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History class! Pre-Steam PC gaming
- Thread starter L Thammy
- Start date
TouchMyBox
Member
You ain't shit if you weren't on Spike's World.
zephervack
Member
An hour, lol, more like 3....
Setting up networks on Win XP was a freaking pain and when it was finally setup, everyone would be just copying porn and warez from everyone else on the network.
TouchMyBox
Member
And just like that, I realize that I have been pronouncing Warez incorrectly this entire time.
You don't need stereoscopic vision to take advantage of vr.
Nabs
Member
Oh man, me too. I would pronounce it like Juarez. What the fuck.
Baron_Calamity
Member
Where to start. Geez. in the early 1980s I had several computers. Commodore Vic 20, Coleco Adam, Atari 800 XL, and a Tandy CoCo. I got my first IBM PC compatible computer in 1986. A Tandy 1000 EX.
It was fairly beefy for an entery level pc. The CPU was 7.16 mhz 8088 instead of the standard 4 mhz 8086 and a year or so layer I upgraded that to a 12 mhz 8088 by NEC. The Tandy 1000 ex graphics had a special 320x200 16 color CGA mode that was modeled after the IBM PC JR's graphics and the audio was a special 3 channel beeper instead of the 1 channel beeper in most consumer ibm clones. King's Quest and Might & Magic 2 looked amazing in 16 color. I upgraded the system even further. I bumped the ram for 256k to a full 640k. Which cost me $400. I mostly did that to play Test Drive II. I also added a 3.5 floppy and a 1200 baud modem.
With the 1200 baud modem, I entered the land of dial up BBSes. I was extremely active inside these little isolated communities. I used a program called ProComm with my modem to connect. BBSes were often a single guy running the Bulletin Board Software on his personal machine. People would call up and leave messages and play simple door games. These BBSes often had themes and went by goofy titles such as; The Roman Empire, The Mythical Barn, Gooseman's Perch, and Whiplash Fantasy.
It was fairly beefy for an entery level pc. The CPU was 7.16 mhz 8088 instead of the standard 4 mhz 8086 and a year or so layer I upgraded that to a 12 mhz 8088 by NEC. The Tandy 1000 ex graphics had a special 320x200 16 color CGA mode that was modeled after the IBM PC JR's graphics and the audio was a special 3 channel beeper instead of the 1 channel beeper in most consumer ibm clones. King's Quest and Might & Magic 2 looked amazing in 16 color. I upgraded the system even further. I bumped the ram for 256k to a full 640k. Which cost me $400. I mostly did that to play Test Drive II. I also added a 3.5 floppy and a 1200 baud modem.
With the 1200 baud modem, I entered the land of dial up BBSes. I was extremely active inside these little isolated communities. I used a program called ProComm with my modem to connect. BBSes were often a single guy running the Bulletin Board Software on his personal machine. People would call up and leave messages and play simple door games. These BBSes often had themes and went by goofy titles such as; The Roman Empire, The Mythical Barn, Gooseman's Perch, and Whiplash Fantasy.
OP, surely the title was meant to say 'in the Pirating times...'
Oh Woops.
If you lived in a 3rd world country, like I did, you'd know there were no games in stores and even if there was some tiny selection they'd be like 2x the average salary, so pirating was the only way. Now we have Steam summer sales
Oh Woops.
If you lived in a 3rd world country, like I did, you'd know there were no games in stores and even if there was some tiny selection they'd be like 2x the average salary, so pirating was the only way. Now we have Steam summer sales
SteveWinwood
Member
one word
megarace
megarace
Yeah it was The Catacomb Abyss.
Also, people downloading shareware, or even playing via CD rather than floppy disk is blowing my mind
Omegasquash
Member
IBM PS2, and I was late to the PC scene. My first PC game was the Castle of Dr. Brain:
Spent hours on this bad boy over and over and over and over and over again. It was a 286, so not enough to run the shareware Doom that I bought, but after about 5 years I bought a Packard Bell with a CD drive. And Doom II. And Warcraft II. And Diablo. And Starcraft. And the internet.
And it was all downhill from there. Got started with tinkering, building my own rigs. Haven't stopped to this day.
Spent hours on this bad boy over and over and over and over and over again. It was a 286, so not enough to run the shareware Doom that I bought, but after about 5 years I bought a Packard Bell with a CD drive. And Doom II. And Warcraft II. And Diablo. And Starcraft. And the internet.
