Tuesday 5 October 2010

Playing "Little Big Adventure" in Linux

Many years ago I played the game Little Big Adventure but never got around to finishing it. Now that MSDOS has long gone I set about running it on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). The game plays perfectly but requires a little tweaking.

1. Create an ISO From your CD
$ dd if=/dev/dvd of=/home/yourusername/.dosbox/lba.iso

2. Install DOSBox
$ sudo aptitude install dosbox

3. Configure DOSBox
Create a directory for the DOSBox C drive:
$ mkdir /home/yourusername/cdrive

Edit the file ~/.dosbox/dosbox-0.73.conf:
$ nano ~/.dosbox/dosbox-0.73.conf

C Drive
Add this line at the end of the config file to make the C drive mount when you start DOSBox:
mount c /home/yourusername/.dosbox/cdrive

Sound Changes
When I first ran the game the sound was very glitchy and horrible. I made the following changes in the config file and it sounded perfect (8 bit tastic).


In [mixer]
rate=44100
blocksize=8192
prebuffer=50

In [sblaster]
oplrate=44100


Load LBA on Startup (optional)
If you want to use DOSBox only for LBA then you might as well load LBA automatically when DOSBox starts. To do this add the following lines to the bottom of the config file:
imgmount d /home/yourusername/.dosbox/lba.iso -t iso -fs iso
c:
cd relent
relent

4. Installing the Game
Start DOSBox
$ dosbox

From this point on run commands in the DOSBox window.

Install the Game
Z:\> d:
D:\> install

Choose to install to C drive

Configure the Game
Z:\> c:
C:\> cd relent
C:\RELENT> setup

Set the following options:
> Music Sound Card Configuration
>> Sound Blaster 16 (OPL3)
>>> 220h
> FX Sound Card Configuration
>> Sound Blaster 16
>>> 220h
> Speech Configuration
>> Keep Speech Files on Hard Disk - YES
> Save Parameters
> Quit to DOS

Exit from DOSBox
C:\RELENT> exit

Copy the Voice Files
Back in the Linux terminal copy the voice files to the C drive folder.
$ cp -R /media/cdrom/LBA/VOX /home/yourusername/.dosbox/cdrive/RELENT

6. Start the Game
$ dosbox
If you chose not to start the game on DOSBox startup then run the following in the DOSBox window.
Z:\> c:
C:\> cd relent
C:\RELENT> relent

Enjoy

Thursday 3 June 2010

A while since progress

It's been quite a while since I last posted here. For the most part work on my RepRap has slowed a lot since the end of last year. Reasons for this seem to be: not having any outside in my new flat (except a large public park where I saw and drill on occasionally while, getting some odd looks), and Might as well blame it on moneygeddon too if that is still trendy.

One of my biggest problems has been the generation one pic electronics I am still trying to use. While I am appreciative of the work that has gone into keeping the SNAP support in the current RepRap host, I have have spent many days getting things 'almost' working, then packing up and leaving it for a few more weeks while making no real long term progress.

So today I decided to invest in some of Kimberly's Techzone boards. They will be much easier to debug and I will be able to work with all the bleeding edge techniques that I was denied with the PIC electronics.

I have also tried to use my own Python SNAP stack for FFM printing with my machine, but there are a few deep issues especially in regards to performance regarding this stack that I have still not got around to fixing, and do not believe it is usable to FFM as a decent speed. It is still pretty handy for all other manner of uses for a Cartesian machine and for testing and I will be bringing it to the Generation 3 electronics when I receive them.

I have plans to re-purpose my generation one electronics either on a RepRapped mini mill or a commercially purchased one (Sable 2015)