Tag Archives: oldskool

Area 5150, a reflection

Posted on September 16, 2022 by Scali

As I said in my previous coverage of Area 5150, I was not sure whether I should comment on the demo. But I have given it some thought, and have decided to give some background info on the development process. … Continue reading →

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Retro programming, what is it?

Posted on May 20, 2022 by Scali

As you may have seen, in the comment section of my previous two articles, a somewhat confused individual has left a number of rather lengthy comments. I had already encountered this individual in the comments section of some YouTube videos … Continue reading →

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An Amiga can’t do Wolfenstein 3D!

Posted on March 13, 2022 by Scali

Like many people who grew up in the 80s and early 90s, gaming was a 2d affair for me. Scrolling, sprites and smooth animation were key elements of most action games. The Commodore 64 was an excellent gaming machine in … Continue reading →

Posted in Oldskool/retro programming | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Running anything Remedy/Futuremark/MadOnion/UL in 2020

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Scali

There has always been a tie between Futuremark and the demoscene. It all started with the benchmark Final Reality, released by Remedy Entertainment in 1997. Remedy Entertainment was a gaming company, founded by demosceners from the legendary Future Crew and … Continue reading →

Posted in Direct3D, Oldskool/retro programming, Software development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

The DreamBlaster S2P: General MIDI from a parallel port

Posted on March 9, 2019 by Scali

In the interest of catching up, here is the second blog that is long overdue. I want to talk about the DreamBlaster S2P from Serdaco. I received mine over a year ago, and it actually was an early prototype. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware news, Oldskool/retro programming, Software development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Keeping it real for Outline 2018

Posted on March 7, 2019 by Scali

It’s been a while, but I’m back. Or at least, I hope to have some more time to blog again from now on. And not just to blog, because many of my blogs are the result of experimentations with software … Continue reading →

Posted in Oldskool/retro programming, Software development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Putting the things together, part 2: MIDI and other problems

Posted on February 9, 2018 by Scali

Remember a few months ago, when I explained my approach to playing VGM files? Well, VGM files are remarkably similar to Standard MIDI files. In a way, MIDI files are also just time-stamped captures of data sent to a sound … Continue reading →

Posted in Oldskool/retro programming | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

More PC(jr) incompatibilities!

Posted on January 6, 2018 by Scali

The race for PC-compatibility Since the mid-80s, there have been many clones of the original IBM PC. IBM themselves also made new-and-improved versions of the PC, aiming for backward-compatibility. DOS itself was more or less a clone of CP/M, and … Continue reading →

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Putting the things together

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Scali

So, over time I have discussed various isolated things related to 8088-based PCs. Specifically: Using the latched property of the 8253 programmable interval timer to be able to adjust the interval without any jitter/skew, so you can use it as … Continue reading →

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Any real-keeping lately?

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Scali

The 5-year anniversary of my inaugural ‘Just keeping it real’-article came and went. Has it been that long already? It’s also been quite some time since I’ve last written about some oldskool coding, or even anything at all. Things have … Continue reading →

Posted in Oldskool/retro programming, Software development | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments