Nerdly Pleasures

The Various Versions of The Phantom of the Opera (1925/1929) with Lon Chaney

2011-11-09T19:21:00.000-08:00

1925 Title Card

1929 Title Card

Universal Studios produced and released the first ever cinematic treatment of The Phantom of the Opera in 1925. This silent film starred Lon Chaney, the Man of 1,000 Faces as the titular character, Erik the phantom. Chaney has since been recognized as one of the most versatile actors in silent film, and his make up and portrayal of the Phantom has been recognzied as one of the iconic roles pre-sound cinema. Although the role may not be his best, nor the movie which features it the most crticially acclaimed of his filmography, it is by far the one for which he is best remembered. In 1925, he scared the wits out thousands of movie patrons when his hideous deformed face is revealed. Before I discuss the versions of the films, a few basic facts about silent movies should be identified :

1. Silent pictures were never silent when played during the "silent era" and often were not projected in black and white. In larger theaters, often something close to a chamber orchestra would play music specially compiled for the film, while smaller theaters would have to make do with a house organist or pianist. While the cameras which captured the performers used black and white film stock, prints would often be tinted during processing to reflects the mood, setting or time of day of a scene. An outdoor daylight scene would be tinted yellow, a nighttime or cold scene blue, interiors orange or yellow, fiery scenes in red, moody scenes in green or purple.

2. Intertitles often conveyed more than just dialog. They provided narration, introduced characters and identified the actors who played them, described locations. Letters, books, notes, signs and newspapers could also serve the function of the intertitle, allowing the audience to quickly soak in exposition rather than view actors "talking" to each other with many intertitles. Intertitles made it very easy to export films to foreign markets, as they could be replaced with intertitles in the native tongue. Intertitles were not necessarily written to match the words the actors were speaking, and before sound the intertitles could direct a story in a different way to what was originally intended to be filmed.

3. All major motion pictures up to 1950 in the United States were shot on nitrate (nitrocellulose) film stock. Nitrocellulose was a comparatively unstable material, very sensitive to heat and could spontaneously combust if not handled properly. It also had a tendency to decompose or warp over time, and many films have been lost to one of these causes. After 1950, films were shot and printed on safety film (cellulose acetate), which did not display the fragility and unstable photo-chemical properties of nitrate.

4. By the 1950s, most studios, Universal included, deemed their silent film libraries as having no further commercial value and embarked on a campaign to destroy their silent film archives. They would burn their films to recover the valuable silver content of the film stock and to free up storage space. 50-80% of all silent films are lost due in part to the studio's efforts to make space in their vaults.

5. In the late 1920s, the studios were transitioning rather rapidly towards sound films. During this time, movies would be released with talking or singing sequences. But these films, while they would have an entire sychronized music and effects track, would not be all-talking, which was cumbersome thanks to the limitations of early sound film technology (everybody always seemed to be talking around a table). Older films, shot for silent screens, would sometimes be converted to a "talkie". At this time, there were two main competing technologies, sound-on-disk (such as Warner Bros.' Vitaphone) and sound-on-film (Western Electric Sound System/Movietone, RCA Phonophone, DeForest Phonofilm). Sound on disk had the soundtrack stored on vinyl phonograph records while Sound-on-film, which won this format war by 1932, was an optical sound track printed on the film itself.

6. In the 20's, the evolution of color cinema photography was still in its infancy, but color sequences did exist to a limited extent in several large budget features. The most advanced of these for most of the silent era was Process 2 Technicolor, which debuted in 1922 and was used in a handful of silent films. Process 2 used two primary colors, orangish-red and bluish-green. This did justice to flesh tones, red and green hues, but was not truly realistic when it came to other colors. Some films, like Douglas Fairbanks' The Black Pirate, used Technicolor throughout the picture, but other films used it only for certain sequences. While the camera negative only used one strip of film, the resulting projection prints used two strips cemented together. This caused no end of problems for projectionists with warped, scratched or broken color strips. Technicolor was a slow speed system and required copious amounts of light to allow a good exposure of the images onto the camera negative. Other processes of the period included Prizma color, which used similar principles but was washed-out compared with Technicolor, and the Handschiegl color process, which allowed color dyes to be applied to a specific portion of a film frame.

7. More than one camera would often be rolling on the set of a silent film. Due to the relative instability of nitrate film, having two negatives provided an important safety net. Since all projection prints were struck from camera negatives in these days, having an extra negative was important in case the primary negative was damaged. Often, the second negative would be taken from a second camera shooting from another angle or a second take. If a film was going to be distributed internationally, such as in Europe, then a second negative could be shipped overseas for cheaper processing overseas. Also, the second negative would not have the intertitles spliced in but kept separate so foreign-language intertitles could be created and spliced in for each country. If color photography was used, there was virtually always a black-and-white version of the same footage.

8. Silent film had no set standard for the film playback speed. Most silent film cameras were hand cranked, so the frame rate varied with the cameraman. Projectors often had several speeds available, including 12, 16, 18, and 20 and 26 frames per second. 16 frames per second was what all the cameramen tried to crank the film camera at, but silent films could include instructions to the projectionist to project a reel at a particular speed. Sound films in the US are shot and projected at 24 frames per second, and when silent footage is run at this speed, it often looks comically sped up when it was not intended to be shown that way. Slapstick comedy and chase scenes would often be under-cranked to show frenetic action, however, both in the silent and sound era.

With these principles in mind, let us turn to the film itself :

First Intertitle for 1925 Version

Chaney's Phantom is undoubtedly the closest adaptation of Gaston Leroux's novel. Unlike later versions where the Phantom is scarred by acid (Universal's 1943 Three-Strip Technicolor "remake" & Hammer Film's 1962 treatment) transformed into a monster through a pact with dark powers (1989's Phantom with Robert Englund) or only deformed on one side of his face (Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical and 2004 movie adaptation), Chaney's Phantom was deformed at birth and presumably shunned by virtually everybody his entire life. This is the only major film version made in the author's lifetime, although he had no personal involvement in the production. Most of the novel was filmed at one time or another during filming, including Christine's trip to her father's grave and the inclusion of the Madame Valerius character.

So, in 1924, when Universal began production, they intended the picture to be its "Super Jewel" for 1925. Universal had its greatest success turning out what we would call today B-Westerns during this period, but every year it would expend significant resources for one grand picture. In 1923, that picture was The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney and a cast of thousands. Universal thought it would replicate the success of Hunchback with another weird picture that would showcase Lon Chaney and its production resources, so it pushed Phantom into production.

The Star - Lon Chaney as Erik, The Phantom of the Opera

Of Chaney's makeup, performance and contributions to Phantom, which includes uncredited direction and designing the several masks the Phantom uses during the film, I can add nothing to the 85-years of accolades heaped upon him. The storyboards, conceptualized by Ben Carre', have also been frequently highlighted as contributing to the atmosphere of the film. The anonymous contractors and crew of Universal which constructed and decorated the huge sets and directed the extras are often overlooked. Except for intimate areas such as Christine's dressing rooms, the set designs are all first-rate. (Why would an understudy get what looks to be a huge dressing room?). This is all especially impressive since the entire film was shot on the Universal Studios lot (called Universal City) in Hollywood. Nobody went to France to shoot exteriors or interiors of the Paris Opera House (a.k.a. the Opera Garnier).

The film's reputation as something less-than-a-masterpiece can primarily be laid at the feet of two people, original director Rupert Julian and Universal Studios President Carl Laemmle. Julian, who had great success with the 1918 "Hate the Hun" picture "The Kaiser : The Beast of Berlin", was brought in by Laemmle to save Universal and its over-budget film "The Merry-Go-Round" from director Erich von Stroheim. Stroheim had a tendency to go over-budget on his pictures, financial excesses which eventually caused Laemmle to fire him from Merry-Go-Round and replace him with Julian. Julian finished the picture and the resulting success of the film kept Universal from falling into receivership. Julian's reputation at the studio (at least with Laemmle) was at its height and "Uncle Carl" (for whom nepotism was far from a foreign idea) deemed him to be the man to bring Phantom to the screen.

A Particularly Infamous Error - Raoul seems to be handing a lantern to Ledoux, but Ledoux is about 10 feet below him!

Unfortunately, Julian capabilities as a director were at best could be described as workmanlike. Others have referred to him as a hack, and in Phantom his lack a firm grasp of cinematic technique or inspiration soon led to clashes with Lon Chaney. Chaney decided that Julian was not really worth taking direction from and pretty much did his own thing. When Julian told cameraman Charles Van Enger to tell Chaney to do something, Chaney would tell Van Enger to tell Julian "to go screw himself". Julian was a point-and-shoot type of director, content to film a scene, any scene without moving the camera, using closeups or multiple shots. He ludicrously demanded that the falling chandelier sequence should be shot entirely in the dark! Fortunately cameraman Van Enger fooled him and we can actually view the impressive effect today. To be fair, an epic like Phantom would have challenged any director, and better directors have had pictures sunk under the weight of budgets, sets, stars and hype.

Mary Philbin - Our Damsel in Distress

Reviewers of Phantom have sometimes been less than kind to Chaney's two principal co-stars, Mary Philbin as the singer Christine Daae' and Norman Kerry as her lover Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. Mary Philbin was a quiet, shy girl in real life and it has been said that her best work was with directors who knew how to get the best out of her, not the artistically-oblivious Julian. Lon Chaney was able to get a really convincing display of terror out of her by flying into an improvised rage at her, some of which may have been caught on film. However, her performance is constrained not only by the function of the heroine in the story but by the writer, editor and director. Norman Kerry has been called rather stiff and while he is no Douglas Fairbanks or Rudolph Valentino, he has been castigated as a bad actor for something that was really not his fault. In the scene where he stands outside Chrstine's door while she is talking with her "master", there is a shot of him grinning while playing with his gloves when he should be confused and jealous. Commentators at the time and since have accused Kerry of really bad acting here, but as he never shows inappropriate behavior elsewhere in surviving footage, there is little doubt that his reaction shot was an inappropriate edit.

Norman Kerry - Our Hero being punished by the editor

When Phantom wrapped principal shooting in late 1924, the Studio decided to test out its Super Jewel with preview audiences before going nationwide. So in January, 1925, Universal screened a preview version of Phantom in a Los Angeles theater (the Los Angeles Preview Version). The audience's reaction was not great for primarily two reasons. First, the picture was over three hours long, making it an ordeal for audiences to sit through. Second, in 1925 audiences were not ready for an ending where the villain seems to avoid his just desserts. The intertitles were described as unclear and were rough. Universal cut the film to eliminate scenes where the stable manager complains to the managers that a horse has gone missing, where Raoul interviews Madame Valerius, where Raoul, Christine and the Phantom meet at the graveyard at Viroflay. It also added a slightly revised ending where the Persian shoots the Phantom, but audiences were still negative.

The Original Ending - The Phantom Dies of a Broken Heart

Uncle Carl was not pleased with the reception of the film and ordered something to be done to improve the picture. So Edward Sedgwick was brought in to direct new scenes inserted awkwardly into the existing drama where Raoul strives with the Russian Count Ruboff for Christine's affections in scenes set entirely outside the Opera. This seems primarily to introduce comic relief in the persons of two new characters, Raoul's valet and Christine's maid. The Phantom's sole involvement in these new scenes is when Raoul takes Christine to a shabby restaurant and the Phantom pays an Apache to kill Raoul. The director also filmed the existing ending with the Phantom being chased by the mob led by Simon Buquet. This version premiered in San Francisco in late April, 1925 (the San Francisco World Premiere Version) The audience's reaction was still not good, and the shlocky melodramatic additions were excoriated.

Sedgwick's Addition - Count Ruboff, a rival for Christine's hand

After the San Francisco premier bombed, the film was edited to remove the Russian Count subplot and the antics with Raoul and Christine's servants but kept the new ending sequence, and this version was more or less what the rest of the world saw, beginning with the New York premiere at the Astor Theatre in September, 1925 (the New York General Release Version). It played well into 1926 before being returned to the vault and grossed over $2,000,000 during first run engagements against a final cost of ~$650,000. While it was exported overseas, due to a huge public relations blunder it was not shown in the United Kingdom during this period. By this time, the book's character of The Persian (played by Arthur Edmund Carewe) has been renamed Inspector Ledoux and Erik is no longer the Sultan's ex-torturer but an escaped convict from Devil's Island.

He knows Everything - Arthur Edmund Carewe as ~~the Persian~~ Inspector Ledoux

So what is available of this 1925 version? Unfortunately, the original 35mm negatives were lost or destroyed by Univeral by the early 1950s and no (positive) projection print has been found. During the 1930s, Universal marketed 16mm "Show-at-Home" prints of its back library catalog and the Phantom was available. The sole visual record of the 1925 version survives in these prints, and apparently multiple sources have been used to present the film as it has been made available today. These existing prints are dupes of the Show-at-Home print, not the actual Universal product itself. Each generation from the negative is usually worse than the last.. As will be described later, this source is probably not 100% true to the original 1925 version as shown in theaters (but its pretty close). The print quality is not the greatest, the image lacks clarity and detail. Edges of the frame are indistinct, scratches abound throughout and contrast is far from ideal. There is no tinting or color sequences on my DVD and it runs 107 minutes.

This scene between Christine and Raoul was deleted from the 1929 Version

Universal decided to resurrect the Phantom, one of its biggest moneymakers of the decade, when sound films were becoming big at the box office in the late-20s. In 1929, the studio decided to convert the Phantom into a part-talkie, part silent version. This would require the original actors to film new scenes with their dialogue record and synchronized to the film. But the whole film was not to be remade, so scenes from the 1925 version would be used where possible. Mary Philbin and Norman Kerry were available and recorded talking scenes, but Lon Chaney was not and Universal could not legally dub his voice in scenes where he appeared. However in the scenes where his shadow is seen talking to Christine through her mirror, he was dubbed by another actor. For the opera scenes, performances of the signers would be dubbed in. Mary Fabian was cast as Carlotta while Virginia Pearson, who played Carlotta in the 1925 version, was redesignated as Carlotta's mother in her scenes with the managers. John Sainpolis was replaced by Edward Martindale as Raoul's brother Comte Phillipe de Chagny. In both cases, sound was the deciding factor as Pearson could not sing and Sainpolis was not deemed to have a good speaking voice.

The only time the Phantom talks during the 1929 Version

The 1929 version has a synchronized sound track throughout, with the sound being stored on phonograph vinyl discs. These discs survive and give us perhaps our only idea of what these people sounded like. (Chaney can be heard in his only talking picture, 1930's The Unholy Three and Carewe can be heard in 1932's Doctor X). However, the disks do not sync with the available film elements from the 1929 version. There are about eight distinct dialogue sequences spread out among the ten disks, and four of those disks (6, 8-10) have only music and effects, no dialogue. The music score is compiled almost solely from stock music pieces and cues and plays almost throughout the picture. Sound effects can be heard, as can unscripted chatter. The scene with Florine Papillon, the ballet dancer and Joseph Buquet is dubbed as is Christine's singing voice. The Faust opera scenes have been recorded with the singers.

Universal took from alternate takes of the footage shot in 1925 to keep the need to film new sequences to a minimum. Other than the new talking scenes, the footage is almost completely from 1925. Intertitles are still used whenever there is a non-talking scene, and these seemed to be newly created for the 1929 version. The version released to theaters cut out some scenes in the original and the running time was reduced to about 93 minutes. The 1929 version was successful and was released in early 1930 domestically and overseas, including, this time, the United Kingdom. Lon Chaney would be dead by the end of the year and so was unable to star in Universal's first supernatural horror film, Dracula. So what happened to this version? The conventional wisdom used to be that a 35mm print of the 1929 version was struck for the George Eastman House in 1950, but the sound disks do not sync up to the print except in some isolated scenes. It has been proposed that the print was a silent version for movie theaters which had not converted to sound.

The Curious Man with a Lantern as he appears in the print of the 1925 Version

This apparently makes sense until one encounters the Man with a Lantern sequence at the very beginning of the print. Just after the titles a man with a lantern is shown walking in the Opera cellars and is clearly speaking, but no intertitles are shown. Apparently he provides a spoken introduction to the film. If this were a silent film, the Man with a Lantern would serve no purpose. The second proposal is that this is an International Version intended for overseas and the Man with a Lantern was inserted so theaters could advertise it as a talkie (which would have been really stretching the truth). Presumably the Man with a Lantern would be overdubbed in whatever language was necessary. I would suggest that rather than go to the trouble of producting a domestic sound, domestic silent, international sound and international silent of the 1929 version, Universal probably used virtually the same silent print for the basis for all but the domestic sound version. The Man with a Lantern could be deleted for any theater without sound equipment overseas.

I bought the Milestone 2003 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release (distributed by Image Entertainment), which is now out of print. It contains both the 1929 and 1925 versions, each on a separate DVD. This is a great DVD package with only one flaw : its1929 version suffers from horrible motion judder and ghosting/blur. The 1929 version on the disc was sourced from a Photoplay Productions 1996 restoration for Channel Four in the U.K. The resulting video master would have been in the PAL format, and this is what Milestone (a U.S. company) chose to work with. At some point, they had to convert it to NTSC for U.S. TVs. A poor conversion is one possibility for the motion issues. The other possibility is that the technology used slow down the film when the PAL (50 fields per second) master was released caused issues with the PAL-to-NTSC (59.94 fields per second) conversion technology was applied.

Otherwise the Milestone DVDs contain a wealth of ads and promotional material, two trailers, photo reconstructions of the Los Angeles Preview and San Francisco Premier versions, and has the sound disks synchronized as best as they could to the 1929 print. It also has a great commentary by Scott MacQueen and interviews with Carla Laemmle (Uncle Carl's niece who played the prima ballerina as Rebecca Laemmle) and cameraman Charles Van Enger. As far as the scores go, I do not care too much for Carl Davis' on the 1929 version, but I really appreciate Jon C. Mirsalis' on the 1925 version. The 1929 print includes the surviving color sequence for the masked ball (until the Apollo's Lyre scene), and computer colorizes the Phantom on Apollo's Lyre to recreate the original Handschiegl process and the brief sequences at the ball after the scene. Apparently, the existing 35mm print of the 1929 version had serious nitrate decomposition issues in the scene where Christine wakes up in the swan bed in the Phantom's layer. The DVD inserted 16mm footage from 1925 and tint it for those frames of the scene that are too damaged. Image released an early DVD in 1997 which is reputed to have better image quality for the 1929 feature than the Milestone DVD and contains excepts from the1925 version but is otherwise rather barebones (and a port of the 1995 laserdisc release).

Seen in the 1929 Version, but not from the 35mm print

Image has just released a Phantom Blu-ray with both the 1929 and 1925 versions. The 1929 version is shown in separate 24fps and a 20fps versions. The 1925 version is tinted, (apparently by comptuer) and has a score by Frederick Hodges. The 1929 version offers three scores, one by Gabriel Thibaudeau (also in its 1997 DVD), one by the Alloy Orchestra and most importantly in my opinion, the old organ score by Gaylord Carter. I first encountered Phantom when A&E (back when they actually showed movies and TV shows with artistic merit, not the trashy reality garbage they show today) showed it in 1988 on TV. They used a print that had been circulating from Paul Killiam since the early 1970s which contained Carter's score. The score is often moody and eerie with a dreamlike quality which fits the picture very well. It also sounds authentic since many theaters would be equipped with an organ. There are audio and menu issues with the disc and the discs which have been sold before the corrected discs are re-released may have to be sent back to be replaced. Milestone has also announced a Blu-ray release for 2012.

Many issues regarding the Phantom as it currently exists :

Cast Credits for the 1925 Version

Cast Credits for the 1929 Version

1. The opening credits of the 1925 and 1929 versions are identical for the title card, stars and director/copyright. Then they diverge, with the 1925 showing an intertitle on a draped curtain background "Produced in its entirety at Universal City, California." Next, they both show the cast/players, with the 1925 version on the draped curtain intertitle and the 1929 superimposed over the opening shot of the opera cellar. After two intertitles on the 1925 version introducing Gaston Leroux and the story, both versions show the Man with a Lantern. Nowhere in the available information for the 1925 version mentions the Man with a Lantern. Moreover the sequence in the 1925 version is very short (11 seconds) and different angles are used. By contrast, the 1929 version the Man with a Lantern is clearly talking to the audience (the sequence is 1 minute, 50 seconds long) and the phantom's shadow can be seen skulking in the background.

My suggestion is that the snippet of the Man with a Lantern sequence which is found in the 1925 prints was put there in error by some unidentified party. I also believe that the title sequence on the 1925 version may have been taken from a 1929 print, probably because the original titles were in bad shape. Otherwise, why have the cast on an intertitle card on the 1925 version and yet have them superimposed over the scene on the 1929 version? On the 1929 version, the superimposition of the cast is seamless.

2. In the 1929 version, what is the Man with a Lantern saying? Phillip J. Riley, in his excellent book on the film, volume 1 of the MagicImage Filmbooks series, says that there is a transcription of a prologue in the Library of Congress that may have served as the spoken text for this scene. He also had lip readers try to make out what the actor is saying, and one person said he could make out Gaston Leroux and another thought the actor was speaking in German. You can buy the book here : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1882127331/ref=nosim/silenerafilmsond and I recommend it for any Phantom enthusiast.

3. In a 16mm print of the 1929 version that I was able to view, the end cast credits are identical to the ones on the 1925 version. This includes Virginia Pearson's credit as Carlotta. I doubt that Universal made that mistake. Milestone's DVD release does not contain the Man with a Lantern sequence in its presentation of the 1929 version. I assume that Photoplay edited it out for showing on Channel Four, since the sequence is worthless to the uninformed. Killiam's release with the Gaylord Carter score also has it, but when I saw it on A&E in the late 80s, the sequence was missing. (Although I was about 11 at the time, I surely would have remembered something like that and taped it and watched it several times over the years.) Image's releases do contain it, as does Milestone's presentation of the 1925 Version. However, Milestone may have edited it out because there is no soundtrack disk for that sequence. Without a soundtrack disk, the inclusion of any music from the existing disks may not be accurate.

The Phantom's handwriting improves with age

4. In the 1929 version that is available, which sequences are from the shooting in 1925 and which are from the 1929 filming? Most, if not all of the intertitles, including letters and cards were redone for 1929. All of Chaney's sequences are from 1925, as are the crowd scenes. The Technicolor scenes from the masked ball must also be original, as they were hugely expensive to film. The Man with a Lantern sequence is obviously from 1929, as is that portion of the opening credits which lists "Carlotta's Mother". The only obvious 1929 sequence is the scene with Mary Fabian as the new Carlotta. Riley and others say that the scene where Christine tells Raoul about the Phantom under Apollo's Lyre is also new, but I am unconvinced.

First, the actors do not look as if they have aged 5 years. Second, the surviving sound where they talk about the Phantom is does not come close to matching the sequence as it exists. Third, the shots with Philbin and Kerry are virtually identical to the 1925 print.

Kerry and Philbin on the Roof of the Opera - Do they just age well?

5. In the existing 1929 version, Mary Fabian's shots seem to be the only ones that are new, the shots of Raoul, Christine, the managers and the Phantom all seem to be from 1925. Assuming that Fabian's scenes are the only ones in the film proper that are from 1929 and shot at sound speed (24fps), what effect would this have had on the rest of the print as projected back in 1929 and 1930? Since a relatively small portion of the print was shot at sound speed, it would be logical to project the film at silent speeds. However, if the 1929 print was intended to be some kind of part-talkie, then it would have to be projected at sound speeds. Did projectors designed for synchronized sound have speed settings, or were they strictly 24fps? I would think they were adjustable, as not all films in 1927-29 would have been made available in sound. Which brings me to my next issue :

Mary Fabian as Carlotta, in the only sequence which must have been shot at 24 frames per second

Virginia Pearson as the Original Carlotta (and restyled as Carlotta's Mother in the 1929 Version)

6. What was the intended projection speed of the 1925 version? The standard camera speed of silent films was 16fps, but in practice the actual speed varied widely. Intended projection speeds gradually increased as the silent film era progressed, and 24fps would have been a reasonable speed for some later silent films. Phantom is not one of those films. On the other hand, a 16fps projection speed would be ridiculous. The Image Blu-ray has a version projected at 20fps, which is probably close to the original intent. Riley reports that the ideal film speed was 14 minutes per reel, which at 1,000 feet of film per reel gives us a frame rate of 19 frames per second. He also reports that due to the editing, some reels were at 1,024 feet and others at 800 feet, so there was something less than an ideal standard. 20 frame per second may not be absolutely perfect, but it is an excellent choice for 1080i, which can support a field rate on Blu-ray up to 59.94 fields per second.

The Only Survivng Color Sequence, shot in Process 2 Technicolor

7. What sequences were in color for 1925 and 1929? First, lets start with the 1925 version. All that truly survives today is the masked ball sequence. We know for sure that the Handschiegl process was used for the Phantom's cape and hat as he spies on Christine and Raoul while perched on Apollo's Lyre. The process may have also been used to color the letters in the Phantom's notes in red. The contemporary trade journal Harrison's Reports reported that the picture had 17 minutes of color film. It is known that the unmasking scene was filmed in color and black and white, and Chaney insisted on the black and white version in 1925 because the heat of the studio lights exposed the edge of his bald cap in the print. The opera and ballet scenes were shot in color and black and white, although how much color footage of this variety survived to the New York General Release Version is unknown. Establishing shots of the grand staircase also had a color version. Finally, I read that the ending chase sequence, which was added for the San Francisco World Premiere Version, was also shot in color. I doubt this because that sequence is rather undercranked and the color technology of the day was noted to have slow shutter speeds and required lots of lighting and relatively long exposure times. Certain sequences were filmed with the outdated Prizma color system, but they apparently systematically trimmed from the 1925 releases because the color looked muted compared to Technicolor sequences. The only sequence that may have been shot in Prizma and survived in the 1925 New York General Release Version are the scenes where Raoul and Phillipe appear at the opera in their military uniforms (Soldier's Night at the opera).

The Phantom's Costume Computer Colorized to Recreate the Handschiegl Process (film is tinted blue)

8. Why is the aspect ratio so thin on the 1929 version? The original aspect ratio for silent films was 1.33:1. 1.37:1 was the Academy Ratio for sound films after 1932. The 1929 version in its talkie version did not use an optical soundtrack, so no space had to be taken up on one side of the print for the track. So, in 1929 the prints being projected would have been in the ordinary 1.33:1 format. However, when the 1929 version was being duplicated for the George Eastman House, it was duplicated with machines designed for sound. Sound films of the time (circa 1948-50) had a monaural optical sound track on the left edge which reduced the size of the image, which had to be squeezed into the remaining area of the film stock. Silent pictures did not have this problem, and their frame size is larger than sound pictures from 1932 onwards shot in the Academy Ratio. If you review this discussion of Super 35mm (where the gray area in the illustration represents the optical track), you should get the idea : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_35. So, when they made a duplicate print of Phantom in 1948-1950, the printing machine masked the left side of the image where the optical track should be. This is why many silent films are thinner today than they would have been back in their time. The resulting aspect ratio is anywhere from 1.15:1 to 1.20:1.

9. What about the Masked Ball? The Eastman House Print has a black and white or tinted masked ball sequence. I remember seeing the sequence tinted on the Paul Killiam release of the film (1929 version) which was done in the early 1970s. The Image and Milestone DVDs and Blu-rays will have the sequence in Technicolor. Film Archivist David Sheperd found most of the Masked Ball sequence in Technicolor in the 1970s and it has been added to later releases. Unlike the material from the George Eastman House, this was not copied on color equipment, so it should show the full 1.33:1 image.

10. Does the Original Score to the 1925 version survive? In his commentary, Scott MacQueen identifies two scores to the 1925 version, each by a different composer. He notes that each had different music cues. In 85 years no one has advertised that they were playing the original score, so preumably MacQueen was reading Universal production notes and memos describing the scores. It is wholly unknown whether any silent version from 1929 would have had a score sent with it, as the 1925 scores were far longer. Silent film scores seem to have a much lower survival rate than the films themselves. The original score found on the Kino' International's Ultimate DVD Edition of Nosferatu required many an educated guess based on the composer's notebooks. See here : http://www.gilliananderson.it/film0598.html?IDPellicola=20. I highly recommend that release, which you can find here : http://www.amazon.com/Nosferatu-Ultimate-Two-Disc-Max-Schreck/dp/B000VUQ4HW/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1320687866&sr=1-1. A reconstruction of the original scores for Phantom in the same vein may or may not be possible depending on the quantity of material which has survived that describes the score.

The beginning of the 1925 Trailer

The (possibly generic) beginning of the 1929 Trailer

11. What do the trailers tell us? A trailer survives for the 1925 version and the 1929 version. The 1929 trailer has a synchronized soundtrack on the Milestone DVD and is tinted yellow for the most part. I am uncertain whether a unique disk exists for it or whether the DVD authors took it from the disks for the 1929 talkie version. (It is not impossible that the film has an optical soundtrack.) It begins with an intro telling the audiences that they will hear as well as see the picture. Then it segues into the footage shot for the film itself, much of which comes from the 1925 version. It appears to be in 35mm and runs 1 minute, 32 seconds. The 1925 trailer seems to be missing the first few frames, including the those which give the title of the film. The 1929 version's title seems to be the same except there is no hooded man gesticulating over the Opera House. It ends with a second showing the crowds who stood in the pouring rain to see the film at the Astor Theatre. It seems to end extremely abruptly. It lasts for 2 minutes, 44 seconds, is not tinted and may be in 35mm. It may be only film footage taken of Studio President Carl Laemmle.

John Sainpolis as Philippe De Chagny - Raoul's Older, Not-Quite-Smarter Brother (but what happened to the Martindale footage?)

