#86box — Public Fediverse posts

OS/2 Warp 4.52 on 86Box with Super Socket 7 [1998]

OS/2 was a proprietary operating system that was initially developed by IBM in partnership with Microsoft as a replacement of DOS before it became entirely developed by IBM. OS/2 Warp 4 was officially released in 1996, and development slowed down to a halt because it failed to compete Microsoft Windows. OS/2 Warp 4.52 was officially released in December 2001, and this year, it will celebrate its 25th year anniversary.

Our focus in this article is testing OS/2 Warp 4.52 on an 86Box emulated machine with a Super Socket 7 [1998] motherboard. You can download it from here.

We’ve configured the virtual machine as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1998] Super Socket 7
• Machine: [SiS 5591] Gigabyte GA-5SG100
• CPU: Intel Pentium @ 166 MHz
• Memory: 128 MB
• Video: [ISA16] Cirrus Logic GD5434
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16 PnP
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: Internal device
• New hard disk: os2warp452.vhd
  • C/H/S: 1054/16/63
  • Size: 518 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) KENWOOD CD-ROM UCR-421 208E (72x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Insert the boot disc called mcp2-refresh-boot-en.iso to the CD-ROM reader, then configure BIOS as necessary.

To be more specific, we need to go to the BIOS setup using DEL and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first with PGUP/PGDN.

After that, we save the changes and restart the virtual machine.

The installer starts by telling you to insert the installation CD-ROM to the drive.

In this case, right-click on the CD-ROM icon, select “Insert…”, select mcp2-refresh-install-en.iso, and double-click it. Then, press ENTER.

After that, you should be able to see this welcome screen:

Press ENTER, and you’ll be taken to another screen that welcomes you to the operating system installer.

Press ENTER. At this point, since it’s a fresh installation, and the hard drive is already empty, you’ll get the “Volumes Too Small” message. This means that you’ll need to create a single partition that will be used to install OS/2 Warp 4.52 to.

Press ENTER, and you’ll get a warning message telling you that all data on modified volumes will be deleted, and that backups should be made. Since there is no data on the hard drive, you can safely ignore this warning. Just press ENTER.

After that, you’ll be taken to the partitioning screen where you’ll be presented with the logical volume manager, with the logical view being the default. Press F5, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can see your hard disk, such as the below screenshot:

Here, you can create a physical partition. Press TAB, then ENTER, and you’ll be presented with those options.

Press ENTER to create a new partition. You’ll be asked whether this partition is going to be logical or primary. Select “Primary partition”.

After you select it, you’ll be presented with various dialog boxes telling you to specify the size and the name of the partition, as well as the position of the partition. Select “Create at the start of the free space”, then enter the partition name, then the size.

After that, this partition should be created.

We are not done yet when it comes to partitioning, so we need to go back to the logical view. Press ENTER, then press ENTER on “Create a new volume”. Then, select “Create a volume that can be made bootable”, then C:.

You’ll be brought back to the physical view that will tell you to choose a physical disk. Below the physical disk, the logical partition should be shown at the bottom of the screen. Press ENTER when this dialog box appears.

Press ENTER again, then select “Use existing partition”.

Now, a new logical volume will appear with the partition name that you’ve chosen. However, it’s still not ready yet for installation, since there are extra steps that are needed. We need to make it installable.

Press ENTER, and you should see the menu box below:

Select “Set the volume installable”. The status of your logical volume should change from “Startable” to “Installable”. Afterwards, press F3, and press ENTER when “Save the changes and exit” is highlighted.

Afterwards, you should be able to see the below dialog box telling you to insert the boot CD-ROM to the drive and restart the virtual machine using CTRL + ALT + DEL.

At this point, we need to change the BIOS boot order to avoid the black screen issue. Press DEL, go to BIOS Features Setup, and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first.

Then, exit the BIOS setup while saving changes, and follow the instructions all the way until the following screen shows up:

Verify that “Volume C” shows up. If not, you’ll have to configure the partitions again until the volume shows up in this screen. Since we’ve already configured everything, and that Volume C corresponds to our hard disk, press ENTER when “Accept the volume” is highlighted.

Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to format it slowly or quickly. This is a clean installation, so we’ve chosen a quick format. Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to use FAT or HPFS. We’ve chosen the HPFS file system.

After that, the installation of the base system begins.

After that, the virtual machine will automatically restart. Go back to the BIOS setup and make sure that the C drive comes first before the CD-ROM.

After that, OS/2 Warp should boot up to the GUI portion of the installer. The first thing you’ll be presented with is the configuration of the system, including the country, the graphics adapter, and the sound adapter.

First of all, we went to “Multimedia Device Support”, and added the SoundBlaster 16 PnP device to the list of installed devices.

Afterwards, we’re presented with another set of configuration, once we’ve selected “Next”. SInce there’s no need to configure anything on that screen, we’ve just clicked Next. Then, it presented us with options to choose the country/region, with the default selected country being “United States.”

Then, the printer configuraion window has shown up. SInce there’s no printer installed, we’ll leave it as it is.

We’re then presented with the graphics adapter configuration. It automatically selected the Cirrus Logic graphics adapter as we’ve chosen earlier for the virtual machine configuration.

Once we’ve selected OK, we’re then presented with a set of packages to install.

As soon as we clicked “Next”, we’re presented with another wizard that lets us configure some more services.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with a prompt to identify ourselves.

After that, we’re given another set of software packages to install. They represent the client services for OS/2.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with another configuration screen where we needed to configure the user ID and password for the file and print sharing services, and the network adapter and protocol services.

We went to create a new ID and a password for the sharing service

Then, we went to “Network Adapters and Protocol Services”, and a dialog box that told us to add a network adapter appeared. Since we don’t intend to have internet connectivity in this installation of OS/2 Warp 4.52, we’ve selected “No network adapter.”

Once we pressed OK, we’ve seen this result:

Now, we’ve pressed Install, and a confirmation dialog box appeared.

Now, the installation of the remaining system files started here.

Once it was done copying files, we’re asked whether to use the defaults for the monitor type or to use the display adapter utility program.

We’ve chosen the defaults, and an informational box appeared stating that the screen might flicker while the testing was underway.

After that, the remaining portions of the installation started. This is part one of the long waiting journey!

After the restart, depending on the region selected, OS/2 Warp 4.52 might tell you that there’s something wrong in the CONFIG.SYS file related to the codepage, just like below.

After that, the long waiting journey continues…

The system then restarted, and the desktop finally appeared, but with another dialog box asking us whether we needed to install sets of extra tools or not.

We’ve chosen the biggest option, which was “OS/2 Toolkit (English only)”. Then, we’ve clicked on Install once we’ve inserted the boot disk back to the CD-ROM drive.

Then, a configuration window where it tells us to configure the installation of the OS/2 Toolkit, just like below.

We’ve chosen to install everything, so we just chose Install. Yet another long wait journey starts…

After the installation of the toolkit reached 100%, a dialog box that told us that the installation was successful showed up. Once done, we’ve clicked on Quit in the toolkit installer.

Since the dialog box told us that the CONFIG.SYS file was modified and that we needed to restart the virtual machine. Therefore, we’ve clicked on Exit, then right-clicked on an empty area around the desktop and chose “Shut down”.

Once the shut down was done, we had to press CTRL + ALT + DEL in the virtual machine side. After that, the system booted up to the desktop, and the sound works!

Nostalgic, isn’t it?

OS/2 Warp 4.52 on 86Box with Super Socket 7 [1998]

OS/2 was a proprietary operating system that was initially developed by IBM in partnership with Microsoft as a replacement of DOS before it became entirely developed by IBM. OS/2 Warp 4 was officially released in 1996, and development slowed down to a halt because it failed to compete Microsoft Windows. OS/2 Warp 4.52 was officially released in December 2001, and this year, it will celebrate its 25th year anniversary.

Our focus in this article is testing OS/2 Warp 4.52 on an 86Box emulated machine with a Super Socket 7 [1998] motherboard. You can download it from here.

We’ve configured the virtual machine as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1998] Super Socket 7
• Machine: [SiS 5591] Gigabyte GA-5SG100
• CPU: Intel Pentium @ 166 MHz
• Memory: 128 MB
• Video: [ISA16] Cirrus Logic GD5434
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16 PnP
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: Internal device
• New hard disk: os2warp452.vhd
  • C/H/S: 1054/16/63
  • Size: 518 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) KENWOOD CD-ROM UCR-421 208E (72x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Insert the boot disc called mcp2-refresh-boot-en.iso to the CD-ROM reader, then configure BIOS as necessary.

To be more specific, we need to go to the BIOS setup using DEL and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first with PGUP/PGDN.

After that, we save the changes and restart the virtual machine.

The installer starts by telling you to insert the installation CD-ROM to the drive.

In this case, right-click on the CD-ROM icon, select “Insert…”, select mcp2-refresh-install-en.iso, and double-click it. Then, press ENTER.

After that, you should be able to see this welcome screen:

Press ENTER, and you’ll be taken to another screen that welcomes you to the operating system installer.

Press ENTER. At this point, since it’s a fresh installation, and the hard drive is already empty, you’ll get the “Volumes Too Small” message. This means that you’ll need to create a single partition that will be used to install OS/2 Warp 4.52 to.

