25 Jan
2008
25 Jan
'08
11:02 a.m.
Hi Folks,
I just got off the phone with a very nice gentlemen from Amersham
who's trying to get an old PC program (on 3.5" media) going on his
modern PC system. He's run into one of the copy-protection schemes
that worked fine under MS-DOS but not under 2K or XP. I suspect that
one of the copy-protection-defeating programs may be just what he
needs.
Any help I can offer will be at a distance of 5000 miles. I was
wondering if anyone on that side of the Atlantic might be willing to
help out.
Drop me a line if you're interested and I'll put you in touch.
Thanks much,
Chuck
25 Jan
25 Jan
11:16 a.m.
2008/1/25, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com>:
trying to get an old PC program (on 3.5" media)
going on his
modern PC system. He's run into one of the copy-protection schemes
that worked fine under MS-DOS but not under 2K or XP.
DOSBox sends its regards.
Thanks much,
Chuck
11:47 a.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
Quick question - can DOSbox handle older PC programs that were meant to
run on old AT 8mhz speed machines? I've got a lot of the Atarisoft IBM
game titles on 5.25"s and they run insanely fast on a modern PC, I'd
like to be able to run them at a properly throttled speed.
Curt
from at fu3.org wrote:
2008/1/25, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com>:
trying to get an old PC program (on 3.5"
media) going on his
modern PC system. He's run into one of the copy-protection schemes
that worked fine under MS-DOS but not under 2K or XP.
DOSBox sends its regards.
Thanks much,
Chuck
12:47 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
On Fri, 2008-01-25 at 14:47 -0500, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Quick question - can DOSbox handle older PC programs
that were meant to
run on old AT 8mhz speed machines? I've got a lot of the Atarisoft IBM
game titles on 5.25"s and they run insanely fast on a modern PC, I'd
like to be able to run them at a properly throttled speed.
If not, I'm sure you can modify it to do so.
Gordon
2:40 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Quick question - can DOSbox handle older PC programs
that were meant to
run on old AT 8mhz speed machines? I've got a lot of the Atarisoft IBM
game titles on 5.25"s and they run insanely fast on a modern PC, I'd
like to be able to run them at a properly throttled speed.
Yes. In fact, myself and a few others have done significant work trying
to get CGA properly emulated (composite CGA emulation is pretty damn
close to the original; some tweaked modes work as well). It can even
boot bootable diskette images (as long as copy protection is absent).
The problem you may encounter with a fixed-speed game is that it is very
hard to dial the number of cycles per second to get a "nice" 4.77MHz
speed. DOSBOX is not cycle-exact, and some things (like memory
operations) are *much* faster than on the real hardware. The best you
can do is to run some sort of looping benchmark (a benchmark that
displays results repeated) and then use ctrl-f11 and ctrl-f12 to dial
the cycles up and down until you get what you want. I have found a
cycle setting of 233 most closely emulates a 4.77MHz machine, but it
depends on the game as to how faithful it is to the original.
To my knowledge, there are no 100% cycle-exact early PC emulators.
Tand-Em is very close, but a hassle to run; MESS is also close, so you
might want to check that as well.
One thing DOSBOX can do for you is "fix" the older games. Some older
games simply run too slowly on a 4.77MHz machine to be enjoyable, like
some 3-D titles like Vette! or Starglider 2. For those, you can just
speed the machine up a little bit and try running the game again until
get you get a comfortable framerate.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
2:46 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
Jim,
Perhaps you could assist a little bit further, since, you working on
the DOSbox emulator. I am looking for some old DOS based Copy
Protection bypass tools as the Atari disks are copy protected so as not
to be able to read the directories on the disk and/or the disk giving a
read error. The disks will only work if they are booted up directly
on post and directly go into the games, they can't be f6'd or f8'd to
break them, its very odd, so I would like to make copies of the disks so
they don't go bad and I lose the games, but more importantly so I can
copy the contents to a directory that I can mount through DOSbox and
access and run the games, so your assistance on pointing me to a good
DOS copy protection disk resource would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Curt
Jim Leonard wrote:
Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Quick question - can DOSbox handle older PC
programs that were meant
to run on old AT 8mhz speed machines? I've got a lot of the
Atarisoft IBM game titles on 5.25"s and they run insanely fast on a
modern PC, I'd like to be able to run them at a properly throttled
speed.
