• Gateway Astro 1999 PC

    From Nate Allen@3:633/280.2 to All on Wed Oct 11 12:25:52 2023
    I acquired the PC named in the subject and was getting it back to good condition. I found all the drivers for Windows 98 SE and found a USB to
    NIC driver that I had that still had drivers for 9x. I was playing
    around with Protoweb and other retro legacy internet emulators. For the
    moment I am simply doing legacy games that don't require much memory (platforms and simple FPS). I tried Tiny Core Linux but that was useless
    when paired with such limited hardware. This is a cautionary tale of
    trying to recreate the past, you see it for what it is and not what it
    felt like.

    I asked those on vogons.org what to do with it, maybe suggest some games
    I hadn't played or run era period software.

    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Kerr-Mudd, John@3:633/280.2 to All on Wed Oct 11 19:18:44 2023
    :
    On Tue, 10 Oct 2023 21:25:52 -0400
    Nate Allen <josha12@googlemail.com> wrote:

    I acquired the PC named in the subject and was getting it back to good condition. I found all the drivers for Windows 98 SE and found a USB to
    NIC driver that I had that still had drivers for 9x. I was playing
    around with Protoweb and other retro legacy internet emulators. For the moment I am simply doing legacy games that don't require much memory (platforms and simple FPS). I tried Tiny Core Linux but that was useless when paired with such limited hardware. This is a cautionary tale of
    trying to recreate the past, you see it for what it is and not what it
    felt like.

    Browsing the internet is getting fraught, even with a Windows XP PC. Lots
    of websites have been "updated" with scripted stuff that won't work
    anymore.


    I asked those on vogons.org what to do with it, maybe suggest some games
    I hadn't played or run era period software.

    retro-coding?

    DOS games. I have an interest in small (e.g.256 byte) ones. Tetris,snake,pong,invaders

    Bigger:
    Most of the Windmill titles: Digger, Zaxxon?
    Commander Keen
    v. Tombraider
    Windows
    Minesweeper
    Pinball
    Jezzball
    Boxworld
    Peggle
    Plants v Zombies
    Slay

    Bigger again:
    Duke Nukem 3D (or the eduke32 rewrite for later machines)



    and of course any number of text adventures

    --
    Bah, and indeed Humbug.

    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: Dis (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Bozo User@3:633/280.2 to All on Fri Oct 13 22:20:50 2023
    On 2023-10-11, Nate Allen <josha12@googlemail.com> wrote:
    I acquired the PC named in the subject and was getting it back to good condition. I found all the drivers for Windows 98 SE and found a USB to
    NIC driver that I had that still had drivers for 9x. I was playing
    around with Protoweb and other retro legacy internet emulators. For the moment I am simply doing legacy games that don't require much memory (platforms and simple FPS). I tried Tiny Core Linux but that was useless when paired with such limited hardware. This is a cautionary tale of
    trying to recreate the past, you see it for what it is and not what it
    felt like.

    I asked those on vogons.org what to do with it, maybe suggest some games
    I hadn't played or run era period software.

    Get Retrozilla from https://www.piteusz.ovh/files/windows/9x-nt/
    so you can read at least some news over HTTP/gopher and
    lots of news sites:

    http://68k.news
    gopher://magical.fish

    Adblock will be useful too, maybe this XPI https://www.piteusz.ovh/files/windows/9x-nt/adblock_plus-1.0.2.xpi
    will work, if not, get this hosts file, uncompress it and
    double click on the bat file:

    https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.zip

    For gaming, get WinFrotz for Windows98 to play decent, modernish
    text adventures, surpassing even the old Infocom ones:

    https://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/WinFrotzR53.zip

    And here there are lots of games.

    https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXgamesXzcode.html

    Among the best ones, there are Anchorhead (close to Alone in the
    dark in text mode but with better ambientation); Spider and Web
    cool if you like Memento/Metal Gear like stories; All Thing Devours,
    a scifi time-travelling puzzle ; Entangled (another one, but
    less scientific); : Vicioys Cicles,
    Curses! and its sequel Jigsaw;
    Spiritwrak...



    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)