Slashdot Mirror
Ultima 7 in Windows?
trotski writes "In its day, Ultima 7 was one of the most complex and detailed RPG's ever made. Lets put it this way, in 1992 it required 20 mb of hard drive space and a 386 processor; cutting edge equipment that at the time retailed at well over $2000. Unfortunatly, until now getting Utlima 7 to run properly under win9X or worse, win2K or XP was heart-breaking. Fortunatly, someone has designed a utility that allows you to run this program under all versions of Windows as well as Linux! Very exciting for people out there who want to play this classic." Actually, Linux support seems to be only hypothetical at this point; along with the link to download the code is a note that says "Anyone who wishes to study the source code, or to port it to Linux or any other OS, is welcome to download this file."
DOS.... who would have thought that something as simple as installing a real copy of DOS and some real mode drivers, or creating a real DOS bootdisk with real mode drivers would make playing an antique game easy on a modern OS.
... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...
Yeah..I had had to check through my cd's for ultima VII too. Looks like I've created archiving system so complex even I cannot understand it. But finally I found it, the *complete* ultima VII, right between wind commander II and ultima underworld 1. I think I'm going to browse my diskettes too, I saw a glimpse of ultima 3 there a year ago. But to the compability part, I solved all my problems by not selling my old 66 MHz 486. Now it lies in the corner and just waits for me to play the classic games again and again.
The "news" isn't that there's a new generic "old-game-loader" out, the "news" is that you can now run Ultima 7 on Windows. For that purpose, Exult is better. That Exult is a re-implementation is hardly a secret and not something that one should feel the need to point out (it's in the domain "so obvious it hurts")
Furthermore, I haven't checked the source of this loader, but I'll wager it's very executable-specific, and I doubt that many other games would benefit from this particular loader (that is, there's already less intrusive ways of playing most games).
In short; the whole problem with U7 is the messed up hack of a memory model (real flat mode) the cracksmoking freaks chose to use. Exult, which is newsworthy in itself, solved the problem, and more.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
You're a little out of step on those hardware costs. I bought my first PC in 1991, the year before -- a 25MHz 486SX with 100MB disk, well above the spec you quote, for about $1200.
People keep on talking about U7 being the best. Clearly Ultima 5 Warriors of Destiny is. U7 had no challenge element.
At no time was i afraid of dying, unlike U5 where youd be low on food, and stuck in New Magincia with a shadowlord guaring the town. U5 had turned based combat, U7 had poor AI combat. U5 had real dungeoneos with levels, U7 had caves.
Now pro U7, yes it has better graphics but just wait until the dungeon siege remake comes out. http://www.u5lazarus.com .
Veramocor
Wow - that really takes me back. Many, many years ago, in '91 or '92 I think, I wrote an article about Flat Real Mode for the comp.lang.asm.x86 FAQ. I wonder now if the U7 programmers read it - it would be *really* cool to find that I had contributed, in even a small way, to one of my favorite game series.
It can still be useful - and as far as I know, sometimes still used - in embedded applications that need to address more than 1MB of memory while dealing with a high rate of interrupts. Interrupts in protected mode cause a context switch, which carries with it a substantial amount of overhead.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
This program first came out over 2 years ago, before EXULT. Back then, it was a fantastic program , but now it's just pointless. The same author also did an Ultima 8 in Windows progam as well, and no open source project has surfaced to replace it... though why anyone would want to play Ultima 8 is beyond me.
Wasn't this already reported on Slashdot back in 2000 anyway?