Atari PC4 286/16Mhz with goodies has arrived!

[leech]

11 minutes ago, Keatah said:

To me that's a bit of a toughie. Taking 286 architecture to 486 levels with cpu only replacement leaves a lot of chipset enhancements behind. I seem to somehow recall IBM or AMD made something that would upgrade 286 to 486 levels. May have been a complete motherboard accepting all three chips.

Ha, so that is what I have in the PS/2s.  One is a 486SLC2-50 (equivalent, the cpu is actually an IBM 50G6950), the other one has a board that is oriented in a way that it won't physically fit in the PC4, but only is a 386SX made by AMD.  Unfortunately even the one that physically fits, doesn't work and prevents the machine from posting.

 

Sadly it is the dependence on EMM386 alone that makes me want a 386 instruction set capable system.  That is the literal barrier.  I have tried to get EMM386 to work, without much success.

11another thing I have tried on the Atari without much success so far, is to eek out just a tiny bit more of the 640kb of ram so I can fire up Falcon AT.  I think I was like 2kb off...

[leech]

@Clint Thompson

Hopefully these images help to get your XT-IDE to work.

Edited July 13, 2022 by leech

[Keatah]

The common wisdom is that speed is what drives the need for upgrading. Maybe for gaming. But I could argue it's the instruction sets for everything else. Both on the CPU & GPU and in the OS. I've had to migrate recent versions of software to new machines because it uses an API that wanted something the older hardware didn't have. This applies to OpenGL, DirectX, D3D, and even Qt & SDL. Not to mention the tie-in between compilers and OS libraries. All because of instruction sets and not speed.

[leech]

1 minute ago, Keatah said:

The common wisdom is that speed is what drives the need for upgrading. Maybe for gaming. But I could argue it's the instruction sets for everything else. Both on the CPU & GPU and in the OS. I've had to migrate recent versions of software to new machines because it uses an API that wanted something the older hardware didn't have. This applies to OpenGL, DirectX, D3D, and even Qt & SDL. Not to mention the tie-in between compilers and OS libraries. All because of instruction sets and not speed.

Yup, and so that 486SLC2-50 may still be hampered by the 16bit bus, but it provides the newer instruction sets onto an older motherboard, and hence the older chassis.  As I'm digging deeper into things, I keep wanting to stay away from towers (as towers have been what the PC has been for far too long, I miss desktop systems, which is also another reason the PC4 is fantastic. 

 

Granted, I will say after going from what most consider the best keys on the planet, the IBM Model M keyboard, to that Atari / Mitsumi keyboard that the PC4 comes with... it feels like going from the clickiest keyboard in the world to the mushiest

 

Part of the fun I have with Retro systems is just to see how capable you can make them.  Though sadly that's also why I usually have two of each, one to keep original, and one to mod   It's always nicest when the mods are easily reversible of course (like ISA cards or CPU upgrades are).

 

4 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

Sadly I do not. Problem is I can’t get anything on this machine really without original disks. All the manuals and software for the machines other than then PC4 itself. 

I pulled out the 5.25" drive and put in a Gotek and a CD-ROM   You need an edge connector adapter. 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/30445153464

I can't recall exactly which one of these did the thing (I think in the NEAT dir).  But if you can get the XT-IDE to work, just transfer the files over to that (that was basically my entire 'UTIL' directory.)

NEAT.zip

[Keatah]

9 minutes ago, leech said:

Yup, and so that 486SLC2-50 may still be hampered by the 16bit bus, but it provides the newer instruction sets onto an older motherboard, and hence the older chassis.  As I'm digging deeper into things, I keep wanting to stay away from towers (as towers have been what the PC has been for far too long, I miss desktop systems, which is also another reason the PC4 is fantastic.

I dislike towers all around. And don't get me started on the 2-meter-high Gateway P6-200 monstrosity. I don't like how the cards sag. In fact some graphics cards are so heavy they come with a cable to support them on end farthest from the PCIe connector. A designer cable with designer tensioner clip.

 

Towers, I believe, were invented by business so they could sit on the floor next to a desk. Not for me either. I like SmallFormFactor PCs. Intel Nucs (and look-a-likes). Shuttle XPC cubes - that's about as towerish as I go. I even like the All-In-One with screen designs. And of course there's the VESA stuff that mounts on the back of some monitors.

