Post AtNxuRWcr6AD1W5O2i by leonerd@fosstodon.org
(DIR) More posts by leonerd@fosstodon.org
(DIR) Post #AtNOllLqHCYPVkARhw by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T08:03:46Z
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So I'm hacking on Mahjongg VGA by Ron Balewski. Like you do.
(DIR) Post #AtNOsZz6w4i6HjmlVI by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T08:05:03Z
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This isn't to be confused with Mah Jongg by Nels Anderson. I'm also hacking that one, but not in THIS thread.
(DIR) Post #AtNOvWM6svFTtlwhcW by root42@chaos.social
2025-04-23T08:05:19Z
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@foone this screams BGI!
(DIR) Post #AtNP0mhfX2CI32XWU4 by realcainmosni@mastodon.me.uk
2025-04-23T08:06:28Z
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@foone I remember that. It was my introduction to the game.
(DIR) Post #AtNP5w3KCO42Ua7p1k by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T08:07:29Z
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The cool thing about this game is that there's a ton of user-made tilesets for it that have been preserved on old BBS-shovelware CDs. And it's all this lovely amateur pixelart so naturally I gotta collect it.
(DIR) Post #AtNPGtv0TRSF3hSmTA by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T08:09:28Z
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so I'm building a tool to convert the tile files to PNGs.The files are TIS files, which are made of:1. one metadata string2. 44 TIL files.There's PAKTIL.COM and UNPAKTIL.COM to separate out/rejoin the TIL files. So I gotta figure out how TIL files work.
(DIR) Post #AtNPZnbiAAOyzFRv6m by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T08:12:49Z
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it turns out they're a 6-byte header and then they're a 48x60 image, but they're vertically planar: The first row is the least significant bit, fourth row is the most significant bit, and so on. This indexes into the palette, which is stored in PAL.CFG
(DIR) Post #AtNPf8eJMC9jhADAcC by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T08:13:46Z
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The TIL files are 48x60, but the tiles are not. They're 44x60. The extra 4 columns of pixels are ignored
(DIR) Post #AtNPmllmJ4B33ILJQG by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T08:15:13Z
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PAL.CFG is simple: It's a 16-line text file, each line containing 3 numbers separated by spaces.As is common for VGA-only software, it's 6-bit VGA, so the RGB is 0-63 instead of 0-255
(DIR) Post #AtNQDUrlGGWWRgszIW by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T08:19:56Z
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the DRAFTSMN.DOC file explains some of the special palette entries:0 is used for the screen background1 is used for tile backgrounds7 is used for the tile edges11 is used for numbers15 is used for menusso really you get 11 colors.
(DIR) Post #AtNSKfL0vRoarJ7Atk by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T08:43:43Z
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some very ugly python code using strings rather than some smart bitshifting code, but it worked first time. now I just need to wrap this up into a script that unpacks each file one by one, then converts each TIL, then merges them together into a spritesheet
(DIR) Post #AtNTxe21odny3VNv3A by KeyJ@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-04-23T09:01:50Z
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@foone Row-interleaved bitplanes, you say? That's just ILBM image format - which makes sense, as both the Amiga (where ILBM originated) and EGA/VGA 16-color graphics are bitplane based.
(DIR) Post #AtNUHn9fbb3G8tZ9rk by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T09:05:35Z
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@KeyJ similar, it's specifically Row-planar EGA data:https://moddingwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/Raw_EGA_data#Row-planar_EGA_data
(DIR) Post #AtNVCyf7UhaML0XpYW by KeyJ@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-04-23T09:15:48Z
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@foone Correct. In the case of four bitplanes and a width that's between 8 and 15 (mod 16), the two formats are identical. (I just checked, even the order of the bits in the bytes is the same. I somehow expected EGA/VGA to be LSB-first, but it isn't.)
(DIR) Post #AtNWEmXRdo23GnNYp6 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T09:27:29Z
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mass-processing, I found a corrupted one! This is supposed to be "People on TV #2", but it crashes VIEWTILE (and my converter). Works in MJVGA31, but it does crash when you exit.
