Category Archives: Windows 98

IBM ThinkPad 390E

Thinkpads were pretty nice laptops, especially during the late 90s when they pioneered various emerging technologies that were yet to be common. Let’s take a look at a typical OS install that would have shipped with a Thinkpad.

The installer requires the hard disk to be at last initialised, that means having a partition table ready and a partition created. The recovery disk included the FDISK program to create this if its not been done so, and supports the creation of FAT32 partitions.

Once ready, you can start the recovery process, which will inflate the required files. In total this will consume around 600MB of disk space

Initially, this was attempted in VMWare and whilst the first part of the install worked very well, we ran into a few issues. Since our host CPU is over 2.1GHz, we ran into a protection error and were unable to continue without modifying the OS. A patch exists and can be installed.
This isn’t a problem in Windows 98SE or Windows ME, but this image contains the first edition of Windows 98 which does have this bug.
However at some point the install bricked itself, getting a few errors about missing VXD files, which could be related to the patch above.

Since VM software has issues running these older operating systems, it’s better to use 86Box instead.

86Box

86Box has a few IBM machines emulated, but none from the Pentium II era. Although in theory, we can use any capable motherboard to run the OS, I wanted to use an IBM based machine to better fit the profile however 86Box only has a handful of IBM systems:
IBM Valuepoint 60: Has a shit BIOS that only detects a hard drive up to 504MB, the restore image along consume 600MB and we cannot boot from an external SCSI drive
IBM PS/ValuePoint 433DX/Si: BIOS is also wack and complains about a config error no matter what combination of hardware I throw at it. Seems to work with larger hard drives but does not boot from a CD-ROM so I had to use Plop boot loader. Whilst I was able to complete the restore and was able to boot into Windows and complete the hardware detection somewhat, after another reboot the system would no longer boot up, giving a non-system disk error
IBM PC 330: I couldn’t even get this shit to POST

Overall 86Box didn’t have much going for it in the IBM department for later generation PCs so I ended up using the VirtualPC 2007 based system, which worked easily and was able to boot from CD.

Post Install

When running on completely different hardware you will encounter this hardware detection section, as Windows tries to detect and install various drivers for the motherboard and components used. On the actual ThinkPad system, you will just be taken to the desktop.

This typically takes around 10 minutes to complete, be warned that if you try this on VMWare you will have endless prompts regarding PCI-PCI bridges since VMWare likes to have a lot of these.

Software

The Welcome to Windows screen has been customized by IBM to some extent, as the ThinkPad itself can be seen in the background. I’ve never seen this done by an OEM for Windows 98.

ThinkPad on the Net

A utility to help you sign on for an internet service provider. If you already have one the program will attempt to test the internet connection, but this will fail since the servers are no longer active, the program simply thinks you don’t have an internet connection.
It’s also possible this only works for dial-up connections which were popular at the time, and requires a modem.

Product Registration

Presents the opportunity to register your product by answering several questions about you and your life story, along with what you intend to do and what accessories you intend to purchase. This was the good old days when telemetry wasn’t embedded into the OS, so this was the only way to provide feedback to the OEM. Registering your products will reward you with bonus screensavers.

Screensavers

Think 1: The Thinkpad logo flashes around the screen whilst a red dot (TrackPoint) spins around
Think 2: Similar to think1 but has an animated image of the laptop itself
Saw: Simulates a saw cutting pieces from your desktop, along with a loud saw sound that scared the shit out of me. There is an option to disable the sound thankfully
Wreck: A wrecking ball appears and smashes against your desktop background, along with smashing sounds.
Window Washer: A Window Washed slides down the screen, taking vertical black stripes from your desktop background
Gumballs: A bunch of coloured circles appears on the screen
Snore: A floating bed with a guy sleeping in it
Ice Cleaner: An Ice cleaner of sorts appears
Shuttle Launch: A Shuttle appears and moves on the screen

Wallpapers

There are plenty of wallpapers included, supporting both 800×600 and 1024×768 resolutions.

PC Doctor

A diagnostic program of sorts, which performs a variety of tests. This included the CPU, video card and various devices connected to the system. Very interesting considering we are running in an emulated system.

Shockingly it has failed, although we are emulating a Pentium II, seems the Math coprocessors has issues returning incorrect results.

Let’s give the memory a test…

Looks like it passed, Now for the video

Is it me or can you see watergate…

The Graphics card is an S3 ViRGE (325), This isn’t the graphics card that shipped with the system

The sound test plays a few MIDI and Wave samples

The system Information area gives us details information on the various elements of the system. However here its possible to hard freeze the system

Norton AntiVirus

Included antivirus software that can detect and remove viruses. This version lets you browse through the various virus definitions to see what they do and what parts or side effects they can cause.
A Liveupdate feature was available but is no longer functional will return a server error.

IBM Update Connector

Checks for various updates for applications and utilities that came in bundles with your IBM system.

ThinkPad Configuration

A utility that lets you change settings and enable/disable different components of the system. You can configure settings for the sound, game port and TrackPoint itself. These are settings that are typically exclusive to the ThinkPad itself and may not be covered by the Windows settings.

