I remember in the 1990s, there was a terminal program called Literm, DDO-FX, from Locatha Industries, which produced probably around 20 graphical games, from cards, arcade, tetris-esque, war, rpgs, and adventures..
I remember playing the tron clone, where you use the lightcycles and vaguely remember playing another one that resemebled a really old version of ultima.
Through the magic of emulation, I've been able to get LiTerm to work on OS/2, with the SIO drivers but have so far been unable to get the actual door games to work with synchronet. Even though it supports fossils (supposedly) and non-standard com ports, I just don't think it's seeing the fossil. I've tried syncfoss and netfoss. The door says it supports x00, bnu, and winfossil, and I haven't tried any of those yet... Taking a break..
OS/2 really seems like it'd be great for putting old dos terminal programs online with btw..
Reviving the old Locatha doors
Moderator: Mod Squad
I am making some progress with the locatha doors but not for synchronet. I did download adf, which is a dos or win 9x fossil, and even it wouldn't work with synchronet and/or the locatha doors.
What I've done so far is setup a mini ghost server on os/2, and so far, the door itself is coming through, the data files have already compressed, and it's going through the download stage now. This download and compression stage is terribly slow, but hopefully the game will be playable at full speed when all of it is done downloading, if it's playable at all..
will know in a few..
What I've done so far is setup a mini ghost server on os/2, and so far, the door itself is coming through, the data files have already compressed, and it's going through the download stage now. This download and compression stage is terribly slow, but hopefully the game will be playable at full speed when all of it is done downloading, if it's playable at all..
will know in a few..
Well, I got close.... The zmodem protocol/autodownloader seems to be working.. it downloaded all the graphics and soundfiles.. the first time I tried to run the door, literm crashed.
Later on when I would try to run the door, it'd go in, get an out of time error, press a key to continue, and then would knock me out of the game.
The out of time error could be from the door.sys file, maybe not being compatible with unlimited time per call/day, or maybe from a y2k bug or something.. who really knows?
When I tried to get that commodore telnet bbs server to work with another DOS PC, to skip using os/2, I couldn't ever get it to dialout...
Unfortunately, literm doesn't seem compatible with null modem setups either, or I could go directly from a dos PC to the worldgroup server.
Who else wants to try to get some locatha games going in dos, synchronet, gamesrv, os/2? I'm sure a lot of you know more about fossil drivers and such than I do..
Later on when I would try to run the door, it'd go in, get an out of time error, press a key to continue, and then would knock me out of the game.
The out of time error could be from the door.sys file, maybe not being compatible with unlimited time per call/day, or maybe from a y2k bug or something.. who really knows?
When I tried to get that commodore telnet bbs server to work with another DOS PC, to skip using os/2, I couldn't ever get it to dialout...
Unfortunately, literm doesn't seem compatible with null modem setups either, or I could go directly from a dos PC to the worldgroup server.
Who else wants to try to get some locatha games going in dos, synchronet, gamesrv, os/2? I'm sure a lot of you know more about fossil drivers and such than I do..
I GOT IT TO WORK!!!
Just for the hell of it, I checked over what what the door.sys time settings were from another web page and edited the door.sys file, pointed to it instead of the one made every time the ghost server is accessed, and it worked, in OS/2, with SIO!
It won't work with unlimited time per call accounts... just have to figure out what the max time it'll allow and see if it's worth changing over accounts to
Just for the hell of it, I checked over what what the door.sys time settings were from another web page and edited the door.sys file, pointed to it instead of the one made every time the ghost server is accessed, and it worked, in OS/2, with SIO!
It won't work with unlimited time per call accounts... just have to figure out what the max time it'll allow and see if it's worth changing over accounts to
btw, i did finally get this to work with synchronet.. you have to click the "open on shell" option... i usually test out every option when trying a door, but I believe I thought the door was working when I put a test version online but was just checking for a terminal. At the time, I didn't know that it showed an ansi screen even if you don't have the terminal.
So, basically, the door just kind of sat on the bbs, and I thought it was the terminal portion giving me all of the problems.
I may be able to test these games out in real dos through synchronet tomorrow sometime.
