Project 95 has taken one big step forward, and a few small steps back.
Are we advancing or retreating? I'm not sure.


"Project 95" is my pet-name for my long-delayed Win9x-era retro-PC
build. I've been collecting components for it for a long time with the
goal of building a high-end DOS/Win3/Windows98SE machine. Sound-card
and video card were easy; I have those in plenty stashed away in the
closet. An appropriate motherboard was more difficult; I wanted
something that had ISA, PCI and AGP. But I got one of those eventually
too. Then I had to find RAM; not too hard. The hard-drive? No problem
there. But a good power supply and a chassis were more difficult to
acquire (especially since one of my goals was to build the machine
without buying anything but instead relying entirely on hand-me-downs
and scrounging).

But a few days ago I finally got all the bits and pieces and - after a
fun afternoon of cleaning and tinkering - I can report the computer...
she lives!


Well, mostly. As we speak the RAM is being extensively tested; we'll
see how well it holds up. I'll follow up with stress-tests on the
hard-drive and CPU (which will incidentally also prove that the
motherboard and power supply are up to task too). I'm not really
expecting any problems - I've tested everything before - but other
than an occassional try-out, they've been stored in boxes for years.
So you never know. Anyway, if anything dies I have alternatives
standing by.

Assuming everything works out, final assembly and OS installation (and
the games! So many games!) will follow thereafter.


There are several disappointments though. The chassis is a mid-sized
tower with lots of room inside... but still not enough room for my
Gravis Ultrasound Max sound-card. Frankly, using my old GUS Max was,
like, 90% of why I wanted to build this PC in the first place. It's
why I searched so hard for a motherboard with an ISA slot. Not being
able to use is crushing. I'm hoping that maybe I can replace the
drive-cage (something new to scrounge for!). Otherwise I may need to
go back a step and find an entirely new chassis.


My choice of motherboard (an AOpen V66M) isn't without issue either.
It's a fine card for its era (albeit not particularly high-end) but it
has a complete lack of internal USB headers, which means none of
chassis' external USB ports have anywhere to plug into. Not as big a
concern as the my missing GUS (and anyway, there are back-panel USB
ports if I really need them) but it does mean this PC will have less functionality that it otherwise might have. Maybe I'll find a PCI card
that has internal USB headers; did they even make anything like that?
So either more scrounging is required, or I'll need to switch to a
different motherboard. Decisions, decisions.


Still, after literal YEARS of collecting, it's great to see Project 95
finally coming together. It's not complete (and won't be until I get
that Gravis jammed in there) but I'm much closer now to the end-goal
than I have ever been.


Current specs:
- Intel Pentium II 400MHz (Slot-1)
- AOpen v66M motherboard (Intel 440BX chipset)
- 384MB PC133 RAM
- Voodoo 3 2000 16MB
- Sound Blaster Live
- (pending: Gravis Ultrasound Max)
- 120GB Maxtor DiamondMax Hard Drive
- 52X CD-ROM
- 250W PSU
- Chassis: Beige, like the Computer Gods of the 90s intended ;-)

(Also, the place is a mess again. It seems like all the computer stuff
I so carefully stored away last week is now strewn across the floor
;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Photos. ;)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Project 95 has taken one big step forward, and a few small steps back.
Are we advancing or retreating? I'm not sure.

"Project 95" is my pet-name for my long-delayed Win9x-era retro-PC
build. I've been collecting components for it for a long time with the
goal of building a high-end DOS/Win3/Windows98SE machine. Sound-card
and video card were easy; I have those in plenty stashed away in the
closet. An appropriate motherboard was more difficult; I wanted
something that had ISA, PCI and AGP. But I got one of those eventually
too. Then I had to find RAM; not too hard. The hard-drive? No problem
there. But a good power supply and a chassis were more difficult to
acquire (especially since one of my goals was to build the machine
without buying anything but instead relying entirely on hand-me-downs
and scrounging).

But a few days ago I finally got all the bits and pieces and - after a
fun afternoon of cleaning and tinkering - I can report the computer...
she lives!

Well, mostly. As we speak the RAM is being extensively tested; we'll
see how well it holds up. I'll follow up with stress-tests on the
hard-drive and CPU (which will incidentally also prove that the
motherboard and power supply are up to task too). I'm not really
expecting any problems - I've tested everything before - but other
than an occassional try-out, they've been stored in boxes for years.
So you never know. Anyway, if anything dies I have alternatives
standing by.

Assuming everything works out, final assembly and OS installation (and
the games! So many games!) will follow thereafter.

There are several disappointments though. The chassis is a mid-sized
tower with lots of room inside... but still not enough room for my
Gravis Ultrasound Max sound-card. Frankly, using my old GUS Max was,
like, 90% of why I wanted to build this PC in the first place. It's
why I searched so hard for a motherboard with an ISA slot. Not being
able to use is crushing. I'm hoping that maybe I can replace the
drive-cage (something new to scrounge for!). Otherwise I may need to
go back a step and find an entirely new chassis.

My choice of motherboard (an AOpen V66M) isn't without issue either.
It's a fine card for its era (albeit not particularly high-end) but it
has a complete lack of internal USB headers, which means none of
chassis' external USB ports have anywhere to plug into. Not as big a
concern as the my missing GUS (and anyway, there are back-panel USB
ports if I really need them) but it does mean this PC will have less functionality that it otherwise might have. Maybe I'll find a PCI card
that has internal USB headers; did they even make anything like that?
So either more scrounging is required, or I'll need to switch to a
different motherboard. Decisions, decisions.

Still, after literal YEARS of collecting, it's great to see Project 95 finally coming together. It's not complete (and won't be until I get
that Gravis jammed in there) but I'm much closer now to the end-goal
than I have ever been.

Current specs:
- Intel Pentium II 400MHz (Slot-1)
- AOpen v66M motherboard (Intel 440BX chipset)
- 384MB PC133 RAM
- Voodoo 3 2000 16MB
- Sound Blaster Live
- (pending: Gravis Ultrasound Max)
- 120GB Maxtor DiamondMax Hard Drive
- 52X CD-ROM
- 250W PSU
- Chassis: Beige, like the Computer Gods of the 90s intended ;-)

(Also, the place is a mess again. It seems like all the computer stuff
I so carefully stored away last week is now strewn across the floor
;-)

--
"Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him." --Psalm 98:1. Finally, da <5" heavy rain is almost over 2 leave a mess, leaks, coldness, craziness, etc. on a slammy Sat. wo
snail mails.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2/25/2023 5:01 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

(Also, the place is a mess again. It seems like all the computer stuff
I so carefully stored away last week is now strewn across the floor
;-)

But that's what the spreadsheet is for! To tell you where on the floor
all those components are!!

Isn't it?

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:26:06 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 2/25/2023 5:01 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

(Also, the place is a mess again. It seems like all the computer stuff
I so carefully stored away last week is now strewn across the floor
;-)

But that's what the spreadsheet is for! To tell you where on the floor
all those components are!!

Isn't it?

I'm never gonna live that one down, am I? ;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2/26/2023 8:16 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:26:06 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 2/25/2023 5:01 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

(Also, the place is a mess again. It seems like all the computer stuff
I so carefully stored away last week is now strewn across the floor
;-)

But that's what the spreadsheet is for! To tell you where on the floor
all those components are!!

Isn't it?

I'm never gonna live that one down, am I? ;-)

Not until you give me another new, shiny human foible to tease you about.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

"Project 95" is my pet-name for my long-delayed Win9x-era retro-PC
build. I've been collecting components for it for a long time with the
goal of building a high-end DOS/Win3/Windows98SE machine.

Disappointment. My SoundBlaster Live isn't working.

Well, I'm pretty sure it /works/... just not on the 'new' machine.
Windows98 sees the card - it even recognizes it as a Creative
multimedia PCI device - but refuses to acknowledge it as something
that can output sound. Whether it's a driver issue or some weird
PCI/PNP conflict, I've no idea, but it ain't working. Working on these
old machines reminds me of how spoiled modern hardware and operating
systems have made us; these days it's just plug-it-in and it works.
There was a lot more prayer necessary back in '98.