ConfigSafe EZ

Acts like an early form of system restore, which will back up critical system files which can be restored should the need arise.

Snapshots can be taken on a schedule, either daily, weekly, monthly or every time Windows boots up. Files are saved to a CSX image file and total to 1.46MB, which seems to go over the floppy drive limit

IBM HomePage Creator

This takes you to an online page, presumably where you can create an account and sign up for a web hosting service

Shutting Down

Shutting down the system brings up a Norton AntiVirus screen that kinda looks like a BSOD. This just does a quick virus scan before shutdown and lasts for a few seconds, possibly does a boot sector scan to ensure nothing has tampered with the bootloader.

The Sims On Holiday

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Or The Sims Vacation in simplified English

The expansion is very similar to Hot Date in which many game elements were revamped. With a new social interaction system, revised user interface, and a new vacation island area with additional sub lots. Whilst Hot Date introduced the concept of sims leaving their lots to go downtown, here sims can actually stay on these lots for an extended period of time, depending on how much money they have.

New interactions exclusive to On Holiday are released that allow sims to invite each other to play games based on the new objects added, like playing archery, volleyball or fishing. In addition, some of the new interactions from hot dates are added.

Holidays allow for sims to take a break from their schedule, as they are not required to work or go to school and dance sims in the first game have no concept of days off or weekends, this expansion allows sims to go off and do other stuff without having to worry about their jobs as they can stay on holiday indefinitely.

Vacation Island

There are three types of vacation lots available, each with a different environment:

Beach Lots: Set on your typical beach/seaside, sims can sleep in a hotel located on the lot which will each have a bed and a bathroom. Sims can swim in these areas or play volleyball and can rent sandcastle kits.
Forest Lots: Simulates a camping lot, here your sims are set near woodland and have the option to camp in a tent or rent a log cabin. These lots typically feature a campfire
Snow Lots: Set on a Ski/Snow resort, Some lots have an igloo that your sims can sleep in

Each of the three environments has three different resorts that scale to accommodate the budget of the sims traveling there, there is a cheap resort that features only basic amenities, a moderate one that features a mix of both, and a more expensive one that resembles a hotel of sorts.
Sims will need to check in every day at 11:00AM in order to access and use most of the lot facilities. The game will do this automatically unless the sims check out.

Internally, houses 40 – 48 are used or the holiday lots.

NPCs

Whilst On Holiday, sims will encounter NPC sims that will also be on the same resort. These are like townies (Downtown NPCs) of sorts in that the player cannot control but they can be interacted with, and if your sim has a higher enough relationship they can move in. Some families will have an adult but one or more kids, who will also join the family.
This is convenient if you wanted your sim to marry and expand their family quickly without having to go through the baby raising process (Which is horrid in the first Sims)

There are also new NPCs

Vacation Director Kana: Just walk around the lot relentlessly 24/7 with a clipboard, you have to admire her dedication. Your sim can ask her questions to find out more on the different features of the expansion.
Mascots, there are three in total but only one will show up on a lot at a time. The mascot will vary based on the lot environment, beach lots will get the Marky Sharky mascot (If only they got the Marky Mark mascot instead. Berry Yeti is present on the Snow lots and Archie Archer is on the forest lots. They can only be interacted by kids. This makes them annoying since they will constantly try to play with the kid, even if they are busy.
Janitor: Cleans up dirty items on the lot. They’re a bit too keen as they will immediately come and will sometimes block the doorway

Objects

A lot of these are intended for use on holiday lots, but can be used in the home buy mode catalog. As introduced in the Hot Date expansion, subcategories are introduced in buy mode which allows for better organization of custom objects.

KampRite Instant Campfire

Volleyball

Redwood Hot Tub

A hot tub that seats two sims, adults only. Very similar to the one introduced in Hot Date

Archery

Sims will earn tokens when they win, whih allows them to redeem prizes

Water Ballon Fort

Group activity where sims can throw water balloons

Snowboard Halfpipe

Sims seem to have problems skating without falling down

At least in heaven I can skate

Polar Bear Rug

Wait until PETA sees this…

Snowman

Not a buyable object but sims can build their own snowmen on snowy lots

Snowball Fort

Same as the ballon fort but with snow

Snowslide

Sims can slide, SSX style

Carnival Games

Like the archery game, your sim can earn tokens with they can redeem into prizes. These then become souvenirs when they move back home, which they can display on a dedicated shelf.

Mac OS Version

The expansion was ported to Mac OS and OS X and install’s in the same fashion.

Packard Bell Bora Pro (86Box)

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Another prebuilt system supported by 86Box that a restore disc is available for. From the looks of the software included this was intended to be a family PC, typically sold in computer stores of the era (PCWorld or Staples)

The PC itself

This motherboard featured onboard 3DFX Voodoo 3 graphics, along with the onboard audio. Although 86Box has support for the Voodoo 3, there are various issues with the emulation that cause sever graphical issues when just on the desktop.
The onboard soundcard is not emulated at all, meaning we have to use a discreet sound card instead.

Running the ititial recovery software was easys ince the disc is bootable from the CD-ROM itself. From here you can format and itialize the hard disk and begin the recovery process.

