DarkLord

Me too - now that I've got the Mega STe up and running. I've got an MT32 just sitting on the shelf gathering dust. The ringing sounds of Ultima will prevail!l PS As soon as I get some more time.

Hmm, can't speak for the 8bit version of Ultima III but on the ST version you hit "V" and it would switch between sound effects (oh, those footsteps!) and the music, but not both. I thought it was the same on the 8bit but I'm not sure. Oh, the Amiga version let you do both sound effects and music at the same time, IIRC.

Went down that same road with both my first 800XL and my ST - I bought one piece at a time, as I could afford them. I can remember typing in those crazy programs from the magazines, then having to check for errors (rarely got them in the first time right), then running it for a bit, only to lose it all when I powered down. First floppy drive was a godsend! Same kind of moment the first time I got a hard drive for my ST - darned near put me in a semi-orgasmic state. Well, you know what I mean.

/sigh...what you're talking about doing with Ultima VI and the Falcon has been one of my dreams for a long time. I have a CD-ROM collection of the Ultima series for PC and I actually went so far as to grab the 256 color VGA graphics files and send them to PPera to see if he could do something with them. I can't remember the exact reason why now, but he couldn't.

Nice! Lots of us did something like that with Ultima V. It used the tiles approach to graphics, like many games and when you came to a border it would load from disk - slow and annoying, interrupting the gameplay. Someone came up with a bright idea and realized that you could stick one of those small buffer programs that read ahead in the AUTO folder, set to something easy like 32k or thereabouts and it would make a huge difference. Many times, there was no loading at all.

ROFLOL! I think Alternate Reality for the 8bit is one of the best RPG's on any platform. Too bad the ST conversion wasn't as good.

LOL, yeah, the Shadow Lords appearance could definitely ruin your day. It's a crying shame it never made it to the 8bit Atari's. Ugh, Ultima VI on the ST.... I really, really want to like it. I do. I mean it is VI, it's hard drive install-able!, you can transfer your previous characters, the story is epic, blah, blah, blah. Then you get to the graphics. My word. It appears that they just copied over the CGA versions and never adjusted them for the ST's color range. Some parts are okay, others are so muddled it's crazy.

Sort of like that on the ST too. I remember trying to do a copy of Ultima III and it seemed to work fine until you went into a town and interacted with any merchant or vendor. Then, they would shout, "Honesty is a Virtue! I will not help you!".

Hmm, did you play III back then or was it later? Just curious. That sometimes makes a difference in peoples perspective. Yeah, IV was a big improvement over III, in many aspects. I absolutely love V and enjoyed it from start to finish, especially the new story. OMG - when Lord Blackthorn actually KILLS one of the players that has been with you from earlier games (you were able to transfer previous characters), because of a choice you make in the game, it was one of the most emotionally gut-wrenching moments in any game I've ever played. Every time the dread ShadowLords appear too, it's epic.

I think that's the key - "back in the day". When I first played these games, as they were being released for the Atari's (I did III first on an 800XL, then 2-6 on the ST), they were amazing and awesome.

? Irrelevant.

Awesome. I bought one for the US I'm going to put in my Mega STe, but haven't got around to installing it yet.

This. Hard to argue about Ultima IV - although I love V as well.

Only the purity argument makes any sense to me. The rest, nope....

Yah, looking good.

No comparison in performance and features - but with a US, why not have both?

I'm using the RTC included with the US - seems to be rock-solid here. Not noticed any Y2K issues, but really wasn't looking hard either. It keeps the time accurate and that's all I needed/wanted. I'm using the software that Jookie included/wrote for the RTC in the US. Again, works fine. Your tutorial looks great - lots of helpful stuff there. The only thing I noticed is that you might want to give a small warning about the hinge springs on the screen. I've been told that when you remove the screws they can "snap" with no tension on them. I personally did not experience this during the several times I've taken mine apart but that may because my STacy's springs are no longer as strong as they once were. Still, we wouldn't want anyone's fingers pinched, right? BTW, what interface did you decide to use with your internal US and your STacy? Thanks - Just curious.

Oddly enough, while this was going on I had zero problems reaching them using my saved URL in Chrome's bookmarks....

For the C programmers out there, the ! is super hilarious in this thread - makes me think of SpongeBob Squarepants and his "opposite" day. !

Interesting entry in the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idris_(operating_system)

Also, thanks to everyone for the info on the internal US and LEDs. I've got one ordered from Lotharek and am planning on replacing the old HDD in my Mega STe.

Because I love overkill (and options!), I think for my HDD version order I'd want: 1 psychedelic 1 yellow 2 green and of course, the HDD post/replacement itself. I'll PM this to you when you do formally announce that it's ready. Thanks!

Heh, nice video, especially the "light" show - Industrial Light and Magic couldn't have done it any better!

Nice. Thank you Fujiman! <2 thumbs up>

It was! (and the HDD part is just as bad if not worse)