butterburp

Ah, 1994...the year I took 3 buses in San Francisco to get a (mono) Sound Blaster 2.0 card. Found the "shop" operating out of a tiny public storage unit in an alley, paid cash, and made it back alive. Thus began my addiction to Sam & Max Hit the Road, Microsoft Arcade, CANYON.MID and Dr. Sbaitso. Meanwhile, my roommate had a $4000 Packard Bell P90 with all the bells and whistles, courtesy of his rich lawyer dad. And no, he wasn't a total snot nose. Real nice guy, surprisingly. Anyway, thanks for posting these, they're fun to browse. What kind of "486" is that in the second ad, upper left corner? Can't quite make it out, a 486 SLC or something?

Man, that thing reminds me of the "highly portable" TRS80 Model 4P. I can't judge dimensions to save my life...is that an 8-inch disk drive in the toaster slot on the side? Of course, the real winner is the old IBM 5100 from the 70's. A mere 50 pounds, and the 64k model could be had for just under $20,000.

Another vote for, it's probably all real. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is another DOS game that has real music and audio clips available via PC speaker - which is what I had to use back in the stone age, when I had a 286 and no sound card.

Sure, some examples: late in 1996, there was a Dell Latitude and Gateway Solo that both sported a mobile P133 with 40MB RAM, and $4000+ price tags. I think you're both right. PC Magazine is geared toward the business user, with barely more than a few paragraphs per issue on gaming. It might also have something to do with the introduction of the mobile Pentium chip, allowing laptops to match desktop power for the first and only time ever (maybe not, but it's the only time I've ever seen this phenomenon). I guess some companies started seeing dollar signs and went straight after the busy executives who wanted the latest, greatest and most portable. The Gateway one even had an 8-minute promomercial. Not surprisingly, all business...

I've been browsing some back issues of PC Mag on Google books, right about the time that Windows 95 was starting to take off, and I'm noticing something strange: laptops around this time seem to be better outfitted than desktops. Oftentimes, laptops would be equipped with 40 MB of RAM, whereas a typical desktop would only have 16 MB, or rarely 32 at the most. Any ideas why? Does it just mean laptops needed more memory, or was the industry thinking that laptops would be the future, and desktops were going the way of the covered wagon? (**NOTE: happy forever desktop user here)

Hmm. some ideas but nothing really fits that description... Castles of Dr. Creep, Montezuma's Revenge, Pharaoh's Curse, Firequest? Or Atari 2600 Mountain King?

My guess from the zero views of this forum post (all the views are mine so far), is that this individual is well-known on the forums, as one to avoid? (The title on Youtube doesn't make me want to do anything but run away)

I think that might have been Deskmate version 1, which doesn't work on modern PC's (you can't save files). I use version 2 which you can get here: http://www.oldskool.org/guides/tvdog/deskmate.html and it's the files that start with "3kdm" (the big one is the manual).

I'm surprised this topic hasn't gotten more love, it's a very rich one! Well then forgive me as I talk to myself a time or three here... Definitely have fond memories of Malibu and the Road Runner theme (yes, the one from Looney Tunes). You could get a party package with hot dogs and popcorn and the like. I think I may have gone on the go-karts once, but the games were the star of the show for me. They had some awesome and pretty rare games over the years, including Space Fury, Food Fight, Space Ace, and Thayer's Quest. It took me forever (and a lot of quarters) to realize I actually had to take the staff when the elves offered it to me. For the longest time I thought they were just making conversation so I ignored them. If I remember correctly, our local Sambo's (when they switched their mascot to a bald guy with glasses) had a completely separate room with quite a few games, at least 20 I think. One of them was Space Odyssey, which I remember reading about in one of those "master the arcade games" books. I popped in my quarter (or token) and was promptly decimated in a matter of seconds. Guess the book didn't work.

