I wonder what the 640x200 graphics would look like with the color on?

Some games, particular ones that weren't designed with composite support, do some pretty funny stuff. One example is Double Dragon which alternates between the CRW and RGY palettes. If you played it on a composite display, half the levels would be black and white and the other half would be in color. DD also does the flashing effect from the arcade game on the title screen, but writes to 3D9h instead of using the BIOS, hence it's absent on EGA/VGA.

Also I'm not exactly sure how you play booter games like Wizardry or King's Quest on DOSBox that expect you to format a save floppy. If you're running C64 stuff on VICE, you can make a new blank disk image, but DOSbox has no such option.

Music Construction Set interestingly writes normal DOS save files although it's a booter program (but doesn't put a Date/Time stamp on them). Demonlord claimed it can only save to actual 360k floppies, but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work on 1.44MB disks.

King's Quest (I) does not require a separate save disk. King's Quest II and Black Cauldron booters do. You are supposed type the command FORMAT DISK when playing the game to format a save game disk, then save and restore off that disk. DOSBox will not let these programs format a standard blank floppy disk image. Maybe I can use my real hardware to format a disk, then make an image of it. Demonlord helpfully provided pre-formatted scenario disks for Wizardry 1-5.

The solution to the save game disk issue is here : Saving a game to a floppy image

For the Wizardry palette selection to work, the cycles must be very low so the CTRL and ALT keys will be processed, as the game loads extremely quickly on DOSBox.

King's Quest (I) does not require a separate save disk.

More correctly, Demonlord's cracked images don't as the unmodified game makes a duplicate of itself that you play off of and save to. This applies to the IBM version only since apparently the Tandy KQ does let you save on the original disk.

King's Quest II and Black Cauldron booters do. You are supposed type the command FORMAT DISK when playing the game to format a save game disk, then save and restore off that disk.

In the linked thread, Slaye2 says that "The game might do special things to the save floppy and can't use a normal blank disk."

That's probably true of most all booters; I know that Microprose games explicitly tell you in the manual that you must format a disk with the in-game format command and you can't use a normal blank floppy.

I'm also curious as to how you save on Serenia and Ulysses and the Golden Fleece. I've never seen the manual for the Apple or PC versions, but the Atari WATP instructions say that you can use any blank disk (an INIT DISK command is still provided in case you don't have one on hand). The C64 version definitely doesn't need any special formatted floppy; in fact it actually saves games as ordinary PRG files.

kao wrote:

I wonder what the 640x200 graphics would look like with the color on?

Pretty funky, psychedelic fringes galore. I like Morpheus the Bear though... he's even holding each pill in the correct hand (/paw).
"You take the red pill, you stay in the world of Wizardry and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."

kao wrote:

More correctly, Demonlord's cracked images don't as the unmodified game makes a duplicate of itself that you play off of and sav […]
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King's Quest (I) does not require a separate save disk.

More correctly, Demonlord's cracked images don't as the unmodified game makes a duplicate of itself that you play off of and save to. This applies to the IBM version only since apparently the Tandy KQ does let you save on the original disk.

King's Quest II and Black Cauldron booters do. You are supposed type the command FORMAT DISK when playing the game to format a save game disk, then save and restore off that disk.

In the linked thread, Slaye2 says that "The game might do special things to the save floppy and can't use a normal blank disk."

That's probably true of most all booters; I know that Microprose games explicitly tell you in the manual that you must format a disk with the in-game format command and you can't use a normal blank floppy.

I'm also curious as to how you save on Serenia and Ulysses and the Golden Fleece. I've never seen the manual for the Apple or PC versions, but the Atari WATP instructions say that you can use any blank disk (an INIT DISK command is still provided in case you don't have one on hand). The C64 version definitely doesn't need any special formatted floppy; in fact it actually saves games as ordinary PRG files.

For the KQ1 PCjr. and Tandy versions, according to the manual/reference card you use the command COPY DISK, which as you say is a play disk. Demonlord probably cracked a play disk, as the master disk may not have a write enable notch. The disks for KQ1 PCjr., KQ2 and Serenia do not.

For Adventures in Serenia, you type in the command FORMAT DISK, then SAVE GAME and RESTORE GAME.

For the KQ1 PCjr. and Tandy versions, according to the manual/reference card you use the command COPY DISK, which as you say is a play disk. Demonlord probably cracked a play disk, as the master disk may not have a write enable notch. The disks for KQ1 PCjr, KQ2 and Serenia do not.

http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php?action= … ge;topic=1448.0

This old discussion says that the KQ1 COPY DISK command makes a duplicate disk that will even boot until you save on it. You're apparently supposed to boot up with your original disk and then switch to the play one at the title screen. The PCjr and IBM versions both appear to work this way, but the Tandy version does have a write protect notch and lets you save on the original disk. Demonlord's crack was presumably done so you didn't need a separate play disk.