 

9 minutes ago, leech said:

Part of the fun I have with Retro systems is just to see how capable you can make them.  Though sadly that's also why I usually have two of each, one to keep original, and one to mod   It's always nicest when the mods are easily reversible of course (like ISA cards or CPU upgrades are).

Sure it's a fun thing to do. As long as they are reversible, like without a lot of tools or soldering iron. Though in theory everything can be undone especially if you keep the original parts. I really despised of this one 2600 video mod where the instructions told you to cut out the modulator and dispose of it! WTF? You carefully unsolder it and put it in a baggie and tape it securely in the console (or parts box) for future resto activities.

 

It seems mods today are more likely needing to use soldering as opposed to mods back in the day. Mods back then were sold as consumer products, and they were designed to be as consumer friendly as we could make them back then.

 

Of course with PC everything should be easily reversible. Slotted, Socketed, and Plugged-In. I don't really know of any solder-mods that are done to motherboards beyond Dallas clock chips and/or those VartaBomb batteries. Have to get rid of those!

 

On Vogons you can sometimes find a discussion talking about replacing DACs on SoundBlaster cards for less noise and things like that. But that's a step too far (4me) for the minimal gains. Just plug in a higher-quality board to begin with.

[leech]

5 minutes ago, Keatah said:

I dislike towers all around. And don't get me started on the 2-meter-high Gateway P6-200 monstrosity. I don't like how the cards sag. In fact some graphics cards are so heavy they come with a cable to support them on end farthest from the PCIe connector. A designer cable with designer tensioner clip.

 

Towers, I believe, were invented by business so they could sit on the floor next to a desk. Not for me either. I like SmallFormFactor PCs. Intel Nucs (and look-a-likes). Shuttle XPC cubes - that's about as towerish as I go. I even like the All-In-One with screen designs. And of course there's the VESA stuff that mounts on the back of some monitors.

My favorite build is my little Pentium III in an NLX case.  The only downside is it needs to be able to support more than 512mb of RAM (Ideal would be 1gb) I am currently dual-booting ArcaOS and Win98SE on it

8 minutes ago, Keatah said:

I dislike towers all around. And don't get me started on the 2-meter-high Gateway P6-200 monstrosity. I don't like how the cards sag. In fact some graphics cards are so heavy they come with a cable to support them on end farthest from the PCIe connector. A designer cable with designer tensioner clip.

 

Towers, I believe, were invented by business so they could sit on the floor next to a desk. Not for me either. I like SmallFormFactor PCs. Intel Nucs (and look-a-likes). Shuttle XPC cubes - that's about as towerish as I go. I even like the All-In-One with screen designs. And of course there's the VESA stuff that mounts on the back of some monitors.

 

Sure it's a fun thing to do. As long as they are reversible, like without a lot of tools or soldering iron. Though in theory everything can be undone especially if you keep the original parts. I really despised of this one 2600 video mod where the instructions told you to cut out the modulator and dispose of it! WTF? You carefully unsolder it and put it in a baggie and tape it securely in the console (or parts box) for future resto activities.

 

It seems mods today are more likely needing to use soldering as opposed to mods back in the day. Mods back then were sold as consumer products, and they were designed to be as consumer friendly as we could make them back then.

 

Of course with PC everything should be easily reversible. Slotted, Socketed, and Plugged-In. I don't really know of any solder-mods that are done to motherboards beyond Dallas clock chips and/or those VartaBomb batteries. Have to get rid of those!

 

On Vogons you can sometimes find a discussion talking about replacing DACs on SoundBlaster cards for less noise and things like that. But that's a step too far (4me) for the minimal gains. Just plug in a higher-quality board to begin with.

The biggest 'mod' I have done to any PC based stuff was an attempt at adding an IDE controller to the SB Awe64 I've owned for decades.  Ended up not working, apparently.  Not sure if there's a difference in the firmware somewhere on it or not... Or my soldering skills failed me.

 

Ha, on the note of that 'Ultimate Retro' build.  The Compaq DeskPro computers of the 386/486 era before HP bought them are both crap and great at the same time, as their CPUs and Memory were on expansion boards.  I ended up with some, as they were in a bundle with an ISA memory upgrade (that I bought for one of the PS/2s).  That memory board has the WORSE Varta I've seen.  The corrosion of the leak is okay, but the the coating on the battery itself looks like a cat chewed on it...

