Classic Systems Emulated: PC Gaming Pre-Doom
A Platform That's Largely Dismissed From A Gaming Perspective
I like to do these articles in a chronological manner, starting with the earliest machines and work my way up. This format was adopted with the articles covering both the PC Compatibles and the handheld computers as well. When I cover the history of Apple’s hardware from an emulation perspective, this format will adopted as well starting with the Apple I.
By this point in the series, we’re approaching the middle 90’s. Doom just exploded onto the scene. Doom was that watershed moment in PC gaming. PC gaming had largely dismissed up to that point. However, the two John’s, Romero and Carmack, brought PC gaming from the backwaters to the forefront. The consoles of the era became envious. In order to realize why Doom caused the revolution in PC gaming that it did, we must backtrack to the introduction of the IBM PC and why gaming on PC was largely ignored and dismissed for the vast majority of the 80’s and early 90’s.
Disclaimer: When I use the term "PC", I’m using the word as how it defined back in 80’s; 16-bit Intel computer that ran MS-DOS. I’m not using the word as an vague umbrella term to describe any home computer. The 8-bit microcomputers like the Apple II, Atari 400/800, TI-99, TRS-80, and Commodore PET, VIC-20, and C64 were referred to as microcomputers back at that time. The term "PC" was specifically reserved for IBM personal computers and there clones. It wasn't until the 90’s that the term "PC" became a generic tech term to describe any home computer, both past and present.
In the Beginning…... (When Us Mere Mortals Tolerated CGA)
When the IBM PC was
first introduced, customers could opt for one of two video standards in there PC: MDA and
CGA. MDA, or Monochrome Display Adapter, was a text-only video adapter.
However, it made us of an detailed, Latin text font which made character-based
applications look very detailed. CGA, or Color Graphics Adapter, was
basically IBM’s response to the color graphics capabilities of the
8-bit micros of there day. However, it fell very short compared to
the vast majority of these machines. CGA was no match to the graphics capabilities of the Atari
800, TI-99 Home Computer, and the Commodore VIC-20, and that’s not
even with the C64 in the picture!
The closest thing that CGA rivaled was the color graphics capabilities of the Apple II. In what will probably be my only complaint about the Apple II was it’s color capabilities. The Apple II didn’t have a true color generator. To save money, color was generated with NTSC artifacts using an TV display. While this was shear genius coming from the epic computer engineer that is Steve Woziak, this method of color generation did come with its defining "trademark" flaw: color bleeding. As a kid in elementary school, I’ve wondered why there were weird color artifacts when using these computer. I know better now.
I’m not going to get into the gritty that is the technical specs. The Wikipedia entry for CGA is listed below for reference. However, when introduced, CGA supported a few different graphical modes. 640X200 monochrome, 320x200 4-color, and a undocumented 160x100 16-color mode. CGA also supported text-modes as well, conforming to the 80x25 character display like its MDA counterpart. However, it used a different text-font which looked much more pixelated compared to MDA. The hi-res 640x200 mode was intended for business applications, while the 320x200 mode was reserved for games. With only 4 colors on the screen compared to 16-colors supported on most of the prominent 8-bit micros, PC ports didn’t have a chance. CGA was always going to hold the PC back as a gaming platform.
The PC also didn't
have the best audio capabilities either. Far from it actually. When
introduced, the PC only supported internal speaker using beeps. There
was no synth sound or audio channels. The beeps were atrocious. The
internal speaker capabilities were replicated with various clones and
remained standard for many years. PC speaker wasn't displaced until the
Adlib and SoundBlaster audio adapters became more common by the tail end
of the decade. The other microcomputers often blew away the PC in this
department as well. The VIC-20 had a SID (Sound Interface Device) chip
that was much more capable as it supported multiple channels along with
different tone frequencies. This chip would make its way into the C64.
Later 16-bit computers like the Commodore Amiga got MIDI and
instrumental-synth support much sooner than the PC did.
The first game that was ever made for the IBM PC was Donkey.bas, which came with PC-DOS. This game, written by Bill Gates and Neil Konzen, was loaded into the BASIC programming language. The goal of Donkey is where you, the driver, have to swerve around donkeys on a road. The concept is as dumb as it sounds. One wouldn't have predicted an epic gaming platform defined by the works of id Software when running across Donkey.
When the IBM PC was introduced, arcade gaming was at its
zenith. The video game crash hadn’t even happened yet when the PC
was introduced. As such, the PC received ports of the games that were very
popular in the arcades, like the following: Centipede, Battle Zone, Donkey
Kong, and Pac-Man. However, because of the limitations of CGA, the
PC ports of games were often lackluster compared to the ports on the
other platforms. As a result, these ports were overlooked compared to the games on the other home computers.
