Just looking back.... Indy 500.

Hi all, I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day, and we got to discussing our favorite games of the past and what systems we owned, etc, etc. While he isn't the racing fan that I am, he commented on how much I used to play Indy 500 by Papy. Back in the summer of 1990 I owned a 286 w/4mb of ram, 40 meg hard drive, EGA monitor and card, and drove with the keyboard. Now I have a P150 w/32mb of ram, 1.6gig hard drive, Reactor 3D card, and use an E.C.C.I wheel and pedals combo. You gotta love technology! I love all of the current Papy racing sims, but something about Indy 500 stood out in my mind. While I have loads of fun with ICR2 and N2, I must say that the most satisfying race I ever ran was the first time I actually finished a full race with Indy 500. I must have had a Sunday afternoon to blow because if I remember correctly there was no save race feature. I raced with the red car, which I believe was a Lola chassis with a Buick engine, and placed third. My hands were cramping by the time I was finished, but damn was it great! I'm as spoiled as the next guy when it comes to high frame rates and eye-popping graphics, but there is something to be said for those old low-res, polygon filled Indy 500 races. <G> --

Sorry about the double post.

Hi Berry, Great post!! :) Best Regards, Marc Marc J. Nelson Sim Racing News - USA http://members.aol.com/simracing

I feel the same way when I remember playing "Bill Elliott's Nascar Challenge" by Konami on my 286, 1MB RAM, CGA (yes, CGA) piece of junk, using the keyboard to drive around Talladega and a few other tracks. A simple spin meant the end of the day (your windshield would crack), so finishing a race of any great length was really a "challenge." It think you raced 11 cars, and of course, Bill Elliott was always in the lead. I remember loading it onto someone's VGA system, and I was blown away!! You can imagine what happened when I jumped from that to my P166 and Nascar 1 in 1995! You know, now I'm thinking...where are those BENC diskettes...?? Tom

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> Hi all, > I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day, and we got to discussing > our favorite games of the past and what systems we owned, etc, etc. While > he isn't the racing fan that I am, he commented on how much I used to play > Indy 500 by Papy. Back in the summer of 1990 I owned a 286 w/4mb of ram, 40 > meg hard drive, EGA monitor and card, and drove with the keyboard. Now I > have a P150 w/32mb of ram, 1.6gig hard drive, Reactor 3D card, and use an > E.C.C.I wheel and pedals combo. You gotta love technology! I love all of > the current Papy racing sims, but something about Indy 500 stood out in my > mind. While I have loads of fun with ICR2 and N2, I must say that the most > satisfying race I ever ran was the first time I actually finished a full > race with Indy 500. I must have had a Sunday afternoon to blow because if I > remember correctly there was no save race feature. I raced with the red > car, which I believe was a Lola chassis with a Buick engine, and placed > third. My hands were cramping by the time I was finished, but damn was it > great! I'm as spoiled as the next guy when it comes to high frame rates and > eye-popping graphics, but there is something to be said for those old > low-res, polygon filled Indy 500 races. <G> > --

The thing I remember about the original Indy 500 sim is that the damaged cars would stay on the track for a while after an accident occurred. Unfortunately, no current Papyrus sim does this! Now the cars immediately disappear. I remember there being a 5 car accident and the yellow flag came out. At first the whole field steered around the 5 wrecked cars. The next lap 2 cars were gone but we still had to steer around the other 3. This was so realistic! I miss it in the present simulations. Russell Keating

Yeah...I still have mine for my Amiga... :) Best Regards, Marc Marc J. Nelson Sim Racing News - USA http://members.aol.com/simracing