Virginia Pearson as Carlotta or Carlotta's Mother, depending on which version you are watching

12. What about the missing 1929 footage? Those scenes where people talk to each other are lost. This includes scenes with the managers, Madame Giry, Faust, Christine, Raoul, Phillipe and Carlotta ('s Mother). I am not aware of any 16mm prints of the 1929 version floating around which may have the footage. While there has to be some dubbing in the 1929 version, audiences would likely complain if the whole picture was overdubbed. They would complain that the actor's lip movements would not match the projected image in any way and likely feel cheated. Reviewers would certainly pan the 1929 version as cheap. All those scenes, in which the actors appear older, are presumably lost. Edward Martindale's contributions, as the actor who replaced John Sainpolis as Phillipe (except for scenes in long shot), are unknown outside his voice on a disk. It is also impossible to determine how the actors aged between 1924/25 when their original scenes were shot and 1929.

The rest of the credits, common to both versions

13. Why do the available versions have so few credits? Both versions have few credits, and the only people credited outside the cast are Julian and Laemmle. The cast of thousands is reduced to eight (1925 version) or nine (1929 version). Apparently, both the Los Angeles Preview and San Francisco Premiere Versions had much more substantial credits. Among those credited were more cast members, cameramen, writers, set designers and the like. I would not be surprised if a frame or two with this information is missing from the 1925 version that exists today. As the 1929 version was a very pared down version of the story, the credits may have been lost in the pruning.

In closing, I will leave you with stills from the iconic unmasking scene(s) :

The Unmasking Scene, Note the Slight Difference in Camera Angles

Thats all I have to say on this subject at the present time.

IBM PC Cards I Own or Have Owned

2011-09-11T23:48:00.000-07:00

When considering my career in vintage computer collecting, I focused more on expansion cards than systems. I had a hunger to acquire IBM PC ISA and to a lesser extent PCI / AGP cards. I recently thought about what I have acquired in my career, what I have kept and what I have lost or sold/traded away.

Graphics Cards :

My early graphics card collection is among the best in terms of its comprehensiveness. I have the following :

IBM Monochrome and Printer Display Adapter

It came with some system, and mine has a larger black bracket for IBM PC 5150 slots, so it will not fit well in other systems. I have used it with the next card for dual monitor action. However, only a purist would use it over a Hercules Card. I also have an IBM 5151 Monochrome Display, which has moderate burn-in. You can actually see images fade on the monitor, which is utterly unique. Its parallel interface, like the standalone parallel card, can easily be modified into a PS/2-compatible bidirectional port.

IBM Color/Graphics Display Adapter

I have two of these cards, one of which I somewhat clumsily installed a pair of pin headers so I could choose the thin font. I think it did something to worsen the video quality. However, unless you only play text adventures, this card is an absolute must for gaming on an IBM PC/XT. Other cards are not necessarily compatible or the speed becomes unacceptable. I am also of the opinion that 256KB is an acceptable amount of RAM for any CGA game that does not support a superior graphics adapter. There is no substitute for the IBM card, I also have an Epson CGA card that fails certain of Trixter's PC compatibility tests. One huge advantage that this card has is that it can display color through its composite RCA jack. While DOSBox, MESS and PCe Emulator can display 640x200 graphics as composite artifact color, they cannot do the same for 320x200 graphics, which usually display in color on a composite monitor or TV. Games exist that take advantage of this functionality.

Hercules Graphics Card

This is a long card with no additional support. Hercules later marketed a Plus card with support for user replacable text fonts and an InColor card with 320x200x16 color support. Some games support the latter, but also support EGA with one exception (Karateka). I had two of these cards, but sold one with a utilities disk from Hercules. Unfortunately, I did not have a 5.25" drive at the time, so I could not image the disk. I do not know if there is a software setting to turn the card into half-graphics mode, which only uses 32KB instead of the card's 64KB. There is no jumper on the board for this. The graphics tended to be a bit slow on IBM PC and XTs, however some games use the monochrome graphics well. Look at Sierra's AGI games for example.

IBM Enhanced Graphics Adapter

Not only do I have the base adapter, but also the RAM expansion daughterboard for a full 256KB. I have no desire to obtain a Professional Graphics Adapter, as no game I am aware supported it. The RCA jacks go directly to the expansion connector, and the functions of the switches are not immediately obvious. Unfortunately I have never owned a 350-line color TTL monitor, so the 640x350 mode is beyond my reach. This adapter will work just fine with my 5151 and 5153 monitors if the switches are properly set.

IBM PS/2 Display Adapter

This is IBM's only 8-bit VGA graphics card and probably its only ISA card with its own VGA chipset (as opposed to another manufacturer). It is a full length card with two rows of pin headers for some unknown purpose and a VGA feature connector. I am concerned that its EPROM may eventually die, but I dumped it just in case. It will even work in a Pentium II/III system with ISA slots, even if the system beeps. It will also work fine in an IBM PC 5150. It was designed to upgrade an IBM PS/2 Model 30 from MCGA to VGA, but it can work in many other systems. (It would not fit in a PS/2 Model 25).

Unusually, it only uses 24KB of a 32KB EPROM, which is mapped from C0000-C5FFF. It also has 8KB of sratchpad RAM, but this is mapped in a very weird way. 6KB of it is mapped from C6800-C7FFF and the remaining 2KB is at CA000-CA7FF. There are memory holes in between, so if you are using a card with an External ROM, make sure it does not start at C8000 if you are using this card.

My later acquisitions include :

Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo Graphics

I remember owning one of these back in the day, so I bought another for those early DOS/Win 9x games which do not work properly with a a later generation Voodoo 2 card. One day the card refused to display graphics, just some white lines on a black screen. Eventually I threw it away.

Diamond Monster 3D II 12MB Voodoo 2

I remember replacing my Voodoo Graphics with a Voodoo 2 back in the day, but I do not believe I ever had two cards for an SLI configuration. I am sure I replaced it by 2000 for a Geforce 256.

3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP

This card was a replacement for the MAC card, but eventually it could no longer display graphical modes without severe corruption, so it too went into the trash.

3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 MAC PCI

I bought this card on eBay from a guy in China, and noticed that the card's faceplate was very rusty. Once I flashed the card with a PC BIOS, it worked well, even its DVI connector. Eventually the VGA output would not display the color green, and an unknown component in a set of three looked damaged, so I eventually threw it away.

IBM Cards :

IBM Printer Adapter

This card would have been used to add LPT1 to a system with a CGA card or LPT2 to a system with an MDA card. The usual address is 0x378h, but it can be hacked and I did hack it to be selectable to 0x278h.

IBM Asynchronous Communications Adapter

This card could reliably handle null-modem transfers at 9600 baud, whereas the UART on my AST Six Pak Plus could only do 4800 baud null-modem transfers. Has one jumper DIP block to select COM1 or COM2, another to select TTL or current loop communication. My card has a jumper to work in the IBM XT's slot 8.

IBM Game Control Adapter

This card may seem useless, as it has needs a Y-splitter for two joysticks and has no speed adjustment, but its useful to have a card, the compatibility of which, is assured.

IBM Diskette Drive Adapter

Has a card edge and can support 5.25" or 3.5" double density drives. If you need a custom cable because you installed a 3.5" drive with only a pin connector, you should be able to squeeze on an extra connector to a cable easily.

AST Six Pak Plus

This card came with my IBM PC 5150, and it can complete a PC if everything is properly installed. IBM even marketed it in some of their late brochures. It can add 384KB of RAM to the PC's Motherboard's 256KB for the full 640KB. It can also add a serial, parallel and game port. Each of these ports can be disabled. The parallel port requires a DB-25 female header and the game port a DA-15 female header, a N558 Quad Timer and a 74LS244 chip. The serial port has a socketed UART.

Sound Cards :

Adlib Music Synthesizer Card

There are two versions of this card, the 1987 version and the 1990 version. Other than an extra capacitor or two on the 1990 version, the only difference is that the 1987 version uses a 1/4" TRS output jack and the 1990 version uses a 3.5mm mini-jack. Output is mono, and the silkscreening on the YM-3812 and Y3014 OLP2 chip and DAC is scratched out on my 1990 version card, although by that time the secret of what chip Adlib was using was out.

IBM Music Feature Card

I originally purchased this full length card for a hefty sum on ebay. It came with a midi breakout box, which I acquired separately a year later. Later I traded it for something, a trade I occasionally regret. Only Sierra On-Line ever supported it in games, but they supported it for a four year period (1988-1991). It is a combination of a Yamaha FB-01 midi music synthesizer (using 4-op FM synthesis) and unique IBM midi interface. I put it in a PC and used the breakout box to try and replicate an FB-01, but DOSBox would not produce the correct sounds. That was about 3 years ago, I wonder if things have changed. I am currently looking for a Yamaha FB-01 to try drivers that it with a Roland MPU-401 interface.

Roland MPU-IPC-A + MPU-401

As I have stated previously in this blog, the MPU-IPC-A is merely a small logic card, and the MPU-401 is the external box where all the midi commands and data is processed. It makes no music unless attached to a midi synthesizer, whether a keyboard or a module.

Roland LAPC-I

I bought this, with its MCB-1 midi breakout box, from a seller for $25 + shipping. He did not know if it worked and this was a risk. This was back in 2006 or so before the price of an LAPC-I skyrocketed. I could put it in a PC and use it as an external synthesizer in DOSBox, but I needed a program that allowed sysex to pass through the midi interface to the synthesizer. The interface by default would block sysex, which would eliminate the synthesizer's ability to receive custom sounds from a game. I traded it for something good after I had acquired a CM-32L, which has the exact same synthesizer capabilities. My card had ROM v1.02, not EPROM, which was v1.00.

Creative Labs Game Blaster

My most recent acquisition came as a part of a trade for a Tandy 1000 TL. It came in its retail box with driver disks on 5.25" and 3.5" disks and the Sierra game Silpheed, also on both disk formats. I wanted this because there are games which I have confirmed will not work with a Sound Blaster with C/MS chips, they obviously are looking for something inside that big CT-1302 chip. The next widely-available CL card using RCA jacks would be the AWE64 Gold. It is a stereo card, but that was probably the only thing for which it was known.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 1.5 w/CMS Upgrade

The earliest Sound Blaster cards came with a v1.xx DSP, but mine came with a v2.00 DSP. I added the C/MS chips, which are Phillps SAA-1099s. That is the only part of the card in stereo. With the v2.00 DSP (which adds auto-DMA support among other things), I have cajoled Trixter's 8088 Corruption demo to work with the card. I read that the v2.00 DSP was necessary for MPC-1 compliance with Windows 3.x multimedia features. I may keep it around only to check whether C/MS games will work with the card, but DOSBox now supports the Game Blaster.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 2.0

I sold this card because I could not upgrade it with C/MS chips because it uses an extra PAL chip, a 16L8N, the programing for which nobody has ever been able to replicate. It would have worked as well as any Pro in any game except for stereo and mixer support. Its abilities are firmly encompassed by other cards.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro 1.0

I kept this card because there are games that support its dual OPL2 chipset. It is also necessary if you wish to use a Sound Blaster with any Tandy system with a PSSJ sound chip. The PSSJ only works with DMA1 and if a Sound Blaster is also set to DMA1, games will freeze when playing sounds.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro 2.0

Although I sold this, it has one big advantage over the Pro 1.0. The OPL3 chip on this board is not not particularly sensitive to system speed, whereas the OPL2 chip is (like the game port and a rev 0 MT-32). If you run an older game on say a Pentium system, the game may send the data to the OPL2 chip so fast that it cannot process all the data, and the music will be incorrect. However, the Sound Blaster 16s I have also have true Yamaha OPL3 chips. Although Windows 9x does support the Sound Blaster and Pros, their 8-bit limitations will show themselves in garbled 16-bit audio playback.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 MCD ASP & Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 SCSI-2 ASP

This card is the bare minimum which modern programs can use, since it can do stereo 16-bit playback at 44,100kHz. I originally got the SCSI-2 CT-1770, but I did not like the fact that the SCSI interface used an extra high IRQ and eventually traded it. I acquired a MCD CT-1760, and the proprietary CD-interfaces on that card can have their IRQ usage disabled. Both my cards have a soldered ASP chip (TFX uses it) and use DSP 4.05 for error free midi playback through the waveblaster or the external midi out. The waveblaster port does no favors for the output of a midi daughterboard.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32

When I bought this card, a CT-2760 rev. 3, I soon discovered that I had no case in which to put it. My Pentium II/III system uses a modern case with a hard drive cage going all the way down the case. This blocked the card, which is a full-length 13" ISA card. Also, the plastic tabs that held the SIMMs in place were broken. Gravis used much more durable metal clips in their PnP. I only used it once or twice by removing the motherboard from the case, which was unwieldy to say the least. I eventually donated it to a friend of mine who was interested in the rev. 3.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold

This card was superior to the 16s and the AWE32s in almost every way. I did not care about the lack of SIMM slots or waveblaster connector. However, ISA PnP is no fun and its FM Synthesis is lacking in quality. Unlike the early AWE cards, which used genuine integrated Yamaha OPL3 core, Creative was using its CQM substitute by this time. Although the sound is close, it is not the same and usually sounds harsh.

Gravis Ultrasound ACE

This card I picked because it had perfect GUS playback capabilities. My board came with driver disks and thick manual. It also came with the maximum 1MB of RAM. It has one soldered SOJ chip and one socket for an additional SOJ chip. Unlike an original GUS or GUS MAX, it does not support a daughterboard for 16-bit recording, but I have no interest in recording anyway with an ISA card. Its Adlib emulation, which uses I/O 388/389h can be disabled, which eliminates conflicts between the real thing. It does not have a joystick/midi to further reduce configuration headaches. Unfortunately, this is the 1.0 version, which means the output jacks have reversed stereo.

Gravis Ultrasound PnP

This card embodies the true 2nd Generation of Ultrasound sampling technology. Unfortunately, games did not really support the extra features of this card. Mine (v1.0) does not have any RAM soldered on the board but has both SIMM slots populated. 2MB of RAM is on my card, which ensures full Ultrasound compatibility and not much else. I prefer the ACE over this card because this is a dreaded PnP card and its RAM usage is far from unique in Windows 9x.

Roland SCD-15

This is the official name of the marketed combination of a Roland MPU-401/AT ISA MIDI Interface Card + Roland SCB-55 daughtercard. It has these mini-DIN connectors which were always hard to find. Creative Labs had mini-DIN connectors for their Live! and Audigy breakout boxes which worked, but their support site did not always have them in stock. The daughterboard was almost as big as the card itself and the card hung off it. In fact, although the daughterboard had four standoffs, only two actually connected to the board. This did not seem like a stable long-term solution, so I traded it away.

Yamaha DB50XG

I also got one of these, although the DB60XG is more common on eBay. The former is a retail product, while the latter is an OEM product. The former has the advantage of at least partial support for Yamaha QG300 synthesis custom voices. The Fat Man really expoused the virtues of this card, and some games either supported it or were attuned to sound good with it. I avoided the SW60XG because it had no external midi port. When I finally acquired a MU10XG, I traded this away.

Yamaha YMF-724/744/754 Cards

I do not talk about PCI cards much here, but these were a very good solution for backwards compatibility with the Sound Blaster. Most late ISA and PCI card emulated the Adlib OPL2/3 FM synthesis poorly or inaccurately, but these cards came from Yamaha and incorporated a true OPL2/3 core into the chip. They also supported the PC/PCI connector found on some TX/LX/BX motherboards or D-DMA for TSR-less digital Sound Blaster compatibility. Finally, some cards also supported S/PDIF output for crystal clear sound. Pure FM recording with these cards is quite possible. I have not tested it, but 4-speaker sound output is available in 744 and 754 cards. But there are some drawbacks :

While the digital sound blaster emulation is good, it is not perfect and only goes up to an SB Pro. Fortunately, very few games require a Sound Blaster 16 or better. Fallout for DOS had broken SB/SB Pro drivers, but I used drivers from another other Interplay game to get the SB/SB Pro sound working again. It will not emulate Sound Blaster ADPCM 8bit-3bit and 8-bit-2bit modes, which Duke Nukem II among others use for some sound effects. Since games use direct I/O access for the Sound Blaster and Adlib, the card may not work in Windows XP or other NT machine. The card supports DirectSound and DirectSound 3D and emulates EAX 1.0 through Sensura, but the surround sound causes system performance issues. Finally, most motherboards for the Pentium/II/III have at least one ISA slot, so why not use a true ISA Sound Blaster?

Aureal SQ2500

The ultimate card for A3D support, I picked it because it represented the last card to support a widely used but eclipsed technology. No other card except the Aureal AU8830 supported A3D 2.0, other cards only went up to 1.0. It supported 4-speaker output, but the rear speakers were not as widely used as the front speakers. Games that support A3D 2.0 include Half-Life, Descent 3, Unreal and early versions of Quake III. It also has a waveblaster header.

MIDI Modules :

Roland MT-32

My MT-32 was something of a late purchase as I did not fully understand the need for one or the unique character of the LCD display. It is very convenient to be able to reset the module by pressing Master Volume and R at the same time. Other modules require a shutdown or sending a reset command via midi. Viewing messages on the LCD which games display is always neat. Mine is a rev 0 ROM v1.07, which is the last ROM version before the 2.x versions, exclusive to rev. 1 boards. The MT-32 works great in DOSBox, which can easily adjust transmission speed to be slow enough for an MT-32. I would say 3,500 cycles is the limit if the game is transmitting custom patches. Since I am a big fan of Sierra games, I want to know how these games sounded, and some of them exploited bugs of the rev. 0 boards.

Roland CM-32L

Being unhappy with my CM-64 and CM-500, I turned to this, simpler model. No slot, no mode switch, only an on button. Necessary for games that causes errors on the MT-32 regardless of speed or use the extra sound effects of the rhythm/percussion part.

Roland CM-64

After learning of the CM-500's vibrato issue, I turned to this module, a true combination of CM-32L and CM-32P. Unfortunately another issue reared its head. Sierra's games music synthesis engine broadcasted MT-32 data on midi channels 2-10 and Adlib data on channels 11-16. The MT-32/MT-100/LAPC-1 and CM-32L did not care, as they did not use channels 11-16. The CM-32P does, and wrong sounds would constantly be heard. Later Sierra drivers eliminate the issue, but they will not work with all games. Also, this may occur in other games, although this is unlikely. Although the CM-32P was supported in some Japanese NEC-98xx and X68000 games, my primary interest is DOS, so a better solution was found in a simple CM-32L, and this got traded.

Roland CM-500

When I was first collecting vintage hardware, this module was seen as the Holy Grail of Roland LA Synthesis and expensive and rare even then (2005). It does support the Roland SC-55 GS (and later General MIDI) synthesis engine and the Roland CM-64 (emulating the CM-32P). Unfortunately, not only does it share the same issue as the CM-64, it was pointed out that it had annoying Vibrato. So it got traded.

Yamaha MU10XG

This external synthesizer used the same synthesis engine as the DB50XG and SW60XG, so I knew it was a quality card. It was also hard to find, I guess it was not very popular. Unusual for an external module, it has a battery compartment. It also has two 1/4" audio input jacks to which the module can apply reverb and other effects. It requires a +12v adapter, so I used an adapter from something completely different that fit. It has not gotten much use because DOS games generally composed for Roland LA or GM.

Roland SC-55

This was a relatively recent purchase. It came with a remote control, which I have somewhere. Like the MT-32, it has a display and there are games that take advantage of it (Lands of Lore). Mine is a GM/GS module, which came later than the original, GS only modules. It makes no difference in functionality whether the module supports GM and GS or just GS. Also, there is the stargame.mid, which uses the equalizer to display graphics. Its only downside is the 24 voice polyphony, but the quality of the sounds with effects more than makes up for the deficiency.

Roland SC-55ST

I thought this was better than the original SC-55 in every way, but it turns out not to be the case. The original SC-55 had a Capital Tone Fallback feature that if a game tried to play a variation tone which the module did not have, the module would play the capital tone instead. Yamaha also used this technology and forced Roland to remove the feature from the 2nd and later generations of Sound Canvases. Unfortunately, there are games that use this functionality (Might and Magic IV & V). It gets little use as a consequence, as the SC-55 has much more character.

Tandy 1000SX - The Best Overall Choice for IBM PC Gaming of the 1980s

2011-08-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

Back in the 1980s, if you wanted to play games on a computer, there were many incompatible options available. If you were on a budget, you may have had a Commodore 64. If you were a real computer geek, you may have appreciated the open system of the Apple II. Of course, your parents may have made the unfortunate choice of buying a Coleco Adam, Mattel Aquarius, TI-994A, a Commodore PET or TSR-80 or Color Computer. None of these machines were particularly good for gaming. You may have had the awesome parents that would have bought an Atari 8-bit computer or the VIC-20, which were great for games and very little else. But later in the 1980s there were fewer options, in no small part due to the acceptance of the IBM PC in the business world.

In the second half of the 1980s, the 6502-based systems like the C64 and Apple II were really starting to show their age and the Atari machine was virtually dead. In response, Commodore, Atari and Apple introduced new computers, the Amiga, ST, Macintosh and IIgs respectively. The first two never caught on in the North American market, the Macintosh suffered from a lack of a color screen and gaming hardware early in its life and the IIgs withered on the vine due to a perceived slow processor and apathy from Apple.

From 1981-1986, the IBM PC line had become a huge success in the business world, but the high prices of the offerings from IBM did not make for much enthusiasm from the home market. Even in 1987, just before IBM discontinued the line, the most basic configuration of the IBM PC cost $1,165.00 This configuration only came with 64KB of RAM, no floppy or hard disk drive or adapter, no monitor or graphics card, no software, no game controller adapter. To get a working configuration you would practically have to double the price. For that year, that was a slow machine.

IBM's one effort to market a machine to the home user during this decade was the PCjr from 1983-1985. The Jr. failed for reasons that are widely known, namely that people were expecting a fully PC compatible machine and got something significantly less than compatible, had a terrible chicklet keyboard, limited and proprietary expansion options, and was not especially competitive with other home computers at the high price point of $1,269.00. If the PCjr. could not escape the shadow of its big brother and its own shortcomings, it did have some influence. First, it was designed to be easier to get up and running. If you got the expanded model, there was little need to open the machine as everything attached to the back or was bolted onto the side. It had lots of built in hardware that were extras on a PC. It had a built-in custom graphics controller that had better capabilities than the Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter found on the PC and could connect to a digital RGB or analog composite color monitor. Comparable but incompatible graphics were available on the Enhanced Graphics Adapter, which was hugely expensive at the time. It had a three-voice sound chip in addition to the PC Speaker and could mix external audio from a sidecar and had an audio RCA output. All the above did not exist on the PC. It had a serial port and a game port with plugs for two joysticks, which were extra add-in cards on the PC. Perhaps in part to offset speed issues with RAM shared between the CPU and the Graphics Controller, the machine had two cartridge slots for games and programs.

Tandy Corporation, which operated the Radio Shack chain of stores, had a very active home computer division which had already produced the aging TRS-80 and not-exactly a sales leader Color Computer lines. Tandy had designed an MS-DOS machine called the Tandy 2000, which was at best semi-compatible with the PC and was hardly a best-seller. The home market was crying out for affordable PC-compatible machines, and Tandy liked the PCjr.'s features and thought they could do better at the price point. They developed a machine that supported the PCjr.s features and offered mostly better PC-compatibility. Unfortunately, in 1985 as the machine was about to be released, IBM discontinued the Jr. So Tandy began to emphasize MS-DOS and PC compatiblility for the machine, the Tandy 1000.

The Tandy 1000 came with a 8088 running at 4.77MHz, just like a PC, 128KB of RAM (shared with graphics), the 90-key Keyboard used in the Tandy 2000, two joystick ports using joysticks from the CoCo, the same graphics and sound capabilities as the PCjr., composite video and digital RGB support, a printer port. Its keyboard and joystick ports were at the front of the unit whereas IBM's were always at the back. It had a reset button whereas IBM users had to press Ctrl-Alt-Del. It ditched the cassette and cartridge ports of the Jr., the wireless keyboard and avoided proprietary ports to a greater extent than the Jr. It came with a 5.25" floppy disk as standard and had the floppy controller circuitry built into the motherboard. MS-DOS 2.11 and GW-BASIC came with the machine (no separate purchase required) as did DeskMate (Office App). Unlike the PCjr. with its one drive bay, the 1000 came with two. Its weaknesses included :

Only 3 XT/8-bit ISA slots

RAM upgrades only by special Tandy upgrade cards took up 1-2 ISA slots to get to 640KB.

No Serial port

No ability to scan for bootable ROMs on expansion cards (no booting hard drives from a disk controller)

No DMA built-in, came on one of the RAM upgrades. This gave a stock 1000 the same kind of annoyances as the Jr. (CPU servicing disk drive, leading to ignored keystrokes, keystrokes interrupting serial data).

No ability to disable graphics circuitry (no upgrades to EGA or VGA)

No socket for a Math Coprocessor.

The Tandy 1000A added a math coprocessor socket, fixed some bugs and allowed the use of bootable hard disk controller cards (Tandy offered a version called the 1000HD with a 10MB hard drive and a 640KB RAM & DMA upgrade board that came on 1 board instead of 2). The IRQ for the hard drive was 2 for these Tandys, with IRQ 5 used for the video. IBM used the opposite designations for the PC line.

The next models in the series, released towards the end of 1986, are the Tandy 1000 EX and 1000 SX. They are functionally the same machine, but the EX is a compact model with only one drive bay and the need to use Plus card for expansion with room for only three and an external drive for a second disk drive. The RAM and DMA upgrade comes on a Plus card.

The Tandy 1000 SX, the machine in question fixes virtually all the above issues. It has 5 XT/8-bit ISA slots, can be upgraded to 640KB of RAM on the motherboard, can support an EGA or VGA card and a hard disk controller and a math coprocessor. It came with 384KB standard RAM, a DMA chip and used standard 256Kx1 chips to upgrade to 640KB. It came with MS-DOS 3.2, which added support for 720KB drives. It could boot from either drive, which is useful if you have bootable 5.25" and 3.5" disks. It ran is 8088 at 7.16MHz or 4.77MHz for a decent speed boost. This speed is selectable on bootup for software expecting the slower speed.

Later models in the 1000 series added support for a 286 processor (TX), DOS-in-ROM (HX), 768KB of RAM so graphics memory would not conflict with conventional memory (TX), high density floppy controller (RLX & TL/3), 8-bit IDE interface (TL/2, RL), 3.5" drives as standard (TX & HX), improved graphics with 640x200x16 mode (TL & SL), enhanced sound with Digital-to-Analog and Analog-to-Digital conversion (Tl & SL).

Here is how I have my Tandy 1000 SX configured

Monitor :
Tandy CM-11 High Resolution Color Monitor

Keyboard :
Tandy 1000 Keyboard

Drive Bays :
5.25" 360KB Drive
3.5" 720KB Drive

ISA Slots :

1 - Serial Card
2 - 286xpres Accelerator
3 - Roland MIF-IPC-A w/ Roland MPU-401 & Roland MT-32
4 - Adlib Music Synthesizer Card of Creative Game Blaster Card
5 - ADP-50L 16-bit IDE Controller

I feel no particular need to go 100% Tandy, but the floppy drives come from, if not manufactured by, Tandy. I used to have a 20MB Tandy Hardcard, but the drive was very noisy and soon died. So, in my only concession to modern hardware, I have a 1.0GB Compact Flash card mounted instead. Unfortunately, the ADP card, which supports 16-bit IDE drives on an 8-bit bus, can only utilize 504MB of that due to the infamous limitations of the straight INT 13h/ATA addressing it uses. This limitation is independent of any DOS limitations. Compact Flash cards are virtually IDE devices, requiring only a passive pin converter to work with an IDE port. The ADP card is a bit finicky about which CF drives it will boot, having not been designed for that. The Board does not use IRQs or DMAs. Two drives can be used for a total of 1008MB. The ADP board relies on memory mapped I/O, not port mapped I/O, so it should be faster than, say an XT-IDE card. (The XT-IDE card does allow for use of hard drives at least up to 8GB, however). I may also be able to use a Trantor T-130B 8-bit SCSI interface card but that requires a separate SCSI-IDE bridge. On the plus side, it does support and can boot up to 1GB storage devices.

Tandy MS-DOS 3.2, like all DOS versions 3.0-3.3, allows a primary DOS partition of only 32MB. I am uncertain whether DOS 3.2 supported extended partitions, but 3.3 does. Tandy MS-DOS 3.2 does support up to three other DOS partitions on the drive (up to 32MB each), but it requires loading a driver in config.sys on startup and seems non-standard. Ultimately I chose MS-DOS 5.00 for its features (edit mainly) and it uses less conventional memory and hard disk space than DOS 6.22. Also, while DOS 3.3's fdisk supports an extended partition up to 736MB in size, it has to be divided into 32MB logical drives from D:-Z:. DOS 4-6 supports a primary partition of up to 2GB, all of which is the C: drive. So MS-DOS 5.00 with a few additions from Tandy DOS (the Mode command, a device driver or two) works just fine. If games start complaining about lack of free RAM (only 624KB is available due to sharing with the video), then I may have to go back to 3.3.

What kind of games would be played on this machine? Well, all the important PC originals from 1981-1990. I will include any game whose maximum resolution was 320x200x16 and supports Tandy graphics or supports the Tandy sound chip for music and/or effects that does not support an Adlib, Sound Blaster, Roland MT-32 or Game Blaster. Some examples include :

Thexder - Although the game supports an EGA 640x200x16 mode, which is appropriate considering its Japanese origins on the PC-88, it supports Tandy Sound for its music (all of two pieces).

