youxia
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It's Q3 2023. People still talk about Amico?
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Note to buyer: it's 70$, not 700 - so just eat it up: sell it on as is, buy new one elsewhere. Buying old machines is a bit of a lottery, and you did not lose much here, in fact it's really cheap. Damn, you even got 30$ back!
Note to seller: it's 70$, not 700 - so (next time) just eat it up: take it back and save yourself a lot of grief. Though judging by this buyer's attitude he'd probably ask you to pay shipping too 😁
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21 hours ago, Austin said:
Sorry to hijack Baconator's thread (apparently it's all his now)
🥰
As for your problem, try to manually update your mister.ini. Copy/paste the one from this page: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/blob/master/MiSTer.ini (back up your old one first of course)
Just make sure you don't get HTML code or some other funny stuff in there.
I don't know about HDMI but some stuff has changed regarding analogue VGA output (vga_mode=) and update_all doesn't touch the mister.ini, so maybe you're a bit behind.
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On 8/14/2023 at 8:08 AM, Turbo-Torch said:
If someone has a download link to a TGA/3 voice version, I'd love to have it (although I doubt it exists).
It doesn't, it turned out to be a wild goose chase. The game in question has been removed from the Nerdly Pleasures doc. And thanks to the input of the author of that list, I was able to whittle down my "problem games" to just 4 entries:
Transylvania - Tandy version (executable NOVELT1K.EXE) hangs in emulators, even though it's been reported to work ok, so probably user (me) error
World Tour Golf - can get CGA only. Manual says to start the game with "GOLF /T" for 16 colours, or "GOLF /T4" for 4 colours but even when trying that it still is CGA
Charlie Brown's ABC's and Peanuts Picture Puzzlers - "PCjr. only, require Cartridge BASIC to be inserted, are intended to be booted off floppy (DOS program) and system
memory should be strictly limited to 128KiB." Have to try this yet myself (not sure how to limit RAM to 128 kb in Dosbox?)
A few games (eg Ghostbusters or Bruce Lee) still cause problems, but I was able to get them running properly on at least one emu in either PCjr or Tandy mode so that'll have to do for now.
I've released v1.0 of my Tandy / PCjr exclusive pack. Its content should be ~97% compatible with at least one emu out there, so that's not too bad I think. Alas, this thread is always open for input: new ideas on how to run some of these games, or if anybody knows where to find titles from my MIA list (these need to be specific Tandy/PCjr versions, and are to my best knowledge currently unavailabe in the most well known sources). :
Big Bird's Special Delivery
Bouncy Bee Learns Words
Digger
Ernie's Magic Shapes
Football (subLogic)
GATO
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing! (v1.31T)
Solitaire/Poker (Deskmate)
Trivia 102
Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress (PCjr)
US History: Western Settlement to Modern Day -
I've released a new update for the Tandy / PCjr collection (search archive.org for "tandy play it by year").
QuoteVersion 1.0 (released August 2023)
-some games added/removed according to the updated list
-added fixes for some games
-directories reorganised
-how-to section added to readmeIt's been re-tested and reorganised and while still far from perfect, it's probably best I can do with this rather complicated subject. Thanks to @Great Hierophant for hints on how to run some of the more troublesome games.
Please note that while I started it with MiSTer in mind, the final result is probably best experienced in Dosbox-x, because of its largest compatibility. It'd be interesting to hear what other people's success rate in running these games on different emus/platforms is.
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15 hours ago, The Usotsuki said:
The Tandy version 3.20 GW-BASIC is probably good enough.
I had another go at it, but still no joy. Tandy Basic seems difficult to locate, and when using the copy I found (images on archive.org) the program hangs as well. This really is above my pay grade. Would appreciate if somebody could confirm/deny that this game actually works.
13 hours ago, wierd_w said:It may interest you to know that DosBox (and its more capable fork, DosBox-X) has SPECIFIC support for PCjr and Tandy1000
Thank you, but I've already been using Dosbox-x for its composite output (mentioned it in the initial list).
Whether I'm using it the right or wrong way is another matter, but that's why I'd like others to try these games out.
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1 hour ago, mr_me said:
The "E" means that the game supports EGA in addition to Tandy graphics. If a game supports EGA but not Tandy graphics then the Tandy will have to run it in CGA mode.
