CD32 Simon the Sorcerer for download?

[Not Here Long]

Hello

Is the CD32 version of Simon the Sorcerer available for download anywhere? The sequel was apparently ported to the Amiga too; is that available?

Thanks

[NovaCoder]

Not sure what kind of Amiga you have but you can probably just download the PC version's data files with full speech and then run it natively on your Amiga using ScummVM.

[Matt_H]

I imagine CD32 Simon is on the FTP. Simon 2 might still be for sale at Amigakit, but I’m not sure if it’s the “native” port or the PC version bundled with ScummVM for OS4.

The Simon 2 native port is very sloppy, unfortunately, so ScummVM is probably better for that one.

Adventuresoft still sells PC versions of both games, so if you don’t already own a legit copy you should get one from them.

[dreamkatcha]

There are also remastered 25th-anniversary versions of both games available via Steam. Not a bad option as long as you avoid the "High-end graphics upscaling (xBRZ filter) for high-resolution displays" mode and any other supposed improvements.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by dreamkatcha

There are also remastered 25th-anniversary versions of both games available via Steam.

Really, how did I miss that one.

[Nobby_UK]

People on Steam say:
"This game is using ScummVM 1.8
which has a known issue on newer versions of windows 10"

[Not Here Long]

Sorry to bring this up again but I've downloaded a Simon the Sorcerer CD32 ISO from this zip file on archive.org; the archive was listed under possible downloads on lemonamiga.com.

https://ia803200.us.archive.org/view...2009-04-18.zip

There is a number of threads on the forum dealing with running the CD32 version of this game on the Amiga 1200. This one in particular looked promising, but it doesn't work for me through WinUAE.

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=25833

I haven't tried the above on a real Amiga yet because it takes too long to copy files of that volume onto the CF card through WinUAE.

It would be nice to have a solution which can run CD32 games from CD-ROM or ISO or CD-ROM contents on the HD. I'm happy with running Beneath a Steel Sky from DOS after booting without a startup-sequence. Does anyone know of a similar method for Simon the Sorcerer? Also, is there a quicker way to copy files from Windows volumes to Amiga volumes through WinUAE?

Thanks

[DamienD]

There are no audio tracks with this game.

I just tested copying all files off the CD32 disc to hard drive, and then running.

Works fine in WinUAE if you use a "CD32 KS ROM v3.1 rev 40.60 (512k).rom"

...but unfortunately it gurus with a "KS ROM v3.0 (A1200) rev 39.106 (512k).rom" or "KS ROM v3.1 (A1200) rev 40.68 (512k).rom" though; which won't help you on a real A1200.

[Not Here Long]

Thanks!

When you say there are no audio tracks with this game, do you mean the ISO is missing audio tracks it should have?

There's some interesting information about CD32 emulation with ISOs in this thread.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...t=simon+floppy

I tried a boot disk shared in that thread. The best result I got was a black screen with a CD logo followed by a DOS screen with an assign error for CD0.

There was talk of a CD32 emulator from Commodore in that thread; does anyone know anything about that?

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Not Here Long

Thanks!

When you say there are no audio tracks with this game, do you mean the ISO is missing audio tracks it should have?

Not missing, the game doesn't have any CD audio tracks.

Given this, I'm surprised there's no WHDLoad version. This might be due to how large the game is though, and that you'd need loads of RAM for "Preload".

Originally Posted by Not Here Long

There's some interesting information about CD32 emulation with ISOs in this thread.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...t=simon+floppy

I tried a boot disk shared in that thread. The best result I got was a black screen with a CD logo followed by a DOS screen with an assign error for CD0.

There was talk of a CD32 emulator from Commodore in that thread; does anyone know anything about that?

To be honest, I've never had the need to try a CD32 emulator on an A1200 as I emulate so just run the CD32 natively from WinUAE

[FOL]

Originally Posted by DamienD

I just tested copying all files off the CD32 disc to hard drive, and then running.

I tried this and it guru'ed everytime, not matter what config I used.
It looks like its using padding files, image is about 100mb different to files copied to HDD.

Yes, I too, would have though there would be a WHDLoad for it. As its simular to BASS.

