5 ms·

My first “tech job” was supporting DOS games at EA in the late 90s. Post windows 95 they still had some bargain flight sims that seemed popular. I can’t rememb

My first “tech job” was supporting DOS games at EA in the late 90s. Post windows 95 they still had some bargain flight sims that seemed popular. I can’t remember the exact numbers but one of the sims checked for sufficient RAM. I think you needed 16MB but there was a bug where if you had more than like 512 it would think you didn’t have enough (pre-internet so no real patches). The “fix” was a “boot disk” (on a floppy) that would create a RAM drive to partition off some of your RAM getting your available total under 512. RAM had just started to get “cheap” enough that some folks had 1GB and we were able to use the RAM drive (which worked like a physical HD) to install the game and play it from RAM instead of the old slow spinning disks. But yeah memory hacks in those days were rampant. Side note the most common problem for the PS support queue was PlayStations not reading disks properly. The fix was to turn the machine on its side or even upside down to get the CD closer to the laser.

rawoke083600 4y ago
> Post windows 95 they still had some bargain flight sims that seemed popular. The golden era of flight/space sim ! I miss my wing commander(s) (don't you dare mention/reply Star-Citizen !) I think I played/broken through 2 crappy-cheap joysticks via the whole series. That perfect point in time (when you were young enough not to pay taxes, but old enough to get a soundblaster-card-kit with free wingcommander games)
- mikeryan 4y ago
  IIRC this particular issue was with one of the Jane’s Combat Simulator games. ;-)
  - rawoke083600 4y ago
    janes !! Damn that bring back memories
- nomel 4y ago
  Someone needs to port these to the Quest 2. VR, for flight sims, is pretty awesome, assuming you can stomach it.
  - rawoke083600 4y ago
    absolutely ! Im assuming 40year old me that can afford vr doesnt have the same stomach as 16 year old me :)
    - nomel 4y ago
      It just takes time. For me it was a few weeks, with longer and longer sessions each time. I’m someone who gets sick from spinning in circles a few times, so if you can stomach that, probably less. Car sims took the longest. There’s just too much hard wired in there.
- ansible 4y ago
  Wing Commander series, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, Falcon 3.0, X-Wing series, Descent 1 & 2. Thrustmaster flight stick and throttle. Good times, good times. I never really mastered flying the F-16 in Falcon 3.0, but I at least got to the point where I could take off and land OK. The mission planner for custom missions was very sophisticated too. For Descent, I had also tried out the Logitech Cyberman 2 controller: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-weird-and-wonderful-world-that-was-the-late-90s-pc-gaming-input-devices.1626089/post-265229259 https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-weird-and-wonderful-world... In theory, it is ideal for flying your spacecraft in Descent, allowing you to move or turn in any direction in a a sort of intuitive fashion. However, it wasn't that satisfying in practice.
  - ansible 4y ago
    I also had at one point a steering controller that resembled a RC car controller. That worked a lot better for me than racing wheels that were much more common. Pairing that with the original ReVolt RC racing car game (don't buy the ripoff version that was just released to Steam!) and you're talking many hours of fun.
- rawoke083600 4y ago
  Forgot to mention. Dammn that music of wingcommander
Wolfbeta 4y ago
>Side note the most common problem for the PS support queue was PlayStations not reading disks properly. I laughed when I read the following quote from Andy Gavin's blog, now I'm crying after seeing yours. "Kelly asked how many of these CD hits Andy thought a gamer that finished Crash would have. Andy did some thinking and off the top of his head said “Roughly 120,000.” Kelly became very silent for a moment and then quietly mumbled “the PlayStation CD drive is ‘rated’ for 70,000.” >The fix was to turn the machine on its side or even upside down to get the CD closer to the laser. Was this the precedent for marketing the PS2 vertically?
- rasz 4y ago
  Afaik putting PSX on a side fixed the issue of worn out plastic slider/sled. Early laser beds were plastic and would wear leading to slop and misalignment, later ones were die cast. People used to shim worn out sled with razor blades/other thin metal pieces.
hbn 4y ago
> turn the machine on its side or even upside down to get the CD closer to the laser I'm confused by this, doesn't that seem backwards? If it was sitting normally wouldn't it naturally be helped by gravity to be as close to the laser as the mechanism would allow? Upside down, gravity would be pulling it away from the laser. Right?
- majormajor 4y ago
  The laser is on a mechanism that moves in and out from the center to the rim of the disk. You can see a picture here: https://gametrog.com/playstation-1-one-information-specs-versions/ https://gametrog.com/playstation-1-one-information-specs-ver... I don't have a Playstation myself on hand, but from memory, these mounts usually had a certain amount of play in them - if you touched it, you could press it a bit lower, for instance. Whereas the clamp that grabs the disk on toploaders tended to make a very secure connection. So it's probably not bringing the disk closer to the laser, it's bringing the laser closer to the disc.