------------574445D3181B1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Did you finish 200 laps on Indianapolis 500 ! Wow! I got access to that program on 1993 in a 386, and only finished two 60-laps races. Later, when I bought a Pentium, I installed the game too. I play GP2 very often but I visit the old Indy 500 sometimes. It has very bad graphics (at today standards), bad sound, no save option, but it is very exciting, even more than this shareware version of GP2. Do you have the settings for that car? I used the red car also. If you look in your old collection of 3.5 (or it was 5.25?) diskettes and find the Indy 500 game, you can post or send me the setting.2 file. I hope to hearing from you. I going to do a 10 laps race now... Curro ------------574445D3181B1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii <HTML><BODY> <P><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">Did you finish 200 laps on Indianapolis 500 ! Wow!&nbsp;</FONT></P> <P><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">I got access to that program on 1993 in a 386, and only finished two 60-laps races. Later, when I bought a Pentium, I installed the game&nbsp; too. I play GP2 very often but I visit the old Indy 500 sometimes. It has very bad graphics (at today standards), bad sound, no save option, but it is very exciting, even more than this shareware version of GP2.</FONT></P> <P><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">Do you have the settings for that car? I used the red car also. If you look in your old collection of 3.5 (or it was 5.25?) diskettes and find the Indy 500 game, you can post or send me the setting.2 file.</FONT></P> <P><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">I hope to hearing from you. I going to do a 10 laps race now...</FONT></P> <P><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">&nbsp;</FONT></P> <P><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">Curro</FONT></P> </BODY> </HTML> ------------574445D3181B1--

Hell, I'd forgot about Bill Elliot's Nascar Challenge. I never owned it, but a friend of mine did. We used to play around with it every once and a while and "marvel" at the graphics! It always seemed to me that it would be a cold day in Hades before the program would let you pass Bill.<G> --

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> Hi all, > I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day, and we got to discussing > our favorite games of the past and what systems we owned, etc, etc. While > he isn't the racing fan that I am, he commented on how much I used to play > Indy 500 by Papy. Back in the summer of 1990 I owned a 286 w/4mb of ram, 40 > meg hard drive, EGA monitor and card, and drove with the keyboard. Now I > have a P150 w/32mb of ram, 1.6gig hard drive, Reactor 3D card, and use an > E.C.C.I wheel and pedals combo. You gotta love technology! I love all of > the current Papy racing sims, but something about Indy 500 stood out in my > mind. While I have loads of fun with ICR2 and N2, I must say that the most > satisfying race I ever ran was the first time I actually finished a full > race with Indy 500. I must have had a Sunday afternoon to blow because if I > remember correctly there was no save race feature. I raced with the red > car, which I believe was a Lola chassis with a Buick engine, and placed > third. My hands were cramping by the time I was finished, but damn was it > great! I'm as spoiled as the next guy when it comes to high frame rates and > eye-popping graphics, but there is something to be said for those old > low-res, polygon filled Indy 500 races. <G> > --

Original game was made by Electronic Arts wasn't it. I owned it and packaged in the CD case with Classic Game or something. I do think there was a pause mode in it because I remember getting a phone call during a 500 mile race (completed over 400 miles) and resuming the game and crashing in the next turn. Great Game. Scott

It was distributed by EA, but I believe it was programmed by Kaemmer at Papy. You're right, there was a pause mode, because I also would use it. Most of the time after unpausing, I would promptly wreck after losing my rhythm.<G> --

It would also be a great addition to have one or more of the damaged cars return to the track after spending a number of laps in the garage. This should include the players car. In addition, how about the black flag for any car that cannot maintain a minimum reasonable speed - set in the track.txt file. Cars with mechanical problems should also return to the track. I always laugh when I see someone DNF'd 30 laps into a 300 lap event with ELECTRICAL problems. Any crew worth a damn could get this fixed in 10 or 20 minutes and return the car to the track. I don't think I have ever seen a Winston Cup DNF due to electrical problems - unless the car caught fire and burned to the ground. These type of things are no big deal - and should be relatively minor to impliment. They would add so much to the "simulation" as a whole. hint .. hint ... /THansen

