Tandy 1000 game bugs

[ualaa1]

Describe the bug
I will be using this issue tracker to put on Tandy bugs. I have previously tested these bugs on PCem prior to discovering 86box. Already it does seem better (Prince of Persia at least doesn't freeze in-game when choosing Tandy for sound effects)
This is tested on a Tandy 1000 S/L virtual machine running DOS 5 via XTIDE. However, later tests use acculogic IDE due to XTIDE not really working right in later versions of 86-Box. Note that when games doesn't boot on a S/L, I will retest on a 1000 HX instead
NOTE THAT MOST OF MY GAMES COME FROM DISK IMAGES, AND NOT HARD DRIVE RIPS, AS HARD DRIVE RIPS OFTEN OMIT TANDY MODE.
Anyways, list of bugs here:

• 1980s EA Sports games (One on One, Skate or Die, Kings of the Beach) - Runs slow
• Bubble Bobble
• Trog
• Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2
• Civilization
• Commander Keen 4 Unofficial Tandy Patch
• Ikari III
• An American Tail: The Computer Adventures of Fievel and His Friends
• Out of This World (Another World)
• Pit-Fighter
• Mean Streets
• Battle Chess
• Stunt Driver
• Populous
• SimAnt
• Dino Wars
• Rings of Medusa
• Ghostbusters
• The Three Stooges
• Tandy 64
• Pools of Darkness
• INTROTD
• King's Quest III
• The Sentinel
• Shufflepuck Cafe
• Steel Thunder
• Joe Montana Football
• Magic Boy
• Panzer Battles
• Demon Attack
• Netherworld
• Lone Wolf: The Mirror of Death
• The Simpsons: Bart vs the Space Mutants
• The Simpsons: Bart's House of Weirdness
• The Simpsons Arcade Game
• Impossible Mission II
• Super Space Invaders
• The Four Crystals of Trazere
• Star Trek: 25th Anniversary
• Elf
• Dune II
• Mario Teaches Typing
• Snow Strike
• Scrabble: Deluxe Edition
• Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe
• Blades of Steel
• Double Dribble
• Paperboy 2
• S.T.U.N. Runner
• Shanghai
• Shanghai II
• Future Wars
• Cruise for a Corpse
• Chuck Yeager's Air Combat
• Gunship
• Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer 2.0
• F-15 Strike Eagle II
• Starglider 2
• Bo Jackson Baseball
• Battle Commander
• Millennium: Return to Earth
• J.R.R. Tolkien's Riders of Rohan
• Mickey's Memory Challenge
• Stormovik: SU-25 Soviet Attack Fighter
• Donald Duck's Playground
• Spacewrecked: 14 Billion Light Years From Earth
• NY Warriors
• Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road
• Champion of the Raj
• The Dark Queen of Krynn
• Italy 1990
• Fighter Command
• Solidarność
• Pete Rose Pennant Fever
• Abrams Battle Tank
• Tennis Cup
• Stir Crazy featuring Bobo
• Crazy Cars II
• Purple Saturn Day
• Dr. Thorp's Mini Blackjack
• Powerdrome
• Platoon
• F29 Retaliator
• Clive Barker's Nightbreed: The Action Game
• Strike Fleet
• Flight Assignment: Airline Transport Pilot
• Corporation
• Apache Strike
• 688 Attack Sub
• Omnicron Conspiracy
• Dragons of Flame
• Alien Syndrome
• The Gold of the Aztecs
• Eye of Horus
• Fast Break
• Wibarm
• LHX Attack Copter
• Ultima IV+
• Moebius

[ualaa1]

It Came from the Desert
Game boots to a black screen with a blinking cursor.
Edit: My copy was corrupt. It works on a fixed copy

[ualaa1]

Bubble Bobble
Runs very slow. So slow that it takes around 3 minutes after booting the game just to start controlling your character. Possibly similar bugs to the EA games in the first comment? Maybe the game requires a rate faster than 16 mhz (which is the max speed for Tandy in 86box)?

2021-03-18.21-36-45.mp4

[NightSprinter]

No, it's an issue with the Tandy 1000 emulation. I have a 1000RL, and this game has zero issues. That video should not be happening. Each of the robots should be above the three platforms.

[ualaa1]

Trog
Intros logos are corrupted.