[Clint Thompson]

Appreciate the info and pics. Sadly, after trying dozens of things over the course of 4 or more hours, I’ve given in. I’m not sure if it’s one of the various CF cards, the device itself or the PC4 at this point but I’ve ordered a completely different device that includes a loaded and ready to go known working and imaged CF card to try and eliminate or rule out possible hardware issues on this card and cf combo. 
 

It’s really frustrating because it shouldn’t be this difficult or time consuming. I’m just hoping it’s the card and not bus related issues on the PC4 itself. The original HDD does spin up but not detected with the MFM card. Granted it’s probably just a dead drive but now am unsure if that’s really the case or if other issues are underlying.

 

Most surprising to me is the battery retaining the clock and date info after having been plugged in for a few hours, disconnected and started again a week later. 

[zzip]

On 7/13/2022 at 4:55 AM, Keatah said:

I dislike towers all around. And don't get me started on the 2-meter-high Gateway P6-200 monstrosity. I don't like how the cards sag. In fact some graphics cards are so heavy they come with a cable to support them on end farthest from the PCIe connector. A designer cable with designer tensioner clip.

I prefer towers,  or at least mini-towers.   For desktop, I like the slm "pizza box" style,  but I never liked the full-size desktop PC cases that are big enough to hold cards vertically.   They ususally don't fit well on the desk.   At least not any desks I've owned.     The desks at my house have a side compartment that fits a tower, PC freeing the desktop area.

 

Towers are usually easier for the tinkerer to work with.   The desktop cases usually cover most of the motherboard with the power supply, drives and cables so that you have to do a lot of disassembly to work on the mobo.   The tower cases I have position the PSU and drive bays such that most of the mobo is not obstructed by them.

On 7/13/2022 at 4:55 AM, Keatah said:

Towers, I believe, were invented by business so they could sit on the floor next to a desk. Not for me either. I like SmallFormFactor PCs. Intel Nucs (and look-a-likes). Shuttle XPC cubes - that's about as towerish as I go. I even like the All-In-One with screen designs. And of course there's the VESA stuff that mounts on the back of some monitors.

Don't know about that.   I've seen relatively few towers at peoples desks in corporate settings.   Slim desktops were far more common.  Many people even put those on the floor on their side to get them out of the way!    Even back in the 90s many users were asking for laptops with docking stations.

[leech]

5 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

Appreciate the info and pics. Sadly, after trying dozens of things over the course of 4 or more hours, I’ve given in. I’m not sure if it’s one of the various CF cards, the device itself or the PC4 at this point but I’ve ordered a completely different device that includes a loaded and ready to go known working and imaged CF card to try and eliminate or rule out possible hardware issues on this card and cf combo. 
 

It’s really frustrating because it shouldn’t be this difficult or time consuming. I’m just hoping it’s the card and not bus related issues on the PC4 itself. The original HDD does spin up but not detected with the MFM card. Granted it’s probably just a dead drive but now am unsure if that’s really the case or if other issues are underlying.

 

Most surprising to me is the battery retaining the clock and date info after having been plugged in for a few hours, disconnected and started again a week later. 

Battery sounds like it's still working then, maybe the seller had replaced it already? 

Here's another potential idea; https://www.ebay.com/itm/124259705395 This is a cable for connecting a Gotek drive to the external Atari ST floppy port... which the PC4 also happens to have!  May be easier and less obtrusive to add use virtual floppy disks without ripping out the 5.25" drive that you may want to keep for whatever reasons. 

[leech]

4 hours ago, zzip said:

I prefer towers,  or at least mini-towers.   For desktop, I like the slm "pizza box" style,  but I never liked the full-size desktop PC cases that are big enough to hold cards vertically.   They ususally don't fit well on the desk.   At least not any desks I've owned.     The desks at my house have a side compartment that fits a tower, PC freeing the desktop area.

 

Towers are usually easier for the tinkerer to work with.   The desktop cases usually cover most of the motherboard with the power supply, drives and cables so that you have to do a lot of disassembly to work on the mobo.   The tower cases I have position the PSU and drive bays such that most of the mobo is not obstructed by them.

Don't know about that.   I've seen relatively few towers at peoples desks in corporate settings.   Slim desktops were far more common.  Many people even put those on the floor on their side to get them out of the way!    Even back in the 90s many users were asking for laptops with docking stations.