Secret of the Silver Blades, Champions of Krynn & Death Knights of Krynn - All support Adlib music, but if you select Adlib you get PC Speaker sound effects. Tandy gives better sound effects than the speaker.

Games that require an EGA card and do not support Tandy, like Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Sorcerian) are not going to be on this machine. Similarly, games with a VGA version and an EGA/Tandy version aren't going to be either, unless the EGA version came out first (Indy 3, Monkey Island). Nor would games that support a high resolution color EGA mode (Thexder II - Fire Hawk, SimCity, Zeliard, Silpheed). In short, if there is no real benefit from running the game on a Tandy instead of an IBM PC or clone, then it has no real use in this machine.

The other hardware should be fairly obvious. The Sound Blaster will see little use for its digitized sound and none for its midi or gameport capabilities. Its there because I wanted an Adlib and a Game Blaster in one card. The Roland is the ideal setup, nothing more need be said about it. Chiefly only Sierra's games would have put it to any real use (custom sounds).

The 286xpress Accelerator requires a little explanation. This device is an ISA card that can be used in a Tandy 1000, 1000A or 1000SX. It has an 80286 CPU running at 7.16MHz and 8KB of cache. It has a ribbon cable running from the card's daughterboard to the 8088 CPU socket on the motherboard. It has a spare socket for a 80286 running at 4.77MHz. The 8088 is plugged into the daughterboard. This board does nothing unless activated when DOS boots either by a program loaded in autoexec.bat or a device driver in config.sys. So it will not interfere with PC booter programs expecting 8088 speeds. You can turn the cache off for better compatibility with programs. With cache off, the system is just a little faster than the system running at 7.16MHz on the 8088. With the cache on, it is almost as fast as a Tandy TX or IBM PC AT @ 8MHz. While an TX provides a serial port (freeing up a precious slot) and CPU upgrades fit into the slot (freeing up another slot), even at its slow speed it should still run faster than the SX at its fast speed. So for older games that run like they are on amphetamines unless the CPU is an 8088 running at 4.77MHz, it just isn't as good a choice.

Things to watch out for :

The RCA composite video output tint is off compared with the IBM PC in CGA modes, and the colors displayed, compared to the IBM colors, are off. For example, in Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh appears in brown on an IBM and blue on the Tandy. You can try to use the tint control on your monitor or TV to adjust the colors, but most TV monitors only allow a shift between red to green, which is not enough to make the colors accurate. A composite monitor designed for computer use may allow a greater range of adjustment. I believe this is present throughout the Tandy 1000s that have composite color output. One game, Indianapolis 500 - The Simulation, by Electronic Arts actually allows the player to select an IBM or a Tandy palette in composite color mode, allowing the proper colors to be displayed with either type of machine.

The RCA audio output is not turned on by default. (The Tandy 1000/1000A suffers from a similar problem, the EX, HX, TX and later models do not) The default is for all sound to go through the PC Speaker. Some programs like Maniac Mansion fail to recognize that the SX is a little different and do not turn the audio output on. A program called tdyspkr.com can be used in your autoexec.bat to turn the output on to the RCA out and/or off to the internal PC Speaker.

The default 80-column text mode on the Tandy annoyingly uses 225 lines. IBM uses a 200 line text mode. All graphics modes in these machines use 200 lines. In order to get a proper aspect ratio with the graphics modes, the vertical size control has to be set almost to the point where the graphics are almost hidden by the monitor bezel. When you return to the text mode, this winds up cutting off either the top, bottom or both lines of the display. Use Tandy MS-DOS 3.2 mode.com command : mode 200, to fix this. This does not work in the TL machines. You can use the Tandy mode command in a later, non-Tandy DOS.

Tandy floppy disk drives require a ribbon cable without a twist! They also require setting jumpers or switches on the drives to tell the machine which is drive A and which is drive B. On an IBM PC, both drives are set to DS1, and the twist turns the drive at the end of the cable to DS0. If you are using a modern 1.44MB drive in these systems, they are generally soldered to DS1, so they will be the B drive. 5.25" drives should always allow you to set DS0 or DS1. But one of the great things about a Tandy is that they allow you to boot from the B drive by pressing the F3 key at startup. If you have a standard "universal" floppy cable (with 3x pin connectors and 2x card connectors), you have to untwist the cable by prying off the end connectors, flipping the wires around, then snapping the connectors back on again. Tandy did not support high density drives until the RLX and TL/3, but can use most 1.44MB floppy drives with double density/720KB media.

The EX and SX are the last Tandy 1000s that does not use the floppy connector port to power the drives. The HX, TX and all later Tandys, (inlcuding the SX's replacement, the SL), do run power through the drive cable. If you are using floppy drives on a Tandy 1000 system that do not correspond to Tandy's power-in-drive cable pinouts, you must cut holes in pins 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 29, 31, 33 for any portion of the cable going to the regular drive. I used an Xacto knife and a pair of clippers to do the trick, and only small holes are needed. Tandy did this themselves with their cables so an individual could connect a standard 5.25" drive into an empty bay.

In the TL/SL/RL series, there is a way to disable the Tandy joysticks and use an IBM joystick adapter. On the early Tandys, there is no way, you you have to use Tandy joysticks. Tandy used the same joysticks for the TSR-80 Color Computer and the 1000 series. They come in three varieties : the one-button (cheap) black non-centering Joystick, the two-button Kraft-style Deluxe Joystick, and the flight simulator pistol grip joystick (four buttons, only two useable). You can also use a Color Mouse (one-button) or Deluxe Color Mouse (two-buttons) in a joystick port and a special driver. The Deluxe Joystick is virtually identical to the Kraft IBM PC joystick or the IBM PCjr. stick, and can be either set to self-centering or or free floating in one or both axes. There are some subtle differences in the control interfaces between the PC and Tandy joysticks which may manifest themselves in compatibility issues with older games.

Now, while you could use a Tandy Color Computer mouse, this is not an ideal method because of the attention the CPU must spend on the reading the joystick ports. This can slow the PC down. A much better alternative is to use a serial mouse, especially as serial mice are easy to find. So are 8-bit serial cards. Serial cards use IRQs to get the CPU's attention so excess CPU time is not wasted in polling the serial controller's I/O ports. You will need to use an 8250B based serial card, which is typically what 8-bit cards use. I always use ctmouse as a driver as does virtually every other vintage computing enthusiast. Its compatibility is excellent and it only uses 3K of precious memory. In the SX there is no serial port, Tandy fixed this in the TX by replacing the useless Light Pen port with a serial port. (Some games, like the Gold Box games referred to above, do not support using a mouse with Tandy graphics).

Using a printer requires a special adapter cable. For some reason, probably TSR-80 compatibility, Tandy used card edge printer port on all 1000s until the RLX and TL/3. The ribbon cable would have a card edge connector on one end and a Centronics port on the other end. Fortunately, building a compatible cable should not be a problem, especially if you are connecting it to an IBM compatible printer. One thing to note is that all card edge printer ports are unidrectional and devices that use the port for data transfer in (like a Backpack CD-ROM drive or a parallel port ZIP drive) will not work, even in nybble mode.

Games and programs requiring BASIC may be an issue if they require ROM BASIC. ROM BASIC is virtually unique to IBM PCs and PS/2s of the 1980s, and even highly regarded compatibles like the Compaq Portable failed to run programs that required it. Tandy DOS comes with GW-BASIC, which incorporates the BASIC that would otherwise be in ROM and supports the Tandy graphics and sound capabilities. GW-BASIC may work for some games.

The Tandy 1000SX has two speeds, the default 7.16MHz and the 4.77MHz speed. The latter speed is for compatibility for PC software that was only intended to be run on an IBM PC or XT. Pressing F4 at boot will put the computer into slow mode, which is great for PC booters. The commands mode fast and mode slow can be used in DOS to switch back and forth. Also useful is F1 for mono mode and F2 for TV mode to kill the color text or to make the text more legible on a TV.

With my Compact Flash card, the only noise from the system is from the Power Supply fan. The PC Speaker is a large 3" cone, even bigger than the 2.25" cone of the IBM PCs. PC speaker sound can be output to the RCA audio out.

The Sound Blaster 1.0-2.0 all use DMA1 and do not play nicely with the PSSJ sound chip in the TL/SL/RL, which also uses DMA1. Lockups and freezes are commonplace. However, I have a Central Point Software Option Board, which requires DMA1 in a Tandy system (it can share DMA2 in an IBM system). So if that is installed, the Sound Blaster may not play nicely with it.

The Tandy keyboard is a funny thing. It has 90 keys, and it is much more compatible with the IBM keyboard layout than it first appears. Since an IBM 83 and 84 key keyboard used the numberpad for directional keys, use can use the Tandy's if the dedicated cursor keys are not working in the game. The small shift keys are not much fun, there is no separate * key, the Alt key is in a funny place, and there is no scroll lock equilavent (use Alt Break). Beware the Hold key, it will seem like the machine has frozen until it is pressed again. Its nice that the Num and Caps Lock keys light up, which did not on an IBM PC or XT. The \ key is also less than ideally placed. The fat enter key is far superior to the IBM 83-key keyboard. However, the IBM 83-key keyboard is probably the most solid and clicky keyboard I have ever typed on. By comparison, the Tandy keyboard is mushy and prone to registering a keypress with only the slightest pressure. It does not use rubber dome keys, it has springs in the keys, but still the action leaves much to be desired. PC-compatible keyboards do not work on the Tandy 1000s prior to the TL/SL, but there was an adapter from Tandy that would allow a PC keyboard to work. The Northgate Omnikey keyboards are also compatible with a special cable (which you may have to make yourself).

The SX and TX are the first Tandys that allow their graphics to be disabled if an EGA or VGA board is installed. (The EX and HX can as well, but require upgrade cards with the PLUS adapter). There is a special program that improves the detection of these cards in Tandy 1000s. An MDA or Hercules compatible card should be installable in any Tandy 1000 except the 1000 and 1000A. You can even install a CGA card in the machine, but some games may detect a Tandy 1000 machine and set their graphics to use the Tandy Graphics Adapter, making the use of other cards ineffective.

On the SX, Adding a math coprocessor is as easy as installing it into the empty socket and removing a jumper. The machine came with 384K and was upgradable to 640K by installing eight 256x1 RAM chips into the empty sockets by the drive cage and removing another jumper. There are four switches. Switch 1 is useful if you have a MDA/Hercules card, switch 2 for hard drive controllers that are hard wired to IRQ2, switch 3 and 4 disable IRQ6 and IRQ7, respectively.

The last issues which must be addressed relate to the expansion slots. Original Tandy 1000s did not come provide -5v to the expansion bus. Sound cards like the Sound Blaster 2.0 require this voltage, as do many VGA adapters. The SX has the voltage on the bus, so this should no longer be an issue on the later machines (except for the EX and HX, which also do not have this voltage on the PLUS expansion port). More concerning is that fact that only 10" boards or shorter will fit inside any Tandy 1000 case. The Roland LAPC-I, for example, will not fit, so I used a bare MPU-401 interface box with a small card. Nor will most EMS memory boards. Hard cards may be difficult to come by that will fit.

Tandy 1000s are supremely easy to open, all you need to do is to unscrew two screws from the front or the side and pull the cover forward. Working inside the first generation models is not quite so easy, due to the disk drive cage and the screws used to hold the expansion slots in place. Inside, the screws are all of the hex nut, standard screwdriver types, no Phillips head screws. I use a hex nut on a flexible screw driver handle to get at the screws, and it works pretty well. The expansion slot screws are a nightmare because they are so small and covered a bit by the back plastic piece.

In late 1986, the SX was released in its 2x5.25" drive version for $1,199.00. A similarly configured PC or XT, which did not come with a printer adapter or a graphics adapter, would have cost much more and not have been as much fun. Like the PCjr, it supports 160x200x16, 320x200x16, and 640x200x4. (I think only Deskmate ever supported the last resolution). Unlike the PCjr., it has register level compatibility with CGA, whereas the PCjr. has only BIOS level compatibility. Also, while the PCjr. and the Tandy 1000 support the PC Speaker sound generation, the PCjr. only has a piezo tweeter, while the 1000s have the biggest PC Speaker cone I have ever seen in a compatible. This means that games that tweak the speaker, like Access Software's Realsound games, will sound far superior on the Tandy than the PCjr. The Tandy 1000 does not require device drivers to support more than 128KB, unlike the PCjr. 256KB and greater booter games will work on the former but not the latter. Many games use these graphics and sound capabilities to give great improvements over competing systems. There are several games that support Tandy but not EGA graphics and games that support Tandy sound but not sound cards or midi devices.

PCjr. specific software (almost all of which was released by IBM) may not run on the Tandy or support Tandy graphics and sound. King's Quest and Touchdown Football (PCjr. versions) will not work in anything other than a Tandy 1000 with 128KB of RAM. Fortunately there are Tandy versions available of these games. The near mythical M.U.L.E. port for the PCJr. is an unknown quantity. Cartridge software, even when dumped, will not work because it expects to find itself in the D000 and E000 segments.

Unfortunately, the SX requires the 286xpress accelerator board to play those games of the late 80s that run slowly on 8088 machines. The 286xpress is not an easy find as it was very expensive back in the day. Also, finding an ADP-50L is not easy either, as it was a niche product. A fast hard drive is an absolute necessity with these machines. If you cannot find a 286xpress accelerator, then I would definitely recommend a Tandy 1000 TX instead, which has an 8MHz 80286 processor. It is the last system to be truly Tandy 1000 compatible, as the later systems use a PC compatible keyboard and lose composite output.

Evolutionary Issues of Sierra's SCI Games

2011-06-26T00:16:00.000-07:00

When Sierra first released its adventure games using its Sierra Creative Interpreter its hardware support was limited at first.

SCI0 Games:
King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella
Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places)
Police Quest II: The Vengeance
Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon
Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume 1
Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero
Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals
The Colonel's Bequest
Codename: Iceman
Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail
Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume 2
Mixed-Up Mother Goose
King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown
Jones in the Fast Lane

In King's Quest IV, Police Quest II and Leisure Suit Larry 2, the first games released using this system, the hardware support was limited. SCI0 games all use a 320x200 resolution with 16 colors.

The text parsers used in these games generally responded to simple commands such as "open door" "look building" and "talk man". Sometimes the parsers would expect a more complex command. One innovation over AGI was that typing paused the action. The text box did not take up the bottom portion of the screen, leaving more room for graphics. Drop down menus were standard for these games.

Graphics supported were CGA, EGA/VGA, IBM PS/2 Models 25 & 30 and Tandy 1000. PCjr. Graphics was not yet supported, nor was the Hercules Graphics Card.

CGA - CGA was supported for a surprisingly long time, all SCI0 and some 16-color SCI1 games have CGA drivers. CGA was not the ideal choice, and Sierra always used a recoloring algorithm to downsample the native 16-color graphics into 4 or 2 color graphics. The first 4-color drivers used the Red/Green/Brown palette, but later drivers used the unofficial Cyan/Red/White palette. 2-color drivers frequently used gray as the foreground color, but blue is also available as a choice. Composite color was never intentionally supported in SCI.

EGA/VGA - Since the VGA offered almost 100% compatibility with the EGA, this is usually the option people chose. Sierra did not take advantage of the VGA's palette abilities, nor did it use EGA features that would break compatibility with VGA cards.

IBM PS2 Models 25 & 30 - This utilizes the MCGA in these computers to show proper 16-color graphics. Since MCGA did not have a 320x200x16 mode, it uses the 320x200x256 mode without any extra palette features. Since this mode is compatible with VGA adapters, there is no harm in selecting this on a VGA system. It does not check the BIOS for the specific model of computer.

Tandy 1000 - By SCI, Sierra had no longer provided any special reason to use a Tandy 1000, except as shown below. This mode does not require more RAM than other graphics modes.

Sound Support was initially limited to the IBM PC or Compatible Speaker, PCjr./Tandy Programmable Sound Generator, Ad Lib Music Synthesizer Card, Roland MT-32 Sound Module and IBM Music Feature Card.

Ad Lib - I am not sure whether Sierra was the first PC game developer to support the card, but its support really helped support sales of PC sound cards. Sierra sold it in its Catalogs.

Roland MT-32 - Unlike the previous device, I am sure that Sierra was the first PC game developer to support this device. It was rather expensive when first supported and required both the module and a Roland MPU-401 ISA interface card. Although possessed by a minority of game players, this device is what received the best support.

IBM Music Feature Card - I am sure that Sierra was the only PC game developer to support this ISA sound card. A non-Roland MPU-401 compatible midi interface coupled with the equivalent of a Yamaha FB-01 sound module onboard, Sierra's support for this card was never high its priority list.

Sierra's SCI games supported IBM or Tandy keyboards, a joystick and a mouse. Before the mouse-driven icon interface, joystick support was important. Mouse support in SCI0 games merely offered another way to control your avatar and was generally not particularly useful. Still, mouse support was not ubiquitous in those days and a mouse driver had to be loaded in DOS beforehand. Sierra was forward thinking enough to allow Tandy TL/SL/RL users to use IBM keyboards, because they did not use the 90-key Keyboard of the older Tandy 1000s.

Now for individual observations for certain games :

King's Quest IV - An absolutely huge PC game when it was released in September, 1988. Originally came on nine 360K disks, far more than any other PC game of the time. This game does not use custom patches for the MT-32. The early releases of this game used slightly different sound drivers than later games. As such, sound drivers for later games cannot be used with this game.

Leisure Suit Larry 2 - Like King's Quest IV, the early releases of this game used slightly different sound drivers than later games. As such, sound drivers for later games cannot be used with this game. Also, the early releases had an Ad Lib driver which played the music at a noticeably higher pitch than later versions. This game is the first to use custom patches, and all other SCI0-SCI1 games, except for the next one, used custom patches.

Police Quest II - This game does not use custom patches for the MT-32. First game with Hercules Graphics Card support and official IBM PCjr. Graphics support. Unlike all other graphics modes, PCjr. requires 640KB, which was not officially supported on the PCjr.

Space Quest III - First game to support digitized speech and sound effects. At the time, the only hardware which was supported on was the Tandy TL/SL/RL PSSJ sound chip. Also added support for the Casiotone MT-540 and CT-460 sound synthesizers. Later the CSM-1 sound module was officially supported, but can still use these drivers. This still required a Roland MPU-401 interface.

Eventually games supported the compatible Roland MT-100, CM-32L, CM-64 modules. However, unless the driver claims CM-64 support, there will be unwanted sound effects being played on the CM-32P portion of that device because the earlier driver is sending Ad Lib data on channels 11-16. If you have a CM-64 or CM-500, you can copy a driver from a later game to the earlier game, except if you are playing the early versions of KQ4 or LSL2.

Creative Labs Creative Music System/Game Blaster Card began to be supported. In the Game Blaster box drivers were available for all games, including KQ4 and LSL2. You can use a later driver with an earlier game except for the early versions of KQ4 or LSL2. The Game Blaster, like the Roland devices, supports stereo sound. Too bad the music sounds pretty weak. This will work on the Sound Blaster 1.0 or an upgraded Sound Blaster 1.5 or 2.0.

Sierra also officially began supporting the Yamaha FB-01 sound module, attached to a Roland MPU-401 interface card. This driver will work for earlier games that support the IBM Music Feature Card except the early versions of KQ4 and LSL2. Eventually, Sierra stopped shipping IBM Music Feature/Yamaha FB-01 drivers with their games, and support could only be found by downloading custom patches on Sierra's BBS. Some patches may have been lost.

While all SCI0 games have support for the Game Blaster one way or another, they may not have support for the Casio modules, so copying over the driver will not necessarily work.

Hero's Quest - Notable for two reasons. First, as the name sounded like Milton Bradley's Hero Quest, Sierra changed the name of the series to Quest for Glory in later releases of this game. Second, this game allowed the use of a mouse click to function as a look [object] command for what was clicked on. Hotkeys were available for "ask about", which was frequently used.

In SCI0 releases, Sierra almost always included both 5.25" and 3.5" disks in the box. Later budget releases would nix one or the other, and when Sierra released SCI1 games, it ended this policy.

Sierra was one of the first companies that had a TUI install program. To install an AGI game, one had to type "installh c:". To install an SCI game, one had to type "install" and follow the menus and insert the disks.

King's Quest 1 EGA/VGA - Introduced support for the Sound Blaster card, giving a second option to hear digitized sound effects. This driver could be used for Space Quest III for non-Tandy machine owners. This game had some real differences from the original AGI version.

Mixed Up Mother Goose - Obviously one of Roberta Williams' favorite games, Sierra released this game quite often. There was an AGI version, a 16-color SCI0 version, a 256-color SCI1 version, a CD-ROM version of the 256-color version and an SVGA version that had a Windows executable.

Hoyle's Official Book of Games - Showing that the SCI engine was more versatile than text parser adventure games, these were collections of card games (Volumes I, II and Hoyle Classic Card Games). SCI would be used for puzzle games (Dr. Brain series) and board games (Jones in the Fast Lane, Hoyle's Book of Games Volume III).

SCI1 Games:
Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume 3
King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers
Mixed-Up Mother Goose
Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work
EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus
Jones in the Fast Lane (CD-ROM version)
Mixed-up Fairy Tales
Police Quest III: The Kindred
Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter
Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood
Castle of Dr. Brain

When Sierra transitioned to the SCI1 system, it began to narrow its horizons. Separate 16-color and 256-color releases were released, with the former generally coming on double density media and the latter on high density media. The 16-color versions used graphics converted from the 256-color originals.

Quest for Glory II - Although this looks and functions like an SCI0 game, it uses the SCI1 engine. Its interpreter is compatible with other 16-color SCI1 games, even though they use point-n-click interfaces instead of the mouse interface.

All games after Quest for Glory II used a mouse point-and-click interface, and the mouse was the ideal method of control. The second mouse button could be used to cycle through icons.

Space Quest I, Quest for Glory I, Police Quest I & Leisure Suit Larry 1 - Although Sierra apparently received negative comments from many fans about disrespecting their classic games by selling remakes, Sierra continued undaunted for each of the first games in their series. Quest for Glory was the last game in this series, and supported General Midi as the optimal music device instead of the MT-32.

Graphics wise, the SCI0 games supported 256-color VGA and gray scale VGA. The grayscale driver was better for people who played these games on gray scale VGA monitors, which could display only 64 shades of gray. Tandy graphics were still supported on the 16-color versions, but those games would play very slowly in most Tandy 1000 machines.

Sound wise, the SCI0 games had full support for the Sound Blaster and soon supported Mediavision's Pro Audio Spectrum. Many of the SCI0 games would support stereo OPL2 output on the Pro Audio Spectrum, which was unique to that card. People who owned a Sound Blaster Pro or Pro Audio Spectrum 16 were out of luck. The Adlib card had one OPL2 chip, which supported 9 FM synthesis instrument channels or 6 instrument channels with 5 percussion channels. The latter is what Sierra used. While the two OPL2 chips of the Pro Audio Spectrum offered double the number of channels, Sierra games did not support extra channels, it just sent some existing OPL2 channels to the left chip and some to the right chip. Games also supported the IBM PS/1 Audio/Joystick Card, which was an upgrade that plugged only into the IBM 286-based PS/1 Models 2011 and 2121.

Joysticks were still supported, but trying to play any of these games without a mouse was foolish. Tandy keyboards were also still supported. This series also introduced Expanded, Extended and XMS memory support which could speed up game play. (Extended Memory and XMS Memory are very similar, and usually XMS Memory would be used. Extended Memory should be available if an eXtended Memory Manager (HIMEM.SYS) was not loaded in the CONFIG.SYS).

Eventually, Sierra started supplying drivers that would allow the user to use their Sound Blaster or Pro Audio Spectrum for digital sound effects and the MT-32 for music, giving the user the best of both worlds. The Disney Sound Source began being supported for digitized sound, and Music and Speech would be separated in the install program.

Leisure Suit Larry 5 - The only Sierra game with support for the extra sound effects of the LAPC-1/CM-32L. Many other Sierra games will occasionally produce the incorrect sound if not played back on a rev 0 MT-32 (no headphone jack).

This was the first time that CD-ROM technology was used. Jones and King's Quest V use it, and also support natively being run in Windows 3.x.

Kings Quest V - CD version loses its MT-32 soundtrack in Windows executable and uses an inferior General Midi composition. Windows 3.x was not particularly well-suited to the MT-32.

SCI1.1 Games:
EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus (disk version 1.1, CD-ROM version)
EcoQuest II: Lost Secret of the Rainforest
Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist
The Island of Dr. Brain
King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
Laura Bow: The Dagger of Amon Ra
Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out!
Mixed-Up Mother Goose
Pepper's Adventures in Time
Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel
Quest for Glory I: So You Want to Be a Hero
Quest for Glory III: Wages of War
Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (CD-ROM version)
Space Quest V: The Next Mutation

SCI1.1 introduced more subtle changes. For these games, General Midi began to supplant the venerable MT-32. Police Quest I and Lara Bow 2 were the last games with MT-32 optimized sound tracks, other games using this interpreter supply a generic set of patches that remap the MT-32 to the General Midi patch standard. Except as indicated in the last sentence, the Roland SC-55 and compatibles were the devices upon which the music sounded best. Tandy Keyboard support is eliminated.

More games would be released on CD-ROM, including King's Quest VI, Lara Bow 2, Freddy Pharkas and Leisure Suit Larry 6. In almost every case, these releases occurred subsequent to the floppy releases. Older SCI0 games like Space Quest IV and Mixed Up Mother Goose would have CD-ROM releases with SCI1.1.

King's Quest VI - Displayed in a 640x480 graphics resolution in the CD-ROM version using the Windows executable. However, this is only noticeable in the character dialog portraits. The 320x200 graphics for the backgrounds and sprites are kept, stretched in a non-optimal manner.

Leisure Suit Larry 6 had a Low Resolution only CD-ROM release using SCI1.1. A high resolution release using SCI2 would follow.

Graphics wise, separate 16-color versions were no longer available, so a dithering EGA driver was provided instead. New speech support included the Mediavision Thunderboard, the Pro Audio Spectrum 16 and the Windows Sound System. The Sound Blaster Pro and 16 were eventually supported for higher quality digitized sound, but there was no separate option in the install program. The game would detect the card using the SET BLASTER variable in the autoexec.bat.

I have occasionally come across a game with Gravis Ultrasound driver for music and speech. I do not believe that the work involved in getting the GUS to work is worth it.

SCI2 Games:
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride
Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! (hi-res CD-ROM version)
Mixed-Up Mother Goose Deluxe
Phantasmagoria
Police Quest: Open Season
Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness
Shivers
Space Quest 6: The Spinal Frontier
Torin's Passage

SCI2 drastically reduces the available options. Gone is support for EGA or joysticks. These games require Extended Memory. They use a DPMI extender to access it. All were released on CD-ROM, and only Gabriel Knight, Police Quest IV and Quest for Glory IV had floppy releases. At this point, there was little reason to use the floppies.

Police Quest IV - Supports 640x480 VESA graphics with the floppy install, all the other SCI2 games support high resolution graphics with their CD-ROM version only. The floppy version allows the player to choose VGA or VESA, the CD-ROM auto-detects whether the video card supports VESA and selects that mode if it does. Leisure Suit Larry 6 works in the same way.

Gabriel Knight 1 - The first Sierra CD game with actual "name & face" voice actors. Previous Sierra efforts had the production team voice the characters, (KQ5, SQ4, LB2) or had professional voice actors (KQ6, QG4), but this was the first game where actors known (Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Michael Dorn, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) or would become known (Leah Remini, Rocky Carroll) by face and name to the general public were used. Never again would a Sierra SCI game feature so prominent a cast.

Quest for Glory IV is the only game using the SCI2 interpreter that does not support high-resolution graphics.

Gabriel Knight 2 and Phantasmagoria were the only SCI2 games to use FMV, coming on a whopping 6 and 7 CD-ROMs, respectively. The former and Torin's Passage has digitized music, no more Adlib or Midi support.

All CD-ROM only games support 640x480x256 graphics only. This meant that they required SVGA/VESA capabilities, since straight VGA cannot support this.

King's Quest VII was originally only released for Windows 3.x. It also could take the greatest hard drive space of any DOS SCI game, 100MB, if installed with the full option. Version 2.0 added DOS and Windows 95 compatibility. Mixed Up Mother Goose Deluxe and Shivers were the first SCI games never released for DOS.

Support for the Sound Blaster AWE32 for music was added.

Two observations about the gameplay of many of SCI2-3 games is that they no longer had that "death on every screen" aspect of earlier games. While you could die in most of these games, there was an option to replay the sequence and hopefully avoid death. This spared the player from the failure to save the game every minute. In addition to lethality of earlier games, dead-end situations abounded. These tended to be reduced in these titles.

The second observation is the elimination of icons. Games began using just a cursor, which would function as a look, use, walk, talk and get command depending on the context. Sometimes a command menu would be displayed. The cursor would often highlight on an object on the screen that could be interacted with.

SCI3 Games:
Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail!

Lighthouse: The Dark Being
Phantasmagoria II: A Puzzle of Flesh
RAMA
Shivers Two: Harvest of Souls

The final version of SCI, SCI3, required a VESA compatible graphics card and were all released on CD and do not support Midi.

Phantasmagoria only supported Windows out of the box, Sierra released a patch so it could be used in DOS. DOS only supports 256 colors, Windows supports 16-bit (65535) color.

Shivers 2 has no DOS support.

The Scourge of Preservation : Disk-Based Copy-Protection

2011-05-02T00:02:00.000-07:00

In collecting and playing floppy disk IBM PC compatible games from the DOS and pre-DOS era, there are two obstacles, copy-protection and media decay. I would like to concentrate on the first in this entry. Let me start by describing the physical workings of a floppy disk, then an overview of copy protection methods, then finally solutions for them, both old and new.

1. Structure of a Regular Floppy Disk

A floppy disk, whether on a 5.25" or a 3.5" disk, is divided up into sides, tracks and sectors. Except for the earliest programs, all regular IBM floppy disks use two sides. The earliest drives that came with the IBM PC in 1981 were also single sided, but these were replaced by dual sided drives within a year. All compatibles, even the PCjr., come with double sided drives. These are the standard formats which DOS games used :

Floppy # of # of # of Total Media
Type Sides Tracks  Sectors Capacity Name
5.25" 1 40 8 160KB Double Density
5.25"        1 40 9 180KB Double Density
5.25"        2 40 8 320KB Double Density
5.25"        2 40 9 360KB Double Density
3.5"          2 80 9 720KB Double Density
5.25"        2 80 15 1.2MB High Density
3.5"        2 80 18 1.44MB High Density

Each sector within a track stores 512 bytes of data. Thus, for example, the capacity of a 360KB = 2 x 40 x 9 x 512. An .img/.ima file is a raw dump of each sector in order from Track 0/Sector 0 to Track 80/Sector 18 (assuming a 1.44MB disk). The first track or so contains the DOS information, including the directory structure, file and attributes list, disk label (if one). If the disk does not contain disk-based protection, an ordinary dump will be all that is needed to preserve the disk, assuming the contents are undamaged. Regular DOS game disks are not bootable, DOS will need to be loaded from a hard disk drive or floppy disk before the game will work.

The idea behind copy protection is to prevent a game from working without the original floppy. This means that the original floppy is non-standard in some way. Before we discuss the ways in which a floppy can be non-standard, first lets categorize our IBM PC Games.

2. Types of IBM PC Compatible Games

A. PC Booter Games (Non-DOS Booters)

Officially, hard disks were not available for the IBM PC platform until the arrival of the IBM PC XT in 1983. Even then they were extremely expensive, well out of the budget of your average home user. Hard drives were not commonplace on consumer PCs until the late 1980s. DOS was often used for two purposes, for running BASIC and saving and cataloging BASIC programs and for formatting disks for programs to save user files. Most programs released during the early years were self-booting, you inserted the program disk in the drive, turned the computer on, and it would load your program. When you were done you removed the disk from the drive and turned the machine off or inserted another program disk and did a hard Ctrl-Alt-Del reset. The BIOS of the IBM PC and Compatibles would check the the disk in the first drive and see whether there was a boot loader on Track 0. If there was, whether DOS or not, it would allow the program on the disk to control the system. If not, IBM's PCs would go to the BASIC stored in ROM and clones and compatibles would usually ask the user to insert a bootable disk into the drive.

Games from these early years were frequently bootable and many times used their own custom and faster disk access routines, not using DOS's disk routines. Since loading DOS first served no purpose, these games were free to structure themselves on a disk as they pleased. Generally speaking, DOS could not read these disks. Nor did these disks have to use the standard DOS formats described above. Bootable games tended to reside on two 5.25" double density or one 3.5" double density disks maximum and usually only supported CGA cards and Tandy/PCjr. graphics. Many arcade ports and clones can be found on PC Booters, but important series like King's Quest and Microsoft Fight Simulator first were released as booters. Infocom's classic text adventures may have been released as booters. Some small or early booters used single sided disks. The first commercial IBM PC game, Microsoft Adventure, is a booter.

B. DOS Floppy Only Protected Games

Not every game publisher felt the need to write custom disk routines when the ones from DOS worked well enough and were free if the user loaded DOS before starting the game. Unlike the booter, these disks were generally not bootable unless the user copied the system files from a DOS disk to make the disk bootable. These disk were readable in DOS and usually only the first disk had any protection. However, early games were not intended to be installed onto hard drives (which the user or the programmers may not have been able to afford) and no benefit would result since the game would seek the files off the floppy disks. Even though these disks were readable in DOS, they were still non-standard in some way so that they could not be copied using standard disk copying programs. Many of these games still had no quit/exit to DOS capabilities, requiring Ctrl-Alt-Del or a system shutdown to use another program. Ultima II for the PC is a good example of this type.

C. DOS Hard Drive Installable Protected Games

Later games realized that reading files off a hard disk, even slow ones, was faster than off floppies. Moreover, a multiple floppy game could be installed to a hard drive, eliminating disk swapping. Some games came on three or more 5.25" disks, and not everyone could afford or had room for two floppy drives. These games would have programs on one of the disks to copy themselves to the hard disk drive or would give the user instructions on how to copy the files using DOS. Still, the first disk had to be in the drive when the game was being used to access the protection. Most games have quit commands in them by this time. Frequently these games supported EGA cards, but some VGA games originally came on protected disks. Lemmings from 1991 was among the last-known of major IBM PC Compatible game with disk-based copy protection.

D. Document Based Copy Protected Games

Due to the eventual proliferation of hard drives and annoyance with games that could not be backed up if the original got damaged or destroyed and had to be kept in the drive, companies moved away from protected disks. However, to discourage people from sharing their games with every friend in their neighborhood, the companies used document checks instead. The disks themselves would be ordinary DOS disks and full or partial hard drive installation would be encouraged. So, upon startup or some point within a game, the game would ask a question which would require the user to refer to his documentation to answer it. Sometimes the user would have to enter a word from a particular line of a particular paragraph from a particular page of the manual. Sometimes he would have to enter a symbolic code from a codebook. There may have been a codewheel included which the player would have to align as instructed. Sometimes the player could only see the code with the help of a red filter gel. Sometimes the game would refer the player to a paragraph in a book containing descriptions and dialog. The idea was that the codes would be hard to photocopy or transmit through the BBSes of the day. CDs, which were difficult to copy for several years, put an end of document checks.

3. Methods of Floppy-Based Copy Protection

I do not pretend to be an expert on this subject, methods of floppy disk copy protection include :

Write Protection - The original disk was either physically write protected or not write protected, and if the user failed to duplicate the physical protection on the copy, the game would detect it and fail to work or trash the disk.

Fat or Thin Tracks - Normal double density disks had tracks of 8 or 9 sectors. However, some games used 10 sectors per track or fewer than 8 sectors, which the disk controller could read.

Oversized or Undersized Sectors - Normal sectors are 512 bytes, but valid sector sizes for the disk controller range from 128 bytes to 8,192 bytes, even though a double density track generally cannot store more than 6K of information.

Extra Tracks - Data can be stored on Track 41 or above on a 5.25" disk or Track 81 or above on a 3.5" disk.

Unformatted Tracks - The game can check for the existence of unformatted Track(s), a Track with no sectors defined, somewhere on the disk. If tracks are unformatted above a certain number, a game may fail if the copy formats those tracks.

Weak Bits - Some area of the disk could have information written onto it that cannot be reliably read. A game can refuse to work if several reads to an area with weak bits protection produces the same result.

CRC Errors - Each sector after the data contains CRC values for error checking for the data in the sector. If the CRC check fails, an error will be produced. Some games have deliberate CRC errors which can be read, and if not correct, can cause the game to fail.

Sync Byte/Gap Byte/Sector ID Manipulation - Before the data in each sector, there are sync bytes, gap bytes and a sector ID to organize and separate the sectors on a Track. A game could manipulate this area and if the manipulation on the copy is not the same as the original, fail.

Burn Hole - Machines exist that could precisely burn a hole in the disk with a laser (not the sector 0 index hole). A program could check for the existence of the hole and refuse to work if not encountered. Typically used only on very expensive software, no games have been known to use it.

These methods can and have been combined. Like with today's LaserLock, SafeDisc, SecuROM, and StarForce, certain protection methods were marketed under the names ProLok, SuperLock, EverLock, and Cops Copylock II. An example of a famous protection scheme can be found here :

http://www.sierrahelp.com/GeneralHelp/FloppyDiskBackupProblems.html

4. Ways to Defeat Disk Based Copy Protection

A. Software Solutions

Some companies understood that there was a market for programs for users who wanted to protect their expensive software. The most famous back in the day was Central Point Software, who made a software product called CopyIIPC. CopyIIPC was designed to copy floppies only, not to preserve them in an image file. As new protections were released, updated versions of CopyIIPC were released to handle new protections. CopyIIPC allowed for better copies through better manipulation of the PC disk controller. Pressure from some software copies eventually persuaded Central Point Software to remove certain functionality in later versions of the software, so a user may need an earlier version to break a particular protection scheme. If CopyIIPC could not duplicate a protection on a copied disk, the program would have the program to remove or alter the protection so it would work with the copied disk. Development stopped after v6.00 in 1990.

CopyIIPC also came with the nokey and noguard programs. Nokey would allow users of DOS Protected Floppies to use their programs without having a keydisk inserted in the floppy disk drive while the program was running. Noguard allowed otherwise non-hard drive installable programs to be installed onto the hard drive and even in later versions eliminated document checks for some games. CopyIIPC has no innate capabilities of making images for later backup, so some enterprising programmer wrote a tool called Snatchit to allow backing up and restoring the image to a floppy. These files use the .cp2 extension but no emulators are known support them. CopyIIPC + Snatchit are speed sensitive and getting the combo to work in a fast 386 or better may not be possible.

Teledisk is a competitor to CopyIIPC and can handle many types of protections. It can also archive protected disks into an image format without a Snatchit type program. It will fail if it encounters an unformatted track, however. Unlike CopyIIPC, it will run in any speed of PC, and its .td0 disk images are supported in the MESS and PCE emulators.

Other programs include Rawcopy, Diskdupe, Anadisk, Locksmith, Neverlock, CrackAid and The Patcher. Some will copy disks, others only remove protection. Disk2FDI is a more recent, trialware program that is capable of reading but not writing disks, but requires two floppy drives (trial version) or a special floppy-to-parallel cable (registered version). Its .fdi images are not widely supported in emulators.

B. Hardware Solutions

The PC Disk Controller could read more of a disk than write it, so if software failed, then a hardware solution was needed. Central Point Software released the CopyIIPC Option Board, an ISA card that was connected between the disk drive and the regular disk controller. This card could read the magnetic flux transitions on the disk and write them too, essentially capable of making bit perfect copies of a disk. The software, called Transcopy, was updated regularly to handle new protections.

The original Option Board was released in three variations, the long TTL board, the short TTL board, and the VLSI "Transcopy" chip board. The long TTL board does not have a jumper to select DMA1, which is required for Tandy 1000 computers (and probably would not fit in them anyways). All otherwise have the same capabilities, but the VLSI board is impossible to fix if the main chip goes bad. There was an Enhanced Option Board, which was a regular Option Board with circuitry to emulate Burn Hole protection on disks and a switch to turn that functionality on and off. Finally, there was a Deluxe Option Board that could copy some Macintosh disks and use high density drives to some degree. No Option Board can copy High Density protected disks, but no games are known to come on disk-protected High Density disks.

Transcopy is an easy to use program, and it can archive images to a file for later recording or multiple copies. The resulting files use the .img format, but are far larger and quite incompatible with the later .ima/.img format. Transcopy went up to version 5.4, but it seems only the Deluxe Option Board can use versions 5.x and below, while the original Option Board can seemingly only use versions 4.x and lower. So if a disk image is made with version 5.x, it may not be writable with 4.x software. Normally, it is best to use the latest version of Transcopy and go down if there is a problem (due to the pressure put on Central Point Software by software publishers), but it may be necessary to stick with version 4.x or below for widest distribution.

The Option Boards are 8-bit ISA cards and work in IBM PCs, XTs, ATs, Tandy 1000s, PS/2s (with ISA) and many compatibles. Computers in the late 1980s (Tandy 1000 TX, IBM PS/2 Model 30) that supported 3.5" drives frequently provided power to the drives on the drive data cable, so custom cables will have to be made to get these machines working with the Option Board. An end user can do this if he has the pinouts for the cable at hand. Tandy machines require floppy cables without a twist in them.

Using Transcopy and the Option Board does not seem particularly speed-dependent. I have heard users write that they were able to use the hardware and software in a Pentium II or III computer, which were among the last to regularly feature ISA slots. However, there is a disadvantage in that the hardware is ISA based, so a vintage machine of some nature is required to use it. The resulting .img format is not supported by any emulator I know. The last Option Boards and the last update to the software was about 1990.

More recently, the Catweasel board was created that can read and write protected disk formats in a PC drive. The Catweasel originally came in ISA (MK1) and Amiga Zorro III (MK2) but soon was released for PCI (MK3 & MK4 & MK4plus). It usually has sockets for SID chips to be used with Commodore 64 emulators. It was first released in 1996 and the last version of the card was put out in 2004. Last drivers date from early 2007. Even more recently, the Kyroflux board was released for USB. Both are capable of imaging and (very recently for Kyroflux) writing to disks. These products should work with PC protections, but can also image disks from the Commodore PET, VIC-20, 64 & Amiga, the Atari 8-bit and ST computers, the Apple II and Macintosh, the Tandy TRS-80 and Color Computers, MSX. These boards are still in production, unlike the Option Boards. You may need to catch them up quickly if you can find one.

Some Ugly Ducklings in Video Game Series : Terrible Twos and Threes

2011-04-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

Finally, a chance to talk about games, not merely the hardware that allows them to run. What I would like to talk about are those games in video game series that were strange, different, unusual or far outside the norm of the rest of the series.

Super Mario Bros. 2

When I first played Super Mario Bros 2 for the NES, I was struck about how different it was from its predecessor. It seemed like Nintendo went in a radically different direction for the sequel, sharing very, very few elements from its predecessor. Unlike any other near-contemporary Mario game, you could choose between four different characters, each with different strengths and weaknesses. All the enemies were different from the first game. Instead of stomping on enemies, bumping them off a platform from below or shooting a fireball at them, you rode on them, tossed them into each other or picked up a vegetable and used it to defeat them. Ducking down to charge up a super jump was unknown to other games. There was a miniboss at the end of almost every stage. There were no bricks to break or coin blocks to hit. Pipes, floating platforms, and water levels were nowhere to be found.

Some similarities were evident. There were invincible stars and warp zones, but you found them by different means. You could increase your lifebar from 2 to 4 hits by finding mushrooms. You could collect coins for use in the slot machine for extra lives. You could duck into vases instead of pipes, but you always came out of the same vase.

The degree of difference between this game and the rest was very obvious when Super Mario Bros. 3 was released on the NES. When I first experienced SMB3, it seemed as though the designers did not acknowledge that SMB2 even existed. However, virtually every enemy, power and design concept returned from SMB1. Super Mario World for the SNES and the Super Mario Land series for the Gameboy took little from SMB2. Outside the main series, the Super Mario Super Show took as many elements from SMB1 & 2 and mixed them together in the cartoon.

Today, we all know why SMB2 was so different from the other games in the main Mario series, it originally was not a Mario game at all! It actually was little more than a sprite hack and cartridge conversion from the Famicom Disk System game Doki Doki Panic. Back in 1988, Nintendo Power was the main official source of information about NES games, but Nintendo did not acknowledge at the time that SMB2 was a conversion of a non-Mario game. Not until several years afterwards, until Nintendo released Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES did they really acknowledge that the overseas version of SMB2 was not the same as SMB2 released in Japan. (Nintendo did release the overseas version of SMB2 in Japan as SMB USA.)

The Japanese SMB2 is also an oddity. It was released for the Famicom Disk System, and was the only pre-Gamecube game in the series that was never originally released on a cartridge (except for as the Lost Levels in Super Mario All-Stars and in part in VS. Super Mario Bros. for the arcade VS System and Super Mario Bros. DX for the Gameboy Color). As is well-known, it is much, much harder than SMB1. Unlike any other game in the series, it really does not advance the series in any meaningful way. It looks almost exactly like SMB1, offers no new enemies or powerups and controls like the first game with one exception. SMB2 is a one player game and the player can choose between Mario and Luigi. Like the overseas SMB2, Mario and Luigi in this game control differently; with Luigi being able to jump higher and further than Mario but taking longer to stop after landing from a jump.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Although Zelda did not reach trilogy status until A Link to the Past was released for the SNES, Zelda II is definitely the odd-man out of the Zelda series. Unlike every other 2D Zelda game for Nintendo consoles (we are leaving those CD-i games out of the conversation), all the action in this game used a side-scroller perspective. Other 2D Zelda games, including the original and LttP and all the Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance and DS games all use a top-down perspective.

Zelda II had another oddity, an experience system. As you defeated monsters in this game, they gave you experience points which you could use to improve your life, magic and attack power when you had accumulated sufficient points. I am unaware of any other Zelda game that uses a traditional experience point system, In other Zelda games, Link becomes stronger by finding new weapons, armor and items.

Zelda II's magic system was also unique. In this game, you learned spells from the wizards in the various towns and you had a magic meter that depleted as you cast spells. To replenish your magic meter, you had to find magic jars which enemies could drop. In LttP, you had a magic meter, but only the use of your items depleted the magic meter. This approach was also followed in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask for the N64.

Unlike SMB2, which was turned into a Mario game by replacing character sprites, Zelda II was intended as a radically different direction for the sequel to the phenomenally popular Legend of Zelda. The direction taken in later games in the series indicated that Nintendo recognized that the approach it took in Zelda II just did not work for the series as well as the approach of Legend of Zelda. No one seemed particularly critical of this approach at the time, but in 1988, criticism was not to be found in Nintendo's semi-official organ of information, Nintendo Power. In Japan, both Zelda and Zelda II were originally released for the Famicom Disk System. Zelda I eventually got a cartridge rerelease, but no such luck for Zelda II in Japan.

Zelda II is not the most influential game in the Zelda series. The most notable elements it introduces that would be adopted in later games is the third Triforce, the Triforce of Courage, and the ability of Link to use magic. In later games, Link only gets stronger by finding items or advancing the storyline, not by gaining experience points.

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

In Castlevania, Konami made one of the NES's best-known sidescrollers. It was also a very hard sidescroller to beat. In Castlevania, your character went from stage to stage with a boss monster at the end of each of the six stages in the game. Konami decided to experiment with its sequel by changing the emphasis of the gameplay from straight action to exploration and item collection like Zelda and Metroid.

Castlevania II used the same basic sprite and play control for the title character and still used the side-scrolling perspective. However, there are no stages, the main character, Simon Belmont wanders the Transylvanian countryside and creepy Mansions seeking to end Dracula's curse. Simon's powers increase by collecting items, many of which are hidden and others are bought. Enemies drop hearts which are used as currency in the game. Some special weapons will use up hearts, but not all of them. Simon's health meter can increase after defeating so many enemies. It can only be refilled by entering a town church in the daytime, but having a full life meter is not as crucial as it is in other Castlevania games.

The difficulty has changed in this game. In Castlevania, the difficulty was in surviving the monsters to make it to the boss and defeating them. Castlevania II's bosses are pathetically easy and dying will not send you back to the beginning of the stage or block. The real difficulty in Castlevania II is collecting hearts, the counter for which will reset to 0 if you get to a game over screen, and beating the game quickly enough to see the best ending.

Castlevania and Castlevania II were originally released on the Famicom Disk System in Japan. Just like DDP/SMB2 and Zelda II, the original games in these series were later re-released on a Famicom cartridge but the second game in each series was not. Like the conversions of Metroid and Kid Icarus, the cartridge version of Castlevania II uses a password save system while the disk version wrote the data to a save file.
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Castlevania II's was very influential. Elements of non-linearity popped up in its sequel, Castlevania III, had branching paths between levels and Akumajou Dracula : Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine Super CD had branching paths in levels. Leveling up and exploring an open world, finding items and completing quests was done in Castlevania : Symphony of the Night to well-beloved acclaim. In fact, Symphony and its progeny never managed to create the feel of a living countryside since they were almost always set solely inside a castle. Its day/night system, where the enemies would get stronger at night and the towns would close, may have been a first. (Ultima V has a similar system, but was first released half-a-year later). Not bad for this small game.

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

It took Falcom a third game before it started polarizing its fans across the pond. The first two Ys games are top-down Zelda style games where the character had to physically touch an enemy to attack it. There was no attack button! Considering that these games were originally programmed for the Japanese NEC PC-8801 home computer family and that players would most likely be using the keyboard to move their character, this was a good design choice.

Then the designers for Ys III, made for the same computer family, decided that a change was in order. Seeing the popularity of side scrolling games and wanting to make their game more complex, they added attack and jump buttons and made a side-scroller. The rest of the elements of Ys were still there, regular bosses, items to find and buy, quests to complete, great graphics and music and a dynamic storyline. The side scrolling controls are rather "loose" and hit detection leaves something to be desired, as there is no feedback as there was in other games. There was no real recovery time from hits, so monsters could touch you again and again, leading to quick deaths. Having a world map with set areas eliminated the interconnected world of the earlier games.

Falcom returned to the top-down style of gameplay for the next games in the series. Unfortunately, Ys III was by far the best known game in the series to have been released outside of Japan. Ys 1 was released for the Apple IIgs, IBM PC, Sega Master System and Turbo CD. Ys 2 only got the Turbo CD release. Ys III got a Turbo CD release and cartridges for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. When Falcom decided to revive the Ys series early in the 21st century, they used something like a 3/4 top down mode. This game was remade as Ys: The Oath in Felghana for Windows PCs in 2006, and it used the 3/4 top down style.

Ninja Gaiden III : The Ancient Ship of Doom

Tecmo had created two awesome games in the Ninja Gaiden series for the NES, and riding high from the experience, they put out a third game. Unfortunately the third game is not up to the standards of its predecessors.

Comparing the style of the games, one finds Ninja Gaiden III to be markedly different from its predecessors. While the first two games had mystical enemies and villians, this game has science fiction monstrosities. There is no sense of the ancient about this game, in stark contrast to its predecessors. The levels and bosses are not as memorable as those in the first two games. The first two games also tried to give a 3-D look to the platforms, but this game looks flat by comparison. The sound effects are annoying as Ryu says "Ha" every time he swings his sword. The storyline is passable and tries to be dramatic, but it just does not grab you like the other entries in the series.

However, this is Ninja Gaiden, and the mechanics of the play are as solid as ever. Obviously there was plenty of effort spared for this game, and much can be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven, however, is the miserable localization job done for this game in the States. Evidently, the first two games were not hard enough, so the localization jacked up the difficulty level to the unfair territory. The Japanese game had a password feature and unlimited continues. The former was eliminated and the latter reduced to five continues. The enemies do double or treble damage to Ryu in the US NES version and knock him back far enough when hit that he often falls off platforms to his death. Sword extension powerups are much harder to find, and these are necessary because your initial sword has a puny hit range.

Ninja Gaiden III was released during the twilight of the NES, so its sales were probably not spectacular. Its ridiculous difficulty level probably put off many buyers. There would not be a new Ninja Gaiden game released for a home console for over a decade afterwards.

Vintage Gamer's Guide to Sound Blasters (ISA)

2010-06-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

Sound Blaster 1.0/1.5

These are the original models of the Sound Blaster. The chief difference between the two is that the 1.0 version has two CMS-301 chips soldered onto the board while the 1.5 version has empty sockets for those chips. The CMS-301 chips are Creative's name (put on stickers) for Phillips SAA-1099 chips. These chips are the only source for stereo output on these cards, and if you can find two of these chips, you can turn a 1.5 into a 1.0. Adding the chips provides for a very good degree of compatibility with Creative Music Systems Card and Game Blaster software. This compatibility is not perfect because some programs and games (Taito) require the presence of a special chip found only on those cards.

These cards contain a single Yamaha OPL2 (YM3812 + YM3014) chipset. This chipset is the exact same chipset the Adlib Music Systems Card uses and is also located at the same I/O range (388/389h), which provides for perfect compatibility with any software supporting Adlib. These chips may be socketed or soldered.

The gameport on these cards can be disabled via removing JP1. It is IBM PC compatible and uses I/O address 201.

I/O addresses ranges include 210-21F; 220-22F; 230-23F; 240-24F; 250-25F; 260-26F.

Available IRQs are 2, 3, 4, 5, 7. The only DMA channel this card can use is 1.

These cards have no on-board mixer, volume control is done by the application and the volume wheel at the back of the card. The output is amplified for headphones and unpowered speakers.

These cards support line out and mic in, there is no separate line in. The mic in jack is often rusty with these old cards.

The large socketed chip is the Digital Signal Processor (DSP). In earlier cards, DSP V1.05 is present. Some later cards use a DSP V2.0. The DSP handles digitized audio and midi I/O. As the chip is socketed, it could be upgraded from a V1.05 to a V2.00. Doing so would allow the card to achieve compliance with MPC-1 standards.

DSP V1.05 supports single-cycle DMA mode, ADPCM modes from 8-4 bits, 8-3 bits and 8-2 bits. It supports 8-bit mono output up to 23,000 kHz or 11,000-13,000 kHz using ADPCM. It supports normal mode midi output. DSP V2.00 adds auto-initialize DMA mode and UART midi mode. The Sound Blaster is totally incompatible with the Roland MPU-401 midi interface, which is what early games that supported midi (generally the MT-32), used.

The gameport also supports midi input/output and can use gameport-to-midi cables.

This card uses T1 (Type 1) in the SET BLASTER line in your autoexec.bat. The default SET BLASTER variable is as follows:

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T1

Sound Blaster Pro 1.0

These cards contain a dual Yamaha OPL2 (2 x YM3812 + 2 x YM3014) chipset. The chips may be socketed or soldered. This allows for stereo music output. Game Blaster compatibility was removed to achieve this.

This card supports a Panasonic CD-ROM interface. This interface is incompatible with standard IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drives and requires special drives. The interface does not use any additional resources beyond the normal I/O address range this card uses.

I/O addresses ranges available are 220-233; 240-253.

Available IRQs are 2, 5, 7, 10. Available DMAs are 0, 1, 3. Using DMA 0 is a bad idea because it is used for refreshing system RAM in many sytems. Using IRQ 10 is not a good idea, many games will not recognize IRQs higher than 7.

These cards support line out, line in and mic in.

This card uses DSP V3.00-V3.01 and the CT-1345 mixer. DSP 3.xx adds support for stereo digital output up to 8-bit/22,050 kHz and mono digital output to 8-bit/44,100 kHz. It adds the high speed stereo and mono DMA modes. The CT-1345 supports output mixing in 8 volume steps in stereo for Voice, MIDI, CD and 4 volume steps in mono for the microphone. It has 8 volume steps for the Master Volume. It can also mix PC Speaker output in mono. It has a special register switch for digital stereo modes and a 3.2k output low-pass filter.

The volume control wheel is still present.

Has onboard CD-ROM input connector (white plug) and PC Speaker connector (2-pin).

Note that while this card has a 16-bit ISA slot connector, it is an 8-bit card. The 16-bit portion of the connector only allows the card to use IRQ 10 and DMA 0. It fits and works just fine in an

This card uses T2 (Type 2) in the SET BLASTER line in your autoexec.bat. The default SET BLASTER variable is as follows:

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T2

Sound Blaster 2.0

See Sound Blaster 1.0/1.5, above for basic capabilities. Changes include:

Card uses DSP V2.01. It adds support for mono digital output to 8-bit/44,100 kHz. It adds the high speed mono DMA mode.

Card has two sockets for CMS-301 chips and a third socket for a specially programmed PAL16L8 chip which is required to interface with the CMS-301 chips. Without the PAL chip, which was included in the upgrade kit, the card cannot utilize the CMS-301 chips or provide any Game Blaster compatibility.

Card has line out, line in and mic out and a volume wheel.

I/O addresses ranges include 220-22F; 240-24F.

This card uses T3 (Type 3) in the SET BLASTER line in your autoexec.bat. The default SET BLASTER variable is as follows:

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T3

Sound Blaster Pro 2.0

Identical to the Sound Blaster Pro 1.0, except for:

These cards contain a Yamaha OPL3 (YMF262 + YM512) chipset. The chips are always surface mounted. Stereo music output is not programmed in exactly the same way on the OPL3 as on the dual OPL2 of the Pro 1.0. Most games that support stereo OPL music support both types of Sound Blaster Pro. DragonSphere and Ultima Underworld are exceptions, the latter only supports the dual OPL2 of the Pro 1.0 and the former supports dual OPL2 much better than OPL3.

This card uses T4 (Type 4) in the SET BLASTER line in your autoexec.bat. The default SET BLASTER variable is as follows:

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T4

These are the first cards that have OEM versions that support a CD-ROM interface other than the standard Panasonic. The retail version, the CT-1600, has a Panasonic interface.

Sound Blaster MCV/Sound Blaster Pro MCV

CT-5320

These are the Micro Channel versions of the Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro, respectively for the IBM Personal System/2 computer series. They are full-length 16-bit Micro Channel cards.

The Sound Blaster MCV has identical features to the Sound Blaster 1.0/1.5 except they have no CMS-301 chips or sockets for them, no volume knob and cannot select IRQ2. I/O is selected in software.

The Sound Blaster Pro MCV has identical features to the Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 except it has no CD-ROM interface, no volume knob and cannot select IRQ2. I/O, IRQ and DMA are all selected in software.

These cards may not work properly in high speed Micro Channel systems. Like all Micro Channel cards they require .ADF files to configure the cards (partially) when inserted into a Micro Channel system. Compatibility wise they may be a bit more finicky than ISA sound blasters.

The Sound Blaster MCV should use T1 in the SET BLASTER line in your autoexec.bat. The default SET BLASTER variable is as follows:

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T1

The Sound Blaster Pro MCV should use T5 in the SET BLASTER line in your autoexec.bat. The default SET BLASTER variable is as follows:

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T5

Sound Blaster 16

Early cards contain a Yamaha OPL3 (YMF262 + YM512) chipset. Later cards may have true OPL3 functionality included in the CT-1747 chip. Even later cards may use the CT-1978 CQM chip, which approximates OPL FM Synthesis (or improves upon it according to Creative.) CQM in my opinion has a harsher sound than Yamaha FM Synthesis.

