PD or not PD, that is the question...

DPainter · 02 January 2003, 20:29

I'm engaged in a compilation renaming frenzy with hopes that I will find obscure commercial titles not yet in the HOL. However, I don't have time to research so I have been setting aside these disks that might have commercial games not yet in the HOL.

I thought it would be fun for EAB users if I uploaded one disk at a time and then waited to see who could ID all of the games (PD or commercial) that aren't in the HOL. Maybe we'll get a couple of winners that aren't in the HOL or its backlog of titles to be added. Here we go...

Edit: Before uploading I will try to add existing HOL tiles to the file names using braces {}. Finished disks will be black and pending titles red.

Identifed already:

ACS 1991 Games Compilation Disk (1991)(Pirasoft).zip = 2 shareware, 1 commercial. Thx CodyJ!
A-HA - On This Disk 03 (19xx)(A-HA){2095}.zip = 2 commercial. Thx CodyJ!
A-HA Megadisk For Your Pleasure (19xx)(A-HA){516,825}.zip = 2 commercial. Thx CodyJ!
Alpha Flight Compacted Disk 167 (1989-05-16)(AFL){3164,1921}.zip = 2 mysteries. Thx Twistin'!
Another Compact (1989-07-30)(Zarch).zip = 1 from HOL backlog. Thx Twistin'!

CodyJarrett · 02 January 2003, 20:58

Okay, 'Bull Run' first...

This is 1987 shareware game from David Townsend...

From the game:

"
BULL RUN is a "freeware" or "shareware" program -- please feel free to distribute it to your friends. If you enjoy this program, please send a contribution of $20 to:

David Townsend
12111 Galena Rd.
Rockville, MD 20852

In return, I will send you a complete User's Manual, a keyboard template for the function keys, and a disk containing the complete source code for the program.

Have fun!
"

CodyJarrett · 02 January 2003, 21:01

'Power Struggle' is a 1988 commercial game from PSS...

It's already in the HOL: http://hol.abime.net/?id=1120

CodyJarrett · 02 January 2003, 21:12

Thirdly, 'BattleMech' is a shareware game from Ralph H. Reed in November 1987. From a readme in a standalone version of the game:

"
BATTLE MECH

BattleMech is a CopyWrited program written by myself, Ralph Reed. The Battle program is put in the public domain as ShareWare. The ARC file may be freely distributed as long as all files and this message remain included.

If you like the game and would like to contribute to the cause, please send $20 to:

Ralph H. Reed
P.O. Box 1497
Eglin AFB, FL 32542

In exchange for your contribution I will put you on my list of registered owners and will send you a copy of the latest Battle program and the Factory program. The Factory program allows you to design your own BattleMechs. You will also be notified of future enhancements to the program. My intentions at the moment are to turn this into a true role-playing game. The first change will be a single player mode where you can fight against fortresses and dropships. I also plan a Load and Save game option which will include loading preset scenarios. A player
controlled map generator is also in the works. Evenually I hope to have pilot files that will allow a pilot to gain experience and skill from combat to combat.
"

DPainter · 03 January 2003, 00:50

Nice work, CodyJ! Notice in my latest uploads I'm putting braces around titles already in the HOL. I'm hoping the next two uploads reveal something more commercial...

CodyJarrett · 03 January 2003, 01:13

On A-HA - On This Disk 03 (19xx)(A-HA){2095}.zip, the first one is some sort of utility called SpriteMover v1.0.

The third one is 'Star Goose!': http://hol.abime.net/?id=2095

CodyJarrett · 03 January 2003, 01:16

The second one is more interesting...

It's Go from Infinity and it looks very like The Art Of Go, which is missing a titlescreen in HOL: http://hol.abime.net/?id=3320

I'm not sure what the connection is between them.