(DIR) Post #AtNX093tiWVkjf8w1g by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T09:36:02Z
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@kawa that's the working! it just fails to actually load the file completely, so it's kinda gibberishy
(DIR) Post #AtNX49sUcoL8QOiqJs by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T09:36:46Z
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I need to write a simple font engine. TIME ME
(DIR) Post #AtNXSETz9kqnejjqts by ouro@social.snircle.space
2025-04-23T09:41:03Z
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@foone
(DIR) Post #AtNXXVQlZTZbfRkOmW by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T09:42:06Z
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done
(DIR) Post #AtNYAY2hnHqJ3u6rtg by ouro@social.snircle.space
2025-04-23T09:49:03Z
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@foone ... there may have been some delay in the timing system, definitely due to federated post fetching not me getting distracted
(DIR) Post #AtNYKvDwSftFqxJQBM by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T09:51:00Z
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@ouro close enough!
(DIR) Post #AtNYlx4fgoKBPXrgQ4 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T09:55:55Z
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I made the foolish mistake that all tilesets would define a remotely sensible palettethat was a mistake. several of them do black on black text
(DIR) Post #AtNZ55k9gMCxneOYjo by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T09:59:23Z
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I wasted time make it match the correct background/foreground color and it's not even visible half the time!
(DIR) Post #AtNbAaQxCgXYLAA60u by Garsal@c.im
2025-04-23T10:22:44Z
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@foone just casually making the best outrun cover art nbd
(DIR) Post #AtNbWteaQQCQJwB0ls by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T10:26:48Z
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Reverted back to plain DOS colors
(DIR) Post #AtNiAcF1BORZcpXXSC by effika@mastodon.social
2025-04-23T11:41:05Z
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@foone that purple! It will be forever etched in my head as the background for mah jongg. Played a LOT of hours of mah jongg vga back in the day on our Tandy computers. I had no idea there were other tilesets; really enjoying this thread especially.
(DIR) Post #AtNiMGil1LESM90U2y by LAbare@anticapitalist.party
2025-04-23T11:43:13Z
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@foone Speedkerning record?
(DIR) Post #AtNnzLu6BTCDUlle1g by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T12:46:09Z
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@ironiridis https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Tanya_(student)
(DIR) Post #AtNsONH4coIinnhVOS by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T13:35:37Z
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who thought this tileset was a good idea? because they were very wrong. it's tiled "Carol, Cheryl and Christie" and I have no idea ho those women are.
(DIR) Post #AtNsWVym90j67I1WU4 by ann3nova@corteximplant.com
2025-04-23T13:37:09Z
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@foone Alt, Tiegs, Brinkley
(DIR) Post #AtNsZCJlhY9Y0T7dFg by rk@mastodon.well.com
2025-04-23T13:37:34Z
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@foone They’re Carol, Cheryl, and Christie.
(DIR) Post #AtNsjZTwQtLkkDpKsa by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T13:39:33Z
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that's Carol Alt, Cheryl Tiegs, and Christie Brinkley.thanks to @ann3nova@corteximplant.comm
(DIR) Post #AtNsmZHzbcJH11fQ4u by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T13:39:37Z
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@ann3nova thanks!
(DIR) Post #AtNtWIssvnKNSPjPg8 by mx@typo.social
2025-04-23T13:48:14Z
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@foone I'm still playing the win3.1 version of this game sometimes, mostly because I fell in love with the "Medieval" user tileset years ago
(DIR) Post #AtNtsMhrOvLngN5vQ8 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T13:52:22Z
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The creator of this one is truly an evil person
(DIR) Post #AtNu6CVo6HWA7S3Pkm by castanea_jo@ni.hil.ist
2025-04-23T13:54:49Z
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@foone one million years in jail
(DIR) Post #AtNuBMjhVylnHD11pw by XenoPhage@infosec.exchange
2025-04-23T13:55:33Z
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@foone Oh wow.. that takes me back…. I remember playing that for hours.. With all the different tilesets.. And looking for more on other BBSes…
(DIR) Post #AtNvC1CNAzVeisIllI by jotaro@dopamine.social
2025-04-23T14:07:00Z
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@foone please say more
(DIR) Post #AtNwkM2IJFV39IWYoS by MishaVanMollusq@sfba.social
2025-04-23T14:23:53Z
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@foone wha…?
(DIR) Post #AtNxIFptroYblYtLKC by anselmschueler@ieji.de
2025-04-23T14:30:31Z
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@foone wait why where did the text come from
(DIR) Post #AtNxuRWcr6AD1W5O2i by leonerd@fosstodon.org
2025-04-23T14:37:28Z
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@foone Credited to Andy Warhol?