-
Games tested through GHOST on OS/2, running Li-Term:
Slayer - crashed after a few minutes of gameplay
Golem - played for a few minutes, and it didn't crash
Galactic Fleet Wars - played for probably 20-30 mins, and it did fine
Witch's Cookbook - the autodownloaded files failed crc checks and I never got to test it out - tried twice.. maybe need to try it with synchronet tomorrow
Gridlock - Played several rounds, no crash
Joust - Crashed within a minute or so. I didn't even get to the gameplay, this game is somewhat graphic intensive, and it could be the video stuff that's making it crash in os/2
One game, I tried with synchronet:
Blood quest - crashed after a few mins gameplay
-
The crash error I got is something like:
internal processing error on
##0160:fff5530a - 0000d:b30a
60004,9084
05862
internal revision 9.023,95/11/07
When I did a websearch of this exact error, I couldn't find any matches. It's possible that one or two letters or numbers are off or mis-spaced or something, but who knows?
I'm just wondering if there are some DOS options that could be set in OS/2, to allow this to work. If so, that'd be great. If not, it should still let you play somewhere between 1/3rd or 1/2 of the locatha games.
It should be possible to use this on real DOS systems, in conjunction with the commodore telnet bbs server, if any one can figure out exactly which settings to use and which null modem cable to buy. There's a list with wirings on his site, but when you go to buy null modem cables, most sites don't say how they're wired.
It should also be possible to use a terminal server to do this, whether it be a hardware terminal server or a *nix system.
All of these options are OK, but none of them are exactly easy (or sensible) for the average joe bbs gamer. If people can make fossil drivers to work on NT-based systems with DOS doors, why can't they make some type of fossil driver that would do the same for dos terminal programs? It'd be awesome to use telemate, telix, qmodem, comit, and all of the old dos programs on a modern windows PC.
Speaking of telemate, while I was working on a dos system yesterday, I hooked telemate up through null modem cable directly to the WG system, and it was really cool.
So, basically, the door just kind of sat on the bbs, and I thought it was the terminal portion giving me all of the problems.
I may be able to test these games out in real dos through synchronet tomorrow sometime.
-
Games tested through GHOST on OS/2, running Li-Term:
Slayer - crashed after a few minutes of gameplay
Golem - played for a few minutes, and it didn't crash
Galactic Fleet Wars - played for probably 20-30 mins, and it did fine
Witch's Cookbook - the autodownloaded files failed crc checks and I never got to test it out - tried twice.. maybe need to try it with synchronet tomorrow
Gridlock - Played several rounds, no crash
Joust - Crashed within a minute or so. I didn't even get to the gameplay, this game is somewhat graphic intensive, and it could be the video stuff that's making it crash in os/2
One game, I tried with synchronet:
Blood quest - crashed after a few mins gameplay
-
The crash error I got is something like:
internal processing error on
##0160:fff5530a - 0000d:b30a
60004,9084
05862
internal revision 9.023,95/11/07
When I did a websearch of this exact error, I couldn't find any matches. It's possible that one or two letters or numbers are off or mis-spaced or something, but who knows?
I'm just wondering if there are some DOS options that could be set in OS/2, to allow this to work. If so, that'd be great. If not, it should still let you play somewhere between 1/3rd or 1/2 of the locatha games.
It should be possible to use this on real DOS systems, in conjunction with the commodore telnet bbs server, if any one can figure out exactly which settings to use and which null modem cable to buy. There's a list with wirings on his site, but when you go to buy null modem cables, most sites don't say how they're wired.
It should also be possible to use a terminal server to do this, whether it be a hardware terminal server or a *nix system.
All of these options are OK, but none of them are exactly easy (or sensible) for the average joe bbs gamer. If people can make fossil drivers to work on NT-based systems with DOS doors, why can't they make some type of fossil driver that would do the same for dos terminal programs? It'd be awesome to use telemate, telix, qmodem, comit, and all of the old dos programs on a modern windows PC.
Speaking of telemate, while I was working on a dos system yesterday, I hooked telemate up through null modem cable directly to the WG system, and it was really cool.
Well, I've definitely made some progress, ended up getting the doors themselves to work on synchronet on the win2k machine.
As for the terminal, it's beginning to look like it won't run on on an NT-based system, due to it not finding an svga card. Of course, my computers have svga cards, but it's some way they need access to them that makes the software not go any further...
The terminal was made for DOS, Win '95, and OS/2, but when I use OS/2, Li-Term, SIO, and VMODEM together, it crashes. I've fiddled with almost all of the settings, even gave the dos command prompt pretty much full control of the system, and it still crashes. Is this a crash related to the version of OS/2 I'm using, or SIO/VMODEM, or is it something else? I'm using OS/2 4, and you never know the differences between 4 and 4.52, or even v2 or v3, or even what would happen on different hardware. So, I'm considering installing 4.52 in the coming days on a different pc and see what happens.
