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| Author |
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| 25 new of 198 responses total. |
gelinas
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response 125 of 198:
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Dec 6 17:46 UTC 2000 |
Only if you can afford the lawyer fees (i.e., you are already a millionaire).
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keesan
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response 126 of 198:
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Dec 8 02:30 UTC 2000 |
Today we went to fix whatever was wrong with our Russians' computer. He could
only get into pine one time out of ten. We tried it with another version of
Procomm, and another account, and he was right. And he could not get the
chess program in Windows entertainment pack (WEP) to work. For us it worked
three times in a row. We checked for viruses - nope. We did scandisk
andfound some lost clusters. Defrag said to fix a crosslinked file. Chkdsk
fixed a file in Windows/system. After this the chess game would not load,
nor would Windows. We informed our friend that he would not be using WIndows
chess again, on the theory that since he only knows how to exit the chess game
by using the power switch (and refuses to learn any; other way) Windows would
again mess up the computer so there would be no more Windows. The other chess
games were okay. After disabling Windows, Pine works perfectly. Arachne
seems tolerant of being turned off, in fact it is simpler than the correct
routine of answering a bunch of questions about deleted the lock file, etc.
We now have 30M free on our 40M disk again. Can anyone suggest any good
DOS-based chess games without sounds or 3D figures? We hav Ed Chess and Power
chess. Battle Chess was too annoying. He prefers parallel lines on his chess
board. We reconnected the reset button and told him to use that instead of
the on-off switch to start a new game, and showed him the innards of the
computer. Transformer, ears (modem), eyes (video card), memory, brain.
We were sent home wtih 2 backpacks full of canned fruits and vegetables
which the Russians had been given. They prefer to cook fresh.
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mdw
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response 127 of 198:
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Dec 8 03:40 UTC 2000 |
Using "reset" is better on the hardware, but no better for the software.
Using either instead of shutting the system down nicely is more or less
equivalent to performing electro-shock therapy on an animal. You need
to run chkdsk (or some other disk fixit utility) religiously when you
bring the system back up, if you aren't willing to shut it down nicely.
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keesan
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response 128 of 198:
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Dec 8 04:11 UTC 2000 |
Can you put chkdsk in autoexec.bat and have it run without asking questions?
This guy is not willing to learn more than the minimum. We also have
smartdrive installed, as requested by Arachne. Should we take it out?
The reset button is likely to be pushed at any time, in fact we could not stop
him from pushing it.
If we put chkdsk in autoexec.bat, even with switches, it would run every time
before he could start a new chess game. Jim is thinking of setting it to run
on some schedule, such as once a week, or every tenth time that the computer
is rebooted. Which might be every day, or every hour. Today it was about
30 times, which is why we reconnected the reset button. Better every day.
Jim cannot understand how a crosslinked file in Windows/system could have
prevented Pine from working - we only got a blinking cursor. With two
versions of Procomm.
The Russian chocolates (from Brooklyn) were very good. The Russian jokes
could not be accessed, they were so popular.
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mdw
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response 129 of 198:
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Dec 8 06:16 UTC 2000 |
You need to run it *every* time, if you can't stop him from pressing
reset. Putting it in autoexec.bat will certainly accomplish that. I
don't know if chkdsk can be made totally automatic or not. Any damage
you get in the filesystem is likely to spread and cause more & more
problems until it's stopped, so running it every 10th time isn't a good
idea. I don't know what "smartdrive" is - if it's some sort of disk
caching system, and it has the effect of delaying disk writes, then yes,
you might get less filesystem damage with the unexpected resets by
taking "smartdrive" out.
A crosslinked file may be linked to itself. If that happens, then the
file may appear to have no last block to the filesystem code, which
could cause it to get stuck in an endless loop. If there are
cross-linked files, or even if there aren't cross-linked files (yet),
the disk free list, which is also kept in the FAT, may be corrupted. If
the free list contains an endless loop, then that could also cause
bizarre and unpleasant behavior when the system tries to allocate disk
blocks.