(DIR) Post #AtNzqdmvWJ3Do31d32 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-23T14:59:15Z
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@mia Borland C++, yeah. It's very BGI
(DIR) Post #AtO1OXHIKal1PnxKFs by pebonius@mastodon.online
2025-04-23T15:16:31Z
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@foone the fuckening
(DIR) Post #AtO4hljF7xUXb8tJLs by ann3nova@corteximplant.com
2025-04-23T15:53:38Z
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@foone My supermodel radar went off. :)
(DIR) Post #AtO9PCKsTjHkO3SUTo by gothpanda@pandapla.net
2025-04-23T16:46:15Z
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@foone So, I kinda wanna try this. Where might I be able to do that?
(DIR) Post #AtOCDK0yP09qafB2Jc by billgoats@bitbang.social
2025-04-23T17:17:43Z
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@foone Nooooo >.<
(DIR) Post #AtOCT5O8YCCdrQWpYu by dannotdaniel@hellions.cloud
2025-04-23T17:20:39Z
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@foone okay sounds like pretty epic custom emojis 👀
(DIR) Post #AtOClvbJAGkB0VfqFc by dannotdaniel@hellions.cloud
2025-04-23T17:24:03Z
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@foone is this a treatise on monopolies
(DIR) Post #AtOLwpCOCqofvPHzOK by kboyd@phpc.social
2025-04-23T19:06:45Z
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@foone I'm still mad that campbells discontinued their Green Pea Soup
(DIR) Post #AtOZyrHooYYGKwgzse by noodle@aus.social
2025-04-23T21:43:59Z
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@foone Just missing some Marlboro packs
(DIR) Post #AtOaczs0Jtp4Xel1hg by JustTooOdd@lor.sh
2025-04-23T21:51:20Z
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@foone Ooooh, that's fantastic! Would definitely play . . . until my eyes glaze over from squinting.
(DIR) Post #AtOap23q04Y4oO20ie by JustTooOdd@lor.sh
2025-04-23T21:53:33Z
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@foone OK, that's just brilliant.
(DIR) Post #AtOfoGnSE8hjzkp9Yu by Terminhell@mastodon.social
2025-04-23T22:49:15Z
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@foone Had to look it up, only mildly let down. Scotch broth I've never heard of.https://www.amazon.com/Heinz-Scotch-Broth-Soup-400g/dp/B004G90H8G/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=1240250126449054&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qIbQSw67-WLK4lOeQxFt3xeIfb1BMjYSvlE4XvhBQqJhDOp0xcTmpxT7jLCXxyaLWNGkbwTYnoOTEW6-oOQ405IQQhMFqYyYpQgIp4M8kFSITRKu1LwIyqyYuuT15_wG6nyBs3PuF_xluFGTyx9lFxTRLorOSD9FQHDjh5bsPlmRlJk3bcIPKbhodk_bxanOzQjgfZO9zyKSZuOM1gxG_w.uZNJb3OGBis8MzMYaYQn3W4VIKK_cBEOxrfrmme_k_I&dib_tag=se&hvadid=77515763981672&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=76243&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-77515909271586%3Aloc-190&hydadcr=27266_14635622&keywords=campbell's%2Bscotch%2Bbroth&mcid=5d8e0c5bcf6537d4a8ececb67329fcfd&qid=1745448487&sr=8-1
(DIR) Post #AtOmOv1ejWGwugKFDU by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T00:03:12Z
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@0 nice
(DIR) Post #AtPHUAYlVE1t7NnOYS by energisch_@troet.cafe
2025-04-24T05:51:30Z
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@foone this is Anti-Art :mastoart:
(DIR) Post #AtQ2gYkU5dV3SYgfS4 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T14:40:16Z
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I put it on the internet archive but it seems to be unplayably laggy in-browser:https://archive.org/details/mahjong_soup
(DIR) Post #AtQ2qlFsRk8P8wEf7w by ann3nova@corteximplant.com
2025-04-24T14:42:11Z
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@foone It's playing great over here. :)
(DIR) Post #AtQ323Q1FsAuf6Me7U by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T14:44:21Z
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@ann3nova weird. maybe mine is just too slow to handle it
(DIR) Post #AtQ3Hh6216Xm40TNdQ by ann3nova@corteximplant.com
2025-04-24T14:47:10Z
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@foone I'm running it in desktop mode on my Steam Deck. ...it activates a screen saver if you press S. :D
(DIR) Post #AtQ4G7ja6fzI3RmrM8 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T14:58:01Z
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it seems playable on chrome, but firefox barely lets you move the mouse where. that's a shame
(DIR) Post #AtQ5XMNozkngMgOM2C by ann3nova@corteximplant.com
2025-04-24T15:09:00Z
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@foone I got stuck. The true difficulty is all the "Cream of" tiles. :)
(DIR) Post #AtQ5XNZCavUw2GixPc by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T15:12:24Z
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@ann3nova SO MUCH CREAM
(DIR) Post #AtQ5ktJZrqvOGTrJOy by ann3nova@corteximplant.com
2025-04-24T15:14:40Z
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@foone With all those random soups, I wouldn't be shocked if there was a "Cream of Cream" buried in there somewhere.