Card has line out, line in and mic out.

Has onboard CD-ROM input connector (white plug and/or black plug) and PC Speaker connector (2-pin). Later cards may have AUX or MODEM or TAD connectors.

Many boards have a 26-pin header for a Waveblaster-compatible midi daughtercard.

Early cards still have a volume wheel; these cards also have jumpers that allows the user to disable the on-board amplifiers, making the wheel useless.

Boards frequently support the Panasonic, Sony and/or Mitsumi CD-ROM interfaces or an IDE/ATAPI interface. The Panasonic interface does not take up extra resources, but the Sony, Mitsumi and IDE interfaces require an IRQ and I/O for the IDE. They may or may not be able to be disabled.

Many of these cards have an empty socket for a CT-1748 Advanced Signal Processor (ASP) or Creative Signal Processor (CSP). Some cards have the chip soldered onto the board. This processor, which was supposed to provide surround sound and more, is not known to be used in games other than TFX. There are jumpers to enable or disable the chip if the chip is in a socket.

This card uses DSP V4.00-V4.13 and the CT-1745 mixer. DSP 4.xx adds support for mono or stereo digital output up to 8-bit/44,100 kHz or 16-bit/44,100 kHz . It scraps the high speed modes of the Pros but allows the other pre-existing single-cycle and auto-init DMA modes to support digitized sound up to 44,100 kHz in 8-bit or 16-bit. If a game uses single-cycle DMA modes, the listener will experience pops and cracks that would not be present in earlier cards. DSPs 4.05 and lower are very noisy when it comes to digital audio output.

A UART mode compatible MPU-401 midi interface is added at I/O 330 or 300. This interface may also be disabled on some cards via jumper. It will not work with games requiring a 100% compatible Roland MPU-401 interface (namely games requiring normal/intelligent midi mode support). Such games are typically Roland MT-32/LAPC-I games; General MIDI games will almost invariably work with a UART compatible MPU-401 midi interface. The UART MPU-401 interface will communicate through the gameport or the wavetable header. DSPs 4.11-4.13 are subject to the hanging or incorrect notes midi bug, with some cards more affected than others. The bug tends to rear its head when the DSP is also trying to process digitized sound at the same time as midi.

I/O addresses ranges include 220-233; 240-253; 260-273; 280-293. Available IRQs are 2, 5, 7, 10. Available low/8-bit DMAs are 0, 1, 3. Available high/16-bit DMAs are 5, 6, 7.

In the early cards, there are jumpers to select I/O addresses, IRQs, DMAs, Midi I/O. Later cards allow software IRQ and DMA selection through the Creative Configuration Manager. This program must be loaded on bootup to assign resources to these cards. Even later cards are Plug-n-Play compatible, eliminating jumpers for I/O and many other settings.

The CT-1745 mixer supports output mixing in 32 volume steps in stereo for Voice, MIDI, CD, Line-In, 32 volume steps in mono Microphone and 4 volume steps in mono for the PC Speaker. It has a 32 volume step Master control. It allows 4 levels of Gain control and 16 levels of Treble and Bass control. It does not have the stereo switch of the CT-1345 and uses dynamic filtering instead of a set low-pass filter. Certain cards may not include the CT-1745 mixer chip, their mixers tend to lose the Treble and Bass control and sometimes the Gain control. These cards use chips marked ViBRA. It is unknown whether any games use the Treble and Bass controls.

The last cards in the series were the Sound Blaster 16 WavEffect cards. CT-4170 is an example of such a card. These use 2 low DMAs instead of 1 low DMA and 1 high DMA for 16-bit sound. This may be incompatible with games that expect to use a high DMA for 16-bit digitized sound. Few use the H-DMA channel.

This card and its ISA successors all use T6 (Type 6) in the SET BLASTER line in your autoexec.bat. The default SET BLASTER variable is as follows:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6

H refers to the high DMA channel, P refers to the MPU-401 midi I/O used. By this time, the default IRQ has changed to 5, probably to avoid conflicts with the printer IRQ.

Sound Blaster AWE32/32

See Sound Blaster 16, above for basic capabilities. Changes include:

The biggest change is the inclusion of the E-mu (EMU8000 and EMU8011) midi processor chipset. Except as noted below, this chipset can use 1MB of ROM plus up to 28MB or RAM to store sampled instruments contained in files called SoundFonts. Two 30-pin SIMM slots are provided, but they use plastic retention clips that are very cheap and easy to break. (Epoxy is your friend if they do.) Up to 16MB SIMMs can be used, although 28MB is the maximum that the E-mu chipset can address. While some DOS games supported these cards, they typically only used the ROM samples.

Sound Blaster 32 and Sound Blaster AWE32 Value cards generally do not have a wavetable header. Value cards also do not have SIMM slots for RAM upgrades. Sound Blaster 32s do not have RAM onboard and use ViBRA chips but do have SIMM slots. AWE32s usually have the ASP/CSP chip of the 16s soldered in.

The AWE32 and AWE32 Value come with 512K of RAM for Soundfonts. When RAM is inserted into the slots, the on-board RAM is disabled. There is a "Goldfinch" card that can be used to upgrade a Sound Blaster 16 with the EMU capabilities. Most Goldfinch cards do not have an audio-out mini-jack, seeing as they were an OEM product, so a special cable will be needed to output sound.

Many of these cards have a 2-pin header for an S/PDIF connector. This S/PDIF can only pass EMU and OPL sound output.

Typical cards have a line in, mic in, line out and speaker out jacks. Earlier cards come with Panasonic, Sony and Mitsumi CD-ROM interfaces, later cards use IDE. If the IDE interface on these cards cannot be disabled or changed to an unused portion of the I/O space, then you may have a resource conflict with your motherboard.

The default SET BLASTER variable is as follows:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6 E620

The E variable refers to the starting I/O address of the EMU8000. Its address depends on the addresses at 220-280. If the main I/O starts at 220, then 620-623, A20-A23, E20-E23 are used. If I/O starts at 240, then 640, A40, E40 are used. I/O address 100 is used for the Creative 3D Stereo Enhancement effect of dubious value.

In the AWE32 series, the cards choose IRQ and DMA in software, writing the settings to a small EEPROM. The user still needs to set the I/O addresses manually for some of the earlier cards. Later cards only tend to allow you to disable the MPU-401 interface and enable the SIMMs by jumper. Even later 32s support ISA PnP for configuration, but those are virtually indistinguishable from the AWE64s.

There is no difficulty with trying to access a midi device connected to the wavetable header or gameport. If you are trying to access the EMU as a midi device, and the program does not specifically support the AWE32, then you will have to load a TSR utility called AWEUTIL in order for the EMU to emulate a full midi device. AWEUTIL takes up alot of conventional memory and is incompatible with programs that use DOS extenders (DOS4GW, CWSDPMI, DOS32A) such as DOOM and most DOS games released in 1994-present. It also requires a system with a working Non-Maskable Interrupt (NMI).

Since AWE32s use DSPs 4.11-4.13, they will suffer from the DSP hanging note bug described above when using ordinary midi devices. The ones without a CT-1747 chip will use the CQM method of FM emulation (see Sound Blaster 16, above). This includes most of the AWE32 PnPs and SB32s. There is also the occasional card with YMF-262 or YMF-289 ICs, which are genuine Yamaha FM OPL3 chips. For these cards, you cannot get S/PDIF FM audio output.

Sound Blaster AWE64

To DOS, this card is identical to the AWE32. In Windows, it can provide 32 more software voices of polyphony in midi by use of the Wayesynth software. This uses sythesized sounds, not digitized sounds from a soundfont file, and was little supported.

Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold cards have S/PDIF connectors which add digitized sound support as well as OPL and EMU. They come with 4MB of Soundfont RAM, whereas the standard card comes with 1MB and the value card 512KB. The Gold cards come with gold-plated RCA jacks, the other cards must make do with mini-jacks.

All AWE64s use CQM, but as they use DSP 4.16, they no longer suffer from the DSP hanging note bug. All use CQM for FM synthesis emulation.

To upgrade the RAM to the 28MB maximum, one has to find proprietary Creative memory modules or use an adapter like AWE-SIMM or SIMMCONN with 30-pin SIMMs.

US TV Anglophiles & DVDs

2010-04-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

I love British Television shows. I grew up watching BBC and ITV's exports, at least the stuff that made it to the US. I have purchased every original-series Doctor Who story that was ever released on VHS. My DVD collection of The Avengers and The New Avengers is also complete, as is The Prisoner. Before I converted to DVDs, I had collected The Prisoner from Columbia House, which was the only option at the time. They sent one video a month, but soon after they had sent me the last video that A&E released their Megaset. I had collected most all of A&E's VHS releases, but replaced them with DVDs.

When I started collecting Doctor Who on DVD, I started with the UK Region 2 releases. This quickly became too expensive, so I shifted back to Region 1. When I heard that The Chase had to have its Beatles footage cut for overseas release, when intact for the UK release, I started exploring replacing my Region 1 DVDs (having fallen well-behind current releases, with Region 2s.

I am fully aware of the obstacles that face someone in the US with importing and watching DVDs from the UK. Here they are:

1. Region Encoding

UK DVDs are all encoded in Region 2, US DVD players are all designed for Region 1. One modern solution is to use a player like VLC to watch them on your PC, which does not respect region encoding. The other modern solution is to purchase or identify a Region Free DVD player. DVD players being advertised as region free, sometimes hacked to be so, others merely identified as such, tended to go for lots of money a few years ago. Now that players are ubiquitous, the big money items are region free Blu-ray players. A site to find region free DVD players is at http://www.regionfreedvd.net/

You may have luck in finding a player at your local Best Buy or Wal-Mart that secretly can bypass or allow you to set the region code. Use this site to locate players that may have a hack:
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks

2. PAL to NTSC

The next hurdle is getting your video to play. Region 2 DVDs are encoded using the PAL I video format. Region 1 DVDs use NTSC M. A Region 2 DVD use a resolution of 720x576 and show 25 interlaced fields per second. Region 1 DVDs use a resolution of 720x480 and show 29.97 interlaced fields per second. The color encoding for each system is different as well. Your average US TV will likely not react to a PAL signal well. If you broadcast a color PAL without any conversion to an NTSC TV, the resulting picture will likely have its top and bottom cut off, roll uncontrollably in the vertical direction, and be in black and white. Fortunately, most region free DVDs can convert PAL to NTSC with reasonable results. You can always import a PAL/NTSC TV from Europe.

The way PAL video is converted to NTSC gives way to compromises. First, the color must be re-encoded, which is not a real issue. Second, the picture resolution must be decreased so the picture will be visible on an NTSC set. The vertical line difference between NTSC and PAL is 96 lines, which means that the resulting picture has less visual clarity. Third, the field rate must be converted from 25 to 29.97 field per second. This is the most difficult task, because the conversion has to interpolate a 6th field after every 5 fields per second. The result is not quite as smooth as native PAL video.

3. Disc Importing

The final issue is with obtaining the discs themselves. If there is a reason to put up with the above two issues, it is the price differential between US and UK releases of the same discs. US DVDs of British TV shows are almost always much more expensive.
British TV DVDs usually drop substantially in price after a few months on the UK market, which is not so in the US. The casual collector might not be too concerned, but the serious collector will be surprised at how quickly the savings add up. Also, as master videos and films of these productions are generally stored in the UK, the picture and audio quality is often superior to the US releases. Amazon.co.uk's standard shipping is pretty reasonable if you purchase more than one title at a time.

Title	Amazon.com Price	Amazon.co.uk Price	Currency Conversion =	1.54	Notes
First Doctor				Difference
Doctor Who - The Beginning	$25.99	£10.41	$16.07	-$9.92
The Keys of Marinus	$20.49	£6.48	$10.00	-$10.49
The Aztecs	$8.99	£6.99	$10.79	$1.80
The Dalek Invasion of Earth	$24.98	£6.99	$10.79	-$14.19
The Rescue / The Romans	$32.49	£14.99	$23.14	-$9.35
The Web Planet	$11.99	£6.93	$10.70	-$1.29
The Space Museum/The Chase	$44.99	£17.99	$27.77	-$17.22
The Time Meddler	$20.99	£5.84	$9.01	-$11.98
The War Machines	$20.49	£5.47	$8.44	-$12.05
Second Doctor
The Tomb of the Cybermen	$8.99	£4.58	$7.07	-$1.92	OOP; Probably to be Re-released
The Mind Robber	$11.99	£6.99	$10.79	-$1.20
The Invasion	$26.49	£5.47	$8.44	-$18.05
The Seeds of Death	$26.49	£6.99	$10.79	-$15.70
The War Games	$36.49	£10.23	$15.79	-$20.70
Third Doctor
Spearhead from Space	$8.99	£5.99	$9.25	$0.26
Inferno	$23.49	£5.47	$8.44	-$15.05
The Claws of Axos	$11.99	£6.99	$10.79	-$1.20
Peladon Tales	$44.98	£17.91	$27.65	-$17.33
The Three Doctors	$11.99	£6.99	$10.79	-$1.20
Carnival of Monsters	$8.99	£6.99	$10.79	$1.80
Dalek War	$46.99	£14.93	$23.05	-$23.94	Frontier in Space; Planet of the Daleks
The Green Death	$11.99	£6.99	$10.79	-$1.20
Fourth Doctor
Robot	$19.49	£5.47	$8.44	-$11.05
The Ark in Space	$8.99	£6.99	$10.79	$1.80
Genesis of the Daleks	$25.99	£5.47	$8.44	-$17.55
Planet of Evil	$18.49	£5.47	$8.44	-$10.05
The Brain of Morbius	$20.99	£5.99	$9.25	-$11.74
Pyramids of Mars	$11.99	£6.99	$10.79	-$1.20
The Masque of Mandragora	$18.99	£12.88	$19.88	$0.89
The Hand of Fear	$11.99	£5.47	$8.44	-$3.55
The Deadly Assassin	$22.49	£5.97	$9.22	-$13.27
The Robots of Death	$8.99	£6.99	$10.79	$1.80
The Talons of Weng-Chiang	$22.49	£6.99	$10.79	-$11.70	Revisitation Box Set due to be Released this year
Horror of Fang Rock	$11.99	£6.11	$9.43	-$2.56	OOP
Image of the Fendahl	$22.49	£5.97	$9.22	-$13.27
The Key to Time	$70.93	£28.99	$44.75	-$26.18
Destiny of the Daleks	$22.49	£5.47	$8.44	-$14.05
City of Death	$27.99	£5.47	$8.44	-$19.55
The Leisure Hive	$11.99	£6.43	$9.93	-$2.06
The E-Space Trilogy	$34.49	£13.93	$21.50	-$12.99
Fifth Doctor
Four to Doomsday	$20.49	£4.77	$7.36	-$13.13
The Visitation	$11.99	£6.99	$10.79	-$1.20
Black Orchid	$8.99	£4.52	$6.98	-$2.01
Earthshock	$11.99	£6.99	$10.79	-$1.20
Time-Flight/Arc of Infinity	$37.48	£9.97	$15.39	-$22.09
Black Guardian Trilogy	$43.49	£18.42	$28.43	-$15.06	Mawdryn Undead; Terminus; Enlightenment
The Five Doctors - 25th Anniversary Edition	$25.99	£5.47	$8.44	-$17.55
Resurrection of the Daleks	$8.99	£6.99	$10.79	$1.80
The Caves of Androzani	$8.99	£5.99	$9.25	$0.26	Revisitation Box Set due to be Released this year
Sixth Doctor
The Twin Dilemma	$21.49	£6.47	$9.99	-$11.50
Attack of the Cybermen	$22.49	£5.97	$9.22	-$13.27
Vengeance on Varos	$8.99	£6.99	$10.79	$1.80
The Mark of the Rani	$11.99	£5.47	$8.44	-$3.55
Timelash	$20.49	£4.56	$7.04	-$13.45
Revelation of the Daleks	$11.99	£6.99	$10.79	-$1.20
The Trial of a Time Lord	$49.49	£13.47	$20.79	-$28.70
Seventh Doctor
Delta and the Bannermen	$22.49	£5.97	$9.22	-$13.27
Remembrance of the Daleks - Special Edition	$22.49	£6.99	$10.79	-$11.70
Battlefield	$26.49	£5.47	$8.44	-$18.05
Ghost Light	$11.99	£6.99	$10.79	-$1.20
The Curse of Fenric	$22.99	£5.99	$9.25	-$13.74
Survival	$25.99	£4.86	$7.50	-$18.49
Multi-Doctor Era
Lost in Time	$26.49	£11.99	$18.51	-$7.98	All Available Hartnell & Troughton Missing Episodes
Beneath the Surface	$43.99	£13.47	$20.79	-$23.20	Doctor Who and the Silurians; The Sea Devils; Warriors from the Deep
Myths & Legends	$56.99	£33.99	$52.47	-$4.52	The Time Monster; Underworld; The Horns of Nimon
Bred for War	$80.46	£11.68	$18.03	-$62.43	The Time Warrior; The Sontaran Experiment; The Invasion of Time; The Two Doctors
K-9 Tales	$32.99	£9.97	$15.39	-$17.60	The Invisible Enemy; K-9 and Company
New Beginnings	$37.49	£10.99	$16.96	-$20.53	The Keeper of Traken; Logopolis; Castrovalva
	$1,620.70	$584.05	$901.53	-$719.17
Eighth Doctor
The Movie	No Release	£6.99	$10.79
Ninth & Tenth Doctors
Complete Series 1-4	$256.96	£49.79	$76.85	-$180.11
Complete Specials (DVD)	$32.49	£26.98	$41.65	$9.16
The Infinite Quest	$8.99	£3.97	$6.13	-$2.86
Dreamland	$18.99	£8.48	$13.09	-$5.90
Other Series
The Prisoner Complete (DVD)	$51.49	£18.58	$28.68	-$22.81
Survivors Complete Series (1975-77)	$57.49	£18.42	$28.43	-$29.06
Blake's 7 Complete Series One	No Release	£15.47	$23.88
Blake's 7 Complete Series Two	No Release	£15.47	$23.88
Blake's 7 Complete Series Three	No Release	£15.47	$23.88
Blake's 7 Complete Series Four	No Release	£15.47	$23.88
The Day of the Triffids	$18.99	£3.97	$6.13	-$12.86
The Avengers Complete Series 2 & Surviving Eps from Season 1	Out of Print	£39.99	$61.73
The Avengers Complete Series 3	Out of Print	£42.99	$66.36
The Avengers Complete Series 4	Out of Print	£42.99	$66.36
The Avengers Complete Series 5	Out of Print	£42.99	$66.36
The Avengers Complete Series 6	Out of Print	£42.99	$66.36
The New Avengers	Out of Print	£17.79	$27.46
Danger Mouse Complete	$67.49	£29.97	$46.26	-$21.23
Count Duckula Complete	No Release	£15.93	$24.59
I, Claudius	Out of Print	£23.99	$37.03
The Quatermass Collection	No Release	£11.99	$18.51
Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister Complete	$106.49	£15.93	$24.59	-$81.90
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy	$47.99	£6.34	$9.79	-$38.20
Smiley's People	$47.99	£5.48	$8.46	-$39.53
Blackadder Complete Collection	$57.49	£22.99	$35.49	-$22.00
Sapphire & Steel Complete	$54.49	£18.61	$28.73	-$25.76
The Six Wives of Henry VIII	$51.99	£9.97	$15.39	-$36.60
Elizabeth R	$54.49	£10.27	$15.85	-$38.64
Rumpole of the Bailey Complete 1-7 Series	$51.49	£21.47	$33.14	-$18.35
Cadfael Complete	$132.49	£14.37	$22.18	-$110.31
Sherlock Homes Complete Collection (Jeremy Brett)	$151.49	£34.47	$53.21	-$98.28

IBM Model M Tips and Resources

2010-04-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

Today I will be posting for a third time on one of my favorite subjects, the IBM Model M Keyboard. First, I will talk about tips, then give some links with a description about what can be found on them.

How to open/unscrew a Model M?

The shell of the Model M is held together by four hex nut screws. Three are recessed. You need a nut driver to open it. The proper size is 7/32" and it should have a slim barrel. You can find the correct driver in a Sears.
The proper name of the product is Craftsman 7/32 in. Easy-To-Read Socket, 6 pt. Deep, 1/4 in. drive, model #45815.

This is what it looks like:

Look here for the Sears product page:
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00945815000P?keyword=craftsman+7%2F32

You will also need a 1/4 in. spinner to attach it to. Craftsman 6 in. Spinner Handle, 1/4 in. Drive is what you need. Sears carries it too here: http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00943393000P

Whenever I have a need to open a Model M, usually because of something I spilt, I could never seem to find my driver. This meant an quick trip to Sears to buy another. If you don't have an urgent need to open your keyboard and would like a one piece solution, see here:
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm/fa/items.main/parentcat/11298/subcatid/0/id/105901

The Model M will not work with my PS/2 port

If your Model M does not work reliably or at all, your PS/2 port may be to blame. The Model M is a device from the mid-to-late 80s, and the keyboard control board and LEDs inside the machine draw a lot more current than a throw-away, el-cheapo modern keyboard use. Some PS/2 ports just cannot provide the current for a Model M to run reliably or at all. I have never encountered this particular problem myself, but according to the link below, it can be found in many motherboards.

There are two solutions to this problem, both are listed on this page:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071014064100/http://www.geocities.com/jszybowski/keyboard/

(This site went down with the rest of Geocities, thank goodness for the Web Archive).

If the site becomes unavailable in the future, then the answer is that you need to solder a 4.7k resistor from the Clock line to the +5v line and one 4.7K resistor from the Data line to the +5v line. For those Model M's with the detachable keyboard cable, here is the pinout for the SDL jack on the back of the keyboard:

Your other option is to buy a PS/2 to USB adapter, which brings me to my next section:

Adapters

Before USB, there were two standard ways to connect an IBM PC compatible keyboard to a computer. Earlier keyboards used a 5-pin AT plug. Generally, you often found the AT-keyboard plug on everything from an IBM PC/XT/AT to an OEM motherboard with the AT form factor. Later keyboards used the PS/2 port, as did the IBM PS/2 computers, many other pre-built computer models and motherboards based on the ATX and successor form factor. While the form may be different, electrically the 5 and 6 pin connectors are compatible. All that is needed is a pin converter to plug onto the end of your keyboard's connector.

The Model M keyboard was first released when IBM was still producing XTs and ATs in 1986. Since these machines used the AT connector, the (black) cable was issued with an AT plug on the end. When IBM began manufacturing their PS/2 computers, they discontinued the XT and AT computers. Model M keyboards came with grey cables with a PS/2 plug on the end. The AT and PS/2 cable are fully interchangeable from the keyboard connector. However, you can also use an adapter.

USB and AT & PS/2 keyboard interfaces are not really compatible, especially with the Model Ms. You need a PS/2 to USB converter, and they are not all the same. I would recommend this one:

It has been verified to work with an Model M with a variety of USB systems and supported operating systems. If your motherboard supports USB keyboards, you should be able to use it even in MS-DOS. One issue: my keyboard will not respond if you select the "Restart in MS-DOS Mode" in Windows 98SE.

Resources

Purchasing

I have already linked to http://www.clickykeyboards.com/ twice on this page, and the site is the most important site on the web about the Model M. First, it is a great visual catalog of the various Model Ms IBM released. Second, you may be able to find a Model M to buy, but you will pay top dollar for it. They have parts to repair or replace a missing or faulty component on that Model M you purchased on eBay. The guy who runs the site is pretty cool and has helped me in the past on more than one occasion.

If you want to buy a used Model M, eBay is the best place to find one. There always seems to be plenty for sale. Here are some tips:

1. Read the auction listing carefully for information about the product's condition.

2. Make sure there are no missing keycaps or keyboard stands and all the LEDs work. Ask if the auction is unclear.

3. Get a look at the label to determine the date of manufacture.

4. Be prepared to clean the keyboard once you receive it, but test it first.

Last, we come to Unicomp. I have previously made my views known about its product here. I did not care for their USB 104 Customizer, but perhaps their PS/2 Models are more solidly constructed. They also have quite a few options. If you do not want to deal with the a used eBay model, this company is your only option. They were featured in an interview on National Public Radio, which is worth a listen:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100076874

Technical

If you need technical information about the Model M, look at these pages:

http://www.mcamafia.de/pdf/pdfref.htm - Reference Manual for the Keyboard

http://www.mcamafia.de/mcapage0/keyboard.htm - Keyboard Maintenance

http://www.ibmmuseum.com/OhlandL/keyboard/Keyboard.html - Miscellaneous Tech Info

http://mykeyboard.co.uk/keyswitches/ - Keyboard Switch Info

Upgrading

http://zevv.nl/play/misc/ibm-usb/ - Instructions on how to fit a USB converter inside a Model M

http://www.pigdog.org/model_m_retrofit.html - Instructions on converting from QWERTY to DVORAK

Enthusiasts

http://geekhack.org/ - Forum for enthusiasts of clicky keyboards of all makes and models.

One last word. There are lots of reviews of the Model M around, almost all of them highly positive. A Google search should inform you that there are a large number of converted fans of the Model M.

Tutorial: How to configure DOS Memory for Games

2010-04-03T22:33:00.000-07:00

16-bit IBM PC Compatible DOS (whether PC-DOS, MS-DOS or DR-DOS or similar) has a wide variety of memory configurations. There are a number of terms that surround the subject of memory configuration. Types of memory include conventional/lower, high, upper, expanded, extended. There are acronyms like HMA, UMB, UMA, EMS, XMS. Complicating the discussion are the inherent limitations of DOS and the ways programmers got around them.

This article addresses these issues from the gamer's perspective. We will answer the following question:
How do I configure memory to make games run with the best feature support?

Historical Perspective
It is important for gamers to understand what the various limitations are, why they exist, how they were overcome and what games need and why. In order to understand DOS memory configurations throughout DOS's functional lifetime, you have to start at the very beginning of the life of the IBM PC.

I. 8088/8086 PCs

In 1981, IBM released its Personal Computer, Model 5150. This computer used the Intel 8088 Processor. This processor used 16-bit data values (internally) and had an 8-bit external data bus and a 20-bit addressing bus. The 20-bit addressing bus allowed the 8088 to read and/or write to a maximum of 1MB of memory, whether RAM and/or ROM. This was considered huge at the time. By comparison, the Apple II's 6502 CPU could only address 64KB of memory.

When IBM designed the PC, it decided to allocate a certain portion (called lower memory) of the 8088's addressing space for RAM which all the programs, including DOS, would use. The remainder (called upper memory) would be used by ROM on the motherboard (for the BIOS and ROM BASIC) and expansion cards. Video memory and most memory that appeared on expansion cards would also be assigned to the upper memory portion of the address space.

Within a year of the PC's life, IBM and Microsoft, decided to allocate the address space in the following manner:

The lower 640KB of physical memory was designated as RAM and made available for program use. This became known as Conventional Memory and the 640KB of addressing space the Conventional Memory Area.

The upper 384KB of physical memory could be a combination ROM and RAM and was reserved for hardware and system use. This became known as called Upper Memory and the 384KB of addressing space the Upper Memory Area. Thus the PC Memory Map was very simple:

00000-9FFFF Conventional Memory
A0000-FFFFF Upper Memory

Although the 8088 could address a large amount of memory for the time, this was only as meaningful as the amount of physical memory installed. The earliest IBM PCs could only have 64KB of RAM installed on the motherboard. The remainder had to be installed by inserting memory cards in the system. (The IBM PC also needed a ROM BIOS upgrade to recognize 640KB of Conventional Memory, otherwise it would be limited to 544KB).

The early PCs had what would later be known as ISA slots which were used for adding Conventional Memory as well as hardware peripherals. Before the late 1980s, PCs did not usually come with the maximum of 640KB of Conventional Memory installed. Games from this early period often needed only 128KB, 256KB or 512KB of RAM to run, with or without DOS.

I know of no PC game released during the 1980s — whether as a booter or for DOS — that required or utilized more than 640KB of Conventional Memory or any other type of memory. Games from this period would rarely see a measurable speed benefit from additional RAM in the system than the game required. Speed was almost entirely dependent upon the processor.

What did the upper memory area contain at this point? Configurations varied considerably even during the early days of the PC, but the following was common: The whole segment F0000-FFFFF was essentially reserved from the ROM BIOS, and in IBM machines, ROM BASIC.

ROM BASIC would be included in IBM machines into the early 90s for compatibility with BASIC software, including games, that used the routines contained within the ROM BASIC. Even an otherwise excellent clone like the Compaq Portable would fail to run programs that relied on ROM BASIC. The lower 32KB of the B0000-BFFFF segement was reserved for the RAM contained on the Monochrome Graphics and Printer Adapter (MDA, only 4 KB used) and Hercules Graphics Cards (32KB used in graphics mode).   This was called the monochrome text/graphics area.

The upper 32KB of the B0000-BFFFF segment was reserved for the Color/Grapics Adapter (CGA, 16KB used) This was the color text/graphics RAM area. Even if the graphics card contained less than 32KB of RAM, the whole half of the segment was often unusable by any other card. PCs could have both monochrome and color cards within the same system. Each card would be connected to a separate monitor, which made the whole B0000-BFFFF segment reserved for graphics. The early graphical games designed or ported to the IBM PC platform supported CGA or Hercules graphics only. Text only games allowed either CGA or MDA/Hercules to be used.

The hard drive, very expensive in those days, would have been connected to an adapter card with a firmware ROM that would boot the drive. Early firmware was 8KB in size and located in an 8KB slice in the C0000-CFFFF or D0000-DFFFF area. The most popular area was the C8000-C9FFFF area. Other peripherals, such as SCSI and tape adapters firmware would be located somewhere in the C, D or E segments. On many cards, the memory locations the firmware could use was configurable by setting jumpers on the card.

