thaanuj@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (John Thaanum) (03/13/91)
The syquest drive I purchased recently had about 25meg of pd stuff on it,
which I am just now sorting through to see what is worthwhile. One of
the programs was a pd game called Goldrunner. I unarc-ed it and tried playing
in monochrome. Here is where an interesting sequence of events occurs:
1. Many bombs appear. I figure it must only run in color.
2. I hit reset, thinking I'll play it later. Computer fails to boot. Solid
black screen.
3. I turn off the machine, wait a few seconds, and turn it back on. Nothing.
4. I try booting in color. No problem.
5. I try to play Goldrunner again. Bombs-o-plenty during loading.
6. I hit reset. Same screen with program title at top of screen and busybee
-immediately- appears without any disk accesses. Computer is locked up.
7. I power down, wait, and power back up. Same screen as #5 and #6 above,
slightly corrupted by an occasional stray pixel.
8. Repeat #7. Same results.
9. Since the cover is currently off my computer (I have been fiddling with
ram upgrades) I decide to unplug it, and ground every pin on each of the
ram chips.
10. I reboot in mono. All appears well. I load Flash! and call my campus
network server and hookup to the machine I am typing this on.
11. In the middle of the first article in c.s.a.8bit, I set a new personal
record: 13 bombs! I have never seen anything like it!. Computer is
now hopelessly locked up.
12. Repeat #11. I login and start typing this article. So far so good...
Now I don't know if Goldrunner is the problem, but I deleted it and will
never know for sure now. I have owned my ST for about a year, and the person
I bought it from got it originally in 1986. For all these years it has been
about as reliable as an anvil, so I don't think it was my computer's problem.
My advice to you is to avoid 'Goldrunner' unless one of your hobbies is
computer-masochism.
John Thaanum thaanuj@prism.cs.orst.eduBob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (03/14/91)
John Thaanun related problems with his ST after trying to run "Goldrunner".. First of all, if it's the same game, "Goldrunner" was a commercial product from MicroDeal in England, distributed in the USA by MichTron.. not PD.. >9. Since the cover is currently off my computer (I have been fiddling with ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > ram upgrades) I decide to unplug it, and ground every pin on each of the ^^^^^^^^^^^^ > ram chips. I highly suspect this is the cause of the problem, not trying to run a game... except for highly isolated cases, software CANNOT damage hardware. The symptoms described sound very much like the effects of fiddling with RAM upgrades... BobR
jamie@defoe.enet.dec.com (03/14/91)
"Goldrunner" isn't PD. It was sold by (I think) Microdeal in the UK. There's also a successor; Goldrunner 2 + scenery disks. It's a really good shoot-em-up, though Goldrunner 2 isn't so hot. So perhaps your suggestion to "avoid" Goldrunner is a little premature; if you had an original copy you would have had no problems!!! Jamie.
thaanuj@prism.cs.orst.edu (John Thaanum) (03/15/91)
In article <40117@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes: >John Thaanun related problems with his ST after trying to run "Goldrunner".. > >First of all, if it's the same game, "Goldrunner" was a commercial product >from MicroDeal in England, distributed in the USA by MichTron.. not PD.. > >>9. Since the cover is currently off my computer (I have been fiddling with > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >> ram upgrades) I decide to unplug it, and ground every pin on each of the > ^^^^^^^^^^^^ >> ram chips. > >I highly suspect this is the cause of the problem, not trying to run a >game... except for highly isolated cases, software CANNOT damage hardware. > >The symptoms described sound very much like the effects of fiddling with >RAM upgrades... > >BobR I have heard from many people that Goldrunner is not PD. I plan on calling Joppa (where I got my drive) and asking them why they bundled commercial stuff on my syquest cart. I know that software -usually- cannot damage hardware, but this is not written in stone. Early Commodore machines had weaknesses this way. The Apple ][ may have never surpassed the Commodore PET as an educational machine in elementary schools were it not for a rom-frying POKE statement in CBM basic. It was all too easy for enterprising students to bake their machine with just a few keystrokes. I don't remember how it worked, only that it did. I don't think my machine has been damaged, but only that it fails to forget things when I turn it off. Right now it is at its normal, unexpanded 512K. All is normal except for one broken pin on the mmu. It worked 100% fine for about a week, even without the pin. ( I assume that pin is for addressing higher memory, which I don't have right now.) Makes me kinda wish my ST would zero all memory locations at bootup like the good ol' 8bits do :-) John Thaanum thaanuj@prism.cs.orst.edu
ggranger@nro.cs.athabascau.ca (Greg Granger) (03/15/91)
jamie@defoe.enet.dec.com writes: > "Goldrunner" isn't PD. It was sold by (I think) Microdeal in the UK. > There's also a successor; Goldrunner 2 + scenery disks. > > It's a really good shoot-em-up, though Goldrunner 2 isn't so hot. > > So perhaps your suggestion to "avoid" Goldrunner is a little premature; > if you had an original copy you would have had no problems!!! > > > > Jamie. Ocean's new game "Epic" used to be Microdeal's sequel to "Goldrunner 2", aptly called "Goldrunner 3". Microdeal, in the middle of development of "GR 3", decided to get out of the software market. Ocean promptly bought the rights to it, and released it as "Epic". I believe it is now out as we speak. I have seen some screenshot of it in ACE magazine, and it looks awesome! Greg Granger = INet: ersys!ggranger@nro.cs.athabascau.ca = = Fnet: Greg Granger (Node 532) Dark Knight (Node 595)= = Post: 5906-188 Street Edmonton, AB Canada T6M-2A9 = = Tele: +1 403 481-0803 OR +1 403 481-5110 =
Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (03/16/91)
John Thaanum writes: >I don't think my machine has been damaged, but only that it fails to forget >things when I turn it off. ... >Makes me kinda wish my ST would zero all memory locations at bootup like >the good ol' 8bits do :-) Hmmm... sounds like there may be deeper underlying problems.. the ST *is* supposed to zero out memory when you run a program... that's what Pinhead is designed to prevent (and avoid the long wait while 2.5 or 4 megs are cleared every time you run something). Have you tried a memory test program like Supra's MEMTST..? BobR (That POKE in the early Pets would turn the built-in monitor's brightness up excessively and burn it out... nasty..! There was another case of software harming hardware in early Radio Shack Color Computers.. you could POKE the clock speed higher.. nice for games, but it could overheat the LSI chips... but those are the exceptions...)