CodyJarrett · 03 January 2003, 01:23

A-HA Megadisk For Your Pleasure (19xx)(A-HA){516,825}.zip

As you've listed above, there is Fernandez Must Die: http://hol.abime.net/?id=516 and Jupiter Probe: http://hol.abime.net/?id=825

The third game is Hellfire Attack, otherwise known as Hellfire: http://hol.abime.net/?id=690

Amiga1992 · 03 January 2003, 01:27

Didn't RCK said you shouldn't attach DBS screenshots in the EAB once the HOL is open?

CodyJarrett · 03 January 2003, 01:44

Ah, but all these screens are not in the HOL!

Amiga1992 · 03 January 2003, 03:22

But they will be soon, aren't they?
Let's wait for RCK to step in and further specify what he wants.

I say "let's save the EAB's diskspace"!

Twistin'Ghost · 03 January 2003, 04:30

Of course, Bull Run and BattleMech will not be in HOL, since they are PD...

Twistin'Ghost · 03 January 2003, 05:52

Alpha Flight Compacted Disk 167 (1989-05-16)(AFL).zip

OK, the games in question on this disk appear to be Ping Pong and Voyager One.

Ping Pong looks suspiciously like an unfinished (stolen?) beta of Table Tennis Simulation, which was released the same year as this compact (1989). I checked my old BBS logs and it was listed there twice:

PING.WRP N 452608 05-07-89 Ping Pong for the Amiga
and again in 1991:
PINGPONG.DMS P 118012 08-08-91 Ping Pong Game (Table Tennis) ->RAGE<-

So I'm still a little cloudy with this one.

As for Voyager One, again a mystery. It looks familiar, but then a lot of the late 80's Amiga platform shooters looked like this. I decrunched the executable and dug through that looking for significant text strings...one interesting line said "This was all coded by Sirius of Alpha Flight", but that could have been referring to his trainer ("trained by Sirius of AFL"), so it's hard to figure if this is a scene game or not. Maybe Galahad might have some insight on this?

Twistin'Ghost · 03 January 2003, 11:46

Another Compact (1989-07-30)(Zarch).zip

Ah yes, my faithful Othello Killer. This was first discovered a few IRC meetings back by tomcat666 (whatever happened to him?) as he was filling a request of mine for Championship Othello/Othello (1987/King Size/Robtech/Exodus Soft). He gave me Othello Master, which was first released by AmiLink in 1987, then picked up by Ubi Soft and released as Othello Killer. Phew! I still have to find my copy of each, as I misplaced them along with some others that are keeping me from updating my MIA. I spent some time sorting tonight, but didn't uncover what I was looking for (sigh).

Bernd · 03 January 2003, 19:17

Quote:

As for Voyager One, again a mystery.

Definitely NOT PD. It is one of those numerous games by Kyle Hodgetts / The Land down Under / ECP. His games were mainly sold in Australia...
Seems a lot of his games are so far missing in HOL

DPainter · 03 January 2003, 19:32

Bernd, I didn't realize those Kyle Hodgetts games were commercial. Compact disks are full of them and I always assumed they were PD. Do you have a list? Maybe we could start a separate thread on Rare Game Requests and try hunting all of them down.

Bernd · 03 January 2003, 19:59

Quote:

Bernd, I didn't realize those Kyle Hodgetts games were commercial. Compact disks are full of them and I always assumed they were PD.

No, none of them were PD. Some box scans of these games can be accessed on BTTR or ASO.

Quote:

Do you have a list? Maybe we could start a separate thread on Rare Game Requests and try hunting all of them down.

Here are those that I own:

Alert
Alpha 1
Aztec Warrior
Caverns of Palle
Cortex
Evil Dawn
Huey
King of the Barbarians
Miami Mice
Mission
PT45
Voyager 1

As for the list: Why not. Maybe there are even more games from him. I already tried to track down this guy (btw - he was also a famous coin op developer) several times, but was never successful... On the other hand I think it is virtually impossible to find any games which remain "undiscovered" so far. I think of "Sunny Shine", "S.U.B." and others.

