#win95 — Public Fediverse posts

#Random: You can actually emulate a SLIP modem on 86Box.

#tech #technology #windows95 #win95 #dialupinternet

often when i buy someone’s box of computer games, it comes with a pile of caseless cd-roms - usually kids games - rolling around in the bottom of the box. they all get stashed together in a misc spindle that i rarely ever look at.

today when i was grasping for cd-rom safari podcast ideas, i pulled out the spindle and flipped through the pile of shovelware. i found this disc, which had previously escaped my notice because it appeared to be an encyclopedia. upon closer inspection, encyclopedia it most certainly is not. 😅

this adventure game - The Lost Island of Alanna - bears a familar trademark: Cherry Coke. yes, that coca cola company (!).

per the wikipedia entry, “The Lost Island of Alanna represents an early example of integrated, digital, viral and social marketing using the internet. Alanna included a distributed CD-ROM game, integrated social chat rooms, under-the-cap codes, special product packaging, advertising, outdoor, and two promotional websites.”

this is a graphical adventure game. and you can’t make this stuff up:

“In the game, the player explores an island where an ancient civilization was concerned about passing on its wisdom but was wiped out by a volcano before it was able to share its precious knowledge. This civilization used clay bowls and a mixture of sparkling water and cherries in a tribal ceremony. The game cross-references this with bottles of Cherry Coke, on the labels of which are clues in the form of cuneiform characters, and then the player is encouraged to begin solving the mystery”

i can almost guarantee this is going to be a janky macromedia director game, and i can’t WAIT to play it so i can finally learn the ancient recipe of crystal pepsi

#cdrom #multimedia #retrocomputing #win95 #macintosh

Using 86Box to check out some fresh Windows 95 floppy disks I found on the Internet Archive. I'm comparing them to other versions, I already had in my retro archive. This is Windows 95 4.00.950 OEM. It works! :computerfairies:

Link: https://archive.org/details/win95a_full_floppy_untainted_ddimage

#RetroComputing #86Box #Windows95 #Win95 #90s #90er #Retro #Microsoft #Floppy #Diskette

It's wild how bad Office 95's UI design is compared to the rest of OSR #Win95 — you'd never think the teams were talking to each other!!

It's like the worst kind of open source UI design — "oh, I've seen MacWrite, that has a big toolbar with bold and fonts and things. Let's have a toolbar. But what to put on it? Oh, I know, I'll program a generalized system according to object oriented principles that can put anything onto the toolbar, then I'll waste time making toolbar widgets for everything"

Then they have the worst imaginable defaults for the toolbar, but because you — the end user — also aren't a UI designer, if u try to fix the toolbar you'll just make it worse

And then they fell in love with the toolbar??????? Internet Explorer was heavily designed around it, they back ported it into Windows Explorer, and eventually it became part of the redesigned Office Suite to get rid of the actual GUI and replace it all with an even shittier toolbar?? And that became the main Windows design language for years???????

I stg, OSR #Win95, at launch, without Office, was almost a real miracle. But being Microsoft, they biffed it so hard

https://zing.cz/article/hororova-indie-adventura-v-prostredi-windows-95

#Win95 #adventure

once every few years a local ms-dos/win95 gamer cleans out their closet in my city and sells them for $100

that day finally arrived and i am beyond ecstatic 🙏

#dosGaming #win95 #retroGaming #msdos

Easy: Recreate #Win95 / #Encarta in #HTML + #CSS
Hard: One tiny icon boi

#worldglass #retrocomputing

it took 35 years but i finally have all of the Berkeley Systems screensavers and games i grew up with and love

The one new experience was Triazzle. I had never heard of this little puzzle game, and it is gorgeously animated.

it’s hard to imagine software that shaped my sense of humour more than these classics.

#retrocomputing #win31 #win95 #startrek #simpsons #bigboxgames

Unlike some earlier releases, the "Best of Entertainment Pack" compilation from 1994 still works perfectly on Windows 9x. Microsoft "TETRIS for Windows" is still one of the best versions of Tetris ever made! 😉 😎

3.5inch floppy disk:
https://archive.org/details/wep_best-of

5.25inch floppy disks:
https://archive.org/details/wep_best-of_525

Have fun!

#Tetris #Microsoft #WEP #Win95 #Windows95 #Retro #RetroGaming #FloppyDisk #Diskette #Gaming

Win95 setup: prove you own windows 3.11!

Me: you are booting on a gateway solo from 1996, installing an OS from 1995, and the current system time is in 2026. Of course I fucking own Win 3.11!!!

