Electrek

s2325 · 03 May 2007, 17:50

I have only preview version:

Wilfy · 28 June 2007, 05:14

My name is Wilf, I'm one of the guys who put Electrek together, it was done with friends in York in my friend Chris Nodder's room where we all used to hang out, we called it Heworth Castle and our 'studio' was the HCCS, the Heworth Castle Creative Studios (or Cracking Squad dependent upon if we were creating new stuff or cracking other's).

Anyway, I put the name into Google on a whim today and saw these screen shots!

As far as I can recall now, I did all the graphics and animations, including the font, Chris did all the coding and music and many of the early level designs, Doobs playtested and did lots of the harder levels, between us we came up with the ideas for gameplay and gimmicks as we went along, and the other names on the high score are just the rest of our good friends who hung around the place at the time, and may have done playtesting, ideas, commenting and drinking tea!

I don't think we ever did the final tweaking to get it to play with a nice proper difficulty arc and I believe we only ever sold one copy of the full game, but we did get a very favourable write up in some Amiga magazine as I recall!

I'm pretty sure I can find the whole game on 3.5 inch disc, I think I have it archived in my cellar along with the original Amiga it was written on, although I don't know if either would still work after years in a damp cellar, and if so I would have to contact the others to see if it's OK by them, but I have been giving some thought to putting the whole lot on eBay for the space and cash, hence why it occurred to me to google it.

Anyway, I just thought I would sign up so I could say hi and thanks for the trip down nostalgia lane from the screen shots, I'll contact the others to see what they have left of our past programming endeavours (there was plenty more, C64, Spectrum, ZX81 and Dragon, amongst others, upon which we programmed games and music in our time!), and feel free to ask any questions.

Cheers!

Shoonay · 28 June 2007, 08:26

Hello and welcome!

Please enjoy a nostalgic journey back, here, on EAB.

Wilfy · 28 June 2007, 09:28

And those screen shots make great phone wallpaper! I just sent one to Chris Nodder the programmer to jog his memory!

Cheers s2325!

Graham Humphrey · 28 June 2007, 09:40

Welcome to EAB!

It would be cool if you could find this, it would be another "lost" title discovered

Wilfy · 28 June 2007, 12:27

I don't really have the time right now to get into this too deeply I'm afraid, guys, I'm not really free during the week and this weekend I'm visiting friends, but ASAP I'll get a bit more serious about this and pull out that archived Amiga, try and find a monitor and leads for it, and assuming it still works see what I can find on the disks, promise!

Could be fun!

I've already informed the others involved too so if you're lucky one or more of them might get involved too with their archived material, if they have any, and surely at least one of us must have the completed Electrek game, and with extra extra luck, maybe a few other gems!

I do recall we did quite a few games, either original pieces or modernisations of older formats such as Archaos and Attack Of The Mutant Camels and such, if I have got that title right, though I'm not sure of the legality in the modern age of the permitted distribution of such things as they weren't our own concepts, but we cut our teeth as games programmers on the Amiga by doing 'remixes' of favourite old hits (C64 games mainly), but as I say, I have no clue how much, if any, of this stuff, I or my friends still possess nor how feasible it is to retrieve any of it, but I've sent out a few emails and texts now I know there's an audience for it and I'll let you know if anyone gets back to me, and at the very least I'll definitely dig out what I've got in my cellar, catalogue it, and let you know.

Once I've done all that, I'll get the FAQs read up and see what I can figure out I can do with any of it.

Cheers, and I'll keep looking in and keep you informed of any progress!

Shoonay · 28 June 2007, 12:37

Don't worry about it, really - we are used to waiting

Wilfy · 29 June 2007, 12:10

Hi chaps, quick update for you in my break, Chris has contacted me today, he seems pretty chuffed folks are talking about his game, and is getting an Amiga Emulator up and working on his Mac, we'll see if he still has a copy of the full working version, he's also looking thru what you guys' already have archived and presumabley working out how all that business works, so I'm basically handing over the baton to him for now and we'll see what he comes up with.

Hopefully he'll get himself on here and let you know personally, but if not I'll let you know whatever he's found as soon as he passes that info onto me...

Cheers!

Graham Humphrey · 29 June 2007, 16:24

Cheers for the update Wilfy. Hopefully we'll get some positive news.

StrategyGamer · 29 June 2007, 18:31

Please upload Elektrek to Aminet so we can all play it! Please please please.

Aminet is FREE and will host your game FOREVER. Please don't let your works of art be lost!

An Amiga game is a work of art. We want to preserve them all.

