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(re: re: Playing old games on new systems) Collector – I just found and started playing with NAGI before I read your post! 🙂 It looks good, I wish there were some graphics filters though. FreeSCI is a bit of a pain to get going in Windows, but it looks like it’ll be worth it. Oh, and when you use Firebird/-fox as your primary browser, you get used to tinkering to make things work…even if you aren’t a developer. 🙂
DD – I’ve always loved the idea of MESS. It would be great to have just two emulators (MESS and MAME) on my machine rather than ten. Unfortunately, at this point there’s just too little there for me. It’s a huge project and when it’s done it should defeat all other emulators. 😉 But right now, I’ll just keep a menu for all my emulators. Too bad they couldn’t just rustle up the creators of all the best emulators.
Thanks to both of you for the tips. Happy gaming!(re: Playing old games on new systems) Have you tried
Link: MESS(http://www.mess.org)
(Multi Emulator Super System) at all? It’s an emulator for running old systems on modern hardware, everything from the PDP-1 to the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer and more. You just have to find the machine ROMs in question, including the BIOS, to be able to fully emulate the machine in question.My particular interest in MESS is the Tandy 1000HX emulation and I wondered if it would adequately emulate the ubiquitous Tandy 3-voice sound. I still have my old Tandy 1000HX , circa 1987, and the original Tandy versions of many games, including Sierra’s King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and LSL 1, 2, 3 among some other Sierra greats, but the onboard color of my 1000HX had finally bit the dust about a decade ago and was not worth the cost to repair it. So I didn’t have a way to play those Sierra originals anymore, until MESS came along that is.
I downloaded and installed MESS, which is based on the same code that MAME is built upon, if you’ve ever experimented with that. Anyway, I download the Tandy ROMs, since that was easier than dumping the ones from my machine and, with the crapped out video, I didn’t want to risk bad dumps in any case. I made disk image files of all the original 360K 5.25″ and 720K 3.5″ diskettes and now I can play the original games just as if they were in my Tandy machine, including the 3-voice sound. It’s excellent!
You might want to give it a shot.
(re: Playing old games on new systems)
There are downloadable binaries of FreeSCI, but as most of the developers are mostly UNIX people there seems to be more problems with the Win32 ports, mostly audio issues. It is also no very clear how to set it up. You have to put a config file in a folder named “.freesci” in your home directory, which does not mean much to a Windows user. The Home directory equates to your user folder under the “Documents and Settings” folder.
For AGI games, NAGI has a downloadable Binary for Win32 and is very easy to use. NAGI works perfectly. It also gives three voice MIDI output and even limited mouse support.
http://www.agidev.com/projects/nagi/
Pre-compiled binaries of DOSBoxare are available for most platforms. DOSBox is under constant development and is always getting better. It is a generic DOS computer emulator that can run many of the old DOS games, including most of the old Sierra DOS games. This is an wonderful project that has great promise.
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/
But what is probably what is the most exciting development Sierra gaming is the development of new patches for the infamous speed bugs. ERROR 52 has been fixed! QfG4 can now be played from start to finish with out resorting to imperfect solutions, such as slowdown utilities or downloaded save games. NewRisingSun has manage to decompiled the scripts from the game resource files to fix the code just like Sierra used to do. These patches are script level patches. So far there are fixes for:
Conquests of the Longbow
Hoyle Book of Games 3
King’s Quest 1 SCI Remake
Leisure Suit Larry 3
Leisure Suit Larry 5 (English & German versions)
Quest for Glory 4 beta (CD version only)
Police Quest 2 (version 1.002.011 only)
Police Quest 3
Space Quest 1 Remake
Space Quest 4 CD Version
Space Quest 5
Space Quest 6Get them here:
(re: re: re: re: re: re: Which games are now public domain?)
Excellent! I am looking forward to seeing what comes of this too. There is definately room for a new voice at Sierra and your 18 year tenure there proves your skills. They would be crazy not to take up on your offer. I’ll look forward with everyone else to seeing how this pans out, but I know I’m not along in wishing for the best!
Anyway, have fun in Rio for Carnival, I’ve always wanted to go down to South America myself, but I’ll probably have to wait for own my retirement.
