Hello everybody :D Ever since I registered I've been brousing this excellent forum. It seems to have everything I love.

Let me tell you a bit about myself:

I am an old man now...nearing 70, so I suppose I am the oldest here? Am a retired teacher, have been around the world quite a bit though never crossed the Atlantic (had planned but circumstances prevented me).

Became a computer game addict way back in the early 80s...first one that my younger son got (computer) was a small one with builtin monitor (BW) and keyboard, and you had to insert a dislette to boot it up etc. Never liked it until we got a real PC with glorious 4 colour (CGA) 5.25" bootable floppies, no MS-DOS or Windows. Then onto better and bigger stuff. But they were great days :ok:

My late wife, four kids and I used to have in-family competetions.

I have most of the games listed at Abandonia on the big floppies but unfortunately the 5.25" drive has ended its life leaving me high and dry. Luckily I have discovered the abandonware site.

See you all again.

Regards! :bye:

Welcome! :bye:

Welcome to the forum! :bye:
If you still have those big floppies (I remember even bigger ones - as big as a LP record) maybe you could get an old 5.25'' drive at some old computer repair shop (I had a lot of luck and got two that way - people brought in some old computers, but never bothered to pick them up after they have been repaired).

:kosta: :kosta: :kosta:



Welcome!!! :bye: :cheers:

Welcome!
I guess your nick has a good reason behind it ;)

Welcome :bye:
Picard will be happy,when he will see your avatar LOL

OMG.. a REAL classic gamer... I'm honoured :)

Ahh this is a very good sign. I almost gave up hope that people beyond a certain age would ever understand the joy of computer gaming.. well, at least no one in my family does. And it's especially good since I'm pretty sure I'll still be playing these games when I'm over 70 years old :ok:

Welcome :bye: Glad to have you have you here.

aloha

you avatar was used by the picard a while back.. damn now I'll start calling you picard instead of grand dad ^_^

Welcome, welcome, welcome!
Have a drink on me :cheers:

Very cool wise-man! :bye:

Thanks a lot all of you...reading all that has made me lacrimose...sentimental oldie, same as the oldies I still love playing. :ok:

I've found quite a few of the old DOS games on Abandonia...thanks to them or the person who owns it :cheers:

Betrayal at Krondon doesn't seem to be working - once I unzip it? :help:

See you soon.

Happy Questing!

u tried running it in dfend?

Nice to see even older generations appreciate the wonders of classic gaming.

As for your certain trouble with BAK, can you tell first what OS are you running? Is it DOS or some type of Windows? Because most of the games in here were created with DOS in mind, and thus for running them on Win- equipped systems you will need an emulator or a dual boot partition with DOS being second system.

Unfortunately, for the sake of my life I could not tell how to do a dual boot partition, so let's go on the first case. Windows. Windows is not the same like DOS (altough there were some Windows versions that were just GUI's loaded on top of DOS). Its drivers work differently, especially since the dawn of DirectX technology. More recent versions are also completely uncompatibile with some (read: most) DOS programs, requiring an emulator to work.

Enter the DosBox. DosBox (site at dosbox.sourceforge.net) is a program that emulates not just DOS. It emulates an entire 486 class PC with DOS and appropriate sound and video emulation, in effect giving perfect compatibility with old DOS programs. Unfortunately, the second side to that are its hardware requirements - 1,5 GhZ processor recommended, 2 + for games using protected mode.

It is thanks to DosBox that I have been able to enjoy many old games again on my new hardware after the old 486 went down and dead last year.
Try it, you will not be disappointed.

Nice to see older generation gamers! (makes me less look as geek :))

Here is Abandonia's goide how to set-up and use DOSBox. I'm working on add-on to this tutorial, which will explain how to set up D-Fend, DOSBox's front end.

If you have any questions or problems, just post in troubleshooting sub-forum, and we will try to help.

:bye:

Thanks both of you, - - horseman and Anubis, for your offer. I am sure you've read my intro. I have graduated from IBM bootable OS to MS-DOS 3(?) to 6.2 and Win3 to the latest, albeit I have had to go back to Win98 as my DOS based games didn't work properly on XP. Currently I have an Intel Pentium 4...frankly I don't remember the exact mem. of the Processor but I believe it's 2GB.

I have downloaded the sound emulator from Abandonia and can reboot from a floppy in DOS mode as the mother-board doesn't allow direct reboot from the Start programme.

