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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."

21 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?

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      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/

  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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  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)

  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. 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)
  10. 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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  11. 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.

  12. 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!

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

  15. 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.

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    Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
  16. 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.

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  17. 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.

  18. 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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