Also, my terminal server should be arriving within the next week or so. There will be ways to make it work with the hardware it was made for, no doubt, with terminal servers, null modem cables, or even dialing up a dialup bbs and telneting out from it to a bbs that hosts the locatha games. With out having a dialup line, most of these options aren't very reasonable methods to connect to the games..
As for the terminal, it's beginning to look like it won't run on on an NT-based system, due to it not finding an svga card. Of course, my computers have svga cards, but it's some way they need access to them that makes the software not go any further...
The terminal was made for DOS, Win '95, and OS/2, but when I use OS/2, Li-Term, SIO, and VMODEM together, it crashes. I've fiddled with almost all of the settings, even gave the dos command prompt pretty much full control of the system, and it still crashes. Is this a crash related to the version of OS/2 I'm using, or SIO/VMODEM, or is it something else? I'm using OS/2 4, and you never know the differences between 4 and 4.52, or even v2 or v3, or even what would happen on different hardware. So, I'm considering installing 4.52 in the coming days on a different pc and see what happens.
Also, my terminal server should be arriving within the next week or so. There will be ways to make it work with the hardware it was made for, no doubt, with terminal servers, null modem cables, or even dialing up a dialup bbs and telneting out from it to a bbs that hosts the locatha games. With out having a dialup line, most of these options aren't very reasonable methods to connect to the games..
I've made a HUGE amount of progress today. My new theory of it
being a hardware/video chipset thing vs an NT thing is correct. I took
out the old ati rage card from my win2k machine and put in an even
older Trident PCI video card, the same card that was in my OS/2 test
system, and it loaded.
Fortunately, LI-Term also supports fossil connections, as the UART
mode with Netserial didn't work. So, when I added Netfoss with
Netserial, setup the modem config for FOSSIL, COM3, it connected. Even
in UART mode, it connects, but it's a one way connection. You can't
type anything, but when the fossil is loaded, you can type stuff. It
seems like there is a long pause before the stuff you initially type
goes through, but afterwards, it's OK.
So, I was able to telnet from the win2k machine running LI-Term to the
board and even go in to the locatha games, but here's the catch: the
zmodem system in li-term apparently won't work with netfoss. It gets a
zmodem failure as soon as it starts to download. I'm not sure if
there's a way to add a newer zmodem program to it, but it doesn't look
like it.
This is not all bad though. We should be able to get all of the
updates in OS/2 or some other type environment and offer that version
for download, if all else works. The thing is: I don't know if or how
well everything else will work yet. I need to see if I can pull the
updated li-term from the OS/2 system's hard drive.
If this works, then we just have to see if we can get sound and mouse
support in win2k/xp, etc. Obviously, people who have new PCs with
gaming graphics cards aren't going to want to switch out their new
graphics cards with old graphics card.
being a hardware/video chipset thing vs an NT thing is correct. I took
out the old ati rage card from my win2k machine and put in an even
older Trident PCI video card, the same card that was in my OS/2 test
system, and it loaded.
Fortunately, LI-Term also supports fossil connections, as the UART
mode with Netserial didn't work. So, when I added Netfoss with
Netserial, setup the modem config for FOSSIL, COM3, it connected. Even
in UART mode, it connects, but it's a one way connection. You can't
type anything, but when the fossil is loaded, you can type stuff. It
seems like there is a long pause before the stuff you initially type
goes through, but afterwards, it's OK.
So, I was able to telnet from the win2k machine running LI-Term to the
board and even go in to the locatha games, but here's the catch: the
zmodem system in li-term apparently won't work with netfoss. It gets a
zmodem failure as soon as it starts to download. I'm not sure if
there's a way to add a newer zmodem program to it, but it doesn't look
like it.
This is not all bad though. We should be able to get all of the
updates in OS/2 or some other type environment and offer that version
for download, if all else works. The thing is: I don't know if or how
well everything else will work yet. I need to see if I can pull the
updated li-term from the OS/2 system's hard drive.
If this works, then we just have to see if we can get sound and mouse
support in win2k/xp, etc. Obviously, people who have new PCs with
gaming graphics cards aren't going to want to switch out their new
graphics cards with old graphics card.
