Space Cadet 3D Pinball

View fullsize

This is a post about the power of nostalgia and how sometimes, interacting with something from your past, be it physically or mentally, can produce a very strong and tangible emotional reaction. In some instances, this can be the result of something that you have specifically set out to do. On other occasions you can wander into a sense of nostalgia purely by chance. Today I experienced a very strong sense of nostalgia while watching a YouTube video and then again when I sought to replicate what I had seen. The video showed someone installing Windows 95 on to an old 486 PC from that era. The Window’s start up sound really touched a nerve (but in a good way) and then when the guy in the video launched Space Cadet 3D Pinball, a game that shipped with the operating system, I felt a strong compulsion to track down a copy and install the game myself, thus revisiting something that was an integral part of my life in 1995.

To cut a long story short, it is entirely possible to get Space Cadet 3D Pinball running on a Windows 11 PC and contemporary hardware. Naturally you need the original game files taken from Windows 95. You can find copies online. Next there is an open-source Space Cadet 3D Pinball project maintained by k4zmu2a on GitHub. It is a reverse-engineered, Windows 11-compatible version of the original game and as ever with GitHub, you can inspect all elements of the code and build to ensure its safe and bona fide. Extract the original files to a location of your choice, add the files provided by k4zmu2a to the same folder and the run the new executable. Congratulations you can now play Space Cadet 3D Pinball, once again. Furthermore, you can play via keyboard, mouse or game controller, depending on your personal preference. You can also maximise the game to fullscreen, as well as keep a record of high scores.

I have fond memories regarding the launch of Windows 95 and this particular time in my life. I had recently taken up a system administration position within the government department where I worked and was interested by the potential of this new operating system and the arrival of the internet. I remember when I installed Windows 95 on my own home PC using 13 floppy disks and how I later added Microsoft Plus via a CD-ROM. It felt at that the time that computing was at a new and important crossroads and it was exciting to be part of this change. Having a game such as Space Cadet 3D Pinball bundled with the new operating system seemed so decadent by the standards of the time and I remember playing it a lot. So when I played it again this afternoon, for the first time in 30 years, I had a very emotive response. I was briefly transported back to 1995. Such is the power of nostalgia.