Introduction and Question about INNBarn Project

[Koopa]

Hello!

Like most folks here, I used to play Sierra games as a kid.
I learned so much about computers, troubleshooting, and even basic programming concepts to get those games running on my 386sx, and later 386dx (with turbo button!)

I wanted to ask if anyone here is familiar with the MiSTer project.

Github Source and Wiki:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

Youtube video overview: MiSTer is basically a collection of open source hardware and software built around the Terasic DE10 Nano Single Board Computer.
https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page ... sh&No=1046
(Intel is the parent company to Terasic)

Recently, great progress has been made on a FPGA 486 "core" for MiSTer.

Video demoing various DOS games: Development branch of the 486 core:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer/tree/dev

Current builds of the 486 core are fast enough to run most DOS games with audio, and even some Windows95 era games like Diablo 2.

My main ask/question follows...
I stumbled upon the INNBarn project yesterday and was thinking it would be fun to try to get it working on MiSTer.

It looks like the Proxy is available only as win32/64 binaries. I'm not sure if Wine works properly yet on the DE10 Nano. The ARM chip on the DE10 is quite limited compared to a Raspberry Pi 3 and other SBC, it might be difficult to run the proxy under Wine. (The main benefit to the DE10 is the large Cyclone FPGA chip, not the ARM cpu)

I'm writing to ask if there is a plan or possibility to open source the proxy application, perhaps even open sourcing the server side code. After reading this forum a bit, it seems that several attempts to resurrect the INN servers have come and gone and source was never made available for others to continue the effort. It would be unfortunate if eventually the only way people could learn about and enjoy INN was limited to YouTube videos, screenshots, and wiki pages. Playing games with other people was the true magic of TSN/INN.

If there is a concern that by open sourcing this work it would be giving away the developers time and energy, perhaps a Patreon account could be created and people like me could financially back the project to help keep the fun going. There is a fairly large retro hardware & gaming community on Patreon. We are very proactive in backing people working on preservation and documentation of these old great games and hardware.

Thanks for reading all this, sorry for the "wall of text”.

Hope everyone is safe, healthy, and having a great Friday!
-Koopa

[Collector]

I only wrote the installer. The best thing would be to ask James Leiterman, the author of the INN Barn project itself, in the ImagiNation Network Revival Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/69704136680/

[Koopa]

Thanks Collector!

Has source ever been made available publicly for any of the previous attempts?
I saw in your post about INNBarn that the DOS INN client source code is out there.
There are other retro games where the copyright owner of the source has allowed it to be made public and useable for non-commercial & preservation projects.

I wonder what company is now the copyright owner of the client source.

[Collector]

The last I believe was ATT.