Some new old software

[Tursi]

Some years ago, I acquired a collection of TI stuff from a fellow in San Francisco. One of the things he wanted me to be aware of was a set of Civil War Simulation games by Salmo Software.

 

These originally shipped on Cassette tape, but I also have DSK versions. Last night, while working out what was wrong with Classic99, I fixed my disk transfer utility, and transferred the disks over.

 

I do not know a lot about how to play them. They are mentioned in Cyc, but I wasn't able to find much out about them. I can get you started, but someone may have to spend a little more time to work out the games.

 

They seem to be two player simulations of various battles. The North and the South each enter a secret code of their choice -- this is a password so that one player can't enter moves for the other. A menu appears after codes are entered, and I get a bit uncertain there. You can enter a mode where you move crosshairs around with the arrow keys (and diagonals around them) and 'lock' onto pieces with 'L', but I'm a little unclear what else you have to do.

 

The three disks are SHILO, GETTYSBURG and BULLRUN. They are Extended BASIC auto-run disks (so install into DSK1 and autostart, or run DSK1.LOAD). They expect their data files to be in DSK1. The XB code looks like it was adapted from cassette fairly trivially - there's still mention of loading your data tape in CS1 in some of them. But that is all taken care of.

 

I was asked to release these, and I do apologize for how long it took, but enjoy!

 

Salmo_CivilWar.zip

 

 

 

[Tursi]

A second thing I wanted to post.. one of my original TI disks that I still have is Barry Traver's XXB, which I was using to do raw sector writes from Extended BASIC. I went looking for docs on the PC and could not find the disk on WHTech, so I thought it might be lost too, and so have uploaded it, just in case it's useful to someone.

 

It's basically a set of CALL LINKs to extend Extended BASIC with things like raw disk access and 40 column text. Docs are included.

 

XXB.zip

 

[unhuman]

Pretty cool looking!

[Opry99er]

Definitely looks good!!! Anyone on here have some time to mess with this and get the rules figured out?

[+Vorticon]

I saw this on Ebay today http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=4&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fitm%2FTI994A-GAME-STARTREK-on-cassette-NEW-2013-Product-%2F181166321387

What do you guys make of it?

[sometimes99er]

I saw this on Ebay today http://rover.ebay.co...t-/181166321387

What do you guys make of it?

 

The seller is gdw9042. One of the photos says TI-99/4A Star Trek by Glenn Wrig*.

 

He says,

I am releasing other games I have written as well, because most of the TI-99/4A games out there really suck... a lot of them are a complete joke. We need to have better programs for the die-hard TI fans out there ..

 

Might be related to this

http://tech.groups.y...4A/message/7560

 

[+Vorticon]

Yeah, his statement feels a little arrogant to me I wonder why he would make up this story about the equipment being "for a friend"... I'm glad he is selling his own software, not someone else's and I hope he has more unpublished programs in his library, although his asking price seems quite steep for a tape based XB program that has many versions available already out there. But I have to admit that the customized key strip is a cool idea!

Edited June 29, 2013 by Vorticon

[Retrospect]

XXB is a strange one! .... I entered this program

 

1 CALL CLEAR
2 A$="JOE MORRIS"
3 X=1
4 CALL LINK("DSPLY",X,X,A$)

5 FOR DE=1 TO 100 :: NEXT DE
6 X=X+1
7 GOTO 4

Now, for the 1st 3 lines it did not progress across the screen diagonally, only down ... THEN it went diagonally ... the intention of mine was for it to throw an error once it reached a value that the screen would not permit (ie, over 24) ... but it did not! It just carried on and did some weird stuff with the screen instead.

[Tursi]

XXB is a strange one! .... I entered this program

 

1 CALL CLEAR

2 A$="JOE MORRIS"

3 X=1

4 CALL LINK("DSPLY",X,X,A$)

5 FOR DE=1 TO 100 :: NEXT DE

6 X=X+1

7 GOTO 4

 

Now, for the 1st 3 lines it did not progress across the screen diagonally, only down ... THEN it went diagonally ... the intention of mine was for it to throw an error once it reached a value that the screen would not permit (ie, over 24) ... but it did not! It just carried on and did some weird stuff with the screen instead.

Yep!

 

By default DSPLY is configured for the 40 column screen, rather than the 32. You need to use "INIT" to configure the left and right margins... and there's no error checking in many of the functions for out of range.