(DIR) Post #AtQ629MPSmxux7PgMy by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T15:17:58Z
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@ann3nova could easily edit one together! could always make this worse
(DIR) Post #AtQ6C9YDbsnwRHhrqy by raptor85@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-04-24T15:19:41Z
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@foone works fine for me on firefox, getting 0 lag.
(DIR) Post #AtQ6J6KHzuksStVKTo by drmelon@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-04-24T15:21:00Z
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@foone Mashing CTRL+F11 in the browser seems to dissolve the lag quite a lot, which is interesting since that should *reduce* the dosbox cycle count. Maybe it does a lot of waiting on interrupts or something that increase with cycle count?
(DIR) Post #AtQ6hYXUko6CurLHXM by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T15:25:29Z
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much more playable (at least on my slow firefox) version here, by using the windows 3.1 version:https://archive.org/details/MJWINSOUP#
(DIR) Post #AtQ9EWBKjuxL4Lp08O by Zotmeister@mastodon.online
2025-04-24T15:53:45Z
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@foone Triscuit and Club are the other two types of crackers, in case anyone was curious
(DIR) Post #AtQFlKvCE2QzQYJ160 by Canageek@wandering.shop
2025-04-24T17:02:56Z
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@rodneylives @foone foone: Would you mind if I made a metafilter post out of this thread?
(DIR) Post #AtQFlLlJ6I7O2AgdJw by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T17:06:43Z
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@Canageek @rodneylives go ahead
(DIR) Post #AtQO1ywvy9Jxq3ZCWu by ciatmusings@raru.re
2025-04-24T18:39:31Z
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@foone this is amazing, wow. Feels like an art piece in an exhibition honestly
(DIR) Post #AtQS5tQipf5hh9cWHY by cinnamon@mk.absturztau.be
2025-04-24T19:21:29.547Z
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@foone@digipres.club @mia@tearoom.tearmoon.com So... if it's using BGI, are its repaint cycles horribly slow? (as they used to be)
(DIR) Post #AtQS5uTExmhQvFo2qW by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T19:25:05Z
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@cinnamon @mia so, so slow
(DIR) Post #AtQSkpnVF7LgIlnY9Y by cinnamon@mk.absturztau.be
2025-04-24T19:29:38.484Z
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@foone@digipres.club @mia@tearoom.tearmoon.com They clearly hadn't read PCGPE to know how to draw graphics in 320x200x256 by writing a byte to Mem[$a000:320 * y + x] :blobcatwink:
(DIR) Post #AtQSkr2Qd6sk9Lmz3Y by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T19:32:32Z
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@cinnamon @mia it's 640x480x16 resolution, though! so it's got PLANES
(DIR) Post #AtQTnn3hyu5IdBLr04 by f15sim@mastodon.social
2025-04-24T19:44:15Z
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@foone Lawful Evil.
(DIR) Post #AtQWMKmvHbTIzj6FaC by bayindirh@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-04-24T20:12:47Z
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@foone Again here, Firefox works with zero lag.
(DIR) Post #AtQieM7MHEyDmT1BBY by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T22:30:35Z
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this project has officially reached ghidra-o-clock
(DIR) Post #AtQjK6fu5ELc335JKq by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T22:38:13Z
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_putpixel? what are you doing with putpixel, game?oh, no.
(DIR) Post #AtQjlhdwkAQcWSKPKa by ann3nova@corteximplant.com
2025-04-24T22:43:12Z
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@foone I played it in Firefox.
(DIR) Post #AtQl5sBlLUFAyTKLGS by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T22:58:03Z
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address 3000:4c2e in DOSBox maps to 2C03:0E2E in ghidra.