Game runs fine

[ualaa1]

Stunt Driver
Hangs in prompt. These screens are the furthest it goes
Edit: Disregard this issue. My copy was corrupted

[ualaa1]

Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2
If I choose Tandy for the digital audio (SFX), then static would play instead of speech

However if I install Soundblaster Driver or enable Disney LPT Device and choose that, speech will play

[ualaa1]

Civilization
Game runs slow.
86Box:
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/68984176/111739338-1c5be100-8840-11eb-842f-cb1eb7798f1b.mp4
Correct speed:
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/68984176/111739277-06e6b700-8840-11eb-821b-fada3b09809a.mp4

[ualaa1]

Ultima VI
The only way I can figure out to configure the settings into Tandy mode was using the floppy disks. I can't seem to do it in the hard drive rips. Anyways, I confured the game and told it to install to the hard drive.

However, It did not install to the hard drive (XTIDE problem?), but the configurations were apparently saved to the floppy as the floppy modification date changed to today's date. When I booted up the game from the floppy, I get this. I suspect because it overwrote data onto my game floppies and corrupted them:

However, when I made it install to the floppy drive instead (by inserting a blank floppy on drive B)


Can't seem to get in-game though. Intro just loops over and over again. Not sure if this is my fault or not.
Edit: Start from game.exe, not ultima.exe Now I can get in-game (with a lot of disk swapping)

[jvernet]

You can also add:
Fire & Forget II: no image (sound work)
XENON II: keyboard do not work

[ualaa1]

Xenon
I'm talking about the first one here, not the second one. Game freezes right here

Also, @jvernet ,Xenon II keyboard works for me (on customize controls) except for arrow keys. I configured up, down, left, right as i, k j, l with fire and dive being z and x and it worked fine.
Edit:
Xenon works with the first link given by @Fenix770

[ualaa1]

@jvernet either my internet skills are not good or I'm doing something wrong, but I can't seem to find a version of Fire and Forget II with Tandy support. All internet versions seems to have EGA or CGA only

[ualaa1]

Commander Keen 4 Unofficial Tandy Patch
Found here: https://github.com/kubilus1/keen4t
Doesn't boot.

[ualaa1]

Ducktales: The Quest for Gold
After choosing whether you have a joystick or not, while the game works, it does not render any graphics, making it impossible to play.

Possibly similar to Fire and Forget 2
Edit: Only works on 8088 Tandy machines, not 8086 ones

[ualaa1]

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
At random times, the keyboard controls don't work (usually towards the beginning of the game). I have not tested joystick controls.

This was when the controls stopped working for me (when I was testing the first time). On later tests, I was able to enter a level, but when I lost a live and came back again, the controls froze. It seems the most reliable way to trigger it is to die once, and once you come back, the controls would be frozen

[Fenix770]

Hello!

1. I had similar problems with the Tandy 1000 SL/2 with Acculogic XT IDE. But that machine works right with MFM/RLL controllers.
   For example Battle Chess works only in CGA 4 colors when the Acculogic card was present. (I'm not sure if the emulated Tandy 1000 models support IDE controllers). I think the video memory area overlaps with the memory area used by IDE controllers.

2. As for Xenon game, a version with broken Tandy video mode exist. The Total DOS collection has both versions, with and without the bug.

3. Random lockups may occur on some application and games with 8086/8088 CPUs. I had slowdown and lockup problems with Prince of Persia on both Tandy 16 color mode and in EGA mode when using other XT machines.

4. Also, random lockups occurs when using the mouse with a Tandy Deskmate Solitaire game (which supports all video modes form Hercules to VGA)

5. Also with a Solitaire game integrated on Geoworks Ensemble 1.0 on Olivetti M240 (8086) with AT&T 640x400 monochrome mode. Works right on Toshiba T3100e (286) using the T3100 640x400 monochrome mode, which is similar to the AT&T.

6. Rick Dangerous II with EGA mode on Amstrad 1640 (8086), also freezes randomly, but work right on 286 and latter machines no matter which video mode is used.

[ualaa1]

@Fenix770 For Xenon, I tried the version from https://www.old-games.ru/game/download/2460.html
I tried the fourth link (the one dated 29.03.2009)
and the first link (in img format, dated 08.02.2015)
Maybe these have broken tandy modes? If you have a version with tandy working, I would like to try it out.

[ualaa1]

LHX Attack Copter
Only boots on a 8088 Tandy. Game is misaligned and glitchy and won't proceed past the title screen.

[ualaa1]

Ultima IV+
This is a modded version of Ultima IV and can be found here:
Ultima4+.zip

Game is stuck on prompt.

[ualaa1]

Moebius
On a 8088 Tandy, it freezes on this screen.

After banging my keyboard to try to pass the screen, I get a message about missing disks.

