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

One Computer, Console and Handheld from Each Decade

I have had the privilege of owning at least one console, handheld and computer system from each of the five decades from the 1970s to the 2010s (with one exception).  These are just the current systems I have or had within the past two years or so :

Video Game Consoles :
1970s - 2600
1980s - 5200, NES, Genesis (and SMS by virtue of a Power Base Converter).
1990s - SNES, PSX, N64
2000s - Gamecube, Wii, PS3
2010s - Wii U

Computers :
1970s - Atari 800
1980s - IBM PC 5150, IBM PCjr., Commodore 64, Tandy 1000SX, 1000TX & 1000TL
1990s - Custom Built 486DX2/66
2000s - Custom Built Pentium III 600E (case is from the 21st century)
2010s - Custom Built Intel Core i7-870, Custom Built Core i7-4770K

Handhelds :
1970s - None (I have never owned a Microvision)
1980s - Gameboy
1990s - Gameboy Pocket
2000s - GBA, GBA SP, DSi XL
2010s - 3DS

If I wanted to include every system I have ever owned during my lifetime, the list would expand considerably.  I do not have the space nor the funds to acquire arcade machines.  But if I had to choose one game from each decade, it would be :

1970s - Space Invaders
1980s - Tempest
1990s - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Turtles in Time
2000s - Class of 1981 / 20 Year Reunion Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga (and Pac-Man, yes this is cheating, but its my list.) :p
2010s - Mario Kart Arcade GP DX

Doctor Who New Series Disc Importing

Since Doctor Who began broadcasting new episodes in 2005, the BBC has been releasing DVDs and later Blu-rays of the series.  For an American collector, purchasing these episodes can get very expensive, even from amazon.com.  I purchased all the "classic" Doctor Who serials in their "pure", U.K. Region 2 format from amazon.co.uk.

For purposes of this article, 25i=50i and 29.97i = 59.94i.  25i is 25 interlaced frames, 50i is 50 interlaced fields, 29.97i is 29.97 interlaced frames and 59.94i is 59.94 interlaced fields.  An interlaced field breaks up a complete frame into odd and even scanlines.

Story Format

Standard Resolution

The Ninth Doctor, series 1, and the Tenth Doctor, series 2-4 and the Tenth Doctor Special The Day of the Doctor were originally recorded and broadcast using the standard standard definition widescreen PAL format 576/25i.  They used a post-processing effect to give the program a more film-like progressive scan (25p) quality.

High Resolution

The later Tenth Doctor Specials, starting with Planet of the Dead and all the Eleventh Doctor stories, were recorded in high definition 1080/25p and usually broadcast on BBC HD or BBC One HD in the 1080/25i format.  The fact that the interlaced format is used should make no difference in the picture quality.  25 frames splits evenly into 50 odd and even fields.  Progressive, segmented Frame treats 25i material as 25p material for all intents and purposes.

3D

The Day of the Doctor, the 50th Anniversary Special, was recorded in 3D.  It was broadcast in 3D on the BBC Red Button HD channel.  According to the instructions, the user needed to set his TV to Side-by-Side mode to watch the broadcast.  There is a Top-and-bottom mode, but side-by-side officially supports 1080 @ 50Hz.  Both methods are designed to squeeze the 1080 3D signal in the same bandwidth allocated for a 1080i broadcast channel.  In side by side, the left and right 3D frames are combined horizontally, and when displayed, half the horizontal resolution is lost.  In top and bottom, the left frame is stacked on the right frame, and when displayed half the vertical resolution is lost.  The left and right images are stretched back to the proper aspect ratio when displayed on a TV. See here for more detail : http://www.cnet.com/news/how-3d-content-works-blu-ray-vs-broadcast/

This leads me to discuss the two 3DTV systems on the market today, Active 3D and Passive 3D.  Active 3D uses expensive shutter glasses to block the eye from seeing the wrong frame.  Passive 3D uses inexpensive polarized glasses to filter out the light emitted from the wrong frame.  Passive 3D is also used in theaters because the glasses are practically given away.  However, due to the way that passive 3D works, (left frame = odd lines displayed, right frame = even lines displayed) the effective resolution of each 3D frame is 1920x540, so the top and bottom mode is typically not used for 1080.  Active 3D has its issues as well, including crosstalk, headaches, expensive, battery powered and uncomfortable glasses and people trying to wear those glasses over eyeglasses.  See here for more detail : http://www.cnet.com/news/active-3d-vs-passive-3d-whats-better/

Disc Format

DVD supports 576/25i for PAL countries and 480/29.97i for NTSC countries.  When released on PAL DVD, the BBC could transfer the show very easily since DVD supported 576/25i.  When released on NTSC, 576/25i material has to be converted to 480/29.97i.  Lines must be dropped or blended and detail is lost because of the reduction in resolution.  Because of the increased NTSC field rate, certain fields have to be repeated or blended and this can create stutter in motion, especially during camera movement.

Blu-ray supports 1080/24p and 1080/23.976p, 1080/29.97i and 1080/25i.  It does not natively support 1080/25p, although many players may be able to play this format.  Any product advertised that uses a progressive frame format will be in 1080/24p or 1080/23.976p, usually the latter.

Blu-Ray 3D only supports 1080/23.976p x 2.  However, its 3D format uses frame packing/stacking, and technically the resolution is 1920x2025 @ 23.976p.  (45 blanking lines separate the left and the right imgaes) With frame packing, the full 1920x1080 frame for each eye is transmitted, so the full horizontal and vertical resolution of each 3D frame is preserved.  Whether your TV will show the full resolution depends on the type of 3D used.

(There are also 720 resolutions in 2D and 3D Blu-ray, but Doctor Who always uses 1080 resolution on Blu-rays.)

Doctor Who on DVD

For Classic and New Series Doctor Who, up and until they started recording in HD, everything that has been released on DVD is essentially the best the program can look without an upconversion.  In this case, Region 2 is the way to go.  Not only do you get the series in its native format, you can always buy the discs cheaper.  Series 1-4 is contained in a very reasonably priced DVD boxset.  Additionally, certain issues with music rights, which cause edits for overseas releases, are almost never an issue with Region 2 discs.  All Region 2 DVDs are region locked to Region 2 (and most also support Region 4), however, bypassing region encoding on DVDs is easy enough.

Doctor Who on Blu-ray

For Blu-ray, the issue is more complex.  First let's deal with the region encoding issue.

The good news : All Doctor Who U.K. Blu-rays, with a few exceptions, are region free, except for :

The bad news : The upconversions of Series 1-4 in the The Complete Serials 1-7 U.K. Boxset are Region B locked.  The separate releases of these Series in Australia may also be Region B locked.  I do not yet know whether The Day of the Doctor or The Time of the Doctor U.K. releases are Region B locked.

Second, we must address the slowdown that comes when converting 25i/p material to 23.976p material, as is the case for Series 1-4 and The Next Doctor on Blu-ray.  The episodes run roughly 4.1% longer when converted.  The action will seem a little slower, but only by comparison.  The pitch of the audio, including voices are also affected by up to half a semitone.  The audio is pitch shifted during the conversion software.  I have read that the scrolling credits will appear markedly less smooth.  The slowdown does not occur with the DVD releases of this material.  While this may add something close to two minutes to each episode, it is nowhere near as much as an issue as for example in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, a fifteen hour long film made for PAL TV.  See here for a discussion of the choices The Criterion Collection made to the frame rate of Fassbinder's epic masterpiece when releasing it on DVD in the U.S. : http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/732-reality-at-25-24-frames-per-second

However, the video quality improves generally due to more efficient encoding techniques of Blu-ray, the use of more recent and improved mastering software and professional upscaling.

However, as the Series 1-7 box set was a limited edition in the U.S., and it goes in and out of print.  The U.K. doesn't have this problem.  Amazon is advertising it for $349.98 while Amazon UK has it for £165.24.  Assuming £1=$1.70, the U.K. version is cheaper.

The Complete Seasons 5, 6 and 7, all use 1080/25i, so I am sure that they will not suffer from slowdown.  I also understand that the bare-bones story releases (the discs they release before the Complete releases) also do not have this problem.  Neither should The Time of the Doctor Blu-ray.  The Complete Season 5 is missing the Next Time trailers and has a wrong version of the Children in Need special.

The Complete Tenth Doctor Specials, regardless of region, use 1080/29.97i.  HDTVs sold in formerly PAL countries apparently do not have a problem with the NTSC field/frame rates.  I have read the results are a bit mixed, and should not be an issue with the DVDs, but typically resolution trumps frame rate.

The Complete Serials 1-7 U.K. Boxset contains the previous standalone releases of The Complete Tenth Doctor Specials and The Complete Seasons 5, 6 and 7.  Series 1-4 is new.  The Complete Serials 1-7 U.S. Boxset contains newer masters of The Complete Tenth Doctor Specials and The Complete Seasons 5, 6 and 7 and everything is in 23.976p.

Unfortunately, The Day of the Doctor Blu-ray will suffer from slowdown regardless of the country it is released in.  This is because the Blu-ray 3D spec only supports 1080 lines at 23.976 frames per second.  The accompanying DVD in the U.K. release should not suffer from this problem, but then it is not in its native 3D format either.

Spearhead from Space, the only Classic Doctor Who story that has been released on Blu-ray, was released because it was shot solely on 16mm film.  The BBC retained the film and thus could scan it in HD and transfer it to Blu-ray with a noticeable upgrade in quality over DVD.  Any other classic Who stories would have to be upconverted from 756/25i and thus would not be worth the expense.  On the Region B Blu-ray, the disc is encoded in 1080 /25i, while for Region A, the disc is using 1080/23.976p.

On a closely related matter, An Adventure in Space and Time, which is only currently available as a Blu-ray in the U.S. and Canada, must suffer from the slowdown.  If you want to see it in its native speed but not its native resolution, you can buy the U.K. DVD.  The Blu-ray is not region encoded, so I am sure that it will be a relatively popular reverse-import.

Notwithstanding the slowdown issue, buying Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk. is still cheaper than buying anything in the U.S. in most instances.  If you care more about consistency and picture quality, buy the U.S. Complete Series 1-7.  If you care more about speed issues, then buy the U.K. DVD Series 1-4 and the Complete Specials and Series 5-7.

My First Demoparty - A Personal Report on @party 2014

[Introductory note : this will be a really lengthy post, but I intend it to be a comprehensive recollections of my observations and interactions at this event.]