DrBong · 03 January 2003, 20:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Bernd
Definitely NOT PD. It is one of those numerous games by Kyle Hodgetts / The Land down Under / ECP. His games were mainly sold in Australia...
Seems a lot of his games are so far missing in HOL

Yes, some of his games were released on budget by an Australian company called ECP. At least a few of his games received full commercial releases, though, from the likes of Electronic Arts.

RCK · 03 January 2003, 20:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Akira
Let's wait for RCK to step in and further specify what he wants.

I say "let's save the EAB's diskspace"!

yes of course, you should not attach the hol's files to the eab, they are eating twice space on hard-drive if you do that!

instead, you should use the [img][/img] tag to the hol ressource, the eab domain is authorized to link them

ex:

CodyJarrett · 03 January 2003, 20:33

How about a button which inserts this tag info, including the link - then all that would need to be inserted would be the IDs?

02 January 2003, 20:29	#1
DPainter Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Montana, USA Posts: 342	PD or not PD, that is the question... I'm engaged in a compilation renaming frenzy with hopes that I will find obscure commercial titles not yet in the HOL. However, I don't have time to research so I have been setting aside these disks that might have commercial games not yet in the HOL. I thought it would be fun for EAB users if I uploaded one disk at a time and then waited to see who could ID all of the games (PD or commercial) that aren't in the HOL. Maybe we'll get a couple of winners that aren't in the HOL or its backlog of titles to be added. Here we go... Edit: Before uploading I will try to add existing HOL tiles to the file names using braces {}. Finished disks will be black and pending titles red. Identifed already: ACS 1991 Games Compilation Disk (1991)(Pirasoft).zip = 2 shareware, 1 commercial. Thx CodyJ! A-HA - On This Disk 03 (19xx)(A-HA){2095}.zip = 2 commercial. Thx CodyJ! A-HA Megadisk For Your Pleasure (19xx)(A-HA){516,825}.zip = 2 commercial. Thx CodyJ! Alpha Flight Compacted Disk 167 (1989-05-16)(AFL){3164,1921}.zip = 2 mysteries. Thx Twistin'! Another Compact (1989-07-30)(Zarch).zip = 1 from HOL backlog. Thx Twistin'! Last edited by DPainter; 04 June 2004 at 18:52.

02 January 2003, 20:58	#2
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,166	Okay, 'Bull Run' first... This is 1987 shareware game from David Townsend... From the game: " BULL RUN is a "freeware" or "shareware" program -- please feel free to distribute it to your friends. If you enjoy this program, please send a contribution of $20 to: David Townsend 12111 Galena Rd. Rockville, MD 20852 In return, I will send you a complete User's Manual, a keyboard template for the function keys, and a disk containing the complete source code for the program. Have fun! " Attached Thumbnails

02 January 2003, 21:12	#4
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,166	Thirdly, 'BattleMech' is a shareware game from Ralph H. Reed in November 1987. From a readme in a standalone version of the game: " BATTLE MECH BattleMech is a CopyWrited program written by myself, Ralph Reed. The Battle program is put in the public domain as ShareWare. The ARC file may be freely distributed as long as all files and this message remain included. If you like the game and would like to contribute to the cause, please send $20 to: Ralph H. Reed P.O. Box 1497 Eglin AFB, FL 32542 In exchange for your contribution I will put you on my list of registered owners and will send you a copy of the latest Battle program and the Factory program. The Factory program allows you to design your own BattleMechs. You will also be notified of future enhancements to the program. My intentions at the moment are to turn this into a true role-playing game. The first change will be a single player mode where you can fight against fortresses and dropships. I also plan a Load and Save game option which will include loading preset scenarios. A player controlled map generator is also in the works. Evenually I hope to have pilot files that will allow a pilot to gain experience and skill from combat to combat. " Attached Thumbnails

