Monkey Business: First Commercial Amiga Game - It Exists! BELIEVE IT or NOT!!!

[DrBong]

Hello EAB Peeps!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. At last, here's definitive proof that Monkey Business exists on the Amiga!!!

Check out the brand spanking new HOL entry for bigger 'n' better pics of the Amiga release game contents. More goodies will follow......

Monkey Business ------> http://hol.abime.net/6288 <------ (New HOL entry)

[Galahad/FLT]

And the disk?

[dlfrsilver]

Yes Carlos, where is the disk dump lol ?

[idrougge]

Strange that the first ever Amiga game would require more memory than was available as standard.

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Strange that the first ever Amiga game would require more memory than was available as standard.

Ups... But now it's april's second, not the first.

[Pyromania]

Very nice, how much?

[chip]

The disk is here

http://hol.abime.net/6288/miscshot

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

And the disk?

In HOL, of course! Incidentally, I'm not sure how a crack of this game hasn't managed to surface after all these years.....even on one of those dodgy scene compilation disks!

http://hol.abime.net/6288/miscshot

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Very nice, how much?

Well, some lucky paesano (not me, sadly enough! ) nabbed it less than 24 hours before I spotted it for the princely sum of US$90 (BIN price) on Ebay (see HERE).

Originally Posted by idrougge

Strange that the first ever Amiga game would require more memory than was available as standard.

Yeh, I noticed that too! Curious, is it not?!

Considering that Amiga 1000s only had 256k when they began shipping in the U.S. in late '85, I can only think that the 512k memory requirements of Monkey Business were a legacy of the game being hurriedly ported from the Mac. The game was initially coded for 128k and 512k Macs (and not the Atari ST as some people might assume), which is why the screenshots on the back of the Amiga game box are in B&W.

Other possibilities for the 512k ram requirement listed on the game box was that the publisher was being a bit flashy in the "new" Amiga market at the time (and the game actually does work with just 256k). Alternatively, the coder/publisher may have had 512k on their developer machine and didn't test the game with the A1000's standard 256k. Until we get our grubby little hands on a copy of the damn game, we'll probably never really know.......

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Yes Carlo, where is the disk dump lol ?

On the SPS FTP server! For all the good a raw dump would do us or the SPS team - the game disk was almost certainly not duplicated professionally, so no official IPF of Monkey Business would be possible.

[DrBong]

@Denis
In response to your PM request for a raw dump of Monkey Business (and for anyone else who's taken the wrong end of the stick!)......let me fill in more of the background story to this thread.

Do I have a copy of Monkey Business (original or otherwise)? NO!
Do I want one (original or otherwise)?? HELL YES!!!

As I said before in post #8, someone beat me to snapping up the game on Ebay for a BIN price of US$90 by less than a day (see auction below! ). I didn't waste any time contacting the seller at the time to see if he could dump the game and provide good quality scans of the game box/disk for HOL, but when he got back to me the next day he had already posted it off to the buyer ().

Unfortunately, the seller was an Atari ST man and he had either cheaply acquired or been given a private collection of pristine Amiga games that included Monkey Business (along with Delta Patrol, also by The Other Valley Software, and snapped up by the same buyer IIRC). Consequently, he had no idea how valuable the game was in monetary terms or, for that matter, historically to the Amiga community. He was quite a nice guy, so I never did let on to him about the sort of silly money he'd missed out on and could have commanded for Monkey Business.

Anyway, back to Denis' request for a raw dump. As I said in my last post, for all the good a raw dump would do the SPS team or us if someone ever manages to supply one. The original game disk would almost certainly not have been duplicated professionally back in 1985, so Monkey Business is unlikely to ever receive an official IPF release from the SPS team for this reason. Making a homebrew IPF from a raw dump, however, should be no problem obviously.

On the other hand, I'd be surprised if Monkey Business had any copy protection......so making an ADF of the original game disk would be easy enough!
Anyone happen to have a copy of Monkey Business sitting around doing nothing?!

[fryguy]

I have Delta Patrol on original floppy, unfortunately it's not working :/
But at least i can provide a scan of the disk (i don't have it scanned yet though).

[hipoonios]

Nice find

Wonder how many copies were sold. There can't be many...

