Re: Restoring Scott Adams adventures


22 Oct 1995 11:35:37 GMT

In article ehj@globe.indirect.com, jdyer@indirect.com (Jason Dyer) writes:
>I'm working on program to automatically convert a Scott Adams TRS-80
>file into Inform code, so all the rest of the games can be ported.
>

Interesting... Almost at the same time, two of us have got the same idea.
Did you also see the post in rec.games.int-fiction about a month ago,
where someone asked if there existed any converter?

My program (called 'Scott2Zip') can now convert Scott Adams adventures
in the 99/4 format; unfortunately, nobody except I seems to have any
adventures in that format. Therefore, I have extended Scott2Zip to read
the TRS-80 format as well. So far Scott2Zip can translate everything
except continuated actions.

I have solved the word-wrapping problems I wrote about in a previous post,
thanks to tips from Graham Nelson and Gareth Rees.

I intend to release Scott2Zip Real Soon Now, as soon as I

* have done the continuated actions for the TRS-80 format.

* reworked the opening screens to provide some necessary credits and
copyright notices.

I have a few minor problems left, which will cause trouble in a few games.
In 'Pirate Adventure' and 'The Count', the player must be able to enter
digits, but Inform (right now) does not support dictionary words starting
with digits. Also, 'Strange Odyssey' depends on the visible items to be
displayed in a particular order (there is an item named 'space suit', and
another one ', which I'm wearing', which must be displayed next to each
other when the space suit is being worn).

>Is this considered legal? I know both Pirate and Adventureland have
>been ported to other machines, but none of the others as far
>as I know.
>

There are public domains version for these two games only. The others
are still copyrighted. But by Brian Howart's games can be found at
GMD and they are also in the TRS-80 format.

>Are there any other games you would like to see restored?
>
>--
>Jason Dyer - jdyer@indirect.com

Bjorn Gustavsson