On Saturday, June 13, 2014, I attended my first demoparty, @party 2014, http://atparty-demoscene.net/.  I really went to help out my friend Trixter, who had flown in from the midwest.  I had never met Trixter or anyone else with whom I correspond on VOGONS or Vintage Computer Forums or Quest Studios, my three most frequented forums.  Trixter lives in the mid-western U.S., Cloudschatze lives in the Rockies, etc.  I had tried to meet Trixter for the last @party in 2013, but I was unable to make it.  Several months ago, Trixter posted on the VCF that he was looking for the best method to ship an IBM PC Portable Model 5155.  Now "Portable" was a charitable description for the machine, it weighs about forty pounds and takes up as much space as an IBM PC.  However, he was going to submit a demo and wanted to demo it on real hardware.

I didn't pay that much attention until he mentioned that he was going to @party, which is held at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  At that point I volunteered to help him.  I own an IBM PC Model 5150 in good enough shape that he could probably make his demo run on it.  He accepted my offer of help and we discussed what he would need and when he would need it.  I would bring the PC, a CGA monitor and a keyboard and some of the usual cards you could find in a PC.

So, on Saturday, I told Trixter I would be in Cambridge at 1:30PM.  The entries for the demo competitions had to be submitted by 5PM, so the extra time may have been necessary for troubleshooting.  I estimated I could get to Cambridge in an hour and fifteen minutes.  However, due to road work, it took close to two hours.  One of the lanes was closed off on the bridge, and that twenty-five foot closure backed up traffic for at least two and a half miles.  I was looking at my phone while stuck in traffic (admittedly an unwise thing to do) and a guy pulled up and asked me if I was checking Google to see what was wrong up ahead.  I told him that I wasn't and he pulled away.  I checked the Navigation app and found that there was road work, so about 10 minutes later I saw his car, honked my horn and told him what the trouble was ahead.

I did not get to Cambridge until close to 2:30PM.  I didn't want to let my friend down, who had traveled so far to show his new demo.  It simply wouldn't have been the same if he was forced to use DOSBox.  I swore many an unprintable oath on the drive to MIT.

I got to MIT, and the parking garages around the main campus are extremely expensive.  Fortunately on Saturdays there are plenty of metered parking spaces available, and I had just enough quarters to feed the meter until 6PM.  After 6PM they no longer check the meters.  Carrying an IBM PC, which weighs about 20 pounds, back and forth across campus is quite a workout.  I brought my IBM 5153 Color/Graphics Display monitor, which is significantly heavier than my other CGA monitor, the Tandy CM-5.  However, the extremely poor dot pitch of the CM-5 does not lend itself to high resolution graphics or serious 80-column text work, so I brought the IBM.

Still, I was nervous that something would go wrong and Trixter wouldn't be able to run his demo despite all our efforts.  As many of my readers know, there is only five slots in an IBM PC.  The slot configuration I brought was as follows :

1.  AST Six Pak Plus w/384KB RAM
2.  IBM Diskette Drive Adapter
3.  ADP-50L 16-to-8-bit IDE Adapter
4.  Sound Blaster 1.5 w/DSP 2.00
5.  IBM Color/Graphics Adapter (New Version)

Both full height bays were occupied with the typical Tandon TM100-2A drives.  I knew that Trixter intended to run his demo off a compact flash card in an CF-IDE adapter.  The only adapter I have is intended to be housed in a card bracket or drive bay.  I tried inserting the 5.25" adapter into the drive bay, but I would have to remove one of the full-height Tandon floppy drives and it would leave a large hole.  Trixter brought an adapter that sat directly on the end of the IDE header.  That adapter had a female connector and the ADP has a male header.  Neither of us brought a ribbon cable with the appropriate ends, so we had to exchange the positions of the AST and ADP cards to give the CF-to-IDE adapter clearance to fit on the end of the ADP card.  There is plenty of clearance between the first 1 in the IBM PC and the end of the Power Supply.  At first, it didn't work because it was inserted the wrong way (the CF holder needs to face the front of the machine).  Once we turned it around, it booted like a champ.  One thing I have learned is that my ADP requires the Diskette Drive Adapter and a valid physical A: drive to boot the hard disk.  I usually use the ADP in my Tandy systems, which have a diskette drive adapter built into the motherboard.  On the downside, there may not be sufficient clearance in the Tandys to mount a CF-to-IDE adapter directly onto the end of the ADP.

So one problem was solved and Trixter tried his demo on my PC.  After listening to it with the headphones, he noticed that the music was out of sync with the video and playing back too slowly.  The problem was with the Sound Blaster.  Trixter encoded his digitzed music at 32kHz, but the Sound Blaster 1.0-1.5, even with a 2.00 DSP, only supports playback at up to 22kHz.  If I put my Sound Blaster Pro or a Sound Blaster 2.0 (which I don't have anymore) in the system, the music would have played back fine, since those cards can support 44kHz playback.  Trixter had access to the original audio and used his modern laptop to re-encode the original 44kHz digital audio into 22kHz digital audio suitable for the Sound Blaster very quickly.  Once that was done, he told me that the demo worked as it should.  In fact, this was a benefit because the demo was available to a wider audience.  I refused to watch the screen so I could experience it with everyone else.  The drawback was that the demo was barely submitted in time for the 5PM deadline and I missed an important presentation.

While Trixter was working on getting his demo to run, I watched some of the presentations in amphitheater. While I unfortunately I missed the Vectrex demo, I was able to view most of Ken Silverman's demonstration of the Voxiebox.  Mr. Silverman, the developer of the Build Engine which powered Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood brought a PC  to control what was literally a "box of tricks".  The hardware inside the cardboard box considered of a projector projected against a glass plate moving up and down 20 times per second.  Items were being held in place with rubber bands!  The result was shapes being displayed above a 3"x3" apeture in the top of the box.  Shapes could be in color or monochrome, filled or wireframe.  Mr. Silverman described the API that he used to code the various programs he demonstrated, including games of 3-D Tetris, Space War, Snake and Pac-Man.  Here are some crappy pictures I took with my camera :

Solid Shapes, they were also shown in wireframe and in color

3-D Spacewar, one player controls the yellow ship, the other player controls the blue ship

3-D Pac-man, although it plays more like Pacmania

Another game, I don't remember much about this one

I think this is the Snake game, could be the same game as the last screenshot

The current iteration of the Voxiebox was designed and built by Mr. Silverman and four other people.  Two of those people were located in Australia.  As the motor noise is very noticeable, I asked Mr. Silverman how long could the motor run.  He stated that it had not broken down, so they ran it as long as they wanted to.  At first they used a sine wave generated by PC audio hardware to keep the motor in sync with the projector, but that was not sufficiently precise, so they relied on a board that appeared reminiscent of an Arduino or Raspberry Pi.

Once Trixter demo had been completed, he introduced himself to Mr. Silverman.  He showed him the target system for his demo, my PC.  Mr. Silverman demonstrated his dormant coding abilities by entering a simple program in GW BASIC and another simple program compiled in DEBUG.  I can make the boast "Ken Silverman coded on my IBM PC!".  When they showed me the lines Mr. Silverman typed into GW BASIC and asked me if I knew what they did, I deduced correctly that they were trying to plot pixels in some manner.  The above highlighted the fact that I was still separated from a majority of the people present because they can code and I cannot.  Trixter's own art is not in graphics or music but in coding.  He appreciates the challenge of trying to eek out the last ounce of performance from a system.

Meanwhile, trying to be social I saw someone trying to code with a Sega Genesis.  As he appeared to be using a Krikzz Mega Everdrive, we had something in common.  He was using a a laptop and a composite-to-usb video-in capture device to view the output on his laptop screen.  He was trying to get true bitmap graphics working with the Sega Genesis.  The Genesis uses tile-based graphics modes, so implementing a bitmapped graphics mode involves changing tiles quite frequently.  Between such issues as the horizontal line interrupts, the DMA speed and the unstable raster being displayed from his capture device, he was not able to finish his demo in time for the competition.

Another excellent device demoed was a mini-Tesla Coil.  This was entered into the demo and I was able to chat with the two individuals behind the demo afterwards.  They used the coil to display "lightning" during the playback of music.  Essentially the bursts from the coil were set to audible frequencies to accompany the music.  As the coil is controlled via MIDI, the coil is a unique, albeit dangerous MIDI instrument.  In the demo, the electricity arced to a common CCFL light bulb.  The kit they used can be found here : http://onetesla.com/products/kits/onetesla-musical-tesla-coil-kit.html  I also saw an oscilloscope with 3-D patterns being displayed on it like a Vectrex.

My only regret is that I did not seize the opportunity to try out the Oculus Rift during its demonstration.  I saw the projection behind the speaker, which showed the visuals the people who tried it out saw when they wore the headset.  The visuals weren't especially impressive because they lack their immersion and suspension of disbelief which was provided by the headgear itself.  Imagine during your head and seeing the display shift according to the position of your neck.  180 degree turns would be a challenge.  While the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 is available for purchase, I don't have a spare $350.00 to drop on a peripheral supported by half a dozen PC games at the time of this writing.  The people who did get to try it were wowed by the effect. I will have to cling to my memories of novelty VR arcade games and the Virtual Boy for now.

The party began on Friday, but Trixter told me I hadn't missed much.  Sunday was mostly for cleanup, so I departed with my IBM PC at 11PM on Saturday.  Trixter gave me his opinion that compared to European demoparties, this demoparty was a much more MIT appropriate buttoned-down affair.  Part of that is because of the rules of the site, MIT does not allow for drinking alcohol.  Also, everybody had to leave by midnight, in Euro demoparties people sleep on the floor and they run 24 hours.  There were competitions for this, that and everything else.  The maximum number of people I saw was about 35 people, whereas the European parties can run double or triple that.  Still, like other demo parties people would shout out random things, usually evoking a laugh.

There were several categories in the demo competitions.  Some were for music, some for computer art and some for demos.  With the music demos, I made notes on the various pieces presented for reference.  The programs and graphical demos would show a screenshot next to the submission name.  I assumed that voting required you to rank each entry from best to worst, but it actually allowed you to select a range of opinion for each entry.  I could therefore say I liked two pieces equally.  Some of the notes I made were "new agey", "some Sierra influence", "sounds like a track from an early 90s TMNT game", "lacks direction", "errie vocals", "terrible sound effects", and "NES inspired"  Two of the tunes did use Famitracker, which is a tracker for the NES, Famicom and the expansion chips.  Who knows how much post-processing was done. Overall, I was impressed with the quality of tunes presented.

