Three Flight Simulator Joysticks for DOS

I want to compare and contrast the three DOS-era joysticks I own suitable for DOS Flight Simulators, Racing Simulators and the like.

1.  CH Flightstick Pro

One of the first modern joysticks, this almost-completely ambidextrous joystick has four buttons, a 4-position hat switch, two trims and a throttle wheel.  The throttle wheel acts as the Y-axis of the second joystick.  The 4-position hat switch is implemented as button combinations.  Hat up is buttons 1,2 3 & 4, Hat down is buttons 1, 2 & 3, Hat right is buttons 1, 2 & 4 and Hat left is buttons 1 & 2.  Due to this, the individual buttons will not register simultaneous button presses.  Button 1 will have priority over buttons 2, 3 and 4, button 2 will have priority over buttons 3 and 4 and button 3 will have priority over button 4.

This joystick is by far the "loosest" of the three.  The stick offers little resistance and it seems you can move the stick much further than you would think.  With my joystick the trims frequently get dislodged, causing things to go haywire.  I put electrical tape over them to keep them in place.

To open the joystick, you must dislodge all four of the rubber feet around the edges to get at the screws.  This is annoying because you can scrape the sticky stuff holding the rubber feet to the bottom off.

The stick's design has been very popular over the years, and the basic design is still being sold today in a USB form.

2.  IBM 76H1571 Joystick

Despite IBM introducing the PC joystick interface in 1981, I believe this may be the only IBM-branded joystick released for the PC-compatible platform that is suitable to hold in your hand.  It was made for IBM by Anko Electronic Co., Ltd., and was branded for its Aptiva line of computers.  Its for right handed people only.

It has four buttons, a 4-position hat switch, two trims, a throttle wheel and a pair of two position switches.  This joystick is fully Thrustmaster Flight Control System compatible, where the hat switches represent resistance values of 0.2 (Up), 20 (Left), 40 (Right), 60 (Down), 82 (Center) kOhms on the Y-axis of the second joystick.

The left switch, when set to the right position, enables Thrustmaster compatibility.  When set to the left position, it disables the hat switch and allows the throttle wheel to function on the Y-axis of the second joystick.  It does not provide full CH Flightstick Pro compatibility because the HAT switch is disabled.

The right switch, when set to the left position, enables rapid fire action for button 1 only.  The right position is normal button operation.

Unlike the other two joysticks, it has suction cups on the base.  It also has steel weights screwed into the inside of the base to give it extra weight.  This stick has the stiffest feel and the travel distance feels short.  The screws for opening the stick are all completely visible.

As I do not own a true Thrustmaster joystick, I do not know how well the build quality or stick and button action compare to the real thing.  Even still, it fills a hole in my joystick collection.

3.  Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro

Microsoft's first joystick shows a transition between DOS-compatible hardware and Windows-feature hardware.  It is more-lefty friendly than the IBM stick, but despite its shape it is not truly ambidextrous.  It has four buttons and a hat switch on the stick, a throttle wheel and the stick can be twisted for a X-axis.  It has four buttons on the base and a mode switch on the bottom of the base with two positions.

The CH and IBM joysticks use traditional potentiometers to indicate stick movement and need the trim controls.  The Microsoft joystick uses optical sensors to determine stick movement and converts the data into an analog resistance value.  There is also a "digital" mode which allows for direct optical support, ultra precise input and the use of the four buttons on the base, but the driver must have explicit support for it with DOS.  The four extra buttons on the base of the stick also require specific driver support.  The Windows drivers should allow for full game support.  As far as I know, only Mechwarrior 2 for DOS supports the "digital" mode of this stick.  Descent does not and Descent 2 does only with its Windows version.

Unfortunately, this stick may only be compatible in its digital mode with Windows 95 or 98.  I have read that it can be tricky to get working in ME, 2000 or XP.  You may want to try and build a gamepad to USB converter.

The mode switch, when set to the 1 position, enables full CH Flightstick Pro compatibility.  When set to the 2 position, it enables full Thrustmaster FCS compatibility.  Due to the way the Hat switch works in these modes, the hat switch is only a four way switch.  (This also applies to the CH and IBM sticks).  The twisting function is recognized in either mode, so it will register as input on the 2nd joystick's x-axis.

There is one notable flaw in the design, the throttle control.  The throttle control rubs plastic against plastic and is particularly open to attracting dust and debris through the slot.  There is grease that will need to be cleaned out and replaced.  My stick's throttle control is very stiff, some lubricant can help.

The lack of trims is both a blessing and a curse.  The blessing is that your joysticks will not drift because the trims get adjusted.  The curse is that you may not be able to get a perfect center for your game.  Depending on how sensitive your game is, it may throw you the game's calibration off.

To open the stick requires not only removing the feet on the "tips" of the joystick but also a screw covered by the Microsoft label on the bottom.  There are weights on each side of the stick for balance.  One optical sensor handles all four joystick axes.

One thing to note is that this stick's DA-15 connector does not have all the pins on it.  Pins 5, 8, 9, 12 and 15 are not  supposed to be present on the connector.  If you see a stick for sale with these pins missing, do not let it faze you.

