Dell GXPro 'Slow Down' Mode

[Tempest]

Ok here's an odd question. I have a Dell GXPro computer (Pentium 200) which has the interesting feature of being able to be slowed down to 8Mhz through a keystroke. This would put it on par with an IBM AT if I'm not mistaken. Would this be too fast to play games designed for the PCjr? I know the PCjr is much slower (4Mhz maybe?), but I'm not sure if there are any games that were specifically geared towards the PCjr's speed.

[Tempest]

Oh well, as it turns out it doesn't matter. My GXPro only has a 1.2 MB 5.25 drive, not the 720K drive the PCjr has so it can't read the disks.

[jmetal88]

You mean 360k, right?

A 1.2M drive shouldn't have any trouble reading 360k disks. If you write to a 360k disk with a 1.2M drive, your 360k drive won't be able to read it back, though.

[Tempest]

You mean 360k, right?

A 1.2M drive shouldn't have any trouble reading 360k disks. If you write to a 360k disk with a 1.2M drive, your 360k drive won't be able to read it back, though.

Yeah 360K, sorry I was thinking about my Apple IIgs for a moment there.

I didn't think it would have problems either, so maybe I need to clean that drive out. It said something about not being able to read the sector (this from DOS 6.22).

So I guess back to my original question then. Will 8Mhz be too fast for games programmed around the time of the PCjr? Also, do games that use Joysticks (like Alley Cat for instance) need a PCjr specific joystick or will any PC joystick connected to a joystick port do? I'm not sure if the PCjr joyports are special and if games specifically looked for them or not.

Tempest

[jmetal88]

I don't know enough about the joysticks to be able to tell you one way or the other.

As for the speed, well, some of the games will work on faster machines, and some of them won't. You can find TSRs online that eat up excess CPU time if you find something running too fast, though.

[Tempest]

Ok it's definitely the disk drive, it's not reading any disks now. It was working before (albeit a little flaky) but now it's not reading anything. I cleaned the head with an alcohol Q-tip, but still nothing. Maybe I knocked something out of alignment? I really don't know much about fixing floppy drives.