Trixter's submission, 8088 Domination, deservedly won first prize in the Oldskool PC demo category.  His trophy (and all the other trophies but one) was a piece of laser-etched acrylic.  I also met his frequent collaborator Phoenix, who entered the demo which got second place in the same category.  Trixter's demo can be downloaded from here : http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63591  I will not say much about it, but the first part of the demo brought a chuckle to me and should to anyone familiar with Trixter's previous demos, one in particular called 8088 Corruption.  The demo should run in DOSBox 0.74 as it relies upon 640x200 CGA color composite mode.  Go watch it, and note that I get a mention in the credits

If you try to run it on real hardware, here are some guidelines : It will show the wrong colors in parts 1 and 2 of the demo with a Tandy 1000 or IBM PCjr. Color Composite output*.  It needs a SET BLASTER line and a Sound Blaster with a DSP version of 2.00 or better.  I also advice using a new-style CGA card, as the second half of the demo may show a wavy raster, color fringing on the edges of black and white, and brightness fluctuations with an old-style CGA card and a modern television.  If you want to get a very good idea what it will look like on with Tandy 1000 Composite Video, use DOSBox and set the hue to 135 degrees using Alt + F11.

* - the demo requires a Sound Blaster card, a later release will have the option to run it silently.  Therefore you won't be running it on a PCjr. unless you have the ultra rate PC Enterprises GameMaster.

Scoring Vintage ISA Sound Cards' Gaming Suitability

I have tried to make an objective rating system to judge the gaming suitability of a particular vintage sound card.  I have avoided including more subjective qualities like measurement of audio output quality.  My basic standard for rating each element of a sound card is as follows :

0 - Not present or not widely supported
1 - Useful but often troublesome or problematic
2 - Mainline support
3 - Superior Features
4 - The Best of the Best

1. Gameport
0.00 - None
0.50 - Crippled (2axis/2buttons only) or Non-standard : Covox Sound Master
1.00 - Standard : Sound Blaster 1.0-Pro 2.0
1.50 - Speed Sensitive : Sound Blaster 16-AWE64
2.00 - Speed Adjustable : Gravis Ultrasound

2. MIDI Hardware Interface
0.00 - None
0.50 - Not Widely Supported : IBM Music Feature, Pro Audio Spectrum, Gravis Ultrasound, Adlib Gold
1.00 - Sound Blaster MIDI
1.50 - Widespread UART MPU-401 Hanging Note Bug : Sound Blaster DSP 4.11-4.13
1.75 - Minimal UART MPU-401 Hanging Note Bug : Sound Blaster DSP 4.11-4.13 & CT-1747
2.00 - UART MPU-401, Sound Blaster DSP <= 4.05 or DSP = 4.16
2.50 - MPU-401 Hardware Emulation
3.00 - Roland MPU-401 or 100% Fully Compatible

3. Music Synthesizer
0.00 - None (Digital Only)
0.50 - Not Widely Supported : Innovation SSI-2001, Covox Sound Master, IBM Music Feature, IBM PS/1 Audio/Game Card
1.00 - Game Blaster
1.50 - Gravis Ultrasound, Creative CQM : Later Sound Blaster 16 & AWE32s, most 32s, all AWE64s
2.00 - OPL2 : Adlib, Sound Blaster 1.0-2.0, Thunderboard, Covox Sound Master II
2.25 - Dual OPL2 : Sound Blaster Pro 1.0, Pro Audio Spectrum; OPL3 : Sound Blaster Pro 2.0, 16, AWE32, 32; Pro Audio Spectrum Plus/16, Adlib Gold
2.50 - AWE32/64 EMU-8000, Waveblaster 1/2, OPL4
3.00 - Ensoniq Soundscape, Yamaha DB50XG, SW60XG, Roland SCB-7
4.00 - Roland LAPC-I, SCC-1 or SCB-55

4. Digital Audio Output
0.00 - None (Music Only)
0.50 - Not Widely Supported : IBM PS/2 Speech Adapter or Compatible, Covox Sound Master/Plus, Covox Voice Master
1.00 - Covox Speech Thing or Disney Sound Source, Roland RAP-10, Covox Sound Master II
1.50 - Adlib Gold, Pro Audio Spectrum
2.00 - Sound Blaster DSP 1.xx, Microsoft Windows Sound System, Gravis Ultrasound
2.25 - Sound Blaster DSP 2.00
2.50 - Sound Blaster DSP >= 2.01, Thunderboard
2.75 - Pro Audio Spectrum Plus/16
3.50 - Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16 <= DSP 4.05
3.75 - Sound Blaster 16 >= DSP 4.05, Sound Blaster AWE32
4.00 - Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (SPDIF)

Thus if you add up the total scores, you can get a good idea of the overall suitability of an ISA sound card for DOS gaming. A Sound Blaster 1.0 or Gravis Ultrasound gets a 6, Roland LAPC-I or SCC-1 would rank a 7, a Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold a 10. A Sound Blaster AWE32 with SCC-1 would probably rate the highest at 11. Note that only the highest score for each individual category is counted. A basic AWE32 gets a 2.5 in the synthesizer category, not a 4.5.

Tandy 1000TX vs. 1000TL

The Tandy 1000TX was released in 1987.  Its successor, the Tandy 1000TL was released in 1988.  The TL was mainly a refresh of the earlier machine, with some enhancements.  However, in its efforts to become more PC compatible, some things were lost.  Let's compare each machine.  

Consider what both machines possessed in common :

80286 CPU @ 8MHz in PLCC Socket

80287 Socket

5 ISA Slots

65W Power Supply

640KB built-in/768KB upgradeable

Lets look at some features :

Video : 

TX - Composite Video Output

TL - 640x200x16c and MDA/Hercules Graphics Emulation

Composite video is useful to record video from the computer, since there are many, many devices that will record a composite video signal, even a not-quite standard signal that the Tandy outputs. It is also works very well with games that use a true (Maniac Mansion, Starflight) or effective (King's Quest) 160x200x16c graphics mode.  In this mode, there is minimal artifacting and the colors presented are generally close to their RGB counterparts.  True composite artifact color games, generally made for the IBM CGA card, will show incorrect colors which no amount of fiddling with the tint control will perfectly fix.  Still, the results will look much better than on an RGB monitor.  However, recordings using the 320x200x16c mode will not look great, because the composite video signal does not have the bandwidth to keep up with the color changes. The TX can also support a true 200-line 80 column text mode.  The TL will display a rolling screen using the MODE 200 command that came with the system disks.  You can use an updated MODE.COM from the RL system disks.

The Tandy 640x200x16c mode was rarely used in games, and those games also supported the corresponding EGA mode and all of the known games support VGA as well.  Deskmate 3's draw application uses it, but Deskmate 3 does have VGA and probably EGA drivers.  The built-in graphics controller can also emulate MDA/Hercules, but there are three issues with it.  First, if you use the machine as an MDA/Hercules card, you will also need a TTL monochrome monitor like the IBM 5151.  Second, since there is only one video output port, using MDA/Hercules disables the built-in Tandy graphics support, as you cannot see it anyway with the MDA monitor connected to the port.  Third, some games will detect a Tandy 1000 and insist on using the Tandy or CGA graphics modes.  It can be useful if you have upgraded to VGA, but then you could simply obtain a generic system for a VGA/MDA combo.

The TX can add a MDA or Hercules card and retain the ability to output Tandy graphics to a separate video monitor.  Still, some games will autodetect Tandy and not work correctly with the Hercules card.

While both the TX and TL support upgrading to an EGA or 8-bit compatible VGA card, there is a very nice utility called VSWITCH that will allow you to switch between the built-in Tandy video and VGA.  More recently, someone made a similar program called ESWITCH for EGA cards.  However, due to the differences in disabling the built-in video on the TX and the TL, the program only works in the TL or later Tandy 1000s with 768KB of RAM.    

Advantage - Tie

Audio :

TX - 3 Voice Sound & Sound Blaster 1.0-2.0 Support

TL - 3 Voice Sound & built-in DAC/ADC

While the TX only has the basic 3 voice chip, it also can work with a Sound Blaster 1.0-2.0, or any other 8-bit sound card that only works with DMA1.  Many early Sound Blaster-supporting titles only work if the card is at IRQ7 and DMA1.  However, because the built-in joystick port cannot be disabled in software, the gameport of the Sound Blaster must be disabled.   

The TL has a very decent mono DAC built in, which can use the internal speaker for output.  The ADC can sample at a higher rate than a Sound Blaster 2.0, but in the TL it is speed sensitive.  While this is immaterial to Tandy Deskmate, third-party programs may have difficulty with recording. Some early games like SimCity and Outrun only support the Tandy DAC and not Sound Blaster. Overall, many more games support a Sound Blaster than the Tandy DAC.

The DAC was never released as an add-on card, so at its original ports (where many games expect it) it is unique to the 1000 TL and SL and successors up to and including the RLX. The TL's joystick port can be disabled in software, but using a Sound Blaster 1.0 or 2.0 will cause the system to freeze if the Tandy DAC is used.  Using a Sound Blaster Pro, with the DMA channel set to 3 and the IRQ set to 5, would allow the Sound Blaster and Tandy DAC to work fine. Many early games refuse to work with a Sound Blaster unless the DMA is set to 1.  Additionally, the DAC and the built-in joystick ports cannot be used at the same time, so a game supporting the DAC is not likely to read the joystick port, built-in or on an expansion card, while using the DAC.  

Advantage - TX

Drive Bays :

TX - 2 x 5.25” slots

TL - 1 x 5.25” slot & 2 x 3.5” slots

Two 5.25" slots allows for more flexibility than one 5.25" and two 3.5" slots.  If you wanted to install a 5.25 floppy drive and internal CD-ROM, you could do so in a TX but not a TL.  However, the TL offers a more appropriate setup of one bay for a 3.5" floppy drive, one for a 5.25" floppy drive and one for a 3.5" hard drive.  With a TX, you would need to use a hardcard.  The 3.5" bays on the TL are not generally useful for external drives because the faceplate is moulded into a certain shape and cutout.  The faceplate is made of plastic, so it can be dremeled out.

Advantage - TL

Keyboard Support :

TX - Tandy 1000 90-Key Keyboard or Northgate Omnikey 101-Key Keyboard (with adapter)

TL - Tandy Enhanced 101-Key Keyboard or Tandy 1000 90-Key Keyboard (with adapter)

The Tandy 1000 Keyboard has 90 keys and is slightly awkward to use from a modern perspective.  The keys use springs, but feel mushy.  The interface is proprietary to the 1000TX and earlier 1000 machines and the Tandy 2000.

The Tandy Enhanced keyboard has the standard 101-key layout, but feels too stiff.  The keyboard can automatically switch into XT or AT mode, and can work an IBM PC Model 5150 or a 2014 motherboard with a PS/2 port.

The TX can use a Northgate Omnikey keyboard with a special passive adapter cable for 101-key support.  You will not be able to use the F1-F4 function keys when booting with the Northgate.

The TL can use a 1000 Keyboard, with a special passive adapter cable.  The TL can use any keyboard that supports XT operation, including the IBM PC Model F keyboard and the IBM Model M keyboards made prior to 1993.  However, there are some games that expect a 1000 keyboard and will refuse to work at all (Snow Strike) or freeze (King's Quest Tandy booter) if the wrong key is pressed with a standard XT keyboard.  

Advantage - Tie

Real Time Clock :

Installable RTC

Built-in RTC

The TL has a standard RTC and uses a replaceable CR2032 coin battery.  The TX requires a no-slot clock like the Dallas 1216E, which has a built-in battery and is seated under a ROM socket.  The height added by the clock chip can make the slot next to it suitable for only short cards.  Tandy DOS 3.3 has built-in support for the TL's clock, the TX requires an upgrade.  

Advantage - TL

Heavy Shielding inside Case

No Shielding inside Case

The TX has shielding virtually all around the motherboard, making the internal slots and jumpers difficult to get to.  It's case cover is plastic.  The TL apparently solved any RFI problems of the older machine by using a metal case cover, because there is no shielding getting in the way.  

Advantage - TL

Configuration and Built-in Software :

Basic BIOS & Jumpers

DOS & Deskmate in ROM, EEPROM Settings

The TX is configured by eight jumpers or dipswitches.  The TL has five functional jumpers/dipswitches, the rest is configured by a program included on the DOS disks.  The TX uses Function Keys, pressed on startup, to use the monochrome mode, swap floppy drives, use the 40-column/200 line TV mode and set the processor to low speed.

The TL does all but the TV mode via the setup program.  The settings are written to an EEPROM.  If that EEPROM fails...

The TL also has a portion of DOS and Deskmate 3 in ROM.  This is only useful if you do not have a hard drive.  If you have a hard drive, then the DOS on that will boot and a standalone version of Deskmate may be required to be installed.

Advantage - Tie

Bundled Software :

TX - Personal Deskmate 2 & DOS 3.2

TL - Deskmate 3.2 & DOS 3.3

DOS 3.3 is better than DOS 3.2, there is no doubt about it.  Since neither the TX nor TL can support a high density floppy drive with its built-in controller, the best quality DOS 3.3 brings is its support for more than one 32MB hard drive partition.  However, the TX can use Tandy DOS 3.3 without any difficulty.  Deskmate 3 looks similar to Personal Deskmate 2, but 3rd party programs can easily be installed to it.  Of course, you can upgrade the TX to Deskmate 3.  On the TL, Deskmate 3 has music and sound programs in the ROM.  The music programs in Personal Deskmate 2 and Deskmate 3 should share compatible files.  However, the DOS installable version of Deskmate 3 does not come with the music program, so you will need to keep Personal Deskmate 2 for that on the TX.

Memory Upgrade :

The TX and TL both allow their memory to be upgraded from 640KB to 768KB, and when upgraded the video no longer encroaches on the conventional memory.  DOS will report 640KB available.  Both are upgraded in the same way, by adding four 64Kx4 DRAM chips.  The TL automatically will detect the chips, the TX requires a jumper to be removed.  However, the upgrade is incompatible with certain programs (detailed in a later post), forcing you to use CGA modes for those games.  To disable the upgrade, you must physically remove the chips in the TL, but you only need replace the jumper in the TX.

Advantage - TX

The Blog at 100 (Posts)

I am not an attention glutton who always feels the need to call attention to my blog with each entry I post.  Of course I appreciate compliments, praise and criticism, but I don't respond to every post with "Check out my blog, you will find the answer there."  While I love the outlet this blog gives me, I do not believe it is the best way to present reference material about DOS games.

I have been inspired by the idea to create and host a website.  My fantasy site would have an alphabetical link to a list of games, and each link would send the user to the page about the DOS game listed.  Each page would identify the game, give the year of first release, developer & publisher.  It would give screenshots of each game for each major mode it supports, 40 Column Color Text, 80 Column Color Text, Monochrome Text, CGA, Hercules Graphics, Amstrad, Tandy, EGA, MCGA/VGA, SVGA and VESA  It would give sound clips for the various music in the game, if any.  It will give technical specs, including minimum/recommended RAM, input support (joystick, keyboard, mouse), DOS version required (1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 5.0), etc.  Also patch downloads would be available and advice on running the games on DOS.  Version information would be provided where available.

In some ways, I envision this site as a light version of MobyGames, but unlike MobyGames, I would intend the site to be focused strictly on DOS games (including PC booters).  Entries would be limited to only the games and their official expansion packs.  I don't intend to give any separate coverage to re-releases, combo packs, shovelware CDs.

Each game would take up a full page and have all its information on one page.  Screenshots would be shown in their native resolution (typically 320x200) and can be clicked on to show a 640x400 screenshot using nearest neighbor interpolation.  This would have to be set browser by browser.

Typically pngs would only be allowed for screenshots.  PNGs compress 8-bit graphics (256 colors or less) very well. They also compress losslessly.  Each image can be stored in less than 10K.  Few DOS games support 16-bit color graphics.  I would see to it that an "incorrect" screenshot would be replaced by a correct one when discovered.

Additionally, music will be stored not as standard wave recordings or the like, instead it will be stored in a format appropriate for the output device.  This would have a tremendous savings on bandwidth.  General MIDI or MT-32 music will be stored in a .MID file (with accompanying patch file, if necessary), Adlib in .DRO v.2  format.  Hopefully, someone would be able to device a simple format for Tandy 3-voice, PC Speaker and Game Blaster music and a simple player that works in DOSBox and on real hardware, regardless of speed (within reason).

One important feature of my site would be a list and search feature.  The list feature would show all games that use a certain mode, support a certain device, etc.  I would really like my search feature to support boolean search terms so that someone could search the games that, for example, support Adlib but NOT EGA.

The site design would be extremely simple and basic.  No fancy stuff like embedded video, wallpapers with large file sizes.  Hopefully the site would be so low in bandwidth requirements that it would not need ads, at least not the intrusive kind.  It would not be a throwback to bad old ideas like frames, embedded midis or animated gif logos.

Sites I would take visual inspiration from include uncreativelabs.net, minuszerodegrees.net, home.comcast.net/~ervind/index.html, textfiles.com, oldskool.org.  While all but one is more or less frozen in time, they have several features I admire :

Simple formatted text on solid color or basic textured backgrounds.
Small pictures and quick loading
Display on any browser
Site scaling to any resolution, not stuck in the center of the screen

One thing I would NOT do is to post box, media or manual scans.  First of all, they are comparatively large compared to game screenshots.  Second, I do not have many boxes and would not want to take them from another site.

Perhaps the site may progress to a point where directory listings with file dates and checksums for the files off the installation disks will be able to be included.  Additionally, to bypass copy protection, a listing of the appropriate programs that can crack the game will also be given.

The main goal of the site is to be hosted on pure DOS-appropriate hardware.  This, in my opinion, means a 486 class machine.  I believe that Pentium machines are more appropriate to Windows 95.  Additionally, I would want the site to be so simple that it could be properly displayed on a DOS-based browser like Arachne.

The site is right now just a fantasy, but I would love to have it get to the point where others can contribute freely like a wiki where moderation is done after the fact, if necessary, and not before.

Beware...beware the Big Green Dragon that Sits on your Doorstep...

He eats little boys...puppy dog tails and big, fat SNAILS.

Beware...take care...BEWARE!

The above lines are a quote from Bela Lugosi's Scientist character in Ed Wood's infamous 1953 Transvestitexploitation & Sexchangexploitation  film Glen or Glenda?  The lines are puzzling in the narrative of the film, but Lugosi, acting as a kind of omniscient narrator, is clearly warning someone, presumably the main character who struggles with his desire to wear women's clothing in the repressed atmosphere of the 1950s.  In my opinion, he is warning the main character of the dangers of his behavior, the confusion of gender roles, risk of exposure, rejection, humiliation and ruin by an intolerant post-War society.

This blog is mostly about vintage PCs, not bad movie criticism.  However, I believe the quote to be quite appropriate to one of the greatest obstacles to the use of vintage PCs, the Internet.

The Internet is a necessity for modern computers.  To the technologically literate, it is as much of a necessity as a driving license for suburbanites.  We use it to get our news, to watch video, download audio and stay connected with out friends, especially those we have never met in person and due to distances are never likely to so meet.

How does the Internet deal with vintage PCs?  In short, it is mostly indifferent or fairly hostile to them.  Let me start with DOS.  DOS has no particular difficulty with certain Internet protocols like hosting an FTP server, but the days of using a text-based terminal emulator to access a BBS or Telnet program to access email and post messages are long gone.  Browsers for DOS are ancient like Arachne or text-based like Lynx.  Just try accessing gmail through them, it won't be a pleasant experience even if it works at all.  I observed some time ago now that you cannot really access the Vintage Computer Forums with a browser that runs on DOS or a vintage non-PC compatible like a 68000 Amiga or Atari ST.  The more sites tend to update, the more likely they will break and fail to display and work properly on older browsers.

DOS multiplayer relied generally on direct serial (null-modem) connections and modems for two players at maximum.  A null modem connection required physical proximity and a modem required a reliable phone line.  Later, IPX protocols were sufficiently prevalent to allow many games to be played over networks and with more than two people.  However, IPX networks were built for closed office networks, not a wide area network like the Internet.  The Internet uses TCP/IP, and during the mid-to-late '90s, people used IPX-to-TCP/IP matchmaking services like Kali and Kahn to connect over the Internet with games that did not officially support it.

Today, DOS games are rarely played in multiplayer, and almost never on real hardware.  Nobody wants to use a slow modem, vintage computer enthusiasts are not close enough to connect their systems directly, and the matchmaking services mentioned above are long gone.  Some games are played using source ports like ZDoom, but they don't run on DOS.  There is a modern matchmaking site called Classic Gaming Arena but it requires DOSBox to emulate IPX games and few people seem to use it.

The next step up from DOS is Windows 9x, and the Internet has long passed those OSes by.  Modern Internet generally requires more horsepower than is recommended for those systems.  Windows 98-ME had an absolute limit of 1GB of RAM, which seems to be the minimum required to obtain full enjoyment from today's Internet.  It tends to be limited to Pentium IV chipsets at best, later hardware does not have chipset drivers.