Not exactly sure this is the way to read it here, seeing as most - if not all - other games from the list (that I recall) which have the "E" also have some sort of >CGA gfx (and/or additional comments).
In any case, I still can't hear any special sounds which the "Y" delineates.
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13 hours ago, mr_me said:
The Abrams box does mention Tandy computers but only lists support for CGA, EGA, and Hercules graphics. For a 1989 release there's no mention of any audio support. Some games came with a setup/install program to set the grahics/audio hardware support. Looks like Abrams autodetects graphics.
edit: One thing to check is how much system ram the emulator has configured, more colours might require more ram.
The list entry for Abrams has "E" in gfx, meaning (I think) it should display EGA when ran on Tandy, and also "Y(es)" for sfx, meaning it has some unique music or sounds.
I couldn't detect any of that trying to run my copy on various Tandy emus (with 640Kb RAM), it just boots into CGA. I also installed it from floppies but the result is the same.
3 hours ago, ventrra said:Oh I'm quite aware that games that use CGA, for example, will work just fine on my HX system. It's games that actually make use of the hardware that I've been trying to figure out.
Also, the Moby games site is a useful resource, but I'm reasonably certain that some of the listing are incorrect, missing, or have other issues with the listings.
What I meant more was the sort of in-between games - neither "normal" PC games nor the Tandy/PCjr exclusive-content ones. There's a huge number of games which have some sort of Tandy/PCjr designation but don't count into either of these groups. Eg if you search Moby by attribute Tandy, the sfx group has nearly 900 entries (as for Moby itself I've used it for years in my assorted other projects, comparing it vs other sources, and I must say it's fairly reliable, at least when it comes to large scale queries).
To be honest I'm not 100% sure what it actually means though. Eg, Cruise For The Corpse is not in the Nerdly Pleasures' exclusive list, and it has Tandy tag on Moby. The gfx look EGA-like.
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2 hours ago, wierd_w said:
It is important to understand that the video hardware in the PCJr is very different from EGA, despite having "A similar user experience". As such, games that expect real EGA will not work correctly on a PCJr. This was "On Purpose" by IBM.
Sure, but all the games in question have been already thoroughly researched by the aforementioned @Great Hierophant in a series of articles on his Nerdly Pleasures blog. It's really a recommended reading (you can also search for "pcjr" or "tandy" keywords there). So it's already been established that these games have specific exclusive features. I'm merely trying to get them to run, and the purpose of this thread is to compare notes with others, seeing as my DOS-emu skills are pretty basic.
So, in short, if anybody has a moment to spare, please try to run some of the games from my list, and see if they work at all. And if yes, then if the extra features are present. Which is not always the case, because they might not be the specific version or some other steps have to be taken in order to activate the special fx.
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16 hours ago, The Usotsuki said:
Is it Tandy's BASIC you're trying Peanuts Picture Puzzlers with? That's compatible with Cartridge Basic.
No, it was just some random basica file. Thanks for the suggestion. I've just tried it in PC-BASIC emulator, with pcjr preset, and the game starts (can see credits screen) and then hangs. I have little experience with these systems so not sure, maybe I'm doing something wrong?
5 hours ago, ventrra said:Not a help with your question, but I was looking for a list like that for games to run on my actual Tandy 1000 machines. Thanks for posting the link.
You're welcome, just bear in mind this list regards only games with exclusive fx features. The number of games which can actually run on Tandy is much bigger (you can check Moby for that).
The game pack I'm working on is trying to collect the working versions for these games. Its next release will also include standalone files, at the moment it's just a vhd (though you can still mount it in Windows and transfer files to your Tandy, assuming you're using some SD card solution. There are also floppy image files).
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I'm trying to research Tandy and PCjr games with exclusive fx for one of my archival projects. I've tried to run every game from the excellent list compiled by @Great Hierophant and some of them cause problems.
I'd appreciate if you could your their experiences running these games and help me out straighten them out whenever possible. I have mainly used PCem & DosBox, and sometimes PCXT core (Tandy mode) on MiSTer for testing.
All the games come from either the latest Total DOS Collection or Gruby's Floppy Images pack.