(DIR) Post #AtQlKRTMxPsGSZVeZk by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:00:42Z
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> LOOKThere is a sign on the wall> LOOK SIGNThe sign reads "It has been zero days since x86's segmented addressing has made foone's day harder"The sign has no way to increase the number: it's a static unchanging piece of paper.
(DIR) Post #AtQlnTm3ToLjzm5zbU by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:05:52Z
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(I'll make a real version once I have a chance to install print studio onto my PC with a dot matrix printer)
(DIR) Post #AtQlqncy7bU0RFQe2a by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:06:33Z
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oh good, I just missed how putimage/getimage was being compiled. It's at least using BGI's slow blitter, rather than manually plotting every pixel through BGI's slow pixelplotter.
(DIR) Post #AtQm4a9R1UsuhFBdD6 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:08:59Z
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this set of FIDBs helps with that, btw. Real handy if you regularly reverse engineer 16-bit dos applications. https://github.com/moralrecordings/ghidra-fidb-dos-win16
(DIR) Post #AtQm7K3HKuyHdNc7DU by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:09:21Z
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@ann3nova strange. I think my firefox might just be broken
(DIR) Post #AtQn4egSGriChyEKum by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:20:15Z
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ugh, with a 640x480x16 fucking-planar mode, I can't just easily do a memdumpbin a000:0 10000 to get a copy of the current screen's VRAM
(DIR) Post #AtQn7gY7n6krMZmL20 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:20:27Z
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(I only get one of the planes)
(DIR) Post #AtQoMNQPHGv2Lbjof2 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:23:55Z
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I think this one is blue.
(DIR) Post #AtQoxgleKDFt3ISwOe by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:41:20Z
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this game seems to be spending most of its time drawing to an offscreen buffer
(DIR) Post #AtQp57eUlcS0SbfEkS by jackeric@beige.party
2025-04-24T23:42:42Z
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@foone relatable tbh
(DIR) Post #AtQp81nF0UOp9r8lN2 by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-24T23:43:17Z
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So, the way it handles you removing a tile: it draws a subset of the current puzzle on an offscreen buffer, tile by tile, then it blits that over the screen.
(DIR) Post #AtQpJ9b2KqcgXojl8y by heavyimage@mastodon.social
2025-04-24T23:45:16Z
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@foone shit now I'm worried that buffer has secret cooler stuff going on
(DIR) Post #AtQrIu1CSC7S8dyz44 by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2025-04-25T00:07:35Z
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@foone My spouse and I are *still* annoyed at how the vast majority of "mah jongg" PC software throughout history has been these tile-matching solitaire games and not the actual game
(DIR) Post #AtQtzm6DyJYBwFu5HU by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-25T00:37:50Z
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Fun fact: This game from 1991 supports dual monitors.The PC didn't usually support this until way later, but you COULD install a monochrome card alongside a regular VGA display, and use the monochrome card simultaneously. It was mainly used by programmers, running their debugger/IDE on the secondary monitor, but a few games supported it for things like this.
(DIR) Post #AtQvPboSwHGNWFTnhA by ddlyh@topspicy.social
2025-04-25T00:53:39Z
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@fooneI think that was the version of Mahjong that we had when I was a kid. Came on a CD (with the RoboCop demo and CD-Man) that came free with our CD-ROM drive...
(DIR) Post #AtR16x0IWkU3SqV55k by tekhedd@byteheaven.net
2025-04-25T01:57:27Z
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@foone er, I've done that with my amber monochrome back in the day. I feel old(er) now. didn't know this game supported it though...
(DIR) Post #AtR2YtWh9LYmk2XgjQ by johnlogic@sfba.social
2025-04-25T02:12:45Z
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@foone Microsoft's "Ma Jong" was a ripoff of Activision's Shanghai. (I have a screen credit on its sequel.)
(DIR) Post #AtR9tFNqIIbG093NuS by baljemmett@mastodon.online
2025-04-25T03:35:53Z
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@foone Oh, that's nice! I wonder how many people were set up like that in the VGA era... And how many of those were developers, for that matter!