DamienD · 29 June 2007, 21:01

Hello Wilfy,

Welcome to EAB

Been reading through the thread. Thank you for taking the time to join up and post

Look forward to more good news and your friend Chris also becoming a part of EAB

It's still early days and no pressure on timescale what-so-ever... Aminet is a good suggestion, may I also suggest a website created by our very own CodyJarrett: Amiga Games That Weren't

It's a great resource for all those lost / found gems

In fact I've also moved this thread to the project.aGTW section

Wilfy · 02 July 2007, 15:38

Hi guys, quick update again, back from my weekend break, thanks for the info DamienD, and I've managed to locate my Amiga and rescue it from it's exile in the cellar, some peripherals and some disks too (not yet sure if they're Amiga disks). It all looks in pretty poor condition I'm afraid but I have not yet tried hooking it up and hopefully the grime is just superficial and nothing a good vacuuming and a clean damp cloth won't rectify. I'm afraid it wasn't well stored and I simply forgot it was there till recently, but a happy discovery is that it was stored with a monitor that I think is it's original, so I think I have all the bits I need.

I may not have time to do this properly till next weekend as if it works it'll take quite a while to go thru every disk and catalogue what's on there I should imagine, not to mention just try and remember how the heck an Amiga actually works (some online googling required to jog my memory I should imagine!), and of course I can always fall back on an emulator, although that presents other technical difficulties, but it should be a fun project for this next weekend as I have nothing else planned.

No news from Chris or anyone else yet which presumabley in this instance means there is literally no news, life does tend to get in the way of such things, anyway it's all up in the air at the moment, I'll let you know when the first plate crashes!

Wilfy · 03 July 2007, 09:27

**STOP PRESS** Chris says he knows Doobs has a copy of Electrek on a hard drive he uses with an emulator, but has not yet had a chance to try and track it down, but if/when he does he most definitely wants to share it with you guys for free so as soon as one or other of us finds it, that's the plan!

ppill · 03 July 2007, 09:35

Thanks for the effort! Looks like a good game.

Wilfy · 04 July 2007, 13:21

Shalroth sent me this today, it's the original review of Electrek I mentioned above: http://amr.abime.net/review_19775, hard to find 'cos they spelt the name wrong!

And also spelt wrong, look up this other forum: http://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1106 for an update on the FOUND game, Chris and Doobs apparently have it all in hand, but I'll fire mine up on the weekend anyway just to see what I have!

DamienD · 04 July 2007, 13:51

Very cool news Wilfy, thanks for all your time / effort plus keeping us updated so frequently

Are Chris and Doobs also going to join EAB?

Wilfy · 04 July 2007, 14:48

Cheers DamienD, and as far as the others joining in, I can't say feller, sorry, they always were oddly shy about such things, especially Chris, he's one of those guys who's ridiculously talented in music/programming/electronics and stuff but rarely ever completes anything 'cos it's never finished enough to allow it to be judged!

It's very like him to want to tweak it one more time before he re-releases it rather than just let it go in it's original slightly flawed state, but it really did need the difficulty arc tweaking, so I can respect that.

I remember it was too quick & easy to recharge yourself when you were low on energy bars, and therefore too hard to die on the early levels for the first few stages, but then suddenly became impossible to survive when we got to Doobury's later harder levels where-upon most folks just put the joystick down, so hopefully they've also found the level editor and are gonna do some new 'inbetween' stages to smooth that out a tad, but I guess we'll just have to see!

I'm hoping at the very least Chris will tell you in person when he's got it sorted to his satisfaction though, and I hope it won't take too long.

I'm in two minds about it myself, I think maybe they should just release it as is and THEN take their time and do a tweaked '2007 remix' of it that's more playable, but it's really a hard one to call as the original whole Electrek (or Elektrek) game does seem to be completely unknown and was definitely flawed, but it's really up to Chris, it's his baby.

I dunno, whaddya reckon, guys?

DamienD · 04 July 2007, 15:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wilfy

I'm in two minds about it myself, I think maybe they should just release it as is and THEN take their time and do a tweaked '2007 remix' of it that's more playable, but it's really a hard one to call as the original whole Electrek (or Elektrek) game does seem to be completely unknown and was definitely flawed, but it's really up to Chris, it's his baby.

