I don't know how much interest this will spark but I thought I'd post a link to a couple of updates to the beeb disc ports of the Melbourne House Tolkien titles, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings: Game One.
A very talented individual by the name of Kieran Mockford recently announced his new universal versions on the BBC Micro Mailing List:
http://home.kindredintellect.com/beeb/S ... TheHobbit/
http://home.kindredintellect.com/beeb/S ... fTheRings/
The original Melbourne House disc versions were very limited in that they would only work on a BBC Micro Model B with an older 8271-based DFS disc interface. This means they wouldn't run on any other model of beeb (B+, Master 128, Master Compact, Master 512) or with any other form of DFS or ADFS, let alone any of the more modern filing systems. Kieran has painstakingly rebuilt the games so that they will now work with any disc controller or BBC Micro model, provided there is at least 16K of sideways RAM available.
This is also the first time the disc version of The Lord of the Rings: Game One has been made available on the net (we think) and, even better, Kieran has made this originally text-only release into a fully illustrated adventure! He's managed to extract the graphics from the PC version of the title and integrated them directly into this new beeb disc image.
Having been able do some beta-testing for him, I can attest that this new version is far more polished than the original and the graphics are a welcome addition. In fact, IMHO, this new illustrated Lord of the Rings: Game One plays even better than Melbourne House's own graphical version of The Hobbit.
Also, if anyone's concerned, the gameplay - all the original buggy, frustrating AI and glaring tyographical errors - has not been interfered with ...
I'm sure Kieran would be delighted to hear feedback, if anyone does give either of them a whirl.
In fact, this release has resulted in my current re-attempt to finally crack LotR, where I'm stumbling atm through the mapping of part 1 and, indirectly, led me to unearth this little corner of the web ...
Advertising pitch over.
Sam.
