|
If you like bad displays it sounds like that Hand 386 thing is right up your alley. e: retro computer snype
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 04:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 19:44 |
|
|
I'm probably repeating myself from the past, but for me real hardware is important. I like demo scene stuff and when a new super impressive demo comes out and I see it on youtube or an emulator, it isn't as cool as actually running it on an old C64 or Amiga. Especially when there's some new trick that should not be possible.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 11:53
|
|
|
8 bit PC keyboards are significantly different from the IBM PS/2 that we all see today. Thing is, most games are going to start straight from boot. So, if you’re emulating, you have a game pad plugged into your PC, and you’re almost never going to touch the keyboard. The second you get into non game software, you’re required to use the keyboard and if you’re emulating you’re always going to be mapping between your IBM and that original keyboard.That’s definitely a lot of points in favor of actual hardware. The C64 and spectrum keys are covered with little glyphs and function overrides that don’t have PC equivalents. Personally I don’t have space for old PCs so the next best thing is installing the OSes and poking around the productivity software or interacting with the shell. Re: Demos Right - they’re not interactive, functionally they’re videos. There’s no sense of “This is being generated live in front of you. Commercial games only scratched the surface of what was possible” If I had the time, I’d like to have a table at a retro game con like Portland or Milwaukee with an Everdrive full of Genesis or SNES demos. Most demos on YouTube only have a few thousand views and the general public doesn’t know or actively seek these out.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 13:44
|
|
|
For me, real hardware is important just because every micro from that era has a different keyboard layout and emulating them comfortably has and will likely always remain a huge pain in the rear end Like, look at this poo poo:  e: f,b & also  Coffee Jones posted:8 bit PC keyboards are significantly different from the IBM PS/2 that we all see today. Thing is, most games are going to start straight from boot. So, if you’re emulating, you have a game pad plugged into your PC, and you’re almost never going to touch the keyboard.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 13:58
|
|
I think it’s a successor to the ZX81 keyboard I suppose there’s a certain logic in including every keyword in their flavor of BASIC as a dedicated alternate key combo. It looks like they intended coding in BASIC to be the primary purpose of the system, just like how a Symbolics LISP machine (see space cadet keyboard) is dedicated to coding in LISP along with a few system functions. Who among us hasn’t wished for a dedicated Arc Tangent button? Apple //e had a cleaner board that more closely resembles what we have today, and typing into an apple II emulator is more likely than not going to produce the characters you want, but there’s still weirdness.  : “I’ve swapped floppies and I want to reboot without power cycling - how do I do that?” “Open Apple - Control - Reset”: “Uh…”In other news - The Insert Credit Podcast (with Frank Cifaldi, The Red Eye on here with the Alice and Ape III avatar ) has a few words on old game archives for various systems. And they had a few words on the learning curve of getting old systems running and how much you need to interact with this or that thirty-years-dead computer ecosystem … (sometimes in Japanese) in order to get your games running. https://insertcredit.com/show/293/ I spent a little bit of time trying to get digital sound effects running in Dune 2 (voice effects “Harkonnen Forces Approaching!”) on my MISTer, but gave up. Sometimes digital sounds get patched out by warez crews so it could fit on fewer floppies when downloaded from leet warez BBS at 9600 baud.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 17:25
|
|
|
Coffee Jones posted:I think it’s a successor to the ZX81 keyboard It is, but it's even funkier than that. They figured since before the Spectrum+ they didn't actually have real keys (just either rubber buttons like you'd find on a TV remote or, in the case of the ZX81 and ZX80, painted rectangles on a flat sheet of plastic), they'd spare you the pain of typing in your keywords. Every key has a dedicated BASIC keyword. It wasn't until the Spectrum 128 when their basic let you type in your keywords letter-by-letter. The Sinclair family of computers is an entire loving mess. Mind boggling that they lasted well into the nineties.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 17:39
|
|
|
wolrah posted:I like the idea of original hardware on paper, but I also really like modern displays, modern input devices, modern storage media, etc. It gets expensive when every additional platform means a new set of adapters, DIYing, and sometimes even hardware modifications to make the original hardware operate as close as possible to the idealized version my nostalgia remembers. I don't want to be dealing with floppy disks, waiting on old hard disks, have to juggle installed games, etc. even while I do want to push that chunky AT power button. Example: My first computer was an Apple IIGS. I still have it, and everything for it, in original boxes no less. But I've also not acquired anything "new" for it since replacing the ADB keyboard in 1993. Back in the mid-00s I setup the KEGS emulator with an emulated hard disk and was able to download software I had no means of acquiring 18 years earlier. One of the things I did was download Asimov and GS Shrink IT, and--borrowing a classic Mac (which I've since kept in my possession)--I was able to make a new GS/OS system disk with both of those tools installed. From there I was able to dump all 100+ Apple II disks I had, that I can now use in an emulator, and it's great because these disks contain the very first programs I've wrote. Instead of being some long-lost relic they're just there along with a copy of KEGS that I can boot at any time. And now, in a moment of existential crisis I've realized it's been just as long (18 years) since I dumped those disks, as it was between when I first got the IIGS and when I dumped them. I mean, I've thought about getting a CFFA3000 over the years, but it wouldn't be that useful without a TransWarp GS and I don't know if anyone is making one of those now.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 19:27