I still use Tandy Deskmate, or Notepad in Windows 3.1, when I really need to concentrate on catching up with email. I copy my messages to text files and open them up in one of those two programs (in Dosbox). It somehow tricks my mind into not alt-tabbing to Google Chrome to watch Youtube, check sports scores, visit Atari Age, etc.

When I saw this topic, I assumed it was about this beauty:

Here's a long list of BBS's that are still alive and kicking. https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/bbs/list/detail/ How to do it in Dosbox for that uber-authentic feel: http://breakintochat.com/blog/2013/04/17/telnet-to-bbs-within-dosbox-emulator/ Or if you just have to do it the LGR way...

First saw DL on Starcade and was 100% sure it was "Dragonslayer" and that it was based on the movie. I was quite puzzled when I saw the marquee with the right font but the wrong title. Anyway, thus started my quest to beat the game. I bought several magazine articles that claimed to have the solution, tore out the pages and literally put them on the screen while I was playing. Every single solution was WRONG! Many an allowance went down the drain as I followed the wrong steps printed by those bozos. It took me many months and emptied piggy banks to figure out the right moves. I remember the first time I finally made it all the way through, it was such a rush and my heart was beating about 180. No, I was too young to have a thing for the Princess. After the game had been out a while and people were starting to solve it right and left, the inevitable came: the arcades started ramping up the difficulty. Much less time to react on some of the screen starts. I didn't know the full sequence of scenes, so the pool room always caught me off guard. The knight on horseback was especially brutal - it added a move at the beginning, with almost no time to react. I saw one clever guy who would start pushing up repeatedly after the elevator scene. There would also be the occasional malfunctioning machine, and as someone else pointed out, it is infuriating. I met one machine that would often move twice, despite my best efforts to push only once. At that point it was time to play Qbert instead.

Also, not my favorites but a few comments... Dare I say it? I don't hate Windows 10. I did at first, but I've managed to cobble together a half-working, not-terrible setup with a few tools: - Shut Up 10, so I can update when *I* want to, not when Windows forces me to - DSEO and DGVoodoo to run seemingly incompatible games - Dosbox. Nuff said. I have a love/meh relationship with Linux Mint, Cinnamon flavor. I can't get anything later than 17.3 to work with my TV, but the concept of a complete, free, evil-empire-free OS is sheer awesomeness. Minty!

For me it's a tossup between 98SE and XP SP3. Both were rock solid, (almost) everything ran on them, layouts were near perfect...and I definitely miss having startup/shutdown sounds. Much more than an honorable mention: DOS and Win3.1 are my close personal companions, and will be till I join Kermit the Frog in the croaked bin. So many great games. So many memories.

Apparently so did Electronics Boutique: http://huguesjohnson.com/scans/ebfall91/pg21.jpg Back to Rampage - another fun ep of LL. I have fond memories of multiplayer goodness on both the arcade and Lynx versions. There's something about getting together and acting like demented 5-year-olds that is simply winning. Fun trivia - the title music is a faster version of the theme from an old C64 game called Movie Monsters.

I liked most of the games that started disappearing in the Rev. E and later catalogs: Miniature Golf, Slot Machine, Flag Capture... And this amazing post made me a fan of Starship: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/223896-the-10-worst-atari-2600-games/page-2?do=findComment&comment=2962334 Basic Math would be an exception. Although, about every 5 years I will whip it out, input the wrong answer, and sing along to the Taps music: "You are wrong, you are wrong..."

Woohoo, looking forward to this! This show ROCKED, and Geoff Edwards (who was an avid gamer himself) was an awesome fit. I can still hear the maddeningly ear-wormy theme music in my head. The grand prize scores got ridiculously hard to beat in the last few episodes, almost no one won. Maybe they were over budget or something.

Small side note to coleco82: I had pretty much the exact same machine you had. The best part was the software bundle, with "Best of Windows Entertainment Pack," Megarace and bunch of 3D educational adventures. I actually bought the CD's on Ebay just so I could play them all again. I have never really understood PCem, you could certainly try it but I had a doozy of a time trying to figure it out. The documentation is dismal. Now back to our regularly scheduled video card discussion...