And it was all downhill from there. Got started with tinkering, building my own rigs. Haven't stopped to this day.
test_account
XP-39C²
I have many good memories from older PC games I still have many of the big box games that i bought when i was a kid. That is one element that has been lost with PC games unfortunately. Today, PC games in general have nearly no collection value, and they have pretty much zero resell value (most games are either digital only or requires online activation).
I still have many of the big box games that i bought when i was a kid. That is one element that has been lost with PC games unfortunately. Today, PC games in general have nearly no collection value, and they have pretty much zero resell value (most games are either digital only or requires online activation).Man, imagine being a fan of point-n-click games and never played any of those games before, then buying that package/collection. It would have to be an amazing feeling.
RoryDropkick
Member
BBS door games were the best. They really served as a precursor to MMOs in that they had big, persistent worlds and that multiple people could play at the same time.
Trade Wars 2002 and The Legend of the Red Dragon are probably the two biggest ones that people of the era remember.
You can still play these games, because they have been ported to the web/telnet. I dabbled for a while, but without the close community of a BBS, it loses a bit of its luster. These games would be perfect for the GAF community though, at least as a way to just get people together to play a relatively low impact social game.
I would LOVE to have a GAF run LORD game to play.
If you lived in a 3rd world country, like I did, you'd know there were no games in stores and even if there was some tiny selection they'd be like 2x the average salary, so pirating was the only way. Now we have Steam summer sales
Where?
I remember seing n64 version of Star Wars Episode 1 Racer for Nintendo 64 in store in Poland, but the game retailed for over $60 (with Dollar being worth more and wages being smaller back in the day). Meanwhile, local PC game publishers were trying to create budget series to get some of that money from people who pirate (I think TopWare was first), with CD Projekt (yes, yes) finally hitting with "eXtra Klasyka" in 98 or 99 IIRC with each game costing around $5, having low system requirements and being available in most hypermarkets (of course, that weren't the newest and the greatest, but they were usually decent at least, with a few gems). It was basically all I bought as a kid.
Not to mention, some time later a PC game costed usually around $30 or so.
You guys are spot on. Someone has posted the same looking color chart for Goblins 3 although with different code.
http://hol.abime.net/2752/miscshot
Looking through the list of Coktel Vision games on wikipedia. My booklet is most likely for Gobliiins 1.
Dr. Zoidberg
Member
Exactly. There was a BBS in my area called the Warez House. I always assumed that it was just run by a guy with the last name of Warez. It was much, much later that I heard it was pronounced "wares" and was pirate stuff.
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
I was not a big PC gamer back at the time, but I had some games on floppy disks, like Jazz Jack Rabbit, Monkey Island, Commander Keen 4, Duke Nukem 1 and 2, Hocus Pocus, Jill of the Jungle, Biomenace, etc.
Then came PCs with CDs, and with the PC came Alunser Jr., MSFT Soccer, Syberia, "Salvaje" (was a game about you being a lyon that grew up, never knew the name in english) and a ton of demos. Battle Chess came too.
I didn't buy a ton of PC games on CDs, Civilization 2 and Might and Magic 6.
But in my first trip to the USA, I bought a disc with 1000 games included, and surprisingly it wasn't that terrible. Had a few gems inside.
Shitty packaging all around.
Then came PCs with CDs, and with the PC came Alunser Jr., MSFT Soccer, Syberia, "Salvaje" (was a game about you being a lyon that grew up, never knew the name in english) and a ton of demos. Battle Chess came too.
I didn't buy a ton of PC games on CDs, Civilization 2 and Might and Magic 6.
But in my first trip to the USA, I bought a disc with 1000 games included, and surprisingly it wasn't that terrible. Had a few gems inside.
Shitty packaging all around.
Might and Magic VI was one of my favorite 'pre-Steam' PC games. It holds up reasonably well (graphics aside) even today; I played through it again a couple years ago, making it the only 100+ hour game that I've finished more than once. If Ubisoft ever releases a Might and Magic XI: Legacy version, hopefully they'll base it on the Might and Magic VI/VII/VIII design.
Another game I remember enjoying a lot was Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. That was one of the last PC games I played before I got sucked into Everquest for a couple years.
