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(re: re: re: does anybody have any old computer magazines they loved reading)
i have boxes upon boxes of old PC magazines and dinosaur BBS print-outs.
(Re: Building a Sierra Computer) > roland? why must roland?
there are things the composed made the roland do that no version of the sb can ever do, because i have the same card you do, and i used to have a roland mt-32 module, and there’s a world of difference, like Madden 2004 on PS1 to the PS2 version!
(re: re: re: The Sierra Value Packs)
I’m almost 100% sure a friend of mine had a three game set that included Police Quest 2, ManHunter 2 and NOT Hoyle BUT Silpheed. In fact, I am sure, as he had a 5 1/4 drive only and gave me the 3 1/2 inch original diskettes that were of no use to him.
(re: re: does anybody have any old computer magazines they loved reading)
Growing up in New Zealand, we got a lot of British computer mags which were brilliant – a lot of humour and jokes in them, usually very funny stuff, and at that stage the British made games were awesome, so good coverage too. My favorites were Computer and Videogames, The Games Machine and The One. I used to love sending in tips/cheats for games and seeing my name in print! I threw out all my old gaming mags about 5 years ago, I had boxes and boxes of them – something I regret now.
When I was 10 or so, I used to go to the library and get out all the old Computes! and I loved them. However, the Computes I got out were the ones (when Compute first started up) that had game listings in them that you typed in to make your own games.
Since then, in the last generation of consoles I got nearly every single issue of N64 magazine (another British mag) which is the best gaming mag I have ever read, and I still have every issue in great condition too. The humour was awesome, the artwork breathtaking, and the game exclusives were awesome too. Sadly they lost all the good writers and art editor and now NGC magazine (as its called) is terrible.
(re: re: re: sierra’s future ) Making a game together would be awesome, and I happen to know it’s doable.
Link: http://www.thegaminguniverse.com/(http://www.thegaminguniverse.com/)
That’s a message board I hang out at. The main premise of the board, other than the usual message board chit chat, is making games together. It works extremely well: people make art of whatever the game needs, and they submit it, and they also submit music, sounds, ideas, whatever. The result is some games which are arguably as fun as any commercial games.
Ken, if you are going to go with the game making idea, i STRONGLY suggest you at least check that site out for ideas, if not outright list whatever game we’d be making there.
(re: re: sierra’s future )
Dear Ken,
I am finally starting to ‘feel’ what you are saying. I too am starting to get tired of dwelling on the Sierra “of old”. It’s getting all the more obvious day to day that the only chance of Sierra coming back is for the owning company to die (and who knows what else) and for us (all of us) to buy back the name and logo that “you know who” is simply stamping on boxes as they please.
And of course the logostics and odds of that are insane…
Maybe we should put away the rusty sword and forge a new one.
I think we could make a game. Easily. Yes that sounds nuts. But soon I will make an attempt to answer all our wants, to break the trend of mindless games, yes, they sell, and yes, I have played and bought many of these (who doesn’t enjoy a good game of Battlefield:Vietnam 🙂
Thusly I think this site you have created has already done ALOT of the research work. If we were to look back at all the posts, it would show a good deal of what we and you would like to see in a game… Something new, something exciting.. Just like the original KQ was to us.
Memory is a flicker of light, left behind in the heartland.
Let all this hope for Sierra, etc, be the starting point, not the resting point.
Anyways, good luck on your boat trip Ken, keep the fire alive and I’m sure some good ol’ brainstorming will be fun!
Yours,
Ryan(Re: Building a Sierra Computer) roland? why must roland?
i got awe32, sounds perfectly cool!
and we can add reverb and chorus (even in dos mode!)(re: Which games are now public domain?)
If you haven’t seen this, Freddy Pharkas is available at:
http://www.freddypharkas.com This site has the CD ISO file download, so it’s better on a fast conntection, if you have one.(re: Free: Sierra Spectrum Catalog) OK, that’s probably a version # for something else on the collection or for the collection itself (although the collections themselves rarely had version #s, if there is a version file in the root of the CD, it usually applies to one of the CD versions of the games on the CD (such as Larry 6 or something)). You can find out the actual game version by going to ‘About’ in the game. I suspect it’s version 1.002.000, which is the version I have on my collection CD (the “collection series” release). I just tried the cheat and yay! it worked. You’re right about it skipping the intro though. So I must have previously been playing another version. Well, I will get around to checking it out and letting Al know if there is any descreptancy between versions. I’ll report back here too.
Alright, I thought I had two other versions of the game, but I can only find one. It’s version 1.000.011 and the cheat does NOT work for it.(re: re: Free: Sierra Spectrum Catalog)
Yup, worked for me. I wouldn’t have been able to play the game otherwise.
