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D O S G A M E S A R C H I V E N E W S L E T T E R
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No. 11 * September 20, '99 * http://www.dosgamesarchive.com
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Welcome
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Welcome to the 11th issue of the DOS Games Archive News-
letter! We have included a special article about Prince of
Persia 3D and the first two versions. We hope you will
like it.
If you have any ideas for future content/articles
to include in our newsletter, we would like to hear from
you! Please e-mail us at webmaster@dosgamesarchive.com
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Table of contents
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+ What's new on DOS Games Archive?
- New design
- MS-DOS Games Ring
- New hosted site
+ Why not tell a friend?
+ Prince of Persia 3D
+ DOS is fast
- How does Windows handle this?
- Virtual device drivers
- Changes in the system files
+ Top 10 downloads
+ Wanted!
- Jones in the Fast Lane
- Mortal Kombat Trilogy
- Digger
- Rise of the Dragon
- Spector
- Paranoid
+ Webpoll
+ Site tip
- Classic Games
===================== Sponsor message =====================
Speed up and resume broken downloads with Go!Zilla 3.5. Go
for the freeware version and more information to this URL:
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/gozilla.html
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What's new on DOS Games Archive?
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-- New design ---------------------------------------------
DOS Games Archive has a completely new look! We are now
using tables instead of frames. We are wondering if you
like it, so please send us an e-mail about our new site.
That would be nice!
URL: http://www.dosgamesarchive.com
-- MS-DOS Games Ring --------------------------------------
We have changed the order of our webring. All the (illegal)
abondonware sites are gone. The sites which are currently
in the ring are as follows:
MidTimeGames http://midtimegames.dosgamesarchive.com
DOS Games Page http://www.dosgames.com
DOS Games Archive http://www.dosgamesarchive.com
Games Nostalgia http://nostalgia.dosgamesarchive.com
SaveGamesNet http://www.savegames.net
We will add more sites to the ring in a few days. If you
would like to join our webring, or just explore it, go to
the homepage of the ring.
URL: http://webring.dosgamesarchive.com
-- New hosted site ----------------------------------------
We are hosting a new site, called Classic Games. There are
some remakes for Windows and MS-DOS of classic games.
URL: http://classic.dosgamesarchive.com
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Why not tell a friend?
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Do you like DOS Games Archive? Why not tell a friend about
our archive with over 90 free MS-DOS games? You could even
win a Palm III from 3Com! So, refer a friend!
URL: http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=430650
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Prince of Persia 3D
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A long time ago, the legendary game Prince of Persia came
out. It was the first real platform game with amazing
graphics and nice sound. It was an action game with some
adventure elements, a nice combination. It wasn't an easy
game, there were many obstacles, puzzles and thinking
enemies. This game was the first one with good artificial
intelligence (AI). Prince of Persia was a real challenging
game and bought by thousands of people, worldwide!
In that time there wasn't a whole team of programmers,
designers, artists etc. One person, Jordan Mechner,
programmed the game. His father composed the music and
because Jordan wasn't a good drawer, he filmed his
brother's moves for the animations in the game. He
converted the film to bitmaps frame after frame with (in
that time) a modern technology, called rotoscoping. Today's
animations for games aren't so hard to create, because the
moves are converted directly to bitmaps by using 'motion
capturing'.
And now the news you're waiting for! There will be a new
version of Prince of Persia, called Prince of Persia 3D.
The game is created by Red Orb Entertainment, the game
division of Broderbund Software, the company which
published the first two versions.
But Red Orb Entertainment haven't used the 'motion
capturing' technology. They have also filmed actors for
the animations, so it looks very real! It's going to be
an action/adventure game with a third-person view. Jordan
Mechner was also a member of the team. He has written the
story. We think this game will gonna be a big success,
like the first two versions!
If you want to download the demo of Prince of Persia 2,
go to http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/games-t.html and
select Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame from
the list.
Red Orb Entertainment: http://www.redorb.com
Broderbund Software: http://www.broderbund.com
Prince of Persia 3D website: http://www.pop3d.com
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DOS is fast by Chris Cruickshank
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DOS programs and in particular DOS games tend to use the
very limits of a PC's power. They often do this by
accessing hardware directly rather than through the
operating system. Every ounce of speed is used by using the
direct approach.
However, this direct approach causes Windows so many
problems. Windows, by its' very nature requires programs to
'talk' to the computer through Windows itself. This is done
by the programmer using code that is supplied by Windows
rather than routines written by the programmers themselves.
For example, to draw a shape on a screen, Windows has
drawing routines that do this for you. Indeed, a window and
its' components, such as title bar, buttons, slider
controls etc., are handled by Windows so that the
programmer does not need to write code to draw these
objects.
This is fine for most sedentary programs like word
processors, databases and the like but not so useful when
you want screaming fast graphics flying around the screen
with suitable sound effects!
There appears to be a stalemate here and this often causes
problems running DOS programs under Windows. Another
problem is the age-old DOS 640KB limit. This limit, imposed
when DOS was first written in the early 1980's said that
the maximum base memory a program could use was 640KB. In
those days, a big computer was 64KB so multiplying that by
10 would be more than enough room. How wrong they were!
Into this 640KB must go the program itself along with
driver programs that are used to communicate with the
hardware itself. This may seem a daft way of doing things
but in fact it paved the way for the PC industry. It
allowed third party hardware components to be added to
a PC without having to replace the entire computer. Try
fitting a printer to a dedicated computer like hand held
game consoles!