Personally I think that's a great idea

...but whatever you guys decide to do is cool of course.

bippym · 04 July 2007, 17:36

Sounds promising

Can't wait to play another lost gem

Wilfy · 04 July 2007, 21:25

Reet, having had some conflicting reports, I decided to ring Chris tonight and get clarification 'from the horses mouth' to what's what, so:

YES the game is found, NO the level designer is not, but it may yet, and I was rather surprised to find that I'm mistaken and the Amiga I have is NOT the original it was written upon, that one is with Doobs, mine was the later upgrade Chris got I think, so Doobs has the better chance of finding the level designer on his Amiga's internal drive, however Chris says he has pretty much forgotten how to program the Amiga and isn't at all sure he can be bothered to go into any great time & effort to re-acquaint himself and re-program the game just for the hell of it, I can't say as I blame him the man does have a life, but it looks far more likely we'll just be getting the original game as is, at least for now, tho he did sound interested in the concept of a 'remix' and didn't discount it completely should we find the level designer.

I believe they're planning on getting PC drivers into the Amiga so that it can recognise PC disks, which seems a good way of going about getting it out of there.

At my end, we've just got an Amiga emulator going (me and Shalroth) and I'm curious now as to whether or not we can do anything with it at my end, so I'm sorely tempted to try waking up my long sleeping Amiga right now, asides from any other reason I'm told we can get it working on the widescreen TV if we can just find the right cable, and that just has to be tried!!

I'll let you know...

DamienD · 04 July 2007, 21:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wilfy

I believe they're planning on getting PC drivers into the Amiga so that it can recognise PC disks, which seems a good way of going about getting it out of there.

The EAB wiki might help you with questions you may have in regards to software / transferring the original files from an Amiga into a format supported by WinUAE: How do I transfer my old games to the PC? How do I transfer my ADFs to my Amiga?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wilfy

At my end, we've just got an Amiga emulator going (me and Shalroth) and I'm curious now as to whether or not we can do anything with it at my end, so I'm sorely tempted to try waking up my long sleeping Amiga right now, asides from any other reason I'm told we can get it working on the widescreen TV if we can just find the right cable, and that just has to be tried!!

Unfortunately I'm no expert as I don't have a "real" Amiga anymore

...but you could create a thread in the prb.Hardware section and I'm positive somebody on EAB will be able to assist you

Wilfy · 04 July 2007, 23:24

It's OK DamienD, thanks once more for your assistance, you are a star, my old Amiga coughed and spluttered at first, the buttons on the mouse are broken but Shal figured out we can use the 'Right Amiga' and 'Alt' keys as surrogates and after a few gurus we got it running, in widescreen no less!

I didn't have to hunt for the game as it was backed up on the internal drive, we had a few moments of confusion as it doesn't work from that drive and we had to make a disc of it, and then we had to figure out the process to get it jump started 'cos it doesn't auto-run, but once we got to that stage it came up no problem!

At first we weren't sure if it was the demo or full game but a quick consultation with Chris got me a well remembered code to later levels (coalfire) proving it HAD later levels, and also a quick peek at the files, so currently we have the full original game up and running on my widescreen TV on an Amiga 1200 and I'm playing with it right now!

Call me sad, but I actually videoed the moment! One for Youtube I think.

Right, it's getting late and I think we've done enough for tonight, tomorrow we'll have a think at getting it into a PC friendly format, some reading required I think, your links may well come in handy there DamienD I'll show that to Shalroth, he's the tech expert here not me, but it's mid-week and I'm afraid there's stuff to be done tomorrow morning, so I think we should stop there, or we'll not sleep for thinking 'Aha!!'.

Will keep you posted, and I have approximately 80 discs to go thru here...

bippym · 04 July 2007, 23:31

wilfy all you need to do is compress the files on the disk with lha and save to a 720kb formatted disk.

Then simply load into your pc and upload here, one of the regulars here will write it all back to adf and post the finished image

Great work

Wilfy · 05 July 2007, 00:48

Ok, I'm just about to hit the sheets, but I shall consult the Shalroth...

Erm, apparently we don't have lha, the PC won't read an Amiga disk, and we can't get a form of PC driver onto the Amiga because it won't read PC disks 'cos it doesn't have a PC driver, catch 22, so we can't get anything from the PC into the Amiga or vice versa right now.

But apparently there's some workbench 3 disks for sale on eBay that will help, plus for all we know one of these disks here has just what we need, and we desperately require a new mouse with buttons that work 'cos the keyboard for mouse buttons trick doesn't work outside of workbench.

Plus I'm afraid once Shal gets his teeth into a techy issue he's like a Rottweiler with a new chew toy, he WILL NOT let this get away from him, he WILL solve this himself alone, or else, which is why he's the perfect chap to set onto this.

On the plus side, so far we've found Lemmings, Donkey Kong, and a hardware digitiser called a vidi12.