The Microsoft default drivers for this stick in Windows are very speed sensitive.  This stick was released during the Pentium era, but apparently the designers did not future proof their drivers because the stick will go haywire with a Pentium III.  This is despite the optical encoders having the precision of a mouse.  Fortunately there are custom drivers that will allow you to get an adjustable speed setting, to a point.

The Lost PC Game Versions

Updated 03-28-2021

Originally this blog entry was titled "The Lost PCjr. and Tandy 1000 Game Versions".  However, several years later there are very few games known to have any special support for PCjr./Tandy graphics or sound remaining unavailable.  So I have decided to expand this list with other notable games.  You won't find these games in any DOS or ROM collection, on any abandonware site, from any torrent site, or to buy from any legitimate retro PC game selling site like Good Old Games.  Where I know of corroboration for these games, I will give it.

Agent USA - Tandy
Supports PCjr. graphics and was advertised for sale in Tandy's catalogs, so a Tandy version with support for enhanced graphics may exist.

Congo Bongo - CGA Composite
This game, like Tapper, came as a "flippy" disk.  This is a disk where both sides are independent of each other and can be used in single or double sided drives.  This is rare on the IBM PC, and disks for the IBM PC have two index holes.  Ultima 3 also used a flippy.  One version had graphics suitable for RGBI monitors, the other was meant for composite color monitors.  The composite color version has yet to be preserved and distributed.

Dragon's Keep - PCjr.
Based on installation instructions in the manual for the PCjr. and magazine articles from the time period, this game may have been ported to the PCjr.

EcoQuest 1 - EGA 16-Color
EcoQuest uses the Sierra SCI1 engine, and like other SCI1 games, it had separate 16-color and 256-color versions.  Other SCI1 games like King's Quest V and Conquests of the Longbow have their 16-color versions available, this is the only one which is not available.

Gauntlet II - Tandy DAC
Gauntlet II had a bonus disk, which you had to send away for to Mindscape, that added digitized sound support for owners of a Tandy 1000 with a DAC, such as the TL, SL and their successors.

Mouskattack - PC
A 2019 discovery of this Sierra port from the Apple II and Atari 8-bit computers : https://www.mobygames.com/game/mouskattack/cover-art

Oil's Well - PCjr.- PCjr.
Although there is a hack which gets Oil's Well working on a PCjr./Tandy 1000, the original disk still needs to be redumped because the disk was damaged where the PCjr. code was.  The original game may have PCjr/Tandy sound support.

Superbowl Sunday - Tandy
Supports enhanced PCjr. graphics.  Advertised in Tandy's catalogs, so a version that supports enhanced graphics on a Tandy may exist.

Wizardry II - 5.25" Disk
The Wizardry sequels were released on 5.25" disks and 3.5" disks, but only the latter are available for Wizardry II.  All booters should have 5.25" disks versions available because early computers like the IBM PC, XT and PCjr. did not have 3.5" drives.

Classic DOS Pinball Games, Mode X and What they can Teach Us about Aspect Ratios

During the early to mid 1990s, several highly regarded pinball games were released for PC compatible computers running DOS.  Three prominent series of Pinball games were released during the years 1992-1995.  The first, developed by Digital Illusions, includes Pinball Dreams (1992), Pinball Fantasies (1992) and Pinball Illusions (1995).  All these were developed on the Commodore Amiga and ported to the PC by Frontline Designs.  The second series was developed by Epic Megagames, and consists of Epic Pinball (1993), Silverball (1993) and Extreme Pinball (1995).  A third series was developed by Spidersoft, and includes Pinball Dreams II (1994), Pinball Mania (1995) and Pinball World (1995).  There are also a few other notable pinball games that are not distinguished by coming from a single developer or publisher around this time.  These include Psycho Pinball (1995) and Absolute Pinball, which share the same style of gameplay as the other titles.

These games always supported non-standard VGA modes, sample-based music and were often heavily influenced by the demo-scene and European programmers who were still focused on the Commodore Amiga.  They all used an in-game display that used the full width of the screen and most of its height, with a portion of the height reserved for a display.  The tables were much taller than one screen could display.  They did not use a pseudo 3-D perspective, but all supported a high frame rate for fast, exciting action.  Most supported the Gravis Ultrasound as the ideal sound output device.

There has been debate over the proper aspect ratio for DOS games using the standard 320x200 resolution.  That resolution, as I outlined in a previous post, was a BIOS standard resolution for no less than the five (out of seven) major DOS game graphics display adapters, CGA, TGA, EGA, MCGA and VGA.  Using square pixels, the aspect ratio is 1.6:1, and this gives a letterbox effect on standard 4:3 ratio CRT monitors at the time.  If you stretch the monitor vertically, you can fill the screen but the pixels become 1.2 times as tall as they are wide.

VGA BIOS Display Mode 13h, which most VGA DOS games used, used the 320x200 resolution with an ability to display 256 colors from a palette of 262,144 colors.  The pixel information for the graphics is stored sequentially, with one pixel = one byte.  However, in addition to the aspect ratio issue, Mode 13h had its limitations, namely the fact that it could only support one full page of graphics in RAM.