(DIR) Post #AtRAUISXoyCMFtv4ds by Canageek@wandering.shop
2025-04-25T03:42:28Z
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@foone @rodneylives Thank you very much; I remember how annoyed you were when your projects were posted to Hacker News, so I wanted to check first. I posted the thread here, if you want a look: https://www.metafilter.com/208533/Generally-speaking-a-tileset-should-let-you-tell-one-tile-from-another
(DIR) Post #AtRKKgtf6k8Ggzf5yS by henryk@chaos.social
2025-04-25T05:32:47Z
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@foone Oh yeah, I got a lot of stuff second and third hand (that means: late), but this means I had a Hercules card in addition to the VGA card in my 386 in the mid-90s and could run a DOS command line *simultaneously* on the Hercules with my Win 3.11 on the VGA. I felt like the king of the world!
(DIR) Post #AtRSaVbRfHknvqC7iy by eniko@peoplemaking.games
2025-04-25T06:44:17Z
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@foone this is how I found out dosbox-x supports a second display
(DIR) Post #AtRbY6xTDoB0VQQbzs by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-25T08:45:40Z
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@AT1ST @eniko I know a way to get up to 3 (add a 3DFX card) but 4 would be tricky. There's no way to do that in a standardized way, you'd have to build a system with multiple PCI cards and program them directly.Doable, but not easily, and support would basically be zero: it'd need that specific card.
(DIR) Post #AtRbqeTnKRkTgPO9Oy by eniko@peoplemaking.games
2025-04-25T08:49:09Z
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@foone @AT1ST i really wanna see the poor desk that has to hold up 4 CRT monitors
(DIR) Post #AtRcJmNt1C7Gb4Vvvc by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-25T08:54:21Z
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@gloriouscow I was actually looking at martypc earlier today to see if the in-browser emulation performed better than em-dosbox, but didn't get very far (I found a workaround in DOSBox before I got martypc set up).I'll definitely try setting it up again to see if there's enough support
(DIR) Post #AtRcdSP90o1cQGUAGe by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-25T08:58:00Z
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I'd tried to use this earlier and couldn't get it to work, but reading the changelog I discovered an infuriating change:It used to be that you had to use the D command line argument to disable monochrome support (it can corrupt memory, for deeply stupid DOS reasons), but then the author inverted the meaning of the argument: it now ENABLES monochrome support!
(DIR) Post #AtRdfOxatAvAH15eIy by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-25T09:09:32Z
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The dumb reason is that DOS was so starved for memory that one trick that was actually used was to get an extra 8k (I think? My math may be off, it's 2am) for TSRs by using storing them in the upper memory block reserved for the monochrome video card framebuffer. Which works fine as long as you don't try to use that memory as a framebuffer, which usually doesn't happen if you have a VGA card. A game blindly drawing to it will draw into the ram of a device driver and stuff will break, hard.
(DIR) Post #AtRdyly9Z9yv8XaYPw by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-25T09:13:05Z
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@eniko @AT1ST there's always https://youtu.be/q3NQQ7bPf6U
(DIR) Post #AtReSzoMfLeKkrQCKu by JennyFluff@chitter.xyz
2025-04-25T09:18:26Z
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@foone what. WHAT.
(DIR) Post #AtRfn4p1qUyY2bs5Oy by lproven@social.vivaldi.net
2025-04-25T09:33:16Z
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@foone Oh yes indeed. DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386 RAM I=B000-B7FFCommitted to memory decades ago, it's so useful.One `mode mono` command and "goodnight Vienna."
(DIR) Post #AtRk5IsyhBi8gifJAG by sqhistorian@dosgame.club
2025-04-25T10:21:24Z
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@foone "640k should be enough for everybody" was the biggest lie ever told.
(DIR) Post #AtRkEvS0gHrktxdhVw by dr_barnowl@topspicy.social
2025-04-25T10:23:08Z
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@foone The thing that vexes me most about reserved driver memory blocks is that even today, Windows still has one.On 64bit systems this aint so bad, but on 32 bit it was slap in the middle of the address space. Even if you had a load of RAM and could page out, the maximum _contiguous_ address space you could get was about 1.2GBGuess what wants to allocate a single block of contiguous address space for it's heap? Java.No Java programs with over 1.2GB of heap for you, person with 4GB RAM.
(DIR) Post #AtRqzAfP2XKF8gL30y by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-25T11:38:40Z
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@rnd apparently that's from the Wade-Giles romanization?
(DIR) Post #AtRymMVeUs2rjmBH1s by ask@infosec.exchange
2025-04-25T13:06:00Z
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@foone maybe it's time to do a side project to improve 16 bit x86 support in ghidra so it gets the addresses right.I feel your pain I had to use some truly arcane gdb config to debug my 16 bit x86 binary I wrote.
