taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) (03/13/90)
I was at a friend house over the weekend to check out his new Macintosh
IIcx. One of the things we tried was a brand new right-outta-the-
box copy of the arcade game "Arkanoid". Much to our surprise, though,
it didn't want to work, even when we rebooted off the disk itself, rather
than the internal hard disk. Admittedly, he only has 1 MB RAM, but if
we're running just finder and no INITS, that should be enough...
Because when we went next store and tried the game on a Mac SE with only
1 MB RAM it worked flawlessly (and what a COOL game! :-).
Possible differences I can come up with:
the IIcx has different ROMS
the IIcx has a 256-bit color monitor
(but we tried it in 2bit B&W and it failed)
the IIcx has a distinct and different video board
That's about it. The company, Discovery Software, has gone out
of business due to a fight over ownership of a graphics/photo
editing program, so we can't call them and ask them about it. The
box, however, indicates that the program will run on Mac II systems.
The real problem; I want to get a copy for my own use, but I have a
Mac IIci, and if it fails on the cx, it's quite likely to fail even
more dramatically once exposed to 32bit QuickDraw! :-( Or does it?
I would be delighted to hear from people that have successfully run
Arkanoid on either the IIcx or the IIci -- including your system
configuration -- and whether it was easy or hard to accomplish...
One final note: if it *does* run on a IIci, then I'm interested in
finding a used copy of the game (it's nice, but $50.00 [the recommended
retail price] is an awful lot for a single game) too... ;-)
-- Dave Taylor
Intuitive Systems
Mountain View, California
taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylordan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Dan Schwarz) (03/13/90)
In article <520@limbo.Intuitive.Com> taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) writes: >I was at a friend house over the weekend to check out his new Macintosh >IIcx. One of the things we tried was a brand new right-outta-the- >box copy of the arcade game "Arkanoid". Much to our surprise, though, >it didn't want to work, even when we rebooted off the disk itself, rather >than the internal hard disk. Admittedly, he only has 1 MB RAM, but if >we're running just finder and no INITS, that should be enough... > >Because when we went next store and tried the game on a Mac SE with only >1 MB RAM it worked flawlessly (and what a COOL game! :-). > >That's about it. The company, Discovery Software, has gone out >of business due to a fight over ownership of a graphics/photo >editing program, so we can't call them and ask them about it. The >box, however, indicates that the program will run on Mac II systems. > >The real problem; I want to get a copy for my own use, but I have a >Mac IIci, and if it fails on the cx, it's quite likely to fail even >more dramatically once exposed to 32bit QuickDraw! :-( Or does it? > >I would be delighted to hear from people that have successfully run >Arkanoid on either the IIcx or the IIci -- including your system >configuration -- and whether it was easy or hard to accomplish... > -- Dave Taylor Well, you're in luck (sort of.) I worked for Discovery Software last summer, and (thankfully) left before all this nasty bankruptcy business came about. It was a very small company, and I got to do a lot of different jobs -- one of those jobs was customer support for Arkanoid. There are three types of compatiblity problems with Arkanoid: 1. Not enough memory. This occurs with Mac 512ke owners; the program needs about 10k more than is available for use. Solutions: Try booting from an ABSOLUTE bare-bones SYSTEM. That means only one (small) DA, no fonts, INITs, whatever. This may work. Other solution: upgrade to 1MB ram. 2. '030 problems. Version 1.00 of the program has nasty problems when trying to run on any '030-based system. These problems were solved in version 1.10, which was released in August 1989 [quietly - no packaging changes were made, and no dealers were notified.] The new version was tested and is happy running on a //x, SE/30, and presumably will run on the //cx and //ci as well. Added attraction: the new version allows the option of neutral-grey background (instead of those annoying B&W patterns!) - this is the easiest way to tell the two versions apart. 3. Multifinder problems. Arkanoid is very multifinder-friendly, BUT due to its use of alternate screen and sound buffers, it will NOT run under multifinder on the Mac SE or Mac Plus. It will run under MF just fine if you are using a Mac // or later. Other games, such as Dark Castle, also have this limitation. So, how can you get a copy of Arkanoid 1.10, you ask? Good question. The company is in a lot of legal hot water right now, which I am not familliar with, and I can't tell you what will happen. My best guess is that another company will eventually buy the rights to ARKANOID, which is still a popular product, and market it. In the meantime, call mail-order houses which still carry Arkanoid inventory, and ask them to send you one of the NEWEST copies they received. Definitely get a money-back promise so you can return it, if it turns out to be the old version... Realistically, your chances of getting a copy are slim indeed- there are probably only about 1,000 copies of Ark1.1 extant. If you call places that use INGRAM MICRO-D as their software distributor, you have a chance of getting newer copies. I'm not sure what the legality is of distributing software whose copyright is owned by a bankrupt company, but I will not get myself in trouble by testing the idea! Perhaps I can do a file-compare of version 1.0 and 1.1, note the important changes, and post a patch-file. Don't hold your breath; I've got exams coming up very shortly. Maybe in a week or two... -Dan -- | And the men who hold | Dan Schwarz, MB 2926 Brandeis U. | RECYCLE YOUR JUNK| | high places/ Must be | I'NET dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu | SUPPORT EARTH DAY| | the ones to start/ |----------------------------------| tradetapes?mailme| | To mould a new reality/ Closer to the heart ... RUSH | FloydRushDeadEtc.|