Just popped my disk in and checked, here is what the version file says:
2.00
08/04/97
LL Collection Disc 1-emily
(re: Free: Sierra Spectrum Catalog) Well, I don’t remember which version I tried it on, but the cheat I am talking about is the one that Al Lowe has on his website:
When I was testing the game, I quickly grew tired of looking up the telephone numbers of all those girls so I made my birthday a substitute for any or all of them: 0724. (Of course, there’s a 555- before that number.)
And now that you know my birthday, I expect a card!
But it never worked for me. Are we talking about the same cheat? If it worked for you, I’ll have to go try it again. I do actually have numerous versions of LSL2. I should check exactly which versions it works for, and let Al know so he can add that info to his website.(re: Free: Sierra Spectrum Catalog)
Maybe it was only this version that had the cheat? Mine is the LSL Collection Series copyright 1997.
In any case, the cheat works but it sucks because you miss the intro movie and have no idea what’s going on as the game opens…
-emily
(re: does anybody have any old computer magazines they loved reading) I’ve never really read a lot of magazines, period. I bought the occasional issue of PC Gamer to play the CD demos. These days, the one magazine I always buy is Cinefex, a special effects magazine of high quality… it’s almost more of a “journal” if you want to get technical about definitions.
Incidentally I’m now on the lookout for any magazines with Sierra-related advertisements or articles in them. Brad’s got the Interaction stuff well under control, so I am, from time to time, picking up some of the more miscellaneous material. I’ve actually got a whole stack of Compute magazines, and I found a few small Sierra-related things in them (and a few other interesting things too). But, I’m looking to get rid of the rest. So if you or your best friend is interested in them, let me know. Or if anyone else is interested in them. As you say, great games and hardware history stuff in some of those magazines.(re: sierra’s future ) You know Ken maybe we could all build a game together I am sure everybody has an idea of what kind of game they want you could post a board for game ideas then you could ask programmers to write a program based on those ideas and see what you get. with email and everything else I think it is possible to get anybody who wanted to to create a game.
I think it could be done
(re: sierra’s future ) I like the idea of creating something 🙂
I don’t post much here really as I don’t have much to say but I try and vist a few times a week to see if anyone has posted anything of interest. I too am quite ‘bored’ of reading the same old statement with regards to Sierra. Please do not be offended, but reading the 100th post saying how Sierra taught you English and how dissapointed you are at how they don’t do what they used to do is old news. Sierra the name lives on but the company we once admired changed dramatically when Ken left the helm.
Also, the games industry changed incredibly quickly over those years and the results are for all to see – generally not enough creativity, not enough ‘real’ competition, lots of me-too’s and [seemingly] apathy for the customers! This is not just leveled at the company named Sierra, but mostly all the publishers who lack, or don’t fully promote/exploit, inhouse development teams.
(re: Free: Sierra Spectrum Catalog)
For some reason, the cheat code to skip the copyright protection for LSL2 never worked for me. Maybe I had the wrong version of the game – I think I always played the collection version… or something.
(re: Free: Sierra Spectrum Catalog)
I’ll take the photocopy of the manual! My Larry collection didn’t come with a manual. I found a cheat code online to get past the copy protection, but wouldn’t mind having the manual handy.
I’ll send you an email.
🙂 emily
(re: sierra’s future ) I was curious at the rate it appears the parent comnpany of sierra is going, do you feel the company will be around in 10 years?. I had also wanted to know if you had a chance to view the trailer of LSL and if you did what do you think of the game ? Do you think it has a poential to be successful from what you seen ? I have seen they dramrically changed the look of larry and as a fan of LSL it has me concered that the game may do well .
Thank you for your time Ken if you can answer this
I think it’s arguable that Sierra is already gone… at least in the sense I think of a company. It’s tough for me to believe that Sierra has any employees. No one has identified themselves on this site for several years as a Sierra employee. I doubt there is a Sierra President, or a big-picture Sierra philosophy. I doubt Sierra files a tax return. I doubt there’s even a Sierra coffee pot anywhere. My guess is that Sierra has become not much more than a name that you put on a box.
That said, I have no way of knowing if this is true. Sierra may have a million employees. It has been many years since I spoke with anyone at Sierra (and, in fact I doubt there is anyone there to talk with). Hopefully, someday someone will call and say “Hi. I’m Sierra’s President, can we have lunch?” I’m just not expecting that call to come…
And, that said…
I am trying to think about how to refocus this board in a more positive direction. It seems that the site (or, at least me) is caught in a loop. We talk about how cool Sierra was a decade ago, and then I whine about how they’ve screwed it up, and then the process repeats. It’s not bad to be nostalgic — but, I’m hoping there’s more to this site than just that. Also, I hate whiners and fear I am in danger of becoming one. Whiners don’t make great things happen. It’s better to focus on where you’re going, not where you’ve been.
