Floppy Noise

DO YOU REMEMBER?

October 4, 2025

Within the next couple of weeks I plan to release Nostalgic Reverie.

What is Nostalgic Reverie? Well, from the readme I just wrote:

Nostalgic Reverie is a library for Borland Turbo C intended to be used to create 16-bit real-mode DOS games and multimedia software.

The core library handles low-level assembly details so you can focus on higher-level C. Currently, its primary mode is EGA 320x200 with 16 colors (mode 0Dh), the same mode used in classic games such as Commander Keen, Duke Nukem 1, Secret Agent, and Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure.

To avoid having to wrap your head around the EGA's planar memory layout, NR includes a small suite of tools that can convert BMP files to byte-planar EGA data (with or without masks), archive your assets into single files, create fonts and sprites, and build variable-sized images (widths and heights divisible by 8).

It also has built-in asset management and supports IMF (ID Music Format) files and the Inverse Frequency Sound format for PC speaker sounds.

At the moment, Nostalgic Reverie is small and focused on game creation in mode 0Dh and does not support digital audio yet (only PC speaker and AdLib OPL2 are supported). The plan is to add CGA and VGA support and digital sound effects in the future. The original intent was to make it easier to code games for older computers, specifically machines that used 286 CPUs.

For now, the library will be compiled with Borland C 2.0 and Turbo Assembler 1.0, but soon after the first release, the plan is to make it compatible with Open Watcom 2.0 also.

Right now, I'm working on separating everything out into individual translation units to make them as modular as possible, so your final executable won't pull in code you don't use. For legal reasons, Nostalgic Reverie will remain closed source for now, but I will see what I can do in the future.

Other Updates

I compiled a list of all the games I've worked on (at least the ones I could find). You can download them from the games page, but don't expect too much. They are very very old, made by various younger versions of me.

Future Plans for FloppyNoise.com

I'd like this site to be a nostalgic work of art, but also I want it to be useful. Soon, I will start adding information and resources related to developing retro games. Hopefully it will slowly grow into something good.

That's all for now.

~ Josh Taylor ~