Notices by vga256 (vga256@dialup.cafe)

for fun, i used ebay's Personal Data request tool to extract out my ebay purchases from 2001 to 2010, so i could get a picture of how prices have changed over the decades when it comes to old computer/video junk

Aug 26, 2003: Ultima Worlds of Adventure: The Savage Empire
$13.49 USD
Currently: $100 USD

May 23, 2003: LC PDS style Ethernet adapter $5 USD
Currently: $50 USD

Apr 12, 2003 Druid: Demons of the Mind $2.99 USD
Currently: $40 USD

Apr 07, 2004 1988 Interplay Commodore C64 / C128 Game Neuromancer $9.99 USD
Currently: $150 USD

Apr 23, 2004 ULTIMA THE SECOND TRILOGY IV V VI BOX SET PC GAME $11.86 USD
Currently: $150 USD

Nov 10, 2004 PRINCE OF PERSIA (SEGA CD) EXCELLENT CONDITION $5.00 USD
Currently: $50 USD

As you can see, it's approximately a 1000% price increase on retrocomputing products since 2002. Without having to show you the entire history, the price stayed relatively flat until about 2010, when it started to creep slowly, and then went up several orders of magnitude by 2015-2020.

It's a silly, bad time to buy old computer games on ebay. prices are still hyperinflated (starting to drop, very slowly).

i've bought almost everything i have locally, for $5-10 each, just by keeping an eye on local listings - and ignoring the people trying to sell at ebay prices.

if you want to see your entire ebay history, you can request it here. it takes about a week to get your history.
https://www.ebay.com/help/account/requesting-personal-data/requesting-personal-data?id=5089

#retroComputing #retroGaming

@foone may have you covered:
https://archive.org/details/ftp.epson.com_199706

filename is AN500C.EXE

suspect it's the utilities disk, but unsure if the vga utility is on it

@foone i'm not sure what creational means in this context, but louis rossman's macbook repair videos are exceptionally useful

https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup

wondrous Boardwatch BBS magazine "top 100" boards in north america from 1994. this was based on a reader's choice vote-in.

the first two boards are (respectively) the homes of Apogee software and Epic MegaGames shareware publishers.

now just guess how many of the remaining 98 are porn boards!

credit: @fearfair on /r/bbs: https://i.redd.it/5pb1m577m9pd1.jpeg

#shareware #bbs #retroGaming

@foone yup. i didn’t really show it in the video, but all of the rooms are 360 degrees

happy to report that after minor surgery to replace a faulty cd lens assembly, this sega cd model 2 is operational for the first time in 15 years

featured: the best first person adventure game on sega consoles that nobody ever played: Jurassic Park

#sega #retroGaming #adventuregamers

@foone it's going to be a deep, neurotic joy when you find out only 2 of those pins are actually being used

@foone the most enjoyable part is when it worked perfectly at home with every permutation of equipment, and then it won't display on their aliexpress projector

@amigalove wow, great find! local classifieds?

@foone oh slick. do you have a working drive for it?
i've got a sony MO 5 1/4" scsi drive, but i haven't tried using it in decades.

game dev career not working out?

if you need a side hustle, can hook you up

#alberta #canada #dinosaurs

so this app has been lost for a good decade -

the Asus Surf 4G (and many other netbooks) use interesting resolutions like 800x480, and do not offer normal 4:3 resolutions like 640x480 via their winXP display driver

that means games like Thief or Doom 3 or Half-Life won't fit on the screen in windowed or full screen modes

this is where Netbook Resolution Customizer comes in. it lets you set custom resolutions so older win9x games can use the resolutions they expect

dredged this application out of a bunch of old EeePC forums that went defunct 10 years ago, and uploaded to IA:

https://archive.org/details/netbook-resolution-customizer-1b2

@Gammitin this is the first time i have ever seen a board that has both slot-1 and socket 😆

norton disk doctor 8.0 for windows 3.1 let you play midis in the background while it scanned/repaired your drive 😎

#win31 #msdos #dosgaming #retroComputing

@foone 🤣 nothing screams grandma and grandpasoft like time: man of the year

i am blown away by this *shareware* tile-based adventure game creation toolkit from 1995 called Adventure Gamer

built for windows 3.1, it allows you to create your own top-down adventure-RPG games using a drag and drop interface.

it comes with a demo game called The Gates of Macrohard, which plays like similar Windows 3.1-based RPGs of its time, like Castle of the Winds or Exile.

The editor is full-featured, including even the ability to export your game as a distributable EXE!

it appears to have been built with MS Visual Basic 3.0, judging by the VBRUN DLL included.

mobygames entry:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/92750/adventure-gamer-for-windows/

play/download shareware (unregistered) here:
https://archive.org/details/ADVNTR10

#retroGaming #windows311 #dosgaming #gamedev

@foone by 1999, 'burn your cd while you wait' (45 minutes) service

@amigalove you're making me very happy that i decided to keep my A1000 - which i've booted only once since I bought it 15 years ago!

the front page of sharewarejunkies.com, ca. 1997

i'm amazed at how powerful nostalgia is - i would have done anything to cleanse the universe of banner ads in the late 90s, and here i am goggling at how wonderfully dorky there are now 😩

https://web.archive.org/web/19971014103736/http://www.sharewarejunkies.com/dospage.htm

attn: MUD developers

last year, a grad school classmate of mine died at the age of 38. every student and professor who met Geoff Hollis learned that he was a brilliant scholar, a sharp thinker, and a superb university lecturer.

but only a handful of his friends knew that geoff was also one hell of a coder. he spent nights as a grad student building his own MUD engine in C - from scratch, with a built-in custom scripting language - just for the fun of it.

nakedMUD enjoyed several years of regular development and usage from mud designers, before jeff had to shelve it due to his teaching responsibilities.

when he died, his university server space was wiped without a backup, and all of his source code went with it. i've got the most recent version of nakedMUD (3.8.1), but i'd like to preserve v1.0 to v3.8 in his memory.

if you happen to have filenames in the format nakedmudv1.0.tar.tgz sitting around on old drives, i'd love to hear from you. i'm building a little source shrine for geoff, so nakedMUD can live on in memory of a kind, gentle soul.