A VGA card has 256KB of RAM, so the card could support four graphics pages at this resolution.  However, to do this, the card's registers had to be programmed directly.  Also, the registers that made up the display resolution could also be changed, but the values had to be reasonable lest the programmer destroy his or his user's monitors.  VGA, in its various official modes, supported 320, 360, 640 or 720 horizontal pixels and 200, 350 or 480 vertical pixels.  240 and 400 vertical pixels could be easily obtained by writing to a few registers.

Mode X, a custom VGA mode obtained by programming the registers, canonically has a 320x240 resolution at 256 colors.  The term eventually became to be appropriated for any non-standard resolution VGA mode.  320x240 was very popular for the pinball games identified above.  It is especially useful to obtain a reference for what the graphics should look like with square pixels.  Other modes like 320x350, 320x400, 320x480 and 360x480 were also popular, especially with shareware games.

360x480 at 256 colors was the maximum resolution a programmer could hope to achieve with 256KB VGA and keep to some degree of compatibility.  While it may have the RAM to display a 640x350 or 640x400 resolution at 256 colors, other technical limitations on the VGA prevent it from doing so.  Any graphics displaying in 640x350x256, 640x400x256 or 640x480x256 is always using some kind of SVGA or VESA mode.

DOSBox will stretch certain modes horizontally and this functionality cannot be totally disabled.  If no scalers in DOSBox are used, 320x200, 320x240, 360x200 and 360x240 resolutions are not scaled.  Other resolutions are stretched as follows :

320x350 to 640x350
320x400 to 640x400
320x480 to 640x480
360x350 to 720x350
360x400 to 720x400
360x480 to 720x480

If a screenshot is taken of any of the horizontally-stretched modes, the stretch effect can be removed by reducing the horizontal resolution by half using nearest neighbor interpolation.  This will eliminate every second column of pixels.  Resizing by doubling the horizontal resolution using nearest neighbore interpolation will restore those pixels.  In the screenshots below, I have eliminated any stretching by this method.

Digital Illusions' Pinball Series

Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies offer two resolutions, 320x240 and 320x350.  Take a look at these screens from each game :

Pinball Dreams 320x200

Pinball Dreams 320x350

Pinball Fantasies 320x200

Pinball Fantasies 320x350

Both modes give the same amount of screen area to the status display, only the text is off-center (in relation to the status display area), in the 320x350 mode.

The great advantages of pinball games is that they almost always have a ready supply of circles which you can judge whether the aspect ratio is correct.  If a circular object looks like its diameter is the same regardless of the points of the circle measured, you are on sure ground to assume that the aspect ratio is correct.  If the object looks like the diameter is shorter between certain points compared other points, looking more like an oval, then the aspect ratio is probably incorrect.

For Pinball Dreams and Fantasies, the only difference between the 320x200 and 320x350 graphics is that the 320x350 graphics show 1.75x more of the pinball table.  Pinball tables, by their very nature, tend to be much taller than they are wide.  This will be an important point when I go on to discuss the final game in this series, Pinball Illusions.  However, this is what DOSBox displays in the 320x350 mode :

Pinball Fantasies Stretched

The game does not give the pixel dimensions of its high resolution mode in numbers.  However, comparing the two screenshots, it is apparent that no extra detail is given in the stretched screenshot.  Instead, the pixels are much more prominent and the circular objects have become ovals.  It should be clear that stretching is not correct for this mode.

If any further confirmation is required, look to the original games for the Commodore Amiga.  Pinball Fantasies (OCS/ECS PAL version) for that system uses an effective 320x262 resolution.

Pinball Fantasies Amiga OCS/ECS

Pinball Fantasies Amiga OCS/ECS

Pinball Illusions is by far the most demo-scene inspired of these three pinball games, using numerous odd-ball resolutions in its pre-game sequences.  However, for VGA cards, the pattern is almost the same.

Pinball Illusions 320x240

Pinball Illusions "360"x350 (only 336 horizontal pixels used)

If you look carefully, you can see that the right side of the screen is slightly cropped in the 320x240 mode compared to the "360"x350 mode.  The SVGA/VESA Modes follow the 360x350 mode, but only the vertical resolution is increased :

Pinball Illusions "640"x480 (only 336 horizontal pixels used)

Pinball Illusions "800"x600 (only 336 horizontal pixels used)

By the time you get to 800x600 pixels, the screen barely needs to scroll, you can see almost the whole table. On a real CRT monitor, these tables will appear centered in a narrow portion of the middle of the screen with large black borders on either side.  For all these pinball games, no stretching should be done.  If necessary, you should decrease the horizontal size on your CRT monitor until the circular objects look like circles.

Epic Megagames Pinball Series

For the first two games in Epic's series, Epic Pinball and Silverball, they are easy to deal with because they each only use a 320x240 resolution for their tables.  

Epic Pinball 320x240

Silverball 320x240

For the final game, Extreme Pinball, it only uses a 320x400 resolution, and the situation is quite different.  

Extreme Pinball 320x400

As you may have noticed, the ball and the chutes do not look like spheres.  If we stretch this resolution, we get the following : 

Extreme Pinball "640"x400

Now the ball and chutes look like spheres.  Therefore, for one set of games, stretching is not desirable, but for this game, it is.