Goodnight folks, sorry, looks like it'll take at least a few more days I'm guessing, unless it suddenly all makes sense in the night!

kriz · 05 July 2007, 09:47

Cant you use the 2disk trick with some software ? Please help him
here, im on my way to work and dont have any links now...

Welcome to Eab btw. Looking forward to try this game, cool stuff!!

This - http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi/ -> Not on 2000/xp though.

Graham Humphrey · 05 July 2007, 10:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wilfy

But apparently there's some workbench 3 disks for sale on eBay that will help, plus for all we know one of these disks here has just what we need, and we desperately require a new mouse with buttons that work 'cos the keyboard for mouse buttons trick doesn't work outside of workbench.

Yep, WB3 has CrossDOS in it so you can read and format PC disks (720K only though).

Also lha is very easy to get hold of - it's on Aminet for a start but, depending on if you have any old magazine coverdisks lying around, there's a good chance you already have a version of it.

bippym · 05 July 2007, 11:41

You could always chuck the stuff on 3.5" floppy and post them to me.. I'll image them, post them back and email you the images

05 July 2007, 15:11

Reet.

What we have is a fairly stock A1200 with a 4MB/RTC board and 2GB IDE disc.

I think it's running WB 2.05 or 2.1 but I can't really tell ATM (Anything to look for? I thin kit says it's version 38.nnn - will write this down later)

I have put PC0 in my /devs/dosdrivers but it just plain refuces to put a PC0:??? icon on my WB. I think maybe the version of this dev doesn't work with the version of WB that we have. It came from my WB3.0 Storage disk so maybe this is the cause?

What I could really do with is a new set of WB discs. I have disc images of all of the WB3.0 disks but no way of writing them back to AmigaDOS floppies.

I don't have a null modem cable, and my other machines are either macs or ataris (or legacy-free) anyway.

Also, I think I may be able to do something if I could switch my boot volume, but my mouse's right button is fried. I've been using Right-Amiga+Alt but it won't let me get to the early startup menu.

I've tried a CF - PCMCIA and a SD - PCMCIA adaptor with no success. The machine either just laughs at me or GURUs with them.

I could try removing the hard disc and linking it to WinUAE but I'd prefer not to have to take the machine apart just to get a driver installed!

Anybody, any thoughts?

ppill · 05 July 2007, 15:18

If you've got a PC capable of running WinUAE then the simplest solution would be to plug the Amiga disk to that and copy the stuff over. Do a search... there's a couple of threads on how to do it. Good luck!

05 July 2007, 16:22

I pretty much figured I'd have to do that. It's quite amusing turning a Media centre into an A1200...

bippym · 05 July 2007, 16:41

Just connect your amiga HD to your PC and use winuae to read the hd.. do some research on here first because you don't wanna put an MBR on the disk etc!

06 July 2007, 22:03

Hi people...Chris from the H.C.C.S here (Electrek development team!).
Sorry I've taken so long to post. It always takes me a while to get on with these things.
Sooo pleased Elec still lives on. Thank heavens for boards like this one.
Got the game converted now and just sorting through a few files inside the .adf. It'll get uploaded shortly (full version, I promise). Probably stick it on Aminet but I'll let you know where it's at.
Thanks again. Speak soon.

bippym · 06 July 2007, 22:08

Fab and welcome aboard mate

killergorilla · 06 July 2007, 22:22

Wow, that's certainly good news.

Nice one people!

Wilfy · 07 July 2007, 00:07

Aha!! The Stoff beats us! Shal's gonna sulk, he's still waiting for the discs he needs, LOL!

Ah well, well done Chris, and I do hope you all enjoy it, people! I've been playing it and it plays way better than I remember!

Now the only remaining factor is do folks try and correct the spelling or just accept that since the Magazine mistake everyone calls it Elektrek!?

07 July 2007, 13:52

This is great news! I was never much good at Electrek during the play-testing and I'm keen to have another bash. This time I'll kick its ar$e

Looking forward to seeing the disk image, nice work chaps

bippym · 07 July 2007, 13:53

Bloody hell.. we're being invaded by the electek team

Welcome aboard mate, it's a pleasure you all being here ..

07 July 2007, 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by bippym

Bloody hell.. we're being invaded by the electek team

Welcome aboard mate, it's a pleasure you all being here ..

Cheers

Right I'm off to read the FAQs before I post here about the problems I'm having with UAE

Wilfy · 07 July 2007, 21:31

Ah Fritx!! My word! Cup of tea anyone!?

