Microsoft Windows 3.1, VGA Planets WinPlan, and Planeteer Magazine

Take a trip down retro-road with me! Installing Win 3.1 (Microsoft Windows 3.1 (3.1.068) (2-3-1992) (Beta) (5.25-1.2mb)) under DOSBox, then installing and running VGA Planets WinPlan. I flip through some VGA Planets screens etc, and finally I open some Planeteer magazines in the ancient "Windows Help" format. For a laugh, check out the "letter to the editor" at 13:00 suggesting he switch from Windows Help to HTML. A suggestion ahead of its time!
Sorry for no audio - it didn't come through for some reason.
Windows 3.1 install floppies/iso: winworldpc.com...
VGA Planets WinPlan: Download package avail from t0kerZ hUt BBS (telnet://t0kerZ.ddns.net)
Planeteer Magazine Archive: Download package avail from t0kerZ hUt BBS (telnet://t0kerZ.ddns.net)
File list and description of all VGA Planets related files and utilities on t0kerZ hUt BBS: pastebin.com/d...
Check out my other VGA Planets videos:
• VGA Planets (DOS) on a...
• Planets Command Center...
Wondering about that "non-fatal error" when launching windows? (aka Microsoft and the infamous "AARD" code). It was originally discovered by Geoff Chappell and covered in some depth in Andrew Schulman's book "Undocumented DOS". Briefly, the AARD code (probably named for programmer Aaron Reynolds, one of the key architects behind Windows) checked for certain very esoteric (and totally undocumented) behaviors on the part of the underlying DOS.
If DOS didn't behave as expected, the AARD code would assume that it was running on a clone (read: "DR-DOS") and display the following message:
Non-Fatal error detected: error #2726
Please contact Windows 3.1 beta support
Press ENTER to exit or C to continue
Note that the default behavior ("press ENTER") was to terminate and bail out of Windows' boot-up.
The code actually only worked during the Windows 3.1 Beta; the code was left in for the 3.1 release, but the error display (and termination option) were patched out. The code can also be found in some of Microsoft's older C compiler products and a few other programs.
The AARD code itself, to quote Schulman, looked like "something out of a teenage virus writer's nightmare." It was XOR-encrypted and contained debug traps that revectored INTs 1 and 3 to discourage anyone from tracing through it. It was obvious that Microsoft flatly did NOT want anyone examining that code.

[@xhumeka]

13:00 - hahah, that's funny... the editor assumed players would only want to read the planeteer from the same computer (IBM) they game from - he didn't think that someone might want to read it from somewhere else like their school's library, which could have been unix, a c64, a MAC, etc. Also funny to think that "WinHelp" format (which you can't even open in Windows 10/11) is "the way forward" and not HTML :P Great stuff!

[@CybAtSteam]

That brings back memories :)
We used to play the crap out of VGA Planets (the DOS version, never actually seen the Windows version).
We had one guy who ran a BBS host the games and we all did a turn per day.
Log into the BBS in the evening, get the previous day results, make your moves and upload back to the BBS. So much fun ...

[@crUshed420]

that's awesome, thanks for posting! I also only played the DOS version back in the day, so this Windows version amuses me a lot. I finally got the sound working properly, so I'm going to upload another video of just WinPlan and some battles - there are different sounds for each race, it's actually quite cool. PS - there are still a few players on t0kerZ hUt BBS (see description) that play semi-actively if you ever want to join a game for old times sakes :)