Press ENTER, and you’ll get a warning message telling you that all data on modified volumes will be deleted, and that backups should be made. Since there is no data on the hard drive, you can safely ignore this warning. Just press ENTER.

After that, you’ll be taken to the partitioning screen where you’ll be presented with the logical volume manager, with the logical view being the default. Press F5, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can see your hard disk, such as the below screenshot:

Here, you can create a physical partition. Press TAB, then ENTER, and you’ll be presented with those options.

Press ENTER to create a new partition. You’ll be asked whether this partition is going to be logical or primary. Select “Primary partition”.

After you select it, you’ll be presented with various dialog boxes telling you to specify the size and the name of the partition, as well as the position of the partition. Select “Create at the start of the free space”, then enter the partition name, then the size.

After that, this partition should be created.

We are not done yet when it comes to partitioning, so we need to go back to the logical view. Press ENTER, then press ENTER on “Create a new volume”. Then, select “Create a volume that can be made bootable”, then C:.

You’ll be brought back to the physical view that will tell you to choose a physical disk. Below the physical disk, the logical partition should be shown at the bottom of the screen. Press ENTER when this dialog box appears.

Press ENTER again, then select “Use existing partition”.

Now, a new logical volume will appear with the partition name that you’ve chosen. However, it’s still not ready yet for installation, since there are extra steps that are needed. We need to make it installable.

Press ENTER, and you should see the menu box below:

Select “Set the volume installable”. The status of your logical volume should change from “Startable” to “Installable”. Afterwards, press F3, and press ENTER when “Save the changes and exit” is highlighted.

Afterwards, you should be able to see the below dialog box telling you to insert the boot CD-ROM to the drive and restart the virtual machine using CTRL + ALT + DEL.

At this point, we need to change the BIOS boot order to avoid the black screen issue. Press DEL, go to BIOS Features Setup, and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first.

Then, exit the BIOS setup while saving changes, and follow the instructions all the way until the following screen shows up:

Verify that “Volume C” shows up. If not, you’ll have to configure the partitions again until the volume shows up in this screen. Since we’ve already configured everything, and that Volume C corresponds to our hard disk, press ENTER when “Accept the volume” is highlighted.

Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to format it slowly or quickly. This is a clean installation, so we’ve chosen a quick format. Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to use FAT or HPFS. We’ve chosen the HPFS file system.

After that, the installation of the base system begins.

After that, the virtual machine will automatically restart. Go back to the BIOS setup and make sure that the C drive comes first before the CD-ROM.

After that, OS/2 Warp should boot up to the GUI portion of the installer. The first thing you’ll be presented with is the configuration of the system, including the country, the graphics adapter, and the sound adapter.

First of all, we went to “Multimedia Device Support”, and added the SoundBlaster 16 PnP device to the list of installed devices.

Afterwards, we’re presented with another set of configuration, once we’ve selected “Next”. SInce there’s no need to configure anything on that screen, we’ve just clicked Next. Then, it presented us with options to choose the country/region, with the default selected country being “United States.”

Then, the printer configuraion window has shown up. SInce there’s no printer installed, we’ll leave it as it is.

We’re then presented with the graphics adapter configuration. It automatically selected the Cirrus Logic graphics adapter as we’ve chosen earlier for the virtual machine configuration.

Once we’ve selected OK, we’re then presented with a set of packages to install.

As soon as we clicked “Next”, we’re presented with another wizard that lets us configure some more services.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with a prompt to identify ourselves.

After that, we’re given another set of software packages to install. They represent the client services for OS/2.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with another configuration screen where we needed to configure the user ID and password for the file and print sharing services, and the network adapter and protocol services.

We went to create a new ID and a password for the sharing service

Then, we went to “Network Adapters and Protocol Services”, and a dialog box that told us to add a network adapter appeared. Since we don’t intend to have internet connectivity in this installation of OS/2 Warp 4.52, we’ve selected “No network adapter.”

Once we pressed OK, we’ve seen this result:

Now, we’ve pressed Install, and a confirmation dialog box appeared.

Now, the installation of the remaining system files started here.

Once it was done copying files, we’re asked whether to use the defaults for the monitor type or to use the display adapter utility program.

We’ve chosen the defaults, and an informational box appeared stating that the screen might flicker while the testing was underway.

After that, the remaining portions of the installation started. This is part one of the long waiting journey!

After the restart, depending on the region selected, OS/2 Warp 4.52 might tell you that there’s something wrong in the CONFIG.SYS file related to the codepage, just like below.

After that, the long waiting journey continues…

The system then restarted, and the desktop finally appeared, but with another dialog box asking us whether we needed to install sets of extra tools or not.

We’ve chosen the biggest option, which was “OS/2 Toolkit (English only)”. Then, we’ve clicked on Install once we’ve inserted the boot disk back to the CD-ROM drive.

Then, a configuration window where it tells us to configure the installation of the OS/2 Toolkit, just like below.

We’ve chosen to install everything, so we just chose Install. Yet another long wait journey starts…

After the installation of the toolkit reached 100%, a dialog box that told us that the installation was successful showed up. Once done, we’ve clicked on Quit in the toolkit installer.

Since the dialog box told us that the CONFIG.SYS file was modified and that we needed to restart the virtual machine. Therefore, we’ve clicked on Exit, then right-clicked on an empty area around the desktop and chose “Shut down”.

Once the shut down was done, we had to press CTRL + ALT + DEL in the virtual machine side. After that, the system booted up to the desktop, and the sound works!

Nostalgic, isn’t it?

OS/2 Warp 4.52 on 86Box with Super Socket 7 [1998]

OS/2 was a proprietary operating system that was initially developed by IBM in partnership with Microsoft as a replacement of DOS before it became entirely developed by IBM. OS/2 Warp 4 was officially released in 1996, and development slowed down to a halt because it failed to compete Microsoft Windows. OS/2 Warp 4.52 was officially released in December 2001, and this year, it will celebrate its 25th year anniversary.

Our focus in this article is testing OS/2 Warp 4.52 on an 86Box emulated machine with a Super Socket 7 [1998] motherboard. You can download it from here.

We’ve configured the virtual machine as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1998] Super Socket 7
• Machine: [SiS 5591] Gigabyte GA-5SG100
• CPU: Intel Pentium @ 166 MHz
• Memory: 128 MB
• Video: [ISA16] Cirrus Logic GD5434
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16 PnP
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: Internal device
• New hard disk: os2warp452.vhd
  • C/H/S: 1054/16/63
  • Size: 518 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) KENWOOD CD-ROM UCR-421 208E (72x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Insert the boot disc called mcp2-refresh-boot-en.iso to the CD-ROM reader, then configure BIOS as necessary.

To be more specific, we need to go to the BIOS setup using DEL and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first with PGUP/PGDN.

After that, we save the changes and restart the virtual machine.

The installer starts by telling you to insert the installation CD-ROM to the drive.

In this case, right-click on the CD-ROM icon, select “Insert…”, select mcp2-refresh-install-en.iso, and double-click it. Then, press ENTER.

After that, you should be able to see this welcome screen:

Press ENTER, and you’ll be taken to another screen that welcomes you to the operating system installer.

Press ENTER. At this point, since it’s a fresh installation, and the hard drive is already empty, you’ll get the “Volumes Too Small” message. This means that you’ll need to create a single partition that will be used to install OS/2 Warp 4.52 to.

Press ENTER, and you’ll get a warning message telling you that all data on modified volumes will be deleted, and that backups should be made. Since there is no data on the hard drive, you can safely ignore this warning. Just press ENTER.

After that, you’ll be taken to the partitioning screen where you’ll be presented with the logical volume manager, with the logical view being the default. Press F5, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can see your hard disk, such as the below screenshot:

Here, you can create a physical partition. Press TAB, then ENTER, and you’ll be presented with those options.

Press ENTER to create a new partition. You’ll be asked whether this partition is going to be logical or primary. Select “Primary partition”.

After you select it, you’ll be presented with various dialog boxes telling you to specify the size and the name of the partition, as well as the position of the partition. Select “Create at the start of the free space”, then enter the partition name, then the size.

After that, this partition should be created.

We are not done yet when it comes to partitioning, so we need to go back to the logical view. Press ENTER, then press ENTER on “Create a new volume”. Then, select “Create a volume that can be made bootable”, then C:.

You’ll be brought back to the physical view that will tell you to choose a physical disk. Below the physical disk, the logical partition should be shown at the bottom of the screen. Press ENTER when this dialog box appears.

Press ENTER again, then select “Use existing partition”.

Now, a new logical volume will appear with the partition name that you’ve chosen. However, it’s still not ready yet for installation, since there are extra steps that are needed. We need to make it installable.

Press ENTER, and you should see the menu box below:

Select “Set the volume installable”. The status of your logical volume should change from “Startable” to “Installable”. Afterwards, press F3, and press ENTER when “Save the changes and exit” is highlighted.

Afterwards, you should be able to see the below dialog box telling you to insert the boot CD-ROM to the drive and restart the virtual machine using CTRL + ALT + DEL.

At this point, we need to change the BIOS boot order to avoid the black screen issue. Press DEL, go to BIOS Features Setup, and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first.