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scott
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response 130 of 198:
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Dec 8 07:27 UTC 2000 |
There's a setting for smartdrv (mdw - it's a disk caching program) that
disables write caching, and this may stop some of the corruption.
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gull
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response 131 of 198:
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Dec 8 15:52 UTC 2000 |
Re #126: Chessmaster 2000 comes to mind, if you can find an old copy. It
has both 2D and 3D modes. It even has a 2D *text* mode for machines that
don't have graphics cards.
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keesan
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response 132 of 198:
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Dec 8 17:56 UTC 2000 |
Of what benefit is smartdrv with write caching disabled? Smartdrv comes with
Win31 and newer versions with MSDOS 6.0 and 6.22. Arachne recommends it
increase speed. We have set both temp and cache to a RAM drive - is smartdriv
still of any use? Speed is much less important here than stability. Before
we put in smartdrv, pine and windows were working okay.
What is a disk free list? What does smartdrv do other than cause problems?
Opera 5.0 is now available free, with ad banners, but only for Win32. I
downloaded the 30-day-trial version for Win31 (version 3.6.2?). It installed
itself with no questions asked when I typed the filename, using the dialer
from Netscape. It would not send mail until I typed in the name of a news
server. There was no obvious way to turn off graphics but of course I did
not first read the instructions. 5.0 has a toggle for graphics.
I will look online for Chessmaster 2000, thanks.
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keesan
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response 133 of 198:
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Dec 8 18:01 UTC 2000 |
A search for "chessmaster 2000" with altavista brought me several sites, the
first of which was "Chess Shareware", which for some reason all my other
searches had missed. For DOS, along with Chessmaster, this site offers
AVOG, Bluebush, Chenard, Chess8, ChessFiz, Chess FX, Clueless, Comet WM, Comet
A, COmplete Chess, Cyrus, Dabbaba, Diep, Diogenes, Drago, Edchess (we have
this), Exchess........ Since our player insists on a mouse, what year should
be our cutoff? Chessmaster is 1986.
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mdw
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response 134 of 198:
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Dec 8 19:57 UTC 2000 |
A write-thru cache has lots of advantages - for most people, most or all
of the disk I/O that takes place is actually reads, so the more reads
that can be eliminated, the better. DOS does have a disk cache of some
sort built-in, but it's apparently not real good, so not much of a win.
The disk is a huge linear array of disk blocks. At any given time, some
of those disk blocks hold file data, some hold directory information,
and some are dedicated to "housekeeping". In DOS, one of those
"housekeeping" functions is a table the file access table, or "FAT".
This has an entry for every block in that filesystem, which points to
the "next" block. For regular files, the directory entry includes the
file name, the size of the file, and the first block number. To get to
any block after that first block, the FAT has to be consulted; by
tracing the linked list in the FAT, every block belonging to that file
can be located. The filesystem also has to store the information used
to locate unallocated blocks (blocks that do not belong to any file and
are not in use). This is kept as another list of chained blocks in the
FAT. To allocate a disk block, the algorithm is to "pop" the top of the
FAT - that is, take the first block on the freelist, find the next block
after that, set the free block list to point to that next block, and use
that first block that is now no longer on the free list. There are no
checks inside of DOS to see if a block on the free list is also used by
a file, or to see if there are any loops or cross links in the FAT. It
just "assumes" everything is ok. If things are not ok, something bad
will happen, and a "hang" is certainly one of the possibilities.
Other filesystems store things differently. On a CD (ISO-9660
filesystem), all files are stored contiguously. Since you can't write
to a CD, it's not possible to grow files, so a start & a count is
sufficient to describe all the blocks in a file. Unix bsd "ffs" uses a
bitmap to store the list, and a succession of direct and indirect block
lists to store the addresses of all the blocks in a file. The bitmap is
a more efficient way to store the free list (a win on larger disk
drives--Unix was using 500 Mb disk drives when Dos still had a 33 Mb
upper limit), and helps fight the disk fragmentation problem. The
indirect block structure means Unix doesn't have to thread its way
through 300 blocks to find the address of the 301st.