My hope for this site was to capture the industry’s history, Sierra’s history, AND, to become a hub for people to talk about fun stuff that is computer or game related. To some extent, we have done that — if you read through the messages, there is a LOT of great Sierra history here.
However, I’ve dropped the ball on getting bigger-picture industry history here. I’m overloaded now, so that will have to wait until later — but, over the next year, I want to try to capture more stories here about “the old days” – that weren’t necessarily Sierra related.
And, on a topic that is much more fun: I want to think of something fun to do that is part of this site. I don’t know exactly what that means. My first thought is that it would be fun for all of us to build a game together. How I’ll accomplish that, I don’t know. It may be impossible — or, it may be more work than I want to do. We’ll see. Step one is to set the goal, and step two is to decide if the goal is achievable. Step three, which I hope we get to is to actually do something.
I’ve got some ideas in this area. I’ll be stuck at sea for the next couple of months. I’ll make it my project to try to come up with some realistic ideas. Don’t expect greatness though. Modern computer games cost millions to develop. I’m thinking of something more along the lines of a budget that would compare to lunch at McDonalds.
Anyway … trying to do something fun, whether we succeed or fail, beats the heck out of me continuing to focus on Sierra. Been there, done that.
-Ken W(re: re: Problem viewing msgs)
nvm mind about the search function, it was silly of me for not looking properlly
(re: List of Sierra Products)
Wow…okay…So it’s been quite some time since I last posted here. I’m still around, it’s just that school stepped in the way and prevented me from being able to really post here that much.
Anyways, I have been continually working on my Sierra timeline, and I have updated it to some extent. I still need to know dates for Beginning Reading, Dynamix Sample Pack, Early Math, EPF IV, Graphics Toolbox Atari 800, Kid’s Pack, Lisa 2.5, Lisa Educational Pak, Memory Management System, MMS II, The Next Step, Paddle Graphics, Pro Pilot USA, Speed/ASM, and Spelling Jungle. If anyone can verify these dates, that would be great!!!
I’ve attached the updated list to this message. Talk to you later!
JDHJANUS
Josh
The updated Sierra Game List!(re: Problem viewing msgs)
Its working fine now, I can now close ie and come back in log on. I still can’t figure out what went wrong though.
About the site, I guess its a sweet deal! I will look into it for further infos. I just need to know what are the limits(bandwith and storage) in order to plan further on how my site will operate.
Thanks for now.
Best regards,Carlson
Ps.Is there a search function for me to look up msgs?
(re: re: Problem viewing msgs) Lim:
Give my system a try for building your website. Although on
Link: http://www.websiteConstructionSet.com(http://www.websiteConstructionSet.com)
, it says that you have to pay, you don’t – at least for now. I don’t want to start charging people until the product is “right”. I don’t know if this will be another six months or two years. My sense is that within a year I’ll have something that I wouldn’t feel guilty charging for. And, when I do start charging, the price will be VERY reasonable. My goal is to provide the best product at the lowest price. For now, I’m providing a product, that still needs LOTS of work, for free — a formula that seems to be successful. I’m currently adding a site every few days, and just topped 300 sites a few weeks ago.
The system is remarkably stable. It has been running for about two years now, and whereas it doesn’t improve quickly (this is a hobby for me – not a job), it doesn’t blow up very often. I can’t remember being offline for more than a few minutes EVER.
I hope you give it a try! A major new release is coming in the next week (I hope) that makes things a LOT better.
-Ken Williams(re: Problem viewing msgs)
hahah that was quick!
no wonder it worked. Anyway, I’ve got people at ipowerweb hosting a site for me, but the system isnt user friendly and I am having alot of problems buidling my site, so right now, it only serves as my email server and ftp space for storing files. The only good thing is that I am paying very little for 800mb. But so far, my time spent on this site has been a good experience for me and if you are free, I am planning to try ur server out but i need some guidelines or perhaps advice. My goal is simple, I am trying to build a website for classic games.
Thanks(re: re: re: re: re: Problem viewing msgs)
Microsoft VBScript compilation error ‘800a03f6’
Expected ‘End’
/includes/pBuildNavigation.asp, line 177
else
This is what i got, after a few clicks, I managed to view this page fine now. Weird huh?
