hi all
i was wondering if an old game can be reprogrammed to work with the newer operating systems ?
if so where do i start.
ron

given time and money, to an adequately skilled person i guess there is a possibility that any old game can be reprogrammed to run in new oses

what do you intend by reprogramming ?? u mean read every byte of hex and write it back in english ?
hack a few constants to reduce/increase the specs of some dos based games to run in latest m/c's ??

you have no other option but to start with the binary that you have in hand


start_from_start:
first look at it in text viewer
then look at it in hex viewer
then look at it in disassembler
then look at it in debugger
then look at it in resource hackers
then take a pen paper surmize , summarize , theorize , trialize
cmp goal , success
jne start _from_start
run game in new os

NO.

You cannot.

You are talking about OLD games, which means 16-bit NE architecture. Or perhaps, even the old MZ DOS based architecture.

Also, a few of them need FULL screen, not possible after Windows Vista and upwards (I'm assuming you're talking about running a game on Windows platform)

Additionally, OLD TIME drivers for displays (tough to find), audio (headache to configure) and old time cd rom drivers (assuming the same is CD protected) will cause you to give up in frustration.

Sure, there is DOSBOX and other such programs. Which themselves give a problem on any latest windows 64-bit version architecture.

Most OLDER games cannot recognize the 4 GB RAM you may traditionally have. Instead you'll get errors for not having sufficient memory!!

Finally, there are the processors. Your OLDER games CANNOT recognize today's FAST processors. You *may* have to use software programs that slows down the speeds.

You *could* traditionally use a virtual environment. But it does not speak well if you are going to install VMWARE (an example) with a version of DOS or Windows 95 only to run an OLD game.

There is no way you're going to convert an entire game in 16-bit to a 32-bit. Unless, you have the source code and you recompile after making necessary changes to the source.

My suggestion: Leave the game in peace. It's time has long passed. There are better ones out there.

In respect.

Have Phun,

@blabberer: i like you code snipped!!!! ;D

@ohpen the question was so vague that i couldn't resist cracking up

i cant understand why some one cannot at the least do some basic research before asking question