Then, exit the BIOS setup while saving changes, and follow the instructions all the way until the following screen shows up:

Verify that “Volume C” shows up. If not, you’ll have to configure the partitions again until the volume shows up in this screen. Since we’ve already configured everything, and that Volume C corresponds to our hard disk, press ENTER when “Accept the volume” is highlighted.

Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to format it slowly or quickly. This is a clean installation, so we’ve chosen a quick format. Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to use FAT or HPFS. We’ve chosen the HPFS file system.

After that, the installation of the base system begins.

After that, the virtual machine will automatically restart. Go back to the BIOS setup and make sure that the C drive comes first before the CD-ROM.

After that, OS/2 Warp should boot up to the GUI portion of the installer. The first thing you’ll be presented with is the configuration of the system, including the country, the graphics adapter, and the sound adapter.

First of all, we went to “Multimedia Device Support”, and added the SoundBlaster 16 PnP device to the list of installed devices.

Afterwards, we’re presented with another set of configuration, once we’ve selected “Next”. SInce there’s no need to configure anything on that screen, we’ve just clicked Next. Then, it presented us with options to choose the country/region, with the default selected country being “United States.”

Then, the printer configuraion window has shown up. SInce there’s no printer installed, we’ll leave it as it is.

We’re then presented with the graphics adapter configuration. It automatically selected the Cirrus Logic graphics adapter as we’ve chosen earlier for the virtual machine configuration.

Once we’ve selected OK, we’re then presented with a set of packages to install.

As soon as we clicked “Next”, we’re presented with another wizard that lets us configure some more services.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with a prompt to identify ourselves.

After that, we’re given another set of software packages to install. They represent the client services for OS/2.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with another configuration screen where we needed to configure the user ID and password for the file and print sharing services, and the network adapter and protocol services.

We went to create a new ID and a password for the sharing service

Then, we went to “Network Adapters and Protocol Services”, and a dialog box that told us to add a network adapter appeared. Since we don’t intend to have internet connectivity in this installation of OS/2 Warp 4.52, we’ve selected “No network adapter.”

Once we pressed OK, we’ve seen this result:

Now, we’ve pressed Install, and a confirmation dialog box appeared.

Now, the installation of the remaining system files started here.

Once it was done copying files, we’re asked whether to use the defaults for the monitor type or to use the display adapter utility program.

We’ve chosen the defaults, and an informational box appeared stating that the screen might flicker while the testing was underway.

After that, the remaining portions of the installation started. This is part one of the long waiting journey!

After the restart, depending on the region selected, OS/2 Warp 4.52 might tell you that there’s something wrong in the CONFIG.SYS file related to the codepage, just like below.

After that, the long waiting journey continues…

The system then restarted, and the desktop finally appeared, but with another dialog box asking us whether we needed to install sets of extra tools or not.

We’ve chosen the biggest option, which was “OS/2 Toolkit (English only)”. Then, we’ve clicked on Install once we’ve inserted the boot disk back to the CD-ROM drive.

Then, a configuration window where it tells us to configure the installation of the OS/2 Toolkit, just like below.

We’ve chosen to install everything, so we just chose Install. Yet another long wait journey starts…

After the installation of the toolkit reached 100%, a dialog box that told us that the installation was successful showed up. Once done, we’ve clicked on Quit in the toolkit installer.

Since the dialog box told us that the CONFIG.SYS file was modified and that we needed to restart the virtual machine. Therefore, we’ve clicked on Exit, then right-clicked on an empty area around the desktop and chose “Shut down”.

Once the shut down was done, we had to press CTRL + ALT + DEL in the virtual machine side. After that, the system booted up to the desktop, and the sound works!

Nostalgic, isn’t it?

OS/2 Warp 4.52 on 86Box with Super Socket 7 [1998]

OS/2 was a proprietary operating system that was initially developed by IBM in partnership with Microsoft as a replacement of DOS before it became entirely developed by IBM. OS/2 Warp 4 was officially released in 1996, and development slowed down to a halt because it failed to compete Microsoft Windows. OS/2 Warp 4.52 was officially released in December 2001, and this year, it will celebrate its 25th year anniversary.

Our focus in this article is testing OS/2 Warp 4.52 on an 86Box emulated machine with a Super Socket 7 [1998] motherboard. You can download it from here.

We’ve configured the virtual machine as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1998] Super Socket 7
• Machine: [SiS 5591] Gigabyte GA-5SG100
• CPU: Intel Pentium @ 166 MHz
• Memory: 128 MB
• Video: [ISA16] Cirrus Logic GD5434
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16 PnP
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: Internal device
• New hard disk: os2warp452.vhd
  • C/H/S: 1054/16/63
  • Size: 518 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) KENWOOD CD-ROM UCR-421 208E (72x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Insert the boot disc called mcp2-refresh-boot-en.iso to the CD-ROM reader, then configure BIOS as necessary.

To be more specific, we need to go to the BIOS setup using DEL and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first with PGUP/PGDN.

After that, we save the changes and restart the virtual machine.

The installer starts by telling you to insert the installation CD-ROM to the drive.

In this case, right-click on the CD-ROM icon, select “Insert…”, select mcp2-refresh-install-en.iso, and double-click it. Then, press ENTER.

After that, you should be able to see this welcome screen:

Press ENTER, and you’ll be taken to another screen that welcomes you to the operating system installer.

Press ENTER. At this point, since it’s a fresh installation, and the hard drive is already empty, you’ll get the “Volumes Too Small” message. This means that you’ll need to create a single partition that will be used to install OS/2 Warp 4.52 to.

Press ENTER, and you’ll get a warning message telling you that all data on modified volumes will be deleted, and that backups should be made. Since there is no data on the hard drive, you can safely ignore this warning. Just press ENTER.

After that, you’ll be taken to the partitioning screen where you’ll be presented with the logical volume manager, with the logical view being the default. Press F5, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can see your hard disk, such as the below screenshot:

Here, you can create a physical partition. Press TAB, then ENTER, and you’ll be presented with those options.

Press ENTER to create a new partition. You’ll be asked whether this partition is going to be logical or primary. Select “Primary partition”.

After you select it, you’ll be presented with various dialog boxes telling you to specify the size and the name of the partition, as well as the position of the partition. Select “Create at the start of the free space”, then enter the partition name, then the size.

After that, this partition should be created.

We are not done yet when it comes to partitioning, so we need to go back to the logical view. Press ENTER, then press ENTER on “Create a new volume”. Then, select “Create a volume that can be made bootable”, then C:.

You’ll be brought back to the physical view that will tell you to choose a physical disk. Below the physical disk, the logical partition should be shown at the bottom of the screen. Press ENTER when this dialog box appears.

Press ENTER again, then select “Use existing partition”.

Now, a new logical volume will appear with the partition name that you’ve chosen. However, it’s still not ready yet for installation, since there are extra steps that are needed. We need to make it installable.

Press ENTER, and you should see the menu box below:

Select “Set the volume installable”. The status of your logical volume should change from “Startable” to “Installable”. Afterwards, press F3, and press ENTER when “Save the changes and exit” is highlighted.

Afterwards, you should be able to see the below dialog box telling you to insert the boot CD-ROM to the drive and restart the virtual machine using CTRL + ALT + DEL.

At this point, we need to change the BIOS boot order to avoid the black screen issue. Press DEL, go to BIOS Features Setup, and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first.

Then, exit the BIOS setup while saving changes, and follow the instructions all the way until the following screen shows up:

Verify that “Volume C” shows up. If not, you’ll have to configure the partitions again until the volume shows up in this screen. Since we’ve already configured everything, and that Volume C corresponds to our hard disk, press ENTER when “Accept the volume” is highlighted.

Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to format it slowly or quickly. This is a clean installation, so we’ve chosen a quick format. Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to use FAT or HPFS. We’ve chosen the HPFS file system.

After that, the installation of the base system begins.

After that, the virtual machine will automatically restart. Go back to the BIOS setup and make sure that the C drive comes first before the CD-ROM.

After that, OS/2 Warp should boot up to the GUI portion of the installer. The first thing you’ll be presented with is the configuration of the system, including the country, the graphics adapter, and the sound adapter.

First of all, we went to “Multimedia Device Support”, and added the SoundBlaster 16 PnP device to the list of installed devices.

Afterwards, we’re presented with another set of configuration, once we’ve selected “Next”. SInce there’s no need to configure anything on that screen, we’ve just clicked Next. Then, it presented us with options to choose the country/region, with the default selected country being “United States.”

Then, the printer configuraion window has shown up. SInce there’s no printer installed, we’ll leave it as it is.

We’re then presented with the graphics adapter configuration. It automatically selected the Cirrus Logic graphics adapter as we’ve chosen earlier for the virtual machine configuration.

Once we’ve selected OK, we’re then presented with a set of packages to install.

As soon as we clicked “Next”, we’re presented with another wizard that lets us configure some more services.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with a prompt to identify ourselves.

After that, we’re given another set of software packages to install. They represent the client services for OS/2.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with another configuration screen where we needed to configure the user ID and password for the file and print sharing services, and the network adapter and protocol services.

We went to create a new ID and a password for the sharing service

Then, we went to “Network Adapters and Protocol Services”, and a dialog box that told us to add a network adapter appeared. Since we don’t intend to have internet connectivity in this installation of OS/2 Warp 4.52, we’ve selected “No network adapter.”

