Classics for free

[XavierHyde]

As mentioned in the updated first post of this thread, apparently Revolution are actually working on support for "Broken Sword 2" for the next major (0.6) release of ScummVM. :D

[XavierHyde]

In related news, the US government (or rather, the Librarian of Congress) announced yesterday the classes of works subject to the exemption from the protection of "technological measures", or, as we know it, copy protections. This may sound unimportant to retrogamers, but take a long and deep look at these two classes defined in the document:

(2) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.

(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

I don't think I have to tell you how important this is to the games preservation and emulation communities. :woot:

[evktalo]

Good to see you posting still, cappuchok..

Right now, I seem to have time and energy, regarding Legalaw.cjb.net, to read my mail twice a month. :) Aww, I really should get an update done..

Hidden and Dangerous is at least currently available for free download, in promotion of H&D2.

You can et it at least from here:

http://downloads.ign.com/objects/608/608420.html

[dewy]

thnx for the links d00ds

i also saw on freeOS.com that they r trying to get M$ to release it's old OSes as FREE Operating Systems but that'l neva happen IMO

[Klassik]

:D H & D E is pretty nice, I have been playing it for a few days. Thumbs up on that.

[XavierHyde]

@ evktalo: Thanks for the news (missed that one completely). A very nice gesture by Illusion Softworks, releasing it as freeware. :D Updated the first message with this info (and some helpful hints since IGN requires a premium membership to allow ftp download).

Keep up the good work, everyone!

[Chicane-UK Veteran]

Quite an excellent thread going on here. Didn't realise it went back to April!! Cappuchok, your work has been relentless - I hope it all pays off in the end and you get everything you have been trying for all this time!!

I saw someone mention a few pages back about the old Soundblaster program called Dr Spaitso? Well I looked for this same program myself a few months back - its actually Dr Sbaitso (I guess Sb for SoundBlaster) and you can download a zip archive of it here :

http://website.lineone.net/~terrirob/games/sbaitso.zip

Dunno if it works / if you need to run it in DOS mode with original Soundblaster drivers or whatever, but here it is. I remeber this when it first came out, and I couldn't get over how cool it was ;)

[XavierHyde]

Another quickie update in the first post...

I've also mailed Cryo Interactive (now Dreamcatcher Europe) and asked about the possibility to release "Dune" into the public domain, or at least the source of the engine so as to enable porting to various modern operating systems.

If anyone at this forum knows of a way to get in touch with someone at Blue Byte, I'd appreciate the info. I want to mail them about a possible engine update for "Chewy: Esc from F5", but have so far failed to find an appropriate email address to which I can send the mail.

'til next time, then. Keep mailing your favourite developers - be polite - and post any replies here!

[XavierHyde]

Got a reply from Cryo this morning. Apparently they were able to reclaim some titles when the company was liquidated and they became Dreamcatcher Europe. But unfortunately, Dune and Lost Eden were not among those titles. I will continue to look for whoever owns the rights to these titles today.

Also updated the first post... :D

[JohnsonBox]

The classics should include Win98, which is also a great game for computer players though it occurred as OS. :D

[JohnsonBox]

thnx for the links d00ds

i also saw on freeOS.com that they r trying to get M$ to release it's old OSes as FREE Operating Systems but that'l neva happen IMO

Yeah, those big classics are more interesting! :yes:

[shermang]

I've got copies of ALL the old MS OSes, they're pretty neat to put on an old machine and browse through now. Crazy how things have changed. It's also crazy how some thing havn't changed at all.

[XavierHyde]

The classics should include Win98, which is also a great game for computer players though it occurred as OS.  :D

Yeah, "Windows 98: Avoid the BSOD". :laugh: LOL

But seriously, this is going off-topic.

[Joel]

Moved here and pinned

[DigitalN.]

what about minesweeper?

[XavierHyde]

what about minesweeper?

Last I checked, Minesweeper was still delivered with any version of Windows. :D

[XavierHyde]

Just wanted to say that anyone playing old LucasArts games on modern machines should take a look at ScummVM Quick & Easy, which is a frontend for ScummVM, and it can be set to automagically download and install the latest daily build and configure ScummVM for the game you want to play. Really neat, you can get it at http://quick.mixnmojo.com/ :woot:

[briangw]

Sorry if this has been mentioned in the post, but I can't get to all of the pages just yet.

Has anyone looked up/contacted Epyx??? I know they did C64 titles, but figured they might have ported over to Amiga.

[XavierHyde]

Sorry if this has been mentioned in the post, but I can't get to all of the pages just yet.

Has anyone looked up/contacted Epyx??? I know they did C64 titles, but figured they might have ported over to Amiga.

Oddly enough, noone's mentioned Epyx yet, and I've forgotten about them myself (shame on me).

The Epyx classics in their original form (C64 releases) are available for free download on www.c64.com. I know that Epyx ported most of their titles to both PC and Amiga, and most of the PC ports can be downloaded from The Underdogs, and Amiga ports are listed on Back2Roots, but are not downloadable.

I've read that copyrights on Epyx games reverted back to their designers when the company died, but I have not yet found contact information for any of the developers in question. If anyone here has any information (or is willing to spend some time looking it up to make my work a little easier :D ), please post it here or PM me with contact info so I can contact them (or do it yourself).

[Fugi]

lol

[XavierHyde]

lol

What? Why the laughs?

In todays news, Mike Legg, formerly of Westwood Studios, has reported that he's heard from his old teammates still at EA Studios LA (formerly Westwood and a lot of other EA devteams). Unfortunately, it seems EA still holds the distribution rights to the Kyrandia series and Dune II, which are the titles primarily targeted for porting. Mike says he'd still like to port them, so perhaps we'll see it done.

There is also a poll on Team17's forum letting people say if they want Team17 to release their classic Amiga line of games with source code, like they did with Alien Breed 3D II a few years ago.

[XavierHyde]

Summary of recent progress:

I got a mail today from the CEO of Housemarque, regarding some questions I've asked him about releasing their oldies for free. Here's the relevant part of his reply:

I'll take this in my agenda. And that's a promise. We probably would be

able to do something with the games before Supreme Snowboading meaning Amiga

games and our first three PC games. But it is not going to happen soon as

I'll first need to do some business first!

I do not mind if you remind me from time to time - a few times a year

perhaps.

So I'll maintain contact with him, and post here when further progress is made in this matter.

Anyone else got some news, or am I the only one here that actually does any work relating to this thread? :cry:

[seba79]

Have you got maybe somekind "bomberman" clones ?

[XavierHyde]

Have you got maybe somekind "bomberman" clones ?

While somewhat outside the scope of this thread (which is real commercial games released as freeware), I will give you the following links as a good place to start:

Google's list of freeware Bomberman clones

Open Directory's list of freeware Bomberman clones

I have not verified if these are the same lists, I just cut'n'pasted the links from a Google search... :sleep:

[seba79]

thx :jump: