Community Produced DOS Game Enhancement Hacks

In the past several years, ambitious and talented programmers and hackers have made some substantial improvements to some classic DOS games.  Here in this blog entry I will highlight some of the hacks I consider to be the most impressive or most useful.  I am particularly interested when elements of a game, such as unique sound effects, that could have been experienced at the time of the game's release in a less than ideal way have been added to the DOS versions of these games.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list of every hack out there.  I am not including simple speed fixes or DOSBox compatibility patches.  I also am not including any hack which I feel violates the "spirit" of the original DOS code.  Some of these hacks are more involved than others, but I wanted to give an overview of what kind of hacks are out there.   Some of these hacks are nearly 10 years old, but all were given to an organized community of vintage computer and DOS gaming enthusiasts.

Getting a Roland/Edirol UM-1X and Windows 10 64-bit to Work Together

About ten years ago I found myself in need of a hardware MIDI solution for my Windows XP machine.  At the time I had a Sound Blaster X-Fi in the machine, but it did not have a hardware MIDI IN and OUT port.  The add-on that would add these ports was very expensive at the time, but I needed a hardware MIDI solution to use my Roland MIDI modules such as the CM-500 I had at the time.  A less expensive solution was a USB MIDI interface, so I decided to buy one.  The one I bought was the Edirol/Roland UM-1X, and it was not particularly inexpensive but I figured I needed a good quality solution for non-GM devices like the MT-32.

The UM-1SX is the same interface as the UM-1X but you need to plug in your own MIDI 5-pin cables.  There were earlier UM-1 and UM-1S, which appear to function identically to the UM-1X and UM-1SX except they do not have the Advanced Driver Switch on them.  After the UM-1X is the UM-1EX, which adds a switch for toggling MIDI OUT and MIDI THRU functionality and the UM-2EX, which adds a second MIDI OUT.  After the 1EX and 2EX came the UM-ONE and the Roland UM-ONE mk2.  The UM-ONE mk2 is the only one of these products which is not discontinued.  The ONE and the ONE mk2 are the only one of these interfaces that have Windows 10 drivers.  The rest have drivers only until Windows 8/8.1.

Windows 3.0 Multimedia Edition - Early Windows Multimedia Gaming

Microsoft Windows 3.0 was the first widely adopted and truly successful version of Microsoft's graphical "Operating System."  It was released on May 20, 1990 and came on five 1.2MB floppy disks.  It could be purchased in a box and was the first version of Windows that was noted for being bundled with new PCs.  It had an incremental update, Windows 3.0a, released on October 31, 1990.

Spin the Knob, Roll the Ball, Drag the Puck : Rotary-Based Video Game Controllers

A rotary encoder is a wheel that sends positional information as it is moved.  The rotor or disk looks like a wheel with spokes and holes.  The wheel is attached to a shaft which is moved.  The movement can be tracked electromechanically or optically.  Electromechanical rotary encoders send information as an electrical circuit is made and broken by movement of the rotor.  Optical rotary encoders send information as the spokes and holes of optical transmitter/receiver allow and break an infrared beam.

A rotary encoder can be found at the heart of several input devices, namely spinners, mice and trackballs.  The earliest arcade spinners, such as those found on Pong and Breakout, were just knobs stuck on the shaft of a potentiometer.  Movement would typically be calculated by measuring the charge or discharge time of a resistance/capacitive circuit. These knobs could be moved in either direction to a stopping point, they could not perform a full 360 degree rotation.

Diagonsing and Fixing DOS Games - King's Quest VI and the Sound Blaster 16

On Friday, I sat down at my 486DX2/66 computer and decided to play a little King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tommorow.  KQ6 is definitely one of Sierra's best games and it had been a long time since I last tried to play it through.  I had the floppy version installed on my hard drive, so I started up the floppy version.  Unfortunately, it took the whole weekend to track down the problem and implement a solution for it.

Windows 3.1 - The Dawn of Windows Gaming

Microsoft Windows released Windows 3.1 on April 6, 1992.  This was the first version of Windows that Microsoft really designed for gaming applications and was available to purchase at retail.  (Windows 3.00a with Multimedia Extensions was available from OEMs).  Windows 3.1 main draw was its support for multimedia, essentially sound cards, MIDI devices and CD-ROM audio.  Unlike the text command line parser of DOS, Windows was a graphical operating system with nary a command prompt in sight.  Most control was accomplished using a mouse.  For the first time users could easily access more than one program on a PC through the task switcher because the operating system was built for multitasking.

Arcade Games Potpourri

Donkey Kong

Where is the Original?

Donkey Kong's historical importance cannot be understated.  The huge international success of Donkey Kong was closely tied to the rise of Nintendo as a force in the video game industry.  It also marked the first of many masterpieces by Shigeru Miyamoto.  It also made important legal precedent with Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., 746 F.2d 112 (1984) giving games more freedom to take inspiration from popular culture without risking being sued.  The game was widely ported and the NES version is very good, especially in the Original Edition version released by Nintendo with all four stages at times for the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console.

Donkey Kong Arcade

A Better Alternative to the NES Classic Edition

In the final entry in what has turned to cover way too much blog space, I am giving my reasons why I cannot recommend the NES Classic Edition (CE).  The CE has a lot going for it, an attractive price, a cute look, the official throwback factor, 30 classic games, a good replica controller.  But it has a few downsides.

The first is obvious, the cables are way too short.  They are only 2.5' long.  An original NES controller is over 6' long.  If you want to play with the CE while sitting on the couch, you will need either a long HDMI cable or controller cable extenders.  A 25' HDMI cable will run you about $15 on Monoprice, but the controller extensions coming out for the CE run $10 each.  If you want to play a two player game, that is another $10.  Ultimately, the problem can be fixed, but the fixes will turn a $60 device into a $90 device.

The second is equally obvious, the console is not upgradeable.  When you finish playing those 30 games, what then?  It will be back to the Virtual Console.  Want to play Mega Man 3, Castlevania 3, Startropics 2, Ninja Gaiden 2, Contra or Tecmo Super Bowl?  You may have to wait for something like the CE 2.0 Edition.  Given that Nintendo included virtually all its first party classics in the existing CE, the game lineup in the CE 2.0 would prove interesting to say the least.