Anyway, in the mean time I've pulled the card; I'll test it in another
machine to see if it is the card itself or just some compatibility
issue.

Fortunately, the motherboard does have onboard sound so I'm not SOL...
but its ESS-Solo chipset only has very limited DOS functionality. And
since one of my goals was to make this a top-end DOS computer, that's
a bit of a problem.

No Gravis Ultrasound was a tough enough pill to swallow, but no
Soundblaster? That almost negates the whole point of the machine.

I do have options.
a) Stick with the ESS-Solo chipset.
b) Use the sole ISA slot on the motherboard for my DOS-era
SoundBlaster Pro 2 card
c) Switch to another motherboard and hope for the best
d) Wait for the scrounge-gods to bless me with new parts

Choice a) means I lose a lot of DOS functionality. Win9x games work
well enough, but my aim of installing DOS and Win3 are - well, not
dead, but I won't get sound, so much less appetizing

Choice b) gets me DOS support but the SoundBlaster Pro is old tech,
and I was hoping for something a bit more upscale. Plus, that ISA slot
was intended for the Gravis...

Choice c) is the most palatable, but not really an immediate option,
since I'm missing a compatible heat-sink for the CPU. So I'd either
have to wait for another blessing from the scrounge-lords, or
<shudder> pay money into this build. And even then, there's no
assurance that Soundblaster would work in the new machine either...

So I'm probably going with choice d) and in the meantime will just use
the new machine solely as a Win9x computer. It's doing a great job at
that. I played "M-25 Racer" - a game I absolutely adored back at the
turn of the century - for the first time in decades. So all problems
aside, I'm still having a blast with this build.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Current specs:
- Intel Pentium II 400MHz (Slot-1)
- AOpen v66M motherboard (Intel 440BX chipset)
- 384MB PC133 RAM
- Voodoo 3 2000 16MB
- Sound Blaster Live
- (pending: Gravis Ultrasound Max)
- 120GB Maxtor DiamondMax Hard Drive
- 52X CD-ROM
- 250W PSU
- Chassis: Beige, like the Computer Gods of the 90s intended ;-)

I guess I have to flex my Windows 98 box:

- Intel Pentium III 866 MHz
- Asus CUV4X Motherboard (Via Apollo Pro 133Z)
- 512MB PC133 RAM
- Asus Radeon 9550 128MB
- ATI Rage II+ 4MB
- Sound Blaster Live
- Gravis Ultrasound
- Intel Pro/100 S Ethernet
- 56K PCI Modem
- 120GB Western Digital Hard Drive
- LiteOn 52X CD-ROM
- 3.5" and 5.25 Floppy Drives
- Enermax 350W Power Supply
- Beige Case

The goal of my build being something that can play old MS-DOS or Windows
games that don't play well on modern PCs or emulators. I wasn't trying to capture an "authnetic" Windows 9x experience, although I did use Windows
98 on this PC though not exactly this configuration. The second video
card and PCI modem are installed in there for no particular reason.
Makes it hard to lose them I guess.

My Gravis Ultrasound fits in the case with a fair bit of room to spare.
The motherboard has a USB header, but it's not connected to anyting.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 04:43:35 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Photos. ;)

Well, I'm not sure why you'd be interested... but here's a pic of her
naked innards (you perv!) https://imgur.com/a/J4b6uEP

Ignore the lack of cable management. That comes last. This motherboard
wasn't really designed with good cable management in mind anyway; the
headers for the front-panel cables are located in four different
places on the motherboard, and the placement of the CPU fan header and
ATX power connectors aren't much better. Still, I'll eventually get it
neater than it looks now.

But marvel at the beauty of the Slot-1 Pentium II. I always loved that
package format and it - along with that lone ISA slot on the bottom -
was a big reason for my choice of this motherboard.

As you can see, there's plenty of room in the case (currently it only
has the single AGP Voodoo 3 inserted since I yanked the non-functional SoundBlaster and the Gravis Ultrasound doesn't fit). The chassis can
fit a full-sized ATX motherboard; this micro-ATX 'board leaves a
number of slots unused. But that long 3.5" drive-cage prevents the
insertion of a full-length ISA card (the placement of some of the
cables might make things difficult too).


Unfortunately, with the addition of this machine to the herd, one of
the older PCs is just gonna have to go. There ain't no room for them
all! Which of these 'closet queens' is next for eWaste? https://imgur.com/a/58m7OdD

(Probably the silvery Dell Dimension E521, actually. Maybe the Gateway
too. And probably one or two laptops. Also, a flatbed scanner. And
three monitors. Having recently figured out just how much crap I have
stashed away, it's long overdue for a good ol' fashioned toss-out ;-).

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Mon, 27 Feb 2023 22:00:00 -0000 (UTC), rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

I guess I have to flex my Windows 98 box:

- Intel Pentium III 866 MHz
- Asus CUV4X Motherboard (Via Apollo Pro 133Z)
- 512MB PC133 RAM
- Asus Radeon 9550 128MB
- ATI Rage II+ 4MB
- Sound Blaster Live
- Gravis Ultrasound
- Intel Pro/100 S Ethernet
- 56K PCI Modem
- 120GB Western Digital Hard Drive
- LiteOn 52X CD-ROM
- 3.5" and 5.25 Floppy Drives
- Enermax 350W Power Supply
- Beige Case

Now you're just trying to make me jealous. Well guess what? It worked.
I'm jealous.

I have an ABit KT7-RAID motherboard with an Athlon 900MHz CPU waiting
in the wings if this current build doesn't work out (I'd need to find
a working heat sink for that Socket 462/A CPU first, though). I
limited myself to 384MB because past 512MB Win9x started to get a bit
flakey (there were work-arounds, but it hardly seemed necessary when
so few Win9x applications took advantage of that much RAM. Anyway,
"384MB ought to be enough for everyone". ;-)

I'm incredibly envious of your sound-cards. What model is your GUS?
The original and Max never received fully working drivers for Win9x as
I recall, but the GUS PNP did. Although maybe you just used it the
same way I intended: solely as a DOS sound-card.

Currently I don't have any networking in the new computer. I have the
necessary hardware (network cards are a dime-a-dozen, after all, and I
have lots of dimes) but since I don't have any intention of putting
this machine anywhere near a live network, why waste a PCI slot?
Similarly the lack of a modem; without a landline, it would just be
taking up space.

I skimped on the floppy-drives because... well, they're floppy drives
and I just don't wanna have to bother with that nonsense anymore.
Anyway, all my floppy-based programs were imaged long ago, so if I
/really/ need them I'll just transfer them over using a thumb-drive
and use WinImage. Still, I have an LS-120 super-floppy that tempts me
every time I look at it, and I'm seriously considering adding an 3.5"
IDE Zip Drive.

I've also thought about adding my old Matrox Mystique (for much the
same reason as your second video-card ;-) or, perhaps, one of my
TV-Tuner cards. Neither would have much functional use, but... it's
neat?

The goal of my build being something that can play old MS-DOS or Windows >games that don't play well on modern PCs or emulators. I wasn't trying to >capture an "authnetic" Windows 9x experience, although I did use Windows
98 on this PC though not exactly this configuration. The second video
card and PCI modem are installed in there for no particular reason.
Makes it hard to lose them I guess.

My reason for the build is largely the same as yours: the games. Not
so much DOS-era games (DOSBox works incredibly well there) but there
are a number of Win9x games that just don't play correctly even
through emulation ("M-25 Racer", which I played extensively over the
weekend, being just one example).

But even just getting "MS Office 97" up and running again (complete
with everybody's favorite mascot, Clippy!) is sort of fun. Plus,
playing around with that old hardware reminds me of just how advanced
modern computers have become, and makes me appreciate my new computers
all the more.