>Hell, I'd forgot about Bill Elliot's Nascar Challenge. I never owned it, >but a friend of mine did. We used to play around with it every once and a >while and "marvel" at the graphics! It always seemed to me that it would be >a cold day in Hades before the program would let you pass Bill.<G> That game was the first stock car racing game I ever played! I remember I got it for Christmas about 4 years ago and I won at Daytona on boxing day! When I got my Mac when I was in grade 7, about 7 years ago, I was totally ***ed to Ferrari Grand Prix. It was a black and white racing game with just you and 2 other cars! They a few years later Ferragi Grand Prix was updated to 16 colour and 8 cars, I thought it was a great improvement then! I now use a PC and when I first saw NASCAR racing, you would of had to remove me from the screen using a crow bar! John P.S. any Mac users remember playing Ferrair GP???

Ahhh, yes, Indy 500. Played it on my Tandy 1000 8Mhz 8086, with 640K of ram and a sick-pot joystick. Played and played and played. I never did go for the 500-mile thing...hands cramped up too much. I will say I practice-qualified a lot...I heard that Roberto Guererro got a lap at 232 (years after the fact), and I promptly tried to surpass it. I played constantly for about six months (or so it seemed). Finally banged off a lap at a blistering 247 mph average...Pretty realistic, huh? I will say that the Penske-Chevrolet's graphics were top-notch for the time, when it was working with 16 colors (Tandy graphics) and the sounds were as good as today's Indycar Racing (with 3-voice Tandy Sound). Ahhh, yes, the good old days.

I always enjoyed the pit 'action' in the old Indy 500, where at least you had to smack space bars and <enter> keys quickly to get a good stop. IMHO, much better than sitting and waiting to see what the randomizer gives you for a pit time.

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> >Hell, I'd forgot about Bill Elliot's Nascar Challenge. I never owned it, > >but a friend of mine did. We used to play around with it every once and a > >while and "marvel" at the graphics! It always seemed to me that it would be > >a cold day in Hades before the program would let you pass Bill.<G> > That game was the first stock car racing game I ever played! I > remember I got it for Christmas about 4 years ago and I won at Daytona > on boxing day! When I got my Mac when I was in grade 7, about 7 years > ago, I was totally ***ed to Ferrari Grand Prix. It was a black and > white racing game with just you and 2 other cars! They a few years > later Ferragi Grand Prix was updated to 16 colour and 8 cars, I > thought it was a great improvement then! I now use a PC and when I > first saw NASCAR racing, you would of had to remove me from the screen > using a crow bar! > John > P.S. any Mac users remember playing Ferrair GP???

Learned to hate Bill Elliot from playing this piece of ***(got over it but this game still brings back bad memories). He was actually easy to beat on the short tracks and the road courses (finished about 9 laps ahead of him at Bristol once) but forget at the big tracks. Started a race a Talladega with a qualifying engine in the car (they would blow up in about 10-15 laps) just so I could run in front the sob and I still couldn't pass him! Jeff Davidson

Both of you are right with respect to who made it. My box says lists Papyrus Design Group and Electronic Arts. I have the same nostalgia also. I have tried to play it on my GW2K P75 w/ ensoniq. I can run the game, but the engine sound sounds like it is coming from a church organ. If any one knows how to get around this I would greatly appreciate it. I hope that my machine isn't too new for the sound. Thanks in advance. Matt > > Hi all, > > I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day, and we got to discussing

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> > our favorite games of the past... > > -- > Original game was made by Electronic Arts wasn't it. I owned it and > packaged in the CD case with Classic Game or something. I do think > there was a pause mode in it because I remember getting a phone call > during a 500 mile race (completed over 400 miles) and resuming the > game and crashing in the next turn. > Great Game. > Scott