Yes. In fact, myself and a few others have done significant work
trying to get CGA properly emulated (composite CGA emulation is pretty
damn close to the original; some tweaked modes work as well). It can
even boot bootable diskette images (as long as copy protection is
absent).
The problem you may encounter with a fixed-speed game is that it is
very hard to dial the number of cycles per second to get a "nice"
4.77MHz speed. DOSBOX is not cycle-exact, and some things (like
memory operations) are *much* faster than on the real hardware. The
best you can do is to run some sort of looping benchmark (a benchmark
that displays results repeated) and then use ctrl-f11 and ctrl-f12 to
dial the cycles up and down until you get what you want. I have found
a cycle setting of 233 most closely emulates a 4.77MHz machine, but it
depends on the game as to how faithful it is to the original.
To my knowledge, there are no 100% cycle-exact early PC emulators.
Tand-Em is very close, but a hassle to run; MESS is also close, so you
might want to check that as well.
One thing DOSBOX can do for you is "fix" the older games. Some older
games simply run too slowly on a 4.77MHz machine to be enjoyable, like
some 3-D titles like Vette! or Starglider 2. For those, you can just
speed the machine up a little bit and try running the game again until
get you get a comfortable framerate.
6:50 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Perhaps you could assist a little bit further,
since, you working on
the DOSbox emulator. I am looking for some old DOS based Copy
Protection bypass tools as the Atari disks are copy protected so as not
to be able to read the directories on the disk and/or the disk giving a
read error. The disks will only work if they are booted up directly
on post and directly go into the games, they can't be f6'd or f8'd to
break them, its very odd, so I would like to make copies of the disks so
they don't go bad and I lose the games, but more importantly so I can
copy the contents to a directory that I can mount through DOSbox and
access and run the games, so your assistance on pointing me to a good
DOS copy protection disk resource would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Those disks are all booters (ie. they contain a small boot loader and
boot themselves -- no DOS needed, and they're not DOS-readable disks).
The only way to make backups are:
- Central Point Option Board (hardware copying solution)
- CopyIIPC or CopyWrite (software-based copying programs)
- for some games, Teledisk can copy them (ducking a tomato thrown by Chuck!)
- Ask me nicely for a diskette image of the game(s) in question where
the copy-protection has been removed
Option #4 is probably what you want, and should be made off-list.
PS: I own all the Atarisoft PC booters ;-)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
7:02 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
Dosbox sounds exciting so I gave it a try. I have a high end graphics program TOPAS that
requires EMS. It fails and also, the mem command reports 0 kb free expanded memory.
The config file has the default memsize=16
What am I doing wrong?
Randy
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:50:39 -0600
From: trixter at oldskool.org
To: General at mail.mobygames.com
CC:
Subject: Re: DOSBox...
Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live.
http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008
Perhaps you could assist a little bit further,
since, you working on
the DOSbox emulator. I am looking for some old DOS based Copy
Protection bypass tools as the Atari disks are copy protected so as not
to be able to read the directories on the disk and/or the disk giving a
read error. The disks will only work if they are booted up directly
on post and directly go into the games, they can't be f6'd or f8'd to
break them, its very odd, so I would like to make copies of the disks so
they don't go bad and I lose the games, but more importantly so I can
copy the contents to a directory that I can mount through DOSbox and
access and run the games, so your assistance on pointing me to a good
DOS copy protection disk resource would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Those disks are all booters (ie. they contain a small boot loader and
boot themselves -- no DOS needed, and they're not DOS-readable disks).