Once we pressed OK, we’ve seen this result:

Now, we’ve pressed Install, and a confirmation dialog box appeared.

Now, the installation of the remaining system files started here.

Once it was done copying files, we’re asked whether to use the defaults for the monitor type or to use the display adapter utility program.

We’ve chosen the defaults, and an informational box appeared stating that the screen might flicker while the testing was underway.

After that, the remaining portions of the installation started. This is part one of the long waiting journey!

After the restart, depending on the region selected, OS/2 Warp 4.52 might tell you that there’s something wrong in the CONFIG.SYS file related to the codepage, just like below.

After that, the long waiting journey continues…

The system then restarted, and the desktop finally appeared, but with another dialog box asking us whether we needed to install sets of extra tools or not.

We’ve chosen the biggest option, which was “OS/2 Toolkit (English only)”. Then, we’ve clicked on Install once we’ve inserted the boot disk back to the CD-ROM drive.

Then, a configuration window where it tells us to configure the installation of the OS/2 Toolkit, just like below.

We’ve chosen to install everything, so we just chose Install. Yet another long wait journey starts…

After the installation of the toolkit reached 100%, a dialog box that told us that the installation was successful showed up. Once done, we’ve clicked on Quit in the toolkit installer.

Since the dialog box told us that the CONFIG.SYS file was modified and that we needed to restart the virtual machine. Therefore, we’ve clicked on Exit, then right-clicked on an empty area around the desktop and chose “Shut down”.

Once the shut down was done, we had to press CTRL + ALT + DEL in the virtual machine side. After that, the system booted up to the desktop, and the sound works!

Nostalgic, isn’t it?

OS/2 Warp 4.52 on 86Box with Super Socket 7 [1998]

OS/2 was a proprietary operating system that was initially developed by IBM in partnership with Microsoft as a replacement of DOS before it became entirely developed by IBM. OS/2 Warp 4 was officially released in 1996, and development slowed down to a halt because it failed to compete Microsoft Windows. OS/2 Warp 4.52 was officially released in December 2001, and this year, it will celebrate its 25th year anniversary.

Our focus in this article is testing OS/2 Warp 4.52 on an 86Box emulated machine with a Super Socket 7 [1998] motherboard. You can download it from here.

We’ve configured the virtual machine as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1998] Super Socket 7
• Machine: [SiS 5591] Gigabyte GA-5SG100
• CPU: Intel Pentium @ 166 MHz
• Memory: 128 MB
• Video: [ISA16] Cirrus Logic GD5434
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16 PnP
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: Internal device
• New hard disk: os2warp452.vhd
  • C/H/S: 1054/16/63
  • Size: 518 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) KENWOOD CD-ROM UCR-421 208E (72x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Insert the boot disc called mcp2-refresh-boot-en.iso to the CD-ROM reader, then configure BIOS as necessary.

To be more specific, we need to go to the BIOS setup using DEL and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first with PGUP/PGDN.

After that, we save the changes and restart the virtual machine.

The installer starts by telling you to insert the installation CD-ROM to the drive.

In this case, right-click on the CD-ROM icon, select “Insert…”, select mcp2-refresh-install-en.iso, and double-click it. Then, press ENTER.

After that, you should be able to see this welcome screen:

Press ENTER, and you’ll be taken to another screen that welcomes you to the operating system installer.

Press ENTER. At this point, since it’s a fresh installation, and the hard drive is already empty, you’ll get the “Volumes Too Small” message. This means that you’ll need to create a single partition that will be used to install OS/2 Warp 4.52 to.

Press ENTER, and you’ll get a warning message telling you that all data on modified volumes will be deleted, and that backups should be made. Since there is no data on the hard drive, you can safely ignore this warning. Just press ENTER.

After that, you’ll be taken to the partitioning screen where you’ll be presented with the logical volume manager, with the logical view being the default. Press F5, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can see your hard disk, such as the below screenshot:

Here, you can create a physical partition. Press TAB, then ENTER, and you’ll be presented with those options.

Press ENTER to create a new partition. You’ll be asked whether this partition is going to be logical or primary. Select “Primary partition”.

After you select it, you’ll be presented with various dialog boxes telling you to specify the size and the name of the partition, as well as the position of the partition. Select “Create at the start of the free space”, then enter the partition name, then the size.

After that, this partition should be created.

We are not done yet when it comes to partitioning, so we need to go back to the logical view. Press ENTER, then press ENTER on “Create a new volume”. Then, select “Create a volume that can be made bootable”, then C:.

You’ll be brought back to the physical view that will tell you to choose a physical disk. Below the physical disk, the logical partition should be shown at the bottom of the screen. Press ENTER when this dialog box appears.

Press ENTER again, then select “Use existing partition”.

Now, a new logical volume will appear with the partition name that you’ve chosen. However, it’s still not ready yet for installation, since there are extra steps that are needed. We need to make it installable.

Press ENTER, and you should see the menu box below:

Select “Set the volume installable”. The status of your logical volume should change from “Startable” to “Installable”. Afterwards, press F3, and press ENTER when “Save the changes and exit” is highlighted.

Afterwards, you should be able to see the below dialog box telling you to insert the boot CD-ROM to the drive and restart the virtual machine using CTRL + ALT + DEL.

At this point, we need to change the BIOS boot order to avoid the black screen issue. Press DEL, go to BIOS Features Setup, and change the boot order so that CD-ROM goes first.

Then, exit the BIOS setup while saving changes, and follow the instructions all the way until the following screen shows up:

Verify that “Volume C” shows up. If not, you’ll have to configure the partitions again until the volume shows up in this screen. Since we’ve already configured everything, and that Volume C corresponds to our hard disk, press ENTER when “Accept the volume” is highlighted.

Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to format it slowly or quickly. This is a clean installation, so we’ve chosen a quick format. Then, the installer asked us whether we’d like to use FAT or HPFS. We’ve chosen the HPFS file system.

After that, the installation of the base system begins.

After that, the virtual machine will automatically restart. Go back to the BIOS setup and make sure that the C drive comes first before the CD-ROM.

After that, OS/2 Warp should boot up to the GUI portion of the installer. The first thing you’ll be presented with is the configuration of the system, including the country, the graphics adapter, and the sound adapter.

First of all, we went to “Multimedia Device Support”, and added the SoundBlaster 16 PnP device to the list of installed devices.

Afterwards, we’re presented with another set of configuration, once we’ve selected “Next”. SInce there’s no need to configure anything on that screen, we’ve just clicked Next. Then, it presented us with options to choose the country/region, with the default selected country being “United States.”

Then, the printer configuraion window has shown up. SInce there’s no printer installed, we’ll leave it as it is.

We’re then presented with the graphics adapter configuration. It automatically selected the Cirrus Logic graphics adapter as we’ve chosen earlier for the virtual machine configuration.

Once we’ve selected OK, we’re then presented with a set of packages to install.

As soon as we clicked “Next”, we’re presented with another wizard that lets us configure some more services.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with a prompt to identify ourselves.

After that, we’re given another set of software packages to install. They represent the client services for OS/2.

Once we clicked Next, we’re presented with another configuration screen where we needed to configure the user ID and password for the file and print sharing services, and the network adapter and protocol services.

We went to create a new ID and a password for the sharing service

Then, we went to “Network Adapters and Protocol Services”, and a dialog box that told us to add a network adapter appeared. Since we don’t intend to have internet connectivity in this installation of OS/2 Warp 4.52, we’ve selected “No network adapter.”

Once we pressed OK, we’ve seen this result:

Now, we’ve pressed Install, and a confirmation dialog box appeared.

Now, the installation of the remaining system files started here.

Once it was done copying files, we’re asked whether to use the defaults for the monitor type or to use the display adapter utility program.

We’ve chosen the defaults, and an informational box appeared stating that the screen might flicker while the testing was underway.

After that, the remaining portions of the installation started. This is part one of the long waiting journey!

After the restart, depending on the region selected, OS/2 Warp 4.52 might tell you that there’s something wrong in the CONFIG.SYS file related to the codepage, just like below.

After that, the long waiting journey continues…

The system then restarted, and the desktop finally appeared, but with another dialog box asking us whether we needed to install sets of extra tools or not.

We’ve chosen the biggest option, which was “OS/2 Toolkit (English only)”. Then, we’ve clicked on Install once we’ve inserted the boot disk back to the CD-ROM drive.

Then, a configuration window where it tells us to configure the installation of the OS/2 Toolkit, just like below.

We’ve chosen to install everything, so we just chose Install. Yet another long wait journey starts…

After the installation of the toolkit reached 100%, a dialog box that told us that the installation was successful showed up. Once done, we’ve clicked on Quit in the toolkit installer.

Since the dialog box told us that the CONFIG.SYS file was modified and that we needed to restart the virtual machine. Therefore, we’ve clicked on Exit, then right-clicked on an empty area around the desktop and chose “Shut down”.

Once the shut down was done, we had to press CTRL + ALT + DEL in the virtual machine side. After that, the system booted up to the desktop, and the sound works!

Nostalgic, isn’t it?