03 January 2003, 01:16	#7
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,166	The second one is more interesting... It's Go from Infinity and it looks very like The Art Of Go, which is missing a titlescreen in HOL: http://hol.abime.net/?id=3320 I'm not sure what the connection is between them. Attached Thumbnails

03 January 2003, 05:52	#13
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	Re: PD or not PD, that is the question... Alpha Flight Compacted Disk 167 (1989-05-16)(AFL).zip OK, the games in question on this disk appear to be Ping Pong and Voyager One. Ping Pong looks suspiciously like an unfinished (stolen?) beta of Table Tennis Simulation, which was released the same year as this compact (1989). I checked my old BBS logs and it was listed there twice: PING.WRP N 452608 05-07-89 Ping Pong for the Amiga and again in 1991: PINGPONG.DMS P 118012 08-08-91 Ping Pong Game (Table Tennis) ->RAGE<- So I'm still a little cloudy with this one. As for Voyager One, again a mystery. It looks familiar, but then a lot of the late 80's Amiga platform shooters looked like this. I decrunched the executable and dug through that looking for significant text strings...one interesting line said "This was all coded by Sirius of Alpha Flight", but that could have been referring to his trainer ("trained by Sirius of AFL"), so it's hard to figure if this is a scene game or not. Maybe Galahad might have some insight on this?

02 January 2003, 21:01	#3
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,166	'Power Struggle' is a 1988 commercial game from PSS... It's already in the HOL: http://hol.abime.net/?id=1120

03 January 2003, 00:50	#5
DPainter Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Montana, USA Posts: 342	Nice work, CodyJ! Notice in my latest uploads I'm putting braces around titles already in the HOL. I'm hoping the next two uploads reveal something more commercial...

03 January 2003, 01:13	#6
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,166	On A-HA - On This Disk 03 (19xx)(A-HA){2095}.zip, the first one is some sort of utility called SpriteMover v1.0. The third one is 'Star Goose!': http://hol.abime.net/?id=2095

03 January 2003, 01:23	#8
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,166	A-HA Megadisk For Your Pleasure (19xx)(A-HA){516,825}.zip As you've listed above, there is Fernandez Must Die: http://hol.abime.net/?id=516 and Jupiter Probe: http://hol.abime.net/?id=825 The third game is Hellfire Attack, otherwise known as Hellfire: http://hol.abime.net/?id=690

03 January 2003, 01:27	#9
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,654	Didn't RCK said you shouldn't attach DBS screenshots in the EAB once the HOL is open?

03 January 2003, 01:44	#10
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,166	Ah, but all these screens are not in the HOL!

03 January 2003, 03:22	#11
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,654	But they will be soon, aren't they? Let's wait for RCK to step in and further specify what he wants. I say "let's save the EAB's diskspace"!

03 January 2003, 04:30	#12
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	Of course, Bull Run and BattleMech will not be in HOL, since they are PD...

03 January 2003, 11:46	#14
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	Re: PD or not PD, that is the question... Another Compact (1989-07-30)(Zarch).zip Ah yes, my faithful Othello Killer. This was first discovered a few IRC meetings back by tomcat666 (whatever happened to him?) as he was filling a request of mine for Championship Othello/Othello (1987/King Size/Robtech/Exodus Soft). He gave me Othello Master, which was first released by AmiLink in 1987, then picked up by Ubi Soft and released as Othello Killer. Phew! I still have to find my copy of each, as I misplaced them along with some others that are keeping me from updating my MIA. I spent some time sorting tonight, but didn't uncover what I was looking for (sigh).

03 January 2003, 19:32	#16
DPainter Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Montana, USA Posts: 342	Bernd, I didn't realize those Kyle Hodgetts games were commercial. Compact disks are full of them and I always assumed they were PD. Do you have a list? Maybe we could start a separate thread on Rare Game Requests and try hunting all of them down.

03 January 2003, 20:33	#20
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,166	How about a button which inserts this tag info, including the link - then all that would need to be inserted would be the IDs?

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