Browsers for Windows 9x aren't great.  Internet Explorer is limited to 6.x, which was crap then and is abominable now.  Many, many sites will not display properly with it.  Firefox versions officially supported are ancient, and above v2, KernelEx is required.  KernelEx is a compatibility layer for Win 9x that allows certain programs that only officially work with Windows 2000/XP to run.  However, even with KernelEx, you are increasingly limited to seriously out of date browsers.  Firefox 8 works with KernelEx, and its from 2011, but using KernelEx is in my opinion is cheating.  Don't expect to watch Youtube videos, but if you needed to look at a text-based walkthrough, these options will do.  Modern Adobe Flash absolutely chugs on Pentium IIIs and IVs.  No Chrome, no Safari, and Opera is limited to 10.10 for Java support.

I know of few people who actively use multiplayer with Windows 9x games.  Most have moved on to more modern games or source ports that run on Windows XP hardware.  Some servers, even though the game supports Windows 9x, refuse to let clients running Windows 9x run on them, citing security and stability concerns.  You may want to keep a Windows 9x system and a Windows XP system for this purpose.  Most Windows 9x games can run more or less on Windows XP, but they may also allow you to connect to servers.

Moving along, you can still find many good modern browsers for Windows XP, and the Internet will run fine with it today.  However, it is a dying OS and official support for it will end from Microsoft next month.  This is a none-too-suble way of trying to get people to upgrade.  There are plenty of unpatched exploits and malware, viruses, trojans, malicious programs...  Many people today advise to pull the plug, keep those Windows XP systems for playing old games (in singleplayer), keep them on the home network, but don't let them connect to the Internet.  There is some wisdom in this.

One thing you can do to decrease the risk is to download anything you need from a modern computer and transfer it to the vintage computer over a home network.  Essentially the communication works best one way, as Windows 9x and sometimes XP have difficulties sending things to Windows 7/8 over a home network.  There is little reason to have two-way communication over the home network.  One exception is if you are using Windows 9x and need to access CD images using Daemon Tools.  You can also "hide" Internet Explorer to prevent inadvertent connections to the Internet.  You can also use links directly to sites you use frequently like GameFAQs.

Naturally, in my opinion, you should only be using vintage computers for games.  You should not store important documents, personal items or work product on an unsecured computer.  If you do acquire some nasty malware, you can pull the ethernet cable and find a solution.  If there isn't one, wipe your HD (Darik's Boot 'N Nuke takes care of that) and reinstall (slipstream updates with Windows XP).

In short, its probably best to keep your vintage Internet explorations to Trusted Websites, Trusted Servers and Trusted Services (battle.net for example).  Otherwise, the Big Green Dragon may eat you.

The Perfect Keyboard

In my opinion, the perfect keyboard has yet to be made.  I envision a keyboard with the solid construction of an IBM Model F keyboard, the removable keycaps, LED faceplate and keycap lettering of the IBM Model M, the compatibility and much the layout of a Northgate Omnikey Ultra with a bit of the Apple Extended Keyboard.

The layout of the Model F, either the PC/XT or the AT version may be lacking for the 21st Century, but its build quality is second to none for PC keyboards.  It uses buckling spring technology with stiff springs over a printed circuit board where the keyswitches are located.  No membranes in these keyboards.  They used steel and heavy duty plastic and weighed almost as much as the Model M, which used slightly lighter materials.  Although rather annoying, every part of every key could be replaced.  One lesser known feature of the Model F was that it did support N-key rollover, which the Model M does not.

Improvements of the Model M were keycaps that could be replaced without needing to replace key stems, making it much easier and quicker to rearrange the keyboard to the user's preference.  The basic layout is standard today.  The lettering IBM used on the keys and the LED panel is classic and professional.  However, if you wanted a more stylish design, you can by replacing the keycaps.  Replacing keycaps is easier than having to replace the keystem of the Model F.  The cables, whether coiled or straight, were fairly heavy duty as these cables went.  The SDL connector at the rear allowed you to change cables instead of using adapters, but today a lower cost connector could be used instead.

The Model M was criticized for putting the function keys above the keyboard instead of on the left side as on the PC/XT and AT keyboards.  The Northgate Omnikey Ultra T put a set of function keys on the left side as well as on top.  F1-F10 on the left side is in the same place as you would have found them on a PC/XT or AT keyboard, and F11-F12 are to the left of the Escape key, as they were added later.  There was a switch to designate the top or the side rows of function keys are the primary and secondary function keys.  With 24 function keys, any user should have enough keys for just about anything he or she wished to have a separate button.

Northgate's keyboards could emulate a wide variety of keyboards, including the PC/XT keyboard, the AT/Model M keyboard, the Tandy 1000, the Amstrad PCs, the ATT 6300, even the Amiga 2000 with dipswitches.  My ideal keyboard would keep as much of this functionality as possible, using a dipswitch panel.  A special driver should not be required for support in this day and age where cheap and powerful microcontrollers are readily available.

The Northgate Omnikey keyboards support N-key rollover, which the IBM Model M does not.  They also have their keyswitches soldered onto a PCB.  The IBM Model M uses a membrane sandwiched between the black plastic key housing frame and the PCB.  The whole structure of the keyboard is held together by plastic rivets.

One thing about the Northgate and Apple keyboards is that they split the large + key on the numeric keypad into + and = (Northgate) and + and - (Apple).  The Apple keyboard have added five keys, F16-F19 and an eject/power key on various keyboards.  It also has F13-F15 where the Print Screen, Scroll Lock and Pause/Break keys are on an IBM keyboard.  F13-F19 usually have no commonly defined role and there are plenty of keys in my ideal keyboard to accomodate them.

F16-F19 on an Apple keyboard occupy the area where the option LEDs are on an IBM Model M keyboard.  Many keyboards have LEDs next to the Caps Lock, Num Lock and Scroll Lock keys.  I am neutral to this.  However, the keys that would be where the LED panel would be should be exactly the same size and use the same keystems as the rest of the keyboard.

The modern Windows 104-key keyboard includes the Windows keys, which seem to be a functional equivalent of the Apple Command keys.  Occasionally, Windows keys can be helpful, but they can also very very annoying in their default usage.  However, the menu key is a useless key that can be replicated with a right mouse button click or a shift F10.  There is no reason for it to have a key as it really cuts down on the size of the spacebar.  In my perfect keyboard, it does not exist on the spacebar row.  There are plenty of function keys to assign it to.
                                                       
Big L shaped enter keys, who needs them?  I have never found them to be particularly helpful, and they cause the \ key to be put in odd places.  Northgate shortened the right shift key, which is the only real flaw in its non-101 designs.

The 8-bit Home Computer Bait and Switch

Back in the early 1980s, home video game consoles and home computers were competing for consumer dollars.  Home computers, Commodore's in particular were advertising that they could do so many more things than just play games, which they could do very well.  Dad could do the home finances, mom could keep her recipes, and the kids can learn with educational programs and write out their reports on a word processing program.  Thus the consumer saw home computers on retail shelves.  The most consumer friendly in terms of features and price included at first the Atari 400 and (barely) 800, the Commodore VIC-20 and 64, the TI 99/4A and the Tandy Color Computer.  Apple's expensive computers were mainstays of the hobbyists, educators and some small businesses, while IBM's even more expensive computers were almost exclusively purchased by business users and software development companies.

Even home consoles began getting into the act.  The Odyssey2 had a full set of keyboard keys.  The keyboard was a membrane keyboard and utterly useless for serious work.  The Intellivision and Colecovision and 5200 had numberpads.  Mattel developed two keyboard peripherals but failed to market them properly.  Mattel also released the underpowered Aquarius computer, which had little success.  The 2600 gave some lip service to programming by releasing a pair of programming controllers and a BASIC carrtridge.  The results were unimpressive due to the severe limitations of the 2600 hardware.  Coleco also released the Adam computer, which was a Colecovision upgraded with a keyboard and cassette drives.  It was not a success.

Unfortunately, the idea never of the all-in-one computing device quite meshed with the reality.  All of these systems were designed to display on home TVs.  None had an 80-column text mode, making it difficult for people to do serious word processing.  All IBM PCs had 80 column text and Apple's machines either had it built-in or was upgradeable.  The keyboards on many of these machines were far from typewriter quality, and none had a built-in numberpad.

Once the novelty of typing a book report wore off, little Johnny probably went back to handwriting them.  It must have been no joy to have to type a report on these mushy keyboards connected, via an RF switch, to a fuzzy TV.  As this took time, his work would probably have been relegated to the small secondary TV if the family had one.  Back in the early 80s, having two color TVs in an average American family was something of a luxury, so he would have to do his work on the smaller B&W TV.  Often this would occur on the kitchen table or on a small desk not designed for a computer.  Printing the thing in quality sufficiently legible for the teacher would often be a slow, noisy and frustrating effort with the dot matrix printers of the day.  If he got a disk read error or the power went out, his draft report would be gone in an instant!  Did I mention the slow speeds of the disk drives and tape drives available for the 8-bit machines?

Business software of any quality was slow to be released on these machines.  VisiCalc and WordStar were seldom seen.  RAM expansions beyond 48 or 64K was unsupported due to the lack of a standardized method   IBM's PCs could expand themselves naturally to 640KB, and once Lotus 1-2-3 became popular this became very important.  The Apple IIe could officially expand itself to 128K and unofficially (but simply) could enjoy much more RAM.

One great advantage that many of these computers had over IBM and Apple were in their graphics and sound capabilities.  Apple's graphics were born of the 70s and IBM's CGA didn't impress anyone. The Atari machines could produce 256 colors, and Commodore and Texas Instruments computers produced sixteen solid and distinct colors.  For arcade-like games, these machines also supported hardware sprites.  With these 8-bit CPUs, having hardware sprites really improved performance in games with moving objects on the screen compared with the more business oriented computers.

Another advantage was that these machines had sound chips built in.  The sounds of the arcades, including background noise, sound effects and short themes could be reproduced much better than the internal speaker of the IBM and Apple machines.  Lengthy music in computer games only became widespread in the late 80s, but music teaching and composing programs like Music Construction Set and Bank Street Music Writer were very popular.

Finally, these machines usually shared some peripheral compatibility.  The joysticks of the Atari 2600 worked in all Atari machines and in Commodore's VIC-20 and 64 and the TI 99/4A.  Except for the CoCo, which used analog joysticks, joysticks were a well-supported and easy to program for interface.  IBM and Apple did not release standard joysticks for most of their systems, and they were analog when most games released at that time preferred digital controls.