My Gravis Ultrasound fits in the case with a fair bit of room to spare.
The motherboard has a USB header, but it's not connected to anyting.

Just gotta rub it in, eh? ;-P

That said, the Gravis Ultrasound Max was notably larger than its
cousins. https://imgur.com/a/mgzkmvq so unless you have that card
installed you ain't got nuthin' to boast about. ;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 04:43:35 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Photos. ;)

Well, I'm not sure why you'd be interested... but here's a pic of her
naked innards (you perv!) https://imgur.com/a/J4b6uEP

She's sexy! ;) What PSU brand is she using tho? :/

Ignore the lack of cable management. That comes last. This motherboard
wasn't really designed with good cable management in mind anyway; the
headers for the front-panel cables are located in four different
places on the motherboard, and the placement of the CPU fan header and
ATX power connectors aren't much better. Still, I'll eventually get it
neater than it looks now.

Cables doesn't look that bad. Mine are worse with dusts. They needed to
be cleaned out. :(

But marvel at the beauty of the Slot-1 Pentium II. I always loved that package format and it - along with that lone ISA slot on the bottom -
was a big reason for my choice of this motherboard.

...
I remember my P2 setup from July 1998: "Upgraded Tower Machine: Upgraded
to an Award Bios Intel Pentium II 300 MHz (DFI P2XBL motherboard
(Revision A) -- 440BX 100 MHz bus tower with 128 MB of SDRAM (PC100),
ATX Full Tower Case, 300W power supply, 2 ISA, 3 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 Shared
PCI/ISA Slot, Conner EIDE 850 MB HDD (hehe), and 512K CPU cache. Added a Diamond Fireport 40 PCI (SCSI-3) and Yamaha CRW 4260 (6x4x2; SCSI) -- a
CD burner." --http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/toys.html I remember
playing SiN, etc. ;)
--
"Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what
account is he?" --Isaiah 2:22. Last week's 5" heavy cold rain left a
mess like leaks, craziness, etc. More 2 come tho. :( Note: A fixed width
font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature
correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 28 Feb 2023 03:09:02 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 04:43:35 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Photos. ;)

Well, I'm not sure why you'd be interested... but here's a pic of her
naked innards (you perv!) https://imgur.com/a/J4b6uEP

She's sexy! ;) What PSU brand is she using tho? :/

Don't judge; it's a salvaged (but tested) Dell PSU offering up a full
250W. Technically, I think it's made by HiPower, so we're not talking
quality but it outputs smooth voltage and the capacitors aren't
leaking so I'm not complaining. The only real issue is a lack of power
Molex connectors, which limits how many devices I can jam into that
box ;-)

Cables doesn't look that bad. Mine are worse with dusts. They needed to
be cleaned out. :(

Meh. It could be neater. There's only so much you can do with the IDE
ribbon cables though, but with some folding and the appropriate
application of zip-ties I think I can a lot of that mess hidden away.

But all that will wait until after I settle on the final
configuration. Nothing makes you feel stupider than perfecting your cable-management only then to realize you forgot to install a fan or
something ;-)

I remember my P2 setup from July 1998: "Upgraded Tower Machine: Upgraded
to an Award Bios Intel Pentium II 300 MHz (DFI P2XBL motherboard
(Revision A) -- 440BX 100 MHz bus tower with 128 MB of SDRAM (PC100),
ATX Full Tower Case, 300W power supply, 2 ISA, 3 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 Shared
PCI/ISA Slot, Conner EIDE 850 MB HDD (hehe), and 512K CPU cache. Added a >Diamond Fireport 40 PCI (SCSI-3) and Yamaha CRW 4260 (6x4x2; SCSI) -- a
CD burner." --http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/toys.html I remember >playing SiN, etc. ;)

Heh. Same chipset (440BX) as mine (except you had /two/ ISA slots;
lucky!)

This rig is probably better as a high-end Win95 box than Win98SE; I've
already come across a few games where the 400MHz CPU is a bit weedy.
Then again, I do have that WindowsXP PC sitting right next to it...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

A pointless update about a project only I really care about ;-)



The SoundBlaster Live card is working at long last. I'm not entirely
/what/ I did to fix it. I yanked the card and tested it on another
machine; to my delight (if not surprise) it worked fine. That meant it
was something about the Pentium II that was the problem.

So I did the usual. I made sure everything was seated correctly.
sprayed in some contact cleaner. I checked the capacitors. I cleared
the PCI resource assignments in the BIOS. I dug out the CD-ROM that
came with the card and used its drivers instead of the ones I had
archived. I sacrificed a small goat to the hardware gods. Whatever it
took to get working. And, ultimately, it suddenly did.

(I also tried booting a Linux LiveCD to see if that OS would see the
card, but none of my LiveCDs were designed to run on such old hardware
so they either kernel-panic'd or just took hours to get to the
desktop. Neither made for good test-beds)




Of course, once I got the SoundBlaster to work, I had to hook it up to speakers. That was a battle in itself, since the cheap speakers on the
monitor were being recalcitrant. But more contact cleaner and
goat-sacrifices saved the day. So at least now the audio situation is
hammered out. I still don't have my Gravis Ultrasound, but at least I
have DOS sound support!




Cable-management was next. It's still not all that neat, but it is a
little bit better. Odds are, though, that in three months everything
is going to be hanging loose and messy again as I tinker with this
machine's innards and snip off all the cable-ties. Well, however long
this moment of order lasts, I'm happy.




Another goal of this build was to revitalize my old Microsoft
Sidewinder 3D Pro, which is possibly the best joystick I have ever
used. Sadly, it not only used an old-school gameport, but also some
sort of proprietary digital signaling that meant it didn't play well
with modern PCs. This will be the first time I've used this 'stick in
maybe ten years...

... Or it would be, if the damn thing worked. It's not showing up in Windows98's game controller applet. Drivers are installed, but the
Sidewinder isn't being detected. I hope the 'stick hasn't died over
the years. Troubleshooting it will be difficult; I don't have any
other computers with a gameport...




Ah well, if everything just came together without any problems, it
wouldn't be much fun. Tinkering with these old machines has its own
joy. There is so much I've forgotten about Win9x subsystems, it's
almost like coming into it new.

But at least I don't have to swap out the motherboard. I was seriously considering that if I hadn't been able to get the Soundblaster
working. I still might do so - Ross Ridge made me jealous with his
866MHz monster - but I don't /have/ to. I might just wait until I find
a better chassis (one in which the Gravis Ultrasound will actually
fit!) before making such a major upgrade.

In the meantime, I've got a hankerin' to play "X-Wing vs. TIE
Fighter".

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

I guess I have to flex my Windows 98 box:

Wow! That's the sweet spot for sure, very nice!

rms

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/1/2023 2:20 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

A pointless update about a project only I really care about ;-)

I sacrificed a small goat to the hardware gods.

But more goat-sacrifices saved the day.

Another goal of this build was to revitalize my old Microsoft
Sidewinder 3D Pro,

<snip not working>

Troubleshooting it will be difficult; I don't have any
other computers with a gameport...

Or possibly any more goats?

In the meantime, I've got a hankerin' to play "X-Wing vs. TIE
Fighter".

I'm curious what game you play to breed the goats to sacrifice?

:P

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 1 Mar 2023 17:41:44 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 3/1/2023 2:20 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

A pointless update about a project only I really care about ;-)

Another goal of this build was to revitalize my old Microsoft
Sidewinder 3D Pro,

<snip not working>

Troubleshooting it will be difficult; I don't have any
other computers with a gameport...

Or possibly any more goats?

No goats required. Turns out Windows98 has an issue with multiple
gameports (not that it gave any indication that there was problem
other than the joystick not working). Since the BIOS didn't allow me
to disable the one on the motherboard, I just 'uninstalled' the Sound
Blaster joystick port drivers. The Sidewinder 3D Pro appeared like
magic.

I'm curious what game you play to breed the goats to sacrifice?

