Today I migrated the customer database of my family's business from a #WindowsXP Intel Pentium 2 machine to a #Debian 13 #Trixie Intel 7th gen i5 machine.
The programs used remained the same. #RWFakt needed #DosBOX though, but was smooth ootb. #Fakturama was kept on the last v1, because of update issues to v2.
The goal of this switch will be encrypted off-site backups one day.
LucasArts games emulator DREAMM 4.0 is in beta and it's time to give it some more attention.
Run all retro LucasArts games on Linux/Mac/Windows.
If you want to help and especially if you are a fan of any of the games below, please try them out.
NEW network feature in 4.0!
Play cross-platform against each other!
Outlaws
Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight
Mysteries of the Sith
X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter
X-Wing Alliance
Rebellion
Star Wars: Racer
https://dreamm.aarongiles.com/beta
#LucasArts #Emulation #Win98 #Win95 #DOSBox #MS-DOS #Lucasfilm #Games #DOS #Adventures #StarWars #Retro #RetroGaming #CRT #Shaders #RolandMT32 #RolandSC-55 #86box #PCem
Time again (not?) to #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 
, as here is one of my vintage #QuattroPro for #DOS spreadsheets from 1996, rendered by Quattro Pro for DOS 5.0, running in #DOSBox-X
#Microsoft #Multiplan is a spreadsheet application that was developed by Microsoft in the '80s. My latest blog post shows how to emulate this ancient spreadsheet format in #DOSBox-X.
It also discusses compatibility with modern software, and in particular @libreoffice #calc.
https://bitsgalore.org/2025/05/19/emulating-microsoft-multiplan-spreadsheets-in-dosbox-x.html
DOSBox Staging v0.82.1 has been released 
The main focus of this maintenance release is to fix a couple of regressions introduced in 0.82.0 and older releases, mostly related to game compatibility. The other big improvement is the CPU usage of the 3dfx Voodoo emulation has been reduced by about 50%, so your computer won’t go into hoover-mode anymore when playing those Voodoo games 
check out the release notes for the details:
https://www.dosbox-staging.org/releases/release-notes/0.82.1/
#DOSGaming #MS-DOS #Emulation #RetroGaming #LinuxGaming #MacGaming #FOSS #DOSBox
I gave Windows 3.11 a dark mode. It's practically a modern OS now.
Someone asked me some questions on the #Psion Series 3, so I thought I'd post my response here in case anyone else is interested. #LongRead
Emulator
You've got two options. The first is the original "emulators" written by Psion, S3AEMUL.EXE and S3CEMUL.EXE. They both run in DOS and emulate the 3a and 3c. But they're less of an emulator than a runtime environment for #EPOC16 (the OS). There's good and bad to this. You can run S3AEMUL and S3CEMUL straight in #DOSBox and it will talk to your host OS's filesystem (Windows, Linux, macOS, whatever). You need to map an M: drive in DOSBox for the internal storage, but once that's done you can copy files straight into that folder on your host OS and run them in the emulators. The downside is that it's not true hardware emulation. You won't get a good judge of the speed of a real device, and some syscalls aren't implemented so will fail or crash the #emulator. They're bundled with the SDK (see below).
The alternative is #MAME. This is the closest to proper hardware emulation you're going to find. You can either dump your own ROMs using a tool called #EDisAsm, or you can find them in the usual MAME ROM repos. The one thing that is notably missing is RS232 emulation from the later models, because we haven't been able to find any documentation on the silicon, but it's working fine with the 3a.
Toolchain
At the moment you have only one option - the Psion SIBO C SDK with the #TopSpeed C Compiler. You're going to need DOSBox (I personally prefer DOSBox Staging). It's all available on the Internet Archive in one easy download, including all the documentation you will need.
https://archive.org/details/psion-sibo-c-sdk
From there, you have a few libraries you can use. There CLIB, which is a pure ANSI C implementation, designed to easily port apps - don't use it, it's slow and you'll be missing a lot of features. Then there's PLIB, which is Psion's C dialect - very nice to use, and you can put together a C app pretty quickly. Finally, there's OLIB, which is Psion's proprietary OO C - it feels very clunky, but once you get over that it can be very powerful.
EPOC16 apps are restricted to a very pure version of the small memory model, but you can split code up into libraries known as DYLs.
