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Beyond Castle Wolfenstein Re-Compiled

Posted by simoniker on from the back-to-the-classics dept.

hypethetica writes "In memory of game developer Silas Warner, a fan-based port of the original PC boot-diskette version of the 1985 classic, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, has been disassembled, CPU speed fixed, and Soundblaster support has been added. The new game executable, blessed by Silas' widow, runs in DOS, Windows, and DOSBox emulators. Both the executables and source code (x86 assembly) are available for download."

4 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. More DOS Games!!! Yay! by lunarscape · · Score: 5, Informative
    There are still some minor timing issues left, but it's certainly playable on my P4 here at work--er, I mean, at home. Yes, home.

    The guy who did this (jeff?) seems to want to remain fairly anonymous for some reason. I couldn't find any info on who he really is on his page. It's the same guy who did the Jumpman conversion a while back.

    Oh! And he's looking for another project!!! Who are you so I can send you my shelf-full of old DOS games I can't play anymore??? (Though I'm sure none of the disks work anymore.)

    Actually, he has a pretty nice tutorial on how to recreate source from bootable games and how to implement speed fixes. It's a pretty nice read.

    1. Re:More DOS Games!!! Yay! by hypethetica · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm not really annonymous (the source code at least has my first and last name in it.)

      I just want the attention to go to the game and the nostalgia, not to me. The last thing I want is to take credit away from the original author.

      Thanks for the comments and for trying it out. I hope it works for you and brings back some old times.

      -jeff!

  2. This is awesome by iocat · · Score: 5, Funny
    Silas Warner was super cool. One of the few times I've ever been rendered speechless was when this giant guy handed me his resume at our GDC job booth. I was like, "Hi, ok you've worked at Virgin, you some Sega CD codecs... ... oh, cool... ... wait a minute... .... Holy Shit, You're SILAS WARNER!!"

    I think he got a kick out of it. Unfortunately we weren't hiring senior engineers at the time, so I never got a chance to work with him.

    --

    Dude, I think I can see my house from here.

  3. Re:Is this legal by hypethetica · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes it's legal. I knew this question would be raised, so I added a thingy in the faq:

    In October of 2003, congress passed 4 clauses to the DMCA which allow reverse engineering for this type of application.
    Specifically "3. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. ...The register has concluded that to the extent that libraries and archives wish to make preservation copies of published software and videogames that were distributed in formats that are (either because the physical medium on which they were distributed is no longer in use or because the use of an obsolete operating system is required), such activity is a noninfringing use covered by section 108(c) of the Copyright Act."

    -jeff!