Running Games

[Shabba]

eBay is a good place to start, but you miss the point of having a PCjr specific forum - I'm sure that somebody here will volunteer to send you what you need.

I've done it in the past before. If nobody steps forward then I'll do it, but I'm awfully busy lately so it's not going to be instantaneous.



Mike

I wasn't too sure about asking for something that may or may not be abandonware.

Question: Why am I able to boot King's Quest and play it all day long, yet the other games I am unable to? I'm not a complete computer idiot despite my questions, but I was never a programmer so I have loads to learn.
'

[jmetal88]

Thank you guys so much for the help. I have been in touch with makeit2day and that member is actually sending me some floppies with what I (think) I need.

On a separate note, I purchased a boatload of 5.25 floppies off of ebay last year for my C64. I'm not sure if they are compatible with the PCjr, but if they are, I'm more than willing to shell out a few if anyone wants them. I probably have 40 I could spare, preferably not all to one member .

Ah, cool, now I don't have to worry about it, haha.

As for your blank floppies, as long as they're double-density, they should be able to be formatted by the PCjr. If you use them with a 1541 drive, they probably are double-density.

[Vorticon]

I wasn't too sure about asking for something that may or may not be abandonware.

Question: Why am I able to boot King's Quest and play it all day long, yet the other games I am unable to? I'm not a complete computer idiot despite my questions, but I was never a programmer so I have loads to learn.
'

What exactly are you trying to run? The most common culprit is the lack of sufficient memory for the program in question. With 640K, most of the CGA graphics based games will run on Jr, although not all. (like The Sentinel or Hunt For Red October for example and I'm not sure why because my Jr meets their minimum requirements...). Having a hard disk or a parallel Zip drive is obviously needed for hard disk installations.
If you don't already have 640K of RAM, I suggest you make it a priority to upgrade. The cheapest, but most labor-intensive option is to take a standard 64K Sidecar expansion and replace the RAM chips in it. Mike's site has very detailed instructions on this, and I did that upgrade myself with no issues as long as one is careful with the de-soldering. You can also try to purchase RAM expansion devices on Ebay, if you can find them and afford them.
The next item on your list should be a parallel Zip drive. These can be found fairly cheaply on Ebay. You will need to purchase the PCJr driver for it (palmzip package from Klaus Peichl). Then you will have a slow but functional hard drive equivalent. There is also an IDE board nearing completion that should become available soon.
Finally, making the Tandy Graphics modification to your motherboard will definitely open more vistas for you as far as gaming on the Jr is concerned.
All this stuff is on Mike's site in great detail.

[monzamess]

Question: Why am I able to boot King's Quest and play it all day long, yet the other games I am unable to? I'm not a complete computer idiot despite my questions, but I was never a programmer so I have loads to learn.
'

King's Quest is a bootable disk and I guess the others are not.

[Shabba]

I wanted to extend my thanks to everyone for their help, most especially Makeit2day. I received his DOS 2.1 disks this last weekend (As well as the DOS 3.3 I bought on ebay) and I've been playing Ultima 1 2 and 3 all weekend. I am very, very appreciative. I've also tried Bureaucracy, but it will not boot correctly after I run setup. I'm working on that one.

My Jr. will not load Ultima IV through VI. It says I do not have enough memory so that will be next on my list to fix. I have a line on a nice IBM 286 here in Richmond too with a full meg of memory. I'm not sure what I'll do yet, but I am going to use the Jr. for Kings quest and the first 3 Ultima games. They play very well on this computer and I have no reason to cease using it for that.

I must admit, I like the idea of upgrading this PC Jr. and making it my one and only vintage computer. My kids still think I'm strange for playing my old games on an old computer when I have them all on an emulator (on both my Macbook and my AMD desktop). It's just so much fun kicking back and listening to the games beeps and waiting for the disk to load.

Of note, the graphics on the Pc Jr are not too far off of the Amiga version of Ultima III: Exodus. I'm rather impressed.

[Shabba]

I wasn't too sure about asking for something that may or may not be abandonware.

Question: Why am I able to boot King's Quest and play it all day long, yet the other games I am unable to? I'm not a complete computer idiot despite my questions, but I was never a programmer so I have loads to learn.
'

What exactly are you trying to run? The most common culprit is the lack of sufficient memory for the program in question. With 640K, most of the CGA graphics based games will run on Jr, although not all. (like The Sentinel or Hunt For Red October for example and I'm not sure why because my Jr meets their minimum requirements...). Having a hard disk or a parallel Zip drive is obviously needed for hard disk installations.
If you don't already have 640K of RAM, I suggest you make it a priority to upgrade. The cheapest, but most labor-intensive option is to take a standard 64K Sidecar expansion and replace the RAM chips in it. Mike's site has very detailed instructions on this, and I did that upgrade myself with no issues as long as one is careful with the de-soldering. You can also try to purchase RAM expansion devices on Ebay, if you can find them and afford them.
The next item on your list should be a parallel Zip drive. These can be found fairly cheaply on Ebay. You will need to purchase the PCJr driver for it (palmzip package from Klaus Peichl). Then you will have a slow but functional hard drive equivalent. There is also an IDE board nearing completion that should become available soon.
Finally, making the Tandy Graphics modification to your motherboard will definitely open more vistas for you as far as gaming on the Jr is concerned.
All this stuff is on Mike's site in great detail.

I'm going to take a serious look at that this evening. Soldering and other mundane/tedious jobs on computers has never bothered me so it might be something I'm up for. To use this Jr. as my sole vintage computer gaming machine would be nice as well as a space saver.