Abrams Battle Tank - can't get EGA on Tandy, displays only CGA
Arcticfox - gfx glitches in PCem, works in DosBox
Bruce Lee - floppy glitches on all emulators. DC works in Dosbox Pcjr
Ghostbusters - problem with every combination on floppy and hdd (from crashes to small glitches)
Lode Runner - can't locate Tandy version, not sure if existing are any different from CGA
Peanuts Picture Puzzlers - The game needs Cartridge Basic, I've tried with a BASICA but I can't get it to work.
Pinball Construction Set - DC only shows CGA in Tandy, Pcjr crashes, booter ditto
Sea Hunt - DC, Pcjr composite works in Dosbox but not sure if it's correct (no vertical lines)
Sea Speller - DC, Pcjr composite works in Dosbox but not sure if it's correct - colours different than Moby's scr$ (using Dosbox-x)Styx - DC is CGA version? sounds the same
Stuart Smith's Adventure Construction Set - not sure if Tandy version
Trains - hdd version: sound is Tandy but looks like CGA
Transylvania - hdd versions shows only CGA gfx
World Tour Golf 1986 TDC hdd version in Dosbox looks to be Tandy 4 colour one-
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V1.0 of Amiga's Play It By Year collection is now up on archive. org (search for "amiga"+"akeley" or "play it by year").
QuoteV1.0 adds the "unknown" year 19xx from HoL, and the collection now should - in theory - represent a complete Hall Of Light database mirror for years 1985-1995 (sans compilations, duplicates, language versions, etc), plus some extra games not included there.
The upcoming version 1.1 will add games which are in TOSEC but not in HoL yet.
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I've been making "digging in the retro-crates" style software (but not only) collections for quite a few years now, and thought that despite being pretty niche, they might be of interest to some folks here. I'm also looking for feedback, bug reports, and contributions.
Most of these are still WIP, since working on them is quite time consuming and can be quite repetitive, so I usually switch between them after releasing different versions to avoid topical burnout.
All of them are hosted on archive.org. I link to the first two because they are copyright hassle-free, the others maybe not so much. You can find them rather easily there though (either click on my nickname in the ArchiveRL, or search by keywords)
ArchiveRL - my first collection, it's basically a huge roguelike archive, aiming to collect every single classic RL from the dawn of time to AD 2019 (when the roguelite craze took over and it become impossible to differentiate these two styles). It's pretty much finished and "complete", though I'd still like to release additional "Versions" directory in the future. But, the search is always on for MIA games.
CRT SCR$ Project v0.1 - this one collects photos of CRT TVs and monitors in action. These contraptions are a dying and disappearing breed, so I'd like to preserve at least some footprint - even though it's extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible, to capture the "CRT look" 100%, due to some tricksy photography-related factors. It's been at v0.1 for about a year now, over next two month v0.2 is coming though with a huge number of new photos from OG HW. I'm always looking for contibutions to this one, so if you have a CRT of any sort and are willing to snap some pics, give me a shout.
Play It By Year series - this one is dedicated to my chrono-gaming obsession. Basically, these are exhaustive game collections (containing hdd & fdd images), organised by-year and researched for accuracy according to respectable sources. Mostly aiming for 1G1R (one-game-one-rom) format and containing absolutely everything (so yes, "crap" games included, though these are often the a lot of fun). Despite their chrono-roots they can be also easily turned into comprehensive A-Z collections. I mostly use them on MiSTer FPGA myself, but they have also been tested on emulators, and hopefully should work fine on original HW, after adapting.
Apple II - possibly the best and most accurate AII collection out there (citation needed), even if I say so myself, and despite being only at v0.1 atm. Amazingly, despite Apple being so hugely influential, its software preservetion efforts are rather decentralized and lacking a dedicated website/database (at least comparable to meticulously researched soursecs available for other platforms). This collection is an attempt to somewhat unify and organise the available material. Version 0.2 should be coming by Summer 2023.
Amiga - perhaps my most beloved micro. I've just released v0.9, which covers years 1985-1995 and is basically a mirror of the Hall Of Light database. To consider it as "v1.0" I still have to add the "no year" games from HoL, which will take a bit of time, hopefully not too long though. In some future date I might add years 1996 and up, but for now it' s all about the Golden Era.
MS-DOS - this is a project inspired by the release of the excellent PC/XT core for the MiSTer FPGA. It contains all available games for years 1981-1989 (based on the Total Dos Collection). At the moment at version 0.3, which is actually more like "0.9" - nearly done.