Playing DigDug from Microsoft's "Return of Arcade" on Windows 95 using 86Box. That's what #RetroGaming looked like 30 years ago! Still awesome! 😉

#90s #Windows #Win95 #Microsoft #Arcade #Retro #90er #Gaming #PCGaming #Emulation #86Box

After looking through several CD-ROMs, I guess I finallly found the best version of the Soundblaster 16 driver for DOS, Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. Here it is installing on my 25MHz COMPAQ Deskpro 386. 😉

https://archive.org/details/sb-16

#DOS #Retro #Tech #90s #90er #DOSGaming #PCGaming #Soundblaster #86Box #Emulation #Driver #Windows

Is anyone still familiar with this photo editing classic from 1997? "Kai's Photo Soap"... for Windows 95. I've had this as a young student back in the day... And I remember wasting a lot of expensive ink with my poor LPT1 ink-jet printer.

The CD-ROM runs great using 86Box. Pure nostalgia! 😍

P.S. Here's a link: Link: https://archive.org/details/kais_photo_soap_de

#RetroComputing #Windows95 #Win95 #PhotoEditing #90s #90er #Oldschool #CDROM #Retro #Tech #Emulation #86Box

Thanks to #WireGuard, my emulated Windows 98 machine just mounted its Samba share on my home server, which happens to be 1,500 km away right now.

#86box #retrocomputing

Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake (Alpha 6) on 86Box with Socket 370 [1998]

We’re now back with the sixth alpha of Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake, which was released on June 2006! Two months shy of the 20th anniversary of the first Ubuntu LTS release, we are very excited for this experiment on 86Box.

Our focus in this article is testing Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake on an 86Box emulated machine with a Socket 370 [1998] motherboard. You can download it from here.

We’ve configured the virtual machine as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1998] Socket 370
• Machine: [i440BX] ASUS CUBX
• CPU: Intel Celeron (Mendocino) @ 533 MHz
• Memory: 256 MB
• Video: [AGP] 3dfx Voodoo3 3000
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Gravis UltraSound
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: Internal device
• New hard disk: UbuntuDapper.vhd
  • C/H/S: 16644/16/63
  • Size: 8192 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-6702B 1007 (48x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Insert the Ubuntu 6.06 installation disc called ubuntu-6.06-alpha6-install-i386.iso to the CD-ROM reader, then configure BIOS as necessary.

You’ll see this main menu where we can choose to installer either to the hard disk, in OEM mode, or as a server. Let’s choose the first option, which is a normal install.

Afterwards, the old-fashioned installer that looks similar to what a Debian textual installer would look like appears.

After we have chosen a language, we are asked for our location.

Finally, the installer asks us for the keyboard layout we need to select.

As soon as we press ENTER, the installer starts looking for the Ubuntu installation disc and load additional installer components after searching for CD-ROM hardware.

After that, the installer tried to find the network adapter. Since we don’t intend to have one installed, because this system is unsupported as of long ago, we have answered No when the installer asked us if we have FireWire Ethernet.

After that, we’re prompted for the host name.

Then, the installer asked us if we need to provide proxy information for Ubuntu mirrors. We left it blank.

Afterwards, the installer started finding hard disks and starting the partitioner.

The installer found an 8 GB hard disk, so we’ve agreed to install Ubuntu to it by erasing the whole disk.

Afterwards, we’re prompted for the full name, the user name, and the password of the new account that our Ubuntu installation will contain.

The installation then started from this stage.

It took a considerable amount of time, especially when it had to do with installing and configuring the desktop packages. After a lot of patience, the installer finally set everything up in the new installation, such as users, and gave us a congratulatory message below.

When we pressed ENTER, the system automatically rebooted to the new Ubuntu installation.

Then, the login screen appeared.

We signed in with our username and password, and the GNOME splash screen appeared with “Dapper Drake!” drawn over it, with “THIS IS NOT THE FINAL ARTWORK!” at the top. Those two writings don’t appear in the final version of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, suggesting that this is the pre-release version.

Once the desktop gets loaded, the desktop looks like this:

We can verify that this alpha version of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS uses Linux version 2.6.15.

Applications, such as Firefox and gedit, work, too.

Oh, mein gutes, altes Windows 95 hat heute auch bemerkt, dass die Sommerzeit begonnen hat. Hat sich vermutlich auch keiner der damaligen Programmierer vorgestellt, dass das Ding noch 2026 Verwendung finden würde! 😜

#Windows95 #Win95 #RetroComputing #Retro #Tech #Microsoft #Windows #90er #90s #Emulation #86Box

Thanks to a recent upload to the Internet Archive from "LazArchive", I could finally put together a set of compatible MS-DOS 3.31 floppy disks. The COMPAQ FASTART utility disk from 1989 finally works as intended using the COMPAQ User Programs v6.01 Rev B. This never worked for me before, so it's a huge improvement! 😃

MS-DOS v3.31 is a particularly useful version of DOS, because it was the first version to support a partition size of over 32MB... up to 512MB!

Link: https://archive.org/details/compaq331
Another Link: https://archive.org/details/ms-dos.ver.-3.31d-oem-compaq.-english

#DOS #MSDOS #COMPAQ #Microsoft #Retro #80s #80er #80s #IBMPC #Emulation #86Box #Tech #DOSGaming #RetroComputing

I do believe Windows 98 was the last version of Windows still available on floppy disks. A complete set includes 38 (!) 1.680K DMF format diskettes. Holy cow! 😉

#Diskette #FloppyDisk #Windows #Microsoft #90s #90er #Retro #Tech #RetroComputing #Oldschool #Emulation #86Box

I do believe Windows 98 was the last version of Windows still available on floppy disks. A complete set includes 38 (!) 1.680K DMF format diskettes. Holy cow! 😉

#Diskette #FloppyDisk #Windows #Microsoft #90s #90er #Retro #Tech #RetroComputing #Oldschool #Emulation #86Box

I just received this version of Windows 98. Yes, Windows 98, not Windows 98 Second Edition. The original! I used this CD-ROM to update my 86Box VM from Windows 95 and everything worked right out of the box without any issues with drivers or within its device manager. It even managed pretty high-res resolutions and full 24-bit color. 😜

#Windows98 #Win98FE #Win98 #Retro #Computing #Tech #RetroGaming #Emulation #86Box #Microsoft #Windows #Oldschool #90er #90s

Installing a few simple DOS games on my Mac mini. 86Box is running like a charm on the M4 chip. 🙂

#RetroGaming #MacOS #MacGaming #Emulation #Gaming #86Box #DOSGaming #MSDOS #IBMPC #86Box #FloppyDisk #Diskette #90er #90s

Installing a few simple DOS games on my Mac mini. 86Box is running like a charm on the M4 chip. 🙂

#RetroGaming #MacOS #MacGaming #Emulation #Gaming #86Box #DOSGaming #MSDOS #IBMPC #86Box #FloppyDisk #Diskette #90er #90s

Running Windows on a MacBook Neo? Of course!... Windows 95! This is still the best version..

#86Box #Win95 #Windows95 #RetroComputing #Emulation #MacBookNeo #MacBook #Apple #MacOS #Retro

I ran a few 86Box virtual machines on the MacBook Neo to check out its emulation capabilities. Everything works quite nicely, from discovering my existing retro machines, running all kinds of DOS games, MT-32 music emulation, even the floppy drive sounds.

The emulation performance seems to be very respectable for an A18Pro iPhone chip. I went through several virtual systems, from a slow 386SX all the way up to a Pentium MMX 233MHz and even, just for testing, a Pentium II 300MHz. The performance meter never dipped below 100% and everything did work as expected. I believe, this is VERY good news for retro gaming on this budget MacBook.

Conclusion: I'm very happy!

#RetroGaming #MacBookNeo #MacGaming #86Box #Emulation #Apple #MacBook #AppleA18Pro #Retro #Gaming #DOSGaming #Win95 #Windows95

Hab' heute Nacht mal wieder 'n bisschen in Monkey Island weitergespielt. So gern ich die 16-Farben EGA Fassung mag, aber die 256 Farben der VGA Version sind ebenfalls einfach wunderschöne Pixellkunst! 😍

#RetroGaming #DOSGaming #LucasArts #LucasFilm #MonkeyIsland #Retro #Gaming #90er #90s #VGA #Farben #86Box #Emulation #DOS #IBMPC #Kunst

Aus "The Secret of Monkey Island"... Kann es sein, dass das eine Anspielung auf die Adventures von Sierra war? In Space Quest bin ich, wie ich mich erinnern kann, auch ziemlich oft gestorben. Und das sah dann immer ähnlich aus! 😉

#RetroGaming #DOSGaming #LucasArts #LucasFilm #MonkeyIsland #SierraOnline #SpaceQuest #Retro #Gaming #90er #90s #VGA #86Box #Emulation #DOS #IBMPC

I'm checking out the "Wing Commander Overhaul Mod" by AllTinker. This actually works really well on a virtual 486DX-100MHz. By default, the game would run way too fast on such a powerful machine. But it's working with this mod. Very cool! Thanks to @glc for letting me know about this.

https://alltinker.itch.io/wcat

#RetroGaming #DOSGaming #PCGaming #WingCommander #86Box #Emulation #Retro #Gaming #90s

A 386 at 25MHz and 4MB RAM is the perfect system for playing the original Wing Commander. The game was super sensitive to the CPU speed and often ran way too fast on modern CPUs... like a 486DX! 😂

#RetroGaming #DOSGaming #PCGaming #Gaming #Retro #WingCommander #Oldschool #Emulation #86Box #IBMPC #90s #90er #DOS #FloppyDisk #Diskette

The CD-ROM icon in Windows 3.1's file manager does look a bit ... "odd"... when you spent too much time in "Windows for Workgroups". 😉

#Windows #RetroComputing #Oldschool #90s #WfW311 #FileManager #CDROM #Emulation #86Box

A few more games to install on the Compaq Deskpro 386/25. These should definitely keep me busy for some time:

- SimFarm
- Flight Simulator 4.0
- Space Quest VGA
- Castle of the Winds

Retro gaming is still awesome in 2026! 😉

#RetroGaming #DOSGaming #PCGaming #Retro #90s #80s #RetroComputing #PCDOS #MSDOS #Emulation #86Box

Earlier tonight, I was searching the web for the official Compaq diagnostics disk to add a Compaq Deskpro 386/25 to my collection of 86Box virtual machines. This machine's from the late 80s and it does not have anything like a BIOS settings menu, but instead uses a bootable floppy disk instead.