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keesan
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response 135 of 198:
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Dec 8 20:57 UTC 2000 |
Does this mean that smartdriv with write cache turned off will not cause the
same problems? Or should we just eliminate it? Jim claims to understand what
you wrote.
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mcnally
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response 136 of 198:
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Dec 8 21:23 UTC 2000 |
You run a greater risk of file corruption caused by sudden reset when
write caching is turned on, so yes, if you turn write caching off you
will have less chance of encountering these problems.
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mdw
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response 137 of 198:
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Dec 8 21:24 UTC 2000 |
In theory, smartdrv with the the write cache turned off should be the
same as no smartdrv, and should keep most of the performance benefits
except for certain applications (which you could only determine by trial
& error). This isn't a substitue for running chkdsk - it just means
you'll be less likely to lose data.
The only way to avoid the need to run chkdsk would be to run some sort
of fault tolerant system with a log based filesystem. IBM AIX is a
possibility, or a decade ago, Tandem made a line of computers marketed
for banks and other businesses that thought they needed very high
reliability and redundancy, and were willing to pay for it. Of the two,
AIX is likely to have a better selection of chess programs.
Another possibility would be to run a laptop with *no* reset switch and
a soft power switch, but only if you make sure not to tell your friend
how to pop the battery out of the computer. If you ran linux on that,
linux is smart enough to run fsck (its equivalent to chkdsk) only when
it wasn't powered off nicely and needs to check. I believe there's also
an experimental log filesystem for linux (or there certainly is one for
netbsd), but so far as I know it's not fully functional yet, and
shouldn't be trusted with real data.
Or, here's another way to avoid chkdsk: run everything off a CD-rom, and
don't have any hard disk storage at all. You wouldn't be able to save
anything in this configuration, but you'd definitely be virus-proof.
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keesan
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response 138 of 198:
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Dec 8 23:20 UTC 2000 |
The computer does not have a CD-ROM and we are not planning to purchase and
install one. Nor will LINUX fit comfortably into the 40M drive (although
Arachne does have a beta linux version). I don't want to be hunting for linux
chess programs. Our friend flat out refused a laptop because it was hard to
read. He also has trouble with the full-size keyboard (cannot find the keys).
And he will be very upset if we dare take away the two chess programs that
he already learned. I think the solution is to remove smart drive and do
occasional maintenance. Our laptop also only has 3M RAM so is too slow.
But thanks for all the clever suggestions to our problems. Some day someone
will come up with a really idiot-proof computer with all the programs
installed in ROM, no keyboard, etc. It will play chess games for you, and
decide which web sites you want to visit. And even answer your mail. All
the programs on it will turn themselves off unless you are looking directly
at the screen.
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mdw
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response 139 of 198:
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Dec 9 00:56 UTC 2000 |
They've had those for a long time. Problem is people don't like a
computer that can't be programmed.
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gull
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response 140 of 198:
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Dec 9 03:25 UTC 2000 |
Radio Shack had several pre-programmed chess computers, with the program in
ROM. They point out the flaw in your idea, though -- that's all they do,
chess.
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keesan
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response 141 of 198:
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Dec 9 03:32 UTC 2000 |
Hi, I am trying out backtalk with Opera. The PgDn button does not work at the
grex site. Opera (3.6.2/Win31) has its own six-legged quirks. Some images
displayed with a green grid over them until I enlarged them twice. You can tab
to some things on the page but not others - the others including the results of
a search with altavista. Opera does SSL and javascript but no Cyrillic. Sends
but will not receive mail (unless you add a mailer). Probably handles FTP.
Telnet if you add it. As advertised, much smaller and faster than Netscape.
LIke Arachne, if you page down and then tab, you are still on the same page.