Levi
(re: List of Sierra Products)
Unfortunately, I do not own the majority of these games. However, I have scoured the net looking at various sites such as Moby Games.com, amazon.com, etc. for release dates for the games. On the games that I couldn’t find an online release date for, I kept searching and searching around eBay. If I saw an auction pop up with one of the games/software that I was unsure about, I emailed the seller and asked them to verify the date on the box. So, that’s how I have come to the list that you see before you. I was looking over it earlier tonight and discovered a couple of minute errors (spelling, alphabetical, etc.) I have fixed them and I have the new list attached to this message. Thanks for the welcome!
BTW, does anyone know a good site that I can find scanned boxes of some of Sierra’s older games? I downloaded the zipped file that Mr. Williams put up here in these forums, but it is not complete and I’d like to see some of the really old Sierra box art from games like Mouskattack, Bop-A-Bet, etc.
Thanks! Talk to you later!
JDHJANUS
Josh
Updated Sierra game list with small errors fixed.(re: FreeSCI) So, a few posts down I linked to some modern interpreters for Sierra games. After much searching, I found an old version of Sarien that I’ll try out. But, this message is about FreeSCI.
I’ve only just started toying with it. As long as you read the documentation, you should be okay. It’s not an install & go program, but it’s worth it. I tweaked my settings a little bit and took this screenshot:Maybe it’s not obvious to look at, but when you compare this to the original look (lots of dithering in the trees and water), it’s incredible. If anyone has questions, I’ll try to field them. I can’t promise anything though.
(re: re: re: Gabriel Knight Mysteries Soundtracks)
Right click on each link and choose “Save Link As…” or “Save target as…” depending on the browser that you are using.
(re: re: Kings Quest 4 AGI etc..)
I use the Universal Hint Reader… No spoilers just hints. Works perfect on my XP. 🙂
The Universal Hint System gives you just the hints you need to solve hundreds of computer games. Unlike traditional walkthroughs, the UHS lets you select specific questions and view only as much information as you want.
(re: re: re: re: re: re: Which games are now public domain?)
That is great!! Hopefully they’ll allow discussion of possibly a King’s Quest 9, a Laura Bow 3, or even a Phantasmagoria 3 this time with Victoria back. With either you or Roberta’s inputs in the future of Sierra I and thousands of fans would be ever so happy at such news. And believe me we all are from hearing VU will talk to you!
–Manon W.
(re: re: List of Sierra Products) Josh,
Wow.. this is nice list you have. Are all the dates verified with actual printed dates on boxes? Or are some still heresay ? I have a couple of copies of Story Maker at home – I will check the date on the boxes for you… I want to say off the top of my head it is 1983. I have been wanting to compile a new list with dates, since that list of products that was posted here has been floating around on the inet for quite some time with holes – so great job on improving the list, and even adding the newer products! I will be going through alot of my older software soon (pre 1985) and will let you know if I find anything that differs from the list.
Ken might be able to pin point some of the programming software… that you still lack placing.
I haven’t counted – but do you know how many products are on your list?
Thanks for sharing this with us!
-Brad(re: List of Sierra Products)
Wow, what an amazing message board! I’ve been involved in the Sierra community since 1999 and never knew this place even existed!! Anyways, for the past year and a half I have been working on updating this list, working on a list of every game that Sierra designed/published since 1980, all the way up through 2004. So far I have pretty much completed the list, and would love to post it here if you guys would like to see it, but I don’t know how to do attachments or anything like that.
Anyways, I have a question about several of the software that were released “Sometime in the 80’s.” I have searched the internet and found the majority of the list and placed them in the proper years that they were produced, however, I still have seven left before my list of All Sierra games are complete. Those games are EPF IV Programming Utility, Graphics Toolbox Atari 800, Memory Management System, Next Step programming utilities, Paddle Graphics, Speed ASM, and Storymaker.
If any of you own this software and have dates for when it could be posted, I would love to hear from you! I will do my best to check up regularly. Thank you so much!
Sincerely,
JDHJANUS
Josh(RE: A suggestion for Ken Williams) I’ve successfully managed to run all the Sierra originals I own in Win98. The key is to configure the Resource.cfg file correctly. Also it is a good idea to run a utility like Moslo to reduce your clock speed. This gives the computer time to initialize the hardware required for the game. If this does not solve your problems, then running Win98 in DOS mode is your best bet.
