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Joined: 2009 Sep 12
game designer

I was one of the developers of the game "Make Millions" published in 1984 by Tom Snyder Productions and Scarborough Systems, which ran on the original 1984 Mac. I have a couple of the game diskettes, in their original boxes. I think it would be great to have a copy of the game available in your mac garden. However
1. I have no way to read the diskettes
2. Even if I could read them, the diskettes have some kind of old copy protection on them
3. It is possible that the media have degraded (though the fact that I have two copies should help)
Any suggestions?
Arthur
PS I didn't write code, I did preliminary game design and architecture for Tom Snyder Productions.

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MileStones's picture
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Joined: 2009 Jun 14

You could get an external USB diskette reader (very cheap http://www.amazon.com/Dynex-External-Floppy-DX-EF101-1-44MB/dp/B0006TF7C...)

And then you could just clone the disk (i.e. create a disk image from it)

Then upload that disk image.

IIGS_User's picture
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Joined: 2009 Apr 8

It depends on the copy protection whether copying onto .img (Disk Copy 6.3 format, very important to use this one!) disk image works.

If the cp expects defect sectors, probably bad luck.

Balrog's picture
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Joined: 2009 Apr 24

If it's from 1984 it's probably on 400K disks, which means a 1.44MB USB drive will not work. You'll need an old Mac.

And there is software that can produce images of copy-protected disks.

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Joined: 2009 Sep 13

Ok. This makes me crazy.

I discovered that the original disk I had was still good. I tried it out on an old SE/30 I have and it works flawlessly. I backed up the original. I was able to play a while, before moving onto the next step of my task.

After much consternation and experimentation I got it copied to the SEs HD. Still runs. I then pulled it off that HD and onto my 10.6 Mac Pro. I was able to get it into an image file that mounts in Mini vMac. So far, so good.

Guess what?
It launches in Mini vMac. Woot!

Guess what else?
It bombs the system right after I type in my name for a new game.

Oh...to be so close. Aarrghh!

I get the load screens, and the new game dialog. Then it asks my name and when I hit return...a bomb dialog with "International Utilities not present." Only thing I find on that is on Apple help site about a later system error that has to do with extensions and a boot up check.

I'm running 6.0.X, which is the same as the SE/30. I don't know what the difference is?

I tried the same process in Basilisk, but it doesn't fully launch under a Mac OS 7 environment.

If anyone has any thoughts, let me know.
I am so close and really want to be able to play this on my main machine, not the SE/30. Although to get my fix today, I will be... Smile

L

Edit: Replaced 'xxx 7' with 'Mac OS 7' - IIGS User

Daxeria's picture
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Joined: 2009 Apr 8

Backlashmac,

Could you please upload the disk image as-is? It may be that Mini-vMac just can't run this game yet. If your copy works on physical Macs, it's still well worth hosting here.

Euryale's picture
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Joined: 2009 Jul 22

Upload it as Daxeria says (As is)
I'll test it with the old SoftMac, which can also run System 6 software,
SoftMac being so Old might be able to run it, who knows.

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Joined: 2009 Sep 13

It's uploaded. Enjoy.

I'm loath to hear that someone else might manage to get this running and enjoy that which I so desperately want to, but to see this game back amongst the mac community is a good thing. hehe

Have fun. And do provide advice on how and if you get it running.

Thanks,
L

Euryale's picture
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Joined: 2009 Jul 22

Could you Please upload it in .SIT format?
a lot of us are totally unable to open the .dmg files,

believe me, we've had a lot of trouble (and headaches) with this format.

Thanks!

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Joined: 2009 Sep 13

Well.

Persistence is the key!!!

I took another stab at bin-hexing and stuffing the files on the SE/30 and noted that there were alot of invisible files available in the folder that I hadn't seem (or compressed) before. I compressed the whole lot, moved them to the Mac Pro, stuck them in the 400k disk image and voila!

Runs in Mini vMac perfectly. Nice and peppy too.

Time to do some gaming.

I'll edit my post with a "stuffed" .DSK file. There's no reason to open this, just drag it into the running vMac window. Assuming you're already booted with a system disk.

Enjoy all. I know I will.
L

Euryale's picture
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Joined: 2009 Jul 22

Well , I'm very persistent girl, but everything has its limits,
anyway here's a little story about my persistence with the .dmg files so you'll know what I'm talking about:
(check out my September 14th - 4:38pm post)
http://macintoshgarden.org/games/comanche-mac

So ok, forget about the .sit files then.