Fattony12000
Member
Heh, you're right!
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
Oh man, I was looking for a good front end to DOS Box, and stumbled into DBGL, which has a great homepage with links to free old DOS game packs (free as in released by the publishers and free to download, not pirate, rejoice!); BioMenace, Jazz Jackrabbit, Zone 66, Jill of the Jungle, etc.
I fucking paid for those games!
I fucking paid for those games!
Schobeleth
Member
I still remember playing this game fondly with my dad off and on, since we only had one copy we had to share it.
It had so much going for it, and yet no one I knew really played it or heard of it. This was before I started frequenting any online forums, though.
It had so much going for it, and yet no one I knew really played it or heard of it. This was before I started frequenting any online forums, though.
Train of Midnight
Banned
elcuervo75
Banned
I don't miss the old days of PC gaming at all, with the exception of my old online clan that I ran.
On my first PC (486) I spent $160 to upgrade from 4MB of RAM to 8MB to play some jet combat game. All the messing around I had to do for each game, just to get it to run.
Now, with steam and controller support for most games it is soooo much better these days. The games are more fun for the most part IMO also. I just wish someone out there would make a true successor to Wolfenstein Enemy Territory so I could run a game server for that and have a blast once again!
On my first PC (486) I spent $160 to upgrade from 4MB of RAM to 8MB to play some jet combat game. All the messing around I had to do for each game, just to get it to run.
Now, with steam and controller support for most games it is soooo much better these days. The games are more fun for the most part IMO also. I just wish someone out there would make a true successor to Wolfenstein Enemy Territory so I could run a game server for that and have a blast once again!
So speaking of steam and controllers, fun fact: the steam controller works with these ancient systems. Those pcs I posted last page? Plug a steam controller into them and it works. It defaults to the normal legacy mappings. I played system shock 2, on a real pentium, with the steam controller.
MrCunningham
Member
I had a Colour Computer 3 when I was a kid, exactly like this one here:
with 128K of RAM. Though to be honest, I didn't use it for much, as it was so hard to find software/ game cartridges for this, even looking at the local Radio Shack, they had next to nothing. So I never really knew how to use it. I do remember that this machine came with this massive book on how use Extended Basic, it was like the size of a phone book. But being so young I could only do so little with what the manual would show me. I also didn't have any accessories to save anything, like a tape reorder or a disk drive. I think my parents sold it in a yard sale or something.
There were some interesting home brew ports for this thing later on in its life though. Like this fan made Donkey Kong port, which uses a 512k expansion module. Really amazing how arcade perfect it looked.
My parents also had an Tandy 1000. I think it may have been an SL or TX, I forget. But I do remember playing stuff like Willy Beamish, Thexder, Monkey Island, and even Leisure Suit Larry on that.
A liitle bit newer than the great Indy/NASCAR games of Papyrus ... but the king of all racing sims. I even bought a wheel (a very cheap one) only for this. It was the ultimate feeling of being MATURE when you're 8:
I never did get to play the Indy car sequels, but the original Indy 500 did impress me when I was young. Even though it ran at like 10FPS on my friends parents PC , the replays were still amazing. I do remember owning NASCAR Racing, though I had no idea that this was made by the same developer.
Bl@de
Member
I had a Colour Computer 3 when I was a kid, exactly like this one here:
with 128K of RAM. Though to be honest, I didn't use it for much, as it was so hard to find software/ game cartridges for this, even looking at the local Radio Shack, they had next to nothing. So I never really knew how to use it. I do remember that this machine came with this massive book on how use Extended Basic, it was like the size of a phone book. But being so young I could only do so little with what the manual would show me. I also didn't have any accessories to save anything, like a tape reorder or a disk drive. I think my parents sold it in a yard sale or something.
There were some interesting home brew ports for this thing later on in its life though. Like this fan made Donkey Kong port, which uses a 512k expansion module. Really amazing how arcade perfect it looked.
My parents also had an Tandy 1000. I think it may have been an SL or TX, I forget. But I do remember playing stuff like Willy Beamish, Thexder, Monkey Island, and even Leisure Suit Larry on that.
I never did get to play the Indy car sequels, but the original Indy 500 did impress me when I was young. Even though it ran at like 10FPS on my friends parents PC , the replays were still amazing. I do remember owning NASCAR Racing, though I had no idea that this was made by the same developer.