After the first stage, things went a bit wrong and the system crashed to a bizzare divide overflow error. This didnt affect anything and the install continued after a quick reboot

The last stage took you to the Windows desktop, but the recovery was not yet finished as additional software installers had continued to run.

Software

Lots of bundled software to look at here:

Packard Bell Tour

A browser based tour (You can see it launching Internet Explorer briefly), it gives a rundown of the features of your new PC, and gives you the option to register.

Packard Bell Support Center

This is sort of the replacement of Windows help, although that still exists by pressing the F1 key. It gives you troubleshooting and maintenance information and your computers specifications. It also links to the CyberCoach tutorials.

AT&T Special Offer

Signs you up with AT&T, the internet service provider. Not much use outside the US.

Packard Bell Internet Radio

Appears to be a link to an online website, but its probably long since discontinued. It also wont open, thinking that we have yet to set up an internet connection. This is despite using the PCI ethernet adaptor.

Cyber Coach

Targeted to novice computer users or for those who are new to Windows, gives a step by step demonstration of different software included on the system and how to perform basic tasks.

CyberTrio / Kiddos

An interesting program that affects the Windows environment. There are different modes:
Basic mode: sort of like a limited user mode seen in Windows XP, prevents users from modifying critical system settings
Advanced mode: Typical Windows environment
Kiddos: A restricted environment designed for young kids to allow them to use the computer without potentially damaging or affecting system files. Clicking on the icon will take you to a customized desktop. I’m not sure if this is a customized user account or just a custom version of Windows Explorer.

Also if you ever wondered where the ImgBurn sound comes from (The one that plays at the end of a successful burn) it originated from here and acts as the Kiddos logon sound.

You can manually add programs to the Kiddos area, such as any games or additional software that was installed after. Packard Bell have already set up and installed a few child friendly applications such as the games from the Microsoft Entertainment pack.

KiddoNet

An activity center for kids, with various different activities

Quicken.com Online Finance

Some shortcut to an online website, no longer active and an archived version does not exist.

Navigator Assistant

Just opens a banner with shortcuts to various applications and tools like the internet, CD player. Kind of pointless since its located on the desktop so you will need to minimize to open the banner, would have been better off as a quick launch icon. My guess is the computer would have came with a bundled keyboard that had a dedicated button that opened the Navigator Assistant.

Microsoft Word 97

Just Microsoft Word is installed here instead of the whole office suite.

MGI Photosuite

Early photo editing software, typically shipped on systems that came with a flatbed scanner.

Other Screenshots

Expansion

There are four expansion slots, 3 PCI and one ISA slot

ISA: Sound Blaster AWE32 PnP 8MB
PCI: 3DFX Voodoo Banshee 16MB
PCI: AMD Pcnet-FAST III
PCI: Spare

The SoundBlaster card was part of the premade configuration in Winbox86, and features an onboard IDE controller that supports two drives. In combination with the motherboard IDE controller you can have up to 6 IDE drives, plus the two floppy drives for a total of eight. The SoundBlaster IDE is a bit temperamental due to the emulation so I recommend connecting a CD-ROM and Zip drive to it, and having the hard drives and one CD-ROM drive connected to the motherboard, since this BIOS is capable of CD-ROM booting.
In the end I swapped it for a ISA AWE32, and using a SCSI card for the additional drives since Windows 98 would sometimes fail to detect the SoundBlaster IDE device upon boot.
As mentioned earlier, the board also had onboard sound but the SoundBlaster was substituted instead, unless support comes in later 86Box versions.

The AMD PCnet card is automatically detected and installed as part of Windows setup and should work out of the box, the actual system did not have an onboard NIC or a modem.

The video card used was a 3DFX Voodoo Banshee which did not work out of the box, and required an additional driver to be installed. I would recommend a Cirrus Logic for the OOBE setup, then change to whichever graphics card you prefer. Since the motherboard included a 3DFX card onboard, you may prefer to have a Voodoo Banshee or Voodoo 3 instead

Windows 98 SE Beta

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98Se was an updated released of Windows 98 operating system, similar to how Windows 95 received updated builds that introduced support for new technologies. (98SE extends it support for Plug and Play, especially with USB devices and shipped with a lot more USB drivers, allowing for these devices to be detected.

Other changes was an updated version of Internet Explorer, DirectX, NetMeeting and Windows Media Player.

For this build (and many others) First issue was actually getting the installer to start, as the DOS bootdisk was unable to see the win98 directory. Attempting to change directory would result in a directory not found error message

The solution was to modify the iso image and amend the win98 folder to WIN98 instead. Easiest way to do this was to use 7ip to extract the contents of the iso image, and then use Imgburn to recreate the iso file.

Software

UltraHLE: An early Nintendo 64 emulator that was capable of high level emulation. This allowed for acceptable framerates of Nintendo 64 games. Whilst it starts up, it will crash the entire emulator when you try to start a game.

