Play ToD on your PC

I use a software emulator to play ToD on my Windows. There are quite a few emulators out there, and most of them are listed at http://www.99er.net/emul.shtml. I've had the best luck with M.E.S.S.. Bryan T. Nicalek has released an excellent graphical front end for M.E.S.S., specific to the TI. He has totally optimized the display settings for M.E.S.S. to get the best picture, and his system is very easy to use. Plus, it comes standard with Tunnels of Doom. Please check out his TI System Interface at http://www.ticomputer.net/. It runs on Windows 2000, 98, and ME.

Here are some tips for running ToD under M.E.S.S.

• If you want to start M.E.S.S. from the prompt, the command line works for me is:

  ..\..\MESS\MESS.EXE ti99_4a -cart tundoomg.bin -flop tunnels.dsk -r 800x600 -nohws -sr 22050 -joy -effect scan75 -gamma 0.85 

  These are the settings used in Bryan's front end.

• When you get the LOAD DATA FROM menu, choose DISK1 and type in PENNIES, QUEST or the name of your saved game.

• Here are the keys for ToD. Note that sometimes you must use Alt instead of Shift; notably in the case of ascending and descending stairs.