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AdvSys / Columbus & Atari ST Public Domain Adventures

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2018 1:20 pm
by Strident
I'm currently working my way through old Adventure Probe magazines to add and amend entries in the database.

These particular titles are a little out of my area of expertise, being Atari ST... so if anyone would like to take a stab at researching them, feel free! (Or else I'll come back to them later).

Basically, it's from an advertisement for Atari ST Public Domain adventure games... there are so many undocumented PD games on all formats... but seems quite a few here. I'll upload and link to the advert below.

http://8bitag.com/games/temp/titan-games.jpg

Also taking my interest here was a mention of an "adventure writing system" for the Atari ST that came with the sample adventure Columbus.

I'm not sure which adventure system it might be? Any ideas? Columbus doesn't seem to be listed as a game in the database either.

(Just found Columbus listed as a PD adventure in an advert in Atari ST review)

I did find a forum reference to the game & system here, https://www.retroforum.nl/topic/4779-at ... ure-maker/ where it is referred to as AdvSys.

Re: AdvSys / Columbus & Atari ST Public Domain Adventures

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 9:24 am
by Gunness
Excellent research - I have nearly zip experience with the ST, but maybe others can assist?

Re: AdvSys / Columbus & Atari ST Public Domain Adventures

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 12:42 pm
by Keetie
Strident wrote: Also taking my interest here was a mention of an "adventure writing system" for the Atari ST that came with the sample adventure Columbus.

I'm not sure which adventure system it might be? Any ideas? Columbus doesn't seem to be listed as a game in the database either.

(Just found Columbus listed as a PD adventure in an advert in Atari ST review)

I did find a forum reference to the game & system here, https://www.retroforum.nl/topic/4779-at ... ure-maker/ where it is referred to as AdvSys.
Are you interested in the AdvSys system or the game? You can download the Atari ST disc here:

http://www.atarian.nl/st_st_pd.htm

It is the 0038 one. I can't get it running in the STEW emulator. Columbus is the Starship Columbus, a shareware one and it seems not complete.

Still could not find the CAW old ATARI ST version yet... ;)

Re: AdvSys / Columbus & Atari ST Public Domain Adventures

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 2:18 pm
by Garry
I had an Atari ST and collected lots of public domain adventures. I also got around to playing a few, but haven't had time to write these up and submit them yet. One of these days...

I've still got lots of Atari ST floppies, but don't have a diskette drive to read them any more. I guess I need to check the archive sites.

The game in question is, indeed, 'Starship Columbus' and was included as a sample game with AdvSys, a Lisp-like language written by David Betz and later published by Antic Publishing. If memory serves me correctly, it would have been on one of the STart disks, but I'd have to check which issue.

Anyway, I just had a quick check of my Atari ST adventure notes and it turns out that I've played and mapped 'Starship Columbus', so I should be able to write up a solution once I get a playable version. It's quite large as far as demo games go - 71 rooms!

Re: AdvSys / Columbus & Atari ST Public Domain Adventures

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 11:33 am
by Strident
Yeah, there is quite a lot about Starship Columbus online, and AdvSys too...

Review
http://www.syntax2000.co.uk/issues/35/columbus.rev.txt

Solution
http://www.syntax2000.co.uk/issues/09/columbus.sol.txt

Haven't really gone back to do more research yet. There is so much information on the Syntax site, about missing games, that needs to be extracted.

In fact, there are so many undocumented Public Domain games on the ST, full stop... It's not at all my area of interest/expertise so I'm only looking at them occasionally. Often working out what was actually a "text adventure" requires a fair amount of detective work.