I always find towers a bigger pain to work on, as you have to inevitably lay them onto their side to work on them anyhow.  Also, the towers that had the one piece C shaped shell drive me nuts (my current BabyAT case is that way), not to mention that era of computer cases rarely cared about rounding edges...

 

On the flip side of that, both the PS/2 and the PC4 are wonderful to work in... except the PC4's case is a pain to get back on sometimes (because it has to slot into several areas at once, then you have to align the screw holes, plus the front is attached to the case as well, vs the PS/2 models I own have metal cases but they aren't attached to the front, AND they have the screws set up so they don't actually come out all of the way, which is a plus, though that's counteracted by them using the notched hex style screws... a thing we all know Apple adopted later).  The model of PS2s that I own actually have the ISA cards as horizontal, and the motherboard doesn't cover the entire base, so the PSU doesn't sit over it, which is nice.  It's actually a much nicer case to work in over the A4000 (due to the way the daughterboard is in the A4000, it's kind of a pain to work on).

 

In the days before we could get LCDs with tall monitor stands, CRTs on top of a fatty desktop was kind of nice, as it usually brought the screen more to eye level.

[zzip]

18 minutes ago, leech said:

I always find towers a bigger pain to work on, as you have to inevitably lay them onto their side to work on them anyhow.  Also, the towers that had the one piece C shaped shell drive me nuts (my current BabyAT case is that way), not to mention that era of computer cases rarely cared about rounding edges...

I agree about the old style cases.   Cut my hands plenty of times!   The newer ones are a lot more ergonomic, and many are toolless-  just take the side panel off,  the PSU and drive bays are placed so they obstruct the MOBO as little as possible and there's things in the case to help you better manage your cables.

 

Now if only the printing on the MOBO wasn't so tiny and hard for those of us with middle-aged eyes to read, and newer innovations like m.2 didn't have such tiny screws to work with, all would be perfect! 

[leech]

17 minutes ago, zzip said:

I agree about the old style cases.   Cut my hands plenty of times!   The newer ones are a lot more ergonomic, and many are toolless-  just take the side panel off,  the PSU and drive bays are placed so they obstruct the MOBO as little as possible and there's things in the case to help you better manage your cables.

 

Now if only the printing on the MOBO wasn't so tiny and hard for those of us with middle-aged eyes to read, and newer innovations like m.2 didn't have such tiny screws to work with, all would be perfect! 

I still want a cable-less set up!  Some of the PS/2s were that way, only one short cable going from the PSU to the motherboard.  Drives were on edge connectors / back planes.  With m.2s it's almost there.  But then we're getting to the point where optical drive bays aren't even options on a lot of newer cases... makes it a lot harder when you're dealing with some older media.

[zzip]

42 minutes ago, leech said:

But then we're getting to the point where optical drive bays aren't even options on a lot of newer cases... makes it a lot harder when you're dealing with some older media.

These days I think you could get away with a USB Optical drive that you only pull out when needed.   I don't use my internal DVD-ROM all that often.

[leech]

2 minutes ago, zzip said:

These days I think you could get away with a USB Optical drive that you only pull out when needed.   I don't use my internal DVD-ROM all that often.

Yeah, I have a specific model of Bluray drive I bought so that I could copy PS3 games I own to disk and use in emulators   I tried it in an external USB3 enclosure and it didn't work for some reason.  There are certain times where I've ran into something similar where USB doesn't support the right DMA/PIO mode or something.  A great example of this is that one of the PS/2s mentioned in this thread had a weird IDE drive in it (as in the Power connection is upside down and much closer to the IDE port than is normal) so it wouldn't fit in the thing I usually use, a sort of hard drive dock with card reader... and then I tried it on a USB ->Sata/ide thing, and it still wouldn't read it.  Bought a PCIe IDE controller, and it read fine in Linux... So now I have the side of my computer off, with an IDE cable and 4pin molex dangling out the side....

[Keatah]

Optical drives are now passe' I believe. I recently built an AlderLake and installed an optical drive, it feels a little unbalanced. But what is in style are USB connected external opticals. And this is especially true with SFF PCs.

 

With so much variety of vintage media, and USB ports being a standard that shows no sign of slowing, it only makes sense that you plug in a media reader that suits your needs to the moment.

 

Besides, 11th gen and up does not have the necessary instruction set for decoding 4K Blu-ray anyways. SGX has been deprecated and the processor can no longer handle the DRM.