On a 8086 Tandy, game flickers, is missing graphics, and seems to freeze at a later point than the 8088 Tandy.

2021-06-06.08-56-53.mp4

[ualaa1]

2400 AD
When running https://archive.org/details/000756-2400Ad with the game files extracted from the disk on C and the disk in A, the disk is being mistakenly detected as a not original one.
Even when trying to directly run off A instead, it doesn't work.

I used the disk images as the hard drive rips don't seem to have the Tandy files setup correctly

[ualaa1]

Omega
On a 8086 Tandy, it is very glitchy and freezes here.

On a 8088 Tandy, while it is less glitchy, it also freezes at the same place, but gives me an error.

[ualaa1]

Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire
Very glitchy. Before getting to the glitchy part, the character must be created first.

Note that the game needs to be installed from img files such as https://archive.org/details/000102-WorldsOfUltimaTheSavageEmpire to boot

[ualaa1]

Project Neptune
Black screen after choosing Tandy on this screen.

[ualaa1]

Arkanoid
Game is a bit slow
Compare this video on real hardware
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er8SqeumsuA&t=620s

to 86-Box
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/68984176/121764845-d2f7f680-cafb-11eb-91c8-5de9167ccdfa.mp4

[Fenix770]

Mickey's Memory Challenge:

It works, but the game may, either have some strange routine detection, or something is missing in both DOSBox ECE and 86box

Do the following to play the game in tandy mode.

1. Start in VGA mode with any machine
2. In the first menu change the configuration to Tandy graphics and sound (press ESC twice. There is an option to change the configuration before exiting the game)
3. Start the game (Obviously only garbage can be seen)
4. Start a Tandy VM with that floppy disk and will work perfectly.

Here is the Image file of the game in 360kb format cnfigured for Tandy (It is in Spanish):
Mickey Juego Para memorizar.zip

The game Mickey Color and Shapes also works. The installation disk is in high density. The installaion files fits only on 1.2mb/1.44mb floppies.

1.Add any of the high density controllers ans disk
2. Run the installation
3. Select Tandy graphics and tandy music (and select "Go ahead" when it says it is not detected). It auto detects the DAC correctly.
4. Run the game

NOTE: I used the Tandy SL/2 with a 286/8 CPU (like the real TL, TL/2 machines have).

[OBattler]

Converting this to a discussion since it has become huge.

[galland101]

Sword of the Samurai

Samurai.86box.Bug.mp4

Game-Breaking Issue: Attempting to play any kind of Melee action sequence leads to a blank green screen where music and gameplay audio can still be heard.

Minor Issue: When running in Tandy graphics mode with Tandy sounds, performance seems slow. Note the intro where the samurai animation seems slow and then when it transitions screens to the credits page, hanging notes are heard. This is made even worse when using the GOG.com release of the game, which includes a crack to bypass the copy protection.

VM Specs:

• Machine Type: Tandy 1000 SL/2 with 8086 CPU @ 8 MHz
• Memory: 640 KB
• Floppy Drives: 720 KB and 360 KB
• Storage Controller: XTIDE
• Hard Drive: 80 MB IDE (CHS: 969, 5, 34)
• Other: Everex EV-170 RTC

For reference, this is the same sequence from DOSBox at 3000 cycles:

Samurai.DOSBox.mp4

[Fenix770]

Some games work fine on DosBox because it emulates a 80486 CPU for all DOS programs. For example I found that Bubble Booble works fine in DOSBox-X if the 486 or default option is selected for the emulated CPU, but has the same issues as PCem/86box if I use the 8086 CPU emulation.
I think there is something not emulated correctly for the 8086 on both emulators. DOSBox simply reduce cycles to amount needed for the game, but for 86box would need either enhance the 808x emulation or add 486 5 Mhz that never existed.

[galland101]

If I slow DOSBox to 500 cycles, I get somewhat similar performance to what 86Box is giving me today.

TopBench is consistently scoring a 9 for the Tandy 1000 SL/2's 8 MHz 8086. By comparison the Tandy 1000 RL (8086 @ 9.54 MHz) scores an 11, and a Tandy 1000 SX (8088 @ 7.16 MHz) scores a 6. So it seems to be benchmarking correct. I just find it odd that these Tandy-capable games would perform like this, which seems borderline unacceptable to begin with. Granted Sword of the Samurai came out in 1989 and the Tandy 1000 SL/2 had tech from the early 80s.

