Oldskool PC Software
This is our little cache of software created by oldskool PC enthusiasts,
for oldskool PC enthusiasts. You'll find lots of little niggly things here
that are extremely useful for their intended audience. Best of all, these programs
have extremely light resource requirements, and most will run on a stock IBM PC.
Source code has been provided where available.
- Flopper: Want to boot an old 5.25" diskette, but you don't always have access to a 5.25" drive? Flopper is your savior.
- Tand-Em: The world's first Tandy and IBM PCjr exclusive emulator. Extraordinary PC sound and graphics in 1984? Believe it, baby!
- Throttle: Hidden deep in the bowels of most modern PCs is a mechanism you can exploit to exact smooth slowdown vengance on your oldskool games. We know how to exploit it, and now you can too.
- The Jumpman Project: The Jumpman Project - converting the 1983 IBM PC version to modern hardware
- ModInfo: ModInfo is a utility for cataloging (now legacy) music module files. It lists the filename, song title, tracker (and revision) used to create it, and number of channels in the file.
- The Beyond Castle Wolfenstein Project: Beyond Castle Wolfenstein is a game we feel deserves to be resurrected to operate on today's high speed computers with enhanced graphics and sound. Taking a cue from the Jumpman Project, we are honoured to handle the job.
- Chunk: I got fed up with trying to split files onto diskettes in a simple, fast, logical way -- so I wrote my own. Chunk v0.1 is a simple and fast file splitter with hands-off diskette support and full source code.
- Task Timer: TaskTimer is a program that helps over-applied computer freaks and other
obsessed workaholics manage their computing time effectively between
projects. It achieves this by acting as a multiple-stage, configurable,
controllable "egg timer", constantly reminding you of the tasks you have
to complete and how much time is left for each task.
- 8088 Corruption: A friend dared me that, no matter how good I thought I was, I couldn't make a 4.77MHz IBM PC display full-screen, color video at 30 frames per second, synced with audio. I proved him wrong.
- CGACAL: CGACAL is a simple program created to display all 16 colors CGA is capable of, so that you can calibrate your trusty IBM 5153 properly. And remember, color #6 is brown, not yellow -- explanation inside!
- TexView: I like to poke around binary files looking for interesting strings. Most programs that do this, like LIST, are unbearably slow on a 4.77MHz 8088 with CGA, so I wrote my own. Yes, it's fast. Too fast.
- MONOTONE: MONOTONE is a tracker for extremely simple sound devices. How simple? Well, the very first sound device supported is the PC speaker. That simple enough for ya?
- The CGA Compatibility Tester: The CGA Compatibility tester, as its name implies, is a program that thoroughly stresses the video adapter in your classic PC to check if it 100% compatible with CGA. You can use this to check the compatibility of emulators or VGA->CGA emulation modes too.
- JOYCALIB: JOYCALIB is simply the best analog joystick calibration utility you can run for your old/classic PC. It was designed specifically to get your old 2-button sticks in tip-top shape for oldskool gaming.
- PADD: PADD is a DOS data exploration and recovery tool for FAT12 and FAT16 filesystems that allows you to Peek At Deleted Data as well as copy it off the drive for safekeeping. Bonus feature: Can explore "slack space" hidden in your filesystem!
- LZ4 Decompression for the 8088: If you need realtime decompression from your 8088 programming projects, look no further than LZ4 and this code.
- disk2img: DISK2IMG is a simple, quick diskette imaging utility suitable for bulk imaging disks on older PCs running DOS.