|
|
|
I do agree, and there is realistically 0 probability that the average person will dedicate an entire car stall in their garage to housing a PDP-11 so they can mess around with it. In that case, just playing with the emulator is more than fine, IMO
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 19:38
|
|
|
I'm mainly in this thread for Amiga stuff. I tend to consider "PC" a single platform, often wondering why one would bother keeping, say, an old 486 with Windows 3.1 around. Then I remember that I have a GameCube, Wii and Wii U all separately modded, and I keep quiet. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 22:12
|
|
|
The way I look at it is that PC is a pretty unified platform but the interesting part comes in the add-ons that can be in them. Graphics accelerators, sound cards, drive controllers, and whatever else make up the bulk of what makes a PC interesting, because, yeah, a 486 is just a fast 386 is just a fast 286, etc To this end: I just bought an nVidia (remember when they used to stylize it like that?) Riva 128 because it was the first actual 3D GPU I owned and it definitely had a look all it’s own, one that isn’t replicated without that card. You could argue the look was “bad”, but it colored so much of my early PC gaming experience, that the Riva 128 look is something I remember fondly. Beve Stuscemi fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jun 28, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 22:25
|
|
|
I feel ya! Similarly, MIDI soundtracks always sound wrong to me when I play a re-released game from GoG or whatever. I'm not sure why, since I just grew up with the basic SoundBlaster card that I assume most computers came bundled with. I might just need to learn more about DOSbox.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 22:35
|
|
|
Coffee Jones posted:8 bit PC keyboards are significantly different from the IBM PS/2 that we all see today. Thing is, most games are going to start straight from boot. So, if you’re emulating, you have a game pad plugged into your PC, and you’re almost never going to touch the keyboard. armpit_enjoyer posted:For me, real hardware is important just because every micro from that era has a different keyboard layout and emulating them comfortably has and will likely always remain a huge pain in the rear end If it's just about the legends a lot of the popular retrocomputer platforms have inspired professionally produced custom keycap sets that bring those second and third tier functions to modern keyboards. If a non-standard layout is really important but you don't mind (or would prefer) modern keys a custom keyboard is pretty much "My First PCB Project" at this point, if you can draw it in KiCAD you can have it at your door ready to solder not long after. And of course there are adapters to convert almost anything to USB if you're looking for the absolute original feel. Again not saying anyone's wrong if they prefer to use original hardware, just saying this issue is not the hardest thing to work around.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 22:54
|
|
|
Another big part of collecting hardware for me is getting the things I used to lust after in PC Magazine as a young nerd. I used to page through that magazine and dream about how cool the various computers and software packages were. Those $3000 machines that I never stood a chance of using back then are (relatively) cheap nowadays, and to this threads point, fairly boring, but it’s like if the Lamborghini countach from the poster that everyone had was only $5000 today
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 23:05
|
|
|
Minidust posted:I feel ya! Similarly, MIDI soundtracks always sound wrong to me when I play a re-released game from GoG or whatever. I'm not sure why, since I just grew up with the basic SoundBlaster card that I assume most computers came bundled with. I might just need to learn more about DOSbox. At least Stunt Island nostalgia YouTube always uses the professional music I was used to rather than the garbage AdLib tracks that for some reason you got without a 16-bit card
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 23:09
|
|
|
Beve Stuscemi posted:The way I look at it is that PC is a pretty unified platform but the interesting part comes in the add-ons that can be in them. Graphics accelerators, sound cards, drive controllers, and whatever else make up the bulk of what makes a PC interesting, because, yeah, a 486 is just a fast 386 is just a fast 286, etc In my mind there two PCs: pre and post acceleration. Pre acceleration (mainly DOS) is what I have nostalgia for. Post acceleration, maybe Voodoo 2 onward, because that was the bigger hit, just feels like a gradual increase in fidelity of the same platform up to the present day.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 06:28
|
|
|
The introduction of 3D accelerators on PC does more or less coincide with the "boringification" of sound cards and storage and processing getting good enough to support music playing from compressed files. Around 1996 I guess is when every new sound card sold could do 16 bit 44 kHz stereo with basically no distortion.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 07:50
|
|
|