Spidersoft Pinball Series

Pinball Dreams II was intended as the sequel for Pinball Dreams even though Spidersoft had no connection to Digital Illusions.  Since it was built using the same engine, the same graphical issues appear in it.  Pinball Mania uses the same graphics modes as Pinball Fantasies, and the same comments apply.  In short, they all look correct at their native aspect ratios, no adjustments or stretching required :

Pinball Dreams II 320x200

Pinball Dreams II 320x350

Pinball Mania 320x240

Pinball Mania 320x350

Pinball World uses a standard 320x200 mode or a 320x240 mode.  However, the ball is perfectly "circular" in the 320x200 and 320x240 modes (15x15 pixels) without any aspect ratio correction.  Unlike the earlier pinball games, Pinball World uses huge tables that are wider and taller than the screen resolution.  The ball is the same size in both modes, so the higher resolution just shows more of the table :

Pinball World 320x200

Pinball World 320x240

Other Pinball Games

Although Psycho Pinball uses a 320x240 or an odd 320x368 resolution, it follows the same pattern as Pinball Dreams.  The extra resolution merely shows more of the table, although this time more of the status bar is displayed.  No stretching should be done to its graphics.

For the final game to be detailed in this blog post, Absolute Pinball, the comments made for Psycho Pinball apply.  It offers three modes, 320x240, an odd 360x270 mode and a 320x400 mode.  First, the usual modes :

Absolute Pinball 320x240

Absolute Pinball 320x"400" (only 384 vertical pixels are used)

Like Psycho Pinball, the 320x400 resolution merely adds more visibility to the table and a larger dstatus display.  The circular objects are circular without any stretching.  For the 320x400 resolution, this is in marked contrast to Extreme Pinball, which uses the same resolution.  Last, let's consider the oddball 360x270 resolution.

Absolute Pinball "360"x270 (only 320 horizontal pixels are used)

First, despite the larger number of horizontal pixels offered by the mode, only the middle 320 pixels are used.  The status display uses a 320x62 pixel box.  This is essentially the size of the status display in the 320x400 mode.  The purpose of this mode was to allow for the same status display as enjoyed by users of the highest display resolution with more modest system requirements instead of the smaller status display.  Again, no particular stretching is required for this mode.  

Game Versions : What was Lost with a Patch or Upgrade

A Brief History of PC DOS Game Patching

New versions of a game can add new features, add support for new hardware and fix bugs.  Eventually, these versions would be released as patches for existing games.  DOS game patches were generally not something really available until 1989.

In the 1980s, if a user had a problem with a game, he could take it back to the store for a refund, call tech support, ask around in his local user's group or try the company's BBS.  Typically, updated versions of games would be released to stores in the same boxes and unless some significant new feature was added to the game like VGA support, it would be impossible to tell the boxes with the old version from the boxes with the new version.

One type of "patch" that existed during this time was a disk replacement.  If a user had an issue with a game and tech support couldn't solve it, they may instruct the user to ship his game disks back to the company for a replacement.  The increased complexity of computer systems and their hardware eventually persuaded companies to provide fixes and features in the form of patches, small files that could be easily downloaded over a modem or be shipped on a single floppy disk.

A second type of patch was an upgrade disk.  Mindscape issued a Tandy DAC upgrade disk for owners of Gauntlet II for a small fee.  LucasFilm/LucasArts did the same for certain of its SCUMM adventures, Loom, Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, to add MT-32 support to the floppy disk versions of these games.  Eventually, expansion packs were released at retail to add more content to existing games.  Flight Simulators like Microsoft Flight Simulator, racing simulators like Test Drive II and III and golf simulators like Links would have add-ons that added new vehicles, scenery and courses.

A third type of patch was intended to fix games that were shipped prematurely.  The "get it out before Christmas" mentality was firmly in place in the early 1990s.  Ultima VII: The Black Gate, one of the most complex computer role playing games of its day, was shipped in a nearly-unplayable state due to bugs.  The game was shipped in April, 1992 as version 3.0.  A patch was released in October, 1992, alongside the expansion Forge of Virtue, updated the game to version 3.4 and fixed the problems that made the game a chore to play.  A subtype of this patch is an issue patch, where the patch is intended to fix only a particular issue that may not affect all players.

A fourth type of patch was the serial patch, where many patches were released incrementally over the lifecycle of a game.  Any good multiplayer game would have this kind of patch cycle.  This type of patching was popularized by DOOM, and while today is universally accepted, back then it was not widely used.

A fifth type of patch for DOS games became popular by the mid-1990s.  This was the speed patch, intended to allow games developed on slower systems to work with fast 486 and Pentium CPUs.  Many, many games had issues running when the CPU speed was so fast.  The joysticks would no longer function, animations would be too fast to play, and/or the sound wouldn't work at all.  In certain extreme cases, the program would crash at the command prompt with the dreaded "divide by zero" or "runtime 200 error" messages.

Usually, the patched or upgraded version of a game would be the only version anyone would want to play.  Sometimes, however, features get lost in the process.  Let's take a look at some games in which something was lost during the upgrade :

King's Quest IV

When KQ4 was first released, it came on nine 5.25" or four 3.5" disks.  Sierra's policy at the time was to include both sets of media so that a user who only had one type of floppy drive would be assured that he could play the game.  Many people bought software and found out that they had to send the disks back to the company for replacements that would work on his system.  At thirteen disks, this cost Sierra a pretty penny.  The new versions were released on eight 5.25" floppy disks (but still came with four 3.5" disks).

