt, surely this is easy to run), I did a quick /sqy (command to quit VisiCalc), and proceeded to load Alley Cat..



I couldn't believe my eyes.  Not only did it load, it worked almost perfectly.  Not too fast, not jerky, but just like it would have on an XT-class system.  I then tried Aldo's Adventure, Ms. Pac-Man, 8088 Othello, and Pit Stop 2.  All of them ran perfectly, with the exception of Pit Stop 2, which ran far too fast to be playable (I did expect at least one game to do that).  Still, though, for those programs to load and run perfectly, I was floored.  Was it expected? No.  Was it a nice surprise? Of course.  I didn't think a modern graphics chip would work with applications and games that used CGA graphics.  Needless to say... I am going to be doing a lot of experimenting with my new-found knowledge with a 2 gig USB flash drive and my software library.

In conclusion, I have gained a lot of respect for the modern IBM compatible computer.  Unlike any other computer type in the market, or coming out, it can run even the oldest of programs designed for it.  I'm sure that if I wanted to, I could even install Windows 3.1 on here, provided I can get some drivers for the modern equipment.  Maybe I can even install it on a flash drive, and be able to carry it around with me, able to have my own vintage computer wherever I go, so long as there's a PC with available USB ports... Maybe I'll do that...

Questions? Comments? I'd love to hear them!

[Zoyous]

This is really amazing to me.  Unfortunately I don't have much knowledge of early 80s IBM PC-compatible games, as it wasn't really until the late 80s/early 90s that I worked with them regularly.  But I did recently have the experience of struggling with getting a game from 1997 to run slowly enough on my current PC to be playable... "Interstate '76."  I still have my original copy of it, but was a bit baffled by the seemingly complicated procedures to get it to run at the proper speed as described by various people on forums.  Last year it was re-released by Good Ol' Games, which meant that they did some sort of under-the-hood work to get it running better, but it still took me a good couple of hours of tweaking settings to get it running in a playable state.  Why is it that much older games can run properly?  Does it have to do with the involvement of dedicated graphics cards in games starting in the '90s, and the absence of those previously?  I mean, I know there was CGA, EGA and VGA back in the day... but it seems like the complexity of calculations probably had a huge spike with the advent of texture-mapped 3D graphics.

[sirpaul484]

Thanks a ton.  :-)  GoG is definitely a great resource, and I would recommend everyone at least check it out.  There's something for everyone.

As for the reasoning some games run properly while others don't work that well, I'm rather unsure.  It could be because of the differences in hardware, or it could be because of the fact that the programs were programmed well, and they automatically throttled the speed as needed..  I'm not entirely sure.  Anyways, on to updates!

First of all, several days back, I decided to install the full version of MS-DOS on a thumb drive and see if I could boot off it.  Good news! It does! The 2 gigabyte thumb drive I used was recognized as a hard drive, and it booted almost immediately (Try doing THAT on Windows 7!), with no issues whatsoever.

Then I tried installing Windows 3.11 on it...

I took my (100% legal) install floppies, put disc 1 into the external drive, and ran the installer.  Disc 1 copied over perfectly.  I ejected it, put disc 2 in, and hit enter.  Perfect.  Copied over with no problems.  Then I inserted disc 3.  The drive started up briefly, it looked like it was ready to copy over... and then "Please insert the disc containing thisf.ile, and hit enter to continue".  I ejected the disc, re-inserted it, and hit enter.  Nothing.

Afraid the disc failed, I rebooted, and saw if I could read the disc in a different manner.  A quick DIR, and I saw the file in question.  So I tried again, thinking it was a fluke in the installer.  Same thing.

Dejected, I decided to turn off my laptop, unplug the floppy drive from my laptop, plugged it into my desktop, and tried installing Windows 3.11 in a virtual machine.  It worked.  I then decided to unplug the thumb drive, insert it into my desktop, and just copy the files over that way.  After copying it over, I plugged it back into my laptop, booted into it, and typed WIN.  After seeing a somewhat distorted Windows 3.11 splash screen and then my laptop locking up, I gave up and thought about what to do next.