QuickTime: Apple’s video and internet streaming application, for streaming video over a network. Also used on multimedia software and is installed automatically with that software

Netscape Communicator: A popular web browser that ultimately lost the first browser war to Internet Explorer

RealPlayer 7: Works but the title bar is glitched out, might be more to do with the PCem emulator or its graphics card (3DFX Voodoo Banshee)

AOL Instant Messenger: Popular in the US, but did not take off in the UK as MSN messenger was more popular here, sadly both died in favor of Whatsapp and Facebook messenger

Musicmatch, Background theme is from 98 Plus! expansion pack

Winamp: Null soft’s legendary music player capable of playing MP3 files

McAfee: An anti-virus security software, typically found preinstalled on Dell computers and uninstalled after 30 days

Adobe Acrobat Reader: For viewing PDF documents, commonly distributed with other CD-ROM software. I really like the splash screen art from this era of Adobe software.

Nero Burning ROM: A Very popular CD-ROM burning application, sadly PCem does not emulate a CD-R drive.

WinZip 7.0: Popular compression software, its like WinRAR with its user interface but also offers a wizard like interface

Simcity 3000: Works well on this build on Windows, this was the original release that has a different opening movie compared to the later release (Unlimited), the background music has also been revised

HP Vectra VEi8 (86Box)

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Vectra is a line of desktop PC’s by HP that are targeted towards the business/Home Office segment, like the Dell OptiPlex or the Compaq Deskpro series of computers. Typically come with Intel Celeron/Pentium processors and onboard video.

The VEi8 can feature a Pentium II running at 350/400MHz or a Pentium III at 450/500MHz. with a Intel 440ZX chipset. Onboard video is the Matrox Millennium G200 with 8MB of graphics memory, which 86Box does not yet emulate

Recovery Disc

We have the option of restoring either a Windows 95 or Windows 98 image.

Windows 95 didn’t go as planned as we encountered a protection error upon boot up. At first I though the CPU used was too fast for Windows 95 as early builds had issues with CPU’s over a certain speed due to a race condition that’s executed upon boot up. A patch is available but you need to be in the Windows environment in order to install it. Downgrading the CPU and its speed had no effect in 86box.
Sadly I wasn’t able to fix this, and went for the Windows 98 option instead.

Post Install

There isn’t much to see here, since its pretty close to a vanilla Windows install compared to the Compaq Presario, just a few HP utilities. I guess the Vecta line were intended to be used in business and office environment who would prefer to control and maintain the software that they would install.

Upon the first reboot a tutorial is run which gives a basic demonstration on how to use a computer. This looks like some sort of Windows 3.1 environment and only appears once.

Installed Software

HP TopTools

Looks to be a hardware diagnostic application that shows detailed information on your system.

McAfee

McAfee Antivirus and crash monitor are preinstalled by default and provide basic protection.

Supplementary Hardware

The real motherboard supports two floppy disks, and four IDE devices across two channels. Additional drives can be added by installing a SCSI adaptor in 86Box. Here I was using the Tekram DC-390 which Windows 98 detected as a AMD PCI SCSI controller automatically and installed a driver for it.
This wasn’t 100% perfect as adding a hard disk or a writable ZIP or Magneto optical disk would cause a blue screen upon boot up. Since we want to attach a writable drive to the computer, this was far from ideal.
I tried installing a driver I found online but it had no effect, there is an issue when using this adaptor in 86Box. I switched it out for another PCI SCSI card, Buslogic but it had the same issue with a BSOD upon boot up when a writable drive is attached.

That’s a lie, it wouldn’t continue normally

Couldn’t find anything online relating to the BSOD above, any results turn up of that video of Windows 98 crashing in front of Bill Gates after plugging in a scanner.

In the end I tried to use another SCSI card instead, this time a ISA based card which required me to disable PCI IRQ steering for IRQ 10 & 11 to free up an IRQ slot for both the SCSI and the sound card.
Which made no difference, it still BSOD upon boot up.

I even mounted the image as write protected but it made little to no difference.
The rest of the devices (Zip 250/CD-ROM drives) worked fine, just hard disks and the magneto optical drives caused the BSOD.

I did notice an odd issue when I added the slave IDE hard drive, where Windows would BSOD with an error about drive D: which it would have been mounted as. Booting from the Windows 95 start disk and formatting as FAT32 seemed to fix it as after booting up the system was fine, and the new volume was detected and mounted in My Computer.
My guess is HP are using some unorthodox driver that interfacing when another volume or partition is added.

For networking the Realtek RTL8029 was used, which Windows 98 has built in drivers for.
3D acceleration is possible by adding a 3DFX Voodoo card, which Windows 98 will also have a driver for but you will be better off installing an updated driver instead.

In terms of expansion, the motherboard itself has 3 ISA and 3 PCI slots

ISA: BusLogic BT-545S, IRQ: 10, 0x334 DMA 7
ISA: Realtek RTL8029AS
ISA: Crystal CS4236B
PCI: S3 Trio64V+
PCI: 3DFX Voodoo graphics accelerator

External Links

Technical Manual

The Sims Hot Date

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The third expansion pack and one that brought a major change to the mechanics of the game, the main one being the introduction of community lots and the concept of your sims leaving their lots (well they could technically leave to go to work in the base game)

Also included a nice jazzy soundtrack when editing or vising downtown lots.