The only way to make backups are:
- Central Point Option Board (hardware copying solution)
- CopyIIPC or CopyWrite (software-based copying programs)
- for some games, Teledisk can copy them (ducking a tomato thrown by Chuck!)
- Ask me nicely for a diskette image of the game(s) in question where
the copy-protection has been removed
Option #4 is probably what you want, and should be made off-list.
PS: I own all the Atarisoft PC booters ;-)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
7:31 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
yea, but I fixed that years ago two ways:
First reverse engineered the dongle, it was a simple cmos counter and after xxx pulses out
the paralel port it kicked one back
Later we patched it.
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:16:25 -0600
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
From: jfoust at threedee.com
Subject: RE: DOSBox...
At 09:02 PM 1/25/2008, Randy Dawson wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live.
http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008
Dosbox sounds exciting so I gave it a try. I have
a high end graphics program TOPAS that requires EMS. It fails and also, the mem command
reports 0 kb free expanded memory.
Topas had a dongle, no?
- John
7:29 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
Answered my own question. You have to specify the dosbox.conf on the command line.
However my TOPAS app still does not work, I can configure it for the following vga video
drivers:
everex16
orchid
paradise
also the At&T (Truevision) boards
targa
vista
and number nine
none of them work ;(
Back to Maya... TOPAS was a really cool program in its day, I was the rep, it sold for 11
grand, and I had no problem selling it.
The AT&T graphics labs test routine reports some amazing statistics:
Floating point 195% of compaq 20mhz
integer 105% of compaq 20mhz
From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:02:07 -0600
Subject: RE: DOSBox...
Dosbox sounds exciting so I gave it a try. I have a high end graphics program TOPAS that
requires EMS. It fails and also, the mem command reports 0 kb free expanded memory.
The config file has the default memsize=16
What am I doing wrong?
Randy
_________________________________________________________________
Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser!
http://biggestloser.msn.com/
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:50:39 -0600
From: trixter at oldskool.org
To: General at mail.mobygames.com
CC:
Subject: Re: DOSBox...
Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live.
http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 Perhaps you could assist a little bit further,
since, you working on
the DOSbox emulator. I am looking for some old DOS based Copy
Protection bypass tools as the Atari disks are copy protected so as not
to be able to read the directories on the disk and/or the disk giving a
read error. The disks will only work if they are booted up directly
on post and directly go into the games, they can't be f6'd or f8'd to
break them, its very odd, so I would like to make copies of the disks so
they don't go bad and I lose the games, but more importantly so I can
copy the contents to a directory that I can mount through DOSbox and
access and run the games, so your assistance on pointing me to a good
DOS copy protection disk resource would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Those disks are all booters (ie. they contain a small boot loader and
boot themselves -- no DOS needed, and they're not DOS-readable disks).
The only way to make backups are:
- Central Point Option Board (hardware copying solution)
- CopyIIPC or CopyWrite (software-based copying programs)
- for some games, Teledisk can copy them (ducking a tomato thrown by Chuck!)
- Ask me nicely for a diskette image of the game(s) in question where
the copy-protection has been removed
Option #4 is probably what you want, and should be made off-list.
PS: I own all the Atarisoft PC booters ;-)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
8:40 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
Randy Dawson wrote:
Answered my own question. You have to specify the
dosbox.conf on the command line.
However my TOPAS app still does not work, I can configure it for the following vga video
drivers:
everex16
orchid
paradise
also the At&T (Truevision) boards
targa
vista
and number nine
DOSBOX was engineered primarily for playing games, so while it
definitely supports VGA and all of its various tweaks, it only has Tseng
and S3 and I think VESA emulation support at the moment. Can you
configure TOPAS for VESA?
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
10:07 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
I think I will hack on this for a while, since we have the source to dosbox.
I will make it work...
I wonder if I can release it, it was abandoned by AT&T, but the owners were Crystal
Graphics.
