Any French Speakers on here?

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Gunness
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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#16 Post by Gunness » Sun Jan 30, 2011 2:12 pm

dave wrote:
Eriorg wrote: I wonder what we should put in the "Platforms" info of the game page, in cases like that?
Normally magazine/book program listing are put as whatever platform is listed in the book/magazine and ports ignored. I suppose generic "should work on everything" type listings should have a general platform; but normally most books/magazines listings have them written on a specific platform and conversion notes are printed separately.
I'm not sure if there's a single "best" way of doing this. Already it's a bit of a headache at times to recognize these unofficial versions from the "official" ones, especially since they have a strange habit of changing titles somewhere along the way ;)
Introducing a "should work on everything" tag would solve some problems and create new ones, as some BASIC variants are more compatible than others and some program listings would require larger changes to make them work on some platforms than others.

So I'm with Dave here - there usually should be a mention of what platform the game was designed for in the magazine. Still, at the end of the day, if such games are tagged for more than one platform, no great harm is done (I hope!)

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#17 Post by dave » Sun Jan 30, 2011 3:06 pm

Actually mangling the URL that eriorg sent, we can get to page 1, which gives us a list of:
  • Alice
  • Amstrad
  • Apple
  • Atari
  • BBC
  • Canon X 07 (?)
  • Commodore
  • EXL 100 (?)
  • IBM PC
  • MSX
  • Oric
  • Sinclair QL
  • Spectrum
  • Thomson MO 5 and T0 7/70 (?)
  • TI 99/4A
  • TRS 80
  • ZX 81
Which is the majority of 8 bit computers around the time, including a couple I've never seen before. Further on in the magazine there's conversion notes for the different flavours of BASIC. I haven't read through it all yet (as much as I can with my minimal understanding of French), but it looks like the programs are written in generic BASIC.

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#18 Post by Eriorg » Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:10 pm

Well, I don't know what computer the game was programmed on, and they don't mention it in the magazine, as far as I can tell.

When I look at the listing, I think it should work without any problems on an Amstrad CPC, so maybe it's that... but it could just as well be another computer with a very similar BASIC!

I tried searching the web for the name of the author ("Rafi Deryeghiyan"), and I've found two other programs by the same author, and they're on Apple II... but unfortunately, Sorcellerie totally does not look like an Apple II BASIC program, apparently, so it can't help us!

(By the way, the latter Apple II program, War, is definitely another parser-based text adventure in French. It was "published" in the issue 17 (November 5, 1987) of Tremplin Micro. Or rather, it was too long to be published and you had to buy the disc from the magazine, but the comments about the game in the magazine make it very clear that it's a text adventure with a parser.)

Are there any BASIC experts here who could tell us if there were actually other BASICs than the one from the Amstrad CPC with all these keywords?
  • ASC
  • CLS
  • DATA
  • DIM
  • INKEY$
  • LEFT$
  • LEN
  • LOCATE
  • MID$
  • ON <variable name> GOTO
  • READ
  • RIGHT$
  • VAL

By the way, maybe we should also mention on the game page that this is not at all the same game as Sorcellerie, the French translation of the famous early CRPG Wizardry, released a few years before? You never know, some people might confuse them...




EDIT:
dave wrote:Actually mangling the URL that eriorg sent, we can get to page 1
Here's a better link if you want to search the magazine.

Starscream
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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#19 Post by Starscream » Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:29 pm

dave wrote:
  • EXL 100 (?)
  • Thomson MO 5 and T0 7/70 (?)
    [
[/list]
Check this out:
http://dcmoto.free.fr/

At the bottom, there are info/emulator links regarding these and other French computers. The Thomson range has most games available, should be a bunch of adventures among them, e.g. Les Passagers du Vent (Passenger on the Wind)

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#20 Post by Alastair » Sun Jan 30, 2011 8:22 pm

Eriorg wrote:Are there any BASIC experts here who could tell us if there were actually other BASICs than the one from the Amstrad CPC with all these keywords?
  • ASC
  • CLS
  • DATA
  • DIM
  • INKEY$
  • LEFT$
  • LEN
  • LOCATE
  • MID$
  • ON <variable name> GOTO
  • READ
  • RIGHT$
  • VAL
LOCATE is the key here as all of the others can be found in Microsoft Extended BASIC of the early '80s.