Great success! I did not only find working disk images, but I even managed to download the original files from Compaq to create these disks in the first place. In both 3.5" and 5.25" versions! The files are named "SP0308.EXE" and "SP0316.EXE".

I'm reallly grateful to the community for preserving these files! 😃

#RetroComputing #Compaq #DOSGaming #RetroGaming #Emulation #86Box #PCEmulation #FloppyDisk

Hier noch ein weiteres, eher spezielles Retro-Sammlerstück, diesmal aus dem Jahre 1992: Ein OEM Diskettensatz von Windows 3.1 mit Dienstprogrammen und Branding des PC-Herstellers COMPAQ.

Eine Installation dieser Disketten ist - sofern man keine Fehlermeldung auslösen möchte - nur auf Computern mit COMPAQ BIOS möglich. Ansonsten wird beim ersten Start ein "Segment-Lade-Fehler" durch das Programm CPQINST.EXE ausgelöst. Um dies zu vermeiden, genügt allerdings auch schon ein emuliertes COMPAQ System, wie z.B. der "Compaq Deskpro 386" in 86Box.

https://archive.org/details/mswin_3.1_de_compaq-branded

Viel Spaß beim Austesten! 😉

#Win31 #Windows #Microsoft #COMPAQ #Diskette #FloppyDisk #Branding #86Box #Emulation #RetroComputing #90er #90s

Solaris 2.6 (x86) on 86Box with Socket 7 [1996]

Solaris 2.6 was released on July 1997 with SVR4 as the base, which makes it compatible with UNIX System V 4.0. This version was the first to provide TrueType fonts, Kerberos 5 authentication, and large file support. As of today, you can obtain the Solaris 2.6 installation (but unbootable!) ISO file here.

As we said “unbootable,” we mean that you can’t just insert the ISO file to the CD-ROM drive and expect Solaris to boot. Therefore, we have extracted the two floppy disk images from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine dump, and the final boot images can be obtained here. We will showcase how we’ve managed to get those boot images at the end of the article.

Installing Solaris 2.6

First of all, we have configured 86Box as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1996] Socket 7 (Dual Voltage)
• Machine: [SiS 5571] MSI MS-5146
• CPU: Intel Pentium 100/66
• Memory: 32 MB
• Video: [ISA16] Circus Logic GD5434
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16 PnP
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: Internal device
• New hard disk: Solaris26.vhd
  • C/H/S: 1054/16/63
  • Size: 518 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• Floppy drive 1: 3.5″ 1.44M
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) MATSHITA CD-ROM CR-588 LS15 (32x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Once it starts, immediately assign the floppy image you’ve downloaded to the floppy disk controller like this: (note that we have only tested the MU3 version, not the FCS version.)

Then, insert the Solaris 2.6 (x86) root CD-ROM to the CD-ROM reader.

Afterwards, go to the BIOS setup, and let the BIOS automatically detect the hard disk configuration, along with CD-ROM. If you’ve set everything up properly, you should be able to see both the HDD and the CD-ROM drives.

Afterwards, save the BIOS changes to the CMOS and let it boot from the floppy. If everything works OK, you should be able to see the below screens.

When the virtual machine finally shows you the Solaris Device Configuration Assistant, press F2, and let Solaris automatically configure the device drivers for all virtual PC parts, including the graphics card and the mouse, which are needed for the X11 window system.

Once the scan is complete, you should be able to see all hardware installed on the virtual machine.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you select one of the drives (CD-ROM or HDD) to boot to the Solaris kernel. Since this is a clean install, we want to boot to the Solaris kernel from the root CD-ROM.

Choose CD by highlighting it and pressing ENTER. Afterwards, press F2, and the Solaris kernel should boot up.

After the kernel boots up, you should be prompted for locale selection. Since we are going to install Solaris in plain ASCII, press 0, and then strike the ENTER key.

Once done, you should be taken to the full-screen installation screen that says “The Solaris Installation Program” in its red banner.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to the kdmconfig program that allows you to set up the X11 server.

Since we want to configure the GUI, press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen that allows you to review the settings that this program detected.

Unfortunately, the Graphics Device and the Monitor Type entries were wrong, because they indicated “Unknown.” As a result, we need to modify them so that they point to the correct configuration. Make sure that you’ve selected a graphics card that is supported by the X11 server on your virtual machine. For instance, we’ve selected the Cirrus Logic GD5434 graphics card (4 MB) because it’s supported with Solaris 2.6.

After that, press ENTER on the correct graphics card entry, and press F2.

Next, you’ll have to configure the monitor as a multi-sync monitor that handles up to 1024×768 resolution.

Afterwards, leave the screen size selection as it is, which is 17 inches.

Press F2, and you’ll be provided with resolution and color options. For instance, we have selected 16-bit colors with 800×600 resolution, like below.

After that, you should be taken back to a screen that shows you the selected configuration for the X11 server that the Solaris installation program will start.

This time, press F2 on the “No changes needed” option, and you’ll be asked to confirm that you want to install Solaris with the GUI after the test completes.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you’ll be able to see the colors and answer the question whether the display works correctly or not.

As soon as you select Yes, you’ll be taken to the GUI version of the Solaris installation program.

When you press Continue, you’ll be prompted to choose a host name for the new Solaris installation. Then, it lets you confirm your host name.

Afterwards, you’ll be taken to the time zone selection screen. Choose your time zone that matches your country the closest, then confirm the changes.

After that, the Solaris installation program will initialize some system services prior to you being able to select the software group. Since our hard disk is 518 MB, we’ll have to choose the default configuration, which is “End User System Support” that takes up only 353 MB as recommended.

Press Continue, and you’ll be taken to a screen that lets you select a disk. Since this is a clean install, and the virtual machine has a single disk, we press Continue after reviewing the disk list. Make sure that the disk gets listed as “c0d0 (boot disk) 509 MB” or something similar, and that the Total Selected value exceeds the Required value.

After that, you’ll need to take care of partitioning. Luckily, Solaris offers an option to automatically partition the disk, which is great for those new to the system. This abstracts away the hard work needed to manually partition the disks.

After the partitioning stage, it’s time for the actual installation to begin. The next screen lets you review the settings before the installation starts. In case you’ve made a mistake, you can press the Change button. Otherwise, press the Begin Installation button.

Afterwards, the installation program asks you if you want to automatically reboot when installation is complete. This is useful if you want to make final modifications to the system before the first boot after the installation completes.

After that, the installation process begins, and then the system gets automatically rebooted.

As soon as “rebooting…” text gets printed, immediately eject the Solaris boot floppy.

Then, let the Solaris system boot.

Wait a few minutes, and Solaris will prompt you to select a root password for the first time.

Solaris may prompt you to review the X11 server configuration with this screen, so you may see this warning on your screen. In case this happens, just press F2 until the X server starts.

After the X11 server starts, you should see the graphical login screen.

Write “root” as the user name, and write the root password you’ve just set. You’ll be prompted to choose whether to use CDE or OpenWindows.

Afterwards, the CDE desktop will open, since we have selected it as the default desktop environment.

If you want to change the X11 server resolution any time, log out from CDE or OpenWindows, then press Options > Console Login, then, log in as root and execute kdmconfig. Just enter the same parameters (graphics card, monitor type), but choose another resolution. After that, execute exit to log out from the console shell.

We have confirmed that the uname command reveals something interesting. It’s actually SunOS with the kernel version of 5.6, built against i86pc.

How did we obtain the boot images?

Generally, the boot images are unavailable on the internet publicly due to how old Solaris 2.6 is. However, we have done a cursory search, and found a newsgroup mail entry that told the user to navigate to a site where they can download a raw image file of the Device Configuration Assistant for a specific Solaris version.

Upon further inspection of the http://soldc.sun.com/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/ link with the Wayback Machine, we have seen some interesting links that point to two bootable floppy disk images for Solaris 2.6, indicated with the URL alone.

When we fetched the URL list from the Wayback Machine, we saw the following links:

• http://soldc.sun.com:80/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/2.6/S26_MU3.3
• http://soldc.sun.com:80/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/2.6/S26_FCS.3

They led to the bootable images by URL, exactly what we want. However, they were archived as HTML text, so we can see garbled characters that represent the binary file being treated as text. When we used the Inspect Element tool against the text, we saw a raw URL that points to the file.

