XT/Tandy Archives, HDD Images, Compilations, Top 300, Play It By Year, etc.

[akeley]

I've finally managed to put together an update to the Play It By Year collection (search archive.org for "play it by year msdos"). It's still a WIP and there will be some more files uploaded over the next couples of week or so (like much expanded Tandy dir, an A-Z image, better TDL or some other LFN frontend version), but the main vhd uploaded now ispretty much complete and should work ok.

CHANGES in the the new release (v0.2 uploaded January 2023)
-updated to the latest TDC version (summer 2022)
-years 1988 and 1989 added
-more exact duplicate filtering
-added Edu, Tandy, and Txt directories for better clarity

As always, if you spot any problems or have some comments/suggestions (especially regarding autoexec/config.sys) please let me know.

[jca]

Thanks for your work. I will check it later.
Any recommendation for which BIOS to use?

[akeley]

Good question. A lot of games will work with standard ones (8088 / pcxt31) but there are other issues...just made this dedicated thread about it: viewtopic.php?t=6022

[akeley]

I've uploaded a new Tandy & PCjr update to the MS-DOS PIBY and also a separate pack for these platforms (as usual, search archive.org for "Tandy play it by year")

This collection is based on the research by Great Hierophant from the Nerdly Pleasures website and contains most of the games with exclusive Tandy/PCjr gfx/sfx features featured there.

It consists of a 200MB vhd which contains only Tandy and PCjr games, organised by-year and alphabetically, and a Tandy/PCjr FDD image archive.

It can be quite difficult to establish whether an available game archive is actually a PCjr or Tandy version and so this release is still a WIP and most likely contains a lot of inaccuracies. The questionable cases are mentioned in the "Tandy problems" (probltan.txt) file.

Game names in the .txt docs in this collection contain tags [PCjr], [Tandy], and [PCjr-Tandy], indicating on which platform the exclusive features are available.

The best way to find out exactly what exclusive features a game has is to check the dedicated articles on the Nerdly Pleasures website.

For some reason I can't put links into the archive.org's descriptions at the moment, so here are the relevant ones from aforementioned Nerdly Pleasures website:
https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/20 ... usive.html
http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/201 ... sions.html
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... OM/pubhtml
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... jw/pubhtml

As I also mention above, trying to sort out the various versions of these games can be quite challenging, and a big reason why this is a "v0.1", despite the collecion itself being fairly complete. Any advice on these issues would be most welcome (and of course any other feedback).

[FoxbatStargazer]

For these compilations, are there known games that have any enhanced sound options beyond pc-speaker? I know the tandy had more voices for its speaker, but I'm wondering about mt-32, sound canvas, or even adlib support. (Can the core itself do these anyway?)

[akeley]

The core has Adlib (and SB) support, not sure about Roland devices. Games for the latter are mostly from the late Eighties and up, and outside of the scope of my packs (1981 - 1989 for DOS, bit later for Tandy, but only the Tandy exclusive sfx). Probably better using ao486 and exo/flynn collections for Roland then.

I guess a lot of Adlib games would qualify though - from my pack I think 87-89 games like Arkanoid or 688 Attack Sub should be able to use Adlib. More from exo/flynn 300, but the later ones could be also a bit too much for this core (even with 3.5 MHz AT speed). You'd have to look up some lists (eg Moby, which was able to also sort by year but now is being redesigned) and try them out.

[akeley]

I've released a new update for the Tandy / PCjr collection (search archive.org for "tandy play it by year").

Version 1.0 (released August 2023)
-some games added/removed according to the updated list
-added fixes for some games
-directories reorganised
-how-to section added to readme

It's been re-tested and reorganised and while still far from perfect, it's probably best I can do with this rather complicated subject.

Please note that while I started it with MiSTer in mind, the final result is probably best experienced in Dosbox-x, because of its largest compatibility. Some of the PCjr games will work here in Tandy core, but overall the compatibility of Tandy itself is hit and miss on MiSTer. This might be due to factors not related to the core itself, mainly different game versions - but to make sure it would require much more testing (for this release I concentrated on just getting a game on at least one platform working properly).

It'd be interesting to hear what other people's success rate in running these games on MiSTer is.

[prenetic]

I've released a new update for the Tandy / PCjr collection (search archive.org for "tandy play it by year").

Thanks for the update, I just pulled it down but realized there's no .vhd like there has been previously. Was it forgotten?

[akeley]

Thanks for the update, I just pulled it down but realized there's no .vhd like there has been previously. Was it forgotten?

Odd, the .vhd is definitely there - can be downloaded both individually and in the torrent.

The archive page's full name is "Tandy & PCjr - Play It By Year Game Collection v1.0". if you still can't find it, shoot me a PM.

