deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller) (09/23/90)
Hallo all. This is Ben Haller, author of Solarian II. This message is a little premature, but only a day or two, so whatever... Solarian II version 1.03 is now clearing comp.binaries.mac. The new version does a number of good things, too many really to go into in any depth. It corrects all known bugs, including the "My-desktop-is-black-all-over" bug and the problem with 24-bit video cards. It works under A/UX, and it works under System 7.0 to the best of my knowledge. I think when System 6.0.6 is released the sound may have a little trouble since Apple broke part of the Sound Manager, but I'll be releasing 1.04 or 1.05 someday to deal with that maybe if I feel like it. Once it is clear, download away. It has been sent to sumex-aim.stanford.edu for anonymous ftp, but they seem to be taking a while to clear it (last time I checked was a day or two ago, so it may be there now). Once it fully clears comp.binaries.mac it will be reposted on CompuServe, BIX and GEnie by a friend of mine, so it will be on those once it clears their moderators or whatever. Some people have talked about commercial distribution for Solarian II. Just to make it public, I have decided against that, mostly because it's too much trouble and I have no easy way of finding out if the various companies that have offered commercial distribution are trustworthy, etc. It will probably be distributed on at least two CD-ROMs, though, although I won't mention any names since I'm not really *sure* those deals are going through yet. Well. Enjoy the new version, spread it across MacLand to everyone everywhere...thanks for your support. A special thanks, by the way, to the people who beta-tested version 1.03. A/UX compatibility would have been a pain without them, and they had some good suggestions that I put into the new version. Bye. Later. -Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu)
sarwate@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (09/24/90)
Just out of curiosity, is this going to be clearly labelled in FTP as Solarian? And which directory will it be in?
deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller) (09/25/90)
In message <1054300024@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, sarwate@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu asks: > Just out of curiosity, is this going to be clearly labelled in FTP as > Solarian? And which directory will it be in? Well, the ways of ftp sites are mysterious. As of this posting Solarian II version 1.03 is not yet at sumex-aim, so all is speculation. But I imagine they'll put it in the game directory inside the info-mac directory, and I imagine they'll call it something similar to the current name, like: solarian-ii-103-partx.hqx We shall see. Since it is now clear on comp.binaries.mac, as I said before it should show up at CompuServe, GEnie and BIX fairly soon. Maybe even before it shows at sumex, given their lack of haste in these matters. -Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu)
baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten) (09/25/90)
In article <1990Sep24.202105.7465@agate.berkeley.edu>, deadman@garnet (Ben Haller) writes: >We shall see. Since it is now clear on comp.binaries.mac, as I said >before it should show up at CompuServe, GEnie and BIX fairly soon. Maybe >even before it shows at sumex, given their lack of haste in these matters. > >-Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu) I just posted the Compactor archive to America Online last night (I made it a self-extracting archive for those without Compactor). It should be available once the powers that be do their official "check for viruses/be sure it doesn't erase your hard disk" thing. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." baumgart@esquire.dpw.com | cmcl2!esquire!baumgart | - David Letterman
gaynor@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Jim Gaynor) (09/25/90)
In article <1990Sep22.224003.9703@agate.berkeley.edu> deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller) writes: > Some people have talked about commercial distribution for Solarian II. >Just to make it public, I have decided against that, mostly because it's >too much trouble and I have no easy way of finding out if the various >companies that have offered commercial distribution are trustworthy, etc. A cheer for Ben Haller! Granted, I don't have Solarian, and I've only played it once or twice, but it's wonderful to see a software author who's still committed to the shareware concept. It seems that all too frequently these days, an author will create a shareware or freeware product - and if that product becomes successful and/or widely used, will go commercial, forever limiting the distribution of the wonderful product(s) to the over-priced stores we've all been to, and limiting the usefulness of their product to what a commercial distributor tells them. > Enjoy the new version, spread it across MacLand to >everyone everywhere...thanks for your support. Thank -you-, Ben. DISCLAIMER: Yes, I know that there exist well-done shareware to commercial products, and that some packages have been bettered by going commercial. But the commitment to the MacCommunity shown by a shareware author who keeps his product in the shareware domain, freely distributable by all channels, is a commendable thing, IMHO. -=- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Jim Gaynor - The Ohio State Univ. - IRCC - Facilities Mgmt. - OCES <whew!> | | Email [gaynor@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu], [gaynor@agvax2.ag.ohio-state.edu] | |_ "Don't tell me truth hurts, little girl; because it hurts like hell..." _|
cantie@acsu.buffalo.edu (bruce n cantie) (09/25/90)
I have played Solarian II 1.0.3, and find it very jerky on the uper levels. When you get to about wave 9 or so, every time the supply ship comes out, or the extra points multiplier comes out it slows down the graphics. It seems like this is because of the length of the sounds, but I'm not sure. For me I'll go back to 1.02. Bruce -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bruce Cantie Internet: cantie@cs.Buffalo.EDU | I speak only for me, LAN Systems BITNET: cantie@sunybcs.BITNET | U.B. has nothing to 301A Computing Center BITNET: LSBRUCE@UBVMS.BITNET | do with it.
baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten) (09/26/90)
In article <37517@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>, cantie@acsu (bruce n cantie) writes: >I have played Solarian II 1.0.3, and find it very jerky on the uper levels. >When you get to about wave 9 or so, every time the supply ship comes out, >or the extra points multiplier comes out it slows down the graphics. >It seems like this is because of the length of the sounds, but I'm not sure. >For me I'll go back to 1.02. I think the sounds are the same in both versions. I play on a IIci with built-in video and haven't noticed the problem (at least up through level 13 or so, which is about the best I can do). No problem either on a IIfx. Although it plays very well under Multifinder and with dozens of INITs in the background, perhaps it would be worth trying under Finder alone, or without some or all INITs. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." baumgart@esquire.dpw.com | cmcl2!esquire!baumgart | - David Letterman
es2j+@andrew.cmu.edu (Edward John Sabol) (09/26/90)
On 25-Sep-90 in Re: Solarian II 1.03 now av.. user bruce n cantie@acsu.buff writes: >I have played Solarian II 1.0.3, and find it very jerky on the uper levels. >When you get to about wave 9 or so, every time the supply ship comes out, >or the extra points multiplier comes out it slows down the graphics. >It seems like this is because of the length of the sounds, but I'm not sure. >For me I'll go back to 1.02. This happens to me on wave four! If I hadn't already trashed 1.02, I'd go back to it as well. It can become very annoying! +-------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ | Edward J. Sabol | Arpa: es2j+@andrew.cmu.edu | | Carnegie Mellon University | Bitnet: R746ES2J@CMCCVB | +-------------------------------+ UUCP: !{psuvax1,uunet}!andrew!es2j+ | | "The streets that Balboa | USMail: Edward J. Sabol | | walked were his own private | Box 4540 | | ocean and Balboa was | 5125 Margaret Morrison St. | | drowning." - August Wilson | Pittsburgh, PA 15213 | +-------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller) (09/28/90)
In article <37517@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>, cantie@acsu (bruce n cantie) writes: >I have played Solarian II 1.0.3, and find it very jerky on the uper levels. >When you get to about wave 9 or so, every time the supply ship comes out, >or the extra points multiplier comes out it slows down the graphics. >It seems like this is because of the length of the sounds, but I'm not sure. >For me I'll go back to 1.02. The sounds are the same in 1.03. I've never seen this problem, but I think I know what the problem is. On very basic Mac II-series machines Solarian II is squeezing every last ounce of performance out of the machine. If a given "game tick" takes longer than a certain amount of real time, the action gets jerky for technical reasons. This never happens on my machine (a IIci) or on other fast machines like the IIcx and the IIfx. But on a plain Mac II, it is possible that certain changes made to the main loop of the game make it so, in version 1.03, each "game tick" takes just a little more real time that it did in 1.02, and it now goes over the limit where, with the original version, it just barely squeezed under. This would happen on some levels and not others, depending on how complex the level is. It makes sense that people observe this problem when a bonus ship or such appears, since that adds one more sprite that takes just a little more time to animate, which puts the game over the time limit. Get it? So the problem is your machine isn't quite fast enough to handle all the work Solarian II is throwing at it. Solutions: 1. Get a system upgrade :-> 2. Take out inits. Especially I think Suitcase, ATM and InUse would be likely to get time while Solarian II is running. Most INITs never get time while Solarian II is running, so most aren't a problem. But experimentation might help. 3. Run it under Finder, not MultiFinder. If none of these help, I guess go back to 1.02, but don't blame me if things like the Caps Lock bug and the black desktop bug get annoying... Let's make sure I'm right: has anyone experienced this problem running on a high-end machine like the IIfx? Has anyone experienced it towards the *end* of a board, when most of the nasties have been killed? If not, I think this is the problem. By the way, no I can't fix it and release it as 1.04. The thing that's slowing things down is that I now go through GetOSEvent to get keyboard events, instead of polling the low-memory keymap globals directly. This was necessary to fix the problem that early version of Solarian II had with non-extended and international keyboards. The toolbox call is not terribly fast, but there's really nothing I can do about it. I guess I could maybe walk the event queue myself, but I'm not even sure that would be significantly faster than GetOSEvent. Anyone know that it *is* faster? Well, enough babbling for today. -Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu) "It's just another day / Where people cling to light To drive away the fear / That comes with every night" - Oingo Boingo
Sonny.Shrivastava@f555.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Sonny Shrivastava) (09/30/90)
I tried Solarian II some time ago on my IIci, and it didn't work. The graphics turned into lines all over the screen - totally unidentifiable. Wil 1.03 run on the IIci? I would love to see the game run on my machine - I've heard so much about it...