Righteous work as always, BTB. Never knew the NES version was so different. To add to the pronunciation party: when I first saw this game I thought it was "Ninja Garden."

This is beautiful! I love the author's narrative, including all the details of all the bumps and bruises along the way. Reminds me of my own attempts to get Dosbox to work in Linux...oh the sleepless nights. The SS easter egg is much more impressive, of course. Would love to try this at a classic arcade expo someday!

1. Bowling - On game 1 I can get a strike almost every time with my eyes closed, releasing the ball immediately, listening for the opportune time and hitting up. Oddly, I never had the guts to try for a perfect game. After about 5 or 6 strikes I either quit or hand the game over to a friend (who immediately ruins it). I just KNOW if I tried to go all the way, I'd make 11 strikes in a row and then bomb out on the last ball. 2. (tie) Asteroids difficulty b and Missile Command children's version - I can more or less go on indefinitely, racking up bonus ships/cities faster than I lose them. Honorable mention: Flag Capture, Maze Craze I absolutely cannot do anything in the Breakout family...I don't have the genes for it or something.

I remember playing Game 4 exclusively as a young'un. Something about "more fielders covering a wider area" translated as "better" in my kid mind. No wonder it was so easy! As an adult I switched to Game 1 and came within one out of pitching a perfect game...but I effed up fielding the last ball and the computer juuust made it to first before I did. That made me MAD. So now I'll remember to play #3 when I want a challenge, and #4 when I want some brainless fun Never tinkered around with the difficulty switches, that sure opens up some new possibilities. Reminds me of when Atari advertised the VCS as having over 1300 variations with just 20 cartridges... Couple of questions... 1) What's your pitching strategy (vs the CPU)? I usually keep the ball outside and try for strikeouts, either a slowball or fastball moving outside at the last moment, or a slowball starting inside (as if to hit the batter) and then switching to fast and moving away. 2) Is there any science to hitting the ball other than dumb luck? I've tried swinging early/late, which I think affects the direction, but haven't noticed any real difference in getting runners into second safely, which of course is key.

1. Bard's Tale II: Possibly the C64 game I spent the most time on, and very reminiscent of the Apple II version of Wizardry (though I thought C64 Wizardry was dreadful). I spent many afternoons after school fighting wolfmen and dark mages, while listening to Weird Al tunes on my Sony boombox. Oddly, I never actually solved a single dungeon, a fact that would not change until I got the PC version and used a cheat program to bump my stats up. 2. Little Computer People: One of two games I would habitually play at the department store. Think Sims, 1985 style, but this Sim writes you letters (with a good old fashioned typewriter) and plays poker with you. 3. Master Trivia: The other game I played at the store. I loved it, except my disk somehow went bad after a while. Almost every time the question would be "What is the third closest planet to the sun?" with a required answer of "moose." 4. Skate or Die: Played this a lot with my stepbrothers...fun times bopping each other off our skateboards in the pool joust. The halfpipe event is similar to the Lynx version in CA Games, but I thought the C64 one was more fun. 5. Mind Mirror: Timothy Leary's classic psychology program, and my first intro to personality theory, way before I learned about Myers Briggs. Similar to Alter Ego, but more clinically minded.

Wow, 12 years of posting, congratulations on that! I second your thoughts on the Apple II being the best for old RPG's. If there was one game that I liked better on the Apple than any other platform, it was Wizardry. On every other system the graphics were all dolled up into fullscreen mode, and it just didn't feel the same. The Apple version was elegant in its simplicity, and I was delighted when the Bard's Tale and SSI Gold Box series more or less copied the timeless design, with the maze permanently stationed in the upper left quadrant. Another one of my Apple favorites was Wilderness Campaign, although I never got very far. I played more for the laughs, when my party would inevitably get mauled by a tribe of 12 trolls or whatever it was.