Anyone got a TRS-80 or emulator for it?

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Hi there, anyone got either a TRS-80 computer or an emulator of it? I have a question about one game made for it and I can't be bothered searching for an emulator just to answer this one question.

 

The game I am curious about is Chris Freund's X-Wing which was released in 1978. Basically I just need to see a screenshot of it because the version I remember did not look like this one I found on Google and I am wondering if either my memory of the game has changed or if I'm just not Googling properly.

 

 

The edges of the screen look right but the way I remember the game was the only graphics in the center black area were simply ASCII letters, so you had X to represent the X-wing fighter and H to represent the TIE fighter.

 

Maybe I'm confusing Chris Freund's X-Wing with another Star Wars game for the TRS-80? I've checked all I could find on http://old-g.narod.ru/eng.htm and this is the closest match to the game I remember as a kid.

[Mark Wolfe]

not sure why you couldn't be bothered while you were googling the screen shot, etc...

 

here ya go, zophar is the place to go when you want an emulator for any platform to run on any platform:

 

http://www.zophar.net/trs80.html

 

no idea how good these emus are as I've never looked into the tandy computers but maybe you can run a rom of the game on it and find the answer to your question

[George Phillips]

Here's an emulator that will do the job: http://members.shaw....00/trs80gp.html

 

I've attached a copy of XWing. My emulator tries to make it easier to run the game but there are still a few steps.

 

Unpack the .zip archive (there are 3 versions of xwing in there).

Run the emulator from the command line:

 

trs80gp -m1 xwingcfg1.bas

 

The emulator will show a:

 

READY
>

 

prompt. Type "RUN" and press ENTER.

 

That screen shot is pretty accurate, but playing the game may refresh your memory.

XWing (19xx)(Chris Freund)BAS.zip

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Thanks George! Actually, as it turns out the game I am thinking of was one of those ones you would type in manually into your TRS-80 from CLOAD Magazine.

The trench game is possibly called Tie Fighter and might have appeared in the May 1980 issue. Unfortunately I can't verify any of this because CLOAD Magazine is not viewable online (according to http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/ ).

 

I don't suppose anyone has any of those old magazines, do they?

[jhd]

Wasn't CLOAD a cassette-based magazine, rather than something printed?

 

I seem to recall that there was a similar "magazine" for the Coco with this title.

 

If there is no print version, the game may very well be lost because finding a working cassette tape from 30+ years ago is going to be close to impossible.

[George Phillips]

CLOAD magazine did come on cassette tape. CLOAD is the command used to load basic programs from cassette tape on the TRS-80. Even so, I've seen "best of cload" things that have printouts of some of their favorite games. Guess you'd type those in.

 

Anyhow, the issues can be found, just Google "cload magazine". I think I found the game you remember. I've attached the game and two screenshots.

cld7810b.bas

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Oh my God! That is totally it!! Well done George!

[George Phillips]

Glad to help bring that back for you.

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Glad to help bring that back for you.

 

Hi George, do you happen to recall which issue of CLOAD Magazine this game was in? More importantly, did it pre-date Chris Freund's X-Wing (1979)?

[George Phillips]

Hi George, do you happen to recall which issue of CLOAD Magazine this game was in? More importantly, did it pre-date Chris Freund's X-Wing (1979)?

 

It was from the October, 1978 issue, if the archives can be trusted. You mention 1979 for X-Wing but previously said 1978. Hard to tell if it was earlier. Guess I'd have to see if X-Wing is also in the CLOAD archives.

 

BTW, I recall seeing other "Star Wars" games in the archives. One had an awesome "Star Wars" logo on a splash screen.

[+thegoldenband]

George, given your ability to identify TRS-80 games, might I ask if you know which Model III games I'm remembering here? And here as well? Or see below:

 

There was another game I still haven't identified, involving robots called "Garcon" and something about suspension of disbelief...and maybe there was another text adventure where one of the items you could get was an aborigine? Or that might've been Paper Chase, not sure.

 

A game for the TRS-80 Model III (probably Model I originally) in which you wander around some sort of building filled with robots, one of which I believe was called a "garcon" (boy or waiter). One of your key stats in this game is "suspension of disbelief"; if it gets too high (or low?), I think the game ends. I don't remember too much about the gameplay, but I'm pretty sure it was a menu-driven adventure game (not action).

[George Phillips]

Good news, I'm pretty sure I've identified both games. It was a pretty straightforward matter of searching for the keywords in a pile of program files.

 

The robot/garcon game is definitely "Attack of the TRS-80". The other game seems to be "Lost on the Great Barrier Reef". Both appeared in the August 1983 LOAD-80 disk. LOAD-80 was made by 80 Microcomputing Magazine and would contain copies of programs that appeared in the magazine.

 

The barrier reef adventure starts out with this message:

 

WELCOME TO LOST ISLAND, A MOST CHALLENGING ADVENTURE

WRITTEN BY TOM JOHNSTONE AND MIKE MATTHEWS . IN THIS ADVENTURE

YOU WILL TRAVEL THROUGH A MYSTERIOUS , ABANDONED WORLD WAR TWO

NAVAL BASE ON A DESERTED TROPICAL ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC HOPING

TO FIND A WAY TO GET OFF THE ISLAND AND BACK HOME SAFELY. WHILE

PLAYING THIS GAME YOU MAY USE VARIOUS TWO-WORD COMMANDS TO MOVE

AND PERFORM ACTIONS. THESE COMMANDS MUST CONSIST OF A VERB AND

A NOUN ( IN THAT ORDER ). OVER FIFTY WORDS CAN BE USED TOGETHER

IN ANY COMBINATION, SO IF YOU GET STUCK FOR A WORD TRY ANOTHER

WITH A SIMILAR MEANING. SOME WORDS WHICH CAN BE USED ARE DROP ,

GET, ENTER AND INVENTORY. IT MAY ALSO BE A GOOD IDEA TO MAKE A

MAP AS YOU GO ALONG. REMEMBER , YOU ONLY HAVE A LIMITED AMOUNT

OF TIME BEFORE IT GETS DARK, AND ALL SORTS OF CREATURES ROAM IN

THE DARK, DON'T THEY? ( TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH TIME IS LEFT ENTER

THE COMMAND 'TIME' ).