rawoke083600 4y ago

> Post windows 95 they still had some bargain flight sims that seemed popular. The golden era of flight/space sim ! I miss my wing commander(s) (don't you dare mention/reply Star-Citizen !) I think I played/broken through 2 crappy-cheap joysticks via the whole series. That perfect point in time (when you were young enough not to pay taxes, but old enough to get a soundblaster-card-kit with free wingcommander games)

mikeryan 4y ago
IIRC this particular issue was with one of the Jane’s Combat Simulator games. ;-)
- rawoke083600 4y ago
  janes !! Damn that bring back memories
nomel 4y ago
Someone needs to port these to the Quest 2. VR, for flight sims, is pretty awesome, assuming you can stomach it.
- rawoke083600 4y ago
  absolutely ! Im assuming 40year old me that can afford vr doesnt have the same stomach as 16 year old me :)
  - nomel 4y ago
    It just takes time. For me it was a few weeks, with longer and longer sessions each time. I’m someone who gets sick from spinning in circles a few times, so if you can stomach that, probably less. Car sims took the longest. There’s just too much hard wired in there.
ansible 4y ago
Wing Commander series, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, Falcon 3.0, X-Wing series, Descent 1 & 2. Thrustmaster flight stick and throttle. Good times, good times. I never really mastered flying the F-16 in Falcon 3.0, but I at least got to the point where I could take off and land OK. The mission planner for custom missions was very sophisticated too. For Descent, I had also tried out the Logitech Cyberman 2 controller: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-weird-and-wonderful-world-that-was-the-late-90s-pc-gaming-input-devices.1626089/post-265229259 https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-weird-and-wonderful-world... In theory, it is ideal for flying your spacecraft in Descent, allowing you to move or turn in any direction in a a sort of intuitive fashion. However, it wasn't that satisfying in practice.
- ansible 4y ago
  I also had at one point a steering controller that resembled a RC car controller. That worked a lot better for me than racing wheels that were much more common. Pairing that with the original ReVolt RC racing car game (don't buy the ripoff version that was just released to Steam!) and you're talking many hours of fun.
rawoke083600 4y ago
Forgot to mention. Dammn that music of wingcommander

Wolfbeta 4y ago

>Side note the most common problem for the PS support queue was PlayStations not reading disks properly. I laughed when I read the following quote from Andy Gavin's blog, now I'm crying after seeing yours. "Kelly asked how many of these CD hits Andy thought a gamer that finished Crash would have. Andy did some thinking and off the top of his head said “Roughly 120,000.” Kelly became very silent for a moment and then quietly mumbled “the PlayStation CD drive is ‘rated’ for 70,000.” >The fix was to turn the machine on its side or even upside down to get the CD closer to the laser. Was this the precedent for marketing the PS2 vertically?

rasz 4y ago
Afaik putting PSX on a side fixed the issue of worn out plastic slider/sled. Early laser beds were plastic and would wear leading to slop and misalignment, later ones were die cast. People used to shim worn out sled with razor blades/other thin metal pieces.

hbn 4y ago

> turn the machine on its side or even upside down to get the CD closer to the laser I'm confused by this, doesn't that seem backwards? If it was sitting normally wouldn't it naturally be helped by gravity to be as close to the laser as the mechanism would allow? Upside down, gravity would be pulling it away from the laser. Right?

majormajor 4y ago
The laser is on a mechanism that moves in and out from the center to the rim of the disk. You can see a picture here: https://gametrog.com/playstation-1-one-information-specs-versions/ https://gametrog.com/playstation-1-one-information-specs-ver... I don't have a Playstation myself on hand, but from memory, these mounts usually had a certain amount of play in them - if you touched it, you could press it a bit lower, for instance. Whereas the clamp that grabs the disk on toploaders tended to make a very secure connection. So it's probably not bringing the disk closer to the laser, it's bringing the laser closer to the disc.