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General discussion (archive)Was PC Gaming used to be like this..........................(105 posts)(105 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 09, 2012
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michaelleung: I find any hate over the Internet hard to consider rational. Either way, you're just very petty.

Also, McRIb.
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Tormentfan: Yeah, yeah.. stop trying to be a smartass.. then optiing out for food, that's twice so far, you going for a hat-trick?

But you're coming at it from the wrong direction.. it's not strong enough for hate.. I just dislike you.
On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being Brian Blessed and 10 being Robert Mugabe, where is the dislike for me? 7.5?

I love this. It's like talking to a wall... if the wall hated you for no real reason. Now I know what it's like to be a UN peacekeeper.
Post edited April 09, 2012 by michaelleung
Posted April 09, 2012
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Tormentfan: Yeah, yeah.. stop trying to be a smartass.. then optiing out for food, that's twice so far, you going for a hat-trick?

But you're coming at it from the wrong direction.. it's not strong enough for hate.. I just dislike you.
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michaelleung: On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being Brian Blessed and 10 being Robert Mugabe, where is the dislike for me? 7.5?
I'll leave that for you to decide considering that I actually like Brian Blessed, and you don't rate to being a Mugabe.
Post edited April 09, 2012 by Tormentfan
Posted April 09, 2012
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cw8: Gamers then were probably more concerned if they had enough Extended Memory to play the game, playing around with himem.sys, had like 10 or more bootdisks with different Config.sys and Autoexec.bat configurations.
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Fomalhaut30: Don't forget Expanded memory.

Editing config and autoexec were some of the most hair-pulling things ever. Had to make sure to get the drivers loaded in the proper order. Think my best for getting free conventional RAM was something like 610k-ish out of 640k free with mouse, soundcard and mscdex loaded.
Config.sys was a pain. But Autoexec.bat was fun as heck for bootup, e.g.
Echo Formatting C:\>.....................
Wondered how we learnt the commands as a kid/teen back then without the net and just through word of mouth and For Dummies books.
Posted April 09, 2012
AVGN with a commodore 64 game
http://youtu.be/1dJXgJ1c4vY
Posted April 09, 2012
IIRC, Waxworks employed code wheel. That was a new experience to my brother and me back then. Oh, and I still have the *thick* manual full of numeric codes for The Terminator 2029 (1992) game from Bethesda :-)
Posted April 09, 2012
I remember in Prince of Persia the sword and the flame you had to match up symbols or something in the instruction manual with what was on screen, when you got to the island.

Shit I cant remember, maybe someone here older then me can remember how it worked. Played it when I was little and never got past that stupid skeleton on the bridge that copied your movements. The traps scared that shit out of me to, like the spikes coming out of the wall. lol good times.
Posted April 09, 2012
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cw8: Gamers then were probably more concerned if they had enough Extended Memory to play the game, playing around with himem.sys, had like 10 or more bootdisks with different Config.sys and Autoexec.bat configurations.
Pretty much. My first computer had a whopping 2mb of RAM initially , but I still had to put in a lot of time figuring out how to get the either 512kb or 640kb of low memory available for the games. And event hen 2mb of RAM was a fair amount of memory that required an upgrade.

But, then again, it's not that much different from the PS3s where you have to hope that you have a version that's compatible with the game you want to play because Sony stripped features out of more recent versions.
Posted April 09, 2012
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Fomalhaut30: Don't forget Expanded memory.

Editing config and autoexec were some of the most hair-pulling things ever. Had to make sure to get the drivers loaded in the proper order. Think my best for getting free conventional RAM was something like 610k-ish out of 640k free with mouse, soundcard and mscdex loaded.
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cw8: Config.sys was a pain. But Autoexec.bat was fun as heck for bootup, e.g.
Echo Formatting C:\>.....................
Wondered how we learnt the commands as a kid/teen back then without the net and just through word of mouth and For Dummies books.
Word of mouth?

For Dummies books?