Even if the promise of the computer as a the universal appliance remained elusive, the more affordable computers were great for playing games.  Companies like Activision survived the home video game crash by turning their development efforts from video game consoles to computer systems.  Electronic Arts fully embraced the Atari 8-bit machines and later the Commodore 64 and were very successful.  Most companies had ports for most of their games for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, IBM PC, and later the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga and the Apple Macintosh.  In the United States, however, by the late 1980s all the game developers knew that the IBM would be the future and devoted their development efforts firmly or solely on that platform.

The Price of PC Sound (and some other stuff)

How much do we pay for sound hardware in our PCs today, not including speakers?  The answer is usually nothing, all PC motherboards come with onboard sound chips that are satisfactory for 95% of users.  Before 1987, the answer would have been the same, since there was no sound hardware available for PCs.  You were stuck with the PC speaker or the three-voice sound chip if you owned a Tandy 1000 or IBM PCjr.

In 1987, sound hardware products were being marketed and released for the IBM PC platform for the first time.  The first device that was not tied to a particular application (like Bank Street Music Writer) was the IBM Music Feature Card.  This $600 card provided a MIDI interface and a four operator OPP frequency modulation synthesis chip with eight channels and stereo sound.  The card came with 240 preset patches and allowed up to 96 user-created patches.  It was intended for professional musicians.

The second device may have been the Roland MT-32.  While Roland had marketed a MIDI Interface called the MPU-401 prior to 1987, it was an external box that could be used with many systems when combined with the right interface card.  There were interface cards for the Apple II, Commodore 64, all the major Japanese computers of the mid-80s and two cards for the IBM PC.  The MPU-401 was also marketed toward professional MIDI musicians, but with the MT-32, Roland had a product with a price point that could be enjoyed by professional and non-professional musicians alike.  (Consider that the Yamaha DX-7, the first and very famous all-digitized synthesizer, cost $1,955 in 1983).  The MT-32 was derived from Roland's D-50 Synthesizer and used a technology called Linear Arithmetic to combine digital samples with waveform synthesis.  It supported eight channels and one percussion channel.  It supported 32 voices, with each channel requiring 1-4 voices depending on the sound selected.  It has 128 preset patches, 30 percussion patches and allowed for up to 64 custom patches.  It supported reverb and stereo playback.

The third device may have been a cheaper card manufactured by Ad Lib, Inc. called the Ad Lib Music Synthesizer Card.  This card simply interfaced an OPL2 chip to the PC's expansion bus and was intended for the home musician or teaching children about music.  The OPL2 is capable of nine channels of two-operator frequency modulated synthesis or six channels plus five percussion sounds.  Its only supports mono output.

Seeking a competitive edge in the burgeoning market for PC games, Sierra sought to make its products technologically advanced.  Almost all the non-PC systems had better audio capabilities, but their sound hardware was built-in.  Thanks to Nintendo, the days of buying an all-in-one computer that could run applications and games were gone.  However, people still prized their leisure time and still wanted to play games on their PC, especially the more complex games that were not generally found on consoles.  So Sierra On-Line began to search for hardware products that could bring its PC games to the next level.  Roland suggested the MT-32 and history was made.  Then the Adlib came for the many more budget-minded PC game players.

In 1988, Sierra began to sell computer add-on hardware directly to its customers.  It is the only company of the time I know of which did this.  Thus if your local computer store did not carry the cards, you had an easy outlet to obtain them.  Sierra would include flyers in its new games, beginning with King's Quest IV, explaining and hyping the benefits of these new sound cards.  It would send you a demo cassette tape almost for free to show off these cards' capabilities.  Here are the prices if you wanted to take the plunge.

1988
Adlib - $245.00/$195.00 (with/without Visual Composer)
MT-32 + MPU-IPC - $550.00

Sierra never offered IBM's card for sale, and its support for it in games was underwhelming.  Eventually Sierra stopped shipping drivers and patches for it, and at least two games, King's Quest I SCI and Sorcerian will freeze with the driver.  You paid MT-32 prices for the IBM Music Feature but ended up with Adlib sound quality with Sierra's games.

The idea of spending $550 just to hear PC game audio was not something many people were prepared to spend money on in 1988.  According to the U.S.'s Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator, $550 has the same buying power today as $1,081.08.  Who today is going to spend over one thousand dollars today on PC sound equipment?  Someone who wanted to make music, whether as a professional or as a serious amateur.  That games could use the module seems to be to have been like chocolate icing on the cake.  Today you could not convince someone to spend a thousand dollars on a sound card for gaming regardless of how many channels and bit rates it supports, the human ear can only process so much.

1989
Adlib - $195.00/$175.00 (card only price decrease)
MT-32 + MPU-IPC - $550.00
Game Blaster - $129.95
MT-32 + MPU-IMC - $650.00

The Game Blaster was supported, presumably in an attempt to provide something better than the PC Speaker at a cheaper price point.  The Game Blaster came packaged with Sierra's Silpheed.  While the Game Blaster can provide twelve channels of stereo frequency and amplitude controlled square waves with a noise channel and an envelope channel, it frequently sounded like the Tandy 3-voice sound chip, only in stereo.  The MPU-IMC was the Microchannel version of the MPU-401 interface for IBM PS/2 computers.

1990
Adlib - $175.00
Game Blaster - $129.95
Sound Blaster - $239.95
LAPC-I - $425.00
MT-32 + MPU-IPC-T - $550.00
MT-32 + MPU-IMC - $650.00

The LAPC-I arrives to deliver on the promise of having a synthesizer fully on the card.  While it is better priced than the MT-32 and includes 33 additional sound effects, Sierra's games frequently sounded better on the MT-32 because it abused bugs in the device to make custom sounds.  Note how the prices have not really moved from the previous years.  However, by this time, Sierra would be offering deals if you bought a card from them, like two free Sierra games of your choice if you bought the MT-32.  (At their prices, that was over $100 in savings).

With the LAPC-I, for the first time gamers can enjoy a discount from Sierra.  The MT-32 requires a separate MPU-401 interface, which seems to increase the price by $100-200.  The LAPC-I has the interface built-in except for the external ports and was slightly cheaper to manufacture.  However, by this time the MT-32/LAPC-I only had two years before it would be supplanted in the market by the Roland SCC-1 and other devices.

Since the Adlib was an extremely simple card, clones began popping up once other vendors discovered which chips it was using and games from Sierra and other publishers were being released with support for it.  The people at Ad Lib, Inc. thought they were being clever by scratching off the chip part instead of obtaining an exclusivity agreement with Yamaha for the chips being used.  However, in 1987 the board was not yet a great success.  By this year you would see a $20 rebate coupon for the Ad Lib in game boxes.  If you bought a clone board, you could easily save yourself $50-60.

Sierra replaced the MPU-IPC with the MPU-IPC-T, and while these two devices are virtually identical, the -T version leaves off the SYNC connector on the expansion box.  It does allow for easy changing of the I/O ports, but Sierra only supported the MPU-401 on I/O 330-331.

The Sound Blaster is also sold, and at this price it contained the Game Blaster chips.  It provided an Adlib-compatible OPL2 chip, a joystick/MIDI interface for the first time and provided a widely-accepted standard for digitized sound output.

1991
MT-32 + MPU-IPC-T - $399.99
MT-32 + MPU-IMC - $499.99
CM-32L + MPU-IPC-T - $545.00/$449.95
CM-32L + MPU-IMC - $549.95/$499.95
CM-32L Macintosh - $545.00
LAPC-I -$445.00/$399.95/$349.99
MCB-1 - $90.00/$84.95 (combo w/LAPC-I is $449.95)
Game Blaster - $99.99
Adlib - $109.99
Sound Blaster - $170.00/$159.95/$149.99/$129.95
Sound Blaster MCV - $249.95
Sound Blaster MIDI Box - $129.95/$89.95
Thunderboard - $99.95
Pro Audio Spectrum - $249.95
CD-ROM Kit - $795.00
Supra 2400 Baud Modem (internal) - $88.88
Supra 2400 Baud Modem (external) - $128.88
Gravis Analog Joystick - $59.95
Gravis Eliminator Game Card - $44.95
Gravis Eliminator Microchannel Game Card - $79.99

All throughout 1990 and beyond, Sierra began talking about the benefits of CD-ROM technology, their adoption of it and its eventual replacement of floppy disks.  CD-ROMs were a huge expense in the early days and while Sierra may have released some of the first PC CD-ROM games, the real killer apps for the technology were probably The 7th Guest and Myst.  Interestingly, Sierra seemed to have better support for the Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrums, including stereo FM synthesis support and later 16-bit digitized audio than the Sound Blaster cards.  Presumably by this time there were no difficulties in trying to purchase multimedia hardware from a computer store.

The CD-ROM kit include the Pro Audio Spectrum, a Sony SCSI CD-ROM drive, the CD-version of Jones in the Fast Lane and Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia.  CD-ROMs were generally connected via SCSI or proprietary interfaces until IDE CD-ROMs became cheap enough to become the only standard most consumers would ever deal with.  Sound cards would be the main way to connect a CD-ROM until the Pentium era.

The Pro Audio Spectrum allowed for stereo OPL2 music, 8-bit stereo digital output at 22K, a MIDI/joystick interface and a non-bootable SCSI interface.  The Thunderboard was a Sound Blaster 2.0 clone without MIDI or Game Blaster support.

The CM-32L finally replaces the MT-32 for the external synthesizer version, and its capabilities are identical to the LAPC-I.  The LAPC-I gets the MCB-1 external MIDI box to reach full parity with the CM-32L and MPU-IPC-T.  The Sound Blaster MCV is the Microchannel version of the Sound Blaster for IBM PS/2 machines.  The Sound Blaster MIDI box is an overpriced device, the functionality of which can be replicated with a standard joystick/MIDI interface cable.

The Sound Blaster prices kept dropping throughout the year.  By this time, the Game Blaster chips were  an upgrade and by the end of the year, Sierra would probably have been shipping the smaller 2.0.

Presumably to complement Dynamix's line of simulators, Sierra also began offering joysticks.  The Gravis Analog Joystick sports three buttons and has a large base and hand-grip handle.  It has a tension dial and the buttons are reconfigurable.  Unfortunately it did not come with a trigger button.  The Eliminator game card was a dual port card with an external dial to control the speed of the card.

By this time, Sierra had just started up The Sierra Network, its online entertainment portal.  It was similar to CompuServe, Prodigy and America On-Line.  The modems being offered were not very fast, but were cheap and apparently sufficient for their service's needs.  In the next year, hardware manufacturers would advertise 9,600 and 14,400 baud modems.

