One game I haven't seen anywhere around (but was GREAT back in the day) is Archon.
This was a blast on the B&W Mac back in the 1980's. I know it's available for various other platforms (DOS etc), but I'dd love to get the Mac version again!
ps. the title splash screen is my avatar pic 
Darn, I know the name, but I can't seem to find the game. I may have it on floppy. At least they're all imaged, but they're not indexed. As I remember there's about 400 of them, so it'll take me a while to find it, if I have it.
Edit:
remembered how I know the name, I bid for it recently on eBay to post here, but I didn't win it.
Good thought - I'll keep an eye out for a second hand copy too! Oh - and since the forum doesn't show avatars for the first poster.... there's the pic.
just curious to know all the other platforms. i've got c64 and nes (both emulated) dos, mac is that it?
There are also ports for the Apple II, Amiga, Spectrum and Cpc. And then there are ports for Japanese computers, the only one you'll find for downloading on the net is the Pc-88 one though.
This was one of my favorite games on the Apple II. I had no idea there was a Mac version. That would be quite fun. Looking forward to an upload.
If someone here is seriously watching an eBay auction on this, maybe they should post and let the forum know so that we aren't bidding against each other just to end up putting it here.
Ah-haaa. This might explain why there's no Archon yet:
Actually DAXERIA I think He/she is a Moderator here.
Actually DAXERIA I think He/she is a Moderator here.
Yes, that's true. Dax and me (plus a person called Richard, even rare), were the three remaining peoples at the old MacGarden. We are very happy to see this new place now.
(plus a person called Richard, even rare)
Maybe that's the "rare" Richard from LOST
Thanks sos for the link.
I wonder if someone has tried creating a floppy sized disk image, mounting it and then using Copy II Mac to copy to the virtual floppy. I know it says that it couldn't be backed up to a disc image, but I imagine that disc copy utility was used for that. Might be worth a shot.
If it's anything like the nightmare that was Webster's Revenge, the only way to make a disk image is to ignore "bad" sectors, which of course is part of the copy protection. The only successful copy would be a bit-copy, and to my knowledge no one ever made a program that could produce an image that way.
I'm sure any hacker worth his salt could have worked around it back in the day, but no one cares enough now I guess. Myself I wouldn't know how.
Damn.
Where's the 'scene' when you need it? Moved on to other things 20 years ago, I guess.
I had a lot of disk/CD copying tools in the "day", but do not have the hardware to use any of it again. I remember Astartes CD-Copy Pro 2.0b3 was used to death by me
The games protection centred around a bad sector on the disk ( unfortunately disk images can't reproduce bad sectors ), within this sector is an encrypted address for the program to jump to within itself (without this address the game just reboots), but to stop anyone striking up a debugger like Macsbug and reading the address once it has loaded it overwrites the low memory registers where Macsbug sits to erase it as it loads the address.
To get around this you have to stop Macsbug before this address loads then step through each assembly instruction until you reach the routine that overwrites Macsbug, after removing the routine its just a matter of reading the address then altering the program to jump there every time, not hard as such just very very time consuming.
By the time I managed to get a working copy the old mac garden had all but ceased to function, I had a go at the protection over a few weeks before my SE/30 boards capacitors gave up, but by the time I had repaired it I had other things to do and never got around to looking at it again, I think I still have my notes somewhere so I'll drag the old box out and have another crack at it when I get some time...
Thanks for the detailed info mk2rx. Obviously my idea is a huge no go. Sounds like EA was very adamant about keeping people from cracking this game. If you get the time, I for one would be very interested in getting a working copy of this game. I used to play it way back on the Apple II. I loved the game back then. Until I saw this post, I had no idea it was even available on the Mac. When you get this working, please update the forum so I don't miss it.
THANKS!!!
/me bows at the geek feet of mk2rx... may your work be speedy and successful!!
macbot, I haven't played the other ports, and I may be remembering the mac version with memory-hazed spectacles, but from what I can see of the other versions the mac port (like lots of other games back in that era) looks the best.
hmm, interesting. I got a shirt with that Archon graphic from EA at Penny Arcade Expo in 2008. You can kinda see it in this pic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/heathbar/2826308971/ ... Any big fans of Archon, scour ebay or the Penny Arcade Expo forums at www.paxsite.com if you're interested to get yourself one of those shirts... Just thought I'd share that bit of info!
