Robert Sundling
@robertsundling.bsky.social
Solo game dev and retro enthusiast, making indie games since the DOS days. Currently working on RASDAN, a DOS/VGA game I started in 1996 and never finished. It's still for DOS! Why not?
Madison, Wisconsin, USA, Earth, Sol System, Milky Way, The Universe.
Madison, Wisconsin, USA, Earth, Sol System, Milky Way, The Universe.
Sadly, the New York Times still hasn’t updated their Spelling Bee word list to include King’s Quest III characters.
October 26, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Sadly, the New York Times still hasn’t updated their Spelling Bee word list to include King’s Quest III characters.
Throwback Thursday: The first thing I did when I got a car with a USB port was see if I could connect a floppy drive to it to play music. I could! Granted, I did have to build a custom disk image by hand, since the floppy disk had to be formatted as if it were an SD card and not a floppy.
October 24, 2025 at 4:07 AM
Throwback Thursday: The first thing I did when I got a car with a USB port was see if I could connect a floppy drive to it to play music. I could! Granted, I did have to build a custom disk image by hand, since the floppy disk had to be formatted as if it were an SD card and not a floppy.
I've now converted Chapters 2 and 3 of the GUSDK Word documentation into Markdown format. Combined with the annotated source code (which essentially moves Chapter 4 into the source code itself), I think this covers all of the core features.
It is available on GitHub here: github.com/RobertSundli...
It is available on GitHub here: github.com/RobertSundli...
October 10, 2025 at 4:25 PM
I've now converted Chapters 2 and 3 of the GUSDK Word documentation into Markdown format. Combined with the annotated source code (which essentially moves Chapter 4 into the source code itself), I think this covers all of the core features.
It is available on GitHub here: github.com/RobertSundli...
It is available on GitHub here: github.com/RobertSundli...
I am increasingly a fan of the Monaspace font family (monaspace.githubnext.com).
I've added support for Monaspace features to the GUI TTY interface for my DOS game engine (which takes the place of an external MDA monitor). It's fantastic to be able to customize its look and feel so thoroughly.
I've added support for Monaspace features to the GUI TTY interface for my DOS game engine (which takes the place of an external MDA monitor). It's fantastic to be able to customize its look and feel so thoroughly.
September 30, 2025 at 12:03 AM
I am increasingly a fan of the Monaspace font family (monaspace.githubnext.com).
I've added support for Monaspace features to the GUI TTY interface for my DOS game engine (which takes the place of an external MDA monitor). It's fantastic to be able to customize its look and feel so thoroughly.
I've added support for Monaspace features to the GUI TTY interface for my DOS game engine (which takes the place of an external MDA monitor). It's fantastic to be able to customize its look and feel so thoroughly.
It's crazy the kind of stuff you end up writing when you're building a network stack for DOS from scratch in C++26.
August 8, 2025 at 11:53 PM
It's crazy the kind of stuff you end up writing when you're building a network stack for DOS from scratch in C++26.
I'm testing GCC 15.2 today.
I just used it to build the various test programs for my game engine for all available platforms, including DOS and Windows.
Success! But it's always hilarious to me to see a test that runs at 60 fps in DOS on a 486 with a VGA run at 13,000+ fps on a modern machine.
I just used it to build the various test programs for my game engine for all available platforms, including DOS and Windows.
Success! But it's always hilarious to me to see a test that runs at 60 fps in DOS on a 486 with a VGA run at 13,000+ fps on a modern machine.
August 7, 2025 at 7:19 PM
I'm testing GCC 15.2 today.
I just used it to build the various test programs for my game engine for all available platforms, including DOS and Windows.
Success! But it's always hilarious to me to see a test that runs at 60 fps in DOS on a 486 with a VGA run at 13,000+ fps on a modern machine.
I just used it to build the various test programs for my game engine for all available platforms, including DOS and Windows.
Success! But it's always hilarious to me to see a test that runs at 60 fps in DOS on a 486 with a VGA run at 13,000+ fps on a modern machine.
GCC 15.2 drops tomorrow. Got a head start today and built a cross-compiler for my 32-bit DOS apps from the 15.2 RC.
It's working well so far!