EDIT: had another look at the archive page, and the vhd is indeed sort of hidden - in the Download Options sidebar it's called "MPEG AUDIO", so choose this if you only want to download the vhd (but I recommend grabbing the fdd archive as well, many games are only available in this format). Or you can click on "Show All" and it's shown there too.

[prenetic]

EDIT: had another look at the archive page, and the vhd is indeed sort of hidden - in the Download Options sidebar it's called "MPEG AUDIO", so choose this if you only want to download the vhd (but I recommend grabbing the fdd archive as well, many games are only available in this format). Or you can click on "Show All" and it's shown there too.

Thanks, I see it now and yeah that's how I missed it. I normally pull the .torrent file but in this case I just went with the .zip. Appreciate the work you put into this!

[Bristles]

Is there a recommended BIOS set everyone is using, to get this core up and running ?
Never had a PCJr, or Tandy, but have owned DOS PCs in the late 80s, and early 90s.

[Newsdee]

Is there a recommended BIOS set everyone is using, to get this core up and running ?
Never had a PCJr, or Tandy, but have owned DOS PCs in the late 80s, and early 90s.

I use the Tandy BIOS by default on my setup.
You can get it by runnig the .py file provided in he core repository.

[pyxle]

Hi @akeley thanks for all the work on the MS-DOS pack! Believe it or not, I am using it on a real 8088 XT PC.

I can run the games fine, but I am having a lot of trouble getting an LFN TSR to work, and haven't been able to copy the files to my CF card without clobbering the long filenames. I only have 640kb (no UMB) so I would prefer not to use LFN at all.

I wondered if maybe in the future you could build the image such that it doesn't need LFN, and has a custom front-end with names and descriptions like the AO486 Top 300 pack does. It would simplify the DOS config a lot and be a nicer experience. I do understand that this is a lot of work.

[akeley]

Hi mate, glad that these games are being kept alive on the OG hardware ;) Still, it sounds like you're using the first, outdated version - the 500GB image (called ISO IMAGE on the archive page)? Because the new one is a 2GB vhd and doesn't have LFN. It covers years 81-89, with short filenames and Norton Commander as "frontend". I'm not sure if you can use it directly on your machine - I suppose you use XTIDE and CF cards, so perhaps yes? - but if not directly, you should be able to mount the vhd in Windows (use ImDisk) and copy the files to your CF.

I did have a stab at using some other frontend, mainly MyMenu, but getting it to work with LFN in PC/XT environment has proven too much for my nearly non-existent DOS config skills, so I left it be. You can see a conversation about it in this thread. Maybe ask there if you'd like to get it going.

Actually, if you don't want LFN, it should work ok, or maybe try some of the other solutions in this thread.

[pyxle]

You're right; I got confused between the drive images and thought the larger volumes got their names truncated on my machine similar to the small one. I did not try to write the image directly; I copied the files over to new partitions on my 8GB CF card.

So, those should work fine, we just need a menu system with the full names and descriptions (and search would be amazing if possible). Were you able to get MyMenu to work without LFN on the new images? Is there no way for it to show an expanded title for a shorter on-disk folder?

That link to the other thread doesn't seem to work for me.

[akeley]

Were you able to get MyMenu to work without LFN on the new images? Is there no way for it to show an expanded title for a shorter on-disk folder?

That link to the other thread doesn't seem to work for me.

Sorry, this is the thread: viewtopic.php?t=5573&start=30

Tbh I don't remember if I got the MyMenu going in the end - I got rather busy with trying to untangle the Tandy/PCjr games quagmire and I just gave up on other bells and whistles. Judging by the replies in this thread it should be possible. If you manage to get it going, let me know and I could update the image.

(the whole thing needs a bigger update anyway, since Tandy/PCjr sections are now much changed...and also TDC #21 has just dropped. But I need a break from PC - doing Apple II again now - so it might be a while).

[pyxle]

Thanks, that thread looks helpful. Once my XT hardware is complete (one month...? I have a complex monitor mod I'm trying to do) I will see if I can script up MyMenu in an automated way.

[flynnsbit]

MyMenu will work without LFN, just set LFN=F in the mymenu.ini. You can also setup the game name/folder name using the 10 digit hack, basically 8.3 and you can use _ for spaces in the name/folder. Like SPACE_ACE, WOLFENST.EIN.

MyMenu will do the first character search, not full name like TDL did but it is good enough.

The two slowest real machines I have tested MyMenu on were my AT&T 6300 and my PC Jr, you will need to set the mymenu settings for CGA, keyboard (only if not working), and LFN. I would also suggest using things like FreeSP to speed up some dir listings.

You can use examples from the Shareware pack here: https://github.com/flynnsbit/DOS_Sharew ... MYMENU.INI

[pyxle]

Thanks for the tips. Can I have an index file (or a metadata file in each folder) that maps folders to long titles, so the long title can be displayed?

