Show HN: Virtual Reality DOS | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Virtual Reality DOS

github.com

206 pointssonictruth246 comments

I know how to flesh this out into a game: Have the setting be a high school computer lab, and have the player see how much Commander Keen or Prince of Persia they can play without the teacher catching them.

Can we reach back and press the degauss button on the back of someone else's monitor?

I had to think of https://pixelripped.com/. I see this was actually an inspiration!

Funny. At my HS there was also a game where you'd hang out in the drafting lab during lunch, and try to eat your lunch food while playing Wolfenstein 3D, without the teacher noticing the food part.

Crumbs on the digitizer board were especially dangerous to your wellbeing.

Our "hidden" game was one called Conflict where you were Israel.

I managed to load it on the shared hardrive (20 Meg, I think).

Ours was Spectre[0] as our school had a Macintosh lab. We learned to pick locks on that lab door, to sneak in and play the game together during lunch. Thankfully the lab teacher was an extremely passionate nerd like us, so was understanding, but it still involved a fair few lunchtime detentions over the year or two we did it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(video_game)

Is that this one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict:_Middle_East_Politica...

Looks pretty intriguing!

Yep, that was it

That was Lode Runner for me in school :)

If you liked this, don't miss: http://assets.metacade.com/emulators/win311vr.html

Oh damn, Janus VR is still ongoing - Once I tried to make an coding environment with it, using browser based IDEs, but could not make anything happen properly :/

Wow a 3D chillzone complete with random internet presences. Pure 90s feel

I wonder if it's possible to exploit a bug to modify the simulation code from the in-game terminal.

I'm actually working on VR environment that is fully self-modifying. Currently building code editor and hot-swapping environment. It uses Lua and LOVR engine as a host.

It is a step away from a classic concept of engine/lib/framework, the stable blackbox with API you call into. It's more like code environment you can examine, extend and reload instantaneously, with some built-in safeguards for reverting code errors. I'll make a ShowHN when I get to something substantial.

Getting strong Smalltalk vibes :-)

I just ran into actual Smalltalk-in-VR project called PharoVRIDE. I wish I had time and skills to recreate Smalltalk's VM images. I still haven't thought out how persistence would work.

Do you have an email list to notify people when it is available/in alpha?

No, that's a nice idea. For now keep an eye on the repo https://github.com/jmiskovic/aquadeck

Keep going this sounds so cool! Would pay for this

Super, I would love to see this as we already in the early stages of building something similar but ours is pretty crappy UI. Making it slick is the hard part

Slick is a moving target susceptible to hedonistic adaption - crappy UI but functional is better than non-existent, I’d say release as soon as you can ...

Yeah we have released already, and actually got front page of Hacker News for 2 days, so got a lot of great feedback. You can check it out here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21734845

Ahh, so you're trying to recreate the universe too?

Tried running "format c:". It didn't work. So much for reality part.

That's because it is running DOSBox not real DOS.

One could modify this to use a PC emulator like PCjs [1] and then run real DOS under it, and then really format your virtual C drive. (FreeDOS or MS-DOS 2.x could be run entirely legally; running newer versions of MS-DOS might not technically be legal but I doubt Microsoft would do anything about it.)

[1] https://www.pcjs.org/

Simple concept, but it hits me right in the nostalgia, presumably as intended. Very well done.

My first thought is to package up the game hardware in a Compaq 386 style case, complete with diskette drives that the VR-DOS emulator reads. Get a time machine, take it back and have someone put on the headset and insert their favourite software into the physical/virtual PC.

Inspired by: https://www.emuvr.net/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/465780/New_Retro_Arcade_N...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1178140/Pixel_Ripped_1995...

I never actually got to the VR part because there has been no real interest/participation with what I made so far, but as far as the 3D environment (plus scripting) I made VSIM (vintagesimulator.com) which is a little along these lines and the aim was to do VR eventually. But hardly anyone ever used it so I moved on.

If they can get this running windows, we can have World of World of Warcraft, as promoted by The Onion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw8gE3lnpLQ

Now here’s a Dosbox I can use my iPad keyboard with!

(iDOS 2 doesn’t support the smart keyboard folio.)

Norton Commander brings back memories. Started using it in DOS days and still use two-column file managers to this day.

Ah, Orthodox File Manager you mean surely.

Yes, apparently that's how they're called :)

Total Commander ftw.

Yup. It's the best. I wish Ghisler was better at marketing and general e-commerce. I wish that project all the best for the future.

Double commander has been produced which also gives total commander plugins comparability across all platforms!

It's the only software I miss on Mac :) Using "Commander One" on Mac, but it's simply not on the same level.

While we're at it, what are people using as alternatives on Mac and Linux?

You can make Double Commander on Mac. it's open source and you can compile it for Mac. Double Commander is 99% same as Total Commander.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Commander

Pretty cool! The room has no door though :)

The Sims player is trying to kill you. Count your blessings they didn't put you in the pool and remove the ladders.

Ha! Soon games will have computers inside where you can program games in those, that will have computers inside where you can program games in those...ad infinitum.

I wonder if our Universe is not such a game actually.

Soon?

http://www.computercraft.info/forums2/index.php?/forum/35-ga...

Wow, VR Commander Keen!

What's next, 3D LOGO?

Oh my god. I never imagined this even in my dreams that something like this can be made. I am a VR developer and I am really astounded by the effort you would've put in this. Amazing job.

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