In the past I've written code using VS Code, which can be made to play nicely with the SDK's header files. I've not got it working with NeoVim and clangd yet, but it should be possible with cmake.
The SDK comes with a debugger (SDBG.EXE), a DOS GUI app. If you run SDBG.EXE in DOSBox Staging, run the Psion3a MAME emulation, and enable RS232 over TCP on both, you can use SDBG to send apps to MAME. If you enable symbols, you can step through the code. It's rudimentary by modern standards, but it works pretty well.
I say "at the moment" because I'm slowly rewriting the tools in the SDK. I already have a new working version of #CTRAN, the preprocessor for Psion OO C, but I'm a long way from a compiler. There have been efforts to coax gcc into compiling for SIBO/EPOC16, but I think they have stalled for now.
If you want some examples of EPOC16 C and OO C code, take a look at these:
https://github.com/thelastpsion/edisasm
https://github.com/thelastpsion/pyramid
https://github.com/thelastpsion/nfsc
https://github.com/nickmat/Psion3-Wari
https://github.com/nickmat/Psion3-Vector
Device
The 3mx is the best choice. It's significantly faster than the earlier models (27.6 MHz vs 7.6 MHz), has a switchable backlight, the fastest RS232 and the best version of EPOC16. I "daily drive" one for journalling, adventure games, and a few other small tasks. After that I'd say the 3c (beware - they were covered in soft-touch rubber, so will need cleaning) and the 2MB 3a. The latter is the most common. Most 3c units came with a backlight, except for the early UK ones. The 3a doesn't. Arguably the non-backlit screens have better contrast so you don't need the backlight so much in lower light, but the backlight has obvious benefits.
Someone with knowledge about #Dosbox here?
Need a hint why this doesn't work. According to the #Novastorm readme I have to set the correct COUNTRY.SYS inside my CONFIG.SYS, which I'd assume translates to dosbox' config "COUNTRY". Doesn't seem to work though.
(The other settings honestly don't seem to get respected either… but the game starts, so dosbox apparently loads it)
#DosGaming #RetroGaming #gaming
Retro-Feeling!
Installation eines Programmes über das (virtuelle) Diskettenlaufwerk :-)
Projects are generally on hold at the moment, but up-coming priorities are:
#CTRAN: Full write-up. #MAME on #HaikuOS: Fix for an issue with (possibly) an interaction between Qt and SDL. No idea where to begin on this... help? #MAME and #DOSBox serial over TCP: Make MAME compatible with DOSBox's serial implementation, including RTS/CTS and DTR/DSR.
I've got loads of other ideas and plans, but they need to wait. Right now those are the priorities, along with having a general clear-out.
Finally got one of my most favorite games to work on the Steam Deck.
#startrek #steamdeck #dosbox
Hey!
We thought about renaming DOSBox Staging but couldn't come up with something better so here is our new easier to remember domain name.
https://www.dosbox-staging.org
#DOSBox-Staging #DOSBox #DOSGaming #MS-DOS #Emulation #RetroGaming #LinuxGaming #MacGaming #FOSS #humanmade #noAI
I've published "In The Dark", my Rogue-like-little-light to Itch.io, with a browser playable DOSBox version.
Downloads are available for DOS, Windows, Linux and CP/M 80.
I would love to see it running on other people's systems.
@rodneylives I'm playing #Ultima7 via #Exult #DOSbox engine. ^_^
Ultima Online is still online, and the new devs (#DAoC devs) are still maintaining it, and releasing content (though I don't follow it). And then there are the private servers.
EA is, evil. Haha. There is absolutely no logical reason why they are holding on to the #Ultima trademark. Every attempt they did to create a new game based on it, were cancelled (those without the Origin team involved). Those that launched failed and eventually closed (like “Lord of Ultima“ (2010)).
The most recent Ultima-related release is #UnderworldAscendant (2018). Unfortunately, EA only licensed the lore and characters, but not the trademark. This prevented them from carrying the name Ultima. It's practically “Ultima Underworld III: Ascendant”.
If they release their hold from the trademark, or let Richard Garriott work on it again, for sure it will generate a buzz and create a new generation of Ultima fans.
By the way, I created a list of Ultima games here: https://im.youronly.one/yuki/kb/timelines/ultima-video-games-release-timeline-202323/
Might be useful ^_^