I'm almost afraid to look to see, but there's probably a goat-breeding
game on Steam. We need a rule-34 for games; "if a topic exists,
somebody has made a video game about it."




I'd forgotten how LOUD computers of that era were. The buzz of the
fans, the 'grrrrrrrrrr' of the CD-ROM drives as they spin up, the
chatter of the hard-drives. I don't notice it that much when I'm
actually using the computer, but when I turn it off, the silence is
palpable. I may have to actually ~~~~spend money~~~~ and invest in
some quieter fans if I want to keep using this PC.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Now you're just trying to make me jealous. Well guess what? It worked.
I'm jealous.

Well, it's old tech most people would just throw in the garbage, so I
didn't really expect it to make anyone jealous.

I limited myself to 384MB because past 512MB Win9x started to get a bit >flakey (there were work-arounds, but it hardly seemed necessary when
so few Win9x applications took advantage of that much RAM. Anyway,
"384MB ought to be enough for everyone". ;-)

It's only when you go over 512M of RAM that you need to start editting
.ini files. I ran Windows 98 on my Pentium 4 with 1G of RAM for a while
and that extra RAM is actually nice. It wasn't until 2005 or so that
games stopped supporting Windows 98, and by then 512M was standard.

I'm incredibly envious of your sound-cards. What model is your GUS?
The original and Max never received fully working drivers for Win9x as
I recall, but the GUS PNP did. Although maybe you just used it the
same way I intended: solely as a DOS sound-card.

Yah, I have the original Gravis Ultrasound and while I have the Windows
sound drivers installed they're disabled. It still works for MS-DOS
games that support it natively, since Windows 9x lets programs directly
access the hardware.

My Gravis Ultrasound fits in the case with a fair bit of room to spare.
The motherboard has a USB header, but it's not connected to anyting.

Just gotta rub it in, eh? ;-P

This is the part I figured might make you jealous.

That said, the Gravis Ultrasound Max was notably larger than its
cousins. https://imgur.com/a/mgzkmvq so unless you have that card
installed you ain't got nuthin' to boast about. ;-)

Well, my card is an earlier revision than the one shown in the picture
you linked, but it looks like it was about the same length, 11 inches
not including the bracket. My case has an extra couple of inches of
room, so it looks like the Gravis Ultrasound Max should fit in there.
If not I could remove the front fan, which I'm not using anyways because
of the noise, and be able fit a card that's up to 16 inches long.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 3 Mar 2023 00:00:20 -0000 (UTC), rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

It's only when you go over 512M of RAM that you need to start editting
.ini files. I ran Windows 98 on my Pentium 4 with 1G of RAM for a while
and that extra RAM is actually nice. It wasn't until 2005 or so that
games stopped supporting Windows 98, and by then 512M was standard.

<pedant>
Technically, it's 512MB of mapped memory, not just RAM, so if you had
496MB of RAM and a 32MB video-card, you could also run into trouble.
It was a bug in the Win9x caching software and a quick edit to the
system.ini 'cured' it, but there were some minor compatibility issues
that could result with third-party software.

(that's all from memory. Specifics as to what tweaks needed to be made
to the system.ini file and what software didn't like if you did that
have escaped me, but I used to be familiar with both. Odd how you
forget minor details after twenty years ;-)

So, yes, it was doable to run Win9x on more than 512MB (although IIRC
not to actually INSTALL it with that much) but since few apps took
advantage of that much memory anyway, I just decided to go without.
It's not like I am going to be editing video on that machine; mostly
it will just be for older games that are cantankerous enough to not
like NT-platforms.

I'm incredibly envious of your sound-cards. What model is your GUS?
The original and Max never received fully working drivers for Win9x as
I recall, but the GUS PNP did. Although maybe you just used it the
same way I intended: solely as a DOS sound-card.

Yah, I have the original Gravis Ultrasound and while I have the Windows
sound drivers installed they're disabled. It still works for MS-DOS
games that support it natively, since Windows 9x lets programs directly >access the hardware.

I kept my GUSMax throughout most of the Win9x era. Technically you
/could/ - with a lot of tweaking and borrowing of hacked GUS PNP
drivers - get the thing to work in Win95, but it didn't result in a particularly stable machine (and Win9x was wobbly to begin with ;-).
But I still played a lot of DOS-era games, so having the GUS there
made for a better experience when using those.

Well, my card is an earlier revision than the one shown in the picture
you linked, but it looks like it was about the same length, 11 inches
not including the bracket. My case has an extra couple of inches of
room, so it looks like the Gravis Ultrasound Max should fit in there.
If not I could remove the front fan, which I'm not using anyways because
of the noise, and be able fit a card that's up to 16 inches long.

I've since switched to another case.* So I salvaged the chassis from
one of the PCs that was going to eWaste and used it for this computer.
The chassis is not, perhaps, period accurate but at least it isn't
going to pieces.

My new plan is to have this PC as my "Win9x machine", and start planning/scrounging up the parts for a proper "DOS" box - one where
the GUS will actually fit. Or, I dunno, maybe one day I'll acquire an
original non-maxed Gravis Ultrasound. But however it happens, one dayI
hope to have a working GUS again.

Still, I'm having fun with the Win98 computer. I have all these old applications and utilities that I haven't used in years (Ulead Cool3D! Powerstrip! Norton 2000! Litestep!) and revisiting these old classics
is a lot of fun.




* actually, I switched some days ago. That picture I posted showing
the innards of the new computer? Yeah, that was already in the new
chassis. The plastic of the beige beast had, sadly, become quite
brittle and pieces were breaking away with only a little resistance.
The new chassis is actually less roomy than previous one (and has even
more front-panel USB stuff I can't use!) but its far less fragile.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Technically, it's 512MB of mapped memory, not just RAM, so if you had
496MB of RAM and a 32MB video-card, you could also run into trouble.
It was a bug in the Win9x caching software and a quick edit to the
system.ini 'cured' it, but there were some minor compatibility issues
that could result with third-party software.

I have Windows 98 running on a machine with 512MB of RAM and a 128MB
video card, without INI editing.

It works becasue the actual limitation is the 1GB shared memory region
that gets mapped into every process. Each process has its own 4GB
(32-bit) virtual address space into which physical RAM gets mapped into.
The first 2GB of that is private to the process and where its own code
and data get loaded into. The next 1GB is a region where anything
that's needs to shared between processes gets put and the final 1GB is
the private space reserved for the Windows 9x kernel.

The problem is that a lot of stuff ends up in the 1GB shared space.
The disk cache you mentioned is one of those things. By default it
assumes all physical RAM can be used as cache and it maps all of RAM
into that space so it can access it. That obviously means the cache
can't use more than 1GB of RAM, but in practice you need to limit it to
using much less RAM as other things need to use that space too.

Video RAM is one of those other things that needs to get mapped into the
shared region, as does any DLL used by any process. This also where all
16-bit Windows apps live. A good safe limit on disk cache size is 512MB,
that should leave more than enough shared space for whatever needs it,
but you can often get away with increasing that amount.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Project 95 has taken one big step forward, and a few small steps back.
Are we advancing or retreating? I'm not sure.

So, I'm more or less done with the hardware side of things. I shoved
in a network card (yes, even after my earlier diatribe), although I
haven't plugged it into a network. I may consider adding a TV-tuner
card later, and maybe a second hard-drive. Plus I found a PCI USB card
that might be useful, especially since I can't use the front-panel USB
ports. But all those are just "because I can" additions, and not
anything I really want or need in the machine.

Instead, I've been enjoying myself playing around with the software.

The biggest enjoyment I've gotten is with the Microsoft Plus pack and
Desktop Themese. Ohmygosh, were these things great back in the day.
Why did Microsoft take them out? (God forbid people can customize
their desktops!). More than just wallpapers, you can alter pretty much everything; how thick the window borders are, how wide the scroll bars
are, the fonts, the colors of each individual component. Sure, the
animated fonts and sounds were sometimes over the top, but they're
fun! Remember when computers used to be fun?