(Netscape 4 and Skipper stick you back at the page top, really annoying!).
Easy to toggle graphics and graphics loading on and off even in mid-load. I
did not see a way to toggle on just one image (like in Arachne or Netscape but
not in Skipper) - is there one?
Backtalk is set up so that it cannot be used without graphics unless you have a
good memory. I see to the right 'image' 'image'
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keesan
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response 142 of 198:
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Dec 9 16:01 UTC 2000 |
Can anyone help me install Lynx 386 on my computer? There seems to be zero
interest in updating grex's Lynx 2.7.x to 2.8.3.
Opera can display one image at a time. Lynx is way less buggy and can handle
other charsets. Who needs graphics.
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jor
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response 143 of 198:
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Dec 9 21:19 UTC 2000 |
right on, sista
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keesan
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response 144 of 198:
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Dec 9 21:33 UTC 2000 |
I just received a very kind offer from a grexer to e-mail me chessmaster 2000.
The chess shareware site is very hard to access, but they also have a copy.
We tried out three downloaded programs. Diachess is for 2 players, neither
of which is the computer. Exchess does not seem to have instructions and I
could find no way to exit other than the power switch. Diep chess works
except for the menu disappearing under some stray text, and our Russian does
not use the menu anyway. There is a later version, hopefully less buggy.
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gull
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response 145 of 198:
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Dec 9 21:48 UTC 2000 |
I don't remember if Chessmaster 2000 has mouse support, but even if it
doesn't, moving is really simple. You can type in the coordinates if you
know them, but you can also just use the arrow keys to highlite the piece
you want to move, hit enter, then move the cursor to the place you want to
move it to and hit enter again. I think that's right, anyway; it's been at
least five years since I last used it.
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keesan
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response 146 of 198:
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Dec 11 00:35 UTC 2000 |
He rejected one game that required arrow keys, insists on a mouse, probably
because the first game he learned had one. Too much to remember. The mouse
and the mousepad are both still upside down. Supposedly the ancient
Egyptians were also like this - if you find something that works, don't change
it. The people in their drawings tended to look like each other. What we
are after is something that looks and acts like WEP Windows chess but does
not crash (or take up 10M). With a way to specify beginner or expert that
does not refer to number of seconds per move, same as the WEP game.
We are hoping that he can manage Diep chess, where you have to click on the
piece you want to move, then RELEASE the button (don't drag it) and then click
where you want the piece to go.
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keesan
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response 147 of 198:
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Dec 13 03:33 UTC 2000 |
The Chess Shareware site is less busy in the afternoon. I could not figure
out how to download a file with Arachne (I had done a .jpg okay) but instead
used my beta-test browser, which for some reason displayed only the first
few pages of the site, A through the middle of D, so I downloaded the chess
programs for DOS from that part of the alphabet. I could tab to the other
links and see their names, so I also, somewhat blind, download sibir106.zip,
Siberian chess (one of several by Russian authors).
The results:
Chendos or chenard. Unzipped to ONE .exe file chenard.exe. No instructions,
no help of any sort by pressing any F keys. ESC quits (that was nice to know,
instead of needing to reboot). Checked for the desired features.
1. Nice VGA screen in few colors, 2D (sides parallel).
2. The game starts off by asking who plays which side (it can be the computer
playing itself or two humans) and how many second per move - he wanted to
adjust the level and should be able to handle 60 seconds (type in the number).
3. No mouse (which he preferred) but, unlike a program he rejected, which
required some odd combination of arrow keys, ins, and del, this one only
requires that you move to the piece, Enter, move to where it goes, Enter.
So do the other programs that I tested which use cursor keys.
4. Drawbacks - no instructions, so I don't know any way to take back a move.
ChessFX - 1992. It comes up as a very colorful screen with no instructions,
F1 does nothing, mouse does nothing, arrow keys do nothing. ESC quits.
I quit. Chessfx is only 53K and it looks like most of that is graphics.
