u/Vinylmaster3000

One of my hobbies involves fixing MS-DOS and Windows systems from the late 80s to the early 2000s. I wanted to branch out my interests into either 16-bit systems or 8-bit systems, and am a bit stumped at which to get:

• I like the Amiga because it seems to be a very capable multimedia computer, but at the same time there's no indication of Commodore releasing a new FPGA Amiga and many remaining ones left are too expensive. Additionally, I have enough DOS machines which have some fantastic games, what am I getting here which is significantly better? I also feel like the workflow is weird, I have used an Amiga Emulator but the entire concept of frequent disk swapping was very tedious, especially when I'm used to MS-DOS hard drive technicalities.

• I like the Commodore 64 because it seems like learning how to program it is an extremely useful and simple way to learn about Assembly and Machine code: For context, I am a CS major and took a class years ago dealing with x86 assembly and that felt overwhelming and complicated. I feel like despite the 6502 being quite primitive it's actually a fantastic way to learn about how any computer works. As of now, I'm learning how to do 6502 machine code with a small SBC and that's quite interesting.

• I have a few PC booter games like Silent Service and some older comp titles which seem very primitive on the IBM PC. Did the C64 have better ports of these titles? For instance, any of the arcade ports like Outrun, or any of the Microprose games. Did these look better on a C64?

If I do take the plunge on a C64, should I wait for the C64 Ultimate Slimline or should I just get the regular one?

Mine's is that I don't like the endings of the games too much. I think they should have balanced it in many instances, and I feel like going for the entire "the town is fake" ruins the games essentially.

I.e for Unwound Future they could have kept the same story elements (Clive) but they didn't really need to make it extremely contrived to the point where an entire city is fake.

Yes, I know that this printer is better suited as a text-only printer which can be used to print out computer debug and results but I wanted to try experimenting with printing out monochromatic colors with a dithering.

My my current workflow is to convert the images from a Sony Mavica camera which can do 640x480 and then convert these to .pcx format images (with steinberg dithering) which is set to a 1 bit color depth. My suggested workflow options are then this:

• Use Windows 9x with it's Epson / IBM drivers for compatibility. Does not work at all, period. Is it because my dip switches on the printer are set incorrectly?

• Use a program like WordPerfect 5.1 in DOS to insert the .pcx files and then print them (it can print out .wpg graphics fine). Problem being, the files are almost not recognized by WordPerfect and even if they are, the program gives me a "not enough memory" error. I would need to find a program which can take a .pcx file and directly converts it to .wpg

• A second method involves using a unix-like program called netpbm which can convert a pbm file to a file that the gemini10x can read (there's literally a command which does this). Problem being, netpbm's gemini 10x utility requires cwsdpmi, which is NOT within the package I found. Downloading DPMI and putting it in does nothing either.

• Using a program like Compushow or any other PCX and print the image with an Epson/Compatible driver. This could work, but I don't really know if it's possible given only the registered versions of Compushow have it.

Any Ideas? I mean, there has to be a single dude in the late 80s or 90s who printed images with a Star Micronics printer... And even in a program like WordPerfect there has to be a way to put in .pcx files since I'm 99% sure people had to type reports