In order to fit the game onto eight disks, Sierra simplified some of the background artwork and sprites. Trees that were detailed were rendered in silhouette.  Unnecessary background objects were removed.  Dithering was used to give the Mansion an aged look.  Certain objects became smaller.  Instead of using two separate background images for day and night scenes, an updated version of the SCI interpreter would change the palette colors for the sky.  Every change would shave off a kilobyte here and there, but the core game would remain in tact.  Most people probably would not notice the changes in the graphics unless shown an A to B comparison.  For such a comparison, see here :

http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php/topic,2802.0.html

Although detail was lost, one improvement in the newer versions is that the animation speeds showed a marked improvement over the old versions on slower hardware.  Animation on the screen in an AGI or SCI engine game invariably slows down the player's movement speed with contemporary hardware.  The newer versions are faster both with and without animation on the screen.  Another benefit to the newer versions is that you can hear the IBM Music Feature Adapter music from the Yamaha FB-01.  The Yamaha FB-01 is supported if you copy a driver over from another game.  The old versions use slightly different sound drivers and all Yamaha FB-01 drivers are too new to work with the old versions.

One downside for the new versions is the need for a patch to correct two speed-related issues with the game.  The old versions did not have speed related issues, but running the new versions on a 386 will lead to crashes if you try to enter the waterfall or fail to deliver the hen to Lolotte before night fall.  A second downside is that the common copy protection removal method generally known for this game only works on the old versions.

Old versions :
Game Version 0.000.253, Interpreter Version 1.000.106, Date 09-19-1988
Game Version 0.000.274, Interpreter Version 1.000.111, Date 09-23-1988

New versions :
Game Version 0.000.409, Interpreter Version 1.003.006, Date 12-07-1988
Game Version 0.000.502, Interpreter Version 1.006.003, Date 06-12-1989
Game Version 0.000.502, Interpreter Version 1.006.004, Date 08-07-1989

Space Quest I : The Sarien Encounter SCI

In the first releases of this game, the player could see several bands playing in the Ulence Flats bar.  One of these bands was directly inspired by ZZ Top.  ZZ Top did not appreciate the inclusion of their likenesses in the game, and Sierra removed them in later releases, replacing them with two midgets and an alien drummer.  However, Sierra used a script patch to prevent them from appearing, it did not remove the data from the resource files.  To restore Billy, Dusty and Frank, simply remove all *.v56 files in the game folder.

DOOM

DOOM has several patches released for it from its initial release on December 10, 1993.  At that point, only the shareware version with the first episode was available.  The registered version, containing the full game, was released with version 1.1 on December 16, 1993.  Here are just the patches for both the registered and shareware releases.

Version to Upgrade	Release Date
1.2	02/17/94
1.666	09/05/94
1.8	01/23/95
1.9	02/10/95

In addition to patches, there existed a patch to bring shareware 1.0 to 1.1 and shareware versions 1.25, 1.3 (unauthorized), 1.4 beta, 1.5 beta and 1.6 beta which were only available as internet downloads.  The Ultimate DOOM was released on February 25, 1995 and reported a 1.9 version.  For owners with a registered copy of DOOM, a patch to upgrade v1.9 DOOM to v1.9 of The Ultimate DOOM was released on October 13, 1996.  

DOOM versions 1.0 and 1.1 has support for multiple monitors.  You could use three monitors to give a panoramic view.  The multi-monitor feature used DOOM's networking driver to drive two other computers and their monitors.  Dual and triple-head graphics cards were almost a decade away.  DOOM 1.2 rewrote the networking driver, removing this feature.  The rewrite allowed the use of Direct Serial/Null-Modem connections and Dial-Up Modem connections for network games.  The original code relied on broadcast packets, which were delivered to every PC in the network, seriously degrading the network's performannce.  Also removed was the ability to use custom levels with the shareware version.

To use the multi-monitor feature, start DOOM v1.0 or v1.1 on three machines on the same IPX network using the following command lines :

"doom -devparm -net 3 -left"
"doom -devparm -net 3"
"doom -devparm -net 3 -right"

Among the improvements over this patch lifecycle were the support for modems and Nightmare mode difficulty in 1.2, improved deathmatch modes in v1.666.  DOOM II was first released as v1.666, and thereafter the two games had nearly-tandem version releases to v1.9.

SimCity

This game was originally released for DOS as v1.02.  A Godzilla vinyl based off the 1985 Imperial Toys or 1986 Dor Mei figures was featured on the box.  The monster disaster summoned what was clearly Godzilla to bring destruction to the city.  If that was not proof positive, then the roar used (which can be heard only on with a Tandy DAC or Covox Sound Master) was clearly Godzilla's.  Like ZZ Top and Space Quest I, Toho Studios did not approve, and the monster was replaced in v1.07 with a red, more quadrupedal monster.  The monster's roar was also changed and the box changed the disaster picture to the tornado.