(DIR) Post #AtRzJgVl9TiDKO7X1s by trouble@masto.ai
2025-04-25T13:12:05Z
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@foone I used a Hercules mono card, and since I was always in text mode (WordStar!) I used a TSR print spooler that used the graphics ram as its buffer. Of course I had to disable it and reboot before launching a game with graphics.
(DIR) Post #AtSKOVUTeU8RdJf4LI by synkr3tyk@mastodon.social
2025-04-25T17:08:12Z
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@foone Why do I feel like I need to pour milk in my eyes?
(DIR) Post #AtTYJmmdWUPyKnl4Do by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-26T07:19:00Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
uint __cdecl16far FUN_26f4_0672(int param_1){ uint uVar1; do { uVar1 = _rand(); } while (param_1 < (int)(uVar1 & 0xff)); return uVar1 & 0xff;}I KNOW PROGRAMMERS WHO USE MODULO AND THEY'RE ALL COWARDS
(DIR) Post #AtTYaS1vw7RctNrMyu by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-26T07:22:04Z
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I found another place in the code where it does this. I'm scared.
(DIR) Post #AtTZ1vaY9C1kNu9YsC by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-26T07:27:03Z
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for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { local_8 = _rand(); }ahh, make sure your random numbers are properly seasoned, a good plan.
(DIR) Post #AtTbPdaAwdFdOkPZjs by RueNahcMohr@infosec.exchange
2025-04-26T07:53:23Z
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@foone when I was doing programming the one thing we really wanted was more random random numbers. "5 occurred 3 times in a row!?"eventually we started building lists of all the values we wanted and using the random numbers to select which one would be used and REMOVED from the list.
(DIR) Post #AtTbzfhsWYogPZCGu0 by RueNahcMohr@infosec.exchange
2025-04-26T07:55:43Z
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@foone This is your fault, YOU lifted the hood. These horrors could have been a secret from the world. :]
(DIR) Post #AtTbzgsu93EM43MajA by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-26T07:59:55Z
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@RueNahcMohr this is my curse: I'm always lifting rocks to see what weird bugs are under them, and I'm always surprised when I find them
(DIR) Post #AtTe6nS6aGoMam0sfw by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-26T08:23:55Z
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I haven't fully reversed this function but I think it is bubble sorting the tilesets.no wonder it was so slow when I had 372 of them in the directory
(DIR) Post #AtTfJIh2MCHgufWWjA by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-26T08:37:19Z
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@mica hah, fun!
(DIR) Post #AtTfM0BzbBH4P2I6fA by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-26T08:37:35Z
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@henryk yeah it's the default turbo C++ _rand(), I think it's crap and a half
(DIR) Post #AtTrOc2lBuc5YCi7EW by hazelnot@sunbeam.city
2025-04-26T10:52:46Z
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@foone I know about this cause the first two Command & Conquer games have this and I found out about it from their TCRF pages years ago haha
(DIR) Post #AtUH1qOEHdmEC0YYMq by curtmack@floss.social
2025-04-26T15:39:43Z
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@foone I once read a Qbasic program that would seed the random number generator with the current time, and then it would take a random number mod 8 and skip that many random numbers. There was a comment to the effect of, "make sure it's REALLY random."Even at the time (age... 12 maybe?), I was pretty sure this did nothing. I have since learned this is even worse than doing nothing: it actively reduces randomness.
(DIR) Post #AtWcXzVGQE3H4sw8Gm by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-27T18:50:28Z
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@bluestarultor it's just "D", I believe. No slash or dash.
(DIR) Post #AtarmSMQUR38yI9tgW by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-29T16:34:57Z
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A password? you ask me for a password?ARE YOU CHALLENGING ME?
(DIR) Post #AtarmTID1bGprVC2ka by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-29T16:37:58Z
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I found where it calls strcmp() before throwing an invalid password error, paused in the debugger. The password is PASSWORD.
(DIR) Post #AtarmU4Q8LpqH1kXtg by KateKarnage@mastodon.me.uk
2025-04-29T16:47:09Z
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@foone speak "friend" and enter...
(DIR) Post #AtarmXoGENHls4DhGS by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-29T16:39:04Z
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and looking in the (hidden!) MJVGA3.HOF file, the first 8 bytes are the following: AF BE AC AC A8 B0 AD BBwhich is "PASSWORD" XOR'd with FF
(DIR) Post #AtarmcEdmElPb2aowC by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-29T16:46:02Z
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the manual: When you first start EDITHOF, you'll be asked for a password. WhenMJVGA creates MJVGA.HOF, the default password is PASSWORD (in uppercase). You can, of course, change this password to your own. More onthat shortly.