 

I've attached a screen shot of "Attack of the TRS-80".

 

The only bad news is that I'm not sure I have a good copy of either one. There are a few copies with differences between them and I haven't found one that seems to work right. Or maybe I'm not typing the right thing. But not to worry, I can sort it out. Just may take a few days.

 

Ah, I see they both appeared in the August 1983 issue of "80 Microcomputing". Makes sense. And I think I even have that issue.

[+thegoldenband]

Thank you so much! Man, that screenshot got some old, unused braincells firing again...the stuff about laser pistols rings the very faintest of bells. Does Attack of the TRS-80 also include the "suspension of disbelief" element?

 

Lost on the Great Barrier Reef/Lost Island is also starting to ping some old memories about the layout of the game. So excited at the prospect of playing this again! Right now it looks like all the TRS-80 games I remember playing may be accounted for, but I bet I'd recognize more from the August 1983 issue. Perhaps the disk was even labeled accordingly, but it's been too long to remember.

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Hi George, do you happen to recall which issue of CLOAD Magazine this game was in? More importantly, did it pre-date Chris Freund's X-Wing (1979)?

You mention 1979 for X-Wing but previously said 1978.

 

Argg good point! I guess I should double check my dates before I ask other people their dates. Looks like quite a few Star Wars games came out in 1978 for the TRS-80.

 

But thanks for verifying for me!

[George Phillips]

Attached are two versions of "Lost on the Great Barrier Reef". One is identical to the original and a second has a few minor typographical errors correct. Both are ASCII text files but can be run by trs80gp (start the emulator with "trs80gp lost-barrier.txt" and then type "RUN" and <ENTER> when it comes up).

 

I think it was noted elsewhere, but "Gaming After 40" covered the game:

 

http://gamingafter40...nd-lost-on.html

 

Does Attack of the TRS-80 also include the "suspension of disbelief" element?

 

It does, which really cemented the match.

 

Right now it looks like all the TRS-80 games I remember playing may be accounted for, but I bet I'd recognize more from the August 1983 issue. Perhaps the disk was even labeled accordingly, but it's been too long to remember.

 

You can search the table of contents here:

 

http://www.trs-80.co...ontents-search/

 

Some of those may be familiar, indeed.

lost-barrier.zip

[+thegoldenband]

Thanks so much for putting this together, George! I'm on OS X, so I don't think I can run trs80gp until my WinXP machine comes back from its current limbo. I've been using sdltrs for Model III emulation -- does it have any utilities to make .BAS files or disk images out of textfiles?

 

Interesting to read on the Gaming After 40 site that circulating versions of the game had a game-breaking bug. I wonder if the version I had as a kid had the same problem? I sometimes wonder whether there might be something wrong with my image of Quest For The Key of Night Shade, since I don't remember it being as brutally hard as it is.

 

And the Table of Contents did indeed reveal another old friend: Collegiate Capers, which I'd remembered as "Paper Chase". All I can clearly remember about that one is a "Sheepskin" item, but I do remember it!

[George Phillips]

I'm on OS X, so I don't think I can run trs80gp until my WinXP machine comes back from its current limbo. I've been using sdltrs for Model III emulation -- does it have any utilities to make .BAS files or disk images out of textfiles?

 

Ah, if you're using an emulator that can handle disk images, the attached file should do nicely. It has all the LOAD-80 games from that 80 Micro issue and some other apparently unrelated stuff.

 

If you do get Windows back on line, TRSTools is excellent for accessing TRS-80 disk images:

 

http://www.trs-80emu...s.com/trstools/

 

You can write the text files to the disk and load them in disk basic.

ld808308.zip

[+thegoldenband]

Wonderful, George -- thank you once again! I'll check this out presently.

 

Meanwhile I just beat Quest For The Key Of Night Shade for the first time, albeit on the easiest difficulty setting (1 of 20). That prompted me to look up the February 1983 issue of 80 Microcomputing on Archive.org -- I didn't know they were all up there! -- and read the game's direction and backstory after all these years. The 16-year-old who made the game, David Schmidt, really went all out on it!

 

EDIT: Hmmm, I'm getting a "DATA RECORD NOT FOUND DURING READ" error when I try to run a DIR :1. Is there anything unusual about the format of the disk image? I'm also running in Model I mode -- not sure if that'll affect things.

[George Phillips]

Hmmm, I'm getting a "DATA RECORD NOT FOUND DURING READ" error when I try to run a DIR :1. Is there anything unusual about the format of the disk image? I'm also running in Model I mode -- not sure if that'll affect things.

 

Appears to require NEWDOS 80 version 3.0 and running in Model III mode. Lots of dos disks here:

 

http://www.manmrk.ne...ewdos/index.htm

 

I'd thought the various DOS's for the TRS-80 had compatible file systems. Guess not!