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, Commodore 64, 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.
- Platform Emulation (DOS: DOSBox and DOSEMU, other platforms like Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari)
- Console Platform Emulation (NES, Sega Genesis, Arcade, etc)
- Virtualization
- Demos (intros, demos, megademos, democomp-related stuff)
- Art (ASCII, ANSI, pixel, etc)
- Music (MODs etc, c64 SID, and more)
Games (Free, not abandonware - either platform-specific, console or arcade games)
- 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
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.
- 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.
- Follow up with dead links, see if the project moved. If not found, check archive.org for reference at least.
- Test Linux items
- Test DOS-only items under DOSBOX / DOSEMU / VMWare / etc / whatever.
- Test Windows-only items under Wine / VMWare / etc / whatever.
- Learn to package for Unity Linux.
Package all software, and commit everything into the Unity Linux repository.
Random stuff ∞
https://defacto2.net/welcome -- The Scene News, Archives & Portal
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/
- The official world archive for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the largest on-line gaming center on the Internet
https://www.old-computers.com/museum/default.asp
- http:// www.old-computers.com/forum/
- DBGL - DOSBox game loader
- https://www.zophar.net/pdroms.html
- 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 ∞
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 ∞
- A primer
- A list of resources
- telnet links to online BBS'
Parties? I have a list..
--
- hacked emulators
speedrun movies
promo videos:
- BBS - The Documentary - (2005 movie)
- The Amiga and DOS Demo disks
Anything else?
More notes ∞
- https://web.archive.org/web/20171007024559/http://www.uva.fi:80/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
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://web.archive.org/web/20150907224210/http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html
comp.archives.msdos.{announce,d} are gone