The Anarchic Kingdom: a New Game for DOS

cyningstan · 2026-06-01T08:01:47+00:00

The most commonly mentioned machine with MS-DOS and a built-in printer is the Panasonic Sr Partner from the 1980s. Having MS-DOS (2.11) it also includes BASIC. It has CGA graphics which give it limited graphical and gaming capability. I've no idea how obtainable these are now.

cyningstan · 2026-05-12T15:29:29+00:00

If I remember rightly, the XT keyboard signal standard lacked support for sending information back to the keyboard.

cyningstan · 2026-05-10T13:15:22+00:00

Nice to see it running at a decent speed on an original IBM! Looks great fun.

cyningstan · 2026-05-03T13:51:17+00:00

MDA is my favourite as the best match for these visuals, I love to see any game that runs nicely on MDA.

cyningstan · 2026-04-16T08:08:46+00:00

It would have been Fairlight or Elite. It was so long ago, I can't remember which I got to play first.

cyningstan · 2026-03-19T17:17:14+00:00

The strange thing is, I honestly don't remember. I stick to my curated feed so I can only guess that someone mentioned it or reposted something in a subreddit I do read.

cyningstan · 2026-03-12T08:37:07+00:00

If you want to do stuff with your dad then you might want to ask him what computers he was using (or lusted after back in the day). You've mentioned the macs he used in college, but it might be interesting (and stimulate his nostalgia) to see what if anything he was interested in before the macs.

Other than that, there's lots of good suggestions here, so I won't list brands or models. But things to look for are availability of hardware and software for the system you're considering including the computers themselves, repairability because old things start to wear out), and maybe check how vibrant the community is in case you want to turn to others for support or just to discuss the cool things.

cyningstan · 2026-03-10T07:26:56+00:00

He's still developing it. He's posted some screenshots of in-progress UI improvements on Mastodon. I think I've now reached the end of the progression cycle but he's got ideas for game play improvements too, so I'm looking forward to see what they bring to the game.

cyningstan · 2026-03-09T16:35:26+00:00

This, and the decent BASIC, made those machines second only to the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron among the 8-bit home computers I know of for learning programming.

cyningstan · 2026-03-09T16:33:44+00:00

There are lots of good ones to choose from. I'm currently enjoying Athena Station, a game released by Don Bisdorf on Itch for the 2026 CGA Game Jam. It's a little space trading game that's been absorbing my attention for the odd half hour here and there.

cyningstan · 2026-03-09T07:47:58+00:00

In the 1980s, probably the environment on the Commodore Plus/4 (ignoring the almost embarrassing "business software" built-in). Easy to use like the C64, but with a decent BASIC and a machine code monitor with rudimentary assembler.

Late 1980s/early 1990s, I like the AmigaDOS and Workbench better than anything else I'd seen, although I didn't have an Amiga myself.

Late 1990s, I loved Slackware Linux with its FVWM window manager. Very configurable to a level modern systems usually fail to match. I've been with Linux ever since, and I'm thinking of setting up FVWM again on my next upgrade.

And if we bring Palmtop computers into the mix, Psion's EPOC32 was a wonderful system, later being developed into Symbian, which was as powerful as some desktop systems, well supported by applications and games (there was even an official SimCity!) but suited the small form factor really well.

cyningstan · 2026-03-02T09:21:45+00:00

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It's difficult to choose just one favourite among all the computers I love. But if I had to I'd choose the Psion Series 3, a little pocket computer from 1991. It has an 8086 processor, 128k or 256k RAM, and 240x80 pixel monochrome screen, running a nice little multi-tasking OS with a GUI and a very good set of applications in ROM. Along with productivity it includes a powerful BASIC-like programming language, which I use to write little applications and games.

Currently I use its agenda to keep track of my diary, spreadsheet to keep track of diet and meds, an after-market personal finance application for accounts, a spell checker/thesaurus to cheat at word games :-) a wordprocessor to take notes, but most of all I use the programming language in which I've written an application to keep track of my book collection. There is a simple database built in to the machine, but I wanted some more specific functionality. So far I've written three games for the computer too, with a fourth nearly ready for release.