Wilfy · 08 July 2007, 00:44

You've read the board, now watch the movie!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FxXa1bGSNGM

03 May 2007, 17:50	#1
s2325 Zone Friend Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Gargore Age: 32 Posts: 11,268	Electrek I have only preview version: Last edited by s2325; 21 November 2008 at 19:05.

28 June 2007, 05:14	#2
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	Hi My name is Wilf, I'm one of the guys who put Electrek together, it was done with friends in York in my friend Chris Nodder's room where we all used to hang out, we called it Heworth Castle and our 'studio' was the HCCS, the Heworth Castle Creative Studios (or Cracking Squad dependent upon if we were creating new stuff or cracking other's). Anyway, I put the name into Google on a whim today and saw these screen shots! As far as I can recall now, I did all the graphics and animations, including the font, Chris did all the coding and music and many of the early level designs, Doobs playtested and did lots of the harder levels, between us we came up with the ideas for gameplay and gimmicks as we went along, and the other names on the high score are just the rest of our good friends who hung around the place at the time, and may have done playtesting, ideas, commenting and drinking tea! I don't think we ever did the final tweaking to get it to play with a nice proper difficulty arc and I believe we only ever sold one copy of the full game, but we did get a very favourable write up in some Amiga magazine as I recall! I'm pretty sure I can find the whole game on 3.5 inch disc, I think I have it archived in my cellar along with the original Amiga it was written on, although I don't know if either would still work after years in a damp cellar, and if so I would have to contact the others to see if it's OK by them, but I have been giving some thought to putting the whole lot on eBay for the space and cash, hence why it occurred to me to google it. Anyway, I just thought I would sign up so I could say hi and thanks for the trip down nostalgia lane from the screen shots, I'll contact the others to see what they have left of our past programming endeavours (there was plenty more, C64, Spectrum, ZX81 and Dragon, amongst others, upon which we programmed games and music in our time!), and feel free to ask any questions. Cheers!

28 June 2007, 08:26	#3
Shoonay Global Caturator Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Porando Posts: 5,844	Hello and welcome! Please enjoy a nostalgic journey back, here, on EAB. __________________ "I used to be an Amiga user, then I took an arrow in the knee."

28 June 2007, 09:40	#5
Graham Humphrey Moderator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Age: 26 Posts: 9,675	Welcome to EAB! It would be cool if you could find this, it would be another "lost" title discovered __________________ The EAB/Lemon Amiga Super League \| Round 6 - Arcade Pool \| Round 7 voting Lemon Amiga is now on YouTube and Facebook!

28 June 2007, 12:37	#7
Shoonay Global Caturator Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Porando Posts: 5,844	Don't worry about it, really - we are used to waiting __________________ "I used to be an Amiga user, then I took an arrow in the knee."

28 June 2007, 09:28	#4
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	And those screen shots make great phone wallpaper! I just sent one to Chris Nodder the programmer to jog his memory! Cheers s2325!

28 June 2007, 12:27	#6
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	I don't really have the time right now to get into this too deeply I'm afraid, guys, I'm not really free during the week and this weekend I'm visiting friends, but ASAP I'll get a bit more serious about this and pull out that archived Amiga, try and find a monitor and leads for it, and assuming it still works see what I can find on the disks, promise! Could be fun! I've already informed the others involved too so if you're lucky one or more of them might get involved too with their archived material, if they have any, and surely at least one of us must have the completed Electrek game, and with extra extra luck, maybe a few other gems! I do recall we did quite a few games, either original pieces or modernisations of older formats such as Archaos and Attack Of The Mutant Camels and such, if I have got that title right, though I'm not sure of the legality in the modern age of the permitted distribution of such things as they weren't our own concepts, but we cut our teeth as games programmers on the Amiga by doing 'remixes' of favourite old hits (C64 games mainly), but as I say, I have no clue how much, if any, of this stuff, I or my friends still possess nor how feasible it is to retrieve any of it, but I've sent out a few emails and texts now I know there's an audience for it and I'll let you know if anyone gets back to me, and at the very least I'll definitely dig out what I've got in my cellar, catalogue it, and let you know. Once I've done all that, I'll get the FAQs read up and see what I can figure out I can do with any of it. Cheers, and I'll keep looking in and keep you informed of any progress!

29 June 2007, 12:10	#8
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	Update Hi chaps, quick update for you in my break, Chris has contacted me today, he seems pretty chuffed folks are talking about his game, and is getting an Amiga Emulator up and working on his Mac, we'll see if he still has a copy of the full working version, he's also looking thru what you guys' already have archived and presumabley working out how all that business works, so I'm basically handing over the baton to him for now and we'll see what he comes up with. Hopefully he'll get himself on here and let you know personally, but if not I'll let you know whatever he's found as soon as he passes that info onto me... Cheers!