Installing the game requires the original game CD, or the House Party disc if that expansion pack is installed, as the game will install the original audio files to the hard drive. Previously the game would stream the audio from the CD to save disc space at the expense of performance.
If installing over the Deluxe Edition expansion pack, the user will need to run the deluxe edition installer before they can play the game, this is because the deluxe edition was released after Hot Date.

No new neighborhoods have been included with this expansion, but if you are missing the created neighbourhoods from the House Party expansion (Hoods 5-8) then the installer will create them for you. They will be typical blank neighborhoods without any houses or premade sims.

Upon starting the game, new sims will be generated. These will be your townies that are used for downtown.

Downtown, a new sub-neighborhood. Each hood has its own version of downtown with its own generated set of townies. Sims cannot visit a downtown from another hood.

The user interface has been updated with new features

The house meter and the friend’s meter have been removed and have not been replaced. They were removed in favor of adding the inventory and interests panels.
The inventory panel shows objects that are stored by the sims, these can be gifts that have been received by other sims, or prizes won by various games.

Downtown

A new sub-neighborhood, and the first to be included in the Sims engine. There are lots that your sim can visit with other sims.

You can have different themed downtown lots that cater to a specific
Restaurants typically have a podium, a kitchen with a commercial over, and a dining booth or dining table/seats

Shops generally have till’s and can have clothes racks that sims can browse and buy new clothes, or skins as they are referred to. There are also entertainment lots that have activities like pool tables, pinball machines and slot machines

The default lots for Hot Date make use of objects from the base game and the expansion itself, but not objects from other expansions. With this in mind, you can create new downtown lots using objects or themes from other expansions, like a nightclub using the DJ booth and dance floor from House Party. A spare downtown lot exists (23 Wright Way) for this purpose.

Objects

The buy mode catalog has been updated, and new sub-categories have been added to help classify items better. Downtown lots also have their own categories, depending on what type of lot you wish to build. Here objects are sorted into shops, restaurants, outdoor

Niagra Love Tub

A hot tub that can seat two sims, who can cuddle and ~~woohoo~~ play

Dawnette Hooded Stove

An oven that occupies two titles, can be placed downtown and is required to operate a restaurant

Bachmeier Grand Piano

A more expensive piano, placing this downtown will spawn a dedicated piano player NPC

Boggs Home Canning Center

Allows your sim to make preserves at home to sell, also increases the cooking skill

Laguna Vista Instand Pond

A fish pond where your sim can feed fish and place boats, multiple sims can use this

Bel-Air Dining Booth

Sims will sit after they order a meal at the podium, works as part of a restaurant set otherwise function as a regular table and chairs

Kiosk

Items such as flowers, toys, chocolate, and a copy of the game itself are sold here and can be bought by your sim, A cash till nearby is required to order

Food Counters

Two exist, one for ice cream and another for burgers, bars also exist for drinks

Social Interactions

New social interactions have been added, and the social system has been revamped for each sim to better handle interactions. Many have been grouped into one main social interaction, which then has a few sub-interactions. E.g. Talk has the ‘About Interests’, ‘Gossip’ & ‘Brag’ interactions. Entertain has ‘Joke’ and ‘Juggle’ interactions.

Mac Version

Hot Date was later ported to the Mac OS platform and was a Carbon application from the onset which meant support for older Mac OS versions was dropped. Only Mac OS 8.6 onwards and OS X 10.1 is supported.

The Sims House Party

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The second expansion pack for The Sims that allows them to party (or Partay)

Objects

Some of the objects that come with House party, there are other items like chairs and tables that are not listed here since they have a similar function to the base game objects.
Granny Raymond’s Holiday Cookies: A plate of cookies you can buy direct from buy mode. If you leave them on a table next to the fireplace, along with a Christmas tree from Livin It Up, Santa will appear.
Birthday Cake: Another buyable food item, kids can choose to blow out the candles, although this does not age them up (You need a charm in Makin Magic for that)
SimFarm Turkey Dinner: A piece of turkey sims can buy and carve up
Punchucopia Extraordinaria Punchbowl: sims or their cater can refill to keep guests satisfied at parties
The Elegant Chef Buffet Table: Used to serve a starter, main meal and desert from one table, excellent for parties or for large gatherings.
Fancy Feet Cake Treat: Spawns a male or female dancer (Stripper), or if it’s a kids party, a giant bear. Give a boost to the fun motive.
KampRite Instant Campfire: Sims can sit round the camp fire and sing songs, tell stories or roast marshmallows
Spazmatronic Plasmatronic Go-Go Cage: A Dancing cage, boosts fun. Best place with the dance floor and the DJ booth
Turntablitz DJ Booth: Used for the dance floor but can also function as a radio, has access to all radio stations in the game.
Jukebox: Two versions of this seem to exist, the first is just labelled as the Jukebox and has access to only the fault radio stations in the game. An updated version comes with Hot Date that can select all music tracks House party has to offer.
Bounce My Booty Dance Floor: The dance floor where sims can get their groove on. It’s a 2×2 tile than can be combined together in various patterns. When sims are dancing, the floor will light up in various different patterns and colours.
Porta-Parody Costume Trunk: A costume trunk that can be used to give your party a fancy dress theme. When one sim changes their costume, all sims will change to that costume theme.

