Oh computer wizards gift me your knowledge.

[Dinner]

I was recently browsing a website for old abandoned computer games when I found a copy of the old SSI Gold Box ADD&D 1st edition computer game Pool of Radiance (located here: http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/pool-of-radiance/ ). Yes, it is ancient having been released in 1988 but I have extremely found memories of playing this game in 6th grade so I wanted to play the whole thing over again. I downloaded the zip file, unzipped it to c:\poolrad (which is the default directory the game originally used), opened the dos prompt, used the change directory command and attempted to execute start.exe only... An error occurs.

"16 bit MS-DOS subsystem"

C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe - start.exe
This system does not support fullscreen mode. Choose "Close" to terminate the application.

Close closes the program and ignore doesn't work so I'm stuck here. What do I have to do to get this old dos program to run on my Win vista Machine?

[KrazyHorse]

Virgin sacrifice.

[Dinner]

Help me.

[Space05us]

dosbox

I actually don't know if it works on vista yet, if ever.

[Dinner]

Thanks. It appears it does.

[Ben Kenobi]

dosbox is the answer.

[Dinner]

Ugh, I think there is something wrong with the file I downloaded because when you go to make a character it keeps asking me to insert disk 3 into drive c:\ which is nonsense. All 2.5 megs of the game are installed in the drive already.

On the upside Dos Box works great. Thanks it is a nice find.

[Dis]

1988?

make sure you play some Bon Jovi music while playing the game for full effect.

[Dinner]

I got it fixed and have been playing it for most of the night. Work will be hell tomorrow or maybe I'll use a sick day, stay home, and play Pool of Radiance all day. It's like I'm in 6th grade again. The game is that good.

I still remember all the tricks about how to get magic items by hiring some hirelings then letting them die so you can loot their stuff, how to clone magic items using multiple saved games, and some how over the last 21 years I still remember "lux" was the password on Sokal Keep. It's amazing what you remember even as the decades pass.

[Dinner]

The graphics and sound were actually better on the C64 version I had but I don't miss constantly changing the 8 game floppy disks and the one game disk (total of nine floppy disks). Still in its day the C64 was the game machine of choice.

The C64 was ancient by 1988 and as I recall my mother bought my dad a C64 for Xmas in 1983 and she knew so little about computers she only bought the main keyboard/mother board combo and forgot to buy the oh so necessary 5.25 inch floppy drive to go with it. Never the less my dad bought the giant (much larger then a toaster and much heavier to boot) floopy drive, added on a excruciatingly slow dial up modem, and a tape back up so he could save his tax records. As I recall I loved that the C64 used the game joysticks from the Atari 2600 plus it had two slots where you could plug in special C64 game cartridges. It was the be all and end all of early 80's home computing as it had superior sound and much better graphics then any PC (anyone remember CGA & EGA graphics? Ick! C64 had a huge number of colors and a built in sound chip with speaker) or an Apple (I recall using Apple 2Es at school during this period and they were just green monochrome).

[Tattila the Hun]

Huh, my C=64 didn't have a speaker.... Great sound-chip, though. I need to make mp3's one of these days, of the classics.... Wonder what's the best sid-player these days?

[Dis]

C64's used the tv speaker. So I'm not sure what that is saying.

C64's did kick ass. I was poor growing up, but my mother was able to afford one for my older brother with the lay away program. Much cheaper than IBM's and Apple's. Very good gaming quality.

[Dinner]

It had a speaker which made squawks but the they were much shorter squawks with much more range and different types of squawks then the PCs or Apples of the day. It wasn't a proper sound card but it would do decent renditions of things like classical music. The tunes were very recognizable.

[Dinner]

I'm still playing the game and finally got to Kuto's Well in the ruins of old Phlan. Many the AI really sucks in this early version of the gold box game engine. As I recall it was massively improved in later releases (there were something like 12 titles released on the gold box engine but this is the first) but right now it is sad watching units run around virtually aimlessly. Later on they also add on nice little time saving short cuts (the heal all function rocks in later games) but in the first game no such luck.

[Dinner]

I'm definately not going to work today. Oh, and the girl in Dis's avatar rocks. If only she was blond then she'd look like my ideal girl I.E. my first real girlfriend in high school who I have compared all other girls to since. The skinny cute girls are where it is at.