Of course, if you really want fun, then you want games... and I've
been on a kick adding games, games and more games to this machine.
Since I don't want to deal with the hassle of swapping discs all the
time, I've been dutifully imaging all the CDs and then (very very
slowly, over USB 1.1) transferring the ISO files to the hard-drive. Fortunately, all the games I'm interested in are from before the era
of intrusive DRM, so a simple virtualCD program is sufficient.

But now I get to revisit so many games I haven't played in years.
Originally, I was just thinking "X-Wing vs TIE Fighter", but that list
has grown a bit:


Sanity: Aiken's Artifact, Flight Unlimited II, Knight Moves, MS Combat
Flight Simulator, Age of Empires I, Shockwave Assault, Blair Witch Vol
1: Rusin Parr, Descent Freespace, Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga,
Stratosphere, Midtown Madness, Earthsiege II, TriTryst, Independence
War, Drakan: Order of the Flame, M-25 Racer, Mech Commander, Need for
Speed III, Silent Thunder: A-10 II, Nocturne, Heavy Gear... the list
keeps growing.


(Many of these games can run on modern machines, but often the
experience is better on original hardware. There's nothing like
"Independence War" on real 3DFX hardware.)

The hardware I'm using - a mere Pentium II 400 MHz and a Voodoo3 -
does keep things somewhat in check, fortunately; pretty much anything
released after the year 2000 isn't going to run that well.
Fortunately, I have a 2008-era XP machine waiting in the wings for
games past that cut-off date. ;-0

But the ones I have selected? They're a lot of fun, all the more so
because I haven't played many of them in so long. The soundtrack of
"Need for Speed III" is epic, "Age of Empires" is incredibly
enthralling, and "Rustin Parr" is surprisingly spooky.

The biggest hindrance to my playing all these games isn't anything to
do with the games or the hardware... it's my chair. The Win98 computer
is set off on a desk all on its own, and the seating I have for that
PC is... substandard. Either I'm going to need to move the computer
somewhere closer to me, or I'm going to have to invest in a better
table and chair.

I'd forgotten how flakey and fragile the Win9x ecosystem was, though.
How everytime you alt-tabbed out of a full-screen experience you were
risking a lock-up. How random driver crashes could take down your
system. How delicate the file-system was and how much maintenance it
demanded (hello, Scandisk! Hello defrag! It's been a while). Plus, the
loss of minor conveniences - like being able to quickly navigate to a
previous folder while digging through your hard-drive - really start
to grate after a while. I bitch about how Microsoft often seems to
make changes simply for the sake of change... but maybe sometimes some
of those changes are actually worthwhile.

Still, I'm having fun. I'm thrilled to have a Win9x computer back;
it's far more capable and useful to me than emulating that era of
computer has been. How long I'll keep coming back to that PC I don't
know, but until I get over this fad, I'll be lovin' every moment of
it.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/5/2023 11:45 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Project 95 has taken one big step forward, and a few small steps back.
Are we advancing or retreating? I'm not sure.

So, I'm more or less done with the hardware side of things. I shoved
in a network card (yes, even after my earlier diatribe), although I
haven't plugged it into a network. I may consider adding a TV-tuner
card later, and maybe a second hard-drive. Plus I found a PCI USB card
that might be useful, especially since I can't use the front-panel USB
ports. But all those are just "because I can" additions, and not
anything I really want or need in the machine.

Instead, I've been enjoying myself playing around with the software.

The biggest enjoyment I've gotten is with the Microsoft Plus pack and
Desktop Themese. Ohmygosh, were these things great back in the day.
Why did Microsoft take them out? (God forbid people can customize
their desktops!).

Possibly because the home market isn't a focus for MS. Corporations are
who they see as their primary clientele and a lot of companies don't
want to have to deal with employees "customizing" their workstations.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 5 Mar 2023 15:37:12 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 3/5/2023 11:45 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
The biggest enjoyment I've gotten is with the Microsoft Plus pack and
Desktop Themese. Ohmygosh, were these things great back in the day.
Why did Microsoft take them out? (God forbid people can customize
their desktops!).

Possibly because the home market isn't a focus for MS. Corporations are
who they see as their primary clientele and a lot of companies don't
want to have to deal with employees "customizing" their workstations.

Well, it was largely meant as a rhetorical question. Still, I don't
buy that excuse; it's incredibly easy to restrict what end-users can
and can't do on their PCs with modern Windows systems (honestly, even
on Win9x it wasn't that hard). Or Microsoft could make it so the
"Home" SKU had themes support while the Enterprise editions lack it
(with the added benefit of making the Home edition more palatable to
home users).

As an aside, theme support never was /really/ removed from the OS. You
can /still/ apply Win9x themes to modern versions of Windows*...
assuming you have Themes.exe from the original Plus pack. Some things
won't work due to architectural changes in the OS (for instance,
there's no "My Computer" to change the icon on anymore) but
backgrounds? Sounds? Cursors? All still modifiable. Unfortuantely, the
number of people who still have a Win9x Plus CD is tiny. It would be
nice if the functionality were more visible to end-users.



Anyway, bad news on the hardware front. The 'reset' button on the
chassis broke (well, the BUTTON is fine. The plastic of the front case
holding the button in place snapped off. Old chassis, old plastics,
what can you expect?). Were this a modern OS, I wouldn't worry so much
about it; I can't remember the last time I even used a reset button on
my 'real' PCs. In fact, some of my newer PCs don't even /have/ a reset
button. But this is Win9x, and it's stability (or lack thereof) is
infamous. A working reset button is a very welcome feature with that
OS.

So eventually I'm going to have fix that. That means I'll have to undo
all my carefully ziptied cables** <sigh> and take apart the whole case
just to get to the front panel. And even then I'm not sure I'll be
able to fix it in any permanent way. So for the time being I'm putting
the whole thingoff; I've stuck a label over the button to remind me
not to use it and unplugged the cable from the reset header on the
motherboard for good measure. I'm sure Windows98 won't crash until I
get around to fixing it, right? ;-P



* tested on Windows 10. It works on 7 too.
** I knew eventually my tinkering fetish would mean I'd have to undo
all my nice cable-management work. But I really thought I'd get more
than a week's satisfaction from it.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Project 95 has taken one big step forward, and a few small steps back.
Are we advancing or retreating? I'm not sure.

Old games are fun... but I'd forgotten how temperamental old PCs could
be. These days, I'm pretty much assured that any game I slot into my
computer, it will run. Maybe the game won't run /well/, but it's not
as if it will blue-screen or just refuse to start because I happened
to pick the wrong sound card. And even if there are problems, the game
will usually be helpful enough to tell me why it has a problem.

Mid-to-late 90s computer games weren't quite so considerate.

Some examples:

Take, for instance, "Nocturne" (And "Blairs Witch Vol 1 Rustin Parr",
which - despite its prominent license - is more an unofficial sequel
to "Nocturne"). That game won't run if I use 3D acceleration. Oh, it
nominally supports 3D accelerators - it even makes a big thing about
supporting the 3DFX! - but it'll just freeze after any room transition
if I enable it. Running it in 'software rendering' mode fixes that.
Lots of trial'n'error to figure that one out.

"Interstate 76" is another problematic game. That game demands I
insert CD-ROM 2 into the drive every time I try to load a game. Um,
it's in the drive? You're playing the CD-Audio soundtrack from it even
while demanding I insert the disc. Eventually I gave up on this game
entirely.

On the opposite side of things, "Incoming Forces" played the game
fine... it just wouldn't play the music from the CD-ROM. Banged my
head on that one for a while before giving up and deciding I didn't
need the music anyway. It's mostly there just to showcase the
lens-flare effects on the 3DFX anyway (remember when lens flare
effects were a big thing?)

