Seven Cities of Gold versions?

[Farb]

Hi all,

 

I just did flux dumps of two different copies of "The Seven Cities of Gold" -- one is a black disk and one is a grey disk. They are definitely not the same versions as there are variances in the copy protection on side A as well as the data on both sides. I wasn't able to spot any visual difference in the title screen sequence.

 

I'm attaching ATX/ATR images of all 4 disk sides -- does anyone have an idea what is different about them?

SevenCitiesOfGold.zip

[Rybags]

Disk 2 also serves as the save disk and I think the game writes to it while in progress as well, so you'd probably want a never used copy to guarantee no change of data.

 

Disk 1 - I remember there being graphical corruption possible in the title screen, probably if Basic is enabled. Can't seem to reproduce it here though.

Though I don't think there were any XL compatability issues which would have warranted an entire new version.

 

Looking at the one I just got from Fandal's site though, it's © 1984. I'm sure I saw the game in action well before then so maybe there is a pre-XL version.

[Farb]

Thanks for taking a look at it, @Rybags. Neither of the disks have a write notch, though, so I don't think side 2 can have save data.

[advfan]

According to Atarimania there were at least three different versions released: an American, a British and a German one.

 

The American one seems to be on a black disk. Maybe the grey one is one of the others, although if I recall correctly, Ariola used to change the stickers when releasing EA games and put their name on it, but I may be wrong.

 

I tried to Google Image Ariola disks, but wasn't too successful with the disks itself, just the game covers.

 

 

 

Talking about EA, Worms is on your way.

[Rybags]

Weird that the second disk would be write-protected. I'm just about 100% sure the intent is that you use it as a save disk as well. I played a bit earlier, there was no prompt to insert a save disk at the pub.

Though, maybe they expect that you make a backup to use for gameplay.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Rybags

[+DrVenkman]

I had this game as a kid and still have my original disk. I don't think it ever had a Disk 2, though I don't recall if the original is a two sided disk. My original still boots. Going from memory, after the intro, you're prompted to insert a blank disk to use as a "world disk" or something.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited July 20, 2015 by DrVenkman

[Farb]

Correct, the game is a single, double-sided disk. My two disks are each a unique copy of the game.

 

According to the reference card that comes with the game:

 

1. MAKE A MAP DISK - Seven Cities continually reads from and writes to a map disk as you play. To make a map disk, you need a blank disk and your program disk.

 

a) Historical Map - boot side 2 of your program disk and follow the prompts as they appear. Side 2 contains the map of the historical Americas as well as the copy-disk program, so use it as the disk you want to copy from, and use your blank disk as the one to copy to.

 

b) Random Continents - boot side 1 of your program disk and follow the prompts for creating a map disk containing a brand new New World. The process usually takes about 10 minutes but can very occasionally take as long as 16 minutes.

 

So a game player would have had a second map disk that they created themselves.

 

I can say that both disks came from what appears to be US packaging -- the standard square folder style type. I'm attaching images of both disks.

[Farb]

Interestingly, I have a 3rd disk that is also grey without the blue dot in the upper-right corner of the label. The contents are identical to the grey disk image I already posted.

 

Oh, and I CRC compared side B of my images with the Ariolasoft releases. It appears my black disk is the same as Ariolasoft but the grey is different.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Farb

[+DrVenkman]

This is my original, purchased sometime in probably 1984 or early '85.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[F#READY]

 

These are from my personal collection.

[Tempest]

They changed the copy protection sometime during the lifetime of the game. There's Skew Align and Supertrack.

 

http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/a48sevencities.htm

[F#READY]

Nice! This is all very interesting :-)

[Farb]

@F#READY - Any chance you can share flux dumps of those two disks so I can compare them with mine?

 

@Tempest - Nice find! Thanks for sharing the link. I can say that the blue dot may not have anything to do with copy protection - I have grey disks both with and without the blue dot and they appear to be identical. The black disk, however, has different copy protection than the grey ones. So that might be the differentiator. I'll need another black disk dump to confirm.