Screenshots

Sims carving some turkey, which is buyable from buymode. When carving, sims will stand round and clap until its served.

The dance floor, in the front of someone’s living room. Puts Dance Central to shame

The costume trunk is ideal for theme parties. Available themes are Western, Disco, Toga

Here sims are rocking the disco theme

The buffet tables and the hireable caterer, sims can restock the table themselves at a cost of §20. A punchbowl can also be restocked.

The campfire, sims can tell a ghost story, roast marshmallows or sing a folk song.

Neighborhoods

The expansion pack adds support for multiple neighborhoods if you’ve not installed Livin It Up, Neighbourhoods 6-8 are added since the game assumes Livin it Up has been installed and takes the place of 2-5. It’s easy to add custom hoods. More hoods can be added by going into the games directory in the Program Files folder and adding a new UsedataX folder, where X will be the new number (since the game creates 8 hoods, you would start at 9) and can support up to 99 unique hoods.

NPCs

The Mime: Appears when you are throwing a shit party, and sometimes tries to steal your items. Leaves automatically once your party score has increased
Party Crashers: Appear when you are throwing a good party, these two (Pete and Pauline Dropinsky) will arrive and will try to wreck anything in the party, including breaking objects as they use them. Best to get rid of them as soon as possible.
The Caterer: Can be hired through the phone, the main purpose is to restock the buffet table and the punch bowl. He will also socialize with the guests if he has nothing to do. You must have a buffet table or a punch bowel or he will leave.
Drew Carey: Some American celebrity who appears when you have thrown a great party, arrives in a limo of which sims will rush to it upon arrival. For those who don’t know who Drew Carey, he was a popular late-night show host, like Jimmy Kimmel back when late-night talk shows weren’t biased towards a specific political party.

Some new NPCs have additional roles:
Police Officer: If you throw a party after 8pm, Officer meddling will appear regarding a complaint by one of your neighbors regarding the noise. You are supposed to disband and end the party by asking the guests to leave. Should you fail to do so she will reappear after 2 hours (10pm) and will find you.

Install

The game’s installer will pick up from the previous install, and will automatically install the game patch.

Disc read error upon install, caused by a scratched CD.

HTML view of The Sims House Party, listing sims that are currently moved into the neighborhood. Sims could be viewed here before they were uploaded onto the Sims exchange, which was a place where families and houses could be downloaded.

Mac OS Version

The expansion pack was made avaliable for the Mac OS platform, which a Carbon patch being released later for OS X compatability.

SimCity 3000

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The next installment of the popular SimCity series of games, where the goal is to build and maintain your own city. All aspects of city-building have to be managed, from the power stations to building roads and zoning for different houses/buildings, all whilst being prepared for any disaster that might strike.

Playing SimCity

Residential:
Where sims will live, the density relates to how large the buildings are, with low density being used for small houses, and higher density for apartments.

Commercial:
Shops and businesses, where sims go to work and spend their money

Industrial:
Another place where sims can work, but also where materials are manufactured and produced, and also helps with jobs for your sims.
Farms are one of the types of industry available, but they are difficult to actually have them be built. Every time I zone for farmland, it does start to build a farm but eventually, it will lose out to dirty industry with farm lots being replaced with a bunch of smog-o-matics. I can’t see why they would not just give farms their own industry zone?
Supposedly the key is to not give them any water, just power and roads. But then the news ticker will keep bugging about sims being too far from any water.

Versions / Ports

SimCity was ported to most of the popular PC platforms, even a port for Linux operating systems. Sadly a port for OS/2 was not released, as IBM had phased the operating system out by then.

SimCity 3000 was not released on any consoles of the era.

Windows (Original Release)

The Windows release only supports Windows 95 or 98 onwards, it does not support NT 4 unless service pack 3 or higher is installed. DirectX does not seem to be used, running solely through the Win32 API.

Windows (Unlimited/Edition)

Released a year later and features a few changes compared to the original release.

The user interface was changed slightly, with the query button being moved to a more prominent place on the UI
The music was changed with some tracks being added and others being removed
This version of the game is available on gog.com and will run effortlessly on modern Windows versions.
New city templates have been added which are based off real-world locations, like Liverpool, London, Berlin, Madrid, etc
Some existing cities have been renamed, Metropolis has become Europolis but remains the same
Some existing cities have been removed in favor of the new cities: Littleburg, Big Mountain City, Sim Isle
New scenarios mode has been added, which are small cities that have objectives to complete
Outside of the game, new tools have been made like the scenario creator tool which uses the Microsoft Access engine to create and customize customs scenarios

MacOS

Simcity 3000 was released for the PowerPC Mac OS platform and was targeted for the classic Mac OS. The Mac platform only had a port of the original Windows version, it did not receive the updated unlimited edition that was released for Windows and Linux.