#retrocomputing
#Windows95
#Win95

Also, wenn Windows auf dem MacBook Neo, dann wenigstens eine vernünftige Version! 😁😎

#Retro #Win95 #Emulation #86Box #MacBookNeo #Apple #MacOS

here’s an obscure bit of software preservation that has been completely forgotten:

i learned recently that back in the late 90s in North America, Kellogg’s partnered with MS to cross promote cereal and educational software. it was a ridiculously good deal: inside any box of cereal was a coupon for a $5 CD-ROM for the *full* version of a MS educational or reference program.

these were some of their flagship educational programs like Dinosaurs, Oceans, Explorapedia, Dangerous Creatures and Entertainment Pack 3. considering that these were $50-$60 at a couple of years earlier, it was a ridiculously good price.

i wonder how many kids unknowingly grew up with a Kellogg’s CD version of these, because their parents ordered copies from the cereal box?

#cdrom #multimedia #digiPres #softwarePreservation #win95 #macintosh #vintageApple

Comparing the main menu of SimCity Classic for Windows 3.1 to its Windows 95 pendant. This second cow has definitely eaten the wrong kind of grass. Holy cow! LOL!

Both games can be found on the SimCity Classic Deluxe for Windows CD-ROM:
https://archive.org/details/simcity_classic_deluxe_windows

Have fun! 😉

#SimCity #Windows95 #Win311 #Win95 #RetroGaming #Retro #Gaming #Maxis #Fun #90s #90er #PCGaming

I just discovered: DOSGames.com offers an impressive collection of oldschool game company catalogs for DOS! A journey through the 90s and a beautiful addition to any retro collection! 😎

Link: https://www.dosgames.com/catalogs.php

#DOSGaming #Gaming #DOS #Retro #RetroGaming #PCGaming #90s #90er #MSDOS #GamingHistory #Win95 #Win311 #Preservation #StopKillingGames

Hab' für euch gerade die GameStar CD-ROM aus 1/2001 ins Internet Archive hochgeladen. Darauf gab es damals eine Vollversion von Diablo, inkl. deutschem Handbuch im PDF-Format:

https://archive.org/details/gamestar_0101_diablo

Frohes Monsterkloppen! 😉

#Diablo #GameStar #CDROM #Win95 #Windows95 #Gaming #PCGaming #Retro #RetroGaming #Blizzard #90er #90s

good night Infinisys.co.jp, and thank you for your 35+ years of selling the official After Dark screen savers and modules. 🫡

here are a few snapshots of their After Dark pages over the past 30 years.

#macintosh #vintageApple #japan #retroComputing #win95

this is some pretty obscure history for Ultima fans, but i thought i'd share it here in case it brings back some memories for someone else too.

back in the mid-90s, finding any information about upcoming Ultima games was a worldwide treasure hunt. Origin Systems/EA hadn't figured out the internet as a marketing tool yet, so fans would root around through every gaming magazine for a morsel of info on Ultima IX.

a single blurry, low-resolution screenshot appeared one day - I first saw it on Usenet. someone claimed it was a screenshot from Ultima IX, found in a german magazine. it was a knight in a suit of armour, standing on a staircase near a bookshelf in some kind of castle. the render was stunningly realistic (given the 3d capabilities at the time)

some believed it, many did not. people got *excited*, whether they were dubious or believers. i was among the many who wanted to believe.

a few years later, real Ultima IX screenshots started to appear, and that old screenshot was largely forgotten.

i thought about that screenshot for decades afterward, because i never really knew if it was real or a hoax. one weekend, i sat down to figure it out.

it took many hours of trolling through Usenet archives from the mid-90s, and digging through many false leads, but i found it. people had said in 1996 that it came from a German magazine called GameStar.

they were partly correct. it was a german magazine, but it was another one called PowerPlay. It was an extensive interview with Richard Garriott at his peak, rich with EA dollars and living like a pirate.

in between the interview columns were hi-res screenshots of Ultima IX as it existed in 1996. this was not (yet) the isometric engine that people fell in love with, but what appear to be renders in what i presume to be 3DS Max.

so here they are - 30 years later. i suspect these were mockups made to promote the game, rather than anything playable.

i've uploaded archival copies to IA here:
https://archive.org/details/ultima_ix_powerplay_screenshots

and if you read German, you can read the extended interview here (pp. 172-178):
https://archive.org/details/powerplaymagazine-1996-02

#digiPres #ultima #retroGaming #win95

on today's episode of game collecting speculator stupidity: Arcomage

https://www.ebay.com/itm/327132405136

for anyone not familiar with Arcomage: it is a wonderful card minigame built into the Might & Magic 7 and 8 RPGs, that plays a bit like a simplified M:TG.

ca. 2000, 3DO re-released it as a separate game. it didn't sell well, and ended up in $5 bargain bins a year later.

a few years later, it disappeared completely, and became hard to find even on ebay. a copy would pop up for $25 now and then. early in the pandemic, i saw a cd sell for about $75, which i thought was excessive.

this isn't a highly sought after title. it's generally well liked, but only among RPG people, and only among a particular M&M subset of those people. there are a dozen good arcomage clones out there, and have been for over 20 years (since the Flash era).

so here we are today: two idiots chip-bidding each other, now at $400 USD, on a cd in a jewel case. the seller is going to wake up laughing every morning until these two collectors ruin one another.