[leech]

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

Optical drives are now passe' I believe. I recently built an AlderLake and installed an optical drive, it feels a little unbalanced. But what is in style are USB connected external opticals. And this is especially true with SFF PCs.

 

With so much variety of vintage media, and USB ports being a standard that shows no sign of slowing, it only makes sense that you plug in a media reader that suits your needs to the moment.

 

Besides, 11th gen and up does not have the necessary instruction set for decoding 4K Blu-ray anyways. SGX has been deprecated and the processor can no longer handle the DRM.

Read above about USB devices not always working with some specific hardware.  Granted we're talking 240mb IDE hard drives... Literally had to put a PCIe IDE controller in my system.  https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Express-Controller-Adapter-PEX2IDE/dp/B000YAX13Y

 

Edit: Also, makemkv removes DRM, so don't even need to worry about that  

Edited July 14, 2022 by leech

[Keatah]

Similar here. When I was imaging my 486-era IDE drives, 212MB & 540MB, the would not work with a cheap-o IDE-USB cable. Didn't try an expensive one because I didn't want to waste money. So I used my BX chipset system to read the drives natively and squirt it over to a Jump drive.

 

Must be something with the command set, something is missing or not implemented on the IDE-USB cable. Or the USB driver for the cable itself is lacking..

Edited July 14, 2022 by Keatah

[leech]

5 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Similar here. When I was imaging my 486-era IDE drives, 212MB & 540MB, the would not work with a cheap-o IDE-USB cable. Didn't try an expensive one because I didn't want to waste money. So I used my BX chipset system to read the drives natively and squirt it over to a Jump drive.

 

Must be something with the command set, something is missing or not implemented on the IDE-USB cable. Or the USB driver for the cable itself is lacking..

Yeah, I haven't figured out exactly what it is.  I've had it happen a few times.  Linux would detect there was a drive there, but not the partition.  Plug it into the exact same system with a real IDE controller, and it worked fine.  Like they skip out some PATA commands, or it can't access DMA or something.  Now I'm tempted to track down a PCIe board that has a real floppy drive on it as well, though I already have a greaseweazel which should work in a similar fashion.  But most of the time I'm not attempting to read anything but DOS disks, which work fine on the USB drives.

[82-T/A]

On 6/18/2022 at 2:11 AM, Clint Thompson said:

Super cool to finally use one of these machines! Wasn't actively seeking it (though I've always been on the lookout for an ABC 386DXII, as that has been my dream retro PC for a long time now)... but stumbled upon a PC4 during said random search. For some reason I thought the PC3s and PC4s were 8088s, which I wasn't really interested in, unless it was the pizza box styled PC1. After learning it was actually a 286 that you could even install Windows 3.0 on. I was increasingly interested since the chances of acquiring the 386 ABC DX2 seems unlikely, so I snagged it in untested state, fingers crossed.

 

 

 

OMG, I'm beside myself in excitement for you. I cannot think of anything as cool as that, aside from the very first computer I've ever had, KayPro 8088.

 

There was a time when I was searching for something just like this, but they just never showed up on eBay, and the one you have is immaculate and in such good shape!

 

This is such a cool computer!

 

I'm REALLY interested in the "Branded" MS DOS 5.0 disk. Would it be possible for you to do cluster-copies of the disks and save / upload them to a website? I'm very interested to know if there's anything specific about this DOS version that has some Atari flair in it. A lot of these name-brand PCs that labelled their own DOS disks would often edit the plain text in the binaries to reflect the system, so it might say something like, "Microsoft DOS 5.0, Presented by Atari" or something like that.

 

Any indication of something like that?

 

 

On 6/18/2022 at 2:11 AM, Clint Thompson said:

Looking forward to playing some Sim City, Leisure Suit Larry, Commander Keen series, Jazz Jackrabbit, Jill of the Jungle, the SSI AD&D games like Secret of the Silver Blades, some AtariSoft titles... Oregon Trail! The list goes on...

 

Damn, you totally got me there... I loved all of those games growing up. I could never answer the questions on Leisure Suit Larry because I wasn't old enough to know the questions they were asking, and there was no internet with which to learn the answer... so I either had to use the World Book Encyclopedia, or ask my mom, and she would say... "Why are you asking me questions about the Beetles?"

 

But definitely too on the SSI games. I absolutely love those games, even Secret of the Silver Blades (which was almost all in tunnels). Damn...