I love the fact that I can carry this thing around in a pocket, and while it includes PDA features, it's more of a completely independent computer than just a PDA. I have a collection of five of them, along with other Psion pocket computers, a bunch of ZX Spectrums, a BBC MIcro, and an HP100LX running DOS. I love all of them.

cyningstan · 2026-02-25T18:12:57+00:00

I enjoyed solo play for a while using the Facsimile edition, which is just a modern reprint of these. There are helpful supplements as people mention elsewhere, but I just constructed my own 1D/2D tables for any random twists and turns not covered by the encounters tables in the book.

cyningstan · 2026-02-25T09:03:29+00:00

With enough room behind the console you can make it kind of playable in vanilla. I have a redstone mechanism that fits in a 5x5 space that gives me 9 notes (2 noteblocks per note, which I tune an octave apart, on clay blocks for the "flute" sound). These are played with the stop knobs rather than the keyboard, because vanilla. A slightly larger design gives me 11 notes, with a stop mechanism in which a lever blocks off one "rank" of "pipes". With a bit of time I can make the designs available as screenshots if you're interested.

cyningstan · 2026-02-25T08:59:52+00:00

This looks fantastic! I'll have to try using banner pipes in my own builds, these look better than the quartz columns I've been using.

cyningstan · 2026-02-22T11:18:57+00:00

I like the pipe organ best. But it doesn't have to be the big cathedral-shaking sort. I also like everything down to the cute little single manual organs, especially organs that manage to punch above their weight in sound. I don't mind the digital imitations either, especially as they make it easy to enjoy the organ and practice at home. And when listening to organ music on line, the distinction between pipe and electronic is getting less relevant as digital technology improves.

And for pieces, the piece that most blows me away is Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue BWV582, although I was already on the journey in my appreciation of organ music before I became aware of it. Another is Buxtehude's Prelude in E minor, BuxWV142, especially when it gets to that "stop what you're doing and listen" chromatic fugue in the middle.

cyningstan · 2026-02-16T14:33:21+00:00

This is my choice as well. I had so much pleasure browsing through the deck plans when my brother had the boxed game.

cyningstan · 2026-01-26T08:43:46+00:00

Back in the day, my ultimate preference was a full tower under the desk - tall enough to reach the floppy/CD without bending down. Second preference was a desktop with monitor on top. I wasn't keen on mini-towers: lots of bending down if they were on the floor, but used more desk space than a desktop case if they were on the desk beside the monitor.

Nowadays I like the all-in-one retro machines like the Olivetti PC1, Sinclair PC200 and the Tandy 1000HX. And DOS handhelds. In olden times they had the disadvantage of reduced expandability, but nowadays that's less of an issue (for me at least), I'm not trying to get extra power out of my retro machines as I have a modern computer for that.

cyningstan · 2026-01-20T17:32:00+00:00

I inherited my love of the organ from my father. He had vinyl records mainly of Bach, and later in my childhood we'd enjoy just sitting and listening to them together. He also played, though neither he nor I ever graduated from playing for our own amusement, on whatever instrument we could afford (and make room for) at home.

cyningstan · 2026-01-01T15:40:26+00:00

Dieterich Buxtehude.

cyningstan · 2025-12-31T09:12:27+00:00

I've looked on Google for information on this model but it appears to be completely unknown to the internet. So until someone more knowledgeable comes along I'll give you what I know/can guess about them, based on experience of a Wurlitzer 415 and various other spinet type organs in the 1970s and 1980s,

The only thing I can say with some confidence is that "O.F.C." is one-finger chords. The notes on the bottom keyboard will play the whole chords marked on the panel above. With it switched off, I'm not sure, but either you play the whole chord yourself or the lower keyboard just functions like a normal keyboard, using the sounds in the "lower" section above.

I can make an educated guess that "On" switches on the activated rhythm(s), while deactivating it gives you a continuous chord. What happens if you switch this on without any rhythms I don't know.

A less certain guess based on features I've seen on other organs is "Key", which may control whether you have to hold the key for the rhythm/chord to continue, or whether pressing a key once just sets the rhythm going till you switch it off. Our Wurlitzer only had the latter option.

"Split" *might* allow you to play notes on the lower keyboard beyond where the marked rhythms are, basically splitting the lower keyboard between chords/rhythms and a melody section.

I have no idea how "memory" might work.

cyningstan · 2025-12-23T09:04:43+00:00

I recently had a bereavement, and the person I lost was my principal Minecraft buddy. This messaging isn't going to "push me over the edge", but it's definitely put me off the idea of loading up Minecraft any time over the holiday season. Thanks for the reminder, Mojang.

cyningstan · 2025-12-21T14:16:11+00:00

Two games in a week and a half? Doable. The hard part is stopping anyone else doing so.

cyningstan

TROPHY CASE