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=== History === | === History === | ||
The eXo projects originated from wanting to sit down and play MS-DOS games without spending hours trying to get them running. Games such as DiscWorld were notoriously difficult and had a fair number of forum posts and websites dedicated to attempts to get them running. eXo's original goal was to get his collection of MS-DOS Adventure games setup in a front end and easily accessible. Posts regarding this project began to appear on Underground Gamer & Pleasuredome in 2007, eventually leading to the release of eXoDOS Vol. I: Adventure in early 2008. This first release had around 650 titles in it, with plans to continue on to a second volume dedicated to role-playing games. | The eXo projects originated from wanting to sit down and play MS-DOS games without spending hours trying to get them running. Games such as DiscWorld were notoriously difficult and had a fair number of forum posts and websites dedicated to attempts to get them running. eXo's original goal was to get his collection of MS-DOS Adventure games setup in a front end and easily accessible. Posts regarding this project began to appear on Underground Gamer & Pleasuredome in 2007, eventually leading to the release of eXoDOS Vol. I: Adventure in early 2008. This first release had around 650 titles in it, with plans to continue on to a second volume dedicated to role-playing games. Fundamental changes to the structure of the project were made leading to the release of eXoDOS Version 2. Vol. I-II were re-released along with eXoDOS Vol. III: Strategy (2009). Some of these primary changes included moving the games conf files out of their archive and into the same folder as the launcher. This allowed the conf file to be modified without the need to repack the entire game. eXoDOS Vol. IV: Sim\Sports\Racing\Educational (2011) and eXoDOS Vol. V: Action (2012) were released using the same structure. Releases were originally split into volumes due to bandwidth and storage concerns, however it also helped to focus work on specific packs.<br><br> | ||
eXoDOS: | Work on the first 2 versions of eXoDOS was primarily manual. Games were originally identified by hand typing metadata from [https://www.mobygames.com/ MobyGames] into a database. Each game's launcher, conf file, and install file was copied from a base template and then modified to fit that game, with information like folder names, game name, and other variables hard coded. Soon after the release of eXoDOS Version 2, eXo began to work on a Windows 3x project. This was a very slow process due to the rocky documentation and emulation of Windows 3x. Several improvements were made to the structure of the project during this time however, leading the the release of eXoDOS Version 3. The Windows 3x project was dubbed Win3xO, and released in 2015 with just over 1,000 games in it.<br><br> | ||
eXoDOS versions 1-3 and Win3xO were powered by the [https://sites.google.com/site/meagrefrontend/ MEAGRE] front end. All work was done by eXo during this time, with work | |||
== Technical Information == | == Technical Information == | ||
Revision as of 06:00, 4 November 2021
Retro eXo
The eXo projects goal is preservation through playability. Our main distribution site is www.retro-exo.com
Primary discussion, planning, and daily work takes place on Discord.
Projects
Current
eXoDOS
eXoWin3x
eXoScummVM
eXoRLP
History
The eXo projects originated from wanting to sit down and play MS-DOS games without spending hours trying to get them running. Games such as DiscWorld were notoriously difficult and had a fair number of forum posts and websites dedicated to attempts to get them running. eXo's original goal was to get his collection of MS-DOS Adventure games setup in a front end and easily accessible. Posts regarding this project began to appear on Underground Gamer & Pleasuredome in 2007, eventually leading to the release of eXoDOS Vol. I: Adventure in early 2008. This first release had around 650 titles in it, with plans to continue on to a second volume dedicated to role-playing games. Fundamental changes to the structure of the project were made leading to the release of eXoDOS Version 2. Vol. I-II were re-released along with eXoDOS Vol. III: Strategy (2009). Some of these primary changes included moving the games conf files out of their archive and into the same folder as the launcher. This allowed the conf file to be modified without the need to repack the entire game. eXoDOS Vol. IV: Sim\Sports\Racing\Educational (2011) and eXoDOS Vol. V: Action (2012) were released using the same structure. Releases were originally split into volumes due to bandwidth and storage concerns, however it also helped to focus work on specific packs.
Work on the first 2 versions of eXoDOS was primarily manual. Games were originally identified by hand typing metadata from MobyGames into a database. Each game's launcher, conf file, and install file was copied from a base template and then modified to fit that game, with information like folder names, game name, and other variables hard coded. Soon after the release of eXoDOS Version 2, eXo began to work on a Windows 3x project. This was a very slow process due to the rocky documentation and emulation of Windows 3x. Several improvements were made to the structure of the project during this time however, leading the the release of eXoDOS Version 3. The Windows 3x project was dubbed Win3xO, and released in 2015 with just over 1,000 games in it.
eXoDOS versions 1-3 and Win3xO were powered by the MEAGRE front end. All work was done by eXo during this time, with work
Technical Information
Common Core Systems
Metadata
Database
Contact
If you would like to contribute, please contact EXO for registration.