The 1993 sequel was awesome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9mH9yyZ7cM
NASCAR too, I only thought the Tracks are kind of Boring
But that comes with NASCAR ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaxU9-UNFic (Dat Rock Music Intro)
I still remember playing this game fondly with my dad off and on, since we only had one copy we had to share it.
It had so much going for it, and yet no one I knew really played it or heard of it. This was before I started frequenting any online forums, though.
I saw an original box copy of this in a used book store a couple years ago and somehow didn't buy it (just a few bucks). How I regret that...
radioactivez0r
Member
Playing the demo of a game over and over and over, because I couldn't afford to go buy a bunch of games. Going with my dad to buy our first (4x!) CD-ROM and Soundblaster and helping to install it.
Also SimAnt.
Also SimAnt.
I had a Colour Computer 3 when I was a kid, exactly like this one here:
with 128K of RAM. Though to be honest, I didn't use it for much, as it was so hard to find software/ game cartridges for this, even looking at the local Radio Shack, they had next to nothing. So I never really knew how to use it. I do remember that this machine came with this massive book on how use Extended Basic, it was like the size of a phone book. But being so young I could only do so little with what the manual would show me. I also didn't have any accessories to save anything, like a tape reorder or a disk drive. I think my parents sold it in a yard sale or something.
There were some interesting home brew ports for this thing later on in its life though. Like this fan made Donkey Kong port, which uses a 512k expansion module. Really amazing how arcade perfect it looked.
My parents also had an Tandy 1000. I think it may have been an SL or TX, I forget. But I do remember playing stuff like Willy Beamish, Thexder, Monkey Island, and even Leisure Suit Larry on that.
I'm sure everybody remembers when PC games used to have tons of screenshots on the back of the box from like every version of the game (except CGA dos lol). That is the entire reason I am familiar with the Tandy, because I used to stare at those screenshots for hours. Usually, the Amiga screenshots looked miles better than anything else, but the Tandy Screenshots were normally so good as well.
In retrospect, that was pretty terrible false advertising lol.
MrCunningham
Member
The 1993 sequel was awesome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9mH9yyZ7cM
NASCAR too, I only thought the Tracks are kind of Boring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaxU9-UNFic (Dat Rock Music Intro)
IndyCar Racing looked really impressive for a 1993 release. And yeah, I never really cared for Nascar much either, but I remember buying that game from a bargain bin for like less than 10 dollars or something way back in the day.
The different versions of Street Fighter 2 for DOS and Windows come to mind. I remember drooling at how arcade perfect they looked from the back of the box images in computer stores.
metalhead79
Neo Member
My parents bought a Kaypro 8088 in 1989. I was nine years old. I was hooked the second it was unboxed. I started out with games like Moraff's Entrap, Dig Dug. I remember buying LHX (helicopter "sim") at the PX at Schofield Barrack's in Hawaii and the framrate was so bad I had to plan my moves a few seconds ahead.
A couple years later we got a Packard Bell 386SX. I could finally play LHX without lag! I played Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Wing Commander, Airborne Ranger...oh god, so many games.
After we got a Pentium MMX I was able to play stuff like Falcon 3.0, Tornado (Panavia Tornado - European swing wing strike aircraft), Tie Fighter, Dark Forces.
I started building my own gaming PCs around 2002.
I remember playing Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Armed and Dangerous, Sacrifice, Tachyon: The Fringe, Freespace 1 & 2, Privateer, Mechwarrior, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights.....
I've been a hardcore PC enthusiast pretty much all my life. Even when I try to quit PC gaming and go full console, I just can't. I guess it's just a part of me now.
A couple years later we got a Packard Bell 386SX. I could finally play LHX without lag! I played Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Wing Commander, Airborne Ranger...oh god, so many games.
After we got a Pentium MMX I was able to play stuff like Falcon 3.0, Tornado (Panavia Tornado - European swing wing strike aircraft), Tie Fighter, Dark Forces.
I started building my own gaming PCs around 2002.
I remember playing Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Armed and Dangerous, Sacrifice, Tachyon: The Fringe, Freespace 1 & 2, Privateer, Mechwarrior, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights.....
I've been a hardcore PC enthusiast pretty much all my life. Even when I try to quit PC gaming and go full console, I just can't. I guess it's just a part of me now.
