Feed the Nerd 5: God of Hellfire

Martin Jud

30.10.2018

Translation: machine translated

The spawn of hell is back. No, I'm not talking about Windows 95, although the term is also very apt. After all, there were never so many blue screens after that. What I want today is to finally go to war with Diablo again.

MS-Dos games are all well and good, but after three months of retro gaming, I'm about to be saturated. It's time for a new tinkering session - my 486 is already eagerly awaiting it. Incidentally, I'm annoyed that I still can't get it the CMOS battery I ordered in the last episode. Of all things, the UK post office has delayed this extremely important delivery. But at least a replacement is now on its way - it can only be weeks away.

The reincarnation of Windows 95

Great, since August there has been Windows 95 as an app. You can't do much more with it than play solitaire. What's more, this poorly programmed software needs 300 MB of RAM. WTF?! The original Windows 95 runs on a box with 4 MB RAM. My 486 even gives the operating system 8 MB. I have a real retro feeling with original software (cough) from 1995 and hardware from the same year.

But before I start, I should realise once again what I'm getting into. And you should too. The following song sums it up quite well.

Installation preparations: Putting together an external CD drive

How do I install Windows 95 on my notebook without an internal CD drive? Perhaps with the notebook version, which includes 14 discs? Fiddlesticks, I'm not going to do that. Especially as I don't have this version either. I need an external CD drive. Fortunately, I've already got the right old hardware, which just needs to be assembled.

Two minutes later it's ready. Now just close the case, connect the power and LPT cables and hope that the ravages of time have not taken their toll on the hardware.

Everything seems to work. The old driver installation discs from 1997 work perfectly. The entries in Config.sys and Autoexec.bat are made automatically.

Yes, everything is going as desired.

The horror: Installing Windows 95

There is not much to report on the installation of Windows 95. Except that you have to be patient. An enormous amount, about one and a half hours should be enough.

Alas, I lost the original installation CD. But fortunately I still have the Windows serial. Or do I again? Anyway, knock the shit out of it!

Software, let Windows sing

The first start of Windows 95 also takes a few minutes. But I'm happy to do that in view of the nostalgic start image.

In the meantime, I'm googling for a way to get my Windows to play music without a sound card. If I remember correctly, there's a driver that addresses the PC speaker like a sound card.

I quickly realise this, but I am overcome by a premonition that clouds my mood. There are two drivers that work with Windows 3.x or higher. The first is from Microsoft, has a relatively good output quality but has the disadvantage that all other tasks are paused whenever a sound is played. So the device is not really usable.

The second driver comes from John Ridges and does not cause applications running in the background to freeze. Although the output quality is not supposed to match that of Microsoft's driver, I don't really care. And yes, my premonition is about the sound output of DirectX. I could bet my arse that this is not supported, because it is a "wave driver". But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

After installing the driver and rebooting, I finally hear the typical fanfare that greets you on Windows 95. However, it's much too loud, which is why I adjust the volume under "Control Panel/Multimedia" in the properties of the "Internal Speaker wave driver".

Diablo, Lord of the Darkness

Somewhat sadly, I insert the original Diablo CD. I probably won't get to my destination today. Or will I? After all, the disc sound rattles out of the speakers on autostart, sounding like a coffee machine on speed. Probably a wave file. Apart from the sound, the biggest Achilles heel in this endeavour is the processor. Diablo requires a Pentium with 60 MHz. The clock rate of the 486 DX4 processor is 75 MHz. So I remain optimistic.

Before the installation, I have my PC tested:

Okay, it recognises my non-existent Pentium. I can cope with the fact that I have to wait a little longer for the loading times because of the slow external CD drive. But as you can see, the installed PC speaker driver doesn't actually work for DirectSound output. Damn... Do I have to build an external sound card now? Is there such a thing?

I'm installing Diablo and hope that I can at least fight my way towards God of Hellfire without sound.

Now it's getting exciting. I wait spellbound for the game to start.

Wow, I can hardly believe it. The game is running... not! Respectively only at half speed. The opponents don't stand a chance against me and I'm not enjoying it.

Was all that effort for nothing? Can my processor be clocked up to 100 MHz at best? In any case, I've lost all desire to try it out any further at the moment.

I install "Heroes of Might and Magic II", which plays wonderfully on my computer. Albeit without sound. But who needs opera singing in a strategy game? I'll do without it for the next few hours.

Well, you can't always win. But at least I still get to fight demons and other creatures from the underworld. I also didn't have a single blue screen. :D

Martin Jud

Senior Editor

martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.ch

I find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.