If there was no BIOS or firmware ROM or peripheral RAM located in a portion of upper memory, that area would be useless. Very rarely would a machine put RAM in this area that was not dedicated to a peripheral's use. Even during this early period, large spreadsheet and databases could use more memory than the 640KB of Conventional Memory. The only well-supported solutions were Expanded Memory Boards.

These were 8-bit ISA cards that typically could be populated with up to 2MB RAM. As the 8088 could not access more than 1MB of RAM directly, the Expanded Memory Specification (EMS by Lotus, Intel, Microsoft or LIM EMS) allowed programs that supported Expanded Memory to circumvent this limitation.

An Expanded Memory board took control of any unused 64KB segment of Upper Memory, which could point to a 64KB block (in 4 x 16KB slices) of RAM on the card. The programmer would access the control registers on the card to change the 64KB block and 16KB slice being accessed. Games would not use Expanded Memory until the 1990s, and by that time Expanded Memory Boards were almost obselete. (See below for the benefits, need and limitations of Expanded Memory).

II. 80286 PCs

When IBM released the IBM PC AT in 1984, it went fully 16-bit by utilizing the Intel 80286 processor. 286 machines were not affordable for the average consumer or gamer until 1987. The IBM PC used an 8088, which had an external 8-bit data bus. The IBM PC AT used a 286, which had a 16-bit external data bus. This meant that in almost all cases, 16-bit RAM would be required and new memory boards would be needed to add more RAM. The ISA bus for expansion cards and memory was also increased to 16-bit to accommodate the memory accesses from the 286.

The 286 had a 24-bit address bus, which allowed it to access 16MB of memory. However, to maintain compatibility with the IBM PC, the processor started up with the 8088's RAM addressing limitations. This was called "real mode", which meant that the 286 acted like a fast 8088/8086.

DOS was written for real mode and its memory limitations. In order to access the full 16MB of addressing capability, the processor had to enter "protected mode." To be compatible with the new mode, DOS would have had to be rewritten. As DOS did not need more than the 640KB of Conventional Memory available at the time, this was not done.

Moreover, in order to switch from protected mode to real mode, the processor had to undergo a soft reset. Protected mode, allowing multiple programs to be run at the same time by giving them their own memory to play with, was something of the future. DOS was a single-task operating system. IBM and Microsoft eyed newer operating systems like OS/2 and Windows to utilize multi-tasking capabilities.

The first memory configuration addition of the 286 machines was what would become known as Extended Memory. This was defined as any physical memory over and above the 1MB RAM limitation of real mode. In the early 286 systems, motherboards could hold up to 640KB of RAM. Extended Memory could be added with 16-bit ISA memory boards.

In later 80286 systems, the speed of the processor (10MHz and above) outpaced the speed of the bus (8.33MHz maximum), necessitating dedicated memory expansion slots, generally supporting 30-pin SIMMs. In PC and AT systems, memory boards could be accessed just as quickly as memory on the motherboard. However, as explained above, memory beyond the 640KB limit was not especially useful for DOS programs at the time. DOS games that ran on a 80286 would rarely, if at all, use Extended Memory. By the time DOS games began to use Extended Memory, the 286 was fast becoming obselete.

The second memory configuration addition of the 286 would become known as High Memory. In short, when the 286 operated in real mode, it was emulating the memory addressing characteristics of an 8088. The creators of the IBM PC AT discovered and exploited a bug that allowed the 286 to access the first 64KB (minus 16 bytes) of RAM beyond the 1MB limit when in real mode.

RAM was extremely expensive until the late 80s Since the computer needed more than 640KB of RAM installed, the extra 64KB (known as the High Memory Area or HMA) was not often available at the time.  The 64KB segment could not be used by programs or games directly, being akin to an extension of the Upper Memory Area, but DOS could load part of itself into it, freeing up Conventional Memory.

When IBM released the AT, one important development was introduced in Upper Memory.  The Upper Memory Area remained confined to peripheral card RAM, firmware, BIOS and BASIC ROM. However, IBM also introduced the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA), which became a widely adopted graphics standard for games of the late 1980s.

EGA emulated either of its predecessors, MDA and CGA. EGA used the memory ranges of MDA or CGA for text modes, which DOS uses, and in CGA's case to emulate CGA graphics. This behavior was typically set by jumpers or dipswitches. If the card was emulating MDA or connected to a monochrome monitor, it would use the lower 32KB portion of the B0000-BFFFF segment; if it were emulating CGA or connected to a color monitor, it would use the upper 32KB portion of the B0000-BFFFF segment. EGA would not use both segments at the same time, which meant the 32KB not being used could be used for other purposes.  EGA tended to be used on color monitors, making the upper 32KB portion of the B0000-BFFFF segment unavailable for other uses.

In addition to half of the B0000-BFFFF segment, EGA also utilized two other segments or a portion thereof. For its advanced graphics modes, EGA took over the entire 64KB segment of A0000-AFFFF. EGA also had a firmware BIOS of its own to handle all the new graphics capabilities and the emulation of the old, and this took usually the first 16KB of the C0000-CFFFF segment.

Games that ran on a 286 and could take advantage of Expanded Memory needed to have hardware EMS boards installed in the system.  These EMS boards should have 16-bit RAM installed in them or there will be a severe performance penalty if the board uses 8-bit RAM.

III.  80386 and Beyond

The last major processor to have an impact on DOS Memory Configurations would be the Intel 80386. First used on Compaq machines, it really did not become available to the average PC gamer until 1990. The 386 in its DX variant had 32-bit addressing and data buses, allowing it to access 4GB of memory in protected mode. (I doubt there was a 386 board in which you could install more than 32MB at best). The SX variant was more popular and cheaper at the beginning, it had a 16-bit external/32-bit internal data bus (which meant 286 board designs could be used with few modifications) and a 24-bit addressing bus to access 16MB of memory.

The greatest advancement to DOS memory was the 386's Memory Management Unit, which allowed for very flexible memory configurations. And the games of the early 1990s quickly needed them. When 386 machines shipped, they often included more memory installed on the motherboard than the 640KB of the 286 machines. The 386 allowed the memory to be used to its fullest. The 386 could also freely switch between the various processor modes (real, protected, etc.) without a CPU reset.

The first thing that the 386 did was to allow programmers access to the RAM contained in the Upper Memory Area. In 286 machines, the RAM upgrades mapped themselves outside the Upper Memory Area because it was considered useless. Thus, physical RAM would be present in the 640KB Conventional Memory Area and 1MB and above in the Extended Memory Area. The cards would leave a memory hole in the Upper Memory Area, as there was no need.  386 motherboards did not leave a hole, which meant there was RAM present throughout in the Upper Memory Area to use. If there was something else in the Upper Memory Area, such as graphics card RAM, that portion of system RAM would be unavailable. If ROM was present, the 386 could copy the contents to the RAM also present at the same address, which allowed access to the "ROM" to become much faster. This is known as ROM Shadowing, enabled in the BIOS and there was seldom a good reason not to use it.

The Upper Memory Area was tricky to use, as there were certain areas of RAM that could be used and other areas that contained ROM or perhiperal card RAM and was therefore off-limits. It was up to the user to identify the segments or portions thereof in the Upper Memory Area that were useful and which were not. The user needed to consult the system and peripheral user manuals to figure out which segments were taken and which were available. Manuals were not always clear on this matter. Available segments of Upper Memory, typically B0000-B7FFF, CC000-CFFFF, D0000-DFFFF, E0000-EFFFF (which is often not available because the BIOS is in this area, IBM PS/2 machines are a good examples of this), are called Upper Memory Blocks (UMBs).

At this point, several devices were using up a lot of the Upper Memory Area. VGA was ubiquitous with 386 machines, and it used the same memory areas as EGA, with one exception. EGA cards generally used 16KB for their BIOS extensions, but VGA cards almost always used 32KB. This meant that the upper 32KB of the C0000-CFFFF segment was unusable as an Upper Memory Block. Hard Drive BIOS extension ROMs generally were 16KB at this time, generally taking the next 16KB of the C0000-CFFFF. Some BIOS ROMs, which had been 64KB in earlier systems, now were 128KB and took over the E0000-EFFFF segment (IBM PS/2s).

Games could not use Upper Memory directly. DOS could load itself into an available UMB, as could device drivers, which mice and CD-ROM drives required to be loaded in order to work in DOS. However, DOS and the drivers had to fit within a Upper Memory Block, they could not straddle blocks. The loading priority of DOS and drivers needed to be optimized in order to utilize UMBs effectively.

By the time of the 386, 640KB of RAM was no longer sufficient to run the latest games. Games relied on the operating system, and the standards were not yet in place to allow DOS games to access the megabytes of RAM directly that the 32-bit protected mode offered. So DOS games used multiple methods to access more than 640KB of RAM.

The most common method in the early 1990s was to use Expanded Memory. Due to its Memory Management Unit, the 386 did not need Expanded Memory Boards to use Expanded Memory, it emulated Expanded Memory through software using a portion of Extended Memory. Like the Expanded Memory Boards, the software-supplied Expanded Memory needed at 64KB UMB to act as a window or page frame for the Expanded Memory. Using the Expanded Memory Manager (EMM) in DOS 4.01 and above, the user could designate virtually all his Extended Memory as Expanded Memory. Expanded Memory could be slow and was cumbersome to use as the programmer could only access 64KB at a time.

The next method was to use extended memory directly through DOS. One way to do this was through the eXtended Memory Specification (XMS), which Microsoft provided in DOS to give a method to access extended memory for code. To enable extended memory in this way, an eXtended Memory Manager (XMM) was required to be loaded in DOS. XMM would also enable HMA for DOS and driver loading. The other method was to use the processor to enter Unreal Mode, which allowed the processor to access 32-bit data segments instead of the 16-bit data segments of real mode. Each method allowed a game or program to use extended memory for storing data, but not for running executable code.

IV. 32-bit DOS Extenders

In the mid 1990s, DOS games were progressing so greatly that the kludges described above to enable them to work with 640KB of RAM just were no longer feasible. A game like DOOM, with its 2.5D spacial rendering required a more flexible memory arrangement than Expanded Memory or the various methods to use Extended Memory. Microsoft developed the DOS Protected Mode Interface (DPMI) to allow Windows 3.0 to use 16-bit DOS services and programs while in Protected Mode. There is also the Virtual Program Control Interface (VPCI) that does the same thing. Programs using one of these interfaces were called DOS Extenders.

DOS Extenders were great. They came with the game and allowed it to access extended memory in protected mode, which meant all the extended memory in the system was available for use. In DOS, which is a single task operating system, this meant virtually all the system memory was available to the program. The limit was only the amount of memory installed in the system. Unfortunately, DOS extenders were not always compatible with Windows 3.x or 9x. No more need for Expanded Memory, since Protected Mode memory access was infinitely more preferable. Extended Memory could be used for code, data or anything else memory could be used for. The extender did all the configuring. When you see files with names like DOS4GW.EXE, CWSDPMI.EXE or DOS32A.EXE in your game's directory, then you can be sure that it is using a 32-bit DOS Extender.

Another benefit was that the games using extenders did not need as much conventional memory free as games of a similar vintage that did not use an extender. Typically, a technologically advanced game from the mid 90s might require something like 590K free. When the limit is 640K and device drivers to load, that becomes a real issue. A game with a DOS extender may only require 520K, which is much easier to achieve.

V. Configuring Memory in DOS

Now that I have given a historical overview of the various DOS memory schemes, I would now turn to how we actually configure DOS to utilize the memory most effectively. Memory configuration begins with the config.sys file. When DOS starts, it loads the parameters from this file first.

The first parameter to be loaded is HIMEM.SYS. In fact, in Windows 9x versions of DOS (7.0-7.1), this is loaded automatically. HIMEM.SYS does three things: 1. It allows DOS access to the High Memory Area; 2. It loads DOS into the High Memory Area, freeing up to 64K of Conventional Memory that would otherwise be gone for DOS services. 3. It functions as an XMM allowing DOS programs to access Extended Memory.   HIMEM.SYS is useless unless the system has a 286 or better processor and memory above 1MB. Loading this parameter is essentially harmless for almost any DOS game. The line in your config.sys will be:

"DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS"

The second parameter, which is often loaded, is EMM386.EXE. This is the MS-DOS version of an EMM. It uses the Memory Management Unit of a 386 or better processor to emulate the functionality of Expanded Memory with Extended Memory. It will allocate as much expanded memory as your game needs. Many game require this to be loaded in config.sys. More importantly, it allows DOS to load itself and other drivers into the UMA. Through its parameters, it can specify the areas in which to create Upper Memory Blocks. EMM386.EXE requires HIMEM.SYS to be loaded first. It does not work on a 286 or lesser processor.

Some games may refuse to run if they detect an EMM in the system. The principal reason is that EMM386.EXE puts the processor into Virtual 8086 Mode. The 386 and better processors use Virtual 8086 Mode to allow DOS to access protected mode features while maintaining a real-mode like environment for each program for compatibility. EMM386.EXE puts the processor into Virtual 8086 Mode, which would be great if all DOS games were well-behaved. If they are not, such as using Unreal Mode, then EMM386.EXE cannot be loaded.

Here are two typical lines in your config.sys in which to configure EMM386.EXE:

"DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM"

This line enables Expanded Memory emulation and UMBs. It aslo robs you of a 64KB UMB, so you should only use it if your games requires it.

"DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS"

This line enables UMBs but not Expanded Memory. This frees up 64KB of UMBs for loading DOS or device drivers.

Those are the basic lines. However, if you can discover exactly which areas of upper memory are free, you should use the following switches to designate the range: I= (include) or X= (exclude). You can string as many areas as you may need:

I=B000-B7FF I=CC00-CFFF I=D000-DFFF I=E000-EFFF

All ranges are in hexidecimal and refer only to the memory segment, the offset is always 0000. Thus our preferred line will be:

"DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS I=B000-B7FF I=CC00-CFFF I=D000-DFFF I=E000-EFFF"

Next time, I intend to give a comprehensive overview of config.sys and autoexec.bat

All Thumbs: The Revolutionary NES Gamepad

2010-04-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

Before the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System, players of home video games had a very hard time controlling most of their games. Let us first consider what was available prior to the NES and how the NES's controller changed things.

The first controller on a home video game console was the knobs that came on the Magnavox Odyssey, Atari Pong consoles and clones. The Odyssey had two knobs on a box when used with its ping pong game. One to move your paddle vertically, one to nove it horizontally or add "english" or "spin" on the ball/brick. The Pong consoles tended to simplify this by only using one knob.

These knobs or paddle controllers were really potentiometers, variable resistors with a plastic knob on them for slightly more ergonomic control. The level of resistance affected the amount of time it took for a capacitor to discharge, and by measuring the time it took for a capacitor to discharge, the program could determine the location of a paddle on the screen.
Paddle controllers provide a much smoother control scheme for a paddle-type game such as Pong or Breakout or one of their clones. It is easier to accelerate and position the on-screen paddle with a hardware paddle controller. However, paddles generally have an approximate 270 degree range of motion, and the actual degrees in which the on-screen paddle will respond to motion from the controller is generally far less. Paddles are also very limited in the types of games they can control well and generally limited to the above mentioned styles of games.

When Atari released its Video Computer System in 1977, (which in 1982 would be rechristened the 2600), it offered two joystick and two paddle controllers in the box with the system. The Atari joystick was an 8-way controller with one joystick button. Each cardinal direction and button were a switch, the state of which could be read by the system to determine whether that direction or button was being pressed. The joystick interface, sometimes with a second button, was seen in many other home video game systems and computers.

Atari's joysticks were large enough to comfortably hold in your hands and simple enough for the game player of the time to get into the action quickly. Atari had the good sense not to build the joysticks into the console or hardwire them in. However, instead of putting the controller ports at the front of the machine, they put them in the back. Not only does this make for unsightly cable clutter, but it also cuts down on cord length. Also, the cord lengths of the VCS are rather short, 3' I think. In many cases, unless you were willing to get up close and personal, you pulled the VCS away from the TV to play. (The A/V cable was generous in length.)

The real problem for the digital Atari joysticks is that they just did not work terribly well with just about anything. There is little sensitivity in the Atari joystick. Being a digital device, there is no input being generated between the center position and the direction position. The "throw" of the joystick was extremely short, a nudge of the wrist would suffice to register a direction. The contact made when the joystick actually reaches a direction is not incredibly obvious, especially after Atari redesigned their joysticks (CX-10) to eliminate the springs above each directional switch (CX-40). The joystick lacked precise control, which often times meant the difference between death and scoring.

Atari's competitors did not fare much better. The Intellivision had a 16-way disc for a control, and it is even more imprecise than the Atari joystick. It also had a numeric keypad and multiple side action buttons. Colecovision's controller ditched the 16-way control for a standard 8-way control with a joydisk but copied the keypad and side action buttons. The joydisk was too big for a thumb but too small for the hand, so it was usually controlled with thumb and forefinger. The Atari 5200's controller had a numeric keypad, side buttons and an analog joystick.

The analog joysticks of the early 1980s were simply mechanisms to adjust two potentiometers. In short, they were two paddles, one for the horizontal and one for the vertical controlled by one stick. In addition to the Atart 5200, analog joysticks were also used in the Vectrex, Apple II and IBM PC computers. These joysticks tended to be fragile due to the mechanism and have sticks too small for the whole hand. In flight simulator games, they were far superior to any digital controller. However, most of the games of the early 1980s were less ambitious, generally one-screen games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders where fast response time was more critical than precision movement.

One final control method were those that used optical technology to sense direction. Atari's Driving Controller, released with Indy 500 as a VCS launch title, used a rotary stick to allow for an unlimited 360 degrees of movement. Breakout, Tempest and other arcade games using a paddle used rotary controllers instead potentiometers. Rotary controllers did not feature the dead zones of potentiometers, were faster to move and allowed for unlimited turning. Arcade games like Missile Command and Centipede used a trackball for more precise, anywhere-on-the-screen movement. Unfortunately, the trackball never really found support in the home video games. The internal operation of a driving controller and a trackball are virtually the same as a ball mouse, they move a rotating disc with holes past optical sensors that signal input when the holes pass through them.

That was the state of home video game control before the NES. The NES controller offered nothing new in terms of hardware design. Its buttons and directional pad were wholly digital. But the sum of the presentation was wholly unique:

1. The Right Size
A NES controller could rest comfortably in the palms of an average person's hands. All the buttons were located on the face of the controller, no awkward side buttons to press.

2. The Right Length
The NES controller came with a 6' cable cord and connected to the front of the unit. This was much appreciated by parents who did not want to see a lot of clutter around the living room TV. The controllers were freely detachable, which made it easy to use other types of peripherals like the Power Pad and Zapper Light Gun. The Intellivision, Colecovision and 5200 were all huge because they included storage for their controllers, the NES did not, making it a far slimmer console.

3. The Right Form Factor
The NES controller is horizontally oriented. Normally, the player's hands are side-by-side, which is a more comfortable placement than the prior controllers, which forced the player to have one hand underneath the other.

4. Select and Start
An overlooked feature is that the buttons to start a game and select the game options are on the controller, not on the console. A player did not have to get up and flick a switch to start a new game or select a variation as on the Atari. The player could also conveniently pause the game using the start button, which while not new, was a very appreciated feature.

5. Two Action Buttons
The Atari 2600 had only one action button. This limitation found itself into its 8-bit computers as well as Commodore's. Many games suffered from the lack of buttons. Nintendo set the standard of two action buttons. While this was not new, their placement was. Nintendo placed its action buttons so they could be controlled by the player's right thumb. The brain can manipulate the thumb faster over these buttons than it could fingers. The thumb has two points of contact, the tip and the joint. Thus the player could hit both buttons at the same time or alternate the buttons with each part of his thumb.

6. The Directional Pad

The most important innovation of the controller was the D-Pad. The D-Pad allowed for far more precise control in 2D games than any joystick. The D-Pad was a good size, large enough that each direction could be pressed distinctly but small enough that the thumb could get to any direction quickly. The D-Pad was first introduced in Nintendo's Game and Watch series, but with the NES, Nintendo had set the standard for directional control for a decade.

The NES controller had no particularly impressive competition. The Sega Master System's controller was a carbon copy of the NES, but it did not have Start & Select buttons. The pause button was on the console, just like old times. The Atari 7800's controllers were just like the 5200's, minus the analog, numberpad, and pause buttons. One button was on each side instead of two, but side buttons stunk on the Colecovision and stunk on the 7800.

Controllers of the subsequent generation essentially corrected the few flaws of the NES controller. The SNES controller used a rounded shape, which made it much more comfortable to hold for extended periods of time than the rectangular NES controller. It also angled the action buttons at more natural angle for the thumb. While adding two extra buttons on the face and two shoulder buttons, it made two of the buttons concave rather than convex. Concave buttons are kinder to the thumb than convex. When Nintendo redesigned the NES at the end of its life, (the Top Loader model), it incorporated curved sides, concave buttons, and more natural angles into the redesigned (dogbone) controler.

One note to end this post. Sega's gamepads for the Master System and the Genesis work perfectly with VCS/2600 that buse a joystick. Plug one in and enjoy the more precise control. It may be had to go back to the traditional stick. Atari even made a D-Pad controller for the 7800 when it sold it overseas. Try one of those if you want to be a bit more traditional.

Optimal Video Output for the Nintendo Gamecube and Wii

2010-03-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

Nintendo's two disc systems to date are a departure for the company in more ways than just the game media. In the United States, in terms of video output, Nintendo's past consoles only supported RF (NES, NES2, SNES1, others with external RF converter), Composite Video (NES Front Loader, SNES, SNES2, N64), S-Video (SNES, N64) or RGB (SNES). The Gamecube and Wii support are the first to support Component Video. Using Component Video Cables, some Gamecube games and the Wii system support progressive scan (480p). A a number of Gamecube games (and a few games from Rare on the N64) also support widescreen. Finally, the Wii system software also supports widescreen @ 480i/p, and many of its games support either widescreen, progressive scan, or both.

Lets start with the Gamecube.
Since so few Gamecube titles support widescreen, we really only need a display that supports Component Video and Progressive Scan. We should use a 4:3 display to avoid annoying pillarboxing. As Gamecube games tended to use a 640x480 resolution, we should look for CRTs, as LCD screens that use 640x480 as their native resolution tend to be horrible to look at unless your head is on the same plane as the screen and in the direct center. Also, CRTs are better for those games that only support interlacing. The best option I can recommend is the Sony KD-36XS955. This is a 36" 4:3 TV that is among the few known to support progressive scan. If you want to sacrifice the HDMI input (but still have DVI/HDCP), KV-40XBR800 sports a 40" tube.

Now we can continue to the Wii and widescreen. The Wii only supports 480p in widescreen, so standard HDTVs are not a good fit as almost always use 1366x768 or 1920x1080 native panels. 720x480 panels are too small, the resolution is 852x480. Most do not upscale well. In this case, we should stick to a widescreen CRT. Sony has some nice models here, and their 34" sets are about as big as widescreen CRTs ever got. The Sony KD-34XBR960 is an ideal choice for a widescreen CRT. It has enough component video inputs and an HDMI input. It supports 480p, 720p and 1080i and has a sharp screen.

In other uses, these TVs would be great for DVDs. The 36"-40" full screen TV would work perfectly for all those full-screen DVDs. Alot of old-school movie and TV show fun. The widescreen would do justice to all the anamorphic widescreen DVDs, and may also assist the non-anamorphic stuff. Blu-ray and upconverting DVD players may do a serviceable job on HDTVs, but these TVs can show DVDs at their natural resolution.

If this post is slightly shorter than the previous posts, please see my post regarding CRTs for more overview of why I believe CRTs are the best devices available when your device cannot output your LCD's native resolution.

Ninja Turtles Mania

2010-03-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

You would be hard pressed to find a boy who grew up in the 1980's who was not a fan of the green quartet known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Our interests at Nerdly Pleasures are very broad, and we certainly remain very fond of them today. In this article, we will reflect on the major incarnations of the Turtles to-date.

My introduction to the Turtles was typical. I first saw them in the original cartoon series which was first broadcast at the end of 1987 and lasted until 1996. This series was so tremendously popular that it became cemented in pop-culture heritage. As they did not aspire to the high artistic merits of series like Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, Silly Symphonies or even Tom & Jerry, they tend not to earn serious attention from animation critics.

In 1988 only the first mini-series had been broadcast, so it was the earliest stages of TMNT mania.
Playmates toys just landed on the store shelves, video games were in the works, and the live-action films were not yet on the horizon.

The cartoon series lived up to its intent to be goofy fun. The good guys were fun and funny, the bad guys inept but never truly vicious, and there was plenty of ninja action to go around. Real effort was put into making the turtles unique from each other beyond the color of their bandanas: Leonardo the leader, Donatello the nerd, Raphael the wise-cracker and Michaelangelo the wild and crazy dude. There was even a small extent of character development over the series.

Not too long after I started watching the cartoon regularly, I was introduced to the Turtles' original media, the comic books. I was never really a comic book junkie, but I quickly became a fan of the Mirage Comics series.

These Turtles were a revelation to me having watched their juvenile versions on TV. They lived in a rather gritty world, they fought and argued with each other and actually killed their enemies!

The cartoon always had problems with Leonardo's Katanas and to a lesser extent Raphael's sais, as the sharp and pointy implements would cut and piece flesh instead of merely brusing it. Censors overseas had more problems with Michaelangelo's nunchucks, frequently editing them out of the broadcasts. Nunchucks are quite lethal in their own right, but Europe and Australia were in the midst of a moral panic over the concept of ninja in entertainment, believing children would copy the ninja moves they saw on TV. However, katanas and sais remained in the program. In contrast, in the comic book, Leo and Raph would not hesitate to use the business end of their weapons on any enemy.

As I mostly acquired the colorized graphic novels, I had difficulty appreciating that TMNT was a black and white comic. When TMNT was first being published in the mid-1980s, the creators were essentially self-publishing the comic. Self-publishing in those days was often something one did part-time, a status which would continue until if and when your book really began to sell. Printing in color was simply beyond the resources of the TMNT creators, Eastman and Laird, even the comic book's cover did not gain full-color until #5 (after 1-4 and Raphael 1). Like Cerebus, what began as a necessity continued as an artistic choice.

I really enjoyed Volume 1 of TMNT through issue 21, which concluded the Return to New York storyline. After that, even I could tell that its creators were no longer seemingly involved in the stories and the style varied so wildly from issue to issue that I quickly became turned off. I never did manage to read Volumes 2 or 4, and what little I read of Volume 3 did not encourage me to want to read more. Officially it is treated as a red-headed stepchild.

Having acquired a love for all things Turtles, naturally my attention was drawn to the reports that there would be a TMNT game for the NES. The NES was a constant companion in those days, and I eagerly awaited the release of the game with great anticipation. I remember calling every toy shop and electronics place around to see whether they had the game in stock on opening day. None did. A week later my mom and I confirmed the existence of the game at a distant store and we traveled in the early morning to get there to get my copy before they ran out.

The game itself had been widely commented and criticized, but I will give you my impressions. First, although based off the cartoon, the TMNT theme did not seem to be well-integrated into the gameplay. No Krang, Baxter, theme music, mousers and foot soldiers that barely looked the part and somewhat of a grim atmosphere. Second, the game was cruelly unforgiving. Limited continues, poor hit detection, large hit area for your characters, nearly constantly respawning enemies, tricky jumps, lots of pits, limited health items. Michaelangelo and Raphael were nearly useless due to their short attack ranges. Donatello's bo was the most powerful weapon, so he had to be saved for bosses at all costs. The graphics, although flickery, and non-traditional sound were very well done, a testament to the skills of Konami (published under its Ultra Games label). However, the game really felt like it originally was not intended to be a TMNT game but the imagery was later tacked on. On the other hand, back in 1989 when the game was first released, TMNT was still pretty new and the TV show concepts still somewhat under-defined.

Still, the game sold millions and Konami made up for it in its other TMNT games. The Arcade Game was awesome. One of the best beat-em-ups ever, it allowed for four player simultaneous action, which may not have ever been done in the beat-em-up before. It had very colorful graphics, upbeat and catchy tunes and followed the cartoon to a T. It sucked many a quarter or two out of me back in the day. Its NES port may not have been anywhere as graphically impressive, but it was a superb port. Konami tightened the control scheme in the NES port and even added additional levels not found in the Arcade version. Konami followed it up on the NES with The Manhattan Project and the Arcade with Turtles in Time. Ports of the latter game to the SNES and (more loosely) to the Genesis were also top notch. Most ports of hot media properties to video games tend to be (especially back then) to be crap. Not so with the Turtles, thanks to the talented designers at Konami.

Following our rough chronology, I soon learned that the Turtles were coming to the big screen. The first TMNT movie is pure corn, and the sequels even more juvenile. The movies did not seem to take themselves any more seriously than the cartoon. But this was live-action, and the silliness that the cartoon could get away with looked foolish at the multiplex. The guys in green looked exactly like what they were, actors and stuntment in costume. The costumes were pretty good looking, and the face masks did a nice job of lip-syncing, but the facial expressions were rather limited. At least the Shredder had an air of menace until he stupidly tried to run Splinter through with his spear. And I know Splinter has always been depicted as old, but in this movie he seems positively arthritic and you could almost see his wires or motors being manipulated. The Turtles were born in comics and found a home in cartoons, but just cannot fit within the confines of live action film. I have yet to see the computer-animated film, but it is in my Netflix queue.