(It reports as 15.1.1, but that's fine. I didn't touch gcc/BASE-VER or gcc/DATESTAMP, where I could have bumped it up to "15.2.0 20250808" had I wanted.)
It's working well so far!
(It reports as 15.1.1, but that's fine. I didn't touch gcc/BASE-VER or gcc/DATESTAMP, where I could have bumped it up to "15.2.0 20250808" had I wanted.)
August 7, 2025 at 5:34 PM
GCC 15.2 drops tomorrow. Got a head start today and built a cross-compiler for my 32-bit DOS apps from the 15.2 RC.
It's working well so far!
(It reports as 15.1.1, but that's fine. I didn't touch gcc/BASE-VER or gcc/DATESTAMP, where I could have bumped it up to "15.2.0 20250808" had I wanted.)
It's working well so far!
(It reports as 15.1.1, but that's fine. I didn't touch gcc/BASE-VER or gcc/DATESTAMP, where I could have bumped it up to "15.2.0 20250808" had I wanted.)
Back in the DOS days, when you’d send a graphical mouse cursor to the mouse driver you’d give coordinates for its “hot spot” too. For a normal cursor it’d be (1,1), not (0,0), due to the one-pixel border around the cursor. Here’s a pointing finger example from the official Microsoft mouse book. 👆
August 7, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Back in the DOS days, when you’d send a graphical mouse cursor to the mouse driver you’d give coordinates for its “hot spot” too. For a normal cursor it’d be (1,1), not (0,0), due to the one-pixel border around the cursor. Here’s a pointing finger example from the official Microsoft mouse book. 👆
Making decent progress on my 640x480 to 320x240 linear mode SVGA project.
I first wrote a CRTC register dumper, then examined values on a card with a 320x240 linear mode. It's pretty clear how this card does it.
Next step will be to take an SVGA card without the mode and apply these same changes.
I first wrote a CRTC register dumper, then examined values on a card with a 320x240 linear mode. It's pretty clear how this card does it.
Next step will be to take an SVGA card without the mode and apply these same changes.
August 6, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Making decent progress on my 640x480 to 320x240 linear mode SVGA project.
I first wrote a CRTC register dumper, then examined values on a card with a 320x240 linear mode. It's pretty clear how this card does it.
Next step will be to take an SVGA card without the mode and apply these same changes.
I first wrote a CRTC register dumper, then examined values on a card with a 320x240 linear mode. It's pretty clear how this card does it.
Next step will be to take an SVGA card without the mode and apply these same changes.
Looks like I'm successfully parsing MOD pattern data. If you'd like a challenge, see if you can spot this song by the first pattern. 🙂
August 3, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Looks like I'm successfully parsing MOD pattern data. If you'd like a challenge, see if you can spot this song by the first pattern. 🙂
What I was wondering is how long it will be until AI models would be able to generate the rest of the font in a consistent manner. My assumption was that they’re not even close to being there yet. But I wanted a baseline, so here are a few attempts by ChatGPT 4o, today, July 26, 2025:
July 26, 2025 at 5:09 PM
What I was wondering is how long it will be until AI models would be able to generate the rest of the font in a consistent manner. My assumption was that they’re not even close to being there yet. But I wanted a baseline, so here are a few attempts by ChatGPT 4o, today, July 26, 2025:
I thought I’d try a little experiment. First, some background. Back in the late 80’s or early 90’s I made this logotype for a BBS door game I was writing. I only created these specific letters for it, by hand.
July 26, 2025 at 5:09 PM
I thought I’d try a little experiment. First, some background. Back in the late 80’s or early 90’s I made this logotype for a BBS door game I was writing. I only created these specific letters for it, by hand.
It’s been so long (decades!) since I worked on my Mattel Aquarius emulator. It probably wouldn’t be the worst idea to release it as open source, although I’m not entirely sure there’s any point to that, considering the saturation of such things these days.
July 7, 2025 at 10:43 PM
It’s been so long (decades!) since I worked on my Mattel Aquarius emulator. It probably wouldn’t be the worst idea to release it as open source, although I’m not entirely sure there’s any point to that, considering the saturation of such things these days.
June 1, 2025 at 11:11 PM
I'm able decompress the various other assets, too. Here is MOON13.TGA from MOJO_BAY.CRE. I'll write a Python script that lets you extract anything from these.
