About the platforms/Japanese games

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Starscream
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About the platforms/Japanese games

#1 Post by Starscream » Sat Jan 29, 2011 5:46 pm

Hi,
when looking at the Coleco Adam games list I noticed it contained Infocom adventures, I was wondering if these are genuine platform specific releases or just the CP/M versions
runable on the computer. What is the site's policy regarding this and unofficial conversions (common on the C16/Plus 4 for example)?

I also noticed that NEC computers are combined into one platform, this seems like an overgeneralization, I propose renaming into NEC PC-88 and adding one or two others later (NEC PC-98 and NEC PC-6001)

I can't help directly with the newly added FM-7 games, but I think it's worth mentioning that it might be possible to copy text out of the PC-88 versions using the X88000 emulator (see also here )
This could allow at least machine translation, giving a general idea of what's going on. Of course, you'd still need to know some basic Japanese commands for most games.
On the PC-98, it's possible to use the programm AGTH to achieve something similar with some games using the Anex emulator. The later games there don't use a classic enter text command interface anymore e.g. the Dead of the Brain series.

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Plissken
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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#2 Post by Plissken » Sun Jan 30, 2011 11:07 am

Hi Starscream, it's nice to see you there. :D
I second the request. :)

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#3 Post by dave » Sun Jan 30, 2011 1:51 pm

Starscream wrote:when looking at the Coleco Adam games list I noticed it contained Infocom adventures, I was wondering if these are genuine platform specific releases or just the CP/M versions runable on the computer. What is the site's policy regarding this and unofficial conversions (common on the C16/Plus 4 for example)?
I'll have to leave Gunness to answer the Adam stuff as I haven't looked at any of them.

In terms of unofficial conversions - they shouldn't be listed; unless they're important (just to give the admins some leeway). Hence most of the unofficial C16/+4 games haven't been added. And I wouldn't expect my unofficial ports of the saga engine games to the BBC to be added.

On the counterside, the admins have minimal experience of some of the platforms, so sometimes we just make a judgement from what we find on the Internet. That judgement may sometimes be wrong, so we hope the community tells us about it :-)
Starscream wrote:I also noticed that NEC computers are combined into one platform, this seems like an overgeneralization, I propose renaming into NEC PC-88 and adding one or two others later (NEC PC-98 and NEC PC-6001)
I have to take responsibility for this one - I added the NEC computers whilst I was researching text adventures for the Sharp MZ series. I have no knowledge about the NEC computers so would have to defer to others. What's the differences between the different NEC PC computers? Are the architectures/capabilities vastly different? Are they (partially) compatible?

Just as a guide, we link very similar machines (e.g. Spectrum 16K/48K/128K, Commodore C64/C128, BBC/Electron/Master, Sharp MZ-80K/MZ-80A/MZ-700/MZ-800) due to cross-compatibility and ease of emulator finding.

I'll have a look at some of the emulators for the Fujitsu and NEC machines, though I can't read Japanese :-)

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#4 Post by Gunness » Sun Jan 30, 2011 2:03 pm

Hi, and welcome to the forum! And thanks for bringing up these topics :)

Dave beat me to answering the majority of your questions. Regarding the unofficial conversions, Dave is correct - I've received some requests to include them, but as one of our goals is to catalogue which games have been released for which platforms, I think this would be a mistake. However, there's nothing wrong with giving such ports a mention in the synopsis.

As for the Infocom titles on the Adam, I'll have to investigate further. I located the games on a website some time ago but as I have zero experience with the Adam, I simply included them without further ado. As Dave said, sometimes our experience with a certain plaform is limited (to put it mildly), so any input to correct our database is more than welcome.

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#5 Post by Starscream » Sun Jan 30, 2011 6:13 pm

Plissken wrote:Hi Starscream, it's nice to see you there. :D
I second the request. :)
Cheers :)
I have to take responsibility for this one - I added the NEC computers whilst I was researching text adventures for the Sharp MZ series. I have no knowledge about the NEC computers so would have to defer to others. What's the differences between the different NEC PC computers? Are the architectures/capabilities vastly different? Are they (partially) compatible?
The machines I listed listed are really different, there's no cross-compatibility that I know of. You'll need a different emulator for each of them. There are even more machines, and there's compatibility of the PC-88 line with the early PC-8001 incarnations for example, but I think this goes at this point to far. The main computers for which there is the most information and software available are the PC-98 and PC-88.
Just as a guide, we link very similar machines (e.g. Spectrum 16K/48K/128K, Commodore C64/C128, BBC/Electron/Master, Sharp MZ-80K/MZ-80A/MZ-700/MZ-800) due to cross-compatibility and ease of emulator finding.
Right, I think there's no need to split it up too much.
As for the Infocom titles on the Adam, I'll have to investigate further. I located the games on a website some time ago but as I have zero experience with the Adam, I simply included them without further ado. As Dave said, sometimes our experience with a certain plaform is limited (to put it mildly), so any input to correct our database is more than welcome.
Infocom on MSX is a a tricky case as well. Since the update system is rather easy and I don't need to spend hours figuring out correct release dates for each platform, expect some additions soon :wink:

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#6 Post by Alastair » Sun Jan 30, 2011 8:14 pm

Starscream wrote:Hi,
when looking at the Coleco Adam games list I noticed it contained Infocom adventures, I was wondering if these are genuine platform specific releases or just the CP/M versions runable on the computer.
If CP/M was officially released for the Adam then any CP/M game that can run on the Adam may be considered an Adam game. For comparison, look at the PC platform where any DOS, Windows, Windows NT, OS/2, CP/M-86, etc., game that can run on a PC is classified as a PC game.
Starscream wrote:
Dave wrote: I have to take responsibility for this one - I added the NEC computers whilst I was researching text adventures for the Sharp MZ series. I have no knowledge about the NEC computers so would have to defer to others. What's the differences between the different NEC PC computers? Are the architectures/capabilities vastly different? Are they (partially) compatible?
The machines I listed listed are really different, there's no cross-compatibility that I know of. You'll need a different emulator for each of them. There are even more machines, and there's compatibility of the PC-88 line with the early PC-8001 incarnations for example, but I think this goes at this point to far. The main computers for which there is the most information and software available are the PC-98 and PC-88.
Would you be kind enough tell us what the separate platforms the NEC computers should be called, and which computers belong in each group?