(DIR) Post #AtarmgRC9VBOd8Uu3s by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-29T16:46:19Z
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but I like hacking DOS games more than I like reading manuals, so I still did the right thing
(DIR) Post #Atarmkp5qafyEPi2ro by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-29T16:52:24Z
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this is software from 1990 for DOS. Security isn't a thing yet.
(DIR) Post #AtarzGhT9ffAZU6uie by TrillionB@mstdn.social
2025-04-29T16:58:03Z
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@foone That sweet feeling of using a hex editor on a binary to find the jump assembly instruction after the password prompt.Good memories.
(DIR) Post #AtasArT8n0Q1nFw7hw by castanea_jo@ni.hil.ist
2025-04-29T16:55:27Z
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@foone There was a driving game we had all copied around for the whle compute lab back in like 1997 and I recall we had written the 2 or 3 "find the word on this page in the manual" passwords on the chalkboard for after we did our programming class work. Security through having a manual.
(DIR) Post #AtasEOEVQjq2HHm1nk by indiealexh@tny.social
2025-04-29T16:47:25Z
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@foone files that store the password simply are <3Shout out to PDF where you can remove the password easily.
(DIR) Post #AtaxyQztz3jdwXiZJg by steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co
2025-04-29T17:44:25Z
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@foone They even used 8 dashes for a password hint. The XOR-ing was what somebody did after a couple of hits of the company bong."Dude! This is going to totally work!"
(DIR) Post #AtayzYs6IF7obmAbYW by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-29T21:20:53Z
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It's calling an interrupt that's not listed in Ralf Brown's interrupt list.I'm scared.
(DIR) Post #Atb0ym168OHYzo89dg by curtmack@floss.social
2025-04-29T16:40:38Z
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@foone or in other words, bitwise NOT'd
(DIR) Post #Atb0ztjSvvlrDOQ3sG by eljojo@ruby.social
2025-04-29T16:42:04Z
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@foone BE AC AC
(DIR) Post #Atb1GzUYlxgI07b7o0 by agowa338@chaos.social
2025-04-29T16:40:28Z
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@foone is that better or worse than the appliance I had to configure for a customer recently that shipped with SSH and root password login enabled by default and password "P@ssw0rd"?
(DIR) Post #Atb1o1ElIxviyBxQW0 by halfur@chaos.social
2025-04-29T16:40:29Z
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@foone To be fair, it does not ask the user to enter _the_ password, it only tells you to enter password.
(DIR) Post #Atb2JmoeSRaFVgtOK0 by womble@infosec.exchange
2025-04-29T21:58:10Z
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@foone
(DIR) Post #Atb3nd7JBPma4RPgvY by foone@digipres.club
2025-04-29T16:41:25Z
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@halfur that won't work though! the password isn't "password", it's "PASSWORD"
(DIR) Post #AtdO6cnIzf8LyIJOM4 by nertzy@ruby.social
2025-05-01T01:11:38Z
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@foone Ooh that one came pre-installed on my very first computer as a kid, a 486DX. Alongside demos of Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure and Wolfenstein 3D.
(DIR) Post #AuERKpWTeEgwjjrQVE by ROMCat1952@mastodon.social
2025-05-18T22:12:07Z
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@foone I’d written a Windows program years ago to play using the Nels Anderson’s EGA Mah Jongg tile sets, then later looked at the .tis files but didn’t get far figuring out the format. All working now for Ron Balewski's files. Apparently Nels also did newer version with a VGA tile format, one that uses a 256-color palette. Fun project, I’ve spent that last 3.5 weeks enhancing, fixing, and breaking things in my program. If I could code 24 hours a day I'd never get bored 😆
(DIR) Post #AuES59kGnGDUmCOzjc by foone@digipres.club
2025-05-18T22:20:34Z
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@ROMCat1952 oh, very cool! is your program available for download anywhere?
(DIR) Post #AuEfj2SuZvEVBYdAMy by ROMCat1952@mastodon.social
2025-05-19T00:53:24Z
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@foone I've uploaded it here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1neM-dfsyD4W7fkHalOS2PIQWXE8IGWR0/view?usp=sharing