In retrospect, the early days of PC gaming were often dismissed as arcade games in general, especially on the PC, didn’t age well with time. Arcade games didn’t have involving stories to keep the player tied to it in an captivating manner. These games were simply designed to provide those quick, 15-minutes burst of fun and nothing more. The repetitive nature of shooting alien ships, eating pellets, and climbing ladders and avoiding barrels would provide that short-term fun, but would get old quickly. Games would move beyond arcade action and incorporate rich stories and involving gameplay that would keep the player engaged in a much more committed manner.
The Irony (Text Adventures Open Up Rich Worlds)
One of the ironies in gaming is that PC users that had the text-only MDA adapters in there PC's actually had the more involving gaming experience. The text-adventures could run under CGA’s text-mode as well. However, have anyone ever seen those text-fonts though. Hideous is an generous understatement. The games by Infocom became the most well known. These games provided the rich environment and provided the user of the options to explore there environment in an open-world manner by typing in commands. Commands like "Read Note", "Go North", "Shoot Gun", or "Get Sword" would become the norm with these gamers. Text-adventure games didn’t originate on the PC, as they were already present on its contemporaries like the Apple II. Soon though, even these games incorporated graphics in the form of still pictures used as illustration. Transylvania, released by Penguin Software, did this. The Tandy 1000 port of the game is a very good example, as that computer has enhanced CGA abilities. It’s illustrations would have been an eye-catcher back in the day.
The evolution of CGA
IBM quickly realized that they wanted to be in the home market. While Big Blue sold enough machines for game publishers to justify ports, IBM didn’t have a massive presences in the home market compared to Commodore. CGA had to evolve in order for IBM to compete effectively. The Pcjr introduced a few new CGA modes: 160x200 - 16-color, 320x200 - 16-color, and 640x200, 4-color mode.
For various reasons, the Pcjr was a massive disaster in the
marketplace. However, the graphics capabilities of the Pcjr were
incorporated in the Tandy 1000, which would go onto great success. In
fact, the Tandy 1000 enjoyed so much success that the Pcjr
graphics capabilities became associated with Tandy and was referred to
as Tandy Graphics. Ouch!!
With the success of the Tandy 1000, many game developers put those graphics modes into great use. The PC port of Arkanoid was very good. The capabilities of Tandy Graphics rivaled that of the C64. However, many of the PC ports of games were still generally lackluster. Granted, they were much better than base CGA standard games. However, the PC ports of the arcade games were generally disappointing. The PC port of Outrun was probably one of the worst games ever made. Games like Paperboy was competent enough. However, these games were very repetitive and boring. This goes back to the previous issue: arcade games did not age well with time. The reason why games like Paperboy were massive hits in the arcade was that it provided that quick 15-minutes burst of fun. There was that financial incentive too. If the player didn't play well, that quarter would have been wasted. When playing these games on the PC though, they become boring because that financial incentive is removed. The player is just repeating the same actions over and over again. One realizes how boring a game like Paperboy is. Outrun was involving enough. However, avoid the DOS port. Test Drive would come around and that would be a much better game. In my opinion, even the Ford Simulator running in CGA mode is a better game than Outrun running on the Tandy 1000.
EGA
IBM introduced EGA (Enhanced Graphics Adapter) for its business
users along with the PC/AT in
1984. It had to be noted that the concept of business graphics wasn't a
thing yet up to this point. Through most of the early/middle 80's,
graphics in the business world were often dismissed as graphics was
mainly associated with games.
Applications like CAD was still very niche during this time. As such,
computers associated with graphics were largely dismissed as toys
intended for kids.
Apple downplayed the graphics capabilities of the then recently released Macintosh because they didn’t want there new platform associated with video games. Apple had to beat the concept of desktop publishing into the world of computing before many users started to realize that graphics just didn’t meant games. However, convincing was no trouble for computing's equivalent of the Vatican. Big Blue can simply decree that business graphics is a thing now, and thus, business graphics is now a thing. EGA was rapidly embraced within the business setting as Lotus 123 was updated to support the new standard. Programs like Harvard Graphics (PowerPoint-like program for DOS) made extensive use of EGA to bring rich graphics to the screen. Bar charts never looked better!
What does this mean for games? IBM never intended EGA as being a display setting for home-user. As such, home users and PC gamers were a very distant afterthought for Big Blue. EGA was geared for high-color, hi-res capabilities at the sacrifice of performance. EGA had really slow redraw rates. For business applications displaying still images, this wasn’t an issue. For gamers though, EGA was unusable for a long time.