 

I tell my family once a month... "I wish one day someone would imprison me, with my computer and all my games, and all I'm allowed to do is just play games and exercise. I would of course want a phone so I could call you guys ever night. But I would then be found not guilty, and paid millions for my false imprisonment, and then we could go about our lives. I just want 1 year, hahaha..."

 

I have 311 games on Good Ole Games right now: https://www.gog.com/u/73vwtodd/games

 

You'll recognize my avatar picture as something from one of the SSI games (I think it was Silver Blades actually). Never the less, I've had this account since 2012. If you look at how many hours of games I've played, it amounts to a total of 60 hours.

 

That means I've spent about 60 hours playing computer games in the past 10 years. Literally, that comes out to 16.7 hours per year of game play. I just don't have the time... I'm constantly going back to school, constantly renovating houses or working on projects, or working 55-60+ hours a week. I want nothing more than to just retire and play video games, hahah...

 

[leech]

10 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

I'm REALLY interested in the "Branded" MS DOS 5.0 disk. Would it be possible for you to do cluster-copies of the disks and save / upload them to a website?

http://www.ataripc.net/ has most of these.

12 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

You'll recognize my avatar picture as something from one of the SSI games (I think it was Silver Blades actually). Never the less, I've had this account since 2012. If you look at how many hours of games I've played, it amounts to a total of 60 hours.

I always thought your Avatar was literally the Avatar from Ultima VI 

[82-T/A]

8 minutes ago, leech said:

I always thought your Avatar was literally the Avatar from Ultima VI 

 

Hahaha... yeah, on here it is. I get a kick out of my avatar being "The Avatar."

 

I meant on Good Ole Games: https://www.gog.com/u/73vwtodd/games

 

(now 312 games, just bought Mech Warrior 5 cause it was on sale for $20).

 

My Avatar on there is this image:

 

 

 

Which comes from this scene I guess... it's been over a decade since I've played this game (random screen I pulled off the internet for Silver Blades):

 

 

 

Edit: When I was 11, I thought she was super hot, hahahaha...

 

Edited July 15, 2022 by 82-T/A

[leech]

2 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

 

Hahaha... yeah, on here it is. I get a kick out of my avatar being "The Avatar."

 

I meant on Good Ole Games: https://www.gog.com/u/73vwtodd/games

 

(now 312 games, just bought Mech Warrior 5 cause it was on sale for $20).

 

My Avatar on there is this image:

 

 

 

Which comes from this scene I guess... it's been over a decade since I've played this game (random screen I pulled off the internet for Silver Blades):

 

 

 

Edit: When I was 11, I thought she was super hot, hahahaha...

 

Ha!  That makes more sense!  Love that the actual computer graphics makes it look like she misused a tanning bed.  I recently started playing the Unlimited Adventures default module on Steam, as I never did get around to beating the old Gold Box games as the only one that seeming ever released for the Atari ST was Curse of the Azure Bonds (only ever found rumors of Pool of Radiance being released).  I'm not going to say how many games I have on GoG, it's an unhealthy amount, especially on Steam... and like you, I don't get much time to play games anymore...

[82-T/A]

8 minutes ago, leech said:

Ha!  That makes more sense!  Love that the actual computer graphics makes it look like she misused a tanning bed.  I recently started playing the Unlimited Adventures default module on Steam, as I never did get around to beating the old Gold Box games as the only one that seeming ever released for the Atari ST was Curse of the Azure Bonds (only ever found rumors of Pool of Radiance being released).  I'm not going to say how many games I have on GoG, it's an unhealthy amount, especially on Steam... and like you, I don't get much time to play games anymore...

 

I could be jaded, but I will say that you would absolutely LOVE the "Gold Box Series" games.

 

They had the Forgotten Realms ones, which were Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, and Pools of Darkness" and then you had two more which were totally separate (but still Forgotten Realms), which included "Gateway to the Savage Frontier" and then "Treasures of the Savage Frontier." The last three games I mentioned were all in VGA.

 

You then had the DragonLance games, which all followed the novels... and included "Champions of Krynn," "Dark Knights of Krynn," and "Death Knights of Krynn," or the last two might be out of order, I can't remember... it's been a while.

 

Anyway... sometimes I know that old games... if you don't have any attachment to them when you were younger, they just suck today and you can't get into them anymore. That might be the case with these... but I could play them all day long, and even use the "Character Transfer" application that comes with them to allow me to transfer the characters from one game to the next as I go through the series. I've only beaten a couple of them... but the games are really good in my opinion, as long as you are willing to go through and actually PLAY the game, rather than shoot through it with a hint book (using the Journal instead to piece puzzles together).