1992
CD-ROM Kit - $795.00
CM-32L + MPU-IPC-T - $449.95
CM-32L + MPU-IMC - $549.95
CM-32L Macintosh  - $449.95
LAPC-I - $399.95
MCB-1 - $84.95
LAPC-I + MCB-1 - $449.95
Sound Blaster - $129.95
Sound Blaster MCV - $249.95
Sound Blaster MIDI Box - $89.95
Thunderboard - $99.95
Pro Audio Spectrum - $249.95
Pro Audio Spectrum 16 - $199.95

1992 is the last year that Sierra would attempt to sell products directly for quite a while.  Increasingly, advertisements from various hardware companies would put their ads into Sierra's Interaction magazine.  Few new products to report, the most notable being the Pro Audio Spectrum 16 at a reasonable price.

1996
Thrustmaster Formula T2 - $129.95
Sierra Screamin' 3D - $199.95

The Sierra Screamin' 3D is a 4MB Rendition Verite 1000 card.  It was bundled with good-to-decent games like Indy Car II, A-10 Silent Thunder, CyberGladiators and a demo of the Rendition version of Quake (vQuake).  Sierra tried again to be predictive of the upcoming technology, but it missed the mark.  Unfortunately, the Rendition chipset had an achilles heel, namely that 2D VGA performance was incredibly poor.  While most games could greatly benefit when the VGA mode was translated into a Rendition mode, those games that could not benefit, like the DOS version of DOOM, were unplayable.  In other words, if the game went beyond the standard Mode 12-13h features, the game slowed to a crawl on the Rendition cards, even on a Pentium II.  DOOM was still extremely popular in 1996.  While Quake was one of the Killer Apps for 3D gaming, it was 3dfx's Voodoo card that took off, even though it was not a 2D card.

The Thrustmaster Formula T2 was a gameport interface racing wheel with pedals, two buttons and a gear lever.  It could be purchased with NASCAR Racing 2 or IndyCar Racing II for $149.95.  Judging by youtube video it was quite a good product back in the day.

IBM PC Cards I Own or Have Owned

When considering my career in vintage computer collecting, I focused more on expansion cards than systems.  I had a hunger to acquire IBM PC ISA and to a lesser extent PCI / AGP cards.  I recently thought about what I have acquired in my career, what I have kept and what I have lost or sold/traded away.

Graphics Cards :

My early graphics card collection is among the best in terms of its comprehensiveness.  I have the following :

IBM Monochrome and Printer Display Adapter

It came with some system, and mine has a larger black bracket for IBM PC 5150 slots, so it will not fit well in other systems.  I have used it with the next card for dual monitor action.  However, only a purist would use it over a Hercules Card.  I also have an IBM 5151 Monochrome Display, which has moderate burn-in.  You can actually see images fade on the monitor, which is utterly unique.  Its parallel interface, like the standalone parallel card, can easily be modified into a PS/2-compatible bidirectional port.

IBM Color/Graphics Display Adapter

I have two of these cards, one of which I somewhat clumsily installed a pair of pin headers so I could choose the thin font.  I think it did something to worsen the video quality.  However, unless you only play text adventures, this card is an absolute must for gaming on an IBM PC/XT.  Other cards are not necessarily compatible or the speed becomes unacceptable.  I am also of the opinion that 256KB is an acceptable amount of RAM for any CGA game that does not support a superior graphics adapter.  There is no substitute for the IBM card, I also have an Epson CGA card that fails certain of Trixter's PC compatibility tests.  One huge advantage that this card has is that it can display color through its composite RCA jack.  While DOSBox, MESS and PCe Emulator can display 640x200 graphics as composite artifact color, they cannot do the same for 320x200 graphics, which usually display in color on a composite monitor or TV.  Games exist that take advantage of this functionality.

Hercules Graphics Card

This is a long card with no additional support.  Hercules later marketed a Plus card with support for user replacable text fonts and an InColor card with 320x200x16 color support.  Some games support the latter, but also support EGA with one exception (Karateka).  I had two of these cards, but sold one with a utilities disk from Hercules.  Unfortunately, I did not have a 5.25" drive at the time, so I could not image the disk.  I do not know if there is a software setting to turn the card into half-graphics mode, which only uses 32KB instead of the card's 64KB.  There is no jumper on the board for this.  The graphics tended to be a bit slow on IBM PC and XTs, however some games use the monochrome graphics well.  Look at Sierra's AGI games for example.

IBM Enhanced Graphics Adapter

Not only do I have the base adapter, but also the RAM expansion daughterboard for a full 256KB.  I have no desire to obtain a Professional Graphics Adapter, as no game I am aware supported it.  The RCA jacks go directly to the expansion connector, and the functions of the switches are not immediately obvious.  Unfortunately I have never owned a 350-line color TTL monitor, so the 640x350 mode is beyond my reach.  This adapter will work just fine with my 5151 and 5153 monitors if the switches are properly set.

IBM PS/2 Display Adapter

This is IBM's only 8-bit VGA graphics card and probably its only ISA card with its own VGA chipset (as opposed to another manufacturer).  It is a full length card with two rows of pin headers for some unknown purpose and a VGA feature connector.  I am concerned that its EPROM may eventually die, but I dumped it just in case.  It will even work in a Pentium II/III system with ISA slots, even if the system beeps.  It will also work fine in an IBM PC 5150.   It was designed to upgrade an IBM PS/2 Model 30 from MCGA to VGA, but it can work in many other systems.  (It would not fit in a PS/2 Model 25).

Unusually, it only uses 24KB of a 32KB EPROM, which is mapped from C0000-C5FFF.  It also has 8KB of sratchpad RAM, but this is mapped in a very weird way.  6KB of it is mapped from C6800-C7FFF and the remaining 2KB is at CA000-CA7FF.  There are memory holes in between, so if you are using a card with an External ROM, make sure it does not start at C8000 if you are using this card.

My later acquisitions include :

Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo Graphics

I remember owning one of these back in the day, so I bought another for those early DOS/Win 9x games which do not work properly with a a later generation Voodoo 2 card.  One day the card refused to display graphics, just some white lines on a black screen.  Eventually I threw it away.

Diamond Monster 3D II 12MB Voodoo 2

I remember replacing my Voodoo Graphics with a Voodoo 2 back in the day, but I do not believe I ever had two cards for an SLI configuration.  I am sure I replaced it by 2000 for a Geforce 256.

3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP

This card was a replacement for the MAC card, but eventually it could no longer display graphical modes without severe corruption, so it too went into the trash.

3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 MAC PCI

I bought this card on eBay from a guy in China, and noticed that the card's faceplate was very rusty.  Once I flashed the card with a PC BIOS, it worked well, even its DVI connector.  Eventually the VGA output would not display the color green, and an unknown component in a set of three looked damaged, so I eventually threw it away.


IBM Cards :

IBM Printer Adapter

This card would have been used to add LPT1 to a system with a CGA card or LPT2 to a system with an MDA card.  The usual address is 0x378h, but it can be hacked and I did hack it to be selectable to 0x278h.

IBM Asynchronous Communications Adapter

This card could reliably handle null-modem transfers at 9600 baud, whereas the UART on my AST Six Pak Plus could only do 4800 baud null-modem transfers.  Has one jumper DIP block to select COM1 or COM2, another to select TTL or current loop communication.  My card has a jumper to work in the IBM XT's slot 8.  

IBM Game Control Adapter

This card may seem useless, as it has needs a Y-splitter for two joysticks and has no speed adjustment, but its useful to have a card, the compatibility of which, is assured.

IBM Diskette Drive Adapter

Has a card edge and can support 5.25" or 3.5" double density drives.  If you need a custom cable because you installed a 3.5" drive with only a pin connector, you should be able to squeeze on an extra connector to a cable easily.

AST Six Pak Plus

This card came with my IBM PC 5150, and it can complete a PC if everything is properly installed.  IBM even marketed it in some of their late brochures.  It can add 384KB of RAM to the PC's Motherboard's 256KB for the full 640KB.  It can also add a serial, parallel and game port.  Each of these ports can be disabled.  The parallel port requires a DB-25 female header and the game port a DA-15 female header, a N558 Quad Timer and a 74LS244 chip.  The serial port has a socketed UART.

Sound Cards :

Adlib Music Synthesizer Card

There are two versions of this card, the 1987 version and the 1990 version.  Other than an extra capacitor or two on the 1990 version, the only difference is that the 1987 version uses a 1/4" TRS output jack and the 1990 version uses a  3.5mm mini-jack.  Output is mono, and the silkscreening on the YM-3812 and Y3014 OLP2 chip and DAC is scratched out on my 1990 version card, although by that time the secret of what chip Adlib was using was out.

IBM Music Feature Card

I originally purchased this full length card for a hefty sum on ebay.  It came with a midi breakout box, which I acquired separately a year later.  Later I traded it for something, a trade I occasionally regret.  Only Sierra On-Line ever supported it in games, but they supported it for a four year period (1988-1991).  It is a combination of a Yamaha FB-01 midi music synthesizer (using 4-op FM synthesis) and unique IBM midi interface.  I put it in a PC and used the breakout box to try and replicate an FB-01, but DOSBox would not produce the correct sounds.  That was about 3 years ago, but there are versions of DOSBox available on VOGONS that will transmit the MIDI properly to the card or FB-01.  A Yamaha FB-01 works well with most games and a Roland MPU-401 interface.

Roland MPU-IPC-A + MPU-401

As I have stated previously in this blog, the MPU-IPC-A is merely a small logic card, and the MPU-401 is the external box where all the midi commands and data is processed.  It makes no music unless attached to a midi synthesizer, whether a keyboard or a module.

Roland LAPC-I

I bought this, with its MCB-1 midi breakout box, from a seller for $25 + shipping.  He did not know if it worked and this was a risk.  This was back in 2006 or so before the price of an LAPC-I skyrocketed.  I could put it in a PC and use it as an external synthesizer in DOSBox, but I needed a program that allowed sysex to pass through the midi interface to the synthesizer.  The interface by default would block sysex, which would eliminate the synthesizer's ability to receive custom sounds from a game.  I traded it for something good after I had acquired a CM-32L, which has the exact same synthesizer capabilities.  My card had ROM v1.02, not EPROM, which was v1.00.