-- How does Windows handle this? --------------------------
Windows 3.x handled DOS programs by allowing the user (and
yes, it was usually left to the user), the ability to
create a safe environment in which the DOS program could
run in, completely oblivious to Windows. This is known as
a shell.
A Program Information File, PIF, was used to set up this
environment. It included such things as command line
parameters, the type of available memory and whether the
program could run in a window. In Windows 3.x it was
necessary to have all the drivers used on your system (for
things such as CD-ROM drives, scanners, soundcards etc.)
to be loaded before Windows. This meant there was less
memory available for programs.
Numerous utilities managed memory in order to get the most
efficient set up possible. Windows 95/98 took this a step
further with virtual device drivers.
-- Virtual device drivers ---------------------------------
Microsoft looked at this situation of loading all drivers
into memory at the start of the session and thought, "What
if you only loaded those devices you actualy used rather
than all of them?" Of course, the computer didn't know
which devices were going to be used at the start of a
session so they devised a way to load the device drivers as
an when they were needed.
This means that a scanner's device driver for example would
only be loaded when the system called for access to the
scanner. If it wasn't used, it wasn't loaded. Hence the
term 'Virtual Device Driver', it's only loaded when needed.
-- Changes in the system files ----------------------------
This meant a change in the way the two main system files,
AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS where used. Looking at these
files on a Windows 95/98 system will reveal very few
drivers being loaded. This may appear to make it difficult
to produce a PIF for a DOS game. If these programs use such
devices that are loaded via Windows.
Enter the Windows 95/98 PIF file! Yes, PIF files are used
in Windows 95/98 but they are handled differently to
Windows 3.x systems. Windows 3.1 provided a PIF editor that
allowed you to set up an environment, but this didn't
included device drivers (those had to be loaded prior to
program execution).
Windows 95/98 handles this differently by allowing you to
create not only a unique environment but a unique load
sequence as well.
If you have tried to run a DOS game under Windows 95/98
you may well see the system automatically reboot your
machine into 'MS-DOS Mode'. This mode provides a start up
sequence and launches the program itself. When you exit,
the system reboots back into Windows. Why is this?
Most DOS programs do not 'tidy up' after themselves and
trying to run game after game after game often caused
system crashes due to one program affecting the system
that the second program couldn't cope with. Windows 95/98
recognises this by forcing the system to reboot and clear
out such things as memory.
For each DOS program you want to run under Windows 95/98,
it is possible to produce a unique environment and system
file start up set up to maximise memory by only loading
those devices actually used by the program. Games don't
tend to use scanners, so why bother loading the device
drivers?
How do you go about creating this unique environment? Read
this in the next newsletter!
This article is written by Chris Cruickshank
Copyright (c) 1998 Chris Cruickshank
We would like to thank Chris for providing his article.
===================== Sponsor message =====================
The third edition of the book 'DOS for Dummies' teach you
more about MS-DOS. The author manages to infuse practically
every passage with humor. If you're using DOS, this book
will provide you with valuable and professional help.
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/bookshop/index.html
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Top 10 downloads
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The following games are most downloaded from our site:
1. Mario 6. Cannon Fodder
2. Prince of Persia 2 7. Wolfenstein 3D
3. Pinball Fantasies 8. Ninja Rabbits
4. DOOM 9. Wacky Wheels
5. Lamborghini 10. Worms
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Wanted!
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In this section you will find postings from our message
board. Most people are looking for a game that isn't in our
archive. Maybe other visitors (or readers of this
newsletter) own the game. Then they could contact the
person who has written the message.
-- Jones in the Fast Lane ---------------------------------
> "I have been looking for this really cool game ever its
> called Jones in the Fast Lane if you have please e-mail
> me."
Lisa - rrshroy@internetcds.com
-- Mortal Kombat Trilogy ----------------------------------
> "Could someone tell me where to get Mortal Kombat
> Trilogy?"
Clint - bhagyanclinton@hotmail.com
-- Digger -------------------------------------------------
> "Hello,
> Do you remember the old game called 'Digger'? You move
> through a maze and have to dig your way through the
> earth. Walking under bags will let them drop after 2-3
> seconds... remember? Do you got that game or know where
> I can find this great game?
> Many thanks!"
Paul Stewart - pstewartp@hotmail.com
-- Paranoid -----------------------------------------------
> "Can't find a game called 'Paranoid', playable only with
> DOS"
Kannan - kannankasthurirangan@usa.net
-- Rise of the Dragon -------------------------------------
> "I'm looking for this very old game by Sierra/Dynamix, or
> at least its main plot/story. I mailed Sierra but they
> replied that they didn't have any info about it anymore.
> It would be cool if I could find it somewhere!
> Thanks in advance!"
Christopher Ranschae - haploc@hotmail.com
-- Spector ------------------------------------------------
> "An old game called Spector. Anyone know where I can find
> this classic?"
Scott - alien_power420@hotmail.com
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Webpoll
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Here are the results of our webpoll:
What's your favorite game genre?
Action 29% 81 votes
Arcade 19% 53 votes
Strategy 24% 65 votes
Simulation 15% 41 votes
Other 13% 36 votes
Total votes: 276
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Site tip
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-- Classic Games ------------------------------------------
Classic Games is a nice, little site about remakes of old
classics for Windows and MS-DOS. Check it out!
URL: http://classic.dosgamesarchive.com
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Thanks
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That's it for this issue of our newsletter. See you next
issue and thanks for reading!
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