Category: Retrocomputing All Flash News
Commodore Says Its Comeback Is About Preservation, Not Just Nostalgia
Commodore wants its revival to mean more than another familiar logo on a box. Speaking to FRVR, chief strategy officer Jim Squires stressed that preserving hardware matters alongside saving old software. With ageing C64s increasingly being cannibalised for spare parts, the Commodore 64 Ultimate is intended to help keep the platform alive through an FPGA recreation of the original machine.
That approach extends to accessories: the revived TAC-2 joystick preserves the classic design while introducing a stronger steel shaft.
Squires also credited the homebrew and demoscene communities that never stopped developing for Commodore machines. The stated ambition is to preserve how these systems feel and play—not simply cash in on their name. Less souvenir, more working computer.
Quake Has Been Ported to Windows 3.1, Because Of Course It Has
Somebody has looked at Windows 3.1, looked at Quake, and decided that these two pieces of 1990s technology needed to spend more time together.
The result is quakegeneric-Win31, an open-source project that brings id Software’s legendary 1996 shooter to Microsoft’s decidedly pre-Windows 95 environment.
And this isn’t simply the DOS version of Quake being launched underneath Windows. The project uses WinG, Microsoft’s old high-performance graphics API for Windows 3.x, to get Quake running as a Windows 3.1 application.
The requirements are surprisingly serious for something sharing a desktop with Program Manager. You’ll need an FPU-equipped processor, with a Pentium or better recommended, at least 16 MB of available RAM, WinG installed, and a display mode supporting 32,768 colours or more.
It is also considerably more functional than you might expect. Sound output is supported in mono or stereo, saving and loading work, and there is proper mouse control. The supplied configuration even provides WASD movement and mouse-look, although right-click is reserved for grabbing and releasing the mouse cursor.
The developer has tested the port with Windows 3.1 inside DOSBox-X and with the FM TOWNS version of Windows 3.1 running under the Tsugaru emulator. There are still some quirks, particularly under DOSBox-X, so testing on real period hardware is actively encouraged.
Is there any practical reason to play Quake this way?
Absolutely not.
Which is precisely why we’re delighted that it exists.
Apple Copland D11E4 now boots directly in your browser
One of Apple’s strangest unfinished chapters has just become much easier to explore. Michael Steil has managed to get Copland D11E4, the final publicly available build of Apple’s abandoned next-generation operating system, running inside an improved version of the DingusPPC emulator — directly in a web browser.
Copland was Apple’s ambitious mid-1990s attempt to replace System 7 with a considerably more modern architecture, including a microkernel, virtual memory and pre-emptive multitasking. The project was eventually cancelled, with Apple instead acquiring NeXT and following the technological path that would ultimately lead to Mac OS X.
The browser version uses WebAssembly and, according to Steil, a modern computer can emulate the system at roughly the speed of the original hardware. Getting D11E4 running required 11 patches to DingusPPC. Once booted, you can actually poke around Copland and try surviving software such as GXSlidemaster and Eric’s Solitaire.
It is unstable, unfinished and occasionally drops straight into a debugger — which, frankly, makes it an even more authentic visit to one of computing history’s most fascinating dead ends.