Like many childhood interests, my interest in TMNT faded as I grew older. Lately, feeling the need to recapture some of my youth, I have reawakened my interest in the franchise. I had known that there was a new cartoon series, closer to the darker, more mature (non-Archie) comics. But being on the 4kids channel and often on Saturday mornings, I never got around to watching them. However, when they did a countdown of the 10 greatest episodes recently, I used my DVR to examine this series.

Upon watching several episodes, I was struck how closely the series hewed to some of the old Mirage storylines. Being a more maturer version than the '87, series, it is incredibly violent for a kids' show. The Shredder is a vicious creature indeed. A fair comparison between the old cartoon Shredder and the new would be Cesar Romero to Heath Ledger's respective Jokers in Batman. Characters die and even get maimed in the show. The foot soldiers, while still not much more than the Turtles' practice dummies, are human beings, not robots as in the original show.

There are many positive things about the new show. It takes itself seriously and treats the Turtles with respect. Raphael is his true bad-tempered self, Leonardo practically embodies the concepts of honor and fidelity. Donatello is more sensitive and Michelangelo (preferred spelling), is good-natured without constantly spouting dated one-liners or looking for a pizza. Having read the comics, it is fun to watch how the episodes deviate from the printed stories. There is a strong sense of continuity throughout the series with returning allies and villains. Eventually, the series started to progress to season-long storylines, which people tend to love or hate. (My view tends to be closer to hate, unless the whole series is on DVD or demand.) Much of the series can be streamed from the 4kids website:
http://www.4kidstv.com/tmnt
http://www.4kidstv.com/tmnt-back-to-the-sewer

A digression before I conclude. TMNT and Other Strangeness by Palladium Books was my first experience with a pencil and paper RPG. This book was awesome, but it took me a while to really appreciate it. It had artwork from Eastman and Laird, even an original story or two. It gave the stats for all the major characters that had appeared in the TMNT Mirage comic up to that point. As the point was issue #4 (after Raphael #1). It had pages of equipment, multiple adventure scenarios, and an excellent animal character creation system. However, it was not the ideal game to bring a brand new player into RPGs. Also, unless the RPG was AD&D, it was difficult to find other players.

This week I watched the TV movie TMNT Forever. This is a movie-length episode of the new series where the current Turtles meet up with the Turtles from the old cartoon. You can watch it here:
http://www.4kidstv.com/turtles-forever/turtles-forever/100
The modern Turtles and characters were the same as always, but the older cartoon characters seemed to suffer by comparion. The modern characters always remark on how silly the behavior, ideas and technology of the old characters by comparison. The movie shows that the old cartoon Turtles are seemingly unequipped to deal with the challenegs faced by the modern Turtles. Still, it was an entertaining hour-and-a-half and nice to see the old characters return to the screen after nearly fifteen years, Shame they couldn't get the old voice talent.

To conclude this epic post, I would point to the title. I always used to hear non-fans refer to the franchise referred to as "Ninja Turtles". No Teenage, Mutant and often not even a "the". That pretty much summed it up for those who could not appreciate it. Appreciation of the franchise requires a love of the ridiculous, which is appropriate for an idea that began as a parody of serious comic books like Daredevil and Ronin. The franchise has been accused of being the epitome of banal commercialism. Yet it appealed to a generation of young boys, for a while. Not too long after it became popular, it seemed you were a dork for admitting to liking the Turtles. Each one of my elementary/middle school associates was quicker to distance himself than the last.

Tutorial : How to Get the Roland MT-32 working with DOS Games

2010-03-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

As a followup to my previous post about the Choices for Roland LA Synthesis, I have decided to write a tutorial on how-to make DOS games work with them. This tutorial assumes that the reader has or will have a real Roland MT -32 or one of the compatibles listed in my previous post on the subject. This tutorial is not intended for those using the MT-32 emulator called Munt or any other hardware device that claims MT-32 compatibility.

With that out of the way, there are two guaranteed methods get your MT-32 or compatible working with DOS games. Method 1 is by using a hardware Roland MPU-401 Midi interface. Method 2 is using DOSBox.

Method 1 : Hardware Midi Interface

(a.k.a. the Intended Way). Ah, if you are going the Method 1 route, you are truly adventurous and deserve respect for attempting it. You have your MT-32 or compatible unit, probably acquired off eBay or Yahoo Auctions Japan. Now you need a midi interface for the game to communicate with the module. (That is what those DINs on the back of these modules are for.) Since we are playing DOS games on an IBM PC or compatible, you are going to need a midi interface in the machine. (Atari ST users had midi interface ports built in, a design feature that never made it into the PC world.) Moreover, most of the DOS games of the MT-32 era, which runs from 1988-1992, assumed that the interface would be a Roland MPU-401 interface.

A bit of back-history here: Roland, makers of the MT-32, designed an interface box called the MPU-401 Midi Processing Unit so a computer could communicate with midi modules, whether its own or from a competitor such as Yamaha or Korg. The original MPU-401 could have been released in 1984 but would certainly have been available in 1985. The Unit is pretty large and looks like this:

It is a little hard to make out from the picture, but the Unit has two midi output ports. The rest of the ports are unimportant to a gamer. You have to connect a 5-pin DIN cable from the Midi Output of the Unit to the Midi Input of your Module. On the other side, which is not visible, there is a DB-25 pin female connector.

The MPU-401 Midi Processing Unit was not tied to any specific computer. Roland made adapter cards and cartridges to allow the Unit to work with Apple IIs (MIF-APL), Commodore 64s (MIF-C64), IBM PCs (MIF-IPC & MIF-IPC-A) and most popular Japanese PCs. These MIF cards/cartridges only contained some simple glue logic to give the computer a data port and a command/status port which to communicate with the Unit. The adapter card/cartridge connect to the Unit via a mostly standard DB-25 male to male cable. The only difference between a standard cable and an MIF-IPC or MIF-IPC-A card is that pins 13 & 25 (ground) are connected in the cable.

If you obtain this Unit, it is useless without an adapter card. As previously mentioned, Roland made two for IBM PCs and compatibles, the MIF-IPC and MIF-IPC-A. The MIF-IPC came first and is designed for bus of the IBM PC and IBM PC/XT (also works with the IBM PC Portable should work with most 8088 processor-based PC compatibles). It is an 8-bit ISA card, and does not reliably work properly with an IBM PC AT or faster computer (essentially anything with an 80286 processor or better) The MIF-IPC-A is the simplified version and is compatible with the IBM PC, IBM PC/XT & IBM PC AT. It is also an 8-bit card and is not bus-sensitive, so it should work in any ISA slot of any IBM-PC compatible, regardless of CPU speed. The MIF-IPC-A is an incredibly simple card, someone with the proper skills and a few parts could easily reproduce it on an ISA prototype board. The schematic is here:

Although the Unit was developed and sold long before Roland convinced Sierra On-Line to support its MT-32 in King's Quest IV and other high-profile 1988 games, Sierra used the MPU-401 to provide the interface between computer and module. Sierra sold the MT-32 to its customers so they could hear great music in its games, and also bundled a MPU-401 interface.

By this time, Roland had made an IBM PC-specific product called the MPU-IPC. This product contained an 8-bit ISA card, which contained the midi interface, and a smaller breakout box which contained the connectors for midi modules. A DB-25 pin cable connected the two. Often on ebay you may see either the card or the breakout box but not both. Both are required to communicate with an MT-32 or compatible. If you have the interface card, you can make a midi output port with a few electronic parts. Like its immediate predecessor, the MPU-IPC should work in any computer with an available ISA slot.

Before I continue with my description of MPU-401 interfaces, I must talk for a moment about setting up your game and card to work with the interface. The MPU 401 interface on an IBM PC or compatible requires certain system resources, two input/output ports and one IRQ. The previously mentioned cards are all wired to use I/O 330/331 and IRQ 2/9. This cannot be changed absent soldering and trace cutting on the cards. As this was the default, games expect that the interface will use these ports and IRQ. Later cards allow the user to change these resources, but I always say that you should keep to the default. All you need to do with your game is to set it to use the MT-32 whenever offered (chiefly for music but sometimes for sound effects) and it will work. You do not need to load any drivers (outside of the game) or type any strings in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

The next year, Roland introduced two new MPU-401 compatible products, the MPU-IPC-T and LAPC-I. The first was a cost reduced version of the MPU-IPC and and for our purposes, is identical to it with one exception. This was the first interface product whereby Roland allowed the user to change the settings for the system resources to be used via jumpers. If you obtain this card, you should make sure the jumpers are set to use the default system resources I/O 330/331 and IRQ 2/9. The proper settings are illustrated in the manual, which is available at Roland's US site, backstage.rolandus.com/login.php, after a free registration. Also, there is a schematic diagram in that manual that will allow you to make a midi output port for either the MPU-IPC or MPU-IPC-T. Finally, the breakout box for the MPU-IPC will work with the MPU-IPC-T and vice versa. The MPU-IPC-T looks like this (the MPU-IPC looks almost exactly the same:

The second product, the LAPC-I, combines the MPU-401 Midi Interface with the circuitry from a Roland CM-32L module all one one 8-bit ISA card. It is a perfect solution for MT-32 DOS games except for those (few) games that utilize bugs on the first generation MT-32 modules. It also allows you to change the settings, so please refer to the manual (available at Roland's US site) for the proper settings. All the caveats that I mentioned in my previous post on the subject of the Roland LA Synthesis devices apply here. This card is 13" long, so your case and motherboard cannot block it. It needs a -5v power source from the PSU, which may not be available on all computers. It also tends to go for very high prices on eBay. If you want to use an external module, such as a Roland SC-55 or MT-32 for the midi messages, you will need the MCB-1 breakout box.

In 1991, Roland released the SCC-1 GS Sound Card. Similar to the LAPC-I, the card combines the MPU-401 Midi Interface with the circuitry from a Roland CM-300 module all on one 8-bit ISA card. This card should be compatible with all IBM PCs, and is much smaller than the LAPC-I. To connect to external midi modules, it uses mini-DINs on the card bracket. You will need a mini-DIN to DIN adapter to connect to an MT-32 or compatible. Two were included with the card, but if your eBay purchase did not come with them, you will need to find a substitute. No one makes these adpaters, but Creative Labs included compatible adapters on their Sound Blaster Live! Audigy and X-Fi card that came with I/O Drives that fit inside a 5.25" computer case drive bay. I do not believe that Roland or Creative carry any spares in stock anymore. Here is the pinout to make an adapter cable yourself:

The last true Roland MPU-401 Midi Interface card was the MPU-401AT, released in 1994. This contained the interface on a small 8-bit ISA card. To communicate with external modules, it uses the same mini-DIN ports of the SCC-1. The above diagram should also work fine if you lack the proper adapter cables. The card comes with no midi module circuitry but has a 26-pin Waveblaster port to connect a midi daughterboard. Roland offered combinations of the card with its SCB-7/SCD-10 daughtercard (containing the GM-compatible circuitry of its SC-7 module) and the the SCB-55/SCD-15 daughtercard (containing the GM/GS compatible circuitry of an SC-55ST). The combinations were sold as the SCM-10AT (GM) and SCM-15AT (GS/GM). Any other waveblaster-compatible daughterboard, such as the Yamaha DB50XG and Creative WaveBlaster I or II will work well here. The SnR is better on this card than many Creative cards (which created the waveblaster standard). The MPU-401AT looks like this:

A final word about other midi interfaces, do not bother with them. The above choices are your only guaranteed choices for DOSGames using MT-32 or compatibles. The reason why? These cards are the only cards known to guarantee to implement the MPU-401 Normal (a.k.a. Intelligent) Mode reliably. DOS Games that support the MT-32 and compatibles frequently use this mode when setting up the interface or communicating through it. Most later games, including games that are GM compatible, use the MPU-401 UART mode, which is much simplier to implement in "MPU-401 compatible" hardware. The Sound Blaster 16 and up only support MPU-401 UART mode, making them unsuitable as a reliable interface for older DOS Games with MT-32 support. The older Sound Blasters do not support MPU-401 at all. Even later Roland products, including the Roland S-MPU, S-MPU II, SCP-55 or RAP-10AT do not support intelligent mode or have problems with it. Some MT-32 DOS games will work with an interface that supports Normal/Intelligent Mode, but a true MPU-401 interface will ensure hassle-free operation.

Even if you have a true MPU-401 Interface, if your computer is too fast, your game may be sending midi data to the MT-32 or compatible faster than the module can handle. This is the cause of the dreaded Exec. Buffer Overflow (first gen MT-32s only) and the Exec. Checksum Error (all modules). The first is very common in faster computers, the second is alot less common. Expect either issue if you are using an MT-32 with a Pentium III computer (the last that generally had ISA slots as standard).

Method Number 2 : DOSBox

(a.k.a. the easy way out). DOSBox is an PC emulator that concentrates on getting DOS games to work. It emulates a lot of video and sound cards. It also emulates an MPU-401 interface, including the Normal/Intelligent Mode. For MT-32 and compatibles and GM/GS/XG modules, the emulation is superb. Considering that DOSBox takes the need for a Roland MPU-401 Interface and a computer with ISA slots out of the equation, it is easy to see why people prefer it. DOSBox is mostly a matter of configuring software, but a Midi Interface is still required.

This part of the guide will only consider DOSBox midi interface support in Windows operating systems, since that is all I am familiar with. In order to work with DOSBox, your sound card must have its midi drivers installed in Windows. On-board sound chips on modern motherboards tend not to support external midi. If you have a chip or a sound card that does, it generally will connect through the DA-15 game port. If you have a midi/gameport in your computer or on your card, you will need a gameport midi cable. Creative Sound Blaster cards also can use the I/O Drives or external breakout boxes that have midi ports on them.

If your audio device will not support an external midi connector, then you can use a USB midi adapter. However, you have to be picky, as not all USB midi adapters are created equal. I have used a Roland UM-1X for years and never have had a problem. Unfortunately it has been discontinued. Some USB Midi adapters have had problems being able to transmit sysex to an MT-32, which is what DOS Games use create custom sounds with the MT-32.

Having obtained some kind of midi interface with support for external modules, connect the midi out cable to the midi in port on the MT-32 or compatible module. That completes the hardware assembly. Having properly installed your drivers for your midi product, you need to set the Windows midi device to use external interface. In Windows XP, go to your Control Panel and click on "Sound and Audio Devices". Under the "Audio" tab, go to the Midi dropbox and select the name of your external device. Usually it is quite evident. Press the OK button. Under Windows 98, go to your Control Panel and click on "Multimedia". Under the MIDI tab, in the Single instrument box select the name of your external device. Press the OK button. This completes your Windows configuration.

Since Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom eliminated the selection of midi devices in the Control Panel in Windows Vista & 7, you have to select the midi device to use program by program. To do this in DOSBox, start DOSBox up and enter the command "mixer /listmidi". This command will show you all the midi devices available in your system. Make a note of the number next to the name of the external midi device. Go to your dosbox.conf file, and under [midi] there will be a line that says "midiconfig=". Enter the number of your midi device as DOSBox reported it after the =, save the configuration and DOSBox will use your external midi interface instead of the Windows default midi. If the external device is the only other midi device other than the Windows GM/GS synthesizer, then the number will be 1.

DOSBox configures its settings through the dosbox.conf (really a text) file or through a shortcut under its program folder in the start menu. Open the config file up and make sure [midi] that "mpu401=intelligent" is there. It should be by default I believe. Once that has been done, start DOSBox and configure your game to use MT-32 for its music and/or sound effects. Exit your game's configuration program, start the game and get ready to listen to some great music. Watch the MT-32 display for midi messages and make sure that there are no errors in transmission. If you are getting buffer overflow errors on a first gen MT-32, adjust the machine cycles down by using Ctrl F11. 2000 cycles should be good to start, and if you are not using a joystick you can increase them later in the game.

Managing the Upgrade Treadmill

2010-03-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

Why upgrade to the next best thing? Aren't these just cynical attempts by hardware manufacturers to get you to waste your money on improvments that will only grant you marginal enhancement?

For most people, their introduction to home video began with video cassettes with a VHS player. Before video cassettes, there was no real home video market, the occasional 16mm and 8mm show at home reductions of hollywood films and occasional tv shows notwithstanding.

VHS had a serious competitor in the early home video market, Betamax. While both formats had adherents, VHS was the victor in that war, with Betamax being almost forgotten. Most people began their first video libraries of film and tv with VHS cassettes. Next came laserdiscs, but they never presented a serious challenge to the dominance of VHS. Laserdisc players and discs were expensive and read-only and never had the market penetration of the cheaper cassettes. The cinephile had not quite become mainstream when laserdiscs were in their heyday, especially outside of Asia, so laserdiscs remained a niche item in most parts of the world.

As we all know, DVDs replaced VHS as the consumer video standard of choice. DVDs are much smaller than cassettes, do not deteriorate over multiple viewings, offer far better video and audio quality. For cinephiles, widescreen movies were being released in widescreen on DVDs as opposed to the pan & scan of the VHS releases. The Commentary track, impossible on VHS, was a standard feature, as were extras. 5.1 discrete audio tracks are common on DVDs whereas VHS struggled with stereo. Many people decided then to upgrade their old cassettes with nice and new DVDs, especially as their movies no longer had to suffer from pan & scan butchery.

After DVDs finally relegated VHS to the bargain bins and thrift stores, a new phenomenon began to emerge, the HDTV. HDTVs generally came in two categories, 720p and 1080i/p. This meant that they could display far greater resolutions (1280x720 and 1920x1080) than a DVD could display (720x480/576). However, people were not rushing to upgrade again. First, there was a format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, and most of the public, justly fearing a repeat of VHS/Betamax, chose to sit this one out. Second, most consumers were content with their current video collections and had little impetus to start again a second or third time. Despite the issues of DVDs displaying on HDTVs, the adoption of HD optical video was slow. A DVD or Blu-ray player with a good upscaler, like the PS3, would present DVD video with acceptable quality on an HD screen.

So isn't it time to say enough is enough! No more will I be a slave to the Hollywood companies always trying to get me to buy Gladiator or Lord of the Rings again. But at the same time, those Blu-rays are looking mighty pretty and are very impressive on my full-HD TV. Here are some strategies to cope with the latest pressure to upgrade:

1. Netflix is your friend. For $3 more than the standard DVD subscription plans, you can take out as many Blu-rays as your plan allows for DVDs. (1-3). Considering that the kiosks at the grocery store do not offer Blu-rays where I live and trips to Blockbuster are inconvenient and expensive, Netflix is a good option.

2. Shop around. Blu-rays have a price premium over DVDs, but you can find decent deals. Avoid buying in a store, you will always pay top $$.

3. Buy what is most important first. If the upgrade in video and quality is vast, then consider that over a more marginal release.

I also have a gripe about TV shows on Blu-ray. 21st Century TV shows were often shot with HD cameras or shown on HD stations. They deserve proper Blu-ray releases. Many older shows were shot in SD NTSC/PAL video and can see no real improvement in video quality on Blu-ray. In these cases, the authoring house would be upscaling the video on the disc instead of your player. I also see no real improvement with 16mm footage shot for TV, all you get from the greater resolution seems to be film grain. DVDs can do full justice to this material. Then there are the TV shows shot on 35mm film. 35mm, even in the Academy Ratio, can see real improvement in Blu-ray format. At the time of this writing, there are few examples. However, those examples, Star Trek: TOS and The Prisoner, are very dear to me. These shows were made in the mid-to-late 1960s, and were shot on 35mm. They are considerably improved on Blu-ray, but for over 40 years they were broadcast and rerun in what we would call today SD video. I would say that we are getting it too good, seeing what the creators never intended.

The Challenge and Reward of Running DOS Games

2010-03-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

DOS Games can be among the most difficult video games to get running. Even if you get the game running, you still have to consider things like getting the sound working or calibrating the joystick.

A DOS Game is about the whole experience, from procuring a game to reading the documentation, installing the game, configurating the OS and software as need be, and finally running it.

The first point is that any DOS game originally came on floppy disks or on CDs. They generally came in a box with at least an instruction manual and a reference card. The instruction manual told you how to play the game, the reference card how to install the game. Somewhere inside the package would be the means to pass the copy protection question(s) the game would ask, if any. If the game had disk-based copy protection, the original disk(s) would be required to play the game.

I dislike the modern way of packaging DOS Games, namely as directories after a full install. There are games that only install certain options from the floppies. Other games have lesser-used options that tend to get left out of the configuration options. By only giving the resulting install, the options are limited to whatever the distributor thinks the gamer should play. Giving disk images is the best way to ensure that a game can be installed properly on any system, real or emulated.

Second, in order to play a game, you have to have a basic understanding of how the operating system works.
Generally the install instructions will tell you how start the game, but this assumes that you always start where the instructions assume you are in the operating system. DOS is, as its name suggests, a disk operating system. In the beginning, DOS (versions 1.0-1.25) could only manage floppy disks. DOS versions 2.0-3.31 focused on adding support for new hardware features and larger floppy and hard drives. DOS versions 4.0-6.22 focused mainly on adding new applications and utilities, but also added greater memory configuration options. DOS games tend not to focus on the version so long as the version has the resources it requires. However, the higher the version, the more memory the OS requires. It is commonly understood that DOS 5.0 offers the best balance between features and memory usage.

So, having your operating system in place, the player needs to know how the system works. In the most basic configuration, DOS assigns drive letters to each disk drive, whether floppy, hard, CD, tape or network. Floppy drives are A: and B:, the first hard drive is almost always C:, and the first CD drive is gnerally D:. Each drive is organized into directories and subdirectories. Usually a directory is designated for a program and its data files or a group of utilities and their data files.  Each directory has files which hold the data for each program and sometimes subdirectories for the program's organization. There are to two types of files, executable and data. In order to start a program, you need to execute the proper executable file by typing the filename. Only files that end in a .com, .exe or .bat are executable.

DOS has multiple commands, and there are a few basic commands which any gamer needs to learn or recall. The basic commands are really small programs themselves, contained within the COMMAND.COM line input interpreter. You need to know how to change the active drive (type the drive letter followed by a :), how to change directories (type "cd", press the spacebar and the directory name), and how to list the contents of a directory (type "dir", "dir /w" for an easier to read list and "dir /w /p" if your directory contains lots of files.) Other common commands, like cls, copy, del, md, rd and type, are also useful, especially if you are not running or emulating DOS inside a more advanced OS.

The third element which the gamer has to consider are the system requirements for the game. When I was younger, I always wanted to work for Electronics Boutique, Egghead Software or Funcoland. However, I doubt I could deal with the ignorant masses who would undoubtedly come in every day and ask whether this game will work on their computer. When you ask them what kind of computer they have, they simply could not answer the question in any meaningful way. PC Games, except for the earliest, almost always have their system requirements and recommendations listed somewhere on the box. The customer needs to know what he or she has in the computer case. Software literacy is difficult enough for most people, but hardware literacy is even a bigger obstacle.

Video Adapter, RAM, Sound Card, Input, Communications, CPU, disk drives and capacity. You need to fit these pieces of the puzzle to what the game suspects. No one configuration exists that will run all DOS games. DOS Games tend to be overly speed sensititve, so a Pentium CPU may run a game that expects a 286 way too fast to play. A CGA game may program the adapter's registers in a way incompatible with a VGA card. Although a game may support an original Sound Blaster, the resulting sound quality may be so poor as to drive the modern gamer to distraction. Videos may stutter on being played back on a 1X CD-ROM. An older game that saves to 5.25 Double Density Disk will not work in a High Density drive. EGA and Tandy Graphics may look the same but the underlying hardware is programmed very differently.

The most fun here comes with configuring your hardware.   This is generally an issue with RAM, mice, Sound Cards, Communications and CD drives. Different games require different kinds of RAM,there are lots: Conventional, Expanded Memory, Extended Memory, EMS, XMS, HMA, UMA. Sound Cards are notoriously difficult with the system resources they require and the compatibility issues. DOS does not require or support mice or CD-ROMs out of the box, these require drivers to be loaded at bootup.

Finally, there are the items beyond the disks that came in the box. As the games were graphically limited and rather expensive, the publishers felt the need to supplement their software disks with documentation that would attract the eye and interest the player. Infocom games came with a variety of "feelies", items included that were not wholly required to play the game but made the total package a much more immersive experience. Later games such as Loom came with a cassette with an audio drama relating the back-story of the game.  A manual need not simply be printed sheets of paper.   Leisure Suit Larry III's manual took the form of a magazine. Copy protection was also inventive. Wing Commander's copy protection asked questions that required the player to consult with enclosed blueprints of the various ships used in the game. Maps were sometimes included which made the game difficult to play or get started without.

So why bother at all if it takes all this work just to get a retro-old game running? While there is work involved, its not as if you are trying to get a PDP-10 working by entering a punch card or papertape. Things can be simplified for the hardware-impaired using the DOSBox emulator. DOSBox obviates the need to partition and format a hard drive, install DOS, add and remove hardware cards or struggle with slowdown utilities. Even so, DOS gaming is a challenge and with some application there is a lot of fun to be had. DOS gaming requires more brain power than inserting in a cartridge in a Genesis or booting a floppy disk like an Apple II. There is magic in these programs, but as in fantasy not just any ham-fisted apprentice can harness it.

Perfecting the IBM Model M Keyboard

2010-02-28T13:20:00.000-08:00

The IBM Model M Keyboard is among the best keyboards ever made. However, technologically it has shown its age a bit, and even IBM cut a corner or two to reduce the cost of production. If I had the means, I would make the following improvements:

1. Make a 103-key Keyboard.

Some people like to have Windows keys. Sometimes even I can see their utility. Windows + D makes a good "boss key". Learing how to use the key combinations can make working in Windows more efficient. However, I would prefer a longer spacebar than Windows keys the same size and Ctrl and Alt. The 101-key Model M has empty spaces, the size of a regular key, in between each set of Ctrl and Alt. Why not put Windows key in those spaces? People who hate the Windows key can easily disable it in software. For Macintosh users, perhaps an option could be made for a shorter spacebar and a "Windows" key the same size as the Ctrl and Alt keys. On no account would I want a Menu key cluttering up the row, that key's function can be replicated by Shift F10. However, should one want one, a standard size keycap with the Menu graphic can be included if one was willing to sacrifice a Windows key.

2. Improve the internal assembly

The assembly of the Model M, once the keycaps and keystems are removed, is one plastic layer with holes for the keys, three membrane layers, and a metal back. The greatest dangers to the Model M, regardless of version, are liquids. I spilled some wine into my Unicomp Model M, and despite the drain holes, the conductive membrane was ruined. Later, I spilled a little G2 into my 1987 Model M and the B and M keys would give VB and NM when pressed. In the latter case, I was able to open keyboard up and save the keyboard by wiping up the liquid. The membrane is NOT internally sealed, nor can it be, but the membrane itself is three sheets of translucent plastic that could easily be replaced.

The problem with replacing the membrane is that IBM secured the upper plastic layer to the metal layer by melting the upper plastic layer through holes in the membrane and metal layer (in the assembly) and letting the melted plastic cool into studs on the bottom of the metal plate. There are lots of these plastic nubs throught the back of the keyboard assembly. The issue is that the can break after a hard impact or by wear over time. Once all are broken off, there is no way to resecure the plastic layer to the metal layer. At that point, you had best buy a new keyboard.

The solution is to use screws instead of melted plastic. This way the user can unscrew the keyboard and clean or replace the membrane. I believe this is how the Tandy Enhanced Keyboard operates. (A nut should be used.) Yes, it increases costs, but I believe it is better to extend the life time of the investment.

3. Improve the controller

The Keyboard controller circuit has some issues. First, it only supports AT & PS/2 style connections. Since the AT connection is a thing of the past and the PS/2 connector is a legacy port on modern motherboards, the controller should add USB support. Second, some Model Ms have controllers than can work with the original IBM PC and IBM PC/XT and (with a custom an adapter) the IBM PC Portable (before 2nd BIOS in the latter two cases). Most do not, I do not have any that do. I would love a truly IBM PC Compatible keyboard. The Tandy Enhanced Keyboard works perfectly with an IBM PC 5150 and with any other true IBM PC-compatible computer.

The IBM Model Ms I have ## 1390120 (ledless), 1390131 (silver logo), & 1391401 (grey oval logo) have a 6-pin RJ-45-like port on the rear to attach a cable. IBM generally supplied AT & PS/2 cables, coiled. Why not make a sturdy USB cable? Since only four pins are used, the other two can tell the controller that a USB cable is being attached. While there are AT-PS/2 adapters and PS/2-USB adapters (and vice versa), permanency is prized by some people.

Finally, why not have a wireless dongle attachment? If it attaches to the back, another dongle can attach to the PC. Rechargeable through USB.

4. Add support for N-Key and 6-Key Rollover

The Model M does not support N-key Rollover. In fact, depending on the keys pressed, it cannot register three keys at the same time. Try pressing r y u all at once. Unlimited key rollover is supported through the PS/2 interface, but only 6-key rollover through USB. 6-key is not that terrible, after all the functional limit is 10 keys unless the user is a rare polydactyl with a functioning extra finger. In order to have unlimited N-key rollover, each key on the membrane needs to be isolated with a diode. As this is rather difficult to achieve with a thin plastic membrane, please see my next suggestion.

5. Use Printed Circuit Board Contacts

The IBM Model F keyboards used a Printed Circuit Board with key contacted etched in the board, and the key mechanism used a carbonized switch to conduct electricity between the two halves of the contact. This denoted significantly higher build quality. Also, it gives an easy platform to install the diodes needed for N-key rollover. Get rid of those flimsy plastic membranes which true rubber domes use.

6. Fix the layout shortcomings

The IBM Model M keyboard had a few shortcomings over the older Model Fs. One, the function keys were relegated to the top instead of the side of the keyboard. Savvy keyboard users with the space can use extra function keys, so add a set of function keys on the left side of the keyboard. F11 and F12 would go to the left of the top function key row. This is nothing new, the Nortgate Omnikey Ultra and Ultra T featured two sets of function keys in this fashion.

