alt Hacker NewsI have my IBM PC set up (to go through a Peter Norton assembly language book again) but I got a file read error for the first time recently on the 20 MB (Seagate ST-225) hard drive and parity errors from the RAM (again). I have chips (pretty cheap, industry standard chips) I can swap out to fix it hopefully. Anyway, I could just be emulating it instead (lol).
Cool, they have Exploring the IBM PC. It was a bootable disk with a tutorial to teach you how to use the computer (like what the scroll lock button was meant to do, and all the other keys on the original keyboard). I loaded up the CGA version on the CGA IBM PC emulator, which also plays music. The sound was cutting out though. In a later part (the Fun Writer) when you can turn on the "radio", the music seems to be missing the rests. I guess it's not perfect. The program always struck me as doing strange things with the hardware, so that might be why. (I'll have to look into some local emulators to try out. I really only need DOS for what I'm doing. I also have a MisterFPGA...)
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> Anyway, I could just be emulating it instead (lol).
Yeah I'm wondering about that too. I'd say there's something special about using the real thing: have the old hardware working.
Ideally in a 100% real time-capsule mode: say a Commodore Amiga back then didn't have a "Vampire 8000 GTX Turbo 16-valves" accelerator. My machines are all pristine time capsules, not polluted by modernity.
But as you wrote: at some point something fails. And what do you do then?
I understand the appeal of "fake IDE disks" and "fake floppy drives" etc. but if it's to use stuff emulating part of the real thing, why not just use an emulator emulating the entire real thing?
It's not a criticism: for example I've got a real vintage arcade cab and more often than not the "PCB" that's plugged in is not a vintage PCB (even though I've got several of those) but a Raspberry Pi with a Pi2JAMMA adapter. And once a game is launched, you can't tell the difference: it's basically cycle-perfect emulation.
Something something about the ship of theseus and all that.
I have a couple of enthusiast friends who use CompactFlash-to-IDE adapters, and that’s one of the upgrades that almost makes it worth it. You still get the full retro experience (well except for the actuator arm seeking sounds), but on the plus side you don’t have to worry about failing magnetic hard drives.
Also this looks pretty neat as well
https://picoide.com