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Prince of Persia Source Code Released On Github

Posted by Soulskill on from the going-back-in-time dept.

rbarreira writes "The source code for the original Prince of Persia game has been released on github by its author, Jordan Mechner. This release comes three weeks after Jordan announced the find of a box containing old floppy disks that had been forgotten in the back of a closet for 20+ years. A 'digital archeology' effort was launched to recover the contents of the floppy disks, with the help of Jason Scott from textfiles.com. Some photos from the 'copy party' have also been posted."

30 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. browsing the source by hackula · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is terrific. It is awesome looking through the source; kind of like a time capsule.

    1. Re:browsing the source by hackula · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also-- just an aside-- the code is exceptionally clean.

    2. Re:browsing the source by bfandreas · · Score: 4, Informative

      Prince of Persia was a very novel and highly frustrating game. I remember getting all the way on PC just to fail near the end boss. I vividly remember a mirror...
      The motion of the player character was so fluid it simply fascinated me back in the day. It did fit onto on floppy.

      Now, a couple of sequels later(mostly pompous irrelevant wasteful and shallow money grabbing console games and as I've been told a movie on top of that) the original still stands out. It had a certain elegant charme. And very grizzly deaths. After a while I got sick of being sliced up, spiked, smashed, mauled and grieviously injured to be honest. It was very raphic.
      And it did fit onto one floppy. It's nice to see one of the ol masterpieces revealed. Did he include the artwork?

      --
      20 minutes into the future
    3. Re:browsing the source by RaySnake · · Score: 5, Informative

      At that time Jordan kept a bunch of journals of the development process, they're all online. He even has video of the motion captures he did of his brother, these were used to animate the Prince and it's really uncanny to see how much of that came through in the game. Warning, if you click the link be prepared to waste a LOT of time reading, it's addictive. http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/1985/10/october-20-1985/

    4. Re:browsing the source by Whorhay · · Score: 2

      I think I was in middle school when I got this game. It took a bit of effort once I recognized the time limit. It became not just a matter of defeating a level but being able to beat it quickly. That principle was particularly important early in the game other wise you would leave yourself very little time for experimentation in later levels.

      The two things I remember most are the mirror image "fight" and the display inversion potion. Both of which to me were really neat twists. I don't know how inovative they really were but I hadn't seen them before.

  2. I love some of the pics.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The times where you see a ton of really old tech, taking up a whole table, crunching away, and a blackberry sitting on top of one of the computers, which probably has more processing power than all those computers put together, make a really cool pic :)

  3. Re:Praise the lord by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You want to say, "AlhumdilAllah," for "Praise the lord." "Insha'Allah" means "If God wills (it)."

  4. Geeze by Hatta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This would have helped the guy who ported it to the C64. Although, that might have spoiled some of the fun.

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  5. Awesome by deblau · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is unbelievably cool, and everyone involved deserves a beer. If you're in the Boston area, send me a tweet @DavidEBlau and I'll buy you drinks for the night!

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    This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
  6. Re:What about the legal implications? by Desler · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why wouldn't he be able to do so when he's the copyright holder?

    As the author and copyright holder of this source code, I personally have no problem with anyone studying it, modifying it, attempting to run it, etc.

    And, no, I doubt he'll sue himself.

  7. New terminology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    'digital archeology': the act of trying to find a functioning drive to read whatever old storage format was in use.

    Easy dig: 3.5" floppy
    Hard dig: 5.25" floppy
    Very hard dig: proprietary tape backup (any)
    Extremely hard dig: LS120 (I can joke about this because I had one, and 5 discs for it)

    1. Re:New terminology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I hollowed out my LS120 and taped the drive door to the back of the front faceplate. That way I could put a small tray inside the hollow box, pop the front off, and slide it in or out concealing the goods.

      I hid my pot in there from my dad. I'd just pop the front plate off, slide out my plastic tray, smoke, and put it all back. It sat right on my desk in my room and due to said uselessness it was the only device my parents or siblings would never touch or even bother to slide a disk in. Good thing they didn't because mine was hollow and somehow far more useful than the ones you guys all had.