Its weird where people split it in their heads. For me, old computers generally stop being interesting after the Pentium 3. P4 and onwards are all basically the same (C2D onwards for absolutely sure), and are just slower versions of what we have today. In fact, I'd argue that if you took the best Core2Quad, loaded it up with RAM and an SSD, it would probably still be a decent PC today. Also, one of the things I find interesting about older PC's is the ways in which they tried to accomplish things that we take for granted today. Like multiple processors/threads. When every CPU was a single core and non-hyperthreaded, the only way to get more threads was to get more CPU's. I have an older Dell Poweredge kicking around with 4x Pentium III's in it and the design is absolutely wild. And now we've gone in the opposite direction. CPU's have multiple cores with hyperthreading, and the only place you see multiple CPU's anymore is in the server space.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 13:59
|
|
|
The guy mentioned earlier who gave me his old Mac was the first person I heard have an opinion on this, as he said once Commodore went out of business and Steve Jobs got fired from Apple the age of computers being fun instead of useful ended
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 14:02
|
|
|
For sure I think there is a split where computers stopped being the new space age cool technology and started being "BEIGE SPREADSHEET BOX" and things definitely got less exciting in general then. They went from special to commodified. Its a good thing because it meant that lots of people could get their hands on a computer, but it also meant that some of the innovation was pushed out of the industry.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 14:09
|
|
|
Beve Stuscemi posted:For sure I think there is a split where computers stopped being the new space age cool technology and started being "BEIGE SPREADSHEET BOX" and things definitely got less exciting in general then. As far as computers go, the interesting era was the 80s and 90s. You had Speccy, MSX, C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Atari, Apple, CoCo and others that didn't come to mind, competing for the market. Each machine was unique with vastly different abilities and characteristics. That was the golden age of nostalgia. I like DOS but when DOS became dominant it had already beaten all the interesting systems and was on the way to the bland future.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 14:34
|
|
|
An emulator will never do graphics properly. If they're good enough for someone, more power to them. Same for sound. If I hook up my VIC 20 to a television and if I hook up my The VIC20 to the same television, the displays look absolutely loving NOTHING like each other. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Jun 29, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 14:37
|
|
|
In the 80’s there was the product category of the ‘home computer’. Usually it’s an 8 bit micro that your kid can type BASIC into that plugs into a TV. There was definitely a glut of companies (even Nintendo) chasing a craze that died down by the mid 80’s  Hey hey 16k lives rent free in my head https://youtu.be/IagZIM9MtLo
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 15:24
|
|
|
Coffee Jones posted:In the 80’s there was the product category of the ‘home computer’. That REALLY sounds like you weren't around in the mid 80s. Because it sure as gently caress didn't.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 15:26
|
|
|
3D Megadoodoo posted:That REALLY sounds like you weren't around in the mid 80s. Because it sure as gently caress didn't. America is very different compared to Europoors in terms of microcomputers vs consoles.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 16:44
|
|
|
America is the only country in the world that managed to have a god drat computer video game crash. Those things everyone likes and wants to buy and play. Lmao. But also lol.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 16:49
|
|
|
3D Megadoodoo posted:America is the only country in the world that managed to have a god drat computer video game crash. Those things everyone likes and wants to buy and play. Lmao. But also lol.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 17:42
|
|
|
lobsterminator posted:In my mind there two PCs: pre and post acceleration. Pre acceleration (mainly DOS) is what I have nostalgia for. Post acceleration, maybe Voodoo 2 onward, because that was the bigger hit, just feels like a gradual increase in fidelity of the same platform up to the present day. This is pretty much how I feel, and to an extent my interest seems to cut off at the point where Windows gaming became mainstream. I vividly remember the first few times I saw Windows specific games in the 95/98 era and they felt.. cold. I don’t know how to articulate it, cold is definitely the wrong adjective, but I can’t think of a better one. They were too high res, too clean, too.. fancy? I’m definitely not saying it’s a reaction that was based on reality. DOS games could be high-res and complex, and early Windows games could be crude and simplistic, but there was just /something/ about playing games under Windows hat put me off. I fully acknowledge there were AMAZING Win95+ games, but it took me a LOT of time to get past that mental block of being incredibly uninterested. To the point where I probably can’t think of a single Windows game I actually played until maybe ‘99 with Quake3. For me PC retro gaming is almost entirely comprised of DOS titles and probably tops out with P2 era hardware. If I close my eyes and imagine a retro DOS setup I’m sitting at a 486DX2 with a lovely old 2x CDROM and SB playing Theme Park or Lost Vikings.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 18:10
|
|
|