[flynnsbit]

Thanks for the tips. Can I have an index file (or a metadata file in each folder) that maps folders to long titles, so the long title can be displayed?

No, that's why we added support for LFN -- that is the database. You can use LFN on an older machine, it does work. LFNDOS or DOSLFN depending on the processor. I did test it on DOS 3.3, 4, 5, and 6.22 on those other systems. Having the front end game/app list generated dynamically off of the folder name was super important.

Anything that has a metadata file will be static vs. dynamic based on the directory structure. I really liked TDL but the specific index file that had to be per-generated was extremely limiting when you want to dynamically change the games list or add and remove things. The changes BinaryBond made to TDL really got it close to perfect, but that static metadata generation that had to happen from a machine with python was limiting for our specific use. MyMenu solved that, plus all the fun features like Terminal access, ANSI graphics game previews, etc.

I did demo the frontend here if that helps: https://youtu.be/ZNWNHwluRzk?t=393

I use it on my classic real machines as well, hard to beat if you setup the directories, autorun.bat, ANSI readme, and screensavers.

[pyxle]

Very understandable. It may work, but it's at least another 12K of conventional memory occupied for a machine without UMB, and the long names can get mangled by utilities that don't check for the LFN API.

Could there be an optional NAME.TXT file in each folder that could be loaded for a name substitution just like the README.ANS files are loaded? It would only need to be checked on-demand for each folder that will be displayed on the left of the screen, no resorting, and it wouldn't interact with any existing long names negatively.

[flynnsbit]

Very understandable. It may work, but it's at least another 12K of conventional memory occupied for a machine without UMB, and the long names can get mangled by utilities that don't check for the LFN API.

Could there be an optional NAME.TXT file in each folder that could be loaded for a name substitution just like the README.ANS files are loaded? It would only need to be checked on-demand for each folder that will be displayed on the left of the screen, no resorting, and it wouldn't interact with any existing long names negatively.

The thought was the 11 character hack could mostly take care of that and then in the readme.ans you could have the full name of the game on the right side at the top of the preview + description + graphics if you didn't load LFN. Then if autorun is set it would load the game if you selected that folder.

I don't want to speak for BBond on any feature requests, he would be the one to add features to MyMenu.

[pyxle]

Ok. That only works for the currently selected game, the others in the visible list would only show the folder names with the 11 char limit.

Is the MyMenu source code available somewhere?

[southoz]

SEPTandy

TDL (Total DOS Loader) Based pack on MS-DOS 5.0 for Tandy 1000 using eXoDoS v5.0 1979 to 1990 sources
MiSTer FPGA PCXT SEPTandy 111023.zip 1.26GB

Status

• 1732 Verified Titles with 312 TGA (Tandy Graphics Adapter 16 Color) Games
• TGA Games are marked as favourites and are expanded in the Cache folder ready to play; use CTRL-F to show only favourites.
• ADLIB Sound Support
• DOS 5.0 for better compatibility with older titles.
• EMS disabled as the driver was overwriting conventional memory under the Tandy BIOS
• UMS starts at C000 rather than D000 as EMS is not used.
• DOSMAX
• CTMouse Driver (Requires IBM Bios v3 for PCXT)
• TDL is a custom version with BinaryBonds extensions and colours that are normalised back to the original release.

Files in PCXT Folder

floppy - folder of floppy images for disk-based games
ide_xtl.rom - XT-IDE BIOS
tandy.rom - Tandy BIOS
tandy.vhd - Tandy Virtual HardDisk 2GB - Primary Partition 800MB Tandy-C and Extended Partition 1.2GB Tandy-D for Cache.
tandy1k.vhd - Tandy Virtual Hardisk 1KB - No partitions, stops XT IDE BIOS waiting for secondary HDD.

Instructions:

1. Copy files from the PCXT folder to the games/PCXT folder on the MiSTer

2. PCXT Core Settings Press WIN + F12 after selecting the PC/XT Core

   PCXT
   ====
   IDE0-0 - tandy.vhd
   IDE0-1 - tandy1k.vhd
   CPU Speed - As required, noting the need to use 4.77Mhz in some instances.

   System & BIOS
   =============
   Model - Tandy
   Tandy BIOS - tandy.rom
   EC00 BIOS - ide_xtl.rom

3. Reset & apply settings from the PCXT Page

Cudo's

• spark2k06 for the PCXT Core - https://github.com/spark2k06/PCXT_MiSTer
• eXo for the DOS V5 Pack - https://www.retro-exo.com/
• flynnsbit for the eXoDosConverter Video and overall concept - https://www.youtube.com/@flynnsbit
• MobyGamer for Total Dos Loader - https://github.com/MobyGamer/total-dos-launcher
• Binarybond for the TDL Extensions - https://github.com/bbond007/total-dos-launcher-1

Extras

BA1del2.py - Delete .ba1 files and 2_About.jpg from all the eXoDoS sources:
favorites.py - Create TITLES.DAT of favourites from a text file list and build the cache folder.
TurboPascal.zip - DOS 6.22 Turbo Pascal 7 Dev environment image for TDL.

