The 90’s: Old Friends

I found some old friends while digging through some stuff in my parents’ basement yesterday.

The Zip drive was a particular favorite although I no longer have my original purple external one that connected via parallel port and had a printer pass-through. I remember really bragging to my friends over the fact that I could fit like a hundred floppies onto my awesome new Zip disk. The Windows/DOS manual was leftover from my first computer. Some of the other stuff was all hooked up to my first computer.

The 90’s: Modem-to-Modem Death-Match

When playing multiplayer death-match meant that anyone trying to call your parents would be hearing a busy signal for a few hours.

Wait for it….. Wait for it…..

originalgameboy:

Security problem? Party like it’s Win-dows 95!

Man if that doesn’t bring back memories I don’t know what does.

deceptiion:

Ahh good old Nostalgia!

Windows 95 Startup sound!

How To: Install and Use DOSBox in Windows 7

There are a lot of how to’s out there about doing this but I thought I’d try to do a quick summary of the process for my readers to try out some of the games that I post.

1. Download and install DOSBox

2. Download a DOS game. I recommend Abandonia.com

For this example I will be using F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 by Microprose (1991). I will be posting my first Guest Review on this game soon!

3. Create a folder on your C: drive to store your DOS games in.

For my example I will be using my folder of C:\games

4. Extract the zipped DOS game that you downloaded in your DOS games folder and make sure that the extracted game is in a folder name that is 8 characters long or less.

For my example, I extracted my F-117A game to a folder called F117

5. Now launch DOSBox from the Windows Desktop shortcut or your Start Menu

6. Any time you open DOSBox you will need to mount your DOS games folder into the DOSBox program.

For my example, I do this by typing mount C C:\games

7. Change your active drive to the mounted C: drive by typing C:

You are now viewing your DOS games folder within DOSBox

8. Change to the game folder that you extracted to.

For my example I do this by typing cd\F117

9. Launch the game

For my example I do this by typing F117.COM

Once you launch your game there are some keyboard shortcuts that you will need to become familiar with to use DOSBox:

Note: These are the default keybindings. They can be changed using the keymapper.

ALT-ENTER Switch to full-screen (and back).

ALT-PAUSE Pause emulation.

CTRL-F1 Show the keymapper configuration screen,

CTRL-F4 Update cached information about mounted drives. Useful if you changed something on a mounted drive outside of DOSBox. Also cycles through disk images mounted using IMGMOUNT.

CTRL-F5 Save a screenshot (goes to capture folder).

CTRL-ALT-F5 Start/Stop recording of AVI video. NOTE: You may well have some problems with this, please see Recording Video for more information.

CTRL-F6 Start/Stop recording sound output to a wave file (goes to capture folder).

CTRL-ALT-F7 Start/Stop recording of OPL commands.

CTRL-ALT-F8 Start/Stop the recording of raw MIDI commands.

CTRL-F7 Decreases frameskip.

CTRL-F8 Increases frameskip.

CTRL-F9 Kill (close) DOSBox.

CTRL-F10 Capture/Release the mouse (if you need to use the mouse within DOSBox).

CTRL-F11 Decrease DOSBox cycles (slows down the emulation).

CTRL-F12 Increase DOSBox cycles (speeds up the emulation).

ALT-F12 Unlock speed (turbo button).

These default bindings are also documented in the README file accompanying the software.

Microsoft Bob (1995)

“Code named Utopia, Microsoft Bob was introduced to the public January 5, 1995 at the CES by Bill Gates and is a user friendly interface as shown in the image to the right. The program was originally designed to be used with Microsoft Windows 3.1x and Windows 95 and is no longer developed or used today.”

I remember using this program and didn’t feel that it was any kind of improvement. That’s probably why it never really caught on.

Windows 95 Video Guide

This is just horrible. Horrible!!! But just goes to show you the amount of buzz surrounding Windows 95 when it was launched. I just couldn’t make it past the 1 min mark of this btw. If you can, you are a greater man than I.

Computer Chronicles - Microsoft Windows 95 (1995)

Remember the buzz about Windows 95 pre-release? It was hard to go into any book store and not see WINDOWS 95 plastered all over the magazine covers in the computer magazine section. There were full special edition computer magazines dedicated to detailing every little thing about the new operating system. The buzz was well deserved in my opinion because the new OS was revolutionary. It offered drag and drop files into folders for for peat’ sake!

My first computer came with Windows 3.1 and I bought the mags about Windows 95 and studied them intensely until I was finally able to purchase “secure” a copy of the Windows 95 installation floppy disks and watch in awe and wonder as my computer transformed from DOS/Win3.1 world to the amazing and wonderful world of Windows 95 with it’s trendy Weezer - Buddy Holly video on the CD-ROM extras!

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t everything that it was built up to be, but it was an improvement. You can’t argue that.

My first post about “Computer Chronicles”