Tandy & PCjr - and offshot of the MS-DOS thing, it tries to contain all the games with exclusive features for these platforms, as mentioned by @Great Hierophant in his excellent articles on the subject and the featured game list. Due to difficulties with establishing which version is which and what works and what doesn't, I consider the current release (v0.3) as "experimental". More updates coming up soon, bug and mistake reports + comments for this one would be most appreciated (the file tandyprobl.txt included there mentions most of my current headaches).
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Ok, so on the MiSTer side, the main dev made an updated xtide rom with this change enabled, and I can confirm the games work fine when using it. More details here.
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Ok, so I've tried to run PCem XT instance with just floppy drives, no XTIDE. I got a PC-DOS 3.3 360kb disk form winworldpc.com and then transfered couple of the games onto blank 360kb images. The games now work, with DOS in a: and game image in b:. When I apply XTIDE back on the same setup , using the same floppies (and no hdd image attached), I get disk errors again - so similar to what The Usotsuki says is happening on real hardware.
I also read on XTIDE's site that it's possible to enable:
QuoteFull operating mode [default=No for XT builds, not available for AT builds]
"Full operating mode" reserves a bit of Conventional memory for XTIDE Universal BIOS variables. Disabling this will reduce the maximum number of supported IDE controllers to 2 and place the variables in a memory area reserved for IBM ROM Basic (30:0h). You should always enable this option unless:- You don't need to use IBM ROM Basic or any BIOS or software (e.g. Turbo BASIC, BASICA) that requires that memory area.
- You have a Tandy 1000 with 640k or less RAM (see "kiB to steal from RAM" for a way around this problem).
- You really need the 1 kiB of Conventional memory that "Full operating mode" requires.
This sounds like confirmation of the problem being related to XTIDE itself
I've tried to replicate this on MiSTer, but it's not easy, seeing as two of the main bios .roms have XTIDE baked in, and the 5160 dedicated one doesn't play nice with floppies. I will ask around, maybe a direct solution is possible.
In any case, it's good to know that there is an answer to this problem, it's been bugging me for some time. Thanks for your replies here.
Side note: when I tried to run my hdd vhds in PCem XT using alternative IDE option - MFM (I did not try SCSI) - it doesn't recognise my images which are usually >250MB, DOS 6.22 based. Is it because of the big size / OS used, or is it some completely different format?
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As per the wiki, they say MiSTer's using 5160 rom:
QuoteA valid ROM is created for the PCXT model (pcxt.rom) based on the original IBM 5160 ROM, requires the XTIDE BIOS at address EC00h to work with HD images.
Could XTIDE be a problem here?
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23 minutes ago, wierd_w said:
The code it expects to hook 'just does not exist' inside clone PCs.
But MiSTer's PCXT core is supposed to be using 5160 rom, and so does PCem?
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Solutions regarding usage of these programs in my collection are of secondary importance. I might try to do something about it later, like dedicated BASICA directory, but for now I just wrote about it in the readme.
What bugs me more is why I can't actually run these games on a fairly accurate interpretation of the machine they were meant for. I've just tried to run BASICA.COM from a bunch of different games and it's usually the version A2.10 (which breaks the XT disk access) or GW-BASIC from 1985 (this works fine). That could indicate that perhaps pirates have swapped the files later to make the games work on non-IBM machines?
I still wish somebody could actually try it out themselves, and also point me to a BASICA version which is 100% working on PCem or MiSTer. I've tried a few PC-DOS et al install disks and their BASICA.COMs just hanged on me.
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Swapping for gw-basic is a solution, but I'd like to keep the original files in the collection. Also, there is a lot of these BASICA titles (~270) so it'd be quite a task.
I'm now trying to use BASICA from PC DOS 2-3.0, to see if the games will work with that, but also struggling to get it going.
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15 hours ago, Krebizfan said:
Does the set of ROMs include a copy of ROM Cassette BASIC? Standard BASICA needs ROM Cassette BASIC to work.