SimCity v1.02 Monster

SimCity v1.07 Monster

Tomb Raider PC Oldskool Style

Title Screen - Software Mode

The original Tomb Raider, developed by Core Design and released by EIDOS, worked just fine in a DOS or Windows 9x system, but when Windows XP became the prevalent operating systems, it became more and more difficult to make it work.  With Windows XP, it was mainly an issue of getting the sound to work.  However, with 64-bit Operating Systems, it is not playable at all.  Today, you can buy it on Steam, emulate it via Glidos (for $10, demo available) or emulate it via DOSBox (for free).

Tomb Raider PC was released alongside versions for the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn.  The PC version had certain enhancements and limitations compared with the console versions.  The PC advantages include an optional 640x480 resolution mode, faster loading times, the ability to save anywhere and at virtually anytime, more configurable controls and support for the Unfinished Business add-on.  The PSX and Saturn display better FMV quality, output better quality sound effects, have support for more than four buttons on a gamepad and a greater variety of music that is heard when certain triggering events occur in-game.

Graphics

In-game - Software Mode 320x200

Out of the EIDOS-trademarked trapezoid box the PC version supports standard 320x200 VGA graphics and 640x480 SVGA/VESA graphics.  The game was built for a Pentium, and while a lower end Pentium can handle the low resolution graphics just fine, even a fast Pentium MMX will have some slowdown with the high resolution graphics.  Both graphics modes can show fewer pixels to increase speed, each press of F2 reduces the effective graphical resolution by approximately 10% compared the "full screen".  F3 cycles in reverse.

In-game - Software Mode 640x480

EIDOS released patches to support many of the new 3D accelerator cards that were available in late 1996 and early 1997.  There are patches for the basic Tomb Raider game for the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics, ATi Rage Pro 3D, Matrox Mystique, NEC Power VR, Rendition Verite, and S3 Virge.  The 3dfx and NEC cards were 3D-only accelerator cards that worked in tandem with a separate 2D card.  They often boasted better performance than the other 2D/3D cards against which they were competing.

In-game - 3dfx Patch

The Voodoo Graphics chipset was most often found on PCI cards like the Diamond Monster 3D, the Orchid Righteous 3D and the Canopus Pure 3D.  The first two came with 4MB of EDO DRAM, the latter contains 6MB of EDO DRAM.  The most common Power VR chipset is contained on the Videologic Apocalypse 3D, 3DX, 5D and Matrox m3D, which use 4MB of SDRAM.  The original Apocalypse 3D uses the PCX1 chip, while the others use the faster PCX2 chip.

The Mystique and Virge were especially notorious for poor feature sets, performance and drivers.  The ATi card was decent.  However, the ATi patch is unique because it contains a true Windows executable for Tomb Raider.  This allows it to run without any DOS sound card configuration and allows the full selection of buttons without a keyboard to joystick mapper.  It also supported 800x600 graphics in Tomb Raider.  The Verite had some good early 3D game support with its custom APIs, but the company's inability to release competitive products alongside 3Dfx and nVidia consigned the Verite architecture to obsolesence.

Unfinished Business Title Screen - Software Mode

A 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics (Voodoo 1) card brings many additional features to Tomb Raider.  The game uses a 640x480 resolution with the Voodoo patched-executable.  It is far more fluid than the software 640x480 mode.  Tomb Raider maxes out at 30fps, and you are much more likely to obtain 30fps on vintage hardware with a Voodoo than without.  With a Pentium II, the game can play buttery-smooth.  The Voodoo graphics makes the game look far better than the console versions.  It adds 16-bit rendering support, bilinear filtering, mip-mapping and anti-aliasing.  The Power VR patch looks superior to the Voodoo, supports 800x600 and 1024x768 and 60fps, but requires a much faster CPU.  The Voodoo, the Power VR and ATi Rage Pro 3D have Unfinished Business patches, other 3D accelerators do not.

Unfinished Business In-game - Software Mode 320x200

As the Voodoo cards were by far the most widely adopted of the early 3D accelerators, this blog entry will focus on them.  The other 3dfx Voodoo-compatible retail chipsets include the Voodoo Rush, Voodoo 2, Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo 3, Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5.  The original Voodoo, the Voodoo Rush, the Voodoo 2 and the Voodoo Banshee were made by a wide variety of board manufacturers, but from the Voodoo 3, the boards were primarily built by 3dfx, which had bought STB systems to obtain access to manufacturing capabilities.  There are some differences depending on whether you are playing on a true Voodoo 1 or a later card.

Unfinished Business - Software Mode 640x480

For the basic game, there are two patches for 3Dfx cards.  One works only with Voodoo 1 cards, the other works with all Voodoo cards.  The latter patch is sometimes referred to as the Voodoo Rush or Voodoo 2 patch, but will work with any 3dfx chipset.  Both patches are named TOMB.EXE.  The Voodoo 1 patch has a size of 1,140,735 bytes and a CRC32 of 0288F887, and the Voodoo Rush patch has a size of 873,739 bytes CRC32 5A17B7F3.

