What retro things have you done today?

cee-S-dee said:
Took a trip down today with a friend to visit RMC's The Cave. Had a real good time! We went to the morning session (10AM-1PM). It was limited to 30 people per session so you arn't all crammed in and had plenety of opportunities to get on the games. Everything is there to be handeled/touched and they have a really great collection of machines spanning a vast range on vintage gaming. My mate set the high score on the Galxian cab which got tweeted out! I highly recommend the visit where ever you on in the country just to show some support for Neil and whats hes building. He's a real nice guy too!

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I had dreams of doing that once! I sold a lot of stuff to help out a mate (he pushed it through ebay) but I still have:

Boxed Virtual Boy (that's what reminded me)
Boxed Oric 1
Boxed Dragon 32


Loving the the PC stuff more though. I'll never forget the first time I went to 2 systems:

P4 2.8, P4C800 Pro, Radeon 9800 pro
Mobile Athlon, DFI Lanparty NForce 2 Ultra, 512mb BH5 @ 250 2-2-2-5, Radeon 9800 pro

I remember when I joined the 20k club in 3d Mark 2000 SE, and the 4K club in RAM bandwidth. Good days!
 
!bluetonic! said:
It's awesome, but, I couldn't hack strangers touching my equipment. They would all be stood behind velvet rope with my 6ft 5in security guard keeping close watch.

And people's hygiene; Mr Hacking-Cough-Scratchy-Bum touching the pristine keys on my A1200. No thank you.. :p
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My thoughts exatly!! I remember doing carboot sales with my dad years ago, even with old items we had for sale there would be horrible fat people walking around with bacon sandwiches with onions dropping out and brown sauce on their face who would pick up items and inspect them for a few minutes before asking "how much" then "will you take 50p" or something :rolleyes: No, I will not. Then they would put them back all greased up and walk off.

I got to the point where if specific people walked over, just as they were about to pick something up I would shout "sorry, that's sold" and move it behind the counter :D

I can just see people at computer fairs inspecting prestine A1200s before asking if they can buy it for a tenner
 
I picked up a Midi module a while ago now and i've just started to record some game soundtracks on it. I have to say I'm quite impressed with how this module sounds as picked it up on a whim for £40 not knowing much about it!

Uploaded the Transport Tycoon Theme as my first recording which I know @LewisRaz will appreciate! Planning to record quite a few games on this module and uploading them to Youtube. There doesn't to be much game related midi's recorded on this module.

 
cee-S-dee said:
I picked up a Midi module a while ago now and i've just started to record some game soundtracks on it. I have to say I'm quite impressed with how this module sounds as picked it up on a whim for £40 not knowing much about it!

Uploaded the Transport Tycoon Theme as my first recording which I know @LewisRaz will appreciate! Planning to record quite a few games on this module and uploading them to Youtube. There doesn't to be much game related midi's recorded on this module.

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Nice, sounds great. Though i'm used to the Soundblaster 16 Transport Tycoon, not the fancy AWE32, Roland or others module sound :rolleyes:

Managed to get an original working Amiga tank mouse in reasonably good condition for £5+delivery. Just awaiting an adapter to use it which will then be another plus for my WinUAE config.
No-one ever played games with a laser mouse, it was all about shaking the tank mouse when the axis inside got clogged up with fluff :D

A500 mini mouse with laser and metal plate inside to add weight, just no.

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cee-S-dee said:
I picked up a Midi module a while ago now and i've just started to record some game soundtracks on it. I have to say I'm quite impressed with how this module sounds as picked it up on a whim for £40 not knowing much about it!

Uploaded the Transport Tycoon Theme as my first recording which I know @LewisRaz will appreciate! Planning to record quite a few games on this module and uploading them to Youtube. There doesn't to be much game related midi's recorded on this module.

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Nice percussion on it! Sounds pretty good actually. although that first note at 0:05 sounds really off tune!
 
cee-S-dee said:
Yeah it only appears to be that one note!? Strange. I've made a play list for TTDLX and I'm beginning to upload more Tracks to it. Will probably record DOOM next after uploading finishing TTDLX.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8qJAXPup4AYjJ4lAyTuBJ1kEWP7yr8qj
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Sounding good. My awe32 used to do a similar thing with just one note on the entire TTDLX playlist.

This midibox definitely seems to have far better percussion compared to the other instruments. Although its certainly not a bad sounding one.

Do you know much about it? Looks fairly modern? Just had a quick google and seen you can get USB ones on music shops. Perhaps you should do a review on it from a dos gaming perspective as I didnt see any.