29 June 2007, 16:24	#9
Graham Humphrey Moderator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Age: 26 Posts: 9,675	Cheers for the update Wilfy. Hopefully we'll get some positive news. __________________ The EAB/Lemon Amiga Super League \| Round 6 - Arcade Pool \| Round 7 voting Lemon Amiga is now on YouTube and Facebook!

29 June 2007, 18:31	#10
StrategyGamer Total Chaos AGA is fun! Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: USA Posts: 873	Please upload Elektrek to Aminet so we can all play it! Please please please. Aminet is FREE and will host your game FOREVER. Please don't let your works of art be lost! An Amiga game is a work of art. We want to preserve them all.

29 June 2007, 21:01	#11
DamienD Registered User Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Sydney / London Age: 36 Posts: 5,059	Hello Wilfy, Welcome to EAB Been reading through the thread. Thank you for taking the time to join up and post Look forward to more good news and your friend Chris also becoming a part of EAB It's still early days and no pressure on timescale what-so-ever... Aminet is a good suggestion, may I also suggest a website created by our very own CodyJarrett: Amiga Games That Weren't It's a great resource for all those lost / found gems In fact I've also moved this thread to the project.aGTW section

02 July 2007, 15:38	#12
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	Hi guys, quick update again, back from my weekend break, thanks for the info DamienD, and I've managed to locate my Amiga and rescue it from it's exile in the cellar, some peripherals and some disks too (not yet sure if they're Amiga disks). It all looks in pretty poor condition I'm afraid but I have not yet tried hooking it up and hopefully the grime is just superficial and nothing a good vacuuming and a clean damp cloth won't rectify. I'm afraid it wasn't well stored and I simply forgot it was there till recently, but a happy discovery is that it was stored with a monitor that I think is it's original, so I think I have all the bits I need. I may not have time to do this properly till next weekend as if it works it'll take quite a while to go thru every disk and catalogue what's on there I should imagine, not to mention just try and remember how the heck an Amiga actually works (some online googling required to jog my memory I should imagine!), and of course I can always fall back on an emulator, although that presents other technical difficulties, but it should be a fun project for this next weekend as I have nothing else planned. No news from Chris or anyone else yet which presumabley in this instance means there is literally no news, life does tend to get in the way of such things, anyway it's all up in the air at the moment, I'll let you know when the first plate crashes!

03 July 2007, 09:27	#13
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	STOP PRESS Chris says he knows Doobs has a copy of Electrek on a hard drive he uses with an emulator, but has not yet had a chance to try and track it down, but if/when he does he most definitely wants to share it with you guys for free so as soon as one or other of us finds it, that's the plan!

03 July 2007, 09:35	#14
ppill CON: artist Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Poland Age: 32 Posts: 1,125	Thanks for the effort! Looks like a good game.

04 July 2007, 13:21	#15
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	Shalroth sent me this today, it's the original review of Electrek I mentioned above: http://amr.abime.net/review_19775, hard to find 'cos they spelt the name wrong! And also spelt wrong, look up this other forum: http://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1106 for an update on the FOUND game, Chris and Doobs apparently have it all in hand, but I'll fire mine up on the weekend anyway just to see what I have!

04 July 2007, 13:51	#16
DamienD Registered User Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Sydney / London Age: 36 Posts: 5,059	Very cool news Wilfy, thanks for all your time / effort plus keeping us updated so frequently Are Chris and Doobs also going to join EAB?

04 July 2007, 14:48	#17
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	Cheers DamienD, and as far as the others joining in, I can't say feller, sorry, they always were oddly shy about such things, especially Chris, he's one of those guys who's ridiculously talented in music/programming/electronics and stuff but rarely ever completes anything 'cos it's never finished enough to allow it to be judged! It's very like him to want to tweak it one more time before he re-releases it rather than just let it go in it's original slightly flawed state, but it really did need the difficulty arc tweaking, so I can respect that. I remember it was too quick & easy to recharge yourself when you were low on energy bars, and therefore too hard to die on the early levels for the first few stages, but then suddenly became impossible to survive when we got to Doobury's later harder levels where-upon most folks just put the joystick down, so hopefully they've also found the level editor and are gonna do some new 'inbetween' stages to smooth that out a tad, but I guess we'll just have to see! I'm hoping at the very least Chris will tell you in person when he's got it sorted to his satisfaction though, and I hope it won't take too long. I'm in two minds about it myself, I think maybe they should just release it as is and THEN take their time and do a tweaked '2007 remix' of it that's more playable, but it's really a hard one to call as the original whole Electrek (or Elektrek) game does seem to be completely unknown and was definitely flawed, but it's really up to Chris, it's his baby. I dunno, whaddya reckon, guys?

