3 ms·

PCjs Machines

215 points by naves 2mo ago

nicechianti 2mo ago
[dead]
CharlesW 2mo ago
I know I could've done this at any time, but I cannot wait to sit my kids down in front of full-screen Oregon Trail and King's Quest experiences.
- zellyn 2mo ago
  https://archive.org/details/MECC_A157_v11_4amCrack https://archive.org/details/MECC_A157_v11_4amCrack
- trollbridge 2mo ago
  Be cautious with this. My firstborn's first complete sentence was "King Graham fell" (from the sledding scene in King's Quest V).
- quietsegfault 2mo ago
  I tried getting my kids to play sierra games with me, and they seemed uninterested. What a bummer, as I have very fond memories of playing these games with my otherwise uninterested parents.
- EvanAnderson 2mo ago
  Oregon Trail held up well but, man, Kings Quest is brutal with the killing you and having to start over.
  - vunderba 2mo ago
    Totally agreed. Related, I actually wrote a satirical blog post on the brilliant but equally frustrating experiences of playing King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella when I was a kid. Just call me Captain Ahab because I hated that damn whale... https://mordenstar.com/blog/kqiv https://mordenstar.com/blog/kqiv
  - glhaynes 2mo ago
    As a kid who hadn't seen anything else, the mechanic of "save early, save often" made perfect sense to me (and I've always wished I had a similar mechanism IRL!), just as I imagine it did to the Sierra authors. And in fact I think there's a lot to like about it -- it's not "good game design", but imo it does provide stakes and a sense of danger in a way that the Lucasarts/etc stuff doesn't. But, yeah, a kid who's had more than passing experience with modern games certainly might not see it that way!
    - vunderba 2mo ago
      I’d probably add “Save Early, Save Often, Save Multiple.” because there are so many ways to accidentally softlock yourself making the game totally unwinnable without realizing it until hours later. There’s a reason most of us as kids started out with descriptive save names like `INNKEEP.SAV` and `BUYSLED.SAV`, and then halfway through the playthrough it's just `1.SAV`, `2.SAV`, `3.SAV`, etc. :)
glimshe 2mo ago
Those who consider every little JS framework, iPhone and AI iteration "revolutionary", go check the thing labeled "Visicalc (1981)" on this site to learn what a revolution looks like. PS: Nine Princes in Amber was an interesting choice alongside the others!
- alok-g 2mo ago
  VisiCalc Link: https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/app/other/visicalc/1981/ https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/app/other/visicalc/1981/
ChrisArchitect 2mo ago
Related: Tiny Emulators https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/ https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884395)
dallen33 2mo ago
Would love to see Tandy DeskMate on here!
- bityard 2mo ago
  DeskMate in 1988 came with my family's first computer, a Tandy 2000 TX. One of the first mainstream consumer PCs with a 3.5" disk drive. (We had to later buy a 5.25" drive in order to share software--er, I mean data--with our neighbors.) DeskMate was marketed as, "Finally! No need to use complicated MS-DOS!" Of course, you couldn't _really_ use it for much, as MS-DOS programs of the time were much more powerful and interesting, but it was a nice tech demo I guess.
smusamashah 2mo ago
A somewhat relative list of in-browser VMs https://gist.github.com/SMUsamaShah/6379649c0cbade9abc02b2427bd33210 https://gist.github.com/SMUsamaShah/6379649c0cbade9abc02b242...
martin_drapeau 2mo ago
Dune II, Wolfenstein 3D and Commander Keen - all games I used to play. Very nice!
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
drivers99 2mo ago
I have my IBM PC set up (to go through a Peter Norton assembly language book again) but I got a file read error for the first time recently on the 20 MB (Seagate ST-225) hard drive and parity errors from the RAM (again). I have chips (pretty cheap, industry standard chips) I can swap out to fix it hopefully. Anyway, I could just be emulating it instead (lol). Cool, they have Exploring the IBM PC. It was a bootable disk with a tutorial to teach you how to use the computer (like what the scroll lock button was meant to do, and all the other keys on the original keyboard). I loaded up the CGA version on the CGA IBM PC emulator, which also plays music. The sound was cutting out though. In a later part (the Fun Writer) when you can turn on the "radio", the music seems to be missing the rests. I guess it's not perfect. The program always struck me as doing strange things with the hardware, so that might be why. (I'll have to look into some local emulators to try out. I really only need DOS for what I'm doing. I also have a MisterFPGA...)
- vunderba 2mo ago
  I have a couple of enthusiast friends who use CompactFlash-to-IDE adapters, and that’s one of the upgrades that almost makes it worth it. You still get the full retro experience (well except for the actuator arm seeking sounds), but on the plus side you don’t have to worry about failing magnetic hard drives. Also this looks pretty neat as well https://picoide.com https://picoide.com
  - drivers99 2mo ago
    Well, this computer is too old for IDE (but see below). :) Looks like it's something called MFM, driven by an entire expansion card that hooks up to the hard drive. But I get what you mean. My oldest tower is running Windows 2000 (since it has a serial port on the motherboard, it comes in handy... for transferring files to/from the IBM PC.) and that has IDE so I could use that for MS-DOS as well (and would be able to run 90s DOS games etc), I'm sure, but with a ~20 year jump in technology (or about half way between the original IBM PC and today). Interestingly, https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_8-bit_IDE_Adapter_rev.2 https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_8-bit_IDE_Adapter_rev... or better yet https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_ISA_CompactFlash_Adapter_revision_2b https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_ISA_CompactFlash_Adap... looks like it would work if needed, and then using a CF to IDE adapter like you mentioned.
mk_stjames 2mo ago
I just did something neat- I tried out the install of Windows 3.1, which has a version of Visual Basic installed. I created a small program in Visual Basic, with a window and some buttons to press, and then saved the program as an .exe (remember how easy this used to be! you could make your program and then just... save the executable out of VB! No compiler knowledge needed!) I then saved this .exe to a disk image, and then saved that disk image back to my modern mac that I'm doing this on via downloading that in the browser. I then took that .exe and the only dependency - vbrun100.dll - and put it on a floppy (a real one) and then took that floppy over to a vintage computer I have that has Windows 3.1 on it still (an old 25 MHz Intel486 DX industrial computer I have sitting in a closet with no real use for). Popped in the floppy, copied the .exe and .dll. And ran the program, no problem! A real GUI windows program, made in VB running in Windows 3.1, inside an entire emulated machine in Javascript in a browser window running on an Apple Silicon macbook in 2026.... Exported and saved to disk and then ran without issue on a piece of hardware made in *1992*! Now I need to do the reverse... make some software with a copy of VB installed on this old machine of mine and run it on my mac inside the browser.
- EvanAnderson 2mo ago
  Odds are good that EXE you made will run on 32-bit Windows 10, too.
  - Krssst 2mo ago
    Can run on modern 64-bit windows too with otvdm: https://github.com/otya128/winevdm https://github.com/otya128/winevdm
    - mk_stjames 2mo ago
      Yes, just tried this, and my little exe ran on a Windows 10 64 bit machine just fine. Which means I just built a demo of a tiny 16 bit windows GUI applet, using emulated VB in Win 3.1 in a browser and got it to run on modern Windows in a shorter amount of time than it would have likely taken me to get the same type of demo up and running natively in Windows 10 today.
nashashmi 2mo ago
So many goosebumps going down memory lane.
danvayn 2mo ago
You'll want to turn down your speakers for a few of these. I did not find any volume knob in time for Dune II to finish booting, unfortunately.