Jane's "Longbow 2" just crashes whenever I try to fly a mission. No
idea why; it just gives a general protection fault. I'm sure there's
an answer to the problem on the Internet somewhere, but these days, if
the game is mentioned at all, it's to answer how to get it running on
modern hardware. The only patch I found for the game refused to
recognize the installed version at all. I gave up on this one too; I
was never a big fan of the game and, anyway, I have the original
"Longbow" running in my DOSBox collection.

Terminal Reality's "Fly II" (a flight simulator from 2000 and not, as
you might expect, based on a movie about a mad scientist and his
teleporter) installed and launched correctly... but ran at roughly 1
frame every ten seconds. Just positioning the mouse on the 'quit'
button took about five minutes.

Sierra's 1995 reboot of "Thexder" just hangs when I try to play it. no
error message; it just grabs 99% of the CPU and doesn't do anything
beyond that. I haven't gotten around to troubleshooting the problem.
I'm not sure it's worth it.



In part, the problem is mine; the Voodoo3 I chose was never that
capable a card. For games released 1998 or earlier, it's okay, but it
gets increasingly iffy for games released after that (the Voodoo3
itself was released in '99). I could have slotted in a more powerful
card, but a) I /really/ wanted that 3DFX logo screen, and b) the
Voodoo cards were synonymous with PC gaming in the late 90s to me, so
having a Win9x computer without one seemed almost sacrilegious.

And most games run without issue. "Diablo" installed so smoothly and
launched directly into its gameplay I wasn't sure it had installed at
all. I was click-killing skeletons two minutes after inserting the CD.
Monolith Game's forgotten platformer, "Claw" ran without a hitch.
"Heavy Gear" installed clean, runs smooth and is a blast to play. I
even got my ancient copy of Photoshop to install. I don't need it, I
don't expect to ever use it... but it's there if I want it.

So it's not all trouble; in fact, its mostly smooth sailing. It's just
that - when the waters do get rough - it's a lot worse than it would
be on modern computers. But part of the fun of this journey is the
challenge of weathering this sort of thing, so I'm not really
complaining.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Take, for instance, "Nocturne" (And "Blairs Witch Vol 1 Rustin Parr",
which - despite its prominent license - is more an unofficial sequel
to "Nocturne"). That game won't run if I use 3D acceleration.

I recall buying a discounted bigbox copy of Nocturne, and being very impressed with the cloth effects and video resolution options -- I ran it at ~1600x1200 or somesuch with good framerate. Don’t recall if it was accelerated or not though. There was some bug that prevented me from
finishing the last chapter of the game as well.

rms

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 05/03/2023 23:37, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 3/5/2023 11:45 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Project 95 has taken one big step forward, and a few small steps back.
Are we advancing or retreating? I'm not sure.

So, I'm more or less done with the hardware side of things. I shoved
in a network card (yes, even after my earlier diatribe), although I
haven't plugged it into a network. I may consider adding a TV-tuner
card later, and maybe a second hard-drive. Plus I found a PCI USB card
that might be useful, especially since I can't use the front-panel USB
ports. But all those are just "because I can" additions, and not
anything I really want or need in the machine.

Instead, I've been enjoying myself playing around with the software.

The biggest enjoyment I've gotten is with the Microsoft Plus pack and
Desktop Themese. Ohmygosh, were these things great back in the day.
Why did Microsoft take them out? (God forbid people can customize
their desktops!).

Possibly because the home market isn't a focus for MS.  Corporations are
who they see as their primary clientele and a lot of companies don't
want to have to deal with employees "customizing" their workstations.

I worked on a project many years ago where one of our engineers was
proudly showing a work in progress including how easy it was to
customise the appearance as it was X11 based. The end user quickly
replied that's not what they want at all and everything should be
completely fixed on the grounds that warships can be dangerous places so
you don't want a different operator struggling to understand the layout
in the have to step in.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:30:20 -0700, "rms"
<rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

Take, for instance, "Nocturne" (And "Blairs Witch Vol 1 Rustin Parr",
which - despite its prominent license - is more an unofficial sequel
to "Nocturne"). That game won't run if I use 3D acceleration.

I recall buying a discounted bigbox copy of Nocturne, and being very
impressed with the cloth effects and video resolution options -- I ran it at >~1600x1200 or somesuch with good framerate. Don’t recall if it was >accelerated or not though. There was some bug that prevented me from >finishing the last chapter of the game as well.

Nocturne (and, again, Blair Witch vol 1) are fairly impressive from a technological standpoint. It used fairly large textures for its time,
and had some amazing lighting real-time effects, which made for some
really spooky scenes. The aforementioned cloth effects are (from what
I can tell) built into the character animations and not physics-based,
but they still look really good. It was definitely one of the better
looking games of its time.

I seem to recall that the game released /without/ 3D accelerator
support, which was seen as a huge negative at the time. The version I
have has support for 3D accelerators, so obviously it was patched in eventually. Not that it really needs it; the game runs amazingly
smoothly in 'software' mode, and I didn't see much visual difference
when I used the 3DFX (not that I could test very long due to the
crashes).

The tank-like controls and ResidentEvil-style camera-shifts are the
games biggest faults. Controlling your on-screen avatar is always a
chore; just getting him to walk through a door can be a struggle, much
less lining up a shot on a monster or dodging an attack. It
artificially makes the game much more difficult than it needs to be.

But otherwise, it's a fun game; it has that right mix of cheese and
horror. Personally, I always liked the "Blairs Witch" game more (in
spite of its license, not because), since it was a bit more puzzle
based. But both are fine games and it's a shame the Nocturne franchise
fizzled out after only 1.5 games.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Project 95 has taken one big step forward, and a few small steps back.
Are we advancing or retreating? I'm not sure.

Finally shoved that TV tuner into the PC. It's a Haupauge WinTV-Go and
it does absolutely nothing. It only has a coax and s-video inputs, and
I don't have anything that uses that. Well, scratch that; I have some
old game consoles (XBox, PS2, Gamecube, etc.) and, in fact, my goal is
that if I ever decide to use those devices, I'll pair them up with
this computer. But the likelihood of that ever happening? It's pretty
low.

I thought this card also had a FM radio tuner too, but the software
(and model number) say otherwise. But I had several other 'tuner
cards, so maybe I'm thinking about those. Shame; it might have been
neat to use the thing as an FM radio. If I ever listened to radio
anymore. Or if I could hear anything over the noisy fans. I really
should get those replaced.

But with the addition of the TV tuner, now all my expansion slots are
occupied. Since the last PCI slot shares space with the ISA slot, that
pretty much puts to bed the idea of my using the GUS Max... unless I
give up one of the existing cards. Or switch motherboards.





I still have one potential upgrade to make: the addition of an
internal IDE Zip Drive. Again, this would be a fairly useless device,
since I don't have any other computers using zip-drives (and anyway,
USB flash drives are much faster and have larger capacities). But if I
only went for utility, this whole computer wouldn't even exist.
Instead, the main reason I haven't installed the 'drive is that the
front panel is white which (now that I've switched chassis) wouldn't
match the rest of the PC. Plus, I'd have to undo some of my cable
management.




Meanwhile, on the software front, I've added some new apps. I dug up
my "Kai's SuperGoo" disk. This was a photo-editing tool that let you
warp people's faces into ungodly shapes, which was a big thing in the
90s.

And I couldn't go without a utility suite. You remember the sort,
right? Whether it was "Norton Utilities" or "Cybermedia First Aid" or
- the one I chose - "Nuts N Bolts", their aim was to help you make
your PC run faster and with less errors. But usually they did just the opposite; they took up so many resources that your PC started running
slower and slower, and added so many new dependencies that the number
of crashes increased. Still, you can't have a 90s PC without such a
suite, so I installed one. And my PC instantly started blue-screening.
Ah, 90s computing. (the software has since been removed. I can do
without that degree of versimilitude).

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:01:32 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Project 95 has taken one big step forward, and a few small steps back.
Are we advancing or retreating? I'm not sure.

And so we come to the end of this project.