04 July 2007, 17:36	#19
bippym Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 37 Posts: 8,140	Sounds promising Can't wait to play another lost gem

04 July 2007, 21:25	#20
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	Reet, having had some conflicting reports, I decided to ring Chris tonight and get clarification 'from the horses mouth' to what's what, so: YES the game is found, NO the level designer is not, but it may yet, and I was rather surprised to find that I'm mistaken and the Amiga I have is NOT the original it was written upon, that one is with Doobs, mine was the later upgrade Chris got I think, so Doobs has the better chance of finding the level designer on his Amiga's internal drive, however Chris says he has pretty much forgotten how to program the Amiga and isn't at all sure he can be bothered to go into any great time & effort to re-acquaint himself and re-program the game just for the hell of it, I can't say as I blame him the man does have a life, but it looks far more likely we'll just be getting the original game as is, at least for now, tho he did sound interested in the concept of a 'remix' and didn't discount it completely should we find the level designer. I believe they're planning on getting PC drivers into the Amiga so that it can recognise PC disks, which seems a good way of going about getting it out of there. At my end, we've just got an Amiga emulator going (me and Shalroth) and I'm curious now as to whether or not we can do anything with it at my end, so I'm sorely tempted to try waking up my long sleeping Amiga right now, asides from any other reason I'm told we can get it working on the widescreen TV if we can just find the right cable, and that just has to be tried!! I'll let you know...

04 July 2007, 23:24	#22
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	It's OK DamienD, thanks once more for your assistance, you are a star, my old Amiga coughed and spluttered at first, the buttons on the mouse are broken but Shal figured out we can use the 'Right Amiga' and 'Alt' keys as surrogates and after a few gurus we got it running, in widescreen no less! I didn't have to hunt for the game as it was backed up on the internal drive, we had a few moments of confusion as it doesn't work from that drive and we had to make a disc of it, and then we had to figure out the process to get it jump started 'cos it doesn't auto-run, but once we got to that stage it came up no problem! At first we weren't sure if it was the demo or full game but a quick consultation with Chris got me a well remembered code to later levels (coalfire) proving it HAD later levels, and also a quick peek at the files, so currently we have the full original game up and running on my widescreen TV on an Amiga 1200 and I'm playing with it right now! Call me sad, but I actually videoed the moment! One for Youtube I think. Right, it's getting late and I think we've done enough for tonight, tomorrow we'll have a think at getting it into a PC friendly format, some reading required I think, your links may well come in handy there DamienD I'll show that to Shalroth, he's the tech expert here not me, but it's mid-week and I'm afraid there's stuff to be done tomorrow morning, so I think we should stop there, or we'll not sleep for thinking 'Aha!!'. Will keep you posted, and I have approximately 80 discs to go thru here...

04 July 2007, 23:31	#23
bippym Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 37 Posts: 8,140	wilfy all you need to do is compress the files on the disk with lha and save to a 720kb formatted disk. Then simply load into your pc and upload here, one of the regulars here will write it all back to adf and post the finished image Great work

05 July 2007, 00:48	#24
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	Ok, I'm just about to hit the sheets, but I shall consult the Shalroth... Erm, apparently we don't have lha, the PC won't read an Amiga disk, and we can't get a form of PC driver onto the Amiga because it won't read PC disks 'cos it doesn't have a PC driver, catch 22, so we can't get anything from the PC into the Amiga or vice versa right now. But apparently there's some workbench 3 disks for sale on eBay that will help, plus for all we know one of these disks here has just what we need, and we desperately require a new mouse with buttons that work 'cos the keyboard for mouse buttons trick doesn't work outside of workbench. Plus I'm afraid once Shal gets his teeth into a techy issue he's like a Rottweiler with a new chew toy, he WILL NOT let this get away from him, he WILL solve this himself alone, or else, which is why he's the perfect chap to set onto this. On the plus side, so far we've found Lemmings, Donkey Kong, and a hardware digitiser called a vidi12. Goodnight folks, sorry, looks like it'll take at least a few more days I'm guessing, unless it suddenly all makes sense in the night!