Fast forward to this afternoon.  I saw Benj uploaded a new slideshow on PC World, "The 12 Greatest PC Shareware Games of All Time" (Seen here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/248494/the_12_greatest_pc_shareware_games_of_all_time.html).  After reading the article for a minute, I noticed, on the first page, the following line: "In almost all cases, you'll need DOSBox, an MS-DOS emulation program, to run the games correctly in Windows, Linux, or OS X." I know he specified that those are needed to run the correctly on modern operating systems, but I just wanted to see how many of them ran fine on my special setup.  Here is the results for the games:

Adventures of Captain Comic: Works perfectly.
Kingdom of Kroz II: It ran far, FAR too fast, even in fast mode.
Raptor: Call of the Shadows: Sadly, the only version I had in my archive was lacking File_ID.diz, and threw a fit when I tried to run it.
Epic Pinball: Works perfectly.
Duke Nukem 3D: It ran a bit too fast, but not remotely as fast as Kingdom of Kroz II.  It's definitely playable, if you want things running quickly.
Duke Nukem: Now this game... This game had a weird issue.  The menus ran too fast, but the game ran at a normal speed.  Of course, even though it ran at a normal speed, it had some weird graphics glitches which made it a bit annoying.
ZZT: Looking at the previous text-based game (Kroz II), you'd think it would run just as fast, and be just as unplayable.  Possibly more so, since ZZT doesn't have a speed selector like Kroz did.  You'd be wrong.  It ran just as perfectly as it did when it came out.
Operation: Inner Space:  Seeing as this game is Windows-based, it was clearly omitted.
Wolfenstein 3D: It ran fine.  There were a few graphics bugs, but they were very slight.  Might have been my eyes playing with me, though.  That, or maybe those glitches were there before, and I'm just noticing them now.
Commander Keen: Once again, due to lacking File_ID.diz, it didn't want to run.
Scorched Earth: It ran perfectly.  Of course, the game almost demands a mouse, and since my laptop didn't have a PS/2 port, it was quite annoying trying to play it without a mouse.
Doom: Works perfectly, even though Duke Nukem 3D didn't.  I'm guessing that's a problem with the Build engine Duke 3D was built with.

Now, even though many of the games ran perfectly, there are no sound drivers for a modern laptop like mine that works in DOS, so there was no audio.. Let's face it: Some games, like Doom and Epic Pinball, almost require sound.  I would definitely recommend running all the games on DOSBox instead, hands-down.  Not only because of the audio, the lack of the mouse, and the bugs, but also because of the stretched screen these games had which was more than a little annoying.  At least, with DOSBox, I can turn that off.

[sirpaul484]

Weird... On a whim, I decided to load up the thumb drive on my desktop.  Not only do I get PC speaker sound (on the programs that have it, naturally), which I didn't think my desktop had, but also, loading up Windows was a bit different too.  Instead of giving me a distorted splash screen and locking up, it gave me a normal looking splash screen and kicking me out to the DOS prompt, with no error messages.  Could it possibly be due to different resolution or aspect ratio? (My desktop's running at 1920 x 1200, whereas my laptop is running at 1366 x 768) I will have to do some more experimenting.  Maybe I can switch out MS-DOS with FreeDOS or something...

[Moondog]

A year ago I was trying out FreeDos, and installed it on an HP Pavillion (667Mhz) I acquired off a relative.  I installed Duke Nukem and it ran fine, except for the sound.  My guess is the onboard sound wasn't emulating a SoundBlaster properly.

[sirpaul484]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's why I didn't have sound either.  Though, if I recall, Duke Nukem didn't use Sound Blaster or AdLib.  From what I remember, it only used the PC Speaker.  Or are you referring to Duke Nukem 2, or Duke Nukem 3D?

[RedWolf]

A year ago I was trying out FreeDos, and installed it on an HP Pavillion (667Mhz) I acquired off a relative.  I installed Duke Nukem and it ran fine, except for the sound.  My guess is the onboard sound wasn't emulating a SoundBlaster properly.

You'll need a specific sound driver for your sound card if you hope to get any non-PC speaker sound out of a DOS game.  In the case of most modern (post-1997-ish) audio hardware, DOS drivers don't exist, so you're out of luck running DOS games with sound on those machines directly.  The only solution on a modern machine is to run DOS in a virtual machine like DOSbox that emulates sound hardware.  I think VMSound does something similar too for XP machines.