[akeley]

I've updated the 1981-1989 MS-DOS "XT era" collection to v1.0 (search archive.org for "play it by year msdos").

This is mainly to bring the Tandy/PCjr directories in line with the much-revised Tandy/PCjr standalone pack. The other big addition is an archive with individual games with LFN filenames, so you can use them in DOSbox or wherever (though it's also possible with the vhd of course). This one comes both as by-year and alphabetically organised versions.

I did try to squeeze MyMenu on the vhd, to see if I could get it going, but the space constraints on it are so tight it was impossible. But I suppose you could just put it on a smaller "boot" vhd and mount both.

[President_Ronnie]

I've updated the 1981-1989 MS-DOS "XT era" collection to v1.0 (search archive.org for "play it by year msdos").

This is mainly to bring the Tandy/PCjr directories in line with the much-revised Tandy/PCjr standalone pack. The other big addition is an archive with individual games with LFN filenames, so you can use them in DOSbox or wherever (though it's also possible with the vhd of course). This one comes both as by-year and alphabetically organised versions.

I did try to squeeze MyMenu on the vhd, to see if I could get it going, but the space constraints on it are so tight it was impossible. But I suppose you could just put it on a smaller "boot" vhd and mount both.

I downloaded the pack for the first time yesterday, it's awesome! Thank you very much for compiling this. I noticed one thing with the vhd though, is it normal that it does not include the years 1988 - 1989? When I noticed they were not listed in Norton Commander I exited out and checked the directory of C:/, sure enough they are not listed. Is there something I'm neglecting on my end?

[akeley]

I downloaded the pack for the first time yesterday, it's awesome! Thank you very much for compiling this. I noticed one thing with the vhd though, is it normal that it does not include the years 1988 - 1989? When I noticed they were not listed in Norton Commander I exited out and checked the directory of C:/, sure enough they are not listed. Is there something I'm neglecting on my end?

-a 2GB vhd with 3 partitions, containing games from years 1981-1989 organised chronologically. It runs on MS-DOS 6.22 and boots into Norton Commander, from where you can browse the by-year directories. This vhd can be also mounted in modern Windows (using ImDisk or other tools), so you can use it in DOSBox or transfer to your real retro-PC. It's split into three partitions:
C: system files and 1982-1987 directories (no "tandy" in 1987 due to lack of space)
D: 1987's "tandy" directory, 1988 main, 1989's _edu/tandy/txt directories, 1990-1991 Tandy
E: 1989 main (without _edu/tandy/txt directories)

I knew nobody reads these descriptions ;) So, in Norton Commander press ALT+F1 or F2 and choose drive D: or E:

It's not the neatest solution but it was the only way I could figure out how to squeeze it all on a 2GB hdd ("slack space" is a real nightmare).

[President_Ronnie]

I knew nobody reads these descriptions So, in Norton Commander press ALT+F1 or F2 and choose drive D: or E:

It's not the neatest solution but it was the only way I could figure out how to squeeze it all on a 2GB hdd ("slack space" is a real nightmare).

I knew it was my fault! facepalm I swear I read the description more than once, reading it again I don’t know how I didn’t absorb that. Thank you very much, now I can play World Class Leaderboard (1988).

[riblad_om]

For some reason I can't put links into the archive.org's descriptions at the moment, so here are the relevant ones from aforementioned Nerdly Pleasures website:
https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/20 ... usive.html

I apologize in advance as I may not be fully understanding this person's definition of "better" or "unique," but is there a reason the Quest for Glory games don't qualify for this list? I played QfG2 on a Tandy 1000 tl/2 with what I believe was Tandy sound.

https://youtu.be/5FCcayQnR7c?si=bwvbrz95jIcRpGpD

[akeley]

I apologize in advance as I may not be fully understanding this person's definition of "better" or "unique," but is there a reason the Quest for Glory games don't qualify for this list? I played QfG2 on a Tandy 1000 tl/2 with what I believe was Tandy sound.

I'm not sure to be honest. I think the idea of "unique" features regarding this list is for FX to be significantly different (for better or worse). So maybe the Tandy music in QfG II is the same as when using Soundblaster or some other device? Did you compare the different versions?

According to another source, these games also have some unique features but aren't on the Nerdly Pleasures list. Its author helped me with some things about the games in my collection but did not respond to query about whether these games are really different. I haven't checked them myself yet either.

Arkanoid 2: Revenge of DOH
Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator
Conflict in Vietnam
Leather Goddesses of Phobos! 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X
Motorbike Madness
Paperboy
Passengers on the Wind 1 & 2
Tetris