Well, not the for-ever-and-ever end. This PC will, I hope, stay with
me for a good long while, as a playable reminder of how awesome
computing in the late '90s really was. But as a work-in-progress? I
think I'm done.



I finally did as I threatened and slipped in that Iomega Zip 100
internal drive. I'm not entirely happy that it's faceplate - a garish
white - doesn't match up with the rest of the black chassis, but I
guess I'm going to have to live with. The Zip Drive replaces that
9-in-1 media-card reader that was previously taking up space in the
3,5" bay. Without internal USB headers, I couldn't use the card reader
anyway, so it's nice to have something functional in there. Installing
the drive did require me to almost entirely rework my cable
management.

While the Zip Drive is technically working, it's functionally as
useless as the card reader, since I don't have any other computers
with active zip drives installed. So all I can do is copy drives onto
the zip disk, and then right back off. But who knows, maybe one day
I'll actually have a use for the thing.



But with the installation of the Zip Drive, the computer is pretty
much maxed out; it has no open PCI slots, no open RAM slots, no more
open IDE... I've even used every single Molex power connector. If I
ever do make any upgrades to this machine, it will only be possible if
I remove something else first.

But that's okay, because I'm generally happy with this computer as it
is. Sure, I'm eternally disappointed that I couldn't get my Gravis
Ultrasound working, it's unfortunate that the AGP 2x Voodoo 3 is
slotted into an AGP 1x motherboard, the fans are a bit loud, and the
chassis isn't beige. But from a usability standpoint? It's fantastic.
It has /just/ the right performance for the games and apps I want to
use it on it. Honestly, if the computer were any faster, it wouldn't
have the same feel. It's a Windows9x-era computer; it needs a certain
amount of sluggishness to it.



And, oh, those apps and games. I've fallen in love with Office 97
again. I've never forgiven Microsoft for their atrocious 'ribbon', and
free alternatives have never quite had the same polish. But Office 97? Perfection. I even like Clippy (I mean, I turn him off immediately,
but I like that he's there. He's a reminder that - even when working - computers can be fun). Photoshop 5 isn't quite as compelling... but
Kai's PowerTools sure are. And thanks to a glut of third-party shell replacements, I'm constantly discovering new things on this computer.

Of course, it's really games that pushed the creation of this PC; all
those older titles that just didn't run smoothly (or at all) on modern hardware. Games I'd forgotten even existed until I started thumbing
through my CD-ROM library looking for things to install. I used to
love "Knight Moves" - a ridiculous chess-based puzzle game - but it's
been out of my mind for so long I had to look its title up on
MobyGames to see what it was. Or Looking Glass' "Flight Unlimited"
series. Or the old "Axis & Allies" game. Or the "Carnivores" hunting
games. So many lost classics, finally given another chance to prove
themselves.



So this machine isn't going away anytime soon. It's got - if not a
permanent position in my den - then an invitation to hang around for a
good long while. It's never going to be my 'go-to' machine; certainly
not for work, and equally not for gaming. But there's many a night
that I've no idea what I might want to play, and then my eye will be
drawn to the noisy beast in the corner.

"Come back," it says. "Let's play."

And I do.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 19 Mar 2023 19:19:04 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

So I said this project was 'closed'... and it is. Certainly from the
hardware side; I've got nothing more to add (actually, I've since
'removed' - or rather, unplugged - two of the case fans to bring some
sanity and quiet to the room when I use the PC. They weren't really
necessary anyway).

But on the software side? Look, the obscenely large (for 1999)
hard-drive still has 60GB free, and I gotta use it all SOMEHOW.

But what to add? I've dumped a lot of games and apps onto this system
already, but I could always use more. But I'm having a hard time
deciding (or even remembering) what to put on next. Hence this post.

So, I want games and apps that:

a) Were released for the Win9x platform between 1995 and
1999. Anything released earlier falls into DOS gaming
(and I have that well covered elsewhere), and anything
later the hardware won't run well enough to bother with.
Besides, games released in that period were often a lot
more experimental as hardware capabilities expanded in
leaps and bounds, and new gameplay mechanics started to
become possible.

b) Are somewhat unusual. Sure, there's the obvious stuff
like Quake and Unreal, or Half Life and Need for Speed,
or Sin. All classic games, sure but... well, maybe a
bit overplayed? How about some of the more unusual
games, the ones that - while good - we've all forgotten
about in the intervening decades. Stuff like "Hexplore"
or "Yoda Stories".

c) Make good use of the hardware. Something that shows off
90s PCs at their best. "Incoming Forces", for instance,
was all about the lens flare, and lens flare was so very
90s. Or the colored lighting in "Forsaken".

So I'm thinking games like "Nocturne" or "Independence War", or apps
like "Kai's Power Goo" or the "Yamaha XG-50 Soft-Synth". Games that
scream 'I'm from the 90s' that you remember fondly even though you
haven't played them in twenty years. Apps that once were considered
essential tools that we now get for free in the OS. Programs that
never make the top-10 list but still deserve another chance to shine.

Any ideas?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

On Sun, 19 Mar 2023 19:19:04 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

So I said this project was 'closed'... and it is. Certainly from the
hardware side; I've got nothing more to add (actually, I've since
'removed' - or rather, unplugged - two of the case fans to bring some
sanity and quiet to the room when I use the PC. They weren't really
necessary anyway).

But on the software side? Look, the obscenely large (for 1999)
hard-drive still has 60GB free, and I gotta use it all SOMEHOW.

I can't think of much. The big games from late 90s for me are probably
SS2 and Deus Ex.

I remember Red Alert mostly because I installed Windows 95 when I hit
the infamous Red Alert's DOS version installer bug. I guess you've
covered RTS games and moving them into Windows hardly made a difference
from playing them in DOS.

Battlezone from 1998 comes to mind as a slightly less known game, a kind
of RTS/FPS hybrid. It did use 3D acceleration for graphics too as I
recall, I remember some pretty smoke effects.

Heavy Gear II? It even had a short mission where you were in free fall
with your gear. That was a somewhat unusual bit in an otherwise fairly
dull FPS.

What else, NOLF maybe? I remember one newish feature there was that it
showed stats of where you had hit your enemies as in head/torso/limb
shots. It lead to me trying for headshots in System Shock 2 even though
it was completely pointless there. I doubt it was the first game to do
that though. Well, the 60s secret agent vibe wasn't that common at the
time as I recall. But you probably have NOLF there already?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

But on the software side? Look, the obscenely large (for 1999)
hard-drive still has 60GB free, and I gotta use it all SOMEHOW.

Maybe the 90's FMV titles, like Black Dahlia etc?

rms

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 28 Mar 2023 14:38:16 +0300, Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:

I can't think of much. The big games from late 90s for me are probably
SS2 and Deus Ex.

I'm trying to avoid the 'big name' games largely because, due to their
status, most of them have been updated to run smoothly on modern
hardware; thus, there's no need to put them on the dedicated Win9x PC.

I remember Red Alert mostly because I installed Windows 95 when I hit
the infamous Red Alert's DOS version installer bug. I guess you've
covered RTS games and moving them into Windows hardly made a difference
from playing them in DOS.

I was never a fan of the Red Alert games; I always preferred the main
series. "Command & Conquer 2" was one of the first games installed on
the win98 computer. I loved its map art!

Battlezone from 1998 comes to mind as a slightly less known game, a kind
of RTS/FPS hybrid. It did use 3D acceleration for graphics too as I
recall, I remember some pretty smoke effects.

Ooh, that's a good one. I need to dig out the CD for that game.

Heavy Gear II? It even had a short mission where you were in free fall
with your gear. That was a somewhat unusual bit in an otherwise fairly
dull FPS.

That's another good suggestion; alas, one I had already thought of. I
had to decide between "Heavy Gear" and "Heavy Gear II"; eventually I
decided on the former, simply because it runs better on the hardware.
While HG2 was /mechanically/ a better game (better visuals, better
controls), and it had some memorable missions (the aforementioned
space missions) its gameplay wasn't as exciting, largely because it
nerfed the enemies. In the HG universe, the 'gears' (the giant robots)
fit realistically between infanty and proper armored units like tanks,
and the first game respected this. But in the second game, gears
became overpowered and tanks extremely squishy. This not only removed
a lot of the challenge, but much of the game's versimilitude.