For Adventure in Serenia, you type in the command FORMAT DISK, then SAVE GAME and RESTORE GAME.

Of course that still doesn't answer my question as to whether the Apple and PC versions need a specially formatted disk or can use any one like the Atari and Commodore. Anyway, here's the manual for Atari WATP that I mentioned.

http://www.sierragamers.com/uploads/24082/the … cess_manual.pdf

This appears to work like the LucasArts games on the C64, which can save to any blank disk but write raw data rather than files. Would still be nice to see the Apple and PC manuals.

In the PC version of Adventure in Serenia, you have to use the in-game FORMAT DISK command, page 10 of the manual. See here (great site) http://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=serenia

Apple II versions of these games require any initialized disk, BUT I would strongly advise using the INIT DISK command when available, because the High-Res Adventure series do not like the 16-sector disks of DOS 3.3.

In the PC version of Adventure in Serenia, you have to use the in-game FORMAT DISK command, page 10 of the manual. See here (great site) http://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=serenia

Ok cool. Now someone just needs to find that elusive KQ1 booter manual.

EDIT: Never mind. I just noticed it was on that site.

Anyway, since Ulysses uses the same game engine as Serenia, we can assume everything in there works identically. Not sure why they made it that the PC version can't use any old disk, but I guess it was totally rewritten from scratch while the Apple, Atari, and C64 versions use the same code base (since they're all 6502 machines)

Apple II versions of these games require any initialized disk, BUT I would strongly advise using the INIT DISK command when available, because the High-Res Adventure series do not like the 16-sector disks of DOS 3.3.

WATP came out before DOS 3.3, if I'm not mistaken, so at that time (1980) they still were using the 13 sector DOS 3.2 format.

The linked site includes the manual from the original release of WATP (the manual and disk in a Zip-Lock baggie) and there's no mention of an INIT DISK command in there. I would guess it was added in a later revision of the game after Apple introduced 16 sector disks (the game as it was originally programmed being compatible with only 13 sector disks)

Pretty funky, psychedelic fringes galore. I like Morpheus the Bear though... he's even holding each pill in the correct hand

Wizardry is pretty murderous stuff to play even in modern times when you have the Internet to look up maps and spells (which you didn't have in the 80s). Just getting the game running takes forever since you have to format a scenario disk and set up all your characters before you can even start (along with tons of incredibly slow disk access). And then you can't even play W2 and W3 without beating the first game.

Too bad Sir-Tech was always behind the times technologically and the PC versions were still CGA-only booters in 1988. Kinda nice though that the Commodore versions support the C128 so you have less and faster disk access.

kao wrote:

In the PC version of Adventure in Serenia, you have to use the in-game FORMAT DISK command, page 10 of the manual. See here (great site) http://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=serenia

Ok cool. Now someone just needs to find that elusive KQ1 booter manual.

EDIT: Never mind. I just noticed it was on that site.

The site has the reference card for the Tandy 1000 version, but not the IBM PC version.

kao wrote:

Wizardry is pretty murderous stuff to play even in modern times when you have the Internet to look up maps and spells (which you didn't have in the 80s). Just getting the game running takes forever since you have to format a scenario disk and set up all your characters before you can even start (along with tons of incredibly slow disk access). And then you can't even play W2 and W3 without beating the first game.

Too bad Sir-Tech was always behind the times technologically and the PC versions were still CGA-only booters in 1988. Kinda nice though that the Commodore versions support the C128 so you have less and faster disk access.

If you want to talk about being cruel, try Ultima II or III. In those games, the instant your character dies, the game will write that to your save disk. So you need one disk as your "master save" and many "slave save" disks.

If you want to talk about being cruel, try Ultima II or III. In those games, the instant your character dies, the game will write that to your save disk. So you need one disk as your "master save" and many "slave save" disks.

In Wizardry, you have to be continually deleting and recreating characters that get killed because you don't always have the money or spells to revive them, but then they start over with no experience and you have to re-equip their stuff.

The Commodore versions can use the 17xx REU expanders to load almost the entire game into RAM at once and on C128s, they support the 1571's burst mode as well and store some overlays in the VDC memory. W2-5 even detect if there's 16k or 64k of VDC memory. So theoretically, the ultimate way to play Wizardry is on a C128 with a 1571 and REU.

I didn't understand what the startup message "NOW LOADING INTO MEMORY - THIS WILL IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF THE GAME" meant until I realized that it was referring to loading into an REU if present.

Since we were discussing in another thread that Sierra didn't put AGI games on the C64 because of memory constraints, it's worth noting that it was certainly possible to fit them on the C128 or even a C64 with an REU. But I think it wasn't so much that as the limitations of the VIC-II that prevented them from porting the games.