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Wine-Staging 1.9.3 Brings Improvements For Old Games, Even 16-Bit Apps

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  • Wine-Staging 1.9.3 Brings Improvements For Old Games, Even 16-Bit Apps

    Phoronix: Wine-Staging 1.9.3 Brings Improvements For Old Games, Even 16-Bit Apps

    It has been quite a while since last having any Wine-Staging release to talk about, but nothing has stopped and simply was due to the project not having the time for putting out release notes. Wine-Staging continues to ride off upstream Wine while adding in over one hundred experimental patches for testing.'..

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Great news that they are working on win16. If we could get 100% compat with windows 3.11 that would be awesome.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by staalmannen View Post
      Great news that they are working on win16. If we could get 100% compat with windows 3.11 that would be awesome.
      Who would be interested but retro-fans?

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      • #4
        Originally posted by kemosabe View Post

        who would be interested but retro-fans?
        We Are Legion!!!
        Last edited by timofonic; 10 February 2016, 04:28 PM. Reason: WE ARE LEGION!!! RETRO POWAH!!!

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Kemosabe View Post

          Who would be interested but retro-fans?
          Virtualize anything that differs between the Linux and Windows kernels' support for 16-bit TLDs and I bet GOG.com (and various other back-catalogue sellers) would be very interested in using it as a DOSBox analogue for 16-bit Windows games.

          There are a lot of classics where they can't even begin to negotiate for the rights because they wouldn't work on modern Windows anyway and their site isn't set up to show off stuff where the "not all platforms supported" cuts against Windows users.

          (Last I checked, Wine64 is going to need to a drop of virtualization for OSX anyway because the Win64 and OSX64 kernels have incompatible rules for how a certain register is saved and restored.)
          Last edited by ssokolow; 10 February 2016, 04:54 PM.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Kemosabe View Post

            Who would be interested but retro-fans?
            Isn't there still major infrastructure running onolder operating systems? I read some article a while back about some airport(s) even running with WIndows 3.11 because of the software.

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            • #7
              The biggest market I can see is for industrial equipment that has a specific program which needs to run on 16 bit windows. Industrial and manufacturing equipment has a very long life and when the OS needs upgraded it can be extremely painful if it can be up graded at all. These machines are very expensive and not something that can easily be replaced.

              Oh and by the way, our UNIX/Linux machines work with upgrades just fine.

              No one will ever convince me that industrial machines should have windows on them because I have had to deal with so many M$ issues on old hardware.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Kemosabe View Post

                Who would be interested but retro-fans?
                You make it sound like a bad thing
                The advantage is naturally that Win 3.11 is a static target so getting that part finished would be a "checkbox" that when once checked one basically would not have to worry about it later.There are still lots of legacy stuff running on Win16... a bit scary actually. Legacy support was actually the original reason for Wine - not to support the latest-and-"greatest" Windows. Also, there has been some work on "Wine on Windows". Especially Win16 support on x64 Windows would be very nice for retro fans (along with "containerized"/portable installations in WINEPREFIXes).

                Also, retro fans is a flexible concept. One thing I have tried to get running is the old Ami Pro office suite (there is even a fan page for it ), which runs OK using dosbox/win3. This would definitely be in the "retro fan" category.

                As a counter example featuring someone with very little technology interest: my wife recently got struck with a bit of nostalgia and wanted to play an old 16-bit game (Skipper and Skeeto) which unfortunately did not work on Wine at this moment (and Windows is also not an option). I will try again with staging 1.9.3 and see if it works

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Kemosabe View Post

                  Who would be interested but retro-fans?
                  I know of someone that needs it to run a database in FoxPro...the programs work but had to be modified slightly because of printing routines crashing programs...maybe w/ these fixes there was no need to do so (didn't read yet the relesease notes)...printing with that FoxPro programs is done by directing the priniting data to a file in a specific folder, then, using a Windows program (Printfile, it must be the 32bit version and NOT the 16bit version, go figure,) that makes a constant scan of that that folder, it grabs that file and sends it to the printer spooler, in this case it sends it to the Linux Printer Spooler, and its done.
                  All process only makes a 1-2 seconds delay in comparison to old versions of program in WinXP, so, all good.
                  Current modified FoxPro programs can also work as they are now in windows XP using PrintFile if it was needed but it isn't.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Kemosabe View Post

                    Who would be interested but retro-fans?
                    Well, I guess there are tons of 32bits software used atm which are distributed with 16bit installers at the time.
                    This was actually a huge problem for my University as the software they were using was only free to use for universities up to a specific version which had a 16bit installer.
                    This weekend, my girlfriend had the same problem because she wanted to play a game from her childhood but could not install it under windows 7, 64bits.
                    So 16bits support is nice, even for windows suers as you can install the game under wine and copy the files over to windows.

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