MS-DOS Gaming you can do on your old retro computers you have still lying around. In theory PCs are backwards compatible with the IBM PC/XT standard and should all still be able to run MS-DOS and the likes although recent changes to the PC-BIOS and the way PCs boot through UFI and the likes has altered that.
The thing is MS-DOS software and making the machine sing and dance was done through specific hardware that provided a platform that the old software was happy with, special drivers were needed and especially games were often catered to a specific set of hardware.
Windows 3.x, Windows 3.11 and the Win32 and WinG subsystems and the MPC Multi Media PC standard catered for a more standardized software environment were developers could basically program for APIs instead of programming directly onto the hardware as they’ve been doing before. Basically allowing a single program/game to run on a wide range of quite different hardware that was compatible to the APIs. It made developing quite a lot easier and more standardized.
With Windows95/98 DirectX APIs PC gaming really made a huge jump and with the introduction of 3D video hardware acceleration games and different styles of game play were introduced every month and you almost needed to upgrade your system every month as well – just to keep up.
Fond memories of those times. I remember finding my real Pentium III, Voodoo3 system very compatible with late MS-DOS and Early 3D3/DirectX/3Dfx games and to me that was a golden time were a lot of great games came out that I had not seen before at an increasing level of complexity and realism that was just awe inspiring. Of course looking back not all these games have ages as gracefully and perhaps a lot of those fond looks at the old hard- and software is severely filtered by nostalgic rose tinted spectacles. Seeing how far we’ve become and how durable PCs from this era actually can be when properly maintained is astounding.
What I also find quite amazing is the fact that my golden-age PentiumIII, Voodoo3 system can now to a high degree be perfectly virtualized through the PCEm software running on either Windows or Linux. But other classic systems can also be wonderfully emulated. Many US/Canada based folk will have fond memories of the Tandy 1000 PCs and these can be amazingly re-created with this software as well.
Of course it will be obvious that I do prefer using the original hardware, but there will come a time when that might not be possible anymore due to the sheer age of the systems and things breaking down that cannot easily be fixed unless possibly entirely being replaced. So preserving through emulation seems a viable solution.
In this video I will check out some Windows9x games, briefly. Also I will check out Arcade emulation through the wonderful Sparcade Emulator that brought real arcade gaming to the PC even before the well known Mame arcade emulator became a thing. And some classic MS-DOS games that I frequently played back in the day.
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