#win95 #retroGaming

when i was a kid with my first 2x cd-rom drive, buying a cd-rom in a retail box was a $100+ CAD affair. so at my house that never happened.

all of my software on CD were either pack-ins that came with the computer, or from cheap multi-disc compilation packs like Sirius Software's 5ft10 pak.

one of those pack-ins was a copy of Encarta '94. it had a nondescript jewel case without cover art - just a green MS certificate of authenticity. i never knew what the retail box looked like, until today.

holy cow is it beautiful. the box is a hardcover flip-open activity book, designed for kidhands to pull open and rifle through. visually, it models the Dorling Kindersley UK educational books - I assume they did the graphic design.

the user manual is a thick kid friendly comic book. there's even a separate manual that teaches kids how to write a book report and *then* an entire section of proper citations and giving research credit.

MS was a big, big place in those days. its educational division was more or less walled off from the rest of the murderous beast, and it shows. this program is thoughtful, beautiful, and suffused with craftsmanship.

i'm right in the middle of retooling the Multimedia HyperGuide podcast, and now i have to do an episode on Encarta. it's so damned well made. in the mean time, feel free to listen to previous episodes here:
https://podcast.vga256.com

#multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #retrocomputing #podcast

Lustig! Ich hab das originale Diablo natürlich auch schon seit Jahren in meiner Sammlung auf GOG.com, aber ich habs gerade auch nochmal hinbekommen, es unter 86Box und Windows 95 von einer alten Heft-CD der GameStar 1/2001 zum Laufen zu bringen. Gibt dem Ganzen nochmal extra Nostalgie-Punkte! 😎

#GameStar #HeftCD #Diablo #RetroGaming #Retro #Gaming #90s #CDROM #Win95 #Windows95 #PCGaming

retro Furcadia tee from 25 years ago found on ebay

i think this was from one of the furcadia fundraisers held by DrCat and 'Manda.

totally wholesome; a time when its inhabitants kept the entire business afloat through sheer love and dedication to the online community.

#furcadia #win95 #retroGaming #furry #furry_art

it's hard to imagine that back in the mid-90s, the stiff and strait-laced MS had an entire department for making kids multimedia

their edutainment department was mostly independent of the rest of the monster, and produced some really unique educational software. Dinosaurs is one of their best - the combination of high production value, solid paleontological detail, and skeumorphic interfaces makes for a totally memorable experience.

i found this non-interactive demo buried in the program. i heard one of the former MS developers mention recently that scenes like these were built in Macromedia Director, and then nested within the program (built in C/C++) using a Director runtime.

you might notice the weird random b+w noise around the window, and in some of the background. that's a byproduct of the team using indexed palettes to handle the hundreds of compressed images. every single image was run through DeBabelizer to extract its index, and then averaged with other images to find shared colour palettes from 256 colours. the team had to make sure that the colour palette chosen never intruded into the "safe palette" used by the window frame, titlebar, and background. obviously, this one paletting error snuck past QA.

#dinosaurs #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #macromedia

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

several years ago I began archiving educational software. Dangerous Creatures had the BEST Win95 Plus! Pack theme. 😻

edit: I totally misremembered. The dangerous creatures theme with the cougar deskop was sorta ok. the BEST theme was called Jungle. it came with the Plus! For Kids Pack

for @david_bardos

#multimedia #softwarePreservation #digipres #win31 #win95

MS Dinosaurs and Encarta are often fondly remembered, but i personally think that Oceans had some of the best multimedia design. it's very book-like in presentation, with zero scrolling. every page is carefully written to exploit the limited space, and the sheer amount of hyperlinking between pages makes exploration *fun*.

here's a 2 minute quick tour of Oceans. i'm not sure how many people ever saw it back in the day. top-tier edutainment imo.

one of the most painful aspects of wikipedia is that due to its layout and allergy to brevity/density, it's about as fun to explore as a phone book. i'd love to some day see a redesign focused on the joy of exploration.

#multimedia #softwareHistory #history #win95 #win31

Mal ein Blick zurück auf den "DLH '98" und, es gab auch sogar eine DOS-Version! Der "Dirty Little Helper" war die größte offline Cheat-Datenbank und zwischen 1996 und 2006 quasi ein Must-Have für jeden Gamer! Und das ist jetzt auch schon wieder 20 Jahre her. Es ist zum Heulen! 😆

#DLH98 #DLH #DirtyLittleHelper #Cheats #Gaming #RetroGaming #Retro #90s #2000s #90er #DOS #DOSGaming #Win95 #PCGaming

I just added another BIN/CUE disc image to "Kai's Photo Soap" on the Internet Archive. It's 80MB bigger than just the plain ISO file, which might be the Power Macintosh version of the program, but I'm not sure.

https://archive.org/details/kais_photo_soap_de

#PowerMac #Apple #Macintosh #RetroComputing #Retro #Tech #90s #Windows95 #Win95