I've been trying to get the game port working on the creative sound blaster CT4180 in the Windows 95 machine but it fails to detect any joy sticks or game pads... the sound card itself works right out of the box in Windows 95 but I'm just wondering if I needed any additional drivers for the game port?
Well besides not being able to have my game port working on the sound card the DOS/WIN95 PC has been doing fantastically well. This build is based on a period correct system from around 1996 to 1997. It has a 20GB IDE HDD I don't think 20GB HDD came out until a bit later on but everything else is bang on from the period.
Its running Windows 95 OSR 2.5 with service pack 1
Microsoft Bob
Encarta 96
Encarta World Atlas 97
Microsoft Office 97 Professional
Lots of old games and nostalgic educational software from the time.
Its running Windows 95 OSR 2.5 with service pack 1
Microsoft Bob
Encarta 96
Encarta World Atlas 97
Microsoft Office 97 Professional
Lots of old games and nostalgic educational software from the time.
Soldato
some soundcard have a gameport enable jumper on them
I'll have to see if there is a manual somewhere to find out what the jumpers do.
I've just been playing about and having some fun with a 486 25MHz 640KB RAM with 3 MB extended, sound blaster card fitted. This should be good enough to play Wing Commander I also tried out an old Ghost Busters game on it which never worked until now on this machine. I had nostalgia overload.
Sometimes I hate floppy disks. I got as far as disk 4 of the installation of Wing Commander then get a disk error I retried but no joy so I will have to start all over again. I will try again tomorrow.
My next challenge will be getting the Sound Blaster card to work, its not being detected but it does mention not having enough extended memory so I may need to upgrade the RAM except all I have on hand are 32MB sticks of EDO which maybe overkill for the system... I don't know. Something like 8MB RAM would be more ideal.
Wing Commander is like the holy grail of retro PC gaming.
My next challenge will be getting the Sound Blaster card to work, its not being detected but it does mention not having enough extended memory so I may need to upgrade the RAM except all I have on hand are 32MB sticks of EDO which maybe overkill for the system... I don't know. Something like 8MB RAM would be more ideal.
Wing Commander is like the holy grail of retro PC gaming.
Last edited:
8MB ram should help as plenty of my older DOS games lists 4MB as minimum while 8MB is recommended.
I found 6 games that should work fine on your 486 that I enjoyed playing on my first PC back in early 96 (a 486/66MHz, 8MB, SB Pro, Win95)
I found 6 games that should work fine on your 486 that I enjoyed playing on my first PC back in early 96 (a 486/66MHz, 8MB, SB Pro, Win95)
Don
8MB ram should help as plenty of my older DOS games lists 4MB as minimum while 8MB is recommended.
I found 6 games that should work fine on your 486 that I enjoyed playing on my first PC back in early 96 (a 486/66MHz, 8MB, SB Pro, Win95)
You ideally need 8Mb for The Settlers, so that you can play in SVGA mode @ world size 8.
Don't install it though - that'll be at least a couple of weeks of your life gone
I first played The Settlers on my Amiga 500 and it instantly become one of my favored games, and I continued playing it when I got a PC
I kind of miss the Amiga music though since it was changed on the PC but the SVGA mode is nice and very useful for bigger maps.
Btw with Sam & Max, the CD edition has digital speech, so I recommend this version if you are into point&click adventure games.
I kind of miss the Amiga music though since it was changed on the PC but the SVGA mode is nice and very useful for bigger maps.
Btw with Sam & Max, the CD edition has digital speech, so I recommend this version if you are into point&click adventure games.
I tried to install Vista today from a retail disc on to period correct hardware (Striker II Extreme, Q9650, GTX 285) and it blue screens after the installation process.
Amazing really, if a retail discs and period correct hardware doesn’t work no wonder I remember it being so badly received in 2007 haha!
I’ve tried it twice and the same result. I don’t really want to give in and install Windows 7 because that defeats the whole retro vibe
Amazing really, if a retail discs and period correct hardware doesn’t work no wonder I remember it being so badly received in 2007 haha!
I’ve tried it twice and the same result. I don’t really want to give in and install Windows 7 because that defeats the whole retro vibe
Soldato
what about installing XP then upgrading it to vista?I tried to install Vista today from a retail disc on to period correct hardware (Striker II Extreme, Q9650, GTX 285) and it blue screens after the installation process.
Amazing really, if a retail discs and period correct hardware doesn’t work no wonder I remember it being so badly received in 2007 haha!
I’ve tried it twice and the same result. I don’t really want to give in and install Windows 7 because that defeats the whole retro vibe
Whats the blue screen error say? Missing ahci driver or running in raid mode but no driver?I tried to install Vista today from a retail disc on to period correct hardware (Striker II Extreme, Q9650, GTX 285) and it blue screens after the installation process.
Amazing really, if a retail discs and period correct hardware doesn’t work no wonder I remember it being so badly received in 2007 haha!
I’ve tried it twice and the same result. I don’t really want to give in and install Windows 7 because that defeats the whole retro vibe
This could be an option, if all else fails.
Didn’t think of AHCI, is it a known issue with Vista? I probably wrongly assumed that it supported AHCI but it’s been a LONG time since I installed Vista
I remember upgrading to Vista around 2007 from XP on a Pentium 4 machine 2.5GHz 1GB RAM and I also installed it to a Pentium III @800 MHz with 512MB RAM both machines worked well with Vista until I switched to Linux soon after. The only issue I remember having in Vista was losing my LAN and having network issues after a short time and having to keep trouble shooting it.
Last edited:
I like all of those games. I used to play Theme Park on the Amiga as a child back in 1994/95 I was hooked on it.You ideally need 8Mb for The Settlers, so that you can play in SVGA mode @ world size 8.
Don't install it though - that'll be at least a couple of weeks of your life gone
Soldato
I played theme park a while back on my megadrive and drove my mrs nuts with the music on it 
I tried to install Vista today from a retail disc on to period correct hardware (Striker II Extreme, Q9650, GTX 285) and it blue screens after the installation process.
Amazing really, if a retail discs and period correct hardware doesn’t work no wonder I remember it being so badly received in 2007 haha!
I’ve tried it twice and the same result. I don’t really want to give in and install Windows 7 because that defeats the whole retro vibe
Exceptionally Noddy question coming up, so apologies in advance, but just in case. Bios was reset to default or otherwise CMOS cleared I take it? I've had mysterious install issues sorted by doing this if I have changed OS and so forth. I would also disable every peripheral you can in the bios then try to install, then reenable one at a time. Again, pretty Noddy based thing to do you probably almost certainly have done, but no harm in suggesting.
Thanks for the tips mate I appreciate it.
I think it may have been driver related - I obtained a Vista 64 with SP2 ISO and that has just installed fine - woohoo!
I think that original release of vista was temperamental at the best of times…
I think it may have been driver related - I obtained a Vista 64 with SP2 ISO and that has just installed fine - woohoo!
I think that original release of vista was temperamental at the best of times…
Soldato
Vista - yuk.
I remember trying to be a pioneer and jump on when it first came out. I regretted that.
I also remember MS with a terrible marketing campaign for Vista trying to fool users into thinking they were using a different operating system that was really Vista and then doing a 'reveal'.
en.wikipedia.org
I remember trying to be a pioneer and jump on when it first came out. I regretted that.
I also remember MS with a terrible marketing campaign for Vista trying to fool users into thinking they were using a different operating system that was really Vista and then doing a 'reveal'.