Tandy/Memorex VIS: running its software in a VM with win3.1

[The Distractor]

What is the Tandy/Memorex VIS?

It's basically an embedded device, x86-based, that has DOS 3.x and Modular Windows (Windows 3.1 "Haiku") in ROM.
A few titles came on CD for it, mainly educational/instructional shovelware type stuff.
(Regarding Modular Windows, a few other things use it. Check win9x mini.cab's gdi.exe, and winpad 1.00.3203's gdi.exe, they should contain the below versioninfo)


So surely I could just run this crap in win 3.1?

You'd think so, but no.. All windows-based VIS stuff i've seen import functions from HC.DLL. This DLL seems hard to find. But I found it. Turns out a few VIS titles have a ton of windows-related crap in the root and one of them just happened to have HC.DLL! I have uploaded it (plus other Haiku-related dlls) to MEGA: https://mega.co.nz/#!LAwCzCiC!N8ZWShXQo ... oydwGpXQcU

Awesome! But I just tried something for VIS and it didn't work...

Not everything works. Some require other DLLs, some are for DOS and rely on unknown interrupt calls. However, some games also come with a pc version on the same disk.

EDIT: updated the mega link, it has all the Haiku-related DLLs i can find. Now some more games should work.

[flood404]

I was able to play the game called The secrets of Hosea Freeman for VIS. Thanks to you for uploading the missing DLL files I needed for that game.

I was successful in using Oracle Virtual Machine with windows 98se with 256 color mode with that game.

But Windows 3.1 or 3.11 would not load the game, Windows 95 crashed due to the CPU clock speed being over 350MHz, Windows 98se loaded the game just fine. Windows XP did not work.

But the game would distort some of the pictures as they changed, Also the game would crash if you moved the cursor to the bottom of the screen.

[betaluva]

i wonder if the Commodore WEB IT would run these games/apps, it ran windows 3.1 embedded.

[os2fan2]

Even under Windows, there are programs that won't start unless MS-BOB is running. Likewise, a lot of the Norton desktop has a lot of comingled code to prevent one stripping it down to something more serviceable.

[mrpijey]

Would it be possible to dump this ROM and save the OS and everything on that machine?

[flood404]

Would it be possible to dump this ROM and save the OS and everything on that machine?

That would be nice to do for the MESS emulator. Someone who is in charge of dumping the ROM has not done it yet.

[betaluva]

Would it be possible to dump this ROM and save the OS and everything on that machine?

That would be nice to do for the MESS emulator. Someone who is in charge of dumping the ROM has not done it yet.

So get on their case, tell them it needs to be saved for future computing history.

[Mdchilds]

I'd gladly donate to you. Could you show me step by step how to run emulate hosea Freeman and links golf? I have the iso of hosea Freeman already and I'd love to get it running so my sister and I can play again for nostalgia.

[The Distractor]

I believe Links Golf is a DOS game, and therefore cannot be emulated until MESS adds proper VIS emulation. However, there's probably a PC version which should work fine in DOSBox and the like.

If "Hosea Freeman" is a Windows game you should be able to set up Windows 3.1 in a VM and copy the contents of the ISO to the VM, get the package of DLLs and put them in the same directory. The game EXE should run.

[Mdchilds]

Can you link the Dlls? I couldn't get your link from a previous post to work

[The Distractor]

Link works fine for me... but here's a mirror anyway. http://ge.tt/7ghKyxl1/v/0

[crazyc]

That would be nice to do for the MESS emulator. Someone who is in charge of dumping the ROM has not done it yet.

Yes, please. If someone who has one does dump it, please send it to the MAMEdev submit address.