Check out these sites below for some ADI versions of old Sierra and other games.http://www.agdinteractive.com/
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
MikeP.
(RE: A suggestion for Ken Williams) <X-TAB> </X-TAB>I also still like to play through all my old Sierra adventures on a semi-regular basis. Within the past couple years I have replayed every game in the King’s Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Conquests, and Gabriel Knight series, plus a few other individual games, at least once. Sometimes to introduce my wife to them, other times just because I felt like playing them again.
<X-TAB> </X-TAB>Fortunately, I still have an old computer with a Pentium 166 running MS-DOS 6.22. It’s also got an actual Soundblaster 16 card, and a Roland SCC-1 MIDI card, so sound and music for the games is authentic, rather than poor emulation attempts. I keep this machine around just for the purpose of playing old games. You don’t have to mess around with emulators or tweaking settings when you still have the type of hardware and software the stuff was designed to work with in the first place. 🙂 Just hope none of it ever dies on me… (While most of the machine’s parts have been replaced at least once, the keyboard, case, power supply and floppy drives are originals from when I got the machine in 1991! And even the rest of the parts which have been replaced are all at LEAST 7 years old. Heck, even if my DOS boot disk develops errors I’m kinda screwed.)– Greg Smith
(Re: A suggestion for Ken Williams) Chuck,
You are right, something should be done to be able to play old (Sierra) games on newer computers. But I do not think each game should be recoded. Instead, using emulators provides for running any older game, and is a generic solution. Such emulators already exist, at least partly (For the PC: DosBox, Bochs, Tand-Em, …), but there is still a problem: those emulation projects are themselves tied to the current state of computers (Windows, Linux and MacOS for now), and as computers and OSes evolve, they will suffer from the same problem as what they are meant to solve: they will become obsolete. My main goal is to solve this issue.
For the games themselves, they must be properly imaged (virtualized) so that old game protections are not an issue, and the original game can be played with emulators. This is the goal of Disk2FDI for floppy disks, and there are many good CD imaging tools out there as well.
Finally, the rights to the games must also be acquiered so that the original games can be distributed without infringing copyright laws. This can be pretty difficult since many companies have merged or been closed down, so it’s often difficult to know exactly who holds the rights.
If all these issues can be overcome, then I would think that an on-line “old game shop” could potentially do well if the games can be sold for about 1-5$.
Oh well, you started me 😉
Vincent. –=====================_27533090==.ALT–
(RE: A suggestion for Ken Williams) Well.. I’ll be sure to buy them if that would be the case… Although I’m not sure if it could be done since Sierra still has the Rights for the brands/game code. Some people have been fortunate enough to make those games run using either VDMS or DosBOX, I’m sure I’ve made them run once, all of the KQ’s since once in a while I like to sit and do the WHOLE game set since they are very precious to me…
Since Ken and Roberta are not affiliated with Sierra anymore I doubt they could be the ones that could do it… A long time ago I heard about the re-release of the SpaceQuest saga, even had a link in the Sierra Web Site but never saw it come trough (not that I was looking), so maybe we all interested people could write a letter to Sierra to see if we get lucky.
Another thing would be to make the games run on VDMS or DosBOX and take note of the settings to make them run and post them so other people could do it (like somebody already did with KQ6)..
Ricardo Robles
(re: re: Kings Quest 4 AGI etc..)
About the hint books, they are only solutions to the games (I think, I haven’t opened them). They are pretty thin.
I just finished KQ4 AGI, and it really brings back memories. Those were the days 🙂(re: Half Life 2 Revisited)
Ken (if you’re still there, it says your user #999999 is no longer registered) would you of let Valve be in “development” of Team Fortress 2 and HL2 for this long(since HL1 was released Valve says)? It just seems like such a long time for basicly nothing to be released (not even a playable demo like id’s doom 3)
(re: re: Gabriel Knight Mysteries Soundtracks)
How do i download them? my comp just streams them and i cant save them!
(re: re: re: re: re: re: Which games are now public domain?)
Wow Ken!
That is the best Sierra news I’ve heard in…..well, a long time! I will be praying that something great comes of this, Sierra needs some serious help and I can only imagine the good direction you could bring to the table!
Hope everything comes together!
(re: re: re: re: re: Which games are now public domain?) I did get through to the VU Games CEO, a gentleman named Bruce Hack (who I’ve never met before).
