First post, by MrFlibble
- Rank
- Oldbie
Crack dot Com released several shareware versions of Abuse before it was published by ORIGIN/EA. The most widely known ones appear to be DOS v0.33 beta, v1.05 and v2.00 (ORIGIN/EA version), all of which are available here among other places. However, it seems that other versions exist, although their availability is somewhat unclear.
Google Groups have preserved a message posted by Jonathan Clark on Aug 28, 1995 in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games announcing the release of Abuse beta 0.31 (identified as 0.32 in the file names) for Linux and SGI IRIX:
wrote:A beta of Crack dot Com's Abuse is now available for […]
A beta of Crack dot Com's Abuse is now available for
Linux console
Linux X11 (release 6)sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/Incoming/linux-abuse.0.3.2.tar.gz
ftp.cdrom.com:/pub/games/incoming/linux-abuse.0.3.2.tar.gzand
IRIX 5.3+
ftp.cdrom.com:/pub/games/incoming/sgi-abuse.0.3.2.tar.gz
please report bugs to abuse...@crack.com
Dos beta should be out August 31 if things go according to plan, it
will be placed at the same location. [source]
DOS beta 0.33 was indeed published on Aug 31, 1995. The archive contains a changelog with changes from v0.32, however it is unclear whether this suggests an earlier DOS release or the log reflected changes to the programme on all platforms. Later DOS releases (v1.05 and v2.00) do not include changelogs, but Linux and IRIX releases do. These logs contain entries for versions 0.34, 0.35, 0.36, 1.0, 1.05, 1.06 and 1.10. Out of these, changes affecting the DOS version are specifically mentioned for versions 0.34, 0.36 and 1.06. However, there is no indication whether those releases were actually public and not internal builds.
Mike Perry's FAQ v1.1.0 (abuse.txt) suggests that at least v0.34 was available to the users:
wrote:In revisions 0.34 and greater the foreground and background palettes default
to one tile wide so you will not experience this situation.
wrote:This bug has been fixed and the level backup feature now works correctly
in revisions 0.34 and greater.
On top of that, the tech support page at the ORIGIN website (Wayback Machine copy) mentions the following versions:
Abuse CD (v2.00)
Abuse Demo (v1.31, & v2.00)
Abuse Shareware (v1.00)
Additionally, the file ENGLISH.LSP found in shareware demo v2.00 makes mention of the following versions:
;; Latest version of this file is "V-E" (version E=1.47)
<...>
/********** New for Version E (1.51) **************/
<...>
/********** New for Version D (1.46) **************/
<...>
/*********** New for Version 1.45 ***********************/
Also versions V-C and V-A are mentioned in the comments, although without version numbers.
To sum up, the following shareware versions of the game are currently known (no link means file name known but no download available):
- v0.32 (28.08.1995):
- Linux: linux-abuse.0.3.2.tar.gz
- SGI IRIX: sgi-abuse.0.3.2.tar.gz
- v0.33 (31.08.1995):
- DOS: abuse33.zip; abuse-1.zip, abuse-2.zip
- v1.01:
- DOS: abuse101.zip; abus101a.zip, abus101b.zip, abus101c.zip
- v1.05 (20.09.1995):
- DOS: abuse105.zip; abus105a.zip, abus105b.zip, abus105c.zip
- Linux: linux-abuse.1.0.5.tar.gz
- SGI IRIX: sgi-abuse.1.0.5.tar.gz
- v1.10 (23.10.1995):
- Linux: linux-abuse.1.1.0.tar.gz
- SGI IRIX: sgi-abuse.1.1.0.tar.gz
- v2.00 (20.02.1996):
I wonder if any other versions are available anywhere?