ExcessBLarg! posted:The video game crash of '83 wasn't that "people stopped buying games Exactly. Way to suck at capitalism, lmao.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 18:13
|
|
Ok ok, let’s amend that, lol - My Americentric rear end quote:There was definitely a glut of companies (even Nintendo) chasing a craze that died down * by the mid 80s Re: crash - If one company owns 90% of the market and that company is mismanaged then, yeah… There’s no smoking gun for the crash, there’s definitely decisions that were made that could have pulled them out of a slump, and not taken it from Bad to Worse. I can recommend a podcast that puts a business focus on the gaming industry. https://www.theycreateworlds.com/listen Nerdy as poo poo and very much not for the general public, but if you want an understanding of the Why and How - C.R.E.A.M. US arcades had a boom and a bust in the early 80’s too. Too many people buying cabinets on credit, there’s an aversion to just selling boards for new games instead of the full cabinet. By 1983-ish too many cabinets, not enough quarters. Operators default, distributors default, and the industry consolidates.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 18:22
|
|
|
I think that one aspect that is basically always left out of the histories is that objectively arcade games are by their nature absolute trash. Normal people got tired of them and just played at home or didn't play at all. (A lot of people love trash and are willing to spend mad time and money on it. But not a lot enough in this case.) E: even the biggest arcade game aficionados today vastly prefer NOT TO PAY for the games they still play. That's when it de facto stops being an arcade game. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jun 29, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 18:46
|
|
|
3D Megadoodoo posted:I think that one aspect that is basically always left out of the histories is that objectively arcade games are by their nature absolute trash. Normal people got tired of them and just played at home or didn't play at all. I think this varies. My older brother's interest in video games mostly stops in the mid-80s. For him, the height of gaming was repetitive/high-score games where you could refine and perfect specific skills - stuff like Galaga. Since then, the only games he's gotten into are Tetris and Beat Saber. And pinball. There certainly was a kind of gamer that got left out when games moved towards longer/fancier "experiences"; like, very few people cared about "getting better" at Golden Axe. There's also kind of a critical mass issue. If people are lined up to play a game, and they know who has the high score, that game becomes the center of a social experience. Once people are playing at home, the arcade is no fun... and people also discover there's a limit to how much Frogger they want to play. quote:E: even the biggest arcade game aficionados today vastly prefer NOT TO PAY for the games they still play. That's when it de facto stops being an arcade game. Honestly, the pressure of "having paid for a game" probably did enhance the experience on some games - almost like gambling - and it'd be hard to properly recreate that dynamic now. jmzero fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jun 29, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 20:36
|
|
|
Although I did enjoy gaming on the C64 and Amiga, I really found my gaming groove on the PC. I've always sucked at arcade style games and those were the norm on the earlier systems. On PC there were more and better slow games like adventure, RPG, flight sim and strategy compared to previous systems. Like my all time favorite game Civilization was barely playable on my Amiga 500 but it was a joy on a 486, which makes sense because there was several times the CPU power.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 20:50
|
|
|
lobsterminator posted:Although I did enjoy gaming on the C64 and Amiga, I really found my gaming groove on the PC. I've always sucked at arcade style games and those were the norm on the earlier systems. On PC there were more and better slow games like adventure, RPG, flight sim and strategy compared to previous systems. Like my all time favorite game Civilization was barely playable on my Amiga 500 but it was a joy on a 486, which makes sense because there was several times the CPU power. If they hadn't hosed up the diskette drive interface on the Commodore 64, it could've had a bit more longevity for adventure game players. (I don't mean it would've meant much for the machine in general, but it would've meant a lot to people who wanted that kind of game.) I wonder how many people upgraded straight from C64 to a PC once they got a good taste of Ultima VI. e: OK it also does look like poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 20:58
|
|
|
3D Megadoodoo posted:An emulator will never do graphics properly. If they're good enough for someone, more power to them. The analog output stages of course had their factory tolerances and on top of that have a few decades of aging so you also have to be mindful that an emulator could be perfectly accurate and at the same time not match your real hardware. quote:If I hook up my VIC 20 to a television and if I hook up my The VIC20 to the same television, the displays look absolutely loving NOTHING like each other. I'd be willing to bet that if you hooked both real hardware and a MiSTer running the VIC-20 core and composite video adapter to the same display for a real apples to apples comparison you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. One of the older Raspberry Pis that has composite video output could probably also get pretty close if you can set the right resolution.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2023 23:36
|
|
|
I'm glad I grabbed my A1200 back in the early 2000s when Amigas were probably at their lowest point for interest. It does need a recapping though, so the A500 Plus is doing most of my Amiga stuff at the moment.
