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Linux distributions + Unity Linux >

Oldschool Linux was to have been usable as a general-purpose light Linux distribution, with a focus on oldschool platform and operating system emulation/virtualization, demos, games, art and music.

Its target era was to be pre-Windows: DOS, c64, Amiga, Atari, etc. Software will be Linux-native where possible, but two-stage software will be examined .. such as emulating DOS to run a DOS program.

1. Platform Emulation (DOS: DOSBox and DOSEMU, other platforms like c64, Amiga, Atari)
2. Console Platform Emulation (NES, Sega Genesis, Arcade, etc)
3. Virtualization
4. Demos (intros, demos, megademos, democomp-related stuff)
5. Art (ASCII, ANSI, pixel, etc)
6. Music (MODs etc, c64 SID, and more)

7. Games (Free, not abandonware - either platform-specific, console or arcade games)

   1. This is a secondary interest.

It was to be a consumer distribution, and not a producer distribution. To be distributed with media viewers/players as well as actual content. It was to be a branch off of the Unity Linux base. It never made it past the planning stages.

Oldschool-Windows and producer editions were far-future ideas.

Window managers ∞

I made a Window managers project to pick the lightest possible window manager and window management tools which are still usable to my personal standards.

I was to make a choice for Oldschool Linux, and contemplate providing more than one window manager, or possibly configuring some things to run without X or with X but no window manager.

My thought, then, was that my research might influence the decision of a default Unity Linux window manager.

To do lists ∞

• oldschool art
• oldschool demos
• oldschool emulation
• oldschool games
• oldschool music downloads
• oldschool music players

• Window managers

Begin with a quick review of each item.

Later, follow up with an in-depth review and pick best-of-breed items.

Contact the developers of the best-of-breed and let them know my intentions. Ask for a link and some hype. Check their site for any reference stuff to use (ROMs, etc)

To do ∞

Do more research to see if someone else has done this. Determine if I can borg their work, or get them to merge with me.

1. Follow resources to get more links. See if some of these resources can be permanent references so I don't have to maintain big lists.
2. Follow up with dead links, see if the project moved. If not found, check archive.org for reference at least.
3. Test Linux items
4. Test DOS-only items under DOSBOX / DOSEMU / VMWare / etc / whatever.
5. Test Windows-only items under Wine / VMWare / etc / whatever.
6. Learn to package for Unity Linux.

7. Package all software, and commit everything into the Unity Linux repository.

Random stuff ∞

• http://defacto2.net/welcome -- The Scene News, Archives & Portal

  • links

• http://www.worldofspectrum.org/

  • The official world archive for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the largest on-line gaming center on the Internet

• www.old-computers.com

  • http:// www.old-computers.com/forum/
• DBGL - DOSBox game loader
• http://www.zophar.net/pdroms.html

• textfiles.org

  • It should have lots of stuff I could use. There ought to be ASCII artwork in there, maybe even ANSI artwork, packs and the like.

• Giving life to an old computer

  • Mentioned Canto, which is gold. Check the rest out.

• https://kmandla.wordpress.com/

  • Check him out re. light footprint software

• http://kingofgng.com/eng/topics/emulation-retrogaming/

  • Also check out their other categories! Good Old Gaming is good.

Diskmags

• Hugi
• PAiN

• Shine

  • As of 2009-04-13, not updated since 2000

TODO

• Emphasis on the PC cracking scene.
• I should have an emphasis on user contributions.
• Was there much of an original Apple scene? Probably. Research it.
• Was there an OS/2 scene?
• Was/is there a BeOS scene?

• Who am I missing? Probably a bunch of stuff. Even programmable calculators had a scene.

To consider later ∞

1. A primer
2. A list of resources
3. telnet links to online BBS'

4. Parties? I have a list..

--

• hacked emulators

• speedrun movies

promo videos:

1. BBS: the documentary
2. The Amiga and DOS Demo disks

3. Anything else?

More notes ∞

• http://www.uva.fi/fi/about/organisation/faculties/accounting_and_finance/ Timo Salmi's home page
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.archives.msdos.d comp.archives.msdos.d - silent, but the archives might be useful

• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rec.arts.ascii

  • https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.ascii/MUGsxdgsnSA FAQ (check it out for links!)
• http://groups.google.com/forum/ comp.bbs (misc)
• http://groups.google.com/forum/ comp.unix.dos-under-unix
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.os.msdos

• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.os.msdos.4dos

Garbo and Timo Salmi are gone:

• http://web.archive.org/web/20120414105952/http://garbo.uwasa.fi:80/

  • https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.archives.msdos.announce/JY2rDvbdKLw The public updating and the posting of the Garbo download statistics are discontinued.

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20150907224210/http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html

comp.archives.msdos.{announce,d} are gone

• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.archives.msdos.announce/aldyXsw2Iqg

  • https://archive.is/q3lRL