I think, best bet would be to use SimCD32.

[Mad-Matt]

I imagine its hard coded and built around cd.device so no choice really but to emulate cd32 in some way (squirel or idefix emus). It used to run ok on a 2x cdrom drive but anything faster was hit n miss with missing or clicky speech.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by FOL

I tried this and it guru'ed everytime, not matter what config I used.
It looks like its using padding files, image is about 100mb different to files copied to HDD.

As said, works fine in WinUAE if you use a "CD32 KS ROM v3.1 rev 40.60 (512k).rom" with your A1200 .HDF.

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by Mad-Matt

I imagine its hard coded and built around cd.device so no choice really but to emulate cd32 in some way (squirel or idefix emus). It used to run ok on a 2x cdrom drive but anything faster was hit n miss with missing or clicky speech.

Exactly the same that i experienced back then on my real A1200 via a CD32 emu. The synch bypassed a lot of words. Sadly unplayable on my Mitsumi FX400 drive.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Mad-Matt

I imagine its hard coded and built around cd.device so no choice really but to emulate cd32 in some way (squirel or idefix emus). It used to run ok on a 2x cdrom drive but anything faster was hit n miss with missing or clicky speech.

Yes, Squirrel Emu, has a dummy cd.device. It points to your real device, i.e. atapi.device. WolnyCD, will solve speed for you. It forces any drive to what ever speed you want. I got fedup up of noisy drive as it was running at 48x.

Originally Posted by DamienD

As said, works fine in WinUAE if you use a "CD32 KS ROM v3.1 rev 40.60 (512k).rom" with your A1200 .HDF.

Could of sworn I tried that. So its looking for something in Kickstart? kernel version?
All the exciting stuff like, CD.DEVICE etc etc. is in extended ROM.

[Matt_H]

From a hexread, yes, the Simon CD32 executable requires cd.device.

There's also an official Commodore cd.device wrapper in the CD32 devkit (part of the Amiga Developer CDs). Using it, I was able to get Simon to start on an emulated 4000/uaescsi.device. It's unstable and the voices are garbled but I'm unable to do full testing (i.e., booting with no startup-sequence to start from raw shell) because I'm away from an external mouse and this stupid Mac trackpad doesn't let you press LMB and RMB simultaneously. WolnyCD didn't work for the emulated CD drive so I couldn't slow it down.

So I'm sure it can be made to work, but some more trickery is needed.

[Not Here Long]

Thanks for your responses everyone.

I've had some success running the game through the CD32 emulator which comes with IDEFIX97, after mounting the ISO in Windows, however there is no speech.

DiskImage mounts the ISO through the Workbench but the CD32 emulator produces a prompt reading "Inquire of diskimage.device unit 3 failed".

Any thoughts?

[Aladin]

use scummvm 68k, for example the new Pipper 2.2 on the zone to launch simon cd32.
or novacoder scummvm 68k 1.5 if you have less ram

[Not Here Long]

Thanks. ScummVM 030 doesn't seem to work for me. I assume that would only run a few point and click adventure games? I like the idea of a full CD32 emulator.

I own a surf squirrel external CD-ROM drive. The installation disk has a CD32 emulator on it, but my Amiga 1200 currently has no internal floppy disk drive. I have an external floppy disk drive. I could write the installation disk image to a floppy disk (assuming I've got one that still works!) and install the emulator (assuming the installer is compatible with an external floppy disk drive). Failing that perhaps I could mount the disk image.

The problem is, CD32 emulators, such as the one on the surf squirrel installation disk and IDEfix97, don't seem to work with ISOs as standard. Does anyone know if they can be made to work with an ISO mounted with a separate program? Disk Image mounts the ISO successfully but I get the "Inquire of diskimage.device unit 3 failed" error through the IDEfix97 CD32 emulator. The other programs I tried tell me the ISO I've mounted is not a DOS disk when I try to access it through the shell.

ScummVM would be better than nothing if I could get it working.

[Mad-Matt]

I used to use VirtualCD http://aminet.net/package/disk/cdrom/virtualcd to mount cd images in workbench. Never tried to use it with cd32 emulation though but maybe worth a go.