ao486 Curated VHDs - Information and Support Thread

[memmaker]

Hi there.

I am retro gamer and software developer and like curating and collecting.

As such, I am big fan of the MiSTer FPGA Project and archive.org.

I wanted to take the chance to tell you about some curated VHDs for the ao486 core.

MiSTer DOS - Interactive Fiction Collection

This is a Infocom & Magnetic Scrolls Tribute Collection of Interactive Fiction titles.

The VHD image contains the games in an installed format.

In order to use this, you'll need the DOS Boot VHD image from Flynnsbit Top 300 DOS collection, so that the partitions will be right.

Also included is a mirror of popular fansites for Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls that should include the feelies for the respective games.

As a bonus I included a bootable floppy of the original MS Adventure.

MiSTer DOS - Sierra Collection

This is a collection of the classic Sierra graphic adventure titles for MS-DOS.

These are especially a treat for MT32 users.

[DiamondDave]

Awesome man! I've been wanting a VHD with all the Sierra games for a long time, but I was too stupid/lazy to make it myself. Thanks!

[RogerWilco]

This is fantastic. Thank you for making this!

[hiddenbyleaves]

This is so cool. I would love to see more small packs of games like this.

[OriginalXOR]

Awesome work, absolutely love it...

May I make a suggestion for a future pack?

How about the Lucasfilm Adventure games?

[Starships]

How did you get the Sierra stuff to index by TDL? I tried multiple times and Space Quests, Larrys, Police Quests, and King's Quests were always missing from the TDL menu when loading up my vhd. Everything else converts fine so far with eXoDOSConverter, but for some reason those games aren't getting indexed for me.

[memmaker]

Thanks for the replies. This is very encouraging.

@OriginalXOR
Lucasfilm VHD is on my todo list.

@Starships
Indexing worked just fine using the ExodosConverter. Find me on Discord if you want any pointers on this.

[charmless]

Love this pack. Awsome stuff! Jones in the fast lane keeps crashing on me (soundcard issue. soundblaster). Everything else I've tried works like a charm. Thank you!

[memmaker]

I will leave links to the repos where the tools I used to create these can be found.

ExoDOSConverter:
https://github.com/Voljega/ExoDOSConverter

My own scripts:
https://github.com/memmaker/mister_dos_tools

[meanage]

Thanks for making these collections, I am so excited to dig in!

[DiamondDave]

Anyone else having an audio issue with KQV?

When booting the game and selecting option 1 (SB16 audio), there is no sound on the Sierra startup logo and no dialogue in-game. The background music is present but nothing else.

[charmless]

Anyone else having an audio issue with KQV?

When booting the game and selecting option 1 (SB16 audio), there is no sound on the Sierra startup logo and no dialogue in-game. The background music is present but nothing else.

Same here.

[flynnsbit]

My guess is the MESOURCE.CFG file and the path for audio isn't exactly right. check this and make sure the path is spot on:

videoDrv = VGA320.DRV
soundDrv = MT32.DRV 220
audioDrv = AUDBLAST.DRV 220
joyDrv = NO
kbdDrv = IBMKBD.DRV
mouseDrv = STDMOUSE.DRV
memoryDrv = ARM.DRV
floppy = YES
minHunk = 180K
audio = E:\GAMES\KINGSQUF\KQ5

[DanHero]

Got a problem with the Sierra collection: I mount the sierra VHD in ide 0-1 (but I tried 1-0 and 1-1 as well), I reset anche I always get the secondary VHD not mounted warning in DOS. Every other game pack works, so I'm surely doing something wrong. in IDE 0-1 I use the boot-DOS98.

Any hint?

[seastalker]

Love the Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls games. If this VHD ever gets a revision (or a separate VHD is made), I'd also suggest adding in a complete Level 9 collection.

[Alynna]

I am currently working on some pre-made VHDs of my own, which I'd like to disseminate when done:

PC-WinNT40.vhd - Windows NT 4.0 preinstalled, drivers installed, PPP set up, patched for FAT32, seamonkey preinstalled for browsing. - Pretty much done.
PC-Win95OSR2.vhd - Windows 95 OSR2 installed, drivers installed, turbo speed PPP, fixed SHDOCVW.DLL - Pretty much done
PC-FreeDOS13.vhd - FreeDOS 1.3, all tools from CD installed, packet driver installed, 4DOS 8.00 for a shell - Almost done, Working on adding GEOS to it for its GUI. OpenGEM is present and "working" (it doesn't look too nice tho).
PC-DOS71Win311.vhd - DOS 7.1 extracted from Win95, FreeDOS 1.3 extras added, packet driver installed, 4DOS 8.00 for a shell. Windows for Workgroups 3.11 for a GUI, but with Calmira II for a shell - Working on it, but its nearly a clone of the FreeDOS VHD except without FreeDOS base (MS-DOS based, and with Windows)
PC-TSX.vhd - All of the tools I used to make these, in installer form.

Note that the DOS builds are a little unstable:
1) Some programs just crash, and lock the system up. I believe due to instructions the core doesn't know about.
2) Networking is as reliable as it gets now. It will freeze up sometimes, requiring you to reset the UART on the menu.

Some maybe VHDs that I am going to try but don't know if they are possible yet.
PC-Windows2000.vhd - Windows 2000 installed, with drivers, and PPP set up
PC-NetBSDx.vhd - NetBSD, the highest version that ends up working.
PC-OS2W400.vhd - OS/2 Warp 4.0. I hope this is possible

All of these VHDs will be 1KB smaller then exactly 4GB, so they will fit on your FAT32 partition. They are near 4GB images but not very full (the biggest one is 25% full so far) so you have room to install your own stuff.

[Mr. Encyclopedia]

That all sounds fantastically helpful. I have a Win95 install I made myself but it's pretty rough around the edges, it would be great to have a solid baseline with everything set up properly to build off of.

[thera34]

PC-OS2W400.vhd - OS/2 Warp 4.0. I hope this is possible

It is, see also these findings on OS/2 thread (viewtopic.php?p=46068#p46068).
I couldn't make SLIP/PPP to work no matter what, always throwing SYS3175 error.
Modem connection works (tried Pmcomm and also Terminate 5.0) to connect to BBSes and such (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwXnxgOE1Po)