Creative Labs Game Blaster

My most recent acquisition came as a part of a trade for a Tandy 1000 TL.  It came in its retail box with driver disks on 5.25" and 3.5" disks and the Sierra game Silpheed, also on both disk formats.   I wanted this because there are games which I have confirmed will not work with a Sound Blaster with C/MS chips, they obviously are looking for something inside that big CT-1302 chip.  The next widely-available CL card using RCA jacks would be the AWE64 Gold.  It is a stereo card, but that was probably the only thing for which it was known.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 1.5 w/CMS Upgrade

The earliest Sound Blaster cards came with a v1.xx DSP, but mine came with a v2.00 DSP.  I added the C/MS chips, which are Phillps SAA-1099s.  That is the only part of the card in stereo.  With the v2.00 DSP (which adds auto-DMA support among other things), I have cajoled Trixter's 8088 Corruption demo to work with the card.  I read that the v2.00 DSP was necessary for MPC-1 compliance with Windows 3.x multimedia features.  I may keep it around only to check whether C/MS games will work with the card, but DOSBox now supports the Game Blaster.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 2.0

I sold this card because I could not upgrade it with C/MS chips because it uses an extra PAL chip, a 16L8N, the programming for which nobody was able to replicate at the time.  It would have worked as well as any Pro in any game except for stereo and mixer support.  Its abilities are firmly encompassed by other cards.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro 1.0

I kept this card because there are games that support its dual OPL2 chipset.  It is also necessary if you wish to use a Sound Blaster with any Tandy system with a PSSJ sound chip.  The PSSJ only works with DMA1 and if a Sound Blaster is also set to DMA1, games will freeze when playing sounds.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro 2.0

Although I sold this, it has one big advantage over the Pro 1.0.  The OPL3 chip on this board is not not particularly sensitive to system speed, whereas the OPL2 chip is (like the game port and a rev 0 MT-32).  If you run an older game on say a Pentium system, the game may send the data to the OPL2 chip so fast that it cannot process all the data, and the music will be incorrect.  However, the Sound Blaster 16s I have also have true Yamaha OPL3 chips.  Although Windows 9x does support the Sound Blaster and Pros, their 8-bit limitations will show themselves in garbled 16-bit audio playback.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 MCD ASP & Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 SCSI-2 ASP

This card is the bare minimum which modern programs can use, since it can do stereo 16-bit playback at 44,100kHz.  I originally got the SCSI-2 CT-1770, but I did not like the fact that the SCSI interface used an extra high IRQ and eventually traded it.  I acquired a MCD CT-1760, and the proprietary CD-interfaces on that card can have their IRQ usage disabled.  Both my cards have a soldered ASP chip (TFX uses it) and use DSP 4.05 for error free midi playback through the waveblaster or the external midi out.  The waveblaster port does no favors for the output of a midi daughterboard.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32

When I bought this card, a CT-2760 rev. 3, I soon discovered that I had no case in which to put it.  My Pentium II/III system uses a modern case with a hard drive cage going all the way down the case.  This blocked the card, which is a full-length 13" ISA card.  Also, the plastic tabs that held the SIMMs in place were broken.  Gravis used much more durable metal clips in their PnP.  I only used it once or twice by removing the motherboard from the case, which was unwieldy to say the least.  I eventually donated it to a friend of mine who was interested in the rev. 3.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold

This card was superior to the 16s and the AWE32s in almost every way.  I did not care about the lack of SIMM slots or waveblaster connector.  However, ISA PnP is no fun and its FM Synthesis is lacking in quality.  Unlike the early AWE cards, which used genuine integrated Yamaha OPL3 core, Creative was using its CQM substitute by this time.  Although the sound is close, it is not the same and usually sounds harsh.

Gravis Ultrasound ACE

This card I picked because it had perfect GUS playback capabilities.  My board came with driver disks and thick manual.  It also came with the maximum 1MB of RAM.  It has one soldered SOJ chip and one socket for an additional SOJ chip.  Unlike an original GUS or GUS MAX, it does not support a daughterboard for 16-bit recording, but I have no interest in recording anyway with an ISA card.  Its Adlib emulation, which uses I/O 388/389h can be disabled, which eliminates conflicts between the real thing.  It does not have a joystick/midi to further reduce configuration headaches.  Unfortunately, this is the 1.0 version, which means the output jacks have reversed stereo.


Gravis Ultrasound PnP

This card embodies the true 2nd Generation of Ultrasound sampling technology.  Unfortunately, games did not really support the extra features of this card.  Mine (v1.0) does not have any RAM soldered on the board but has both SIMM slots populated.  2MB of RAM is on my card, which ensures full Ultrasound compatibility and not much else.  I prefer the ACE over this card because this is a dreaded PnP card and its RAM usage is far from unique in Windows 9x.

Roland SCD-15

This is the official name of the marketed combination of a Roland MPU-401/AT ISA MIDI Interface Card + Roland SCB-55 daughtercard.  It has these mini-DIN connectors which were always hard to find.  Creative Labs had mini-DIN connectors for their Live! and Audigy breakout boxes which worked, but their support site did not always have them in stock.  The daughterboard was almost as big as the card itself and the card hung off it.  In fact, although the daughterboard had four standoffs, only two actually connected to the board.  This did not seem like a stable long-term solution, so I traded it away.

Yamaha DB50XG

I also got one of these, although the DB60XG is more common on eBay.  The former is a retail product, while the latter is an OEM product.  The former has the advantage of at least partial support for Yamaha QG300 synthesis custom voices.  The Fat Man really expoused the virtues of this card, and some games either supported it or were attuned to sound good with it.  I avoided the SW60XG because it had no external midi port.  When I finally acquired a MU10XG, I traded this away.

Yamaha YMF-724/744/754 Cards

I do not talk about PCI cards much here, but these were a very good solution for backwards compatibility with the Sound Blaster.  Most late ISA and PCI card emulated the Adlib OPL2/3 FM synthesis poorly or inaccurately, but these cards came from Yamaha and incorporated a true OPL2/3 core into the chip.  They also supported the PC/PCI connector found on some TX/LX/BX motherboards or D-DMA for TSR-less digital Sound Blaster compatibility.  Finally, some cards also supported S/PDIF output for crystal clear sound.  Pure FM recording with these cards is quite possible.  I have not tested it, but 4-speaker sound output is available in 744 and 754 cards.  But there are some drawbacks :

While the digital sound blaster emulation is good, it is not perfect and only goes up to an SB Pro.  Fortunately, very few games require a Sound Blaster 16 or better. Fallout for DOS had broken SB/SB Pro drivers, but I used drivers from another other Interplay game to get the SB/SB Pro sound working again.  It will not emulate Sound Blaster ADPCM 8bit-3bit and 8-bit-2bit modes, which Duke Nukem II among others use for some sound effects.  Since games use direct I/O access for the Sound Blaster and Adlib, the card may not work in Windows XP or other NT machine.  The card supports DirectSound and DirectSound 3D and emulates EAX 1.0 through Sensura, but the surround sound causes system performance issues.  Finally, most motherboards for the Pentium/II/III have at least one ISA slot, so why not use a true ISA Sound Blaster?

Aureal SQ2500

The ultimate card for A3D support, I picked it because it represented the last card to support a widely used but eclipsed technology.  No other card except the Aureal AU8830 supported A3D 2.0, other cards only went up to 1.0.  It supported 4-speaker output, but the rear speakers were not as widely used as the front speakers.  Games that support A3D 2.0 include Half-Life, Descent 3, Unreal and early versions of Quake III.  It also has a waveblaster header.

MIDI Modules :

Roland MT-32

My MT-32 was something of a late purchase as I did not fully understand the need for one or the unique character of the LCD display.  It is very convenient to be able to reset the module by pressing Master Volume and R at the same time.   Other modules require a shutdown or sending a reset command via midi.  Viewing messages on the LCD which games display is always neat.  Mine is a rev 0 ROM v1.07, which is the last ROM version before the 2.x versions, exclusive to rev. 1 boards.  The MT-32 works great in DOSBox, which can easily adjust transmission speed to be slow enough for an MT-32.  I would say 3,500 cycles is the limit if the game is transmitting custom patches.  Since I am a big fan of Sierra games, I want to know how these games sounded, and some of them exploited bugs of the rev. 0 boards.

Roland CM-32L

Being unhappy with my CM-64 and CM-500, I turned to this, simpler model.  No slot, no mode switch, only an on button.  Necessary for games that causes errors on the MT-32 regardless of speed or use the extra sound effects of the rhythm/percussion part.

Roland CM-64

After learning of the CM-500's vibrato issue, I turned to this module, a true combination of CM-32L and CM-32P.  Unfortunately another issue reared its head.  Sierra's SCI games music synthesis engine broadcasted  MT-32 data on midi channels 2-10 and Adlib data on channels 11-16.  The MT-32/MT-100/LAPC-1 and CM-32L did not care, as they did not use channels 11-16.  The CM-32P does, and wrong sounds would constantly be heard.  Later Sierra drivers eliminate the issue, but they will not work with the early versions of King's Quest IV and Leisure Suit Larry II.  Also, this may occur in other games, although this is unlikely.  Although the CM-32P was supported in some Japanese NEC-98xx and X68000 games, my primary interest is DOS, so a better solution was found in a simple CM-32L, and this got traded.

Roland CM-500

When I was first collecting vintage hardware, this module was seen as the Holy Grail of Roland LA Synthesis and expensive and rare even then (2005).  It does support the Roland SC-55 GS (and later General MIDI) synthesis engine and the Roland CM-64 (emulating the CM-32P).  Unfortunately, not only does it share the same issue as the CM-64, it was pointed out that it had annoying Vibrato.  So it got traded.

Yamaha MU10XG

This external synthesizer used the same synthesis engine as the DB50XG and SW60XG, so I knew it was a quality card.  It was also hard to find, I guess it was not very popular.  Unusual for an external module, it has a battery compartment.  It also has two 1/4" audio input jacks to which the module can apply reverb and other effects.  It requires a +12v adapter, so I used an adapter from something completely different that fit.  It has not gotten much use because DOS games generally composed for Roland LA or GM.

Roland SC-55

This was a relatively recent purchase.  It came with a remote control, which I have somewhere.  Like the MT-32, it has a display and there are games that take advantage of it (Lands of Lore).  Mine is a GM/GS module, which came later than the original, GS only modules.  It makes no difference in functionality whether the module supports GM and GS or just GS.  Also, there is the stargame.mid, which uses the equalizer to display graphics.  Its only downside is the 24 voice polyphony, but the quality of the sounds with effects more than makes up for the deficiency.

Roland SC-55ST

I thought this was better than the original SC-55 in every way, but it turns out not to be the case.  The original SC-55 had a Capital Tone Fallback feature that if a game tried to play a variation tone which the module did not have, the module would play the capital tone instead.  Yamaha also used this technology and forced Roland to remove the feature from the 2nd and later generations of Sound Canvases.  Unfortunately, there are games that use this functionality (Might and Magic IV & V, Space Quest V, Lands of Lore).  It gets little use as a consequence, as the SC-55 has much more character.