[img width=500 height=375]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c394/bombatomba77/2-anatomisch-theater-20140530_123317_resized_zpsgvb99wdj.jpg[/img]
Hello everyone! This is something I've wanted to do for a while but for one reason or another haven't. Despite the suggestive name, the article really isn't about anything specific. I don't think, anyway. The plan is to just cram stuff into it that doesn't exactly fit into my monthly front page contribution nor my occasional visits to The Gaming Diary thread in our forum. I think I'm aiming for somewhere in between, but with more rambling, and see how long I can keep updating with new posts.
Welcome, my friends, to The Observatory: Hardware Explanation and Eating Crow!
So no Ultima V on my main blog this month. Well, not in article form. I have been playing it, but only in short bursts as time permits, which isn't a whole lot, at least not as much as a game like Ultima V needs to be played. Part of this is due to my addiction to the "Armory" section of ARMA 2 which is... a whole different blog post, I think. Another part is a simultaneous increase in my children's homework and my wife's homework (which requires me to run interference while she completes it). All this translates to me having far less time than I would like. There is another factor, and it has to do with the way I've been playing my DOS games as of late.
Let us begin today with a very simple statement: I really like original hardware for gaming. While I wasn't a nut about when I first started collecting, over the past few years I have begun to get more interested in it, no doubt influenced by the excellent videos by
The Lazy Game Reviewer, but also because of my employment at a facility where legacy hardware occasionally shows up. However, I am no hardliner, and most certainly not straight-edge. For me it is about using what I felt to be the right tool for the right job. For example, when I write these blog posts and articles I tend to use a Macbook. There are many reasons for this, such as the usage of TextEdit (spelling correction and it can be made to play nice with posting on RFG), it's portability (pretty light and rugged), and has "exclusivity" (meaning nothing will play on the dang thing, so fewer distractions). But I don't always write on the Macbook, sometimes tapping these articles out on my workstation laptop (instead of doing other work), my main gaming rig, or the "bench" laptop or even the Linux testing machine at my place of employment
This brings us to the second little "wrinkle" to this post, that being the way I'm playing my DOS games. I own these games in many different formats. Some are pure digital from the likes of GoG or Steam, and some are from compilation discs that were all the rage from the early 90's to the early 00's. I do have a few that are on floppy only, though I am always on the lookout for more. Cuz, you know, floppies rule and stuff.
So how does one play this variety of games? DOSBox, of course. Or more specifically, DOSBox with the DBGL front-end attached to it. To the uninitiated, a DOSBox front-end is basically a piece of software that makes the usage of the DOSBox emulator much easier, offering up the myriad of options normally hidden in command line as choices in drop-down menus or game specific text boxes. One of the biggest pulls of DBox front-ends was the ability to have different configs for different games, which doesn't happen in vanilla DOSBox normally (without writing a batch file), allowing one to play a variety of games of different genres and hardware requirements without having to change configurations and settings (such as sound or keymappers) as much. This kind of thing has fallen out of style since DOSBox games with proper configurations have popped up on GoG and Steam, each game with their own DOSBox emulator. I still use them (again, namely DBGL) because it is java specific and thus multi-platform, so whatever computer I have at my disposal for the moment, be it Linux, Mac, or Windows, I can always put a couple of minutes into a game. And this, dear friends, is how I am normally able to play some of these longer DOS games in a reasonable amount of time. But something happened as of late that kind of changed things a bit.
[img width=400 height=267]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c394/bombatomba77/24005665-7dcb-4789-a8b2-2edb7db1bcc9_zpsv4g9ho5n.jpg[/img]
I've had this setup for a while, but for some reason it never occurred to me to actually try an Ultima game on it. Simply put, it looks absolutely wonderful on this monitor. No doubt some of this is down to my love of old-style tile graphics (and Ultima V has some of the best), but I really have to point out the monitor. It is an old HP 15" SVGA monitor that I pulled from the scrap pile at work. Nothing special (it doesn't do CGA graphics, for example), but for some reason Ultima V looks awesome on it, no doubt due to the game being programmed with a CRT in mind. I think I spent twenty minutes tooling around in the first screen, enjoying the new character animations. So with that, I would like to offer up these words to our own ApolloBoy:
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-set/BQcDAAAAAwoDanBnAAAABC5vdXQKFmxwVjRTaUo3NEJHbG5rTzIyMVhFQlEAAAACaWQKAXgAAAAEc2l6ZQ.jpg[/img]
Pic from Polyvore
"Dude, you were totally right about using original displays. I realize at the time you were speaking specifically about console gaming, but I think the same holds true for old PC games as well. And if I hadn't been so bull-headed at the time regarding the "merits" of LCDs I would have realized this two (or more) years ago when I originally disagreed with you. You sir, are the man."