However, the open architecture of the PC eventually made up for
EGA’s performance shortcomings. The XT class systems gave way to
the AT class systems. The 286 processor was soon supplemented with a
386. A genre of games soon made very good use of EGA: flight simulators.
SubLogic let Microsoft
handle the PC port of there world-famous flight simulator. The
Microsoft Flight Simulator soon became the defining port in the Flight
Simulator series
(much to the annoyance of SubLogic) because Microsoft knew the PC
platform like the back of there hand. They knew how to squeeze every
ounce of performance that the PC platform offered. Games utilizing EGA
could perform very well on the AT-class systems. Test Drive 2 is an
perfect example of a game that achieved descent performance on
higher-end hardware using EGA.
In the late 80’s, text-adventures and flight simulators defined PC gaming. However, the PC ports of games that were popular in arcades and consoles were very poor. As such, PC gaming would be dismissed going into the 90’s.
The Early 90’s (Right Before UAC Unleashed The Gates Of Hell Upon Us Mere Mortals!)
The consoles of the day blew away what PC gaming was doing at the time. The Nintendo NES, SNES and Sega Genesis (MegaDrive in Europe and Japan) had all the games that people wanted. On the computer front, the Commodore Amiga was perpetually putting the PC (and Apple Macintosh and everything else in between) to shame as its graphical capabilities were unrivaled. The Commodore Amiga did its daily mic drop in the faces of PC users.
IBM was loosing control of the PC market around this time. Compaq
was rapidly becoming the market leader as others were following suit as
well. IBM was planning to reestablish control in the business market
in the form of the PS/2 (Personal System/2) family of computers. IBM
also wanted to try there hand at the home market again.
They eventually did this with the PS/1 (Personal System/1). What Big
Blue needed was a video adapter that would appeal to both business and
home users alike. VGA enters the picture.
VGA (Video Graphics Array) was introduced with the IBM PS/2 family of PC’s, but many clone manufactures back-ported VGA to AT and XT-class system. VGA introduced two new modes: 320 by 240, 256 colors and 640 by 480, 16-colors. The higher-res mode was intended for business applications and the rapidly arriving GUI environments, while the lower-res mode was intended for home use (games). Game developers quickly embraced VGA. Combined this with the introduction of faster 386 and 486 systems and the arrival of peripheral devices like the Creative Labs SoundBlaster audio adapter which supported MIDI, the PC was rapidly catching up to the Amiga. It was only a matter of time before the PC first met, and then, surpassed it.
PC gaming was still largely ignored. However, it was getting more
attention. Golf games like Links 386 were often used as a benchmark
tool. Bragging rights were afforded to those who were able to load
the textures and objects the quickest. Links 386 placed a heavier
demand on computers compared to most other games, thus making it a
perfect tool for bench-marking. One could safety assume that the vast
majority of gamers who had a copy of Links 386 were uninterested in
golf, but yet kept a copy of the game so they could benchmark
there latest 386 system. For testing various PCEM configurations now, I would fall into that category.
A
new startup called id Software was pushing PC hardware to its limit. A
skillful programmer named John Carmack developed a side-scrolling game
engine similar to Super Mario Bros. that got worked into a game called
Commander Keen.
Commander Keen quickly became got the
attention of PC gamers due to its smooth scrolling graphics on hardware
that was considered inadequate for that sort of gaming. Commander Keen
also made use of the Creative Labs SoundBlaster for its audio, further
enhancing the gaming experience.
With the arrival of more
powerful processors, id Software decided to try there hand at an 3D
first person shooter. Carmack, along with John Romero, decided to create
a 3D FPS around the early 80's game Wolfenstein. John Romero played
this game constantly on the Apple II back in his youth. This top-down
adventure game, taking place during WW2, centered around a Allied spy
who must escape a German Castle with secret war plans. Building a new
FPS around this title and releasing it on 1993, Wolfenstein quickly took
PC gaming by storm. id had done FPS's before like Hovertank and
Catacombs 3D. However, these games seemed more like tech demos than a
complete game. id Software, propelled by Carmack's programming expertise
and Romero's creative genus, put everything they learned from those
previous experiments and placed it in a Nazi-killing skin for all to
enjoy, and enjoy we did. Wolfenstein worked because we get to mow down
the greatest villains of the 20th century in a very fun and involving
environment in a first person perspective. Wolfenstein also utilized the
audio channels of the SoundBlaster audio adapter. If there was an enemy
on your left, than you would hear the enemy approaching from the left
audio channel, and vice-versa. This was unheard of before. Wolfenstein
3D became that standout game. Nobody never experienced true gaming until
they turned Robo-Hitler into a worthless bloody goo that he is.
However,
id had bigger and better plans. Going Spinal Tap, they were going to
set there amp to 11 and outdo what they did in Wolfenstein 3D. This game
was what would propel PC gaming to the forefront.
YouTube Videos:
History Od Wolfenstein (Part 1) - Gaming Historian : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1qD9JRk5vM
The Early Days Of id Software - GDC : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2MIpi8pIvY
Play Value - The Two Johns : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3LQsPT_zlE
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