|
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2023 03:18
|
|
|
wolrah posted:This is not just a bad opinion, it's objectively wrong. There's nothing technically preventing any emulator from achieving perfection, assuming we know how to quantify perfection for a particular platform. There are a few platforms where every single chip is either officially fully documented and/or has been decapped and reverse engineered so we know exactly how they are supposed to work at a cycle by cycle level and can validate emulator output to be perfect at the digital level. It is but it also really doesn't feel wrong. I am very pro-emulation, and I emulate most things, but even with very accurate emulators it often doesnt feel right. I play a lot of NES. And accurate NES emulation is pretty much a solved problem at this point. At the same time though playing in a very accurate emulator (even on a CRT) does not feel like playing on original hardware, especially when it comes to sound emulation. Playing on an actual NES has a kind of analog feeling to it. I know it's not actually analog but, I dunno, it's hard to describe. I had always assumed (but literally just an assumption) that it has less to do with the emulator itself but more to do with the hardware that it's being emulated to. A modern sound card or whatever, no matter how accurately you've translated things, just isn't going to be or sound the same as the nes apu. Because it just doesn't suck as much.
|
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2023 05:38
|
|
|
You aren't wrong but that's honestly the kind of thing that is more nitpicking than meaningful criticism
|
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2023 06:43
|
|
|
wrong thread
christmas boots fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jul 1, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2023 07:18
|
|
|
It might be nitpicking to some people but nostalgia works in weird ways. These are the things that make an NES or whatever feel different from other hardware, the weird quirks of the hardware itself that sorta tell you "you're playing an NES game." I very much prefer the pseudo-analog buzziness of how actual NES hardware looks and sounds and it is an important part of the NES experience to me. If it became possible to accurately emulate that I would jump on it in a heartbeat. I am not going to go all "this is how it's meant to be played!" or anything, it's fine without it and if you don't have nostalgia for it I imagine it really doesn't matter. But still, to me, I am nostalgic for it. To me it's not nitpicking, it's just a quality of the NES that hasn't been accurately replicated outside of the NES itself. And I imagine the same is true for people who have nostalgia for certain old computers. I know that this comes up a decent amount with things that relied on midi back in the 90s, with midi on modern PCs really not sounding as good (maybe? Or just different) as it did in the 90s even though everything is running the same way, not even emulated just on newer hardware. I did have kind of a similar experience emulating a Vic 20 which I have nostalgia for, but I didn't try super hard to replicate the actual hardware so who knows if it's something that could be overcome if I just spent some time with it. BrainDance fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Jul 1, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2023 07:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 19:44 |
|
|
BrainDance posted:And I imagine the same is true for people who have nostalgia for certain old computers. I know that this comes up a decent amount with things that relied on midi back in the 90s, with midi on modern PCs really not sounding as good (maybe? Or just different) as it did in the 90s even though everything is running the same way, not even emulated just on newer hardware. The Microsoft Software GS Synthesizer that's shipped since DirectX 5 or 7 or there about is supposed to be equivalent to a Roland SC-88, as far as I understand, and it just isn't. The samples for the software synth are kind of off, and the software doesn't do quite the same things as the hardware. Yes, it's much better than OPL2/OPL3 trying to produce General MIDI music, but even by the time that came out, most decent sound cards had some kind of sample-based MIDI synth anyway. I guess the bigger reason to have it would be newer audio chipsets (AC'97 and later HD Audio standard) possibly not having any kind of hardware synthesizer at all. It's been a shame that OPL2 and OPL3 music ended up getting a bad rep, only because everyone tried to treat them as outputs for General MIDI, when they can do so much more interesting things when used as what they really are. But emulation of the synth is basically perfect at this point, so it's very reasonable to enjoy the games that used it fully on emulators. Some earlier games had their soundtrack re-arranged for multiple different synths, so they might have different music data for OPL2, GUS, MT-32 and GM, for example, and that way the music sounds the best possible on each of them, and never bad, only different. But if a game has General MIDI music written for Roland Sound Canvas (or maybe for Yamaha XG) then I'll much rather have them play through an original synth than through Microsoft's, if I have the choice at all. Or even buy the Sound Canvas VA software version, and hook up with virtual (or real) MIDI to your emulated or period hardware gaming machine. The SC VA is still cheaper than trying to find an original hardware version. nielsm fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Jul 1, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2023 08:15
|
|