--
Sonny Shrivastava - via FidoNet node 1:125/777
UUCP: ...!uunet!hoptoad!fidogate!161!555!Sonny.Shrivastava
INTERNET: Sonny.Shrivastava@f555.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORGhowie@intermec.UUCP (Howard Kaplan x6596) (10/01/90)
You say Solarian II exist! We FINALLY got the last piece and WHAM! Now we need a new decompress utility to extract it. This is better than "Twin Peaks". What will happen next? Will we ever find out who killed Laura? Howard
sala@imec.be (Cristiano Sala) (10/04/90)
In article <1344@intermec.UUCP> howie@corona (Howard Kaplan x6596) writes: > >You say Solarian II exist! We FINALLY got the last piece and WHAM! Now we >need a new decompress utility to extract it. This is better than "Twin >Peaks". What will happen next? Will we ever find out who killed Laura? > >Howard Meanwhile, back at Gotham City ... Our slightly daft version of rn appears to have failed to receive Compactor, which was recently posted to comp.binaries.mac. If a copy of it has accidentally wormed its way through your other files, I'd be forever grateful if you could clone it and E-mail it to sala@imec.be. BinHex/Stuffit is just dandy with me. The standard disclaimers apply to my first-born being or not being named after you. Cheers. Cristiano. -- Disclaimer: nothing means anything anyway. sala@imec.be
deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller) (10/09/90)
In message <7627.270D1EA3@fidogate.FIDONET.ORG>, Sonny.Shrivastava@f555.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Sonny Shrivastava) asks: > I tried Solarian II some time ago on my IIci, and it didn't work... > Will 1.03 run on the IIci? I would love to see the game run on my > machine... Yes. Solarian II 1.03, to the best of my knowledge, runs on *all* display cards that can do 8-bit graphics, likewise on *all* monitors, on *all* 6.0 and greater Systems (and maybe on earlier ones, I don't know...), under A/UX, under System 7.0, and so on. Version 1.03 was the "compatibility release". The only thing it won't work on that it (maybe) should is the new, idiotically small 8-bit color monitor Apple is supposedly releasing soon, the 512x384 synapse misfire. I may fix this at some point... -Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu)
mlloyd@maths.tcd.ie (Michael Lloyd) (10/11/90)
In article <1344@intermec.UUCP> howie@corona (Howard Kaplan x6596) writes: >You say Solarian II exist! We FINALLY got the last piece ... This last piece didn`t ever appear where I am. I got the compactor, and all parts 1 through 13, but not 14. Could someone out there send it on to me? thanks Mike. Mike Lloyd ! Dept of Statistics ! "Cogito, ergo Chico & Zeppo" Trinity College Dublin ! - Tonio Krikorian mlloyd@maths.tcd.ie !
dbasinge@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (d.michael basinger) (10/12/90)
Ok, Where can get it. My curiosisty is peaked. Mike dbasinge@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
am10ffv@sdcc15.ucsd.edu (JOSEPH JARBOE) (10/27/90)
test....