SSI - The Roots of CRPGs @ Bitmob

My TI didn't have an hd but when I got my 8086 (which around 90 -91) it had an hd and some of my most favorite games were the Ultima and Gold Box games.
 
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JDR13 said:
The TRS-80 actually used cartridges.

Iirc you could purchase a tape recorder or floppy drive as seperate peripherals, but I never had either.
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Nope. The original TRS-80 like I had (4k, yes, k of memory!) used a tape recorder and cassette tapes for storage. It was REALLY crappy and often would misread.
 
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BillSeurer said:
Nope. The original TRS-80 like I had (4k, yes, k of memory!) used a tape recorder and cassette tapes for storage. It was REALLY crappy and often would misread.
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I meant the TSR-80 CoCo (Color Computer). I think mine had 16 or 32k memory, but I don't even remember which revision it was. The naming was somewhat confusing because they had several computers that were called the "TSR-80".


The Color Computer, with its Motorola 6809E processor, was a radical departure from the Z80-based TRS-80 Models I/II/III/4/4p. Indeed the "80" in "TRS-80" stood for "Z80". For a time, the CoCo was referred to internally as the TRS-90 in reference to the "9" in "6809". However this was dropped and all CoCos sold as Radio Shack computers were called TRS-80 in spite of the processor change.


The CoCo, which could display eight colors at once, was designed to be attached to a color television set, whereas the Z80 machines used monochrome computer monitors, often built into the case. The CoCo also featured an expansion connector for program cartridges (mostly games) and other expansion devices, such as floppy disk controllers and modems. In this way it shared some similarity to the Atari 2600, Atari 400/800 and other cartridge-capable game consoles and computers.
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JDR13 said:
I meant the TSR-80 CoCo (Color Computer). I think mine had 16 or 32k memory, but I don't even remember which revision it was. The naming was somewhat confusing because they had several computers that were called the "TSR-80".
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Color? 16k? Pretty fancy there JDR! :biggrin:
 
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By the way I wish more companies did what SSI did; stick with a known game engine and WRITE GAMES with it. They improved it a tiny bit with each game and it was getting a bit long in the toot at the end but they were still great games.
 
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I present to you… Dungeons of Daggorath!

daggorath_troll_club.gif


Um… the title screen had some yellow in it.
 
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BillSeurer said:
By the way I wish more companies did what SSI did; stick with a known game engine and WRITE GAMES with it. They improved it a tiny bit with each game and it was getting a bit long in the toot at the end but they were still great games.
Click to expand...

I would have really liked to have seen that done with the Infinity Engine. Imo, there could have been at least 3-5 more games made with it. Some different campaign settings would have been nice.
 
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Played many SSI games on the C-64 and really loved the combat engine more than anything and is only bested by JA2 in my rose tinted world. Pool of Radiance blew my mind at the time and I still remember some of the battles from that vividly including a chance a bar fight, the epic ambush at the graveyard and the Tyranathraxus fight. Also remember using the floppy disk swap to cheat and give my team a ton of Dust of Disappearance as soon as we found it. Anyway they need to bring back code wheels as DRM and get rid of this securom stuff.

Edit: Forgot that I totally had a thing for the chick on the front of Curse of the Azure Bonds. Great marketing as there was no way that was not a sale for me.
 
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zakhal said:
There was a screw you could tune up atleast in C64 tapedriver. If that didnt work then there was always praying. Som games took up to 25min to load and they could fail on the last minute.
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Yes, that screw was for adjusting tapedriver head. It was very frustrating most of the time to load a game and i spent sometimes uncountable hours just to load the game …. Load Error was at that time my greatest enemy!

Edit: Ahh just to add that at the end I was able to recognise whether I will get Load Error or not by just listening to the sound!!! I also prayed many times ....

Anyhow, my first computer was ZX-81 with 1 KB ram!!! I later got memory expansion, additional 16K!!!! I have it still in my basement..

At that time I lived in Yugoslavia. At that time (before 8086XT) there was also computers like "Orao" and "Galaxija" also with 1K ram. I cannot remember who was producer.

Best,
kuki
 
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Pool of Radiance is still one of my favourite games of all time. The UBI-Soft developed Amiga version was pure gold. Alas, it's the only SSI RPG I ever finished.

I have the idea to play all of them again when I retire (hopefully around 2040).
 
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Some floppy disks (I always say "disquettes" ;) ) even had a copy protection.
My Blues Brothers Jump & Run game couldn't be played without the disk in the drive.
 
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Lets not forget buying single sided 5.25" disks and notching the other side so we could have double sided disks.
 
Pool of Radiance > Buck Rogers > Curse of the Azure Bonds > Champions of Krynn > …
 
Alrik Fassbauer said:
Some floppy disks (I always say "disquettes" ;) ) even had a copy protection.
My Blues Brothers Jump & Run game couldn't be played without the disk in the drive.
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Yes, I think they scratched some part of the media on purpose, and then the game tried to read there and expected to receive an error or something, so if you copied the game to a new disk, it would obviously not have that scratch :)
 
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SSI's Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures the game that keeps on giving. Hundreds of user created modules ranging from sci-fi to superheroes to good ol' fashioned sword and sorcery. Many of the modules are better than the original goldbox games, of course many aren't that good either. Reviews are your friend when checking out which to load.


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A few of the best modules I've played. Highly recommend The Curse of the Fire Dragon

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My first was Phantasie. IIRC I had raced out to buy Ultima 3 for my C64 and had difficulty with the open-endedness of it (I was very young at the time).

Phantasie was brought to my attention by a friend and I absolutely loved it. In particular I liked the flavor text in the dungeons when some squares were stepped on. I finished #1 and played #2 on the C64, but never could get through the second. There were some balance problems as I remember. Never played #3. SSI made some of the best RPG and adventure (Veil of Darkness) games and I remember them fondly.
 
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