Well. Shit.
Is that a space in "Remain" ??
fixed width font. Looks like each character was 8 or so pixels wide, even the i.
I remember dealing with the joy of network gaming before MS included TCP starting with 95 I think. Used to be 3rd party in 3.1 and flaky as hell. DOS was even more of a can of worms. They made you earn those shareware demo disk games if you wanted to get 256 color VGA in all its hi-rez glory.
Tizoc
Member
The glory days of PC Magazine full games.
And other gems like
Wing Commander 5
Settlers 2
Anno 1602
Mechcommander 2
Outcast
*sigh* PC gaming was never dead.
I believe most of these are on gog.com
Reminds me of the awesome copy protection for Delphine Software's "Future Wars":
Asked before but asking again. I've had this booklet since forever; does anyone know what game it's for?
Match the color to the appropriate paint splot -- hope you're not colorblind!
Wiktor
Member
All DID sims were incredible, with Total Air War being the pinnacle of their work
As they said back them "There are only two kind of simulators: those made by DID and everythin else"
They were so ahead of everybody else tech-wise. Shame they got closed down.
All of this! Up to my father having a "luggable". He donated it to a friend that ran a little computer museum. I went there once. It had the luggable with a sign on it that said 'don't touch really old'. Then I felt really old.that feeling the day Sierra released Betrayal at Krondor for free and I had to download 12MB over dialup
not being able to correctly answer the trivia questions for Leisure Suit Larry to unlock the adult content
the general use of decoder rings or manual page codes as a form of copy protection
editing autoexec.bat and config.sys
editing IRQs
this:
playing commander keen on my father's "portable pc" (note to babies: portable pcs are what existed before laptops, and they were basically 40-50LB boxes with tiny screens and handles on them so they were easier to carry)
gorilla.bas
sky roads
having to choose between the ega versions of games, which ran faster, and the vga versions of games, which looked better
But so many good memories. My dad would hide the R rated games behind his socks in his closet. Of course we found out and then you'd fire it up and it was all like
NOOOOOO
oh yeah it was in monochrome which made Police Quest particularly challenging when you had to follow that red car.
then later in high school I was one of the four kids that would sign up to this computer class, and we'd spend all time playing Gorllia.bas. Then the teacher would look over our shoulder and ask who made this, and we said Bill Gates and he was all hmm hmm in which class is he now?
HahahaI had Contra. Back of the box:
Oooh, ahhh. Boot up the game:
Well. Shit.
Sentenza
Member
I remember their other slogan, something like "The only simulator more accurate than this is still classified" (not sure if the wording is accurate here, I'm translating it from old Italian magazines).All DID sims were incredible, with Total Air War being the pinnacle of their work
As they said back them "There are only two kind of simulators: those made by DID and everythin else"
Strangely enough, that was entirely true, since they were the ones developing those military simulators, too.
First game I played online was Age of Empires 2, back on Microsofts online system.
Back then, at least in AoE for a time, a lot of people referred to "lol" as "lots of laughs" rather than "laughing out loud", strange but true.
I remember it well, good times, apart from when someone needed to use the phone and you were in the middle of a death match...
It was on a Time PC, that came in three HUGE boxes, with a whole bunch of crappy "games" and "educational" software, one of the educational games was actually amazing, and I loved it, and I have never been able to remember the name, nor with hours and hours of searching ever find it or the name online.
if you are from the UK, you might remember Time/Tiny, they were famous for making terrible PC's, mine was replaced four times in a year, same guy picked it up each time and delivered it again, we knew him pretty well after all the back and forth with Time.
Back then, at least in AoE for a time, a lot of people referred to "lol" as "lots of laughs" rather than "laughing out loud", strange but true.
I remember it well, good times, apart from when someone needed to use the phone and you were in the middle of a death match...
It was on a Time PC, that came in three HUGE boxes, with a whole bunch of crappy "games" and "educational" software, one of the educational games was actually amazing, and I loved it, and I have never been able to remember the name, nor with hours and hours of searching ever find it or the name online.
if you are from the UK, you might remember Time/Tiny, they were famous for making terrible PC's, mine was replaced four times in a year, same guy picked it up each time and delivered it again, we knew him pretty well after all the back and forth with Time.
Sparrowhawk
Member
I never thought I could sink so many hours into an encyclopedia.