In the days before Sounblaster AWE 32's and Gravis Ultrasounds, we ran with all the top-of-the-line gamers ran with an Adlib Musicard. Tweety four-voice sound, I think it was, just a step above the IBM internal speaker. Pretty sick-sounding, really, but it was amazing for the 286's and 8086's that the game was designed to run on. I heard Adlib went out of business a few years ago, such a shame. They used to dominate the sound market. I ran my copy od I500 on a Tandy 1000 SL, which meant that I could use the equally wonderful Tandy 3-voice sound system. Lets see, take a cat, grab its tail, and step on its midsection really hard. That's the best approximation of the sound I can give you. All these people crying about slow frame rates in GP2 should play Indy 500 on my old Tandy (yes, I've since upgraded) 8MHz 8086, with 640k of ram. With ALL DETAILS OFF, it probably only got 10 frames per second with NO RUNNING EXTERNAL VIEWS. There was a replay function, but you couldn't drive with it going. But for the time, I was fully amazed.

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>Hi all, >I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day, and we got to discussing >our favorite games of the past and what systems we owned, etc, etc. While >he isn't the racing fan that I am, he commented on how much I used to play >Indy 500 by Papy. Back in the summer of 1990 I owned a 286 w/4mb of ram, 40 >meg hard drive, EGA monitor and card, and drove with the keyboard. Now I >have a P150 w/32mb of ram, 1.6gig hard drive, Reactor 3D card, and use an >E.C.C.I wheel and pedals combo.

[...] Hi Berry, great to remember my first experiences with IndyCars in 1991on my old 286 (I had a 14'' VGA Monitor !!!). For me it was the best racing game in those times. I played it until I upgraded to a 386 DX and I was really upset that the game didn't run properly anymore. Reading your post, I got the idea of playing it on my 486 SX25 Notebook with a monochrome LCD-Display which isn't able to display faster games in an acceptable way. (It should be fast enough for Indy500) Some time ago I heard that there was (is?) a patch somewhere on the net to make Indy500 run on a faster PC. Does anyone know an adress where I can get the patch from ? One of the greatest features was that the wrecked cars stayed on the track (did the programers just forgot to remove them ?). When IndyCar 1 came out I was really disappointed that the cars were removed so quick. So why don't remain the wrecked cars for a longer while on the track in IndyCar 1/2 and NASCAR 1/2 ? I don't know how realistic it is but it would be thrilling trying to avoid them (especially when playing without yellow flags). Just an idea... Joachim Joachim Brauns Bad Pyrmont, Germany -----------------------------------

It was not excessively difficult to beat Bill at any track. You just needed to race with the keyboard and get the feel of the steering (which, of course, was total shit). I also found that running with full spoiler at Michigan and Atlanta would result in faster lap times than if I ran with a lower spoiler angle. On the other hand, I did notice that it was impossible to wreck Bill. Have a nice day, True Death

I remember I won my first race the second day I had the game! If memory serves me I think I could run 187 at Atlanta and Michigan with full spoiler. I think I ran 189's at Atlanta with a few adjustements. I remeber I used to run Bristol with no spoiler to TRY and make the damn thing competative. One of the better of the old racing sims was Ferrari Grand Prix on the Mac, it had a track editor. I used to race F1 cars on short tracks! Cheers, John

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> >Hi all, > >I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day... > Ahhh, yes, Indy 500. Played it on my Tandy 1000 8Mhz 8086, with 640K of > ram and a sick-pot joystick. Played and played and played. I never did go for > the 500-mile thing...hands cramped up too much. I will say I > practice-qualified a lot...I heard that Roberto Guererro got a lap at 232 > (years after the fact), and I promptly tried to surpass it. I played > constantly for about six months (or so it seemed). Finally banged off a lap at > a blistering 247 mph average...Pretty realistic, huh? I will say that the > Penske-Chevrolet's graphics were top-notch for the time, when it was working > with 16 colors (Tandy graphics) and the sounds were as good as today's Indycar > Racing (with 3-voice Tandy Sound). Ahhh, yes, the good old days.

yup. Tandy Ruled. I used to make a whole lot of racing "noise" when I played this game. Settings weren't too overwhelming and boy, did do penskies go fast