Then, we’ve manually downloaded the corresponding files using the curl command from the PowerShell command prompt.

This way, after we verified that the downloaded floppy images work, we’ve made the floppy images available here.

Good morning. I am waking up to find some MIDI issue in one of my 86Box machines. It seems 86Box broke or changed something with a recent code update.

Took me a few minutes to figure this out. The Soundblaster 16 is now set to an MPU-401 address of 0x300, while 0x330 is still being used by the Roland MT-32 emulation. Windows 3.1 is satisfied using the 0x300 address after I changed its settings to use it, while DOS games like "The Secret of Monkey Island" are still working fine with the MT-32 music emulation. Before that, I had simply turned off the SB16's MIDI address altogether. Oh, well... maybe this new setting really does make more sense. 😉

Happy retro gaming, everybody!

#MIDI #86Box #Emulation #MT32 #SoundBlaster #SB16 #DOSGaming #RetroGaming #RetroComputing #Retro #90s #80s #Oldschool

Good morning. I am waking up to find some MIDI issue in one of my 86Box machines. It seems 86Box broke or changed something with a recent code update.

Took me a few minutes to figure this out. The Soundblaster 16 is now set to an MPU-401 address of 0x300, while 0x330 is still being used by the Roland MT-32 emulation. Windows 3.1 is satisfied using the 0x300 address after I changed its settings to use it, while DOS games like "The Secret of Monkey Island" are still working fine with the MT-32 music emulation. Before that, I had simply turned off the SB16's MIDI address altogether. Oh, well... maybe this new setting really does make more sense. 😉

Happy retro gaming, everybody!

#MIDI #86Box #Emulation #MT32 #SoundBlaster #SB16 #DOSGaming #RetroGaming #RetroComputing #Retro #90s #80s #Oldschool

Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X (Alpha 1992) on 86Box with i486 [1992]

Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X is the first Linux distribution that came up with the concept of the live distribution that came in a single CD-ROM disk. It was named “Plug and Play Linx”, which means that this distro automatically configures itself for hardware.

In this article, we will be testing the alpha release of Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X that was released on December 1992 with the pre-installed Bochs virtual machine ZIP file while integrating its disk image with 86Box. You can find this archive file here.

First, we have configured 86Box as follows:

The virtual machine has been configured as follows:

• Machine type: [1992] i486 (Miscellaneous)
• Machine: [STPC Client] ITOX STAR
• CPU: ST STPC DX @ 66 MHz
• Memory: 32 MB
• Video: [ISA] Tseng Labs ET4000AX
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: Mouse Systems Serial Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: Internal device
• New hard disk: ygg-c.img (needs resize)
  • C/H/S: 914/16/63
  • Size: 449 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• Floppy drive 1: 3.5″ 1.44M

We have taken the ygg-c.img file from the Bochs virtual machine dump that was apparently made in 2004. Since Bochs 3.0 didn’t work with this virtual machine according to our tests due to deprecated entries and other errors, we have adapted it to 86Box.

We’ve started the virtual machine, and let the BIOS automatically detect the drive from the BIOS setup. Afterwards, we’ve let the Yggdrasil Linux distribution start up.

This version of Yggdrasil was using Linux version 0.98. Since the initial snapshot of the disk image was made, we’ve configured the X386 server to use our configured virtual machine’s graphics card and the mouse.

We’ve launched the vi /usr/lib/X11/Xconfig command to edit the X server configuration file, which showed us the full settings that was generated for the Bochs virtual machine. We need to adapt it to the current configuration of the virtual machine.

First, we’ve removed the comment sign, #, from the MouseSystems property, which means that the X server assumes that the Mouse Systems serial mouse has been installed under /dev/ttys1.

After that, we went to the vga256 section that specified no configuration for the graphics chipset, which explained why the X server refused to start. We’ve removed the comment sign from the Chipset property that had a value of et4000, which is the chipset for the Tseng Labs ET4000AX that we’ve selected.

Afterwards, we’ve started the X server with startx, and we’re greeted with TWM with three terminals and one xclock window. The third xterm and the xclock window were both off-screen due to the virtual resolution of 1024×1024 as “Virtual 1024 1024” specifies.

The keyboard works fine, but the mouse cursor moves sluggishly. We’ve examined what X11 applications are currently installed by running ls /usr/X11/bin, and we got the below list.

For example, we ran the maze program, and it showed us the randomly generated maze with the X logo being placed.

That is one exciting thing to have seen what the oldest Linux distribution in its oldest version looks like. Stay tuned and feel free to follow us for more old operating systems being run on 86Box.

Boahh... ich hab heute wohl bald 100 Mal Windows 95 in 86Box installiert um alle Boot Disketten und CD-ROM Varianten durchzutesten und in die Sammlung einzusortieren. Bin - mit ein paar Pausen, wo ich am Auto gebastelt hatte - bestimmt seit 12 Stunden am Basteln. Uff... Ich brauch kommende Woche wohl Urlaub, vom Urlaub!

#86Box #Emulation #Windows #Win95 #Windows95 #RetroComputing #90er #90s #Retro #Oldschool #Vintage

Solaris 7.0 (x86) on 86Box with Socket 7 [1996]

After a very long time due to our focus on Nitrocid 0.2.0 with the Aptivi rebranding efforts, we’ve come up with something very intriguing for today and tomorrow! As we have evaluated choices, we have chosen Solaris 7.0 (x86 version) as the test subject for today.

Solaris 7.0 was released on November 1998 as SunOS 2.7 with SVR4 as the base, which makes it compatible with UNIX System V 4.0. This version was the first to provide 64-bit support for UltraSPARC machines. As of today, you can obtain bootable files from here.

First of all, we have configured 86Box as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1996] Socket 7 (Dual Voltage)
• Machine: [SiS 5571] MSI MS-5146
• CPU: Intel Pentium 100/66
• Memory: 32 MB
• Video: [ISA16] Circus Logic GD5434
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: [ISA16] PC/AT IDE Controller
• New hard disk: Solaris7.vhd
  • C/H/S: 1054/16/63
  • Size: 518 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• Floppy drive 1: 3.5″ 1.44M
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) MATSHITA CD-ROM CR-588 LS15 (32x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Once it starts, immediately assign the floppy image you’ve downloaded to the floppy disk controller like this:

Then, insert the Solaris 7.0 (x86) root CD-ROM to the CD-ROM reader.

Afterwards, go to the BIOS setup, and let the BIOS automatically detect the hard disk configuration, along with CD-ROM. If you’ve set everything up properly, you should be able to see both the HDD and the CD-ROM drives.

Afterwards, save the BIOS changes to the CMOS and let it boot from the floppy. If everything works OK, you should be able to see the below screens.

When the virtual machine finally shows you the Solaris Device Configuration Assistant, press F2, and let Solaris automatically configure the device drivers for all virtual PC parts, including the graphics card and the mouse, which are needed for the X11 window system.

Once the scan is complete, you should be able to see all hardware installed on the virtual machine.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you select one of the drives (CD-ROM or HDD) to boot to the Solaris kernel. Since this is a clean install, we want to boot to the Solaris kernel from the root CD-ROM.

Choose CD by highlighting it and pressing ENTER. Afterwards, press F2, and the Solaris kernel should boot up.

After the kernel boots up, you should be prompted for language selection. Since we want this installation to be in English, press 0, and then strike the ENTER key.

Afterwards, you’ll be asked for the keyboard layout. If you intend to use any other layout, write down the number that corresponds to your keyboard. Otherwise, press ENTER to assume that it’s a US ASCII keyboard.

Once done, you should be taken to the full-screen installation screen that says “The Solaris Installation Program” in its red banner.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to the kdmconfig program that allows you to set up the X11 server.

Since we want to configure the GUI, press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen that allows you to review the settings that this program detected.

Unfortunately, the Graphics Device and the Monitor Type entries were wrong, because they indicated “Unknown.” As a result, we need to modify them so that they point to the correct configuration. Make sure that you’ve selected a graphics card that is supported by the X11 server on your virtual machine. For instance, we’ve selected the Cirrus Logic GD5434 graphics card (4 MB) because it’s supported with Solaris 7.0.

After that, press ENTER on the correct graphics card entry, and press F2.

Next, you’ll have to configure the monitor as a multi-sync monitor that handles up to 1024×768 resolution.

Afterwards, leave the screen size selection as it is, which is 17 inches.

Press F2, and you’ll be provided with resolution and color options. For instance, we have selected 16-bit colors with 640×480 resolution, like below.

After that, you should be taken back to a screen that shows you the selected configuration for the X11 server that the Solaris installation program will start.

This time, press F2 on the “No changes needed” option, and you’ll be asked to confirm that you want to install Solaris with the GUI after the test completes.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you’ll be able to see the colors and answer the question whether the display works correctly or not.

As soon as you select Yes, you’ll be taken to the GUI version of the Solaris installation program.

When you press Continue, you’ll be prompted to choose a host name for the new Solaris installation. Then, it lets you confirm your host name.

Afterwards, you’ll be taken to the time zone selection screen. Choose your time zone that matches your country the closest, then confirm the changes.

After that, the Solaris installation program will initialize some system services prior to you being able to select the software group. Since our hard disk is 518 MB, we’ll have to choose the default configuration, which is “End User System Support” that takes up only 353 MB as recommended.

