(video) The hacks just KEEP on commin'

After disregarding a few FAQs and keeping my fingers crossed, it somehow managed to work:

the old meets the new (1.58meg AVI)

Ok, so it's not THAT great, but it fits my needs. Just another example of how flexible the empeg is.

So, wait a minute, having the old funnelweb visual and menu navigation is more important to you than all the features that have been introduced since 1.03?

To each his own, I guess... You don't still run MS-DOS 2.11, do you?

To each his own, I guess... You don't still run MS-DOS 2.11, do you?

Of course he doesn't. ANYBODY knows that MS-DOS 4.1 was the best of all the DOS versions. Give the man some credit!

tanstaafl.

Gah, sacrilidge...

DOS 5 was the clearly the best of all DOSes

Woahhhh, you all are getting way to technical here.

If all I need to play Sim Earth is Dos 3.2, then Dos 3.2 is all I'm gonna use.

C>cd\Maxis
C>pwd
C:\MAXIS
C>simearth.bat

Mmmmm, the goodness.

Just to correct you.. :-)
The correct way to do that should be:
C:\> cd\maxis
C:\MAXIS> simearth.bat

pwd didnt exist in dos... :-)
It did take me a while to learn that I should have a <space> between the cd and \dir when I went to the unix-side of things.. :-)

Ahh, remember those days like yesterday, dos 6.22, qemm, desqview, frontdoor, ra...

/Fredrik

pwd didnt exist in dos... :-)

No, but "cd" with no arguments prints out the current path.

Ahh! Now I remember!
Thanks! :-)

/Fredrik

5.0 was definitely my favourite, didn't mind 3.3 either, never did like any of the 6s though.

Oooh QEMM - that takes me back. I had the first ever batch of 486's in the company and I spent and entre night trying to squeeze as much memory I could out of them by tweaking QEMM settings

How can one mention QEMM without mentioning Quarterdeck's masterpiece, Desqview? Text-mode multitasking and windowing... Can't beat that with a stick!

We used to have a couple of Tandy 2000s they came with DeskMate a semi windows GUI, they were almost unbreakable:

I have always enoyed saving the best for last, and in this case have a real chance to savor it. I mentioned a ways back that packed into the box with MS-DOS and Basic is a disk called the Deskmate. Why is this significant? Well, simply put, once you boot this disk, you might never need another software package for your computer.

DeskMate is an integrated software package that combines word processing, spreadsheet, file management, telecommunications, calendar, and E-mail functions in a single user interface. It includes online help, a simple four-function calculator, alarms that can tie directly to day/date schedules, and a printer interface that services all functions.

Cool eh!

I used QEMM, a third party disk cache that could be configured on the fly (think it was Hyperdisk) and a bunch of 4DOS batch files to control the memory managment under MSDOS 5 without having to reboot for every different game. Some games needed loads of EMS, some needed loads of XMS, some needed maximum lower memory free, so would only use a fixed amount of memory leaving more for the disk cache etc

Kids have got it easy with the gaming now...

It is sad to say that I didn't legally own any of the above mention bits of software. I was a student on a small budget and simply couldn't afford them. At time time I had £10 a week to spend on food and had even given up on drinking (unless someone else was buying).

Since signing up for MSDN Universal the other week I am very nearly legal on all my software now. I think I only have Photoshop to come clean on, I expect I'll resist that one until Adobe introduce MS style activation.

Yes! This is so awesome. I know I used to actually know all these terms, but now I barely even recognize them! My geekiness is slipping! I even have a reasonably matching wardrobe, now!

Desqview? What about DOSShell; aka: Dos Hell.

Yeah, I honestly never liked Dos 6.x either. It was too tricked out for me. DBLSPACE drive compression? MEMMAKER to optimize memory? Seems they were trying to squeeze the last bit of life out of that 640k extended memory. Or was that expanded memory? Or, wait, maybe it was upper memory. ::kicks EMM386 in the shin::

Oh, and thanks to Roger for catching the "cd = pwd" thing. I *knew* there was a way to view the current directory back in the day before it was printed in the prompt. Ah, those were the days.

before it was printed in the prompt

prompt $p$g has worked since DOS 3.10, IIRC.

Haha, but I was using DOS 3.2 when I was like 8 years old. The famous "spsg" hadn't crept into my CONFIG.SYS (or whever) by that point.

Back then I did, however, upgrade my Tandy 3000HL from 512k ram to 640k ram! My first hardware upgrade and the only DIPP (right?) chip memory upgrade I've ever done.

Wow, reading this has reminded me about the hours spent trying to get Frontier: Elite 2 running on my Amstrad 386 SX20 notebook (feel the power!).

Getting the (2 whole megs) of extended RAM configured right was a right game in itself. Actually, IIRC, it was getting enough of the 640 released that was the difficult bit. Curse my failing memory, but it was 10 or 11 years ago

Dunno why I bothered either, when I did get it going, it ran like a slideshow