NEWS!!
You can now get Columns working just fine, whether you are running Windows
XP, Windows ME, or even Linux. A new project called
"DOSbox" lets you start up
a virtual command prompt, under which you can run columns just fine.
Basically you can just run the command "dosbox c:\" and now you are at
a virtual prompt with full access to your C: drive. Just cd to where
you've got columns unzipped, and go for it!
It even works with sound! The new version 0.60 emulates a Soundblaster Pro
card for you, with "A220 I7 D1 T4" settings by default.
Thanks to the official Internet WayBack Machine, I've finally
got my old docs back and back online!! Woo woo!!
I've recently been informed by somebody running Windows XP that Columns
does, indeed, work just fine. They had to set the sound to "PC Speaker"
(but that may have been just because their Soundblaster emulation wasn't
set right). And they told me that their CPU's clock went a little wonky,
but was fixed by a reboot. (Not altogether surprising, since the old
DOS-mode program set the CPU timer to millisecond-resolution timing.)
In other news, if you get yourself an OpenDOS boot floppy Columns will
work just fine (again, without sound). It also works just fine under
Linux with "dosemu".
Many months after a hard drive crash destroyed this section of my site,
and at least a year since anybody bothered to send me any money,
I have decided to re-release my Shareware game "Columns" as DonateWare
instead.
What this means is that you can now play the full version of Columns,
including the disabled high-score saving feature, for free.
Download Now! (512Kb)
A patch (9Kb) for older versions of columns
is now available. It seems there was a bug in the Pascal compiler, something
to do with a timing loop that overflows if your processor is faster than
233MHz.
Just download the patch and unzip it into your
Columns directory. Then at a DOS prompt type:
tppatch columns.exe
The new version of Columns is pre-patched.