Hiya. I've been playing with the Adventure Creator builds for kicks today and I got to wondering about what was around that it was compatible with back in the day. IBM/PC is pretty obvious, but what about other systems like the later C64? Wasn't it just finishing up its run back then?
I guess the real question concerns the interchangeability of DOS systems. Is there enough similarity between C64 and IBM, or is there simply no chance?
How old is this thing exactly? :o
The C64 was sold from 1982 through 1994. The AGS news (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/acnews.htm) only go back to 1998 and it seems that's about when AC was still at 1.0. By 1998 our PC:s were already running Win98 on Pentium II processors and we were playing games like Half-Life and Fallout 2.
What I'm trying to say is I doubt anyone ever considered porting AC to an antiquated machine that was only still used by some crazy hobbyists and assorted oddballs (like me) in bouts of nostalgia. Though I'm sure the one megahertz processor and the magnificent 64 kilobytes of ram would have presented some interesting challenges to whoever tried it. Not to mention the necessity to rewrite the whole damn thing in C64 basic...
Well, the documents in AC_100 say that it was 1995-1997, so I was thinking '97. I wasn't really part of the computing world in those days (I didn't get my first computer 'til I was 18 in 1999) so I didn't know how long the C64 stuck around after its commercial life.
I'd guess that a mere 64kb of RAM would be the deal-breaker, but I thought that the C64's later variants had moved on to extended RAM.
I'm curious about the interchangeability of software on those old beasts and it's AC that got me wondering.
And I'm pretty sure the Commodore Amiga never had that program either, and it had an adventure game creator itself anyway, called GRAAL. But it was heavy on the scripting with no gui. (Basically like fully scipting in AGS without touching anything else)
Did anyone here use that? Oops sorry hijacking your thread!
I mainly used amiga-c, though I played with a few of the other programming languages like AMOS and Blitz Basic II. I tried GRAAL a few times and it was okay but really limited in features. As to the question, no, software isn't really interchangeable between dos and amiga/c64. Two versions of the earlier lucasarts titles were produced (one for amiga, one for pc) to take advantage of the Amiga's then unparalleled visual and sound capabilities (4 channel sound and lots of colors!). The pc was woefully behind at that time period and the operating systems were entirely different (aside from some similarities between cli and dos shells).
The Amiga was truly an innovative machine!
Just open up changes.txt in the docs folder to see the change log, you'll see the original public release of V1.00 was on February 1997.
I never care what C64 was like (it was never popular here), but even if it's possible it's not practical, considering the hardware limitation and effort needed.
Moreover, even if you can modify part of the AC code to compile in a C64 I'm sure the games won't be cross-platform compatible, as the original AC engine ran in MCGA/VGA 256 colour mode, I don't know about C64, but I think it's probably in the line of like 16 onscreen colours? That means, if we want to make a game that runs in both ports either we need a PC port that support lower spec graphics or the C64 port would have to downgrade the game file's graphics in run-time (not pracical).
If you're not going to make cross-platform games, just want to use the AC codes as a base to build some game creation tool for the C64 (with features tuned to fit the C64 hardware of course), you need to note that the C64 used a 8-bit CPU that belongs to the 6502 family, as opposed to the 8086 family used in DOS PCs, though the AC codes were in C which had soem portability, they may not work in decent speed in a C64 (for computers of that era, if you want to do a bit complicated stuff like point and click adventure games you may need to at least tweak some part of the codes into using assembly, otherwise it would be sloooow).
So, my advice is, if you want to use the AC codes as a base to make a build for the C64, I think many changes should be made, which may not even be as efficient as rewriting everything from scratch to fit the system. But of course, you may use the AC code for educational purpose and for reference, to get ideas on how stuff can be implemented.
I'm really surprised to learn that anything, anything at all* would be exchangeable between a PC and a C64. Yes, the systems are that different, that I'd say there's simply no chance. For instance, memory (64 kb vs. 640 and up), processing power (PCs are radically faster), graphics (low-res 16 color vs. medium-res 256-color and up) and sound (3-channel synthesizer vs. professional sound cards). Where did this rumor come from?
*well, except for the Z-machine, but that runs on everything.
Hey, guys. Sorry for the late response. Life performed some kung-fu on my appendix Tuesday night and I've been laid out a bit.
Quote from: ManicMatt on Tue 04/12/2007 23:20:12Did anyone here use that? Oops sorry hijacking your thread!
Not at all! It's fun reading about those older programs. Consider me educated!
Quote from: ProgZmax on Wed 05/12/2007 00:59:00
As to the question, no, software isn't really interchangeable between dos and amiga/c64.
I suspected as much, but I figured it woulnd't hurt to ask. Oh, well. Thanks for the definitive answer!
Quote from: Gilbot V7000a on Wed 05/12/2007 01:21:13
But of course, you may use the AC code for educational purpose and for reference, to get ideas on how stuff can be implemented.
Okay... is that just hypothetical or are you saying that the source for AC really is out there somewhere awaiting my perusal?
What I really want when I get compatibility issues sorted out in my own head is to be able to run non-commercial adventure games on my DS. It sounds as if the more plausible options would require too much overhead before the game itself got around to running.
On the other hand, if the source for
just the AC runtime could be ported to nds format (not an impossible job since there are devkits for programming .nds in C++), those games
should have no problem running with the DS's four megs of RAM.
Quote from: Candall on Sun 09/12/2007 02:30:12
Okay... is that just hypothetical or are you saying that the source for AC really is out there somewhere awaiting my perusal?
Yes, I thought you KNEW about that as you started this thread. As far as I remember, the source codes of the DOS editor were once realeased to the public, unfortunately turn out CJ's old site was dead (including the later versions on Sylpher.com) and I have no luck finding the link to the source after searching archived pages in web.archive.org.
Heheh, I was hoping, but I didn't know it for sure. Begging would have been my next natural course of action.
My original goal was to chain a few emulators together until I could run it on the DS, but attempting to port the code to .nds would be the more stable and elegant method (or, in my case, looking at the code, getting frustrated, and then trying to find someone else to do it).
Thanks for looking, I'll see if I have any more luck.