Category Archives: Oldskool/retro programming

Lemmings, or how clever tricks make platforms more different than they seem

Posted on February 18, 2024 by Scali

The other day I read this in-depth article on font usage in early DOS games by VileR. Since some of the fonts were apparently stored not as 1-bit bitmaps, but as multiple bits per pixel, I was wondering when the … Continue reading →

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Some results from the modified XDC movie player for 8088/CGA

Posted on January 2, 2024 by Scali

For my modifications to the XDC player, I targeted my Philips 3105 XT clone. It has a turbo mode of 8 MHz, and an ATi Small Wonder CGA clone. The harddisk is a 32MB Disk-on-Module connected to an XT-IDE card. … Continue reading →

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Video playback on low-end MS-DOS machines

Posted on January 1, 2024 by Scali

Playing video on MS-DOS… it kinda was a thing with things such as the GRASP/GLPro and FLIC formats back in the day. But not on REALLY low-end machines, such as 8088s and CGA. Until the demo 8088 Corruption was released … Continue reading →

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MartyPC: PC emulation done right

Posted on May 30, 2023 by Scali

I would like to give a heads-up about the new PC emulator on the block. It is called “MartyPC”, which indeed is a reference to Marty McFly from the Back To The Future movies. And indeed, that is a tribute … Continue reading →

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Cartridges for the IBM PC

Posted on May 29, 2023 by Scali

Cartridges? For the IBM PC? There’s no such thing! Well, there kinda is… The IBM PCjr has two cartridge slots. Now, one may argue about whether the PCjr is actually an IBM PC compatible or not, but let’s look at … Continue reading →

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Another adventure in downgrading, part 4: Fixed function

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Scali

A few months ago, I discussed downgrading a modern codebase to .NET 4 and Windows XP. I managed to get the code working to the point that all functionality worked, aside from web views, given that browsers no longer support … Continue reading →

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The DOS SDK

Posted on February 1, 2023 by Scali

A thing I have been working on, on and off, for many years now, is a set of headers and helper routines for programming DOS machines directly on the hardware in assembly and C. As you may recall, my earliest … Continue reading →

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A great upgrade for the PCjr: the jr-IDE

Posted on January 14, 2023 by Scali

Adding a hard drive to a PC was a reasonably standard upgrade even in the 80s. And in today’s world of retro-computing, we have the XT-IDE card, which adds proper IDE support to old PCs. Which also allows you to … Continue reading →

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When is a PC not a PC? The PC-98

Posted on January 7, 2023 by Scali

I’ve covered PC compatibility in the past, and tried to explain how just having an x86 CPU and running DOS does not necessarily make your machine compatible with an IBM PC. At the time, this was mainly about the IBM … Continue reading →

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A new MPU-401 solution: The Music Quest clone

Posted on December 18, 2022 by Scali

This is a draft that I have kept around since March 16, 2019, so it is about time I finally finish and publish it. This story started somewhere in 2015, when a user named Keropi posted a thread on the … Continue reading →

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