dougp@sbphy.ucsb.edu (12/17/88)
I just bought StarRay from Logotron, I am takeing it back tomarrow. This will be the last time I buy any piece of software made in europe I have bought two packages that were made in europe, Emrald Mine and Star Ray, Both no longer function. I have a stock A1000 with 512K ram and a second disk drive. The only thing nonstandard in my Amiga is a Spirit ram expansion board & clock with 0K installed (prices are still too high). Case history: Emerald mine. I bought this at a show so I could not take it back, there is no address on any of the packaging to send for replacement disks. I had a hard time booting this disk to begin with succeeding about 1 time in ten. I got to play it about 20 times before it would no longer load (that makes about $1 per play). It is now just a useless piece of plastic sitting in a box on my desk, there is no way for me to get a replacement. StarRay: I bought this today from Software Etc. (At liest I can take this one back) I carefully write protected both disks before useing them. The game booted perfectly the first time, and I played it 3 times. on the third time, I got a high score, after entering my initials I got a list of high scores then a bunch of disk errors, then the program hung with the disk spinning. I popped the disk out and rebooted thinking the game had crashed because it wasn't allowed to write to the disk. the first disk booted fine, I inserted the second at the proper time and the program hung with the disk spinning. reboot and I get a guru. There is no place within 50 miles which will let me try sofware before buying it so to be safe I will no longer buy europian software. I still want to know how this game distroied iself with on a write protected disk.
fred@maccs.McMaster.CA (Fred Whiteside) (12/21/88)
In article <1055@hub.ucsb.edu> dougp@sbphy.ucsb.edu writes: [some stuff which I deleted] >Emerald mine. I bought this at a show so I could not take it back, >there is no address on any of the packaging to send for replacement >disks. I had a hard time booting this disk to begin with succeeding >about 1 time in ten. I got to play it about 20 times before it would >no longer load (that makes about $1 per play). It is now just a useless >piece of plastic sitting in a box on my desk, there is no way for me to >get a replacement. [and some more that I deleted] I tend to agree with your position on games which are copy-protected with disk-based mechanisms. (Actually, I *hate* copy-protection, but we're talking about a specific game, here.) I also have a 512K 1000 (no extra memory, though) and had the same maddening problems with Emerald Mines. Someone on the net mentioned removing your second disk drive would alleviate the booting problems, but that didn't work for me. What *did* work was: 1) Boot normal workbench. 2) Put FredFish #1375528787 (I can't remember at the moment) and load Sectorama (nice program). 3) Put Emerald Mines in DF0: 4) Use Sectorama to look at Emerald Mines disk (it doesn't seem to matter what exactly I look at. You could try searching for something ... That always works for me). 5) C-A-A to boot from Emerald Mines. This works for me every time (well, the 10 or so times that I have played it). Just so that your EM diskette wasn't wasted, or anything ...