Unfinished Business - 3dfx Mode

The original Voodoo patch suffers from high gamma levels, partially to offset the rather low-lit environments. This, combined with the VGA passthrough cable, tends to show the Voodoo 1 graphics in a relatively poor light, quality-wise. The combined 2D/3D boards do not have this problem, and the visual quality for the Voodoo 2 passthrough should be improved.  The visual quality is excellent with my Voodoo 3 card.

With a Voodoo Rush or better, you may see a white outline around Lara's pistols, their discharge and her left hand.  Disabling the anti-aliasing with F3 will remove it.  Custom DOSBox builds with Glide support may show black outlines.  Also, the mip-mapping feature will show "seams" in the surfaces on real hardware, so I would not advise using it.  I don't know whether this will be seen with a real Voodoo Graphics card.

For the Unfinished Business addon, there are two Voodoo patches.  The one that works with the Voodoo Rush, 2 and later 3dfx cards, despite what the readme file may say, and has a file size of 867,563 bytes and a CRC32 of EBFBFEAD.  This works with the same data files as the software-render only executable.

There is another patch floating around with the same file size but a CRC32 of 61E47504, this one may only work with the original Voodoo 1 graphics cards.

Glidos can improve the quality of the FMVs to Playstation levels with a downloadable pack, but this has not been integrated into the original DOS version.  There are also several texture enhancement packs available for Glidos, but not all cover the full game.

I have all the patches mentioned here, some of which can be hard to find.  If anyone needs a particular patch, contact me.

Sound

Tomb Raider, while a DOS game, is Windows-tolerant.  It's sound support is pretty basic, requiring only a Sound Blaster.  It supports a wide variety of ISA sound cards, including the Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16/AWE32 & 64, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, Roland RAP-10, Microsoft/Windows Sound System, ESS AudioDrive, Ensoniq SoundScape, Gravis UltraSound and Gravis UltraSound Max.  It also supports the NewMedia.WAVJammer and I/O Magic Tempo PCMCIA sound cards natively.  The game uses middleware drivers from HMI.

In DOS, you shouldn't have a problem if you actually have one of these ISA or PCMCIA cards, or a card that advertises compatibility.  Tomb Raider uses a sound card only for sound effects, and they are typically in an 8-bit/22kHz format (lowest common denominator, suitable for a pre-Pro Sound Blaster).  In Windows 9x, DOS games can still access ISA sound cards directly.  All the listed sound cards have Windows 9x drivers, and most are built into Windows 98SE.  I am not sure whether there is a driver to obtain digital audio capabilities in Windows 9x for the Adlib Gold, only the FM Synthesizer may be supported.  Owners of that card would be out of luck for this game.

If you only have a PCI sound card, you will need to activate its DOS sound card emulation capabilities, if any.  Most PCI sound cards for Windows 9x do emulate a Sound Blaster Pro, so if you have the emulation drivers installed in Windows 9x, you should be good to go.  The Aureal Vortex 2 sound card works perfectly for this game, but you must set the resources manually in the setup program.  Of course, you will need to use the Tomb Raider setup program to tell the game the virtual resources (I/O, IRQ/DMA) the emulation is using.  You will need to run the game in Windows unless you have installed the drivers that provide real-mode DOS support for sound.

The Tomb Raider PC CD is a mixed data/audio CD, with one data track and nine audio tracks.  The audio tracks should be playable in a CD player or with Windows Media Player.  If you can hear no music, make sure that there is an MPC cable connected from your CD ROM or DVD ROM drive to your sound card. You can also hear the music if you plug in headphones or speakers to the audio output jack on the front of many drives.  Also, make sure your mixer settings have not muted the CD audio.  There are some budget releases where the CD audio is not present.

The Playstation version of the game is also a mixed data/audio CD but has fifty-six audio tracks.  Additional tracks are used for all in-game spoken dialog, including the tutorial level.  This dialog, recorded in 16-bit CD audio format, will sound superior to the 8-bit digital format the PC version uses.  There are also additional Playstation music tracks that play back at certain points in the levels that are entirely absent from the PC version.  On the other hand, the Playstation version does not have ambient music playing throughout the levels.  Core Design removed these extra tracks from the PC version as a "design decision", according to the PC version's readme file.  The theory behind the decision is that certain CD drives could not keep up with the frequent CD track changes.

The idea of putting these cues back in the game had been floating around for many years, but the trouble was that early hackers believed that the triggers for the in-game music would have to be recreated from scratch. Then a guy going by the name KMO  found that the triggers were still present, albeit disabled, in the main executable.  A small patch was made in 2007, called the Tomb Raider Audio Restoration Patch, to enable the triggers.  A new CD must be burnt containing the additional CD audio tracks from the PSX version or mp3s of those tracks.  Because any of the Greatest Hits releases of Tomb Raider can be purchased for very little money, I would suggest buying a copy and ripping the tracks using a program called Exact Audio Copy.  The patch will allow the best of both worlds, ambient music will play except when triggered music is activated.  Start reading here for more information : http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=10463&start=180

The patch will be found on the next page, http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=10463&start=200#p117936.  Included in the patch is a modified Voodoo Rush TOMB.EXE, but there are instructions to modify any Tomb Raider executable.  Glidos also supports restoring the triggers through a downloadable pack.