(Chendos was 71K)
The third small program was Clueless, 47K zipped. It is for people who always
like to win.
1. Nice readable screen (EGA?), 2D.
2. The game starts by asking which of six levels you want. There is a help
file explaining that you can set the computer to make random moves, or to pick
the very worst move, or levels 4 and 5 let it think a bit and 6 is for people
who have a lot of time.
3. After asking you to make this one simple choice (with a mouse) all you
have to do is move pieces, again with a mouse.
I think he will like this one. It does all that he asked for and has no
confusing menus to ignore. To exit type ESC.
Next is another smaller program Cyrus (110K, 1985).
1. Type Cyrus and the board appears immediately. EGA, 3D, but very legible.
2. F1 Help, L to select levels 1 to 16. He can do this easily.
3. No mouse, but simple arrowkey/enter - arrowkey/enter. To start you have
to hit the spacebar, which I hope is not too much to learn.
(This one is borderline, depending what he thinks of the screen and if he can
remember to hit the space bar first).
It is tricky to exit, F1, Q, Y. He will use the reset button, I am sure.
Siberian chess, 94K.
1. Nice readable EGA screen, pieces are black of white, hit Enter (OK).
There is a menu but you can ignore it for a while.
2. Pieces can be moved with a mouse, or by tuping the moves (c1d1). Good.
3. The menu is clearly labelled LEVEL and ranges from easy to hard but is
described in terms of moves per minutes. He will have to learn.
This one is a winner - has everything he claimed to want: square board in
simple recognizable colors, mouse, and easy to set levels, and on top of that
the authors are Russian (three of them). The game is in English. Alt-X.
Cyberchess. Comes on in CGA, glaring colors with a confusing ad, three
screens are displayed before you get to the actual board. I was able to turn
off the sound effects. You have to hit the space bar to start. The board
is very hard to understand and has lots of flashing lights. But it does work
with a mouse and you can set the levels to + or -. I expect this one will
be an instant reject because of its looks. ESC exits, thank goodness.
Dabbabbo (1998), and AVOG (800) are command-line only. Q - quit.
CCSYSTEM, 700K, has made very good use of its size.
1. Extremely attractive 2D board (3D option available) which comes up
immediately, in SVGA (it detects CGA, HERC, VGA or SVGA).
2. Realistic mouse movement of the pieces, as if they were really moving
rather than teleporting themselves from one square to another..
3. For those who want it, the menu can be made to appear by right click at
screen top. You can set levels from Beginner, to Learning, to Thinking. He
explicitly wanted to set Beginner etc. as words (like in the Windows Chess
that crashed the computer). There is a way to undo a move (most programs have
this, Clueless did not seem to, Chenard did not say.)
This one is a clear winner, and will fit comfortably in the 10M that we will
free up by deleting Windows and its chess game.
Finally, Chessmaster 2000, 1986.
1. A CGA version with a square board, but really odd color combinations,
mostly including hot pink and chartreuse green. You get a choice of about
ten equally confusing colors - only one of which gives you one side with black
in it.
2. No mouse, but Arrow/Enter.
3. Ctl-L to change the level. F1 help, F10 menu, and I think this is more
than he can manage.
We will install CCsystem, Siberian chess, and one other game of his choice,
probably Clueless because it uses a mouse and he can set it so his grandson
always wins, but possibly Chenard or Cyrus or Chessmaster.
When he gets tired of these, we have the letters D through Z.
I would never have guessed there were so many chess programs around.
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keesan
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response 148 of 198:
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Dec 13 14:19 UTC 2000 |
What were the first computer games? What computers were they written for and
what were the hardware requirements (16K RAM? one 360K floppy?). Have
computer games always been only in color? I was surprised that Chessmaster
2000 was CGA rather than Hercules, which is better resolution.
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scott
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response 149 of 198:
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Dec 13 15:02 UTC 2000 |
The first computer games tended to be text-based, like Adventure, and were
done on the first computers (mainframes).
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