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#21 Post by Gunness » Sun Jan 30, 2011 8:30 pm

Thanks for the Thomson link. I've been looking at the various machines in that range for some time, but I hadn't found any good sites that offered a compact overview of the games available.

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#22 Post by Eriorg » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:16 am

Alastair wrote:LOCATE is the key here as all of the others can be found in Microsoft Extended BASIC of the early '80s.
Thank you! :thumb:

And indeed, there's a remark at line 130 which says that the "LOCATE X,Y" command moves the cursor at row X, colum Y. That makes me sure it's actually NOT an Amstrad CPC program! On the Amstrad CPC, it's the opposite (column X, row Y). I've just checked with an emulator; the "LOCATE 24,10" from line 140 is wrong for the Amstrad CPC: you need "LOCATE 10,24" to put the "PRESS ANY KEY" message centered at the bottom of the screen, as it should be.

I also think it's NOT for Thomson: at least, I've looked at a few Thomson listings, and it really seems they use colum X, row Y, just like on the Amstrad CPC.

It's also not for Apple II. (They use HOME instead of CLS, don't they? And I don't think they use LOCATE?)

Does anyone know what BASIC variants use LOCATE <row>, <column>? Or does anyone know (it must exist somewhere!) of a good site comparing all the old BASIC variants, where we could find that kind of info?

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#23 Post by Gunness » Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:10 pm

While the BASIC issue listed above is being investigated, I thought I'd weigh in with some input on the French platforms. I've been in touch with Daniel Coulom, author of a heap of emulators. Among other things, he wrote:
I looked for adventure games for every french computer I made an emulator for :
- Philips VG5000 : no adventure game
- Exelvision EXL100 and Exeltel : no adventure game
- Hector HR and HRX : no adventure game
- Matra Alice32 and Alice90 : 2 or 3 adventure games, very poor.
- Thomson range (MO and TO) : more than 20 adventure games. Ten of them deserve a try. Some are long and difficult.
Not that it's any guarantee that further games don't exist, but at least it's an indication of where to place our efforts.

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#24 Post by dave » Mon Jan 31, 2011 10:15 pm

Eriorg wrote:Does anyone know what BASIC variants use LOCATE <row>, <column>? Or does anyone know (it must exist somewhere!) of a good site comparing all the old BASIC variants, where we could find that kind of info?


It looks like LOCATE row,column is advanced Microsoft BASIC - it even carried through to GW-BASIC.

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#25 Post by Eriorg » Tue Feb 01, 2011 6:08 pm

Gunness wrote:
- Philips VG5000 : no adventure game
There's at least Citadelle by Loriciels; I had even added it to the CASA site some time ago.

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#26 Post by Eriorg » Thu Feb 03, 2011 5:23 pm

I still don't know the original platform for Sorcellerie, but I edited the page anyway.

I also added two other text adventures by the same author (on Apple II), although it's very hard to tell if Le monde des sorciers is just a port of Sorcellerie with a different title, a modified version, or a totally different game with a similar premise... :?

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#27 Post by Gunness » Fri Feb 04, 2011 9:56 am

Eriorg wrote:it's very hard to tell if Le monde des sorciers is just a port of Sorcellerie with a different title, a modified version, or a totally different game with a similar premise... :?
That's an ongoing problem with a number of games. At any rate, it's easier to merge two entries at a later stage than vice versa.

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#28 Post by DataPro » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:06 pm

Hello, I am a French Speaker...

I am here to announce that the game Citadelle is now available on EXELVISION EXL100.
http://dcexel.free.fr/programmes/citadelle/index.html
Image

It is also available on Amstrad CPC :
Image
http://cpcrulez.fr/GamesDL_free/index.p ... 482e7a6970

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#29 Post by dave » Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:51 pm

So these are modern unofficial ports? In the past we've tried to stay away from unofficial ports (although some are on the site). It gets more complicated with adventures published with source and conversion notes for multiple machines.

I guess it's down to Gunness as to whether these are appropriate.

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Re: Any French Speakers on here?

#30 Post by DataPro » Thu Nov 24, 2011 8:52 am

Yes these are unofficial ports of a 26 years old software...
The author of the original game is credited.
Maybe it's not the last port (but it's a secret).

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