The ~` and Esc key can be exchanged using removable keycaps, so no adjustment need be made there.

Some people prefer that the L. Ctrl should be where the Caps Lock key is on a Model M. All that is required here is to make a Caps Lock keycap and a Ctrl key (since the Model M's Caps Lock has cap and stem fused together). I would also make two models of Ctrl key, one with the lowered area (so people would not strike it by trying to hit the A key) and one without. Also, why not make a Caps Lock key without the lowered area.

L shaped Enter key? I have no particular views toward or against the big L shaped Enter key, which was a staple of the AT Model F keyboard. But since it replaces the | \ key, the usual alternatives are not very good. One option is to put it to the left of the Backspace key, which requires that key to be shortened. I have never liked this option, which is perhaps the AT Model F's biggest shortcoming. The next option is to put it to the right of the Shift key, ala the Nortgate Omnikey Ultra and Avant Stellar Prime, which is better but unlike a laptop we are not pressed for space here. The best place to put it is where one of the Windows keys go. I do not feel that sacrificing a Windows key to be that great of a loss.

7. Make the Keyboard Fully Programmable

While the keyboard can be reprogrammed in software, there are times when the keycodes being reported from the keyboard to the system would actually match what the key cap indicates. This is especially true when you have reconfigured your keycaps to match a DVORAK or AZERTY layout. No need to load drivers or special software. Volatile memory on the keyboard contoller should be used to indicate which scancode it outputs for each key, so the programming can be platform independent. A USB cable may need to be used for the programming option.

Thoughts on Laptop Keyboards

2010-02-27T16:10:00.000-08:00

On the Geekhack forums, there is alot of talk about which keyboard has the best keystroke response. Some, like myself, swear by the buckling spring technology of the IBM Model M keyboard. Others perfer the more varied ALPS and Cherry keyswitches, which come in seemingly endless varieties. Both function very similarly, a key stem pushes down on a spring until the pressure on the spring shifts the switch underneath, causing the electrical connection that tells the keyboard controller that the key has been pressed.

Laptop/notebook keyboards do not use mechanical switches as described above. They either use pure rubber dome or scissor switches. In my opinion, scissor switches are preferable to rubber dome any day, but they do not come close to the feel of a buckling spring or Cherry/Alps switch. Cherry in fact makes a switch, the Cherry ML, with a low profile suitable for laptop keyboards. Cherry makes a numeric keypad for laptops which use the switches and it looks like it would be an excellent addition to a numeric kepad-less laptop. I am not aware of any laptop that uses these switches in its keyboard.

When it comes to the numeric keypad, I cannot live without one. One reason is that many older, DOS games (Sierra AGI & SCI games for example), used the numeric keypad to let the player control his character in eight directions. The Inverted-T arrow keys only allow movement in four directions. A joystick does the same thing, but who wants to plug a joystick into a laptop all the time? Another, more important reason,
is number entry. My job requires fairly frequent number entry. Entering lots of numbers, especially when you are not a ten-figured typist, is far easier when you are using a numeric keypad.

My chief issue with laptops which have numeric keypads is that the keys on the keypad are smaller than the main keys on the keyboard. This makes the keypad more difficult to use, especially for a person with large fingers. I also take issue with keypads that are not level with the rest of the keyboard and kepyads that shrink the "0 Ins", Enter, or +, -, *, / keys or change their position from the normal layout as given in the Model M. The 101 keypad is designed for all five fingers of the right hand, anyone who wishes to change it should give it more careful thought than what I see in laptops with them that do not follow the ordinary layout. The only change I have ever seen that has merit is what Northgate did with most of their Omnikey keyboards, they cut the + key in half and put a standalone = key.

Let me turn from the keypad, which is arguably unnecessary for the smaller laptop (you can use a USB numeric keypad if you really need one), to more blatant laptop keyboard sins. First, why is the function key row shortened? Admittedly the "Print Screen Sys Rq", Scroll Lock and "Pause Break" are vestigal leftovers from the DOS days. Macintoshes have never used them to my knowledge, on their older keyboard they were designed F13, F14, F15. They can be programmed through software in Windows to perform useful functions. But the Esc key is still very useful, while the "~`", far less used, is often full-sized. Function keys are important and the first keys people tend to use when setting functions in a program. I do not want to have to wish for long fingernails (being a guy) just to hit the function keys. While I know that size counts in laptops, I have never read a convincing reason not to full-size these keys.

On the Model M, the main keyboard area is set up in a 15x5 matrix of keys. Some keys (Shifts, Ctrls, Alts, Caps Lock, Tab, Backspace, Enter, Spacebar, "| \") are larger than the standard alphanumeric key size, but none are smaller. Except for the Enter and + key on the numeric keypad, all other keys are the standard size. The cursor control keys (a.k.a. arrow keys) should be the same size as all the other keys, but rarely are on a laptop. Ironically, IBM is to blame here, with their Thinkpads having half-size cursor control keys. Whatever the justification then, there is no point now. Since everybody must have the arrow keys in the inverted-T style, desigers struggle with how to implement that. Many do half keys and try to fit all the keys on the Spacebar row. Some increase the size of the Spacebar row a little to accomodate the keys, but I believe this looks ugly. Some have the Right, Left & Down keys go a bit below the Spacebar row, but the keys are still smaller. Since horizontal size is at a premium, I think the best way I have seen is to shorten the R. Shift and put the Up key next to it and below the Enter key. Typists generally would appreciate that, since the pinky tends to travel to the left side of the key. Such keyboards tend to have the Home, Page Up, Page Down and End keys go down the keyboard, but the Ins and Del keys are short.

I have little use for the new keys of the 104 keyboard. I prefer a wider spacebar to these things. The Windows keys tend to have no use outside of Microsoft products. The Macintosh uses Option keys in the same place as the Windows keys, but since I have never used Macs I cannot comment on their functionality. The same function of pressing either Windows key can also be had with Ctrl Esc. If I had need of them in combination, I would program a function key to mimic the functionality. The Menu key is not a key I would imagine many people or programs use, and Shift F10 performs the same function in Windows. I have seen laptop and even some smaller desktop keyboards that omit one Windows key and or the Menu key.

Of course, the 101-key layout is not perfect. Its few flaws can be summarized here: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/kb/layout/stdEnh101-c.html However, it is the standard and designs that stray too far from it have no chance of succeeding in the marketplace.

I know that, even with a widescreen, there is not enough horizontal space for a full-sized keyboard. However, in addition to the screen, the upper half of the laptop should also have speakers on the sides. A webcam should be on top. The extra room would give more room for a keyboard with a numeric keypad and a full-size Esc row.

I find it rather silly to have a Fn key in a laptop with a full-sized keyboard with numeric keypad. If you have a keyboard with a numeric keypad, you will have editing and cursor control keys available. This was the way IBM did it with its PC, PC/XT & PC AT. IBM also made a Model M SpaceSaver keyboard, which started the trend of using the letters as a keypad. IBM put the Num Lock key on the Scroll Lock key and used the Shift key to determine the Num Lock/Scroll Lock key's function. As for the other functions, I would have separate, non keyboard buttons used. These function are not vital in any way to the machine.

As far as current laptop keyboards, I would recommend three as the least worst.

The Sony Vaio F series has a surprisingly excellent layout for a laptop. Sony did not skimp on the numberpad. However, the cursor control and editing keys are half-sized. Sony's previous flagship laptop, the AW, had an even better keyboard layout, with full-sized cursor control and editing keys (save for Ins and Del) at the expense of the R. Shift key.

The Dell Alienware m17x has a very good keyboard, but the key surface area is a bit smaller than other keyboards. The cursor keys are only slightly smaller than the rest of the keys. Dell, there is no reason you cannot add the extra millimeter or two. The Dell Precision M6500 also uses the same design, but is much more expensive.

The Lenovo Thinkpad W700, which is currently unavailable because it is being revamped with Intel Core processors, is the only Lenovo with a numeric keypad. Like all Thinkpads, the Fn key is in an annoying place to the left of the L. Ctrl key. It should always be to the right of the L. Ctrl. Unusual in these times, it has a pointing stick (TrackPoint) in addition to the touchpad.

Famicom AV: Best Overall Choice for the running NES & Famicom Cartridges

2010-02-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

We here at Nerdly Pleasures were real fans of the Nintendo Entertainment System. This little gray box is the reason why we still play video games today We have not forgotten about it, we still enjoy playing many, many of the approximately 750 unique North American games released during the console's lifespan. While there is something to be said for emulating the games, there is nothing quite like playing on a real system connected to a television screen.

Using the NES today has one problem, but it is a big one, the gray box (which in enthusiast circles is called the front loader) is terribly unreliable. Back in the day, the push-in-and-down cartridge slot caused stress on the connectors. Eventually obtaining and maintaining good contact between the 72 pins of the cartridge and the connector was no longer guaranteed. If contact was broken, then the game would fail to start or crash. On pressing the power button, if you saw a blinking screen or a solid screen of one color, that meant there was not good contact between the cartridge and connector.

Two other issues exacerbated this unreliable mechanism. First was the NES lockout chip, the first of an endless line of copy-protection measures. The lockout chip inside the cartridge communicated with the one inside the system, and if the could not establish or maintain their delicate serial communications, the system would reset about twice a second. This meant flashing screens. Second, children discovered that by blowing on the contacts of the cartridge or system, they could often disperse the dust causing the faulty connection. The side effect is that the saliva being blown onto the cartridge connector would, over time, corrode the contacts. Hence more unreliable connections.

Many companies sell replacement cartridge connectors or refurbished NES units. There are issues here too. First, all connectors are not created equal, and many of them are so tight that you practically need a pair of pliers to extract the cartridge when you want to change a game. Second, the tightness of the connectors causes them to wear out more quickly than looser connectors. Eventually, the connectors will wear out. Refurbishing the connectors yourself requires a lot of time and the patience to slightly bend pins back to give a proper connection.

Fortunately, there are other options. First is the Redesigned NES, better known as the Top Loader. The Top Loader was released at the end of the NES's life in 1993 as a cheap, entry level system. It was a seriously cost reduced design. Gone is the lockout chip and the unused expansion port. As its nickname suggests, the cartridge slot consists of a vertical slot and a dust cover. The PCB is as simplified as it gets without getting rid of any essential components. Games tended to work much more reliably in the vertical slot, no extra stress on the pins from having to rotate the cartridge to make contact with both sets of pins in the slot.

Two issues developed with the Top Loader, one major, one minor. The minor one apparently is that it would not work with certain unlicensed games that relied on the presence of a lockout chip and defeat it before the game would work I have never been able to confirm this, except for the licensed rarity known as the Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge. The Game Genie's PCB may be too thick to fit inside the slot, and there was an adapter to make it work, but it is now extremely rare.

The major issue is that the Top Loader has the worst video quality of any official NES-compatible hardware. Vertical lines run down the screen every other pixel it seems. This is especially apparent on backgrounds of certain solid colors, which is common on older NES titles. Add to this the R/F only output, (whereas the front loader has composite video as well), and you have a serious barries to oldskool enjoyment.

Before Nintendo released the NES, it had already proven successful with the Famicom in its native land of Japan. The Famicom and NES are virtually identical from a programmer's perspective. Hardware-wise, they use different cartridge connectors, the Famicom uses a 60-pin connector while the NES uses a 72-pin connector. Thus, using US cartridges on a Famicom requires a 72-60 pin converter. Other disadvantages of using a Famicom is that the controllers are hardwired to the system and the cables are very short. Replacing worn out controllers is not as easy as it is for the NES. The other big issue with using a regular Famicom is that the R/F signal was designed to be tuned to Japanese standards, which are just different enough from US standards to be annoying. While a regular NES or other console RF system tunes to channel 2, 3 or 4, you need to set your TV to channel 95 or 96 to get the proper frequency for the Famicom's RF signal. Not all TVs can do that, although more modern ones can more easily. The Twin Famicom by Sharp (designed by Nintendo) has the same problems but has a Famicom Disk System inside the unit.

More interesting is the Sharp Famicom Titler. While it has the attached controllers, it also has composte and S-Video outputs. While they provide a sharper picture, they have graphics issues. Normal US NES and Famicoms use a 2C02 Composite Video PPU, the Titler and the Playchoice-10 devices use a 2C03 RGB Video PPU. The titler has a chip that converts the RGB output from the PPU to S-Video, composite video and R/F video. The 2C02 cannot output a good S-Video signal because the luma and chroma signals are mixed within the chip. Because the genesis of the graphics are from the RGB PPU, there are issues. The RGB and Composite palettes generally track each other but there are color differences. The Composite PPU can generate more gray shades than the RGB. Games like The Immortal will not show graphics on the RGB PPU because they use a feature that works as intended on the Composite PPU (diming the brightness generally) which will give a solid white screen on an RGB device.

Finally, let me discuss the Famicom AV. This unit was first released in 1993 or 1994 just as Nintendo was ready to stop producing games for the Famicom. It is the smallest true Nintendo NES/Famicom device. Because of its relative newness, you can find them in good shape.

It uses the Nintendo Multi-Out A/V connector that the SNES, N64 and Gamecube use. (The RGB and S-Video cables will not output video). Unlike the first model SNES, it does not have an R/F output, but the Nintendo RF adapter which plugs into the Multi-Out should work. It uses the same power requirements as a SNES power adapter but the plug which it expects is different. The adapter for a Sega Master System or Sega Genesis fits and works perfectly with the Famicom AV.

The Famicom AV is chiefly distinguished by its video quality. It has the best true composite output of any other NES/Famicom. With licensed and unlicensed cartridges, the vertical stripes are non-existent. Even on the front loader NES they can be visible at times. The audio is still mono as with any unmodified NES/Famicom; each audio outputs jack on any cable will output the exact same sound.

The Famicom AV has the same two controller ports as found in the NES. It also comes with two "new-style" (dogbone) controllers. I personally prefer to use dogbones over the original old-style rectangular NES controllers because they are more comfortable to hold in your hands over an extended period of time and the concave buttons are easier on the thumb than the convex buttons of the old-style controller. However, the controllers that come with the Famicom AV only have a cable length of 3 feet, NES controllers have 6 foot cables. Gamers in Japan generally have less room than US, so the cable lengths are shorter. Top loader NESes came with 1 dogbone controller, but it had a 6 foot cable length.

The Famicom AV, just like the original Famicom, supports all official Famicom cartridges, including ones that have extra sound hardware within. It also supports the Famicom Disk System. However, games that made use of the microphone on the second attached original Famicom controller will not be able to make use of that functionality. Fortunately, the functionality is not important in any game a non-Japanese person is likely to play. The Legend of Zelda uses it to kill the Pols Voice monsters, Kid Icarus to lower the shopkeeper's prices.

The more important limitation of the Famicom AV's second controller port is that it does not support the NES Zapper or the Arkanoid NES Vaus Controller. The reason why is because there are two data lines which are connected on the NES's second controller port but not on the Famicom AV's. Fortunately, soldering two wires inside the unit can fix this, if you are brave enough to take an iron to the Famicom AV.

Playing NES games with the Famicom AV requires the player to use a 72-60 pin converter between cartridge and console. These used to be very difficult to find. 60-72 pin converters (they have ribbons attached) were much more common because more people were interested in playing Famicom games in their NES than vice-versa. However, with the greater availability of Famicom clones, 72-60 pin converters have become more available. Even so, not all are created equal. The "Family Converter" works perfectly with all NES cartridges, but it is no longer in production. More recent converters tend not to connect certain pins on the bus to the Picture Processing Unit & Video RAM inside the NES. While this is okay for almost all released NES games, 10 games (including Gauntlet, After Burner & Castlevania III) will be unplayable due to graphic errors. With some soldering and trace cutting on the converter, this problem can be fixed for cartridges.

Having explained the caveats, I still maintain that the Famicom AV is the best way to go to play commercial NES and Famicom games. You will enjoy the best overall experience.

Choices for Roland LA Synthesis

2010-02-10T19:25:00.000-08:00

We have a great love of DOS games here at Nerdly Pleasures. Our love generally begins at the "true" DOS games era, which began roughly in 1987. Before that time, most games published for the IBM PC platform were ports from other systems. Most games published prior to that time did not require DOS to run, they booted off a floppy disk when the machine was turned on. Games generally supported the Color/Graphics Adapter (CGA), most often capable of four colors, and the PC Speaker, a mono device without a volume control that could change the frequency of a simple square wave. If these games supported more advanced graphics or sound options, the user needed a special system to enjoy these features. The special systems, most typically the IBM PCjr. and Tandy 1000 line, had less than 100% compatibility with the IBM PC.

In 1988 games that supported the sixteen color Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) began to really emerge in the marketplace. While some games had appeared in the previous years, 1988 marks the first year when, unless you had a Tandy, you really should have bought a PC with EGA card inside it. Also in 1988, sound cards finally began to be supported by the major gaming companies. Many early cards competed for a coveted expansion slot in a user's computer, but only two really gained any market acceptance. The first was the Adlib card. This card contains a Yamaha sound chip that works via frequency modulation. As it was reasonably priced ($190) and offered far better sound than the PC Speaker or the Tandy/PCjr. sound chip and could be installed in any computer with an available slot, it rapidly became the sound card of choice.

On the high end, game developers had begun to support Roland Corporation's MT-32 multitimbral sound module. This was an external midi sound module that interfaced to the computer through an MPU-401 card and breakout box. This device was intended primarily for computer composers and cost approximately $600 between the module and the interface. However, the synthesis method used, LA synthesis, produced sounds far better than the Adlib's chip. What is more, the user could program his own sounds into the unit.

Thus, there were choices for both types of computer user. Many, many games supported both devices. The music quality generally was far more impressive on the MT-32 than an Adlib. Soon, however, there was competition in this area. Creative Labs' Sound Blaster cards quickly eclipsed the Adlib by using the same chip and adding a midi/joystick interface and digitized sound playback and recording at around the same price. The lack of standardization in the midi world in which the MT-32 was designed was solved when the General Midi standard became effective. Once GM devices began to proliferate, companies quickly abandoned the prickly MT-32.

The MT-32 and compatible modules may have been resigned to obscurity, and the games which used them to obselence, if not for the DOSBox emulator and the retro computing hobby. The DOSBox emulator has long supported games which use the MT-32 by emulating an MPU-401 interface. By connecting a physical unit to the modern machine's midi hardware (I use the USB Roland UM-1X), the music will play through the unit just as it would through a classic computer. Retro computer enthusiasts bypass the emulator and use a hardware MPU-401 interface.

No longer having to settle for Adlib music or having to pay extreme prices for the hardware, what is a lover of DOS games to do? While there is an MT-32 emulator called Munt, it is still in development. There has not been an official release in almost five years, and what has been released is not particularly accurate. So, for right now, using real hardware is the best option.

The MT-32 and all compatible devices are based off Roland's LA32 chip and there are only eight devices that are truly compatible. In addition to the MT-32, there is the CM-32L, CM-32LN, CM-64, CM-500, MT-100, LAPC-I, LAPC-N. Having had personal experience with all but two of these devices in the past decade, I would like to give the pros and cons of each:

First Generation LA32 Synthesis

The first generation devices are very speed sensitive. They required a 40ms delay between sending midi messages. While this was fine on a 286 machine, the speeds of a 486 and higher 386s would cause the game to send messages too quickly, leading to Buffer Overflows, stuttering or wrong sounds and lockups. The first generation devices are noticeably noisier than the later generations. However, a few Sierra games exploit bugs in first generation devices to produce sound effects which the later generation devices will not play correctly.

MT-32

This is the original module, and it has 128 preset instruments and 30 rhythm sounds. It also has memory for 64 user-defined sounds which the musician sends via sysex. It has 9 parts, with each part set to a different instrument and supports 32-note polyphony. All external modules have three standard midi ports, one IN, one OUT and one THRU.

It has a twenty character LCD display which many games used to send cute text messages via sysex. It has a buttons on the front to control various part parameters. It can control the volume of each part as well as the overall volume digitally. There is a key combination to reset the module without turning it off. There is also a diagnostic mode. You can even see the Control ROM version info. This module has 1/4" left and right audio output jacks.

Second Generation LA32 Synthesis

These modules sound less noisy than the first generation modules. They no longer require a delay between midi messages. This means they are suitable to be used with any computer system, regardless of processor speed. Some games will only work with second and third generation devices because they do not delay their midi messages.

MT-32

The second generation of the MT-32 has a 1/4" stereo headphone jack. All modules following will have right/left and stereo headphone 1/4" jacks. This module also contains demo tunes not present in the CM/LAPC series.

MT-100

This module is a bit more obscure than the others in this category. It is a combination of the capabilities of an MT-32 (minus some controls) and the Roland PR-100 sequencer. Its status panel only displays eight characters at a time (as opposed to the MT-32's twenty character display) and will NOT display sysex messages. Although its disk drive looks like a standard 3.5" drive, it uses 2.8" Quick Disks. These are the epitome of rare media in this country.

LAPC-I

This is the only LA32 device that is found on an expansion card. This is an 8-bit ISA (f.k.a. XT bus) card. It is 13" long, which is the maximum length of a PC expansion card. It can be connected to an MCB-1 midi expansion box to interact with external devices. This card adds 33 sound effects to the MT-32's capabilities, and certain DOS games used these sounds. It also has a Roland MPU-401 interface on board, which many MT-32 compatible DOS games require to produce MT-32 sounds. This makes it a very valuable card to retro computing enthusiasts.

This card has left and right audio RCA jacks and a stereo 1/8" minijack. Its MCB-1 has four midi jacks, 1IN, 2 OUTs and a SYNC. The OUTs can become THRUs by programming the MPU-401 interface.

In addition to requiring a unobstructed full-length ISA slot, this card also requires -5v power source. Modern ATX power supplies may not offer -5v power, and many computer cases cannot house 13" cards. These problems are not new, however, as Tandy 1000 compatible machines cannot accept 13" cards and often do not supply -5v power. As this is an ISA card, it is more succeptible to electrical noise from the rest of the PC, but I have never read of any serious complaints.

It may be possible that the earliest LAPC-I cards may not have jumper blocks to allow the user to select the I/O ports and/or IRQ to be used for the MPU-401 interface. I have never seen a card lacking them. Besides, many games expect a Roland MPU-401 to use I/O 330-331 and IRQ 2/9.

Because of this card's MPU-401 interface, Windows XP and olders OSes can detect and install the card as a midi device. DOSBox can use it directly in this fashion. If your DOSBox machine lacks ISA slots, you may wish to look at a USB2ISA adapter, but they are expensive and whether the card will work with such an adapter is uncertain. Otherwise, you can stick it in a retro computer and connect your modern machine's midi interface to the MCB-1 midi box.

If you use this method, in order to avoid resetting or restarting the retro machine every time you play a new game, you will need to send a reset command through a sysex program or embedded in a midi file. However, by default the MPU-401 interface will not transmit sysex from the MCB-1 to the LA32 synthesis component on the card. From the retro computer, you will need to run a program to instruct the MPU-401 interface to allow sysex messages to be accepted and sent to the LA32 component.

Finally, Roland will still service all external modules, but will not for the LAPC-I because they let their ISA testing equipment go.

CM-32L

This module has the same hardware features as the LAPC-I, minus the MPU-401 interface. All the CM modules only have an analog volume control knob on the front of the unit, no display, no buttons to change parameters. To reset these modules, you have to turn them off and back on or send a sysex message or play a midi file with the reset command embedded within.

CM-64

This module has a CM-32L board and combines it with a CM-32P board, all in a plastic enclosure the same size as either unit. The CM-32P uses PCM (pure samples) synthesis and has a slot to insert cards that will add additional sounds. These modules are designed to co-exist, with the CM-32L using midi channels 2-10 and the CM-32P channels 10-16. No DOS games are known to intentionally support CM-32P features. Because there are two PCBs in this enclosure, the resulting noise floor is higher than using the CM-32L. There is also an annoying feature: games that are not CM-32P/CM-64 "aware" and send data to the midi channels reserved to the CM-32P will produce unintentional, obtrusive sounds.

LAPC-N

This is just like the LAPC-I, but it is designed for the Japanese PC-98xx series of computers. It uses the C-bus, which is similar to the ISA bus of the IBM PCs but utterly useless on them. The only practical value this rare device may have for PC games is if you use it with its Midi Expansion Box (MCB-2), installed inside a PC-98xx machine and use the combo as a midi module. See the LAPC-I entry for more details. Unfortunately how to communicate with the MPU-401 interface to let sysex through is beyond me.

Third Generation Roland LA32 Synthesis

Third generation modules have the best sound output quality to them, but the vibrato is noticeably different sounding, leading most users to prefer a second generation module.

CM-500

This used to be a very prized device, as it is a combination of a Roland CM-32L and a Roland CM-300. The Roland CM-300 is the barebones version of the Roland Sound Canvas SC-55, which is GS and (with later models) General Midi compatible. A switch on the back of the module needs to be set to use one, the other or both. The switches are as follows:

Mode A - CM-300 & CM-32L at the same time
Mode B - CM-64 emulation
Mode C - CM-300 only
Mode D - CM-300 on midi channels 1-10, CM-32L on channels 11-16.

Mode D is useless for DOS games that support MT-32 or compatibles, since they expect the module to use channels 2-10. Mode C is ideal for DOS games that support General Midi, but useless for MT-32 or compatible games. Mode B is generally useful for MT-32 compatible games, but it has the same problem as the CM-64 with regards to unwanted sounds coming from the emulated CM-32P. Using Mode A will solve that problem, but it requires the user to send a command to turn off the CM-300 parts before starting a game. You will not observe any results of changing the switch until you turn the device off and back on.

CM-32LN

This is another Japanese PC-98xx exclusive device, this time it was intended to connect to PC-98xx compatible notebooks through a special 110-pin connector. Fortunately it also has standard-sized midi jacks, so it can be used with IBM PC games without difficulty. It is also is grey in color, unlike the beige look of the rest of the CM modules.

Conclusion

If you want a module that just works with everything without any fuss, I would suggest a CM-32L. If you have a retro machine that can fit the card, try to get the LAPC-I, but they are not cheap anymore. If you want the best of both worlds, however, a combination of a first generation MT-32 and a CM-32L would work perfectly. If you also want GM/GS compatibility and not a bunch of modules cluttering your house, try for a CM-500. As far as places to buy, eBay is the obvious place but you should also consider Japanese Auction sites as well for some deals.

IMAX: When Will the Possibilities be Truly Realized?

2010-01-26T20:38:00.000-08:00

Seeing a film in an IMAX theater should be an experience like no other. An enormous screen, earthshaking sound, proper stadium seating, it is the technical pinnacle of mankind's attempts at cinematic presentation. Unfortunately, I believe that this experience, which has the potential to be truly awesome, is woefully underused.

But let me take us back about 60 years or so ago. In 1952, Merriam C. Cooper (of King Kong fame) unveiled the Cinerama process to the world. It was by far the most amazing way to see a film that had ever been presented to the masses. Instead of using one camera and a square screen in the standard Academy Ratio, it used three cameras projecting onto a huge, curved widescreen. Each camera displayed part of the image. The audio was equally astounding at seven tracks. It was a technological marvel.

However, as a cinematic innovation, it fell short of the intended goal. Cinerama features were primarily limited to documentaries and travelogues. Only two feature films were shot in the three camera process, and even single camera were used for difficult scenes. Not until single cameras were able to do some justice to the Cinerama screen did feature films begin, in the mid 1960s, to use the "Cinerama" brand name to promote the fictional cinematic art.

Interestingly, just as Cinerama, in its single-camera form, was dying in the early 1970s, IMAX was being invented. IMAX also deals in threes. Its film frame is essentially the width of three 70mm film frames vertically stacked side by side. The projectors for these films are enormous. The number of speakers are large and are positioned throughout the theater.

Yet, IMAX, in its native form, is still something of a sideshow. True, not converted IMAX features, are all documentaries and the like. These documentaries look and sound amazing, but in many cases, the technology is overkill for this kind of work. Even so, the material available is more of the novelty variety. More annoying is that these features seldom run longer than 40 minutes in length. It is hard to do justice to a subject in 40 minutes of film time. In terms of content, PBS will beat an IMAX feature every time.

Feature films should take true advantage by shooting in the native IMAX 70mm format. However, while feature films have been shown in IMAX theaters, they have been blown up (digitally) from their negative 35mm or 2K digital formats. This does not offer the visual clarity of a true IMAX presentation and generally requires that the image be letterboxed on the big screen. The aspect ratio of most feature films is 1.85:1 to 2.40:1, but the native IMAX aspect ratio is 1.44:1.

While there have been a handful of attempts to shoot a fictional film in IMAX, ~40 minutes does not equal a feature film (75 minutes is usually the bare minimum). There have been some recent encouraging signs. The Dark Knight shot four action scenes in the native IMAX format. I would dearly love to see them in their original form. It is important to note that the rest of the film was shot conventionally, which I have read means the aspect ratio changes during the film. The latest and greatest 3-D wonder, Avatar, has also been a great success in the IMAX theaters. However, this film was shot digitally using Sony 2K cameras, which do not tax the capabilities of the IMAX film frame.

I read that perhaps the greatest obstacle to filming a feature in true IMAX format is not the extra cost or the extra film reels, but the noise that the camera makes while filming. Is this serious? Is this the early 1930s, when primitive recording systems and loud cameras meant that camera and cinematographer had to fit inside a box? The answer is more simple, studios do not want to spend the extra $25 million to shoot a feature film in IMAX, just as they do not use standard 70mm film anymore. Modern 35mm is "good enough" and better when blown up on IMAX format. It is a hard sell, and until someone has the vision and clout to do it, IMAX is just a tease.