[Fenix770]

Yes. I suppose that is a problem with the speed emulation of some specific instruction of 808x, because not all software is affected.
The games launched in 1989 requires at least a 8086 with 512kb of RAM to run in 16 colors.
For example, Sierra launched SCI graphics engine in 1988 which requires also a 8086 8Mhz or faster and 512kb of minimum. The AGI engine works with older Tandy 8088 based machines such as EX/HX/SX, and the original versions.
The 286 became the minimum on 1990. So games like Prince of Persia or Stunt Driver requires a Tandy TX,TL,TL/2 or TL/3 to run properly with 16 colors, 3-Voice speaker and DAC (except for TX which does not support the DAC). All these models have a 286/8 except the TL/3 which has a 286/10.
The TL/3 was launched late, on Febrary 1991, and were, at the time, considered low-end computers made to compete with the IBM PS/1 2011 line. Some of the late 8086/286 Tandy 1000 machines has no FPU socket and 1 ISA slot while the older models have an FPU socket and 4 or 5 ISA slots.

On the other hand the real Bubble Bobble bug exist on real 486 DX/4 90Mhz.
Some pirate versions have a BBFAST.EXE file that allows two run the game on a 386/33 but does not run on 486.

[NightSprinter]

I've also reported this as well. I even recently acquired a Tandy 1000RL to test Bubble Bobble. The game runs without issue, despite the system having an 8086 9MHz.

[UAb5eSMn]

Wings of Fury

Bad performance on emulated 1000 SL/2 when certain sounds are played, like the anti-aircraft guns or plane machine gun.

The game runs pretty well on my real 1000 SL, but the machine freezes sometimes.
Back in the 90s, the machine froze consistently when the AA guns started making noise, if my printer was connected but switched off. It was fine if the printer was switched on. I don't have the printer anymore, so can't reproduce it now. Prince of Persia had a similar printer/sound related lock-up issue when the first gate hit the ground.

[Fenix770]

I tested the Tandy SL/2 machine with a 286/8 Mhz CPU. I played Prince of Persia The game run well but freeze at level 9, but with the 8086 CPU there are slowdowns all the time and the game is more prone to crash. I suspect the 1990/91 games that support the Tandy video mode requires a 286 like the TX,TL,TL/2 and TL/3 have.
But I also discovered that some games that do not works on the SL/2 works fine but slower on the HX because, it has the slower 8088/7.16 Mhz CPU. So I suspect that part of the Tandy Video 2 chip (called ETGA by Radiosack in its day, and used on SL,TL and RL machines) is not correctly emulated, maybe there more differences between them than the addition of the 11h (640x200x16 video mode)

[UAb5eSMn]

So I suspect that part of the Tandy Video 2 chip (called ETGA by Radiosack in its day, and used on SL,TL and RL machines) is not correctly emulated, maybe there more differences between them than the addition of the 11h (640x200x16 video mode)

You're probably right. The shifted video on LHX and other games does not occur on my real 1000 SL.
Text mode also has some issues in the 225-line mode. For some characters the pixels from row 8 should be repeated in row 9.

[Fenix770]

I tested the game Bubble Bobble on DosBox Staging 0.80. This game works fine with the Tandy video mode +Tandy 3-voice sound chip. It Does not crash. Also Twrks with the Hercules monochrome video card, loading the game with the CGA emulation program BBSIMCGA.COM.
However, Prince Of Persia on Tandy mode with the Tandy DAC enabled, have also issues on DosBox Staging. The game crashes either at the starting point on level 1 if the demo has been played with no sound effect or if the demo was not run works until the end of the level 1 the door opens without ay sound effect, and after the prince enter the door to level 2 it freezes, but strangely the fire flames are still in motion.

[UAb5eSMn]

The game crashes either at the starting point on level 1 if the demo has been played with no sound effect or if the demo was not run works until the end of the level 1 the door opens without ay sound effect, and after the prince enter the door to level 2 it freezes, but strangely the fire flames are still in motion.

Interesting. I vaguely recall seeing the freeze-but-moving-flames in the past (must be about 30 years ago). I don't remember if it was on my 1000 SL or in VGA mode on a newer PC.
Today, my 1000 SL had no moving flames when it randomly froze. But it also seems to freeze more often, so it may be dying of old age.

[Fenix770]

It seems to be related to the DAC emulation. Because the game works finen if the Tandy DAC is disabled. Only a few games takes advantage of the Tandy DAC included on the SL/TL/RL models. These are Outrun, Outrun 2, PoP, SimCity. Some latter games like Contraption Zak also supoort the Tandy DAC, but requires a VGA video card, so will only work on RLX, RSX and Tandy 2500 XL, XL/2 ans SX variants.