05 July 2007, 09:47	#25
kriz Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: No(R)Way Age: 31 Posts: 2,201	Cant you use the 2disk trick with some software ? Please help him here, im on my way to work and dont have any links now... Welcome to Eab btw. Looking forward to try this game, cool stuff!! This - http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi/ -> Not on 2000/xp though. __________________ Mac Mini 1,5ghz + powerbook 1,67 ghxz- MorphOS 3.1 -- It rulez !! _ Amiga 4000/060 - Whdload - RDesktop - WookieChat - All Supported. 1200/060/PPC/Indivision - AMIGA 4 EVER Last edited by kriz; 05 July 2007 at 11:46.

05 July 2007, 11:41	#27
bippym Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 37 Posts: 8,140	You could always chuck the stuff on 3.5" floppy and post them to me.. I'll image them, post them back and email you the images

05 July 2007, 15:11	#28
Shalroth Posts: n/a	Reet. What we have is a fairly stock A1200 with a 4MB/RTC board and 2GB IDE disc. I think it's running WB 2.05 or 2.1 but I can't really tell ATM (Anything to look for? I thin kit says it's version 38.nnn - will write this down later) I have put PC0 in my /devs/dosdrivers but it just plain refuces to put a PC0:??? icon on my WB. I think maybe the version of this dev doesn't work with the version of WB that we have. It came from my WB3.0 Storage disk so maybe this is the cause? What I could really do with is a new set of WB discs. I have disc images of all of the WB3.0 disks but no way of writing them back to AmigaDOS floppies. I don't have a null modem cable, and my other machines are either macs or ataris (or legacy-free) anyway. Also, I think I may be able to do something if I could switch my boot volume, but my mouse's right button is fried. I've been using Right-Amiga+Alt but it won't let me get to the early startup menu. I've tried a CF - PCMCIA and a SD - PCMCIA adaptor with no success. The machine either just laughs at me or GURUs with them. I could try removing the hard disc and linking it to WinUAE but I'd prefer not to have to take the machine apart just to get a driver installed! Anybody, any thoughts?

05 July 2007, 15:18	#29
ppill CON: artist Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Poland Age: 32 Posts: 1,125	If you've got a PC capable of running WinUAE then the simplest solution would be to plug the Amiga disk to that and copy the stuff over. Do a search... there's a couple of threads on how to do it. Good luck! Last edited by ppill; 05 July 2007 at 17:11.

05 July 2007, 16:22	#30
Shalroth Posts: n/a	Cheers... I pretty much figured I'd have to do that. It's quite amusing turning a Media centre into an A1200...

05 July 2007, 16:41	#31
bippym Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 37 Posts: 8,140	Just connect your amiga HD to your PC and use winuae to read the hd.. do some research on here first because you don't wanna put an MBR on the disk etc!

06 July 2007, 22:03	#32
Stoff Posts: n/a	Another one for the collection... Hi people...Chris from the H.C.C.S here (Electrek development team!). Sorry I've taken so long to post. It always takes me a while to get on with these things. Sooo pleased Elec still lives on. Thank heavens for boards like this one. Got the game converted now and just sorting through a few files inside the .adf. It'll get uploaded shortly (full version, I promise). Probably stick it on Aminet but I'll let you know where it's at. Thanks again. Speak soon.

06 July 2007, 22:08	#33
bippym Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 37 Posts: 8,140	Fab and welcome aboard mate

06 July 2007, 22:22	#34
killergorilla Lesser Talent Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: UK Age: 31 Posts: 7,889	Wow, that's certainly good news. Nice one people! __________________ I'm totally gratified that people find Interceptor worthy of being downloaded and played after so many years especially in light of its rather rudimentary visual content by standards constantly increasing over time.

07 July 2007, 00:07	#35
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	Aha!! The Stoff beats us! Shal's gonna sulk, he's still waiting for the discs he needs, LOL! Ah well, well done Chris, and I do hope you all enjoy it, people! I've been playing it and it plays way better than I remember! Now the only remaining factor is do folks try and correct the spelling or just accept that since the Magazine mistake everyone calls it Elektrek!?

07 July 2007, 13:52	#36
fritx Posts: n/a	This is great news! I was never much good at Electrek during the play-testing and I'm keen to have another bash. This time I'll kick its ar$e Looking forward to seeing the disk image, nice work chaps

07 July 2007, 13:53	#37
bippym Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 37 Posts: 8,140	Bloody hell.. we're being invaded by the electek team Welcome aboard mate, it's a pleasure you all being here ..

07 July 2007, 21:31	#39
Wilfy Exgraphicswhore Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Leeds Age: 45 Posts: 32	Ah Fritx!! My word! Cup of tea anyone!?