Compared to the Windows version, there are a few differences, the opening FMV seems to have less compression compared to the Windows version and appears to be of higher quality, the animations on the menu buttons are much more fluid on the mac (Is this due to the graphics card?), lastly the close button on the menu box is on the left side for the mac, and on the right side for the PC.

Playing this on modern Macs is a challenge as modern MacOS does not have native support for PowerPC or applications using the older mac libraries. You must use emulation software like QEMU (screenshots above) or Sheepsaver. The last version of OS X to support PowerPC applications was OS X Leopard (10.5)

Linux

Corel Linux

The installer worked, but the game would not run.

Ubuntu

A Linux port of the game was released by Loki games in 2000, and is a port of the Windows PC version. It’s mostly accurate to the Windows version but is more difficult to install and get working, depending on the distro and the libraries/packages installed. I’ve tested it on a few distros of the era, and some more modern distros.

Installing and running the game on Ubuntu

Install the game as normal, remember to note the install directory – you will need it later
Download the official Loki Simcity 3000 patch
Run the patch installer, preferably as root. Easy way is to open a root terminal session (Should be an option in your Linux application launcher) Easy way is to copy the patch file to your home directory/folder, open the terminal and run the command: sudo sh sc3u-2.0a-x86.run -keep (Why you can’t just double-click to run the installer in Linux I do not know)
Once this is finished, you should see a success message
Now you need to run the game in a specific way, in the terminal you have to run the below command: LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.26 /usr/local/bin/sc3u

Hopefully, it should now start the game and you should see the intro movie play. This worked well on Ubuntu 4.04 running inside a VirtualBox VM, although there were a few issues. The sound was rather high-pitched and played too fast, and would stutter at high resolutions or when having a busy/large city map. Also running in a windowed mode wasn’t perfect, since it would display in the upper left part of the screen whilst the Ubuntu desktop remained in the background. The fullscreen mode works fine though. This could be due to the lack of drivers in my Ubuntu VM, it’s likely using stock/fail-safe drivers which provide little to no acceleration.

You could just use the Windows version running through Wine, although where is the fun in that? Plus it’s nice to play a native Linux game and in early 2000 there was a push for certain developers to embrace Linux as an alternative to Windows, That said, I can see why this didn’t take off…

Mandrake 7

Worked but had issues but these could be due to the emulation in 86box. The game installs and runs mostly Ok but some of the colors are messed up, the game also runs very slowly. Interestingly this uses a graphical installer which is missing when running in either Ubuntu or Corel Linux.

Nicktoons Racing

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Cart base racing game featuring popular Nicktoons of the time, complete with powerups

The opening FMV, and a look at the games menu and track selection screen

The character selection screen, You can choose from:

Rugrats: Tommy & Angelica

Hey Arnold: Arnold & Helga

Wild Thornberry’s: Eliza and Darwin

Spongebob Squarepants: Sprongebob and Patrick

Other playable characters include Ickis from Ahhh Real Monsters, Ren from Ren & Stimpy, Catdog The Angry Beavers, and a Mystery Rider that is unlocked by beating the game.

Tracks

Many tracks are based upon each Nicktoon show and follow the respective art style of that show.

Many of the tracks have shortcuts, which the NPC drivers will use more on a higher difficulty level. There are also many pickups and speed boost pads spread across the track. Some tracks will branch and split into two different section which can vary in speed and difficulty, one path might be shorted but with less pickups, or might have a few tricky bends which have to be navigated.

I’m disappointed they didn’t expand on the Rugrats themed tracks, considering they already released Rugrats games previously, why not have tracks that were based off Search for Reptar? like Toy Palace, or the Mini Golf levels.

Windows

Game can be installed to the hard drive and offers a minimal or a full install, with the full install including the opening FMV and music. At the end the user is given a choice to register their copy of the game.

The PC version benefits from a higher framerate, resolution and texture quality compared to the PlayStation version.

PlayStation

The game was ported to the PlayStation in 2001 and is a straight port of the PC version, with lower resolution graphics. However this version has issues when the CD drive is played at a higher speed and can lead to the opening FMV video skipping, which can also happen with the music. When being played on Duckstation, it is recommended to use the default CD drive speeds (2X/ 300K)

The PlayStation was the only console the game was released on, and did not see a release on any sixth generation console, despite the game being released from 2000-2003

Arcade

An arcade version was released in 2003 and was an adaption of the PC version and was distributed by Chicago Gaming Company

The Sims Livin It Up

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Also known as Sims Livin Large, not sure why they changed the title but Livin large sounds like a fat acceptance movement slogan…

The first of many expansion packs for The Sims, and a must-have since the base game was quite barren for content. Let’s see what’s been added:

Multiple neighborhoods can coexist, and the expansion ships with 5 extra goods for up to 50 different lots/families. More can be added by navigating to the games system directory, and creating a new Userdata folder (up to 99 supported). Each hood has its own set of lots and families, and with later expansions, they also have unique NPCs that show up on their lots. Sims from one neighborhood will not appear in another, and the appearance cannot be customized, unless you mod and load an altered bitmap has the hood’s background screen, but I think the game only allows one background bitmap to be set for all hoods. You would still be stuck with the name neighborhood background.