 

As for the girl, yeah... I know the picture in my avatar is actually from the IBM PC EGA version of it. The EGA one supported 16 colors out of a possible 64-color pallet, while some of the other systems only supported 16 colors from a pallet of 16 or 32. I can't remember. But the one in my avatar is actually what it looks like when you play it on the IBM PC. 

 

The "New Jersey Tan" image might be a screenshot from say an older Tandy or perhaps another system.

 

 

At the end of the day, I think Pools of Radiance (the first one) had the absolute best plot and storyline. The land seemed far bigger, and they put more time into it. Unfortunately the game engine left a few things to be desired. A lot of things were improved (commands, actions, etc.) in the subsequent games. But if you can ignore that, then the POOLRAD game is still the best one.

 

The later ones had really fantastic graphics in VGA, and also supported Sound Blaster sound effects AND General MIDI at the same time.

 

The normal EGA ones (minus Pools of Radiance, which didn't support any sound except PC or Tandy Speaker), only supported Adlib for sound effects (and SB / etc. in Adlib mode).

[The Usotsuki]

1 hour ago, 82-T/A said:

I'm REALLY interested in the "Branded" MS DOS 5.0 disk. Would it be possible for you to do cluster-copies of the disks and save / upload them to a website? I'm very interested to know if there's anything specific about this DOS version that has some Atari flair in it. A lot of these name-brand PCs that labelled their own DOS disks would often edit the plain text in the binaries to reflect the system, so it might say something like, "Microsoft DOS 5.0, Presented by Atari" or something like that.

That lessened over the years, until by 5.0, I think only IBM, Compaq and Toshiba actually rebranded the binaries, and at least Compaq stopped after 5.

[leech]

49 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

 

I could be jaded, but I will say that you would absolutely LOVE the "Gold Box Series" games.

 

They had the Forgotten Realms ones, which were Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, and Pools of Darkness" and then you had two more which were totally separate (but still Forgotten Realms), which included "Gateway to the Savage Frontier" and then "Treasures of the Savage Frontier." The last three games I mentioned were all in VGA.

 

You then had the DragonLance games, which all followed the novels... and included "Champions of Krynn," "Dark Knights of Krynn," and "Death Knights of Krynn," or the last two might be out of order, I can't remember... it's been a while.

 

Anyway... sometimes I know that old games... if you don't have any attachment to them when you were younger, they just suck today and you can't get into them anymore. That might be the case with these... but I could play them all day long, and even use the "Character Transfer" application that comes with them to allow me to transfer the characters from one game to the next as I go through the series. I've only beaten a couple of them... but the games are really good in my opinion, as long as you are willing to go through and actually PLAY the game, rather than shoot through it with a hint book (using the Journal instead to piece puzzles together).

 

As for the girl, yeah... I know the picture in my avatar is actually from the IBM PC EGA version of it. The EGA one supported 16 colors out of a possible 64-color pallet, while some of the other systems only supported 16 colors from a pallet of 16 or 32. I can't remember. But the one in my avatar is actually what it looks like when you play it on the IBM PC. 

 

The "New Jersey Tan" image might be a screenshot from say an older Tandy or perhaps another system.

 

 

At the end of the day, I think Pools of Radiance (the first one) had the absolute best plot and storyline. The land seemed far bigger, and they put more time into it. Unfortunately the game engine left a few things to be desired. A lot of things were improved (commands, actions, etc.) in the subsequent games. But if you can ignore that, then the POOLRAD game is still the best one.

 

The later ones had really fantastic graphics in VGA, and also supported Sound Blaster sound effects AND General MIDI at the same time.

 

The normal EGA ones (minus Pools of Radiance, which didn't support any sound except PC or Tandy Speaker), only supported Adlib for sound effects (and SB / etc. in Adlib mode).

Oh, I've played them throughout the years, just never got around to winning any of them.  I was thinking the screenshot was from the C64, which is the version of Curse of the Azure Bonds that I played on at a friend's.  He said I got further in a few hours than another friend had in weeks of playing it... then again I grew up playing D&D and know how to construct a party

 

I may indeed sit down and play them on the ol' Atari PC4, pretty sure none require more than a 286 with VGA.