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by hipoonios

Nice find

Wonder how many copies were sold. There can't be many...

Which game are you asking about - Delta Patrol or Monkey Business?

Originally Posted by fryguy

I have Delta Patrol on original floppy, unfortunately it's not working :/
But at least i can provide a scan of the disk (i don't have it scanned yet though).

It's a great pity that your copy of the game doesn't work, but at least we have a scene release for Delta Patrol (albeit on one of those early cracker compilation disks).

Anyway, it would be great to have a scan of the disk in HOL! Can you provide a scan please (size 640 x *)?!

Originally Posted by DrBong

Unfortunately, the seller was an Atari ST man and he had either cheaply acquired or been given a private collection of pristine Amiga games that included Monkey Business (along with Delta Patrol, also by The Other Valley Software, and snapped up by the same buyer IIRC).

Yep, seems my memory isn't totally shot (yet!). Here is all the auction material for Delta Patrol from the same seller that listed Monkey Business.

I've only ever seen two boxed copies of this game on Ebay, and the only one I had a chance to bid on was auctioned by Peter Olafson (ex-Amiga games journalist) when he Ebayed his complete Amiga collection a few years back. From memory, Peter's copy sold for US$300+.

[RCK]

Awesome

[malko]

Originally Posted by fryguy

I have Delta Patrol on original floppy, unfortunately it's not working :/
But at least i can provide a scan of the disk (i don't have it scanned yet though).

You should contact dlfrsilver. He is able of "miracles" with non working disks if you mind sending it to him.

[Crown]

Mate, do you think it would be possible for you to ask the seller if he could share the buyer's email address so that we could ask him for a copy of the disk?

Cheerio

Originally Posted by DrBong

@Denis
In response to your PM request for a raw dump of Monkey Business (and for anyone else who's taken the wrong end of the stick!)......let me fill in more of the background story to this thread.

Do I have a copy of Monkey Business (original or otherwise)? NO!
Do I want one (original or otherwise)?? HELL YES!!!

As I said before in post #8, someone beat me to snapping up the game on Ebay for a BIN price of US$90 by less than a day (see auction below! ). I didn't waste any time contacting the seller at the time to see if he could dump the game and provide good quality scans of the game box/disk for HOL, but when he got back to me the next day he had already posted it off to the buyer ().

Unfortunately, the seller was an Atari ST man and he had either cheaply acquired or been given a private collection of pristine Amiga games that included Monkey Business (along with Delta Patrol, also by The Other Valley Software, and snapped up by the same buyer IIRC). Consequently, he had no idea how valuable the game was in monetary terms or, for that matter, historically to the Amiga community. He was quite a nice guy, so I never did let on to him about the sort of silly money he'd missed out on and could have commanded for Monkey Business.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by DrBong

Do I have a copy of Monkey Business (original or otherwise)? NO!
Do I want one (original or otherwise)?? HELL YES!!!

As I said before in post #8, someone beat me to snapping up the game on Ebay for a BIN price of US$90 by less than a day (see auction below! ). I didn't waste any time contacting the seller at the time to see if he could dump the game and provide good quality scans of the game box/disk for HOL, but when he got back to me the next day he had already posted it off to the buyer ().

Originally Posted by Crown

Mate, do you think it would be possible for you to ask the seller if he could share the buyer's email address so that we could ask him for a copy of the disk?

I did ask the Ebay seller for some contact details for the buyer, but he wanted to maintain the seller's privacy. He was happy, though, to relay an enquiry to the buyer concerning the possibility of making a disk image of Monkey Business for the Amiga community (highlighting the fact that there was no cracked version), but that proved to be a dead end. Huge pity!

[Crown]

That's a pity really. Anyway thanks a lot for trying to reach out to him.

Originally Posted by DrBong

I did ask the Ebay seller for some contact details for the buyer, but he wanted to maintain the seller's privacy. He was happy, though, to relay an enquiry to the buyer concerning the possibility of making a disk image of Monkey Business for the Amiga community (highlighting the fact that there was no cracked version), but that proved to be a dead end. Huge pity!

[DrBong]

@Crown
Well, I tried.....we'll get hold of this game one way or another one day, even if it kills me!

[Crown]

you are right buddy. Fingers crossed!

[dlfrsilver]

Please check the zone