Best way to play those old games like the original

[Darksoft]

I start this new section posting about how to play those old games in the most retro possible way.

I know many people replaced the disk drives with a Gostek. Any more ideas?

Please post pictures of your setup so we get a flavour of how you do it.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

Not another RGB/CRT discussion thread though.

 

[PascalP]

 

[deibit]

This is going to get fun

I'm working currently in 4 PC projects:

PC386/25 --> ISA/ IDE - DOS6.22
PC386/25 --> EISA / SCSI - DOS6.22
PC486 DX2/66 --> ISA / IDE - DOS2.22
PIII/550 --> ISA / AGP / PCI / IDE - WIN98SE / DOS6.2

in paralel I have other projects in the Pipeline

Spectrum 128 Toastrack (DIVMMC....)
Amiga 500 (Gotek, Vampire...)
Atari 520ST+ (Gotek, Satan...)
Original IBM AT

I think I'm going to post the progress in separate posts.. my focus is a combination of period-correct (no AWE64 in a PC386 for example) but using modern technologies where it makes sense (SCSI2SD, Gotek, IDE DOMs....)

Emulators, FPGAs, DOSBox and stuff is good... (I use them extensively), but nothing beats the real thing..

It's also funny to setup again ancient hardware (i had to remember again how to pull CPUs from LIF sockets, now that everything is easy-peasy with ZIF sockets..)

It's also amazing to revive old games without emulation or hacks.. like for example Wing Commander does not run on hardware quicker than 386D33 or PCI hardware is not really compatible with DOS games and so on...

It's an amazing world, probably wider than retro arcading / retro consoling together...

 

[skate323k137]

I've been piecing my macintosh collection back together.

For apple/mac the floppyemu looks amazing. I haven't ordered one yet as I'm sitting on several scsi2sd devices so I've yet to actually need a floppy emulator.

My recent projects were

Mac SE: Full recap/restore of a Mac SE. Scsi2sd upgrade.

Power Macintosh 7500: 500Mhz sonnet upgrade, scsi2sd V6 on PCI scsi card, SCSI2SD V5 on internal scsi bus. Boots os9, os8, os7, and BeOS 5.

Pismo G3 triple boot with os9, osx, and lubuntu 14.04

Gaming wise I use the 7500 for starcraft. The SE is good for tetris and monopoly lol.

 

[deibit]

I would be interested into knowing more detauls about retro Mac-ing

maybe you could start a new thread?

 

[Darksoft]

maybe you could start a new thread?

I'd also love to see your progress there @skate323k137

 

[Geddon]

I recently bought a mist fpga, but have not messed with it yet. I plan to put some cores that support 15hz on it and try it on my pvms.

 

[Sp33dFr34k]

I only use Dosbox and it works pretty well, downloaded some frontend for it to ease the booting of games process. Don't have a retro PC project, nor the time or space for it..

 

[deibit]

I recently bought a mist fpga, but have not messed with it yet. I plan to put some cores that support 15hz on it and try it on my pvms.

I did setup a two virtual Amiga HDD images with WHDLoad and a bunch of games , they work perfect with the MiST! (including AGA games).

Of course with 15Hz (BVM20) I'm sure you won't regret it

 

[Darksoft]

Have you tried any of the other Amiga FPGA solutions like Chamaleon, FPGA Arcade or minimig? Which one is better in your opinion?

 

[deibit]

I nevr tried Chamaleon unfortunately

For Amiga today, I would choose MiST or MiSTer (i have both)

both are based in the Minimig core. MiSTer is newer and its prefered by more developers (more powerful, more open, cheaper..)

MiSTer is more 'hackerish', it uses a standard Terasic DE10-Nano and then you have to build the RAM expansion and the daughter board with the additional ports..

Sadly the MiSTer doesn't have DB9 ports, only USB... and it's a bummer not being able to use my Competition Pros, takes the fun out of it. the MiST also includes MIDI ports, good if you have a MT-32 or a Sound Canvas..

That's why I still prefer the MiST over the MiSTer (even thought the MiSTer pretty much have discontinued the MiST)

 

[ShootTheCore]

I'm all about original hardware when possible, but I don't like floppies (slow and unreliable), and I like the convenience & speed of flash media.

For Amiga games, I bought an A1200, recapped it, and installed a Compact Flash card to the internal IDE header with all of the games and graphics demos available on WHDLoad. I also added an ACA 1223N accelerator to speed up the stock CPU and bump the stock 2 megs of memory up to 128 megs. I use a controller adapter that lets me use Genesis controllers with rapid fire.

For Sharp X68000 games, I bought an X68030, recapped it, and connected an external SD2SCSI board to the 030's built-in SCSI connector. The computer boots directly off the SD card and the entire games library runs directly off of there. I also have a MIDI interface board installed that runs out to a Roland SC-88 Pro for the games that support MIDI music. I use a controller adapter that lets me use SNES controllers with rapid fire.

Both computers are on a roller cart so I can easily move them out of the way when they aren't being used. They both connect to my HDTV and sound system through an OSSC upscaler. The OSSC handles the various resolution differences between the two computers so that I don't have to struggle with CRT monitor sync issues.

 

[Zebra]

When I was a kid I used to play SNES and Genesis games through my Super Magicom which was like the modern day flash carts except with a 3.5" floppy drive instead of SD carts. Once the games were loaded into rom (which took 30 seconds to a minute), they played just like the original cart.

I can't see why the format would matter, espiecially on a PC where you transfer floppy disc content to the hard drive. There is very little pre-Amiga that is still worth playing today. There is even less that is worth digging out original hardware for. You don't want to be loading games from a cassette player...

I thought my Spectrum and C64 sucked even when I was a kid in the 80's.

My view is, ignore all games before the Nes / Master System era for consoles and ignore anything pre Amiga for computer games.