Well, I've pretty much gotten 99% of everything playable in OS/2 and Ecomstation. Only around 80% of everything playable through DOS and a terminal server, due to in-game downloads.
As far as Win2k, I gotten Li-Term to work with windows 2000, netserial, and netfoss, but when it goes in to GUI mode, that's where things get fish, such as getting black screens in some video cards, out of sync errors with others.
I'm suppose to be getting 1 or 2 more terminal servers to have something different to test out. File transfers work through the terminal server, but the terminal server apparently doesn't like locatha's embedded zmodem system. This isn't a problem with OS/2 and SIO/VMODEM though, as the in-game downloading works on it.
I've pretty much tried every settings on the terminal server, to get the ingame downloads working, from mtu settings to software/hardware flow configurations, but it acts the same every time.
Li-Term itself requires certain svga chipsets to function. All of the newer cards I've tried didn't work at all. Most of the ones that I've personally tested working have been trident-based, and one integrated sis 530 I believe.
Li-term also requires a math coprocessor for older systems that have optional ones, like my old 486 dx 40. In order to have mouse support, the serial ports must be 16550 or compatible, and if they aren't, mouse support isn't the only problem. Comport speeds will be locked at 19200 maximum baud through li-term as well. Of course, if this was the 90s, this wouldn't be too bad. I used a 14.4 modem back then, but when you look at the difference from 19,200 to 115,200, there's no comparison!
All of the locatha games are on my door game server, if any of you are brave enough to test them out! I've made a website with information, downloads, music, screenshots, etc.
http://nostalgiabbs.servebbs.net/locatha/
My favorite game out of them all so far is Syndicate, which is a computer hacking simulation, kind of like lords of cyberspace. Slayers is also kind of cool and reminds me a bit what legend of the red dragon would have been like back then if it was in 3d.
As far as Win2k, I gotten Li-Term to work with windows 2000, netserial, and netfoss, but when it goes in to GUI mode, that's where things get fish, such as getting black screens in some video cards, out of sync errors with others.
I'm suppose to be getting 1 or 2 more terminal servers to have something different to test out. File transfers work through the terminal server, but the terminal server apparently doesn't like locatha's embedded zmodem system. This isn't a problem with OS/2 and SIO/VMODEM though, as the in-game downloading works on it.
I've pretty much tried every settings on the terminal server, to get the ingame downloads working, from mtu settings to software/hardware flow configurations, but it acts the same every time.
Li-Term itself requires certain svga chipsets to function. All of the newer cards I've tried didn't work at all. Most of the ones that I've personally tested working have been trident-based, and one integrated sis 530 I believe.
Li-term also requires a math coprocessor for older systems that have optional ones, like my old 486 dx 40. In order to have mouse support, the serial ports must be 16550 or compatible, and if they aren't, mouse support isn't the only problem. Comport speeds will be locked at 19200 maximum baud through li-term as well. Of course, if this was the 90s, this wouldn't be too bad. I used a 14.4 modem back then, but when you look at the difference from 19,200 to 115,200, there's no comparison!
All of the locatha games are on my door game server, if any of you are brave enough to test them out! I've made a website with information, downloads, music, screenshots, etc.
http://nostalgiabbs.servebbs.net/locatha/
My favorite game out of them all so far is Syndicate, which is a computer hacking simulation, kind of like lords of cyberspace. Slayers is also kind of cool and reminds me a bit what legend of the red dragon would have been like back then if it was in 3d.
thanks.. everything is pretty much at a standstill with the project now, because I've run out of hardware to test on. I've tested a few other hardware pieces that isn't listed, but after seeing the integrated video chipsets wouldn't even work on dos, I didn't even attempt to install OS/2 and try them.
A few computers wouldn't even let me install OS/2 on them, although you can install OS/2 on one pc and then move the hard drive to another one.
I've also finally tried the scitech display doctor that some one mentioned that might make the program work in dosbox, etc, but it didn't.. So, all I can do now is wait and see if brad sent out the terminal servers and just offer the programs/information on the website and hopefully some other people will try it out and see if they can come up with something that will work with win nt.
A few computers wouldn't even let me install OS/2 on them, although you can install OS/2 on one pc and then move the hard drive to another one.
I've also finally tried the scitech display doctor that some one mentioned that might make the program work in dosbox, etc, but it didn't.. So, all I can do now is wait and see if brad sent out the terminal servers and just offer the programs/information on the website and hopefully some other people will try it out and see if they can come up with something that will work with win nt.