I still play my old, old DOS based games (CGA & EGA) from the MS-DOS Prompt of Windows, except a couple such as Beneath the Steel Sky.

I've seeing people being advised to use DOSBox but till BAK I haven't had any other game. Honestly I don't know the functions of the DOSbox, hence my reluctance!

Hajimemashite, Ojii-san ^_^

It's nice to have you here, I'm sure you'll add a lot of wisdom to our little home :kosta: :D

You sire, greatly touched my heart. :angel:

I bow to you and as a tribute to your gaming experience offer you an unlimited FTP server access to the world's largest abandonware library. :ranting:

Check PM for details.. :ok:

:band:

Basically DOSBox perfectly emulates MS-DOS - so you should be perfectly comfortable with it.

Here's what I did and it works just like my old 386 with MS-DOS 5.0 & Win 3.11e (only much much smoother).

Once you download and install DOSBox just add these lines at the end of it's config file (it's found with the link to run DOSBox):
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount c d:\games
mount d e:\ -t cdrom
c:

This is simular to editing the autoexec.bat in old DOS. Now the computer thinks that drive D: is your CD-ROM drive and whatever you had in folder games is on your harddisk marked as C: (if your HD isn't drive D or if you have your game folders anywhere else then d:\games just change the path accordingly - the same applies if your CD-ROM is a drive other then E).

OK and there you have it. Run DOSBox and you're in good old DOS - which works normally under WinXP. If you need to speed up use ctrl+F12 if you need to slow down use ctrl+F11. If you want the full screen option use alt+enter. If you want to exit either go out the full screen (alt+enter again) and close the DOSBox window - or exit the game and type EXIT.

Enjoy!

Hello, Grand Dad.
I'm Stroggy, the nicest and most helpful member on abandonia.com!

enjoy your stay!

well as long as there's someone new to talk to Im happy ^_^
so welcome one, welcome all.

what makes you think anybody wants to talk to you :sneaky:

uhm.. ok, so really i mean reply to their posts and get a higher postcount, but they're ususally original people.
like grand dad ^_^

...
I think that says it all... Please don't start spamming here!

...
I think that says it all [/b][/quote]
Indeed, I prevent people from thinking they're more important than others, i'm really THAT good and considerate.

true, respect to the new guy! may his ship never run out of dilithium!

what makes you think anybody wants to talk to you :sneaky: [/b][/quote]
which was preceded by

Heh, I like the way that one worked out.....

Welcome to you who have come to Abandonia. Anything is possible at Abandonia, anything at all. The only limit is.... yourself!

One free unspecified object to whoever can determine what I'm clumsily attempting to parody.

Well, let me say that DosBox is much, much better for running old stuff - none of these speed issues that can be encountered so often.

As Sebastianos already said, the DosBox works all the way round like Ms-Dos, up to and including the commands (standard Dos set plus a few others specific only for DB). It's more like Dos 6.x then Dos 7.x, though, so there is no LFN support. You can use a dedicated directory on your hard drive and through the MOUNT command make DosBox read this directory as its C:\ drive (or any other letter you prefer). There is a part on the very end of DosBox.conf labeled "Autoexec", which in all respect works like the Dos Autoexec.bat. You can pre-define there drives and directories mounted at the startup, as well as the standard set like going to a specific drive, opening a certain directory and so on. DB even supports Norton Commander, I checked! :cheers:

Also, DosBox offers you a slew of options concerning the emulated hardware itself. From a wide array of graphics cards (EGA, CGA, VGA, SVGA) to sound cards (Adlib, several breeds of Sound Blaster and many more) to RAM (you can set a specific number of MB's the emulator has - good since certain games act oddly on higher values and you can adjust this feature to counter that) plus also it can emulate network cards and/or modems. Basically, if the default set of values does not work for you, you can always alter it until you are satisfied.
Word of advice - as soon as you install DosBox, change the soundcard emulation setting to sb1 (Sound Blaster 1), as the default Sound Blaster Pro 2 does not work for some old titles.

Now pleas excuse me, I have to return to Space Hulk. :Brain:

Is that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or am I way out?

He's using my Avatar :boxing: . Well, welcome anyway.

Hello Grandad! I'm Jet, the Grandson you'll never want :D

Welcome. Enjoy the Picard's avatar. He lost that right when he changed into Niles :bleh:


Poor Romano is no longer the oldest member :D


Anyways. Have fun.

zombocom?