Needless to say I've added the computer in the picture (an old IBM 486) to the rotation (I just swap the save file using a 3.5" diskette), though sometimes when I am playing Ultima V on one of my other computers, I want to play it on the old HP monitor...
Well, that is all for now. Hopefully I can keep this "extra" blog up and running, if for no other reason than to have another outlet to yak on about stuff. If there is anything else you would like me to expound on please ask.
|
Gaming on old PC's is something I love the idea of but don't really have the space for. I certainly have the stuff for it (stacked neatly in the garage), though not enough as there is always more to get and different setups to aspire to 
Bomba and I have chatted before about setting up DOSBox and playing old games on new hardware.....It always makes me think of what our next house will be like, one were new and old machines will be set up, ready to play whatever game. (ie. one with more space)
In the meantime reading Bomba's writing and sometimes lurking on the vogons.org site, as well as also watching LGR on the Youtubes has to scratch that itch.
Playing games on different screens for different reasons - yes! Do this! While new is better in many cases, old can be fantastic too. If it weren't for the space they take up I would add a few more CRTs to the collection....anyways, glad you are doing this Bombatomba, both the writing and the playing on old hardware 
|
|
As an IT professional and self-described "computer nerd", I used to have a basement full of old PC hardware that I wanted to eventually set up for playing old games, etc. A few years back, I realized I was never going to have the space to set up the kind of workstation I wanted to, and my old Packard-Bell, IBM PS/2, and other systems I had were never going to get used again, so I let all that stuff go. As sad as it was, I just couldn't justify keeping it any longer. However, in addition to DOSBox and modern GoG/Steam versions, there's also virtual machines, like VirtualPC and that sort of technology that you can use to run Windows XP, and older operating systems, so you can play some of these other games in an environment that emulates something similar to what would have been good hardware at that time. I've debated paying for certain games again on GoG or Steam, versus spending the time to tool something like DOSBox to play them, and I often come down to just buying an updated version on the cheap for the sake of convenience. But some stuff will likely never get re-released, so having these tools to help make that stuff accessible again is always great.
|
|
@nupoile: LGR! I partially blame him for my increase in computer hardware love. Can't blame it all of him, though, as I don't see him shelling out for old iBook laptops (which I do). Having this sort of "itch" does take up a lot of room, not only to store it but to make it easy to play in case of "emergencies" while also not looking like a computer scrap truck dumped a load of trash in my basement. Sadly that is the last of my CRTs (not counting the one in my arcade cabinet), and will likely be my last (unless I find an old EGA or maybe CGA one day). Anyway, thanks for commenting, nup.
@MetalFRO: I'm relatively new to the computer hardware scene, so I've yet to have a great "purge" of hardware. Well, I've thrown away some CRT monitors, but I guess I only really need one functional one (unless it does earlier video adapter standards, that is). Like you, I have found a lot of use in alternative systems, and considering the amount of hardware one needs to actually play the breadth of computer gaming history, it is a necessary evil. Strike that, a necessity (nothing to be ashamed of). While emulation can't cover everything (and each generally has a strong downside), it does help out quite a bit. For example, I really love the old game, Round 42, but the reality of playing it is difficult on real hardware (as it requires a CGA display). DOSbox lets me play it on a semi-regular basis without owning an old AT class computer and a rare CGA monitor. You know, I've been wanting to do some sort of "hardware vs/or emulation" article for a while, but have abandoned in favor of more "gamey" articles (that generally bring in more commentors). Maybe I should pick up my notes again at some point and try again. I also truck quite a bit with the "new" old games on GoG and Steam mainly for the same reason (convenience and cost). But, I like to move the games so they are playable on either DOSbox (withe DBGL or D-fend Reloaded) or on one of my main "old" PCs. Still can't get around the sound issues (specifically with the Roland stuff) though. Once you hear that amazing MIDI music it is difficult to go back to just Sound Blaster. Thanks for commenting, FRO!
|