I'm not sure. This core comes with a couple of pre-built roms (
pcxt31andpcxt_micro8088) and the originalibm5160 rom isavailable if you use a script to build it. Regarding speed, I did try at 4.77 and the errors are still there.10 hours ago, mr_me said:That version of Basica runs fine without the IBM Basic ROM. Is it some sort of hacked version? It shows as version A2.10 1983-20-10. Maybe the bug only happens when the IBM basic rom is present. Have you tried the Mister PCXT core with a non ibm bios/rom?
Yes, I actually first tried it with thenon-original default roms mentioned above, and was hoping the ibm one would solve the problem. But it's all the same across all these roms. The games come from Total Dos Collection, which is quite well researched, but there's no guarantee they have perfect versions. Still, since it happens in so many differnet games I suppose it's not a case of having a bad version.
I'd still appreciate if somebody could just try to run these games on their setup, just to reproduce (or refute) the bug's existence. I'm worried it might be down to something wrong in my method/setup.
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When putting together my PIBY collection I stumbled on a problem with BASICA games. They don't seem to work on MiSTer's PC/XT core - displaying "Direct satement in file" errors. Also, when I try them in PCem's XT instance I get IO/disk related errors. The strange thing is that these games work fine on MiSTer's ao486 core and in other PCem setups (486, Pentium). Also, substituting BASICA.COM file with GWBASIC.EXE is said to be working.
More details in this thread. I suppose the problem is universal for all BASICA games, here are some of the examples I've tried: B1 Nuclear Bomber, Baseball, Big 8 Football, Black1, 15 Puzzle, Acey Deucey.
Was wondering if anybody has some ideas as to why this might be happening, and perhaps could try these games on their PC/XT setups to confirm whether there really is a problem, or if it's something on my side (eg I've only tried from MSDOS 6.22 based images). Bonus points for trying on real hardware.
(I attach the examples here, don't think these old Basic games should cause any bother)
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Thanks. I've tried this config.sys (it's from the core's dev) but it hangs after shellmax (btw do you know where to find DOSMAX which is not beta?) which might be down to some other caveats mentioned in this post or being earlier development, apart from me doing something wrong of course.
Without dosmax it works, use!umbs loads and Ltemm too, but I still get "HMA not available: Loading DOS low" and 553k as the "largest executable prog".
Anyway, I give up for now on this because it's too time consuming, will just stick a basic config in and let users change it as they see fit. Most games from this era should work anyway even with this amount of memory.
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Sorry, yeah, this is a bit silly perhaps, seeing as these are from PCem with Pentium (look at the top bar in the scr$). Which I'm using to test things coz it's much faster, though in this case it;s not the best idea. I can try again tomorrow and take scr$ with the MiSTer's core itself (but in principle I think it should be generally similar to the PC/XT core since I don't need XMS, being only concerned with base memory. )
I tried the use!umbs.sys on MiSter but it hangs the core combined with ltemm. How else could i enable the upper memory? This latest config was just by peeking at @The Usotsuki's examples and I didn't see anything like that there - is it the setver or smartdrv? I tried emm386.exe but this doesn't work on the core.
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Sorry, I was away with IRL stuff.
Tbh, dealing with more advanced stuff is above my pay grade, so unless somebody could provide complete command lines for me to try, I will just leave the expanded memory as-is and concentrate on having a functional basic configs.
This is what my mem situation and autoexec/config look atm:
Anything you'd suggest worth changing there? Why I have nothing in the upper memory?
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in Atari General
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Seriously? Do you really believe that a corporate sponsorship - or shall we say ownership - makes no difference in such situations? Do you really think that a harsh critique of Atari products, such as the Taco Thread, would be even remotely possible? Tbh this is just an extreme example, off top of my head, because I'm a little bit shocked - I only learned about it right now, as I don't frequent this site as often as before, and when I saw a thread about it yesterday I really thought it's a joke. So I didn't really have time to think about thoroughly, but I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of other downsides (haven't there already been roms/creators withdrawn?)
I'm sorry, I did read Albert's statement on the matter and while it is full of reassurances - and its author is a respectable and believable person - I've been around for too long to not know that in the long run this will not turn out well. It's a pity, because AA is (was?) the biggest and best still existing independent forum dedicated to old computers and consoles. This is why I ended up being a poster here, not because I'm a nostalgic Atari fan.
I simply cannot fathom how it being taken over by a corporate operator, especially one of such terrible pedigree, doesn't ring more alarm bells in people.