Input

Tomb Raider defaults to using the keyboard, but can use a gamepad with the keyboard.  As it is a DOS game, it only recognizes four buttons and two axes.  If you are playing the game in Windows, make sure your controller uses ID1 in the Game Controller properties in the Control Panel.  If you have a gamepad with more than four buttons, you will need a program like JoytoKey to map the extra buttons to keyboard keys.  JoytoKey is one program that will work, but modern versions are only shareware and run on nothing less than Windows XP.  You can find an older freeware version of the software, 3.7.4, that works on Windows 9x here : http://www.electracode.com/4/joy2key/JoyToKey%20English%20Version.htm

I have successfully used an original Playstation controller (no analog sticks) with a Radio Shack PSX to USB adapter (RS Part # 26-304) in Windows 98SE.  The USB adapter will be seen by Windows 98SE as a generic HID device, and all the buttons of the PSX controller will be visible.  You can also use a PSX Dual Shock controller.  Tomb Raider for the Playstation was pre-Dual Shock and only supported digital axes.  A standard PC joystick provides analog axes, but I do not believe Tomb Raider for the PC really takes advantage of analog degrees of movement.  I would suggest mapping the more critical functions to the "real" DOS gamepad buttons (Action, Draw Weapons, Jump) and the less timing critical buttons to the "emulated" keyboard buttons.

I found that if I used a Gravis Gamepad connected to my Vortex 2's game port, the control was unreliable with the Voodoo Rush executables.  The menu would rotate uncontrollably and Lara would not run in a straight line without turning.  This was with my Pentium III 600E running at 600MHz.  When I reduced the speed to 400MHz by knocking down the FSB to 66MHz, the control was properly responsive.

Weird Software : The Buick Dimensions 1992 Floppy Advertisement

A long time ago, or which seems a long time ago, I bought a non-working IBM PC XT from a guy off craigslist.  He gave me a box of floppies.  Included in those floppies were several games and these :

The concept of these disks are part advertisement, part spec sheet, part leasing tutorial, affordability calculator and part health and fitness advice.  If you find the last of those curious, read on.

I showed these disks to my friend Trixter, who had never heard of them.  He noted that they appeared similar to the Ford Simulator disks.  While not quite as awesome as the Ford Simulator, which had a basic automobile simulator reminiscent of Test Drive included, these disks are a lot wackier.  This is the first screen you see when you start the program :

Mr. Mertz, your immortality is assured.  Onto the main menu :

These disks were clearly intended for the IBM PC and XT.  The disks were manufactured no earlier than January 1992, long after the PC and XT had been discontinued in 1987.   These 360KB disks work in tandem and one can work in Drive A: and the other in Drive B:  They require a CGA or compatible card, and unusually for the time period use Mode 05h and its intense cyan/red/white palette (its cyan/magenta/white on EGA or VGA). A state of the art advertisement would have been released on 1.44MB or 1.2MB disks and used VGA graphics and Sound Blaster sound.  However, lots of dealerships apparently still used older systems in or near their showrooms.  By targeting the PC, GM/Buick ensured its software would run on just about anything.  Using a computer to look up model information must have still been fairly novel, even in 1992.  

The first option on the main menu sends you to a submenu listing eight Buick models, as shown below :

Once you select which model you are interested in, you can see the various features and specifications of each model :

"Attractive styling" :

What we take for granted today :

For completeness' sake :

This isn't going to deter a car thief :

Not really selling me on the MPG :

No V-8, I'm disappointed :(

There used to be a lot more sheet metal in cars twenty-two years ago :

Their cars come in three colors :

I'm sure that it must have looked very impressive to the average customer, but this is probably the same information you would have found in Buick's brochure.

The next selection on the main menu tells you all about leasing.

 It begins with an animated discussion between two people talking about the advantages of leasing :

But you don't own it, and stop trying to look down her shirt you perv!

And you have to give the car back :

Then it gives you sliders to determine whether you would lease or finance your Buick :

You can also find a debt/payment calculator  :

Choosing the final option on the main menu gets you to this menu :

The submenus include animation.

In case you Aren't Smarter than a 5th Grader :

But aren't they trying to sell you a car?

Reach for your checkbook too :

How do I measure my heart rate ?

This is the nutrition submenu :

 Somethings haven't changed :

Lies my nutritionist told me :

Low fat, high carbs, your ticket to a miserable dieting experience :

No chocolate, no choices for me :

An oversimplified quiz :

As you can see, there is a disconnect between the Buick advertisement portion of the program and Exercise/Nutrition portion of the program.  Who would expect detailed, if out of date, dieting advice on a program issued to Buick dealerships?  The Exercise/Nutrition portion is very elaborate, its as if someone at Buick liked the presentation and decided to advertise their automobiles with it as well.  If they kept it to the cars, they probably could have fit everything on one floppy.  

The split-personality of this program even extends to the disclaimers shown as you exit the program :

Despite the RealSound credit, all the music is standard PC speaker, not digitized or tweaked PC speaker. The ASCII Art Buick logo is really well-done.

I have made disk images of the above disks, and as Buick states, I am "feel[ing] free to copy and pass on to my friends".  Download them from here : http://www.mediafire.com/download/2y66kilwl8c2yk3/Buick.7z