Press Continue, and you’ll be taken to a screen that lets you select a disk. Since this is a clean install, and the virtual machine has a single disk, we press Continue after reviewing the disk list. Make sure that the disk gets listed as “c0d0 (boot disk) 509 MB” or something similar, and that the Total Selected value exceeds the Required value.

After that, you’ll need to take care of partitioning. Luckily, Solaris offers an option to automatically partition the disk, which is great for those new to the system. This abstracts away the hard work needed to manually partition the disks.

After the partitioning stage, it’s time for the actual installation to begin. The next screen lets you review the settings before the installation starts. In case you’ve made a mistake, you can press the Change button. Otherwise, press the Begin Installation button.

Afterwards, the installation program asks you if you want to automatically reboot when installation is complete. This is useful if you want to make final modifications to the system before the first boot after the installation completes.

After that, the installation process begins, and then the system gets automatically rebooted.

As soon as “rebooting…” text gets printed, immediately eject the Solaris boot floppy.

Then, let the Solaris system boot.

Wait a few minutes, and Solaris will prompt you to select a root password for the first time.

Solaris may prompt you to review the X11 server configuration with this screen, so you may see this warning on your screen. In case this happens, just press F2 until the X server starts.

After the X11 server starts, you should see the graphical login screen.

Write “root” as the user name, and write the root password you’ve just set. Afterwards, the CDE desktop will open.

If you want to change the X11 server resolution any time, log out from CDE or OpenWindows, then press Options > Console Login, then, log in as root and execute kdmconfig. Just enter the same parameters (graphics card, monitor type), but choose another resolution. After that, execute exit to log out from the console shell. For example, we’ve chosen 800×600, and the result is this:

Next up, we’ll demonstrate the oldest Linux distribution that contains the X11 server. Are you excited?

I think it's super impressive how actively 86Box is being developed! There are usually several code updates a day... every day! 86Box is essential for anyone interested in retro emulation or oldschool PC gaming! My gratitude goes out to everyone working on perfecting it!

https://86box.net

#86Box #Emulation #pcgaming #RetroGaming #90s #80s

Heilige Scheiße, was war das hässlich! Windows 95 C SR2.5 mit IE4 und Active Desktop direkt nach der Installation. Wirklich schrecklich! 😠

#Win95 #Windows95 #Microsoft #Windows #RetroComputing #90er #90s #Bloatware #Retro #86Box #InternetExplorer

Oh, cool! I just found an old 3.5 inch 720K floppy disk containing Microsoft Mouse drivers and Paintbrush 1.05 for Windows. Got it running using 86Box and Windows/386 2.11. I love being able to run 40-year-old software in 2026! 🙂

#Windows #Retro #Oldschool #80s #Microsoft #RetroComputing #IBMPC #VGA #Mouse #Software #FloppyDisk #Diskette #86Box #Emulation

Windows halt wieder, mit seinen völlig überzogenen Systemanforderungen! Man kann's halt auch übertreiben... Nen 486er mit 16MB RAM? So viel Rechenleistung und RAM braucht doch kein Mensch! 😉

#RetroComputing #Win98 #Windows #Microsoft #Retro #Emulation #86Box

🎉🎅 Behold, the great #86Box #v5.3 update: because nothing screams #holiday #cheer like "localized #performance improvements" and "floppy #drive #sounds accuracy." 🎄🔧 Apparently, this is the gift no one asked for, but everyone will pretend to appreciate while secretly dreaming of anything else. 🎁💤
https://86box.net/2025/12/21/86box-v5-3.html #update #floppy #localized #improvements #HackerNews #ngated

Da ist mir heute mal ein richtig schöner Diskettensatz von Excel 4.0 für Windows 3.x über den Weg gelaufen. Diese Version von Excel hatte ich bisher nur als Teil von Office 3.0, jedoch noch nie als Stand-Alone Fassung.

Ich konnte die Datenträger gerade schon kurz testen und erfolgreich in 86Box installieren. Die fertigen Images lade ich dann im Laufe der kommenden Tage auch wieder ins Internet Archive. 😉

P.S. Hier nun der Download-Link:
https://archive.org/details/ms-excel_40_de

#RetroComputing #90er #Excel #Microsoft #Office #Win311 #Windows #Diskette #FloppyDisk #Retro #86Box #Emulation

Коробка багов (взрывается): кроссплатформенное коварство

В сентябре мы рассматривали релиз 86Box v5.0, приуроченный к тридцати годам со дня выхода в розничную продажу Windows 95, и пообещали показать ещё кое-что. О чём мы сознательно умолчали, и почему оставили находку для отдельной статьи? Что осталось в "коробке"?

https://habr.com/ru/companies/pvs-studio/articles/963286/

#pvsstudio #86box #libc #glibc #freebsd #c11 #эмуляция #совершенный_код #стандарты_кодирования

The latest build of 86Box emulator is capable of reproducing the actual sound of a floppy disk drive. While this is a function still in beta, it adds a completely new dimension of depth to the retro experience. I like it!

Here's a quick video sample... booting MS-DOS 6.22 and installing STUNTS from 3.5inch floppy disks.

#RetroComputing #FloppyDisk #Emulation #86Box #MSDOS #STUNTS #PCGaming

Коробка багов (эмулируется)

24 августа 2025 года состоялся релиз 86Box 5.0. Низкоуровневый эмулятор IBM PC и совместимых с ним компьютеров получил новый динамический рекомпилятор инструкций процессора, расширил поддержку "железа" и улучшил работу множества уже существующих компонентов. Что ещё внутри "коробки"?

https://habr.com/ru/companies/pvs-studio/articles/949682/

#86box #ретрокомпьютинг #эмуляция #pvsstudio #x86 #статический_анализ_кода

Thanks to a new upload by "lemonhead" and "Digitoxin", I could finally complete my personal floppy disk collection of the 1987 game "Larry Leisure Suit" for the IBM-PC, Version 1.0.

This game was copy protected, so it's always neat to have all kinds of disk image formats available. I just dumped and added my own TeleDisk image. It works!

If you're curious: Here's Digitoxin's collection of "Sierra On-Line" titles:
https://archive.org/details/20220303_20220303_0527

This. Is. AWESOME! Enjoy! 😉

#RetroComputing #LarryLeisureSuit #LLS #MSDOS #DOSGaming #PCGaming #80s #CopyProtection #FloppyDisk #Diskette #86Box #Emulation #TeleDisk

I know this isn't the famous "Definitive Edition" of AoE II - which is also great! - but I'm still in love with this game in its original version and form. Looking at this at an aspect ratio of 4:3 running on Windows 95 just feels right in so many ways! And it still plays great!

P.S. I'd like to give a shout out to the development team of 86Box. You guys are keeping my childhood computers alive. Thank you!

#RetroGaming #Windows #AoE2 #AgeOfEmpires #RetroGames #PCGaming #Emulation #86Box #Pentium #Retro #90s

This sunday, I kept tinkering some more with 86Box and a few games for Windows 95. The most important game of that era ... at least for me .. is already working great! Here's "Age of Empires II" running on Windows 95.

#RetroGaming #WindowsGaming #AgeOfEmpires2 #AOE2 #Oldschool #86Box #Emulation

Tonight, I'm having an absolute blast playing around with Microsoft's Flight Simulator 4.0 and its "Experimental Jet Aircraft" from the "Aircraft & Scenery Designer" expansion.

Seeing this old game, which is so dear to my heart, running super smooth in full SVGA resolution and with all of this extra in-game content makes my inner 12 year old jump up and down from excitement! This is what retro gaming is all about!

#RetroGaming #DOSGaming #Nostalgia #Microsoft #FlightSimulator #FloppyDisk #Diskette #MSDOS #SVGA #Emulation #86Box

Tonight, I'm having an absolute blast playing around with Microsoft's Flight Simulator 4.0 and its "Experimental Jet Aircraft" from the "Aircraft & Scenery Designer" expansion.

Seeing this old game, which is so dear to my heart, running super smooth in full SVGA resolution and with all of this extra in-game content makes my inner 12 year old jump up and down from excitement! This is what retro gaming is all about!

#RetroGaming #DOSGaming #Nostalgia #Microsoft #FlightSimulator #FloppyDisk #Diskette #MSDOS #SVGA #Emulation #86Box

Der deutschsprachige Diskettensatz für Microsoft Works 2.0 für Windows 3.x steht ab sofort im Internet Archive zur Verfügung. Auf insgesamt 8 x 720K DD-Disketten aus dem Jahr 1991 gibt es eine einfache Textverarbeitung, Tabellenkalkulation und Datenbankfunktionen.

https://archive.org/details/works_2.0_for_windows_de

#Microsoft #Works #Office #RetroComputing #Wfw311 #Disketten #86Box

I finally found a version of WinZip old enough for Windows 3.0. Unlike later versions, WinZip 4.0b runs without complaining!

#RetroComputing #Windows #WinZip #90s #86Box #Emulation

After all these years, I just re-discovered that old WinZip Key Generator, I had always had in Windows 98 SE. The executable is from 1997, but amazingly still works in Windows 11!

Of course: I am only using it for purely academic / retro purposes! 😜

#WinZip #RetroComputing #Crack #KeyGen #86Box #Emulation