Objects

Genie Lamp: When rubbed, will summon a genie who gives the choice of two wishes. They do have a chance of going wrong.

Here you can choose between two random choices

A nice result, our wish was granted and we got a free high-end TV

Unfortunately, it was the exact same model that we already had.

Wishes can go wrong, I’m not sure on the change (Possibly 50/50) but when a wish backfires it can result in something drastic, like an object being set on fire or overdue bills being spawned. Always save before making a wish

Vibromatic heart bed: A bed that increases comfort and is where the magic happens. Costs 20 to use the vibration function each time which sucks considering its an expensive bed.

Telescope: Can be used to increase the logic skill and satisfies the fun meter. There is a chance your sim can be abducted by aliens. When this happens they will be returned with a new randomized personality.

When an abduction occurs, all sims will walk to the telescope, cry for a minute and then go back to what they were doing.

Moosehead: This shows the current mood of the lot, its ankers are based on the average mood of all sims and is useful for later expansion packs like House party to judge if a party is going well.

The Concatenation Station: A chemistry station where sims can make potions. This is created at random.
• Blue: The most likely potion to be made, fills 3 needs bars which are chosen at random
• Orange: Sims become invisible for the next 12 hours
• Light Green: The one to avoid, this causes nearly all needs to plummet to low levels
• Dark Green: Makes an evil clone of your sim who will perform bad interactions with other Sims, causing their relationship to suffer
• Red: Makes a random sim fall in love with them
• Purple: Turns your sim into a monster
• White: Will cure any sickness, only creatable by a sick sim
• Yellow: Inverts the Sims personality for all points
Creating any potions runs the risk of a visit from the police complaining about the smell, and you may be fined. The chemistry table also has a risk of exploding and must be repaired before it can be reused, this will not cause a fire.

Servo: A robot that acts as the Maid, Gardiner and repairman all in one NPC, one of the most expensive objects in the game. However he has to be manually turned on by your sim, he doesn’t come out automatically when a mess has been made but he can be instructed to serve meals.

Voodoo doll: This can be used by sims to annoy or frustrate another sim which results in their comfort level dropping. Useful to get rid of unwanted guests (Not NPCs)

The little bugger itself (not the sim), be careful when you own this

The gerbil painting, helps cure the disease.

Whilst your sims cannot communicate with the dead, or look into the future, Instead your sims will be given a mini-quest, of which they will be rewarded with a change of personality.

NPCs

Grim Reaper: Appears when a sim has died, can be pled with who will either ignore, resurrect the sim, or resurrect them as a zombie.

Monster: Resembles Frankenstein, Should your sim drink a specific potion, they will temporally turn into a monster and will break all items on the lot and will need to be repaired, But they seem to like painting, If there is an easel on the lot they will paint until they turn back.

Tragic Clown: Appears when your sims has the tragic clown painting and your sim is in a bad mood. If installing on a fresh install, his painting will appear on prebuilt lots.

The tragic clown in action. The only advantage he brings is you can socialize with him to boost your social motive, otherwise he will become a hindrance since he will wake your sim up if they’re sleeping.

Other additions

New floors and walls have been added that allow you to theme your Sims houses as if they were from a certain period, there’s a medieval look, or a retro 50/60s look to an interpreted future theme, complete with teleports that act as stairs or spaceship-like doors.

Sickness: Guinea pig, this was one of the more controversial features that were added to this expansion pack, since it’s possible for your sim to get sick and die which was not known to many players at the time leaving them to wonder why their sims kept randomly dying since the game only informer when your sim has died, but not the cause of death. This disease is caused by having your sim play with the guinea pig whilst it’s either hungry or if its cage is dirty. Once your sim has been bitten their energy motive will begin to decay faster, and sims will start coughing and sneezing. To cure, the ill sim must have plenty of rest and motives should be kept as high as possible.
The disease is contagious and can be passed to other sims via contact.

Roaches: Another annoying feature, they appear if your lot is dirty. If there are dirty dishes or a lot of trash on the lot.

The Sims Deluxe Edition

This SKU was introduced in 2002 and replaces The Sims, And the Livin It up Expansion pack since it combines content from the two games. This became the new base game as the previous titles were discontinued, and further deluxe bundles were introduced in specific markets that combined certain expansion packs, like Triple Deluxe which bundles House party and On Holiday.

The neighborhood screen has been slightly altered with the top bar being added for use with future expansion packs (Hot Date and On Holiday)

Deluxe Edition also comes bundled with the Sims Creator which is used for creating Sims faces for use in the game. You can also import a photo and paste it onto a Sims head for use in the game. Also, most downloadable objects that were released on the EA website were included, but not the downloadable families like the Hatfield’s or the Jones. Deluxe edition still ships with the premade sims, including the Mashuga’s from the Living It Up expansion.

Version information and the build date

Mac OS Version

The expansion was later released on the Mac OS platform and installed in a similar fashion to the PC version. If the user has multiple copies of The Sims installed, they are prompted to select the folder they wish to install.

Like the original game, Livin Large only supported classic Mac OS, with a Carbon update being released later for compatibility with Mac OS X