Im currently compiling a list of retro games that I never completed that I need to get around and complete:


theme hospital (completed)
dungeon keeper
dungeon keeper 2
startopia
settlers 2
Conquest frontier wars
sonic 3 and knuckles (PC version)

Most of my most cherished games (simcity 2000, the sims, TTDLX) dont really have win states so its only a small list but should be a fun challenge.
 
LewisRaz said:
Sounding good. My awe32 used to do a similar thing with just one note on the entire TTDLX playlist.

This midibox definitely seems to have far better percussion compared to the other instruments. Although its certainly not a bad sounding one.

Do you know much about it? Looks fairly modern? Just had a quick google and seen you can get USB ones on music shops. Perhaps you should do a review on it from a dos gaming perspective as I didnt see any.

Im currently compiling a list of retro games that I never completed that I need to get around and complete:


theme hospital (completed)
dungeon keeper
dungeon keeper 2
startopia
settlers 2
Conquest frontier wars
sonic 3 and knuckles (PC version)

Most of my most cherished games (simcity 2000, the sims, TTDLX) dont really have win states so its only a small list but should be a fun challenge.
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Its a relatively modern module. I think its know as an S-Engine module which uses a Dream SAM synthesizer. This one I have is both USB and just standard DIN Midi connection. It works fine in Windows 10 just using a USB cable and I use Falcosoft Midi player to play midi files on it. It also works just like a traditional device on an old DOS/Win9x Machine for games.

@Guest2 DN3D will be one of the games I'll be recording on the Device.
 
Whilst the discussion is midi related, is there a device that allows good midi support and ideally fm too over usb?

PCMCIA devices for ‘retro’ os like dos, win95 and win98 are very rare and cost loads - roland scp-55, javjammer im looking at you.
Sound on my Win98 dell laptop is terrible but it does have usb and pcmcia.
 
Guest2 said:
Whilst the discussion is midi related, is there a device that allows good midi support and ideally fm too over usb?

PCMCIA devices for ‘retro’ os like dos, win95 and win98 are very rare and cost loads - roland scp-55, javjammer im looking at you.
Sound on my Win98 dell laptop is terrible but it does have usb and pcmcia.
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Do you know what sound chip is in your laptop? For midi you could use a software based Synth. Yamaha have a software based XG synth which will work in Win 98 (DOS windowed mode for DOS games). Check this thread out on Vogons

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=33661&p=281814&hilit=yamaha yxg50 syxg50 s-yxg50#p281814

Or if your looking for OPL3 sound like what you had on your SB16 you could get one of these

https://www.serdashop.com/OPL3LPT
 
cee-S-dee said:
Do you know what sound chip is in your laptop? For midi you could use a software based Synth. Yamaha have a software based XG synth which will work in Win 98 (DOS windowed mode for DOS games). Check this thread out on Vogons

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=33661&p=281814&hilit=yamaha yxg50 syxg50 s-yxg50#p281814

Or if your looking for OPL3 sound like what you had on your SB16 you could get one of these

https://www.serdashop.com/OPL3LPT
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Yes, unfortunately its a dumpling of a sound chip - ESS Technology Maestro-3i
Laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8100

I did try the ESS 1980 drivers and 'M3VXD_7129_Sign_29829' from here - https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=19212
I only managed to get the VXD drivers partially working. It was better to use the official Dell WDM driver - ESS Maestro 3i Wdm Audio Driver setup-based install, M3XUA14I.EXE

That looks great, I'll try the 'S-YXG100 Plus' to see what happens. When I looked into the Serda OPL3LPT I wasnt too interested as would have had terrible midi quality still and needed to patch games which seemed like hassle.
I'll see if the S-YXG100 Plus works first :)

I installed the xg100_12 and after reboot go into Multimedia properties and changed playback preferred device to Yamaha SXG driver and the MIDI output from Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth to YAMAHA SXG Driver. I then test midi in a game and dont hear anything (setting GS Wavetable I do)
Am I missing a step?

This is using the basic setup for duke3d. No midi and sound fx now reports playback failed to to invalid or conflicting irq. I set the main playback device to ESS audio and sound fx playback now works. Midi ports i tried all and 330 is the only one that works, but doesnt play any midi

Windows sounds are fine and the Yamaha XGplayer is also working fine. Doom95, the midi also works and sounds great so appears to just be DOS games running in Win9x where general midi is selected but nothing plays

Interestingly I tried Big Race USA (Pro Pinbal) and this now works great. On ESS audio it would have a meltdown after about 10 seconds and go all stuttery but now its ok.
 
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