Pshaw good sir. Pshaw I say! The true PC'er back then simply experimented to see what did, or did not work. Sure, you might end up formatting your boot disk or opening a rift to Gehenna by telling something to load into EMS before you initialized EMS, but by gum, you only did it once!
Posted April 09, 2012
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cw8: Config.sys was a pain. But Autoexec.bat was fun as heck for bootup, e.g.
Echo Formatting C:\>.....................
Wondered how we learnt the commands as a kid/teen back then without the net and just through word of mouth and For Dummies books.
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Fomalhaut30: Word of mouth?

For Dummies books?

Pshaw good sir. Pshaw I say! The true PC'er back then simply experimented to see what did, or did not work. Sure, you might end up formatting your boot disk or opening a rift to Gehenna by telling something to load into EMS before you initialized EMS, but by gum, you only did it once!
Yeah, really, I learned DOS from the thick tome that came with it.

I remember destroying the entire filesystem by accidentally typing del .
Posted April 09, 2012
I'm not exactly sure what era the OP is remembering, because this sounds like a lot of rose coloured nostalgia that didn't really happen. PC games have always had a history of stupid install issues and barriers to entry. I can only think of a very few games I bought back in "the day" that didn't have some kind of cursory protection, even if it was just a CD key. And many games had serious errors and setting problems if you had a computer that wasn't so great.

So no. I don't remember just putting in the game and playing. Hell, in the case of GOG games I'd say it's easier now, because I don't have to put in a disc at all. Just click an icon and go.
Posted April 09, 2012
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PenutBrittle: I'm not exactly sure what era the OP is remembering, because this sounds like a lot of rose coloured nostalgia that didn't really happen. PC games have always had a history of stupid install issues and barriers to entry. I can only think of a very few games I bought back in "the day" that didn't have some kind of cursory protection, even if it was just a CD key. And many games had serious errors and setting problems if you had a computer that wasn't so great.

So no. I don't remember just putting in the game and playing. Hell, in the case of GOG games I'd say it's easier now, because I don't have to put in a disc at all. Just click an icon and go.
I've never been in that era, but i was curious to know what it was like.
Post edited April 09, 2012 by Elmofongo
Posted April 09, 2012
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Elmofongo: I've never been in that era, but i was curious to know what it was like.
Ah, I getcha. Well, it was still pretty convoluted. You didn't miss much in the way of ease of use.
Posted April 09, 2012
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Fomalhaut30: Word of mouth?

For Dummies books?

Pshaw good sir. Pshaw I say! The true PC'er back then simply experimented to see what did, or did not work. Sure, you might end up formatting your boot disk or opening a rift to Gehenna by telling something to load into EMS before you initialized EMS, but by gum, you only did it once!
Lol, yeah, and that's why we have so many 5 1/4 boot disks. Still I needed someone or something to tell me what commands to type to experiment for the initial phase, else I'll be staring at a blue screen text edit.exe and writing rubbish hehe.
Posted April 09, 2012
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Elmofongo: I've never been in that era, but i was curious to know what it was like.
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PenutBrittle: Ah, I getcha. Well, it was still pretty convoluted. You didn't miss much in the way of ease of use.
I don't know about that, as long as the game didn't require you to manage the memory it was incredibly straightforward and even for games that did require that 640kb of lowmem, you did that once and you didn't have to do it again unless you needing to have a new TSR loaded.

For the most part during the 80s and early 90s things were fairly straightforward.
Posted April 09, 2012
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hedwards: I don't know about that, as long as the game didn't require you to manage the memory it was incredibly straightforward and even for games that did require that 640kb of lowmem, you did that once and you didn't have to do it again unless you needing to have a new TSR loaded.

For the most part during the 80s and early 90s things were fairly straightforward.
I agree somewhat, but I was always more of a fan of the RPG stuff, which more often than not included some kind of dumb anti piracy mechanic in the manual. Those bugged me to no end.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Was PC Gaming used to be like this..........................(105 posts)(105 posts)
(105 posts)