215 points by naves 2mo ago

[dead]

I know I could've done this at any time, but I cannot wait to sit my kids down in front of full-screen Oregon Trail and King's Quest experiences.

zellyn 2mo ago
https://archive.org/details/MECC_A157_v11_4amCrack https://archive.org/details/MECC_A157_v11_4amCrack
trollbridge 2mo ago
Be cautious with this. My firstborn's first complete sentence was "King Graham fell" (from the sledding scene in King's Quest V).
quietsegfault 2mo ago
I tried getting my kids to play sierra games with me, and they seemed uninterested. What a bummer, as I have very fond memories of playing these games with my otherwise uninterested parents.
EvanAnderson 2mo ago
Oregon Trail held up well but, man, Kings Quest is brutal with the killing you and having to start over.
- vunderba 2mo ago
  Totally agreed. Related, I actually wrote a satirical blog post on the brilliant but equally frustrating experiences of playing King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella when I was a kid. Just call me Captain Ahab because I hated that damn whale... https://mordenstar.com/blog/kqiv https://mordenstar.com/blog/kqiv
- glhaynes 2mo ago
  As a kid who hadn't seen anything else, the mechanic of "save early, save often" made perfect sense to me (and I've always wished I had a similar mechanism IRL!), just as I imagine it did to the Sierra authors. And in fact I think there's a lot to like about it -- it's not "good game design", but imo it does provide stakes and a sense of danger in a way that the Lucasarts/etc stuff doesn't. But, yeah, a kid who's had more than passing experience with modern games certainly might not see it that way!
  - vunderba 2mo ago
    I’d probably add “Save Early, Save Often, Save Multiple.” because there are so many ways to accidentally softlock yourself making the game totally unwinnable without realizing it until hours later. There’s a reason most of us as kids started out with descriptive save names like `INNKEEP.SAV` and `BUYSLED.SAV`, and then halfway through the playthrough it's just `1.SAV`, `2.SAV`, `3.SAV`, etc. :)

glimshe 2mo ago

Those who consider every little JS framework, iPhone and AI iteration "revolutionary", go check the thing labeled "Visicalc (1981)" on this site to learn what a revolution looks like. PS: Nine Princes in Amber was an interesting choice alongside the others!

alok-g 2mo ago
VisiCalc Link: https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/app/other/visicalc/1981/ https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/app/other/visicalc/1981/