Omegosh! I am honestly overwhelmed :D . Wish I could reply individually to all of you for your lovely welcome! And I am really and truly happy to be with all.

Picard is my favourite character in Star Trek after Spock that is!

The lil Gal...sorry I can't recall the login name...wants my wisdom in the house. I need to learn so much more from you all. Believe me I have learnt so much more from my students, children and grand-children than I did from books. I won't say teachers because it was due to their guidance that I became what I am. But I what little I know you are welcome to ask! :ok:

Right then I'll download DOSBox soon as I can.

It was Ro Laren that I liked most. :rolleyes:

My favourite... Chekov!

I guess data's my favorite; I never had the privilege of being able to watch the old series :tai: .

Spock is cool ^_^

I liked Han Solo.... LOL :bleh: :tomato:
-running away from angry mob- :ph34r:

Heh Solo was good, always had the traits in a character that I liked when watching,yeah.

She's not THAT little - older than most members here, anyway.

As far as Star Trek goes, I saw an episode of TNG the other day accidentally and it reminded me how much I hate it I'm afraid. The plots, the acting, the set design, the way it's the same every single week, the depression...

Ah TNG isn't so bad, it's prob one of the best that there was, there were some down episodes, but it was all good stuff imo, Voyager on the other hand was one of the worst series I have ever seen from Star trek, I cringe every time I see it.

You haven't seen the new series, have you?

I am new here i only joined yesterday but this place is cool

zombocom? [/b][/quote]
Congratulations, you win nothing, as I have nothing to give.

Welcome :cheers:

welcome!

Yeah, now is a better thing to welcome YOU.

So welcome YOU. :ok:

In my opinion the original Star Trek is still the best, followed by the Next Generation...I didn't much like The Enterprise or The Voyager.

Aha I hear they are making a new Star Wars? Alas Alec Guiness is no more there!

Sorry The Picard...didn't know you were using the Avatar...why don't we share it? :D


Happy Gaming!

Picard once used this avatar - but since then he changed his mind about it, so when he changed it to the one he uses now (or was there one or two between), his ex-avatar went to the public pool.

What about Deep Space 9? IT was partly brilliant :w00t: and partly crap :not_ok: .

It was dull - they got rid of the interesting "exploring the universe" bit and had that oh-so-exciting "sitting around near a wormhole waiting for things to happen and trying to keep an eye on those damn ugly Ferenghi" bit instead.

Dax was hot though.

On the other hand they finally spent enough time at one place for people to get to know it (a completely different planet and its colture...).

I did not just use the avatar I made it, but you can use it now.

i love the original movies, the motion picture took on board the 2001 style (the ships moving so s l o w l y) which i thought was brave seeing how close to star wars it came out, wrath of khan rules i put on the dvd if im feeling down, search for spock was cool but its hard to follow on wrath of khan i think, voyage home is a nice bit of light hearted entertainment. the final frontier i liked, the critics (an some fans) lambast it but i like. the undiscovered country, defiantly my faveorate, odd how when the bbc show it they always cut out the scooby doo ending (admiral in a mask) as for the next gen movies. my opinion isnt so great.

i agree with you on voyager, janeway was so abrasive, her voice makes me feel like scratching nails on a chalkboard, (it had some moments tho, the borg were the stars of that 1)

deep space 9 i loved t o t a l space opera (as in trad opera rather than soap) interstella war + death of a daughter and love interest + person in contact with the gods. was great stuff in my opinion. im glad no one has come on the side of enterprise. i feel it spits in the face of true trek fans (the first time i heard that theme my skin crawled)

whats your fave trek movie grand_dad? (and others)

I love the old movies, the very first movie's my favorite.

I loved DS9 too, although I was pretty much alone in that opinion in my family.

I've seen very few Star Trek movies, three or four, I think the best was the one in which Kirk and Scottie join up the Enterprise, then there was the one in there are three Enterprises in different time zones, sorry I can't recall their names!

Those I refered to earlier were the TV serials :ok:

Thanks for your permision, my friend! :D

If there had been a Spock avatar I'd have used it.

If you don't mind this picture being static you can use it!

Welcome!

Welcome party has gone on long enough :)

Closing the topis as it has been open long enough in my humble opinion.