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#7 Post by Starscream » Sun Jan 30, 2011 11:26 pm

Alastair wrote:
Starscream wrote:Hi,
when looking at the Coleco Adam games list I noticed it contained Infocom adventures, I was wondering if these are genuine platform specific releases or just the CP/M versions runable on the computer.
If CP/M was officially released for the Adam then any CP/M game that can run on the Adam may be considered an Adam game. For comparison, look at the PC platform where any DOS, Windows, Windows NT, OS/2, CP/M-86, etc., game that can run on a PC is classified as a PC game.
If you'd split up the PC platform into the various OS, most if not all would be associated with "IBM PC compatible" anyway.

For CP/M, there are already lot's of different platforms in the database which could possibly use it. Infocom Amstrad releases can be played on a Spectrum this way, but they *weren't meant to be* which may cause problems. I haven't tried this personally yet. There's a page from an Infocom catalog linked in the MSX thread I posted before, they listed dedicated CP/M releases of their games and platforms like the Kaypro II had an additional CP/M requirement listed.
In the specific case of the ADAM, here's a review of Sorceror mentioning that the text is meant to display on 80 columns, implying it's not suited for the ADAM "out of the box".
Imho it makes most sense to give CP/M it's own category for submissions because of this.
Would you be kind enough tell us what the separate platforms the NEC computers should be called, and which computers belong in each group?
Like I said in the original post, my suggestion would be to rename the current platform to "NEC PC-88" and make a another one called "NEC PC-98". I can submit at least the various ports of western games, that doesn't take that much research.

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#8 Post by dave » Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:55 pm

Multi-platform OSes (e.g. CP/M or Unix) are always going to cause a problem with the platform and we do have some precedence where this has happened before (e.g. Unix or Mainframe). IIRC CP/M will run on any Z80 machine (I remember using it on Torch at school many years ago).

I suppose the argument is whether it was released for CP/M; or specifically for CP/M on Amstrad/Adam/Torch etc. I think it may be time to do some reading up on CP/M.

Edit: Regarding the NEC machines; I've added NEC PC-98 and renamed NEC PC to NEC PC-88; so all the current games are in the NEC PC-88 category; when I get some time. I'll try and sort out whether these are all correct.

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#9 Post by dave » Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:58 am

Okay; I've added CP/M as a platform, currently only for Barsoom Adventure #1: The Lost City which replaced Adam.

My logic behind this (after doing some research) is the CP/M was an alternative OS for computers with a Zilog Z80 or an Intel 8080 (the Z80 is virtually compatible with the 8080) where the CP/M files are binary compatible. So in theory, you could take a CP/M game written on the Spectrum and run it on an Adam, or a Sam Coupé, or a Torch, or even a C128 (as they had a Z80 second processor) or a BBC Master with a Z80 second processor.

In these cases the hardware is meaningless, other than having a Z80/8080; so in these respects it'll be the same as the few Unix games we have.

I need to do some more digging on which games were released for CP/M, it looks like a load of the Infocom games shared this honour and some of the Level 9 ones may have and I've found ones written in BASIC and PAW.

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#10 Post by Starscream » Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:49 pm

I've just submitted Infocom CP/M releases based on the 1986 catalog.
Image. I'm suggesting the deletion of the adam and msx Infocom entries, absent evidence they got their own dedicated releases.

Also, some of the ports for Japanese platforms were split from the main entry (scott adam games). The FM-7 platform entries needs to be moved to these as well. Accordingly, games like Crimson Crown and Wizard and the Princess would need their own (second) entry, as they're all in Japanese on the PC-88, FM-7 or PC-98.

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#11 Post by Gunness » Tue Apr 05, 2011 8:45 pm

Removing the Adam and MSX makes sense. We'll update the games accordingly.

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#12 Post by Gunness » Wed Apr 06, 2011 4:22 pm

If any of my fellow admins feel deeply like updating the Infocom titles, I won't stop you ;) I'm a bit low on time the next few days, but a large part of the submissions queue has gone.

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#13 Post by Gunness » Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:20 pm

Ok, I started updating the Infocom titles myself. Headache-inducing stuff :) As far as I can tell the catalogue can't be complete. No mention is made of their games being out on Amstrad CPC, but I've seen several screenshots saying otherwise. Unless of course it's just the CP/M version being used.

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#14 Post by Starscream » Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:32 pm

I assume the catalogue was distributed in America, where the CPC/PCW played essentially no role.

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Re: About the platforms/Japanese games

#15 Post by Eriorg » Mon Apr 11, 2011 4:29 pm

I confirm that many Infocom games were released for the Amstrad CPC: you can find them on abandonware sites, and they were often mentioned in old UK Amstrad magazines (for example: Amstrad Action issue 5 and issue 20).

It's likely that they used the CP/M versions, but anyway, they weren't the same versions as the CP/M versions on other computers, because Amstrad (both CPC and PCW) used a rare disk format: 3", NOT 3.5". (Maybe -- I'm not sure about that -- the PCW versions were the same as the CPC versions, however?)

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