      Cliffnotes: My LS120 was hollowed out and made a weed stash box. It was more useful than yours :)
      Captcha: Unopened

    2. Re:New terminology by mikael_j · · Score: 2

      Our computer club in HS had a PDP-11/04 with a couple of 8" floppy drives. Wasn't very useful though, the most that thing seemed to be able to do was boot up and make clunking sounds with the floppy drives. We also occasionally used it to test how sturdy other hardware was (it was mounted in a full-height 19" rack on wheels). IBM workstation hardware was no match for the mighty PDP (although we did almost topple it over a friend of mine when crushing what I think was a DAT unit for an RS/6000).

      We considered throwing it from the 4th floor but it wouldn't fit through the window that led out to the fire escape...

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
  8. I sense a connection... by Fned · · Score: 5, Funny

    Prince of Persia

    Source Code ... but I can't quite put my finger on it.

  9. Can't run it by Xtifr · · Score: 2

    Damn, my brother just finally got rid of his Apple ][+ last year, or we could have given this a try. :)

    1. Re:Can't run it by Thuktun · · Score: 2, Informative

      hint

  10. Re:What about the legal implications? by Shoe+Puppet · · Score: 5, Informative

    We did this for fun, not profit. As the author and copyright holder of this source code, I personally have no problem with anyone studying it, modifying it, attempting to run it, etc. Please understand that this does NOT constitute a grant of rights of any kind in Prince of Persia, which is an ongoing Ubisoft game franchise. Ubisoft alone has the right to make and distribute Prince of Persia games.

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    (+1, Disagree)
  11. Props to Slashdot Coders by oldhack · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't do this often, but massive props to the slashdot web monkeys - that story icon is just awesome. Actually, your whole last site overhaul is pretty neat.

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  12. Re:What about the legal implications? by Thuktun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Depends on how specifically Brøderbund acquired the original rights to the game back in 1989, and how subsequent holders acquired their rights. I'm not a lawyer, but I would expect that if the agreements included source code, they might have expected transfer of copyright ownership.

  13. Re:What about the legal implications? by godrik · · Score: 4, Funny

    Lawyers are really good these days. You never know what they will come up with!

  14. We've come a long way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Never thought I'd see an actual game programmed in assembly.

    1. Re:We've come a long way by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      What has also amazed me that something as modern as the original Rollercoaster Tycoon is programmed using assembly (with some higher level DirectX glue). Would be interesting to see the source.

  15. Re:What about the legal implications? by busyqth · · Score: 5, Informative

    Broderbund was just a publisher, at least for the Apple II version. They marketed and sold the game, and paid royalties to Jordan, who retained the rights.

  16. Re:What about the legal implications? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I could see him running back and fourth from the plaintif chair to the defendant chair as the lawyers argue....made me lol.

  17. Re:Praise the lord by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obviously not a programmer. "if god wills it" sounds like me in college negotiating with my compiler.

    --
    Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
  18. Re:Praise the lord by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's too much effort. I just put a screwdriver on the case when I was typing. Occasionally you pick it up and give it a twirl.

    My programs always compiled.

    --

    ---
    ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
  19. Excellent news by flimflammer · · Score: 2

    His journal is certainly an interesting read as well as the source. Shame it costs money for the whole thing, but I'm interested enough that I think I'll pick it up.

  20. Re:What about the legal implications? by schroedingers_hat · · Score: 4, Funny

    Clearly he's stealing revenue from the big publishers. Every game someone acquires or plays is a potential $80 for them, and by allowing someone to play a game without giving the publishers $80, he is TAKING THEIR MONEY.

  21. Time Limit by Machtyn · · Score: 2

    Hmm, if I can figure out how to compile the thing for a modern x86, I'd take that darn 60 minute time limit off... or at least increase it to 90 minutes and finally finish the darn game. Twice I got to the second to last level, once looking at the doorway, when time ran out.

  22. Re:What about the legal implications? by Gr8Apes · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, publishers don't need rights transferred to them, nor do they need ownership of any sort. All the need is to be granted the rights required to publish and that can be for a limited timeframe and/or number of copies even. This is how copyright was originally envisioned to work. Creators retained their copyright, and granted generally via contract to a second party, if necessary, the right to copy the work. Just take a look at how things worked even as recently as the late 1800s. Authors did a lot of self-publishing.

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