Actually… the VU Games people have, thus far, been amazingly nice and accessible. They seem very open to talking. I think they were nervous at first that I had some ulterior motive in contacting them. It has taken several emails to convince them that I really am not looking for a job – nor money of any sort. I understand how they feel. I can’t imagine, that during my tenure at Sierra, I would have believed it if someone had said “can I help?” Sad as it is, few people ever say that and really mean it (in the big-business world).
Specifically, I told them that if they were a public company, I would be lobbying to be put on the board. I’m not ready to settle down and work a regular job. I feel bad that people might think I’m being lazy — but, I worked HARD for almost 30 years (nearly 18 of which were at Sierra) — and, I need some time to relax. Roberta and I spend most our time traveling now, and are having a blast. As I write this, I’m in Rio for Carnival. Life is good…
Anyway….
The next step is for us to meet “face to face”. That will take a month or two to make happen, but I do believe that we are on track for me to have some voice at Sierra. I’m excited thinking about it, and hope that it works out for them, for me, and most importantly: for all the people who want great games. It’s way too soon to say what will emerge from these discussions, but the indications are very good.
I’ll report more, as I know more…
-Ken W(re: re: re: re: Which games are now public domain?)
“Ken, I hope I speak for others when I say that no matter how small a step this may be … it makes some of us wet our pants.”
I laughed out loud at this message because it’s so true. My reaction to Ken Williams talking in any capacity to VU Games induces me to pee with excitement. Sad, but true.
How amazing the pull these games have had upon us all. Things from these games have stuck with me for years and years. I still revere them after all this time. And how much would we love to see these characters and game creators return to the fold? There are characters and themes that have nowhere near tapped their potential, and after all this time the market would certainly not be saturated with similar product. Gabriel Knight? Space Quest? Laura Bow? These are fantastic concepts whose return is overdue.
If you need any evidence for the VU guys, Ken, point out how almost a decade after the decline of Sierra adventures there is still a thriving community online. People lovingly remake them with no hope of remuneration, and the originals go for so much on ebay I can’t even afford them (tried to pick up Roberta’s anthology last night… no dice!).
I worked in a Gamestop for five years and I can’t count how many times people would bemoan the loss of Sierra without my prompting them. This occurred very, very often. The thing is, these people were often women or non-gamers who were accompanying their gamer friends or boyfriends into the store. While the friends checked out the latest FPS, they would bemoan the fact that there was nothing for them to play. Usually, the story would be that they hadn’t played anything since the last King’s Quest, or Quest for Glory, or whatever. They would ask if I could recommend anything at all, and while occaisionally I could recommend the one adventure title that came out that year, they would mostly leave the store emptyhanded.
Not only is there a built-in market for any quality game in the Sierra style (us), there’s also a large market of lost gamers who need only to be reached by an ad campaign to return to the fold. Now we just need the games…
Michael
(re: re: Art Serabian) Art is a friend of Al Lowe’s who lives in Fresno. I interviewed him several times for varying positions at Sierra, and at WorldStream – but, was never able to lure him out of academia. At the time he was working for Fresno city schools (I think) running their MIS function.
I remember being super-impressed by him. To my knowledge, he doesn’t appear in any of our games, although – perhaps he does, or you wouldn’t have asked…..
-Ken W(re: Kings Quest 4 AGI etc..) Yeah… I also meant to say it’s because of the type of games today… you think of a “stategy guide” as a level-by-level walkthrough of today’s FPS and combat simulation games, which is what they basically are. They tell you where all the hidden levels and power-ups etc are and how to beat major bosses etc…
I never had any hintbooks when I was playing Sierra’s games growing up… and no internet access of course and limited BBS access, which was a good thing, because then the solution was not at your fingertips for looking it up. It wasn’t until after I had beaten many of the games that I found a program called sdox.exe (Sierra documents) which had hints for a great number of Sierra games, and I used that program to play through some adventures I hadn’t played at first. A great program – but you may have trouble running it on new computers, it may refuse to run at all. Basically just a program containing a bunch of text files about the games sorted by game series, game, and then area of the game, with the program acting as a viewer interface. A very interesting little thing, since you can also open the .exe file with winzip, and you’ll see a bunch of gibberish *.cmp files but the names are the game names.
