Missing Atari 8-bit titles

Games for Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Apple ][ and the rest of the 8-bit and 16-bit platforms. Pleas for help, puzzles, bug reports etc.

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Garry
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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#16 Post by Garry » Wed Nov 16, 2022 12:51 am

Thanks, Alex. I'm at work now, so will take a look tonight.

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#17 Post by Garry » Wed Nov 16, 2022 1:36 am

Oh, that was a bit easier than the first one. I added a GRAPHICS 0 to line 20 to reset the graphics mode and clear the screen. Other than that, everything is as per your listing and I can play it through to the end using your solution. I haven't tested all the branches, though, so no guarantees that it's bug free. Here's an autobooting disk image:
Schat_van_de_Incas.zip

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Alex
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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#18 Post by Alex » Wed Nov 16, 2022 9:11 pm

I'll try to do the last one this week. That one is a bit more work.

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#19 Post by www.atarimania.com » Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:19 am

Garry wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 1:53 pm
I'll have to find them first. Do you have a contact in Sydney? If so, I could deliver them. Otherwise, I'd have to post them and I'd hate them to get lost in the mail. Send me a PM and we'll work something out.
Sydney could be tough, maybe Australia? Completely understand you're a bit reluctant to post them, I pray that nothing bad happens every single time I send something. I'll get back to you and let you know...

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#20 Post by www.atarimania.com » Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:43 am

Garry wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 1:53 pm
And I'd love you to add them! I've had trouble submitting things in the past, so I got a bit disillusioned and didn't bother any more. Send me a PM with the best way to send them and I'll make sure you get them. Can you also tell me the best way to send updates/corrections to the database entries?
My apologies, definitely guilty of not getting back to you, the least I could've done is reply so I understand you. I'll send you a PM with what we're interested in.

Many entries in our database are in dire need of an update. Thing is we usually concentrate on adding previously unarchived material so some older pages are really lacking in information, better screenshots... We'll eventually get to them. This being said, if you find something completely out of place or weird, you can juste write a comment on the game page - on the left hand side - so we can see it. Chances are it'll be corrected a bit more quickly that way.

Thanks!

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#21 Post by Alex » Sat Nov 19, 2022 9:07 pm

landusie.zip
(4.65 KiB) Downloaded 42 times
The last game from the book Adventures!

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#22 Post by Garry » Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:06 am

Thanks, Alex. There were three typos, easily fixed:
Line 5490: Delete trailing colon
Line 6200: Delete trailing colon
Line 8070: T4 should be T$

Here is the bug-fixed version on an auto-booting disk image. I was able to play it to completion using your solution.
Geheim_van_Landusie.zip

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#23 Post by Alex » Sun Nov 20, 2022 12:16 pm

Thanks for the images. Glad I at last was able to use the Atari version of the book. The books are not entirely without errors. The colons were in the msx version, but obviously had no use. The atari version of the book had 8 double lines in the book between lines 3000-3460.

This book was my introduction on how to write a text adventure. I used it to write my game The Inheritance.

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#24 Post by www.atarimania.com » Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:44 pm

Resurrected from the dead and freshly dumped:
http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-40 ... 29015.html

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#25 Post by Garry » Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:24 am

I'm really glad that one was found. It's the Italian game 2030 Radio Killers. This is an illustrated adventure, but the graphics load really slowly (by design) with a background jingle and the background sound does not turn off after the jingle. This becomes very annoying very quickly. As it's written in BASIC, I see an English translation (without those annoyances) on the horizon. :D

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#26 Post by www.atarimania.com » Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:15 am

Just added the joystick-driven Moon Quest which took part in the ABBUC Software Contest this year:
http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-40 ... 40898.html

I'm 99.99% sure these two games are the same (I changed the title in our database to the latter):
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C94 ... nture.html
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C94 ... nture.html

On a side note, I find it weird that Page 6 is listed as a company for the non-magazine stuff. I don't believe a single non-type-in adventure was ever distributed exclusively through the PD library and most of the titles were just picked up from various sources. For example, Arcade Adventure was written in the US and already circulating on disks in the mid-eighties. I think this is giving Page 6 way more importance than it deserves. Just my two cents...

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#27 Post by Garry » Mon Nov 28, 2022 1:16 am

Simple Adventure and Mini Adventure have different authors and different descriptions. I think both were advertised at the same time. One has graphics, the other makes no mention of graphics. We won't know for sure until they are both found.

Page 6 had a lot of exclusive titles, but being public domain, they made their way into other PD libraries. As you noted, the reverse also happened. The Page 6 library is available online, but none of the other PD libraries are available as a coherent whole as far as I know. If you have any further info on origins or availability, feel free to add it as a note. Every little bit helps.

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#28 Post by Strident » Mon Nov 28, 2022 7:57 am

www.atarimania.com wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:15 am
On a side note, I find it weird that Page 6 is listed as a company for the non-magazine stuff. I don't believe a single non-type-in adventure was ever distributed exclusively through the PD library and most of the titles were just picked up from various sources. For example, Arcade Adventure was written in the US and already circulating on disks in the mid-eighties. I think this is giving Page 6 way more importance than it deserves. Just my two cents...
Public domain content (or content that later gets considered as public domain!) is always tricky when it comes to assigning a publisher.

Personally, if I can find an earlier example of the game being circulated (through a verifiable source, such as a contemporary library catalogue or magazine source) then I'll remove references like those Page 6 ones and resort to using the author as a fallback publisher. So, as Garry says, if you have any specific information and references to share then I can look at entries on a case-by-case basis. We do want the archive to be accurate and earlier publication should, at the very least, be mentioned in the notes section.

The C64 archives suffer from a similar issue where "The Guild" is basically credited for half of the general public domain library of the 1980s, despite it not existing as a company until 1991, simply because in the UK Binary Zone (who later distributed The Guild's collection) were the major PD library.

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#29 Post by Strident » Mon Nov 28, 2022 7:59 am

www.atarimania.com wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:15 am
I'm 99.99% sure these two games are the same (I changed the title in our database to the latter):
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C94 ... nture.html
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C94 ... nture.html
That may indeed turn out to be the case, but with different titles, different synopses and completely different authors listed, some sort of verifiable contemporary sources, or the games themselves, would need to be offered as evidence.

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Re: Missing Atari 8-bit titles

#30 Post by Strident » Mon Nov 28, 2022 8:12 am

Going on the list on the Page 6 site...
https://www.page6.org/ukacoc/library/lib-adventure.htm
mini-adventure.PNG
mini-adventure.PNG (15.38 KiB) Viewed 21147 times
...they certainly don't seem like the same game; especially with completely different system requirements.

I'd be interested in why you decided to merge "Mini Adventure" and "Simple Adventure".

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