March 2, 2025 at 9:10 PM
I'm able decompress the various other assets, too. Here is MOON13.TGA from MOJO_BAY.CRE. I'll write a Python script that lets you extract anything from these.
It works! Here is MUSIC000.HMI from EXTRANGE.CRE. Now I just need to package this all up in an easy-to-use utility. They used a variant of LZW compression with a special code for resetting the code width while maintaining the original dictionary.
March 2, 2025 at 8:47 PM
It works! Here is MUSIC000.HMI from EXTRANGE.CRE. Now I just need to package this all up in an easy-to-use utility. They used a variant of LZW compression with a special code for resetting the code width while maintaining the original dictionary.
Getting there. Was able to decompress SOME data. Don't have the entire algorithm reverse-engineered yet but I'm making progress.
March 2, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Getting there. Was able to decompress SOME data. Don't have the entire algorithm reverse-engineered yet but I'm making progress.
I just happened across this old animated PC Christmas card I made in 1993. I made it from scratch in about an hour, creating the artwork and writing a tiny MS-DOS/VGA sprite system in Borland C++ and assembly. I put it on GitHub if anyone wants to see it. 😃🎅🎄
github.com/RobertSundli...
github.com/RobertSundli...
March 1, 2025 at 7:06 PM
I just happened across this old animated PC Christmas card I made in 1993. I made it from scratch in about an hour, creating the artwork and writing a tiny MS-DOS/VGA sprite system in Borland C++ and assembly. I put it on GitHub if anyone wants to see it. 😃🎅🎄
github.com/RobertSundli...
github.com/RobertSundli...
I love when a raw bitmap image just happens to be the same width as your hex viewer. 🤣
March 1, 2025 at 3:11 PM
I love when a raw bitmap image just happens to be the same width as your hex viewer. 🤣
I’ve been working on updating my website to include some of the software I wrote 30+ years ago. Here’s a teaser.
February 15, 2025 at 10:50 PM
I’ve been working on updating my website to include some of the software I wrote 30+ years ago. Here’s a teaser.
I remain unconvinced that the new AI "Rewrite" feature of Windows Notepad is useful for revising DOS configuration files.
February 14, 2025 at 3:59 PM
I remain unconvinced that the new AI "Rewrite" feature of Windows Notepad is useful for revising DOS configuration files.
Oh, here is a high-resolution version directly from 3D Realms’ website, too, with some weird layer effects applied but still decent. From this page: archive.3drealms.com/catalog/rapt...
February 4, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Oh, here is a high-resolution version directly from 3D Realms’ website, too, with some weird layer effects applied but still decent. From this page: archive.3drealms.com/catalog/rapt...
Indeed. That in-game logo is the one they used in their advertisements, too, so you could use a scan from a magazine maybe? Here’s part of one of their ads from page 99 of the August 1994 issue of PC Gamer; downloadable here: www.retromags.com/files/file/6...
February 4, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Indeed. That in-game logo is the one they used in their advertisements, too, so you could use a scan from a magazine maybe? Here’s part of one of their ads from page 99 of the August 1994 issue of PC Gamer; downloadable here: www.retromags.com/files/file/6...
Now you should vectorize the in-game logo! 😃 (I have no idea why the box art was totally different. I have a feeling the graphic designer who did the box art had no communication with the artists who worked on the game.)
February 4, 2025 at 12:25 AM
Now you should vectorize the in-game logo! 😃 (I have no idea why the box art was totally different. I have a feeling the graphic designer who did the box art had no communication with the artists who worked on the game.)
By the way, if you’re running out of games to extract fonts from (🤣), the Intellivision game “Vectron” and “TRON Solar Sailer” have some cool (and similar, but not identical) “futuristic” fonts I always thought were cool. 😉 Vectron also has a smaller font used in some UI elements.
February 1, 2025 at 2:44 PM
By the way, if you’re running out of games to extract fonts from (🤣), the Intellivision game “Vectron” and “TRON Solar Sailer” have some cool (and similar, but not identical) “futuristic” fonts I always thought were cool. 😉 Vectron also has a smaller font used in some UI elements.