Randy
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:40:40 -0600
From: trixter at oldskool.org
To: General at mail.mobygames.com
CC:
Subject: Re: DOSBox...
Randy Dawson wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join
Answered my own question. You have to specify
the dosbox.conf on the command line.
However my TOPAS app still does not work, I can configure it for the following vga video
drivers:
everex16
orchid
paradise
also the At&T (Truevision) boards
targa
vista
and number nine
DOSBOX was engineered primarily for playing games, so while it
definitely supports VGA and all of its various tweaks, it only has Tseng
and S3 and I think VESA emulation support at the moment. Can you
configure TOPAS for VESA?
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
26 Jan
26 Jan
1:21 a.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
Randy Dawson wrote:
I think I will hack on this for a while, since we have
the source to dosbox.
I will make it work...
Well, you'll be adding graphics chipset emulation drivers, which is not
trivial. If you do get a new chipset added, please contribute your code
to the source maintainer.
Unless you are extremely well versed in the AT&T targa/vista boards, I
wouldn't even try to add those to DOSBOX :-) I think Paradise is your
best bet.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
2:05 a.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
I am extremely well versed thank you. I did write for these targa bords for years, its
almost 20 years ago. How much time I can apply to the problem is the random factor.
Hey its fun!
Randy
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 03:21:46 -0600
From: trixter at oldskool.org
To: General at mail.mobygames.com
CC:
Subject: Re: DOSBox...
Randy Dawson wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail?-get your
"fix".
http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx
I think I will hack on this for a while, since we
have the source to dosbox.
I will make it work...
Well, you'll be adding graphics chipset emulation drivers, which is not
trivial. If you do get a new chipset added, please contribute your code
to the source maintainer.
Unless you are extremely well versed in the AT&T targa/vista boards, I
wouldn't even try to add those to DOSBOX :-) I think Paradise is your
best bet.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ 
7:35 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
And thusly were the wise words spake by Jim Leonard
One thing DOSBOX can do for you is "fix" the older games. Some older
games simply run too slowly on a 4.77MHz machine to be enjoyable, like
some 3-D titles like Vette! or Starglider 2. For those, you can just
Ack! Why play the DOS version of Starglider 2 when the Amiga version
is soo much nicer looking? ;)
speed the machine up a little bit and try running the
game again until
get you get a comfortable framerate.
Cheers,
Bryan
8:24 p.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
Bryan Pope wrote:
And thusly were the wise words spake by Jim Leonard
Actually, Starglider 2 looks and plays better on the PC than Amiga ;) A
386 w/VGA outperforms the Amiga version.
Cinemaware games have some of the best CGA graphics I've ever seen, but
they quite obviously pale to the Amiga originals. Ironically, the PC
versions were made much easier than the Amiga, something I found odd. I
finished Rocket Ranger and Defender of the Crown on PC, but the Amiga
versions kicked my ass.
This is OT so we should take it off-list.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
One thing DOSBOX can do for you is
"fix" the older games. Some older
games simply run too slowly on a 4.77MHz machine to be enjoyable, like
some 3-D titles like Vette! or Starglider 2. For those, you can just
Ack! Why play the DOS version of Starglider 2 when the Amiga version
is soo much nicer looking? ;) 
27 Jan
27 Jan
8:29 a.m.
New subject: DOSBox...
At 10:24 PM 1/26/2008, Jim Leonard wrote:
Actually, Starglider 2 looks and plays better on the PC
than Amiga ;) A 386 w/VGA outperforms the Amiga version.
Jez San received the Order of the British Empire in 2002 for
his work in computer games - the first for that industry.
Now he's behind www.pkr.com .
- John
6179
days inactive
6181
days old
17 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
bpope＠wordstock.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
curt＠atarimuseum.com -
fu3.org＠gmail.com -
gordonjcp＠gjcp.net -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
rdawson16＠hotmail.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org