ChrisArchitect 2mo ago

Related: Tiny Emulators https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/ https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884395)

dallen33 2mo ago

Would love to see Tandy DeskMate on here!

bityard 2mo ago
DeskMate in 1988 came with my family's first computer, a Tandy 2000 TX. One of the first mainstream consumer PCs with a 3.5" disk drive. (We had to later buy a 5.25" drive in order to share software--er, I mean data--with our neighbors.) DeskMate was marketed as, "Finally! No need to use complicated MS-DOS!" Of course, you couldn't _really_ use it for much, as MS-DOS programs of the time were much more powerful and interesting, but it was a nice tech demo I guess.

smusamashah 2mo ago

A somewhat relative list of in-browser VMs https://gist.github.com/SMUsamaShah/6379649c0cbade9abc02b2427bd33210 https://gist.github.com/SMUsamaShah/6379649c0cbade9abc02b242...

martin_drapeau 2mo ago

Dune II, Wolfenstein 3D and Commander Keen - all games I used to play. Very nice!

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

drivers99 2mo ago

I have my IBM PC set up (to go through a Peter Norton assembly language book again) but I got a file read error for the first time recently on the 20 MB (Seagate ST-225) hard drive and parity errors from the RAM (again). I have chips (pretty cheap, industry standard chips) I can swap out to fix it hopefully. Anyway, I could just be emulating it instead (lol). Cool, they have Exploring the IBM PC. It was a bootable disk with a tutorial to teach you how to use the computer (like what the scroll lock button was meant to do, and all the other keys on the original keyboard). I loaded up the CGA version on the CGA IBM PC emulator, which also plays music. The sound was cutting out though. In a later part (the Fun Writer) when you can turn on the "radio", the music seems to be missing the rests. I guess it's not perfect. The program always struck me as doing strange things with the hardware, so that might be why. (I'll have to look into some local emulators to try out. I really only need DOS for what I'm doing. I also have a MisterFPGA...)

vunderba 2mo ago
I have a couple of enthusiast friends who use CompactFlash-to-IDE adapters, and that’s one of the upgrades that almost makes it worth it. You still get the full retro experience (well except for the actuator arm seeking sounds), but on the plus side you don’t have to worry about failing magnetic hard drives. Also this looks pretty neat as well https://picoide.com https://picoide.com
- drivers99 2mo ago
  Well, this computer is too old for IDE (but see below). :) Looks like it's something called MFM, driven by an entire expansion card that hooks up to the hard drive. But I get what you mean. My oldest tower is running Windows 2000 (since it has a serial port on the motherboard, it comes in handy... for transferring files to/from the IBM PC.) and that has IDE so I could use that for MS-DOS as well (and would be able to run 90s DOS games etc), I'm sure, but with a ~20 year jump in technology (or about half way between the original IBM PC and today). Interestingly, https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_8-bit_IDE_Adapter_rev.2 https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_8-bit_IDE_Adapter_rev... or better yet https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_ISA_CompactFlash_Adapter_revision_2b https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_ISA_CompactFlash_Adap... looks like it would work if needed, and then using a CF to IDE adapter like you mentioned.

mk_stjames 2mo ago

I just did something neat- I tried out the install of Windows 3.1, which has a version of Visual Basic installed. I created a small program in Visual Basic, with a window and some buttons to press, and then saved the program as an .exe (remember how easy this used to be! you could make your program and then just... save the executable out of VB! No compiler knowledge needed!) I then saved this .exe to a disk image, and then saved that disk image back to my modern mac that I'm doing this on via downloading that in the browser. I then took that .exe and the only dependency - vbrun100.dll - and put it on a floppy (a real one) and then took that floppy over to a vintage computer I have that has Windows 3.1 on it still (an old 25 MHz Intel486 DX industrial computer I have sitting in a closet with no real use for). Popped in the floppy, copied the .exe and .dll. And ran the program, no problem! A real GUI windows program, made in VB running in Windows 3.1, inside an entire emulated machine in Javascript in a browser window running on an Apple Silicon macbook in 2026.... Exported and saved to disk and then ran without issue on a piece of hardware made in *1992*! Now I need to do the reverse... make some software with a copy of VB installed on this old machine of mine and run it on my mac inside the browser.

EvanAnderson 2mo ago
Odds are good that EXE you made will run on 32-bit Windows 10, too.
- Krssst 2mo ago
  Can run on modern 64-bit windows too with otvdm: https://github.com/otya128/winevdm https://github.com/otya128/winevdm
  - mk_stjames 2mo ago
    Yes, just tried this, and my little exe ran on a Windows 10 64 bit machine just fine. Which means I just built a demo of a tiny 16 bit windows GUI applet, using emulated VB in Win 3.1 in a browser and got it to run on modern Windows in a shorter amount of time than it would have likely taken me to get the same type of demo up and running natively in Windows 10 today.

nashashmi 2mo ago

So many goosebumps going down memory lane.

danvayn 2mo ago

You'll want to turn down your speakers for a few of these. I did not find any volume knob in time for Dune II to finish booting, unfortunately.