Side note: another classic Activision game of the era is "Interstate
76", but I couldn't get that game to run; it crashed whenever I
started a mission. Still, I did get to see the awesome intro.

What else, NOLF maybe? I remember one newish feature there was that it
showed stats of where you had hit your enemies as in head/torso/limb
shots. It lead to me trying for headshots in System Shock 2 even though
it was completely pointless there. I doubt it was the first game to do
that though. Well, the 60s secret agent vibe wasn't that common at the
time as I recall. But you probably have NOLF there already?

NOLF is /very/ tempting but, having been released in 2002, I think it
would be a poor fit for the hardware. The game would probably run but
- with only a 300MHz CPU and a Voodoo 3, I'd likely have to compromise
on visual quality and, let's face it, 3D FPS games of that era were no
lookers to begin with.

Anyway, while I loved the setting the gameplay always left me cold (to
get maximum enjoyment, you'd have to slowly sneak through the level
and then freeze in one place for five minutes everytime an NPC started
talking to hear his humorous comments).

Still, I could try other Monolith games; "SHOGO" and "Blood II" are
the most obvious (since the share the same engine), but personally I
never found either of them that enjoyable. But perhaps "Rage of Mages"
or "Septera Core". So a good - if indirect - recommendation; thank you
;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

What else, NOLF maybe? I remember one newish feature there was that it >>showed stats of where you had hit your enemies as in head/torso/limb
shots. It lead to me trying for headshots in System Shock 2 even though
it was completely pointless there. I doubt it was the first game to do
that though. Well, the 60s secret agent vibe wasn't that common at the
time as I recall. But you probably have NOLF there already?

NOLF is /very/ tempting but, having been released in 2002, I think it
would be a poor fit for the hardware. The game would probably run but
- with only a 300MHz CPU and a Voodoo 3, I'd likely have to compromise
on visual quality and, let's face it, 3D FPS games of that era were no lookers to begin with.

I sure don't remember exactly when NOLF came out but Wikipedia says the
Windows release was in late 2000 so it's in the window. NOLF2 was 2002.

Anyway, while I loved the setting the gameplay always left me cold (to
get maximum enjoyment, you'd have to slowly sneak through the level
and then freeze in one place for five minutes everytime an NPC started talking to hear his humorous comments).

True. OTOH, it played decently as an FPS even if you didn't hear all the comments or random chats. Although I remember one guard finding another
dead and calling me out to clean up the mess. That was pretty funny so
maybe I lost some of the enjoyment.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 28 Mar 2023 08:58:49 -0600, "rms"
<rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

But on the software side? Look, the obscenely large (for 1999)
hard-drive still has 60GB free, and I gotta use it all SOMEHOW.

Maybe the 90's FMV titles, like Black Dahlia etc?

Oooh, I hadn't heard of that one.
(checks games collection)
Or, apparently I did (since I have it, because OF COURSE I do!) but
I've no memory of it. But /exactly/ the sort of thing I want; Win9x,
acceptable quality, and relatively unknown (even to me! ;-)

Good tip, thanks!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 29 Mar 2023 12:45:30 +0300, Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

NOLF is /very/ tempting but, having been released in 2002, I think it
would be a poor fit for the hardware. The game would probably run but
- with only a 300MHz CPU and a Voodoo 3, I'd likely have to compromise
on visual quality and, let's face it, 3D FPS games of that era were no
lookers to begin with.

I sure don't remember exactly when NOLF came out but Wikipedia says the >Windows release was in late 2000 so it's in the window. NOLF2 was 2002.

hmm, I have it listed as 2002, but looking at mobygames it's Nov 9
2000. I'll correct my records. ;-)

Still, even a game from 2000 pushes it on the hardware. A 300MHz
Pentium II wasn't really competitive by then, and - as much as I live
my Voodoo card - it was behind the curve even when it was released.
It's great for games released before it hit the market, but it
struggles with stuff afterwards.

And that's fine. Like I said, I have an XP box already for more
'modern' games (2000-2010) so I'm not complaining. I just don't see
them as optimal on the Win9x PC. Maybe I'll put NOLF, NOLF2 (and poor
old forgotten Contract JACK) on that XP computer. They're due a
re-visit.

Anyway, while I loved the setting the gameplay always left me cold (to
get maximum enjoyment, you'd have to slowly sneak through the level
and then freeze in one place for five minutes everytime an NPC started
talking to hear his humorous comments).

True. OTOH, it played decently as an FPS even if you didn't hear all the >comments or random chats. Although I remember one guard finding another
dead and calling me out to clean up the mess. That was pretty funny so
maybe I lost some of the enjoyment.

The gameplay itself was... moderately fun. It wasn't ground-breaking,
but it had enough novelty here and there to be entertaining. But it
also had a bunch of annoying forced-stealth sections (I recall at
least one mission that instantly failed if you were seen) and,
compared to the polish of modern FPS games, its 90s-era gameplay can
be really hard to enjoy. This was back when a game wasn't considered
'good' unless it had really huge levels, and took you 30 hours to
finish, so there was a lot of filler.

So as a shooter, it was just okay. It only transcended its peers when
you soaked in the setting, which required a lot of patient listening
to random dialogues, and endlessly searching for all the hidden notes
and clues, which dragged out the already langorous gameplay.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

Still, even a game from 2000 pushes it on the hardware. A 300MHz
Pentium II wasn't really competitive by then, and - as much as I live
my Voodoo card - it was behind the curve even when it was released.
It's great for games released before it hit the market, but it
struggles with stuff afterwards.

Come to think of it, I probably had an 800 MHz AMD Duron at the time so
I can see the point. Probably with a whiny TNT2 Ultra.

And that's fine. Like I said, I have an XP box already for more
'modern' games (2000-2010) so I'm not complaining. I just don't see
them as optimal on the Win9x PC. Maybe I'll put NOLF, NOLF2 (and poor
old forgotten Contract JACK) on that XP computer. They're due a
re-visit.

Was Contract JACK any good? I never heard of it before just reading the
NOLF Wikipedia page. I didn't like NOLF2 that much either to be honest.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:17:56 +0300, Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

Still, even a game from 2000 pushes it on the hardware. A 300MHz
Pentium II wasn't really competitive by then, and - as much as I live
my Voodoo card - it was behind the curve even when it was released.
It's great for games released before it hit the market, but it
struggles with stuff afterwards.

Come to think of it, I probably had an 800 MHz AMD Duron at the time so
I can see the point. Probably with a whiny TNT2 Ultra.

Yeah, the Win98 PC struggles with Quake II at 800x600; it's definitely
hitting its limits with anything released post 1999. But, like I said,
I'm okay with that. Older games run fine, and I love seeing that 3DFX
logo flash on the screen when it switches to 3D mode. ;-)

Was Contract JACK any good? I never heard of it before just reading the
NOLF Wikipedia page. I didn't like NOLF2 that much either to be honest.

It gots a bad reputation and worse reviews, but as I recall it wasn't
that terrible a shooter. Its gameplay and maps were fairly average for
the time; about on par with other B-list games. But it lacked all the
character and humor of its predecessors; it was pretty much a generic
FPS game with a replacable hero fighting off uninteresting enemies.

As I've stated earlier, I never got much enjoyment from the gameplay
of the earlier NOLF games, and it was the uniqueness of the setting
and characters of those games that made them memorable. The actual
mechanics were average. "Contract JACK" takes that already mediocre
gameplay, strips away all the interesting bits, and shoves it into an unexciting story.

If you don't care about the setting and just want to run around
shooting stuff, 2000s style, then "Contract JACK" is acceptable, I
suppose. But it's definitely a step down from the NOLF games.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)