Any GameBase for those *early 80s* DOS games?

[andreas2]

I've already looked at the two DOS-related GameBases, but it is not really what I meant.

Because "Early 80s DOS games" and "DOS games" is not necessarily the same thing. In the early 80s (around 1983/84), those games came as auto-booting 5.25'' floppy disks (commonly called "booters") for the CGA (rarely: EGA) graphics adapter.
In fact only a small number of them deserved to be put into the "DOS games" category, since they had their own bootloader that circumvented the built-in OS (like much more widely known on the Amiga later). Don't imagine that there was any AUTOEXEC.BAT running an .exe file or anything of that sort.
Besides, in Seiya's "MS-DOS Goldies" thread, the games referred there may be called 2nd (or even 3rd) generation for a reason! For that was way, WAY later...

There are not many emulators around that can run these "booters". Flopper is one of them, and I also managed to run lots of them using MESS (Multi Emulator Super System).
So I'd be interested if somebody has started making a GameBase from these early classics.

[stanstimer]

I remember those games you mean. I think 'Summer Games' from 'Epyx' was one of them, where it used to boot up almost instantly from the floppy using a kind of machine code routine.

The Dosbox SVN-Daum version can do this. It is this version of dosbox that is included in DOS Goldies gamebase.

There is an option under the 'Drive' menu in Dosbox SVN-Daum. Click on 'Drive', then choose a drive letter like 'A' and then in the menu that comes up, right at the bottom you can click on 'Boot from floppy image' and then choose the option 'Specify bootable floppy image' and then it will boot up the floppy image game.

So in theory you should be able to add those games to the DOS Goldies gamebase and play them directly.

S.Stimer.

[andreas2]

WHAT!

Now I'm dumbfounded, I didn't expect them to run off DOSBox. But as you pointed out, it's not the "ordinary" DOSBox running these, but a kind of fork (?). So that explains well enough why I didn't mention DOSBox in my post. Thanks!

[Retroplay]

This is the DOSBox of choice.
http://ykhwong.x-y.net/

It supports 3DFX, D3D/OpenGL shader and MT32.

Turrican 2 running at 1080p with CRT shader.
http://i.imgur.com/2y5gCd7.jpg

[Seiya]

good..a new version

[hardmanm]

I have started a PC Booter gamebase, just give us a few weeks to get it done.

[andreas2]

Oh, thank you so much! Looking forward to checking it out.

Now this is gonna become a pleasurable trip down memory lane

[hardmanm]

I have finished it and uploaded it here:

http://www.4shared.com/rar/BJvb1kYFba/PC_Booter.html

It's not perfect, and might need a few tweaks here and there.

[Seiya]

thank you

[Brataccas]

Thanks for this hardmanm. For anyone having trouble with 4shared, I was able to get to the file using 4server.info

[sut]

I can't seem to download this, the 'free' download seems greyed out.

[sepp10]

Thank you very much. The download is still working perfectly. No problem at all from my location.

[andreas2]

Another big thanks from me, hardmanm! Awesome!

@sut If I am not completely wrong, 4shared downloading has now been limited to registered users only.
Maybe someone could mirror it on their dropbox repo? At any rate, registering on 4shared has really become a 120-second task with an existing Google or Facebook account at your disposal.