Hi John, Glad you liked the article. I had to do a fair amount of experimentation myself to get it all working, but basically that was the best solution I've found when it comes to playing older games.
As briefly mentioned in the article I love playing the text adventure systems like Adrift, Tads, and Inform using the text-based Dos interpreters. Unfortunately, all of the interpreters I use and like--the ones I find most accessible--are 16-bit Dos applications and give me a runtime error on Windows 7.That leaves me little choice but to use the Windows interpreters like Winfrotz or the Adrift 4.x Runner which I personally find less accessible than their Dos counterparts. To make matters worse the Adrift Generator--the application you need to have in order to create Adrift text adventures---was rewritten in VB 6 for the 4.x release and VB 6 itself is on its way out the door. What really annoys me most of all is something like Winfrotz TTS is fairly accessible, works alright on Windows 7, but many older Sapi voices and engines do not. It is a pain to get apps to use the older 32-bit voices on a 64-bit version of Windows, and I've noticed games tend to crash more often when using those older voices on a new Windows system. There are only two options I can see. One, I buy and maintaine an older computer with something like XP just for games, or I could setup a virtual machine using VMWare Player and run it inside a new op using virtualization. Maintaining a virtual machine on a new computer seems to be the path of least resistance because it doesn't take up any physical space, it should run on any modern hardware, and for laptop users like myself it is very portible. So that's why I personally recommend going for virtual machines if you have games such as Destination Mars that will absolutely not run on a 64-bit version of Windows like Windows 7. Cheers! On 10/27/11, john <jpcarnemo...@comcast.net> wrote: > Nice article Thomas. I actually gave virtual box a try a few > months back (I've got a set of win98 installation disks lying > around somewhere), but found it to be nearly totally inaccessable > with jaws. I'm considering giving vmware a try now that you > mention it. > > Thanks for the info, > John. > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
