Falco Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 I'd be more interested in that than getting end-results of the game I'm in. 2nd that (87 just started....) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erich von Manstein Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 :ranting: :ranting: Never ever in my life have I felt this bad. Months, years, 25% of my life down zhe drain. Well at least I had a LOT of fun fighting you guys. First Christmas and after that we'll flood Russ with 'some' ideas for Vic 2.0 Bigger battles, better war, more panzers, more fun! Von Manstein Need discount, will buy 12 bottles of Malt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erich von Manstein Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Hi Guys, Please see the note from me in the News from the Front forum... The news is very bad for the short term and I wish we didn't have to face this at Christmas time but I'm hopeful we can turn it into a positive down the road. Take care & best wishes! Russ Hi Russ, can't you run this "Mac" as a virtual machine on a new PC? Hmm...it's something I can check into but that's not an area where I have any experience and I'm dealing with a 15 year old Mac/Mac OS (along with ancient backup hardware/software) and a game program in an very old version of Pascal for a Mac (and very fussy to begin with and the original programmer long gone). I also haven't operated in a Mac environment, other than running Victory! which did not require any coding, etc. as long as the hardware held up, for at least 10 years. It's quite possible I could spend a lot of time trying to figure out what I was doing only to run into some sore of insurmountable problem anyway and have to go with Project Victory regardless. I haven't given up yet on options but time is an issue and if I can't come up with a working solution fairly quickly I want to get started on something I know will be successful. Thanks much for the input, Russ Hmmm Anyone got an old machine to donate????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rfouasnon Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 I actually have a Mac SE that still works.....also , if you look on ebay , there are often various older Mac hardware/computers for sale..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTGRuss Posted December 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Hi Guys, I appreciate all the help - technical problems like this are definitely not my strong suite. The machine is a Quadra 800, circa 1993 as I recall, running System 7 and used an old SyQuest 135 EZDrive (SCSI connection I believe) for backup. The game data should still be good but right now I can't get a successful boot off the hard drive or an emergency disk and without that I don't have the hardware/experience to get at the backup data to see exactly what I have that's good. The system failure started with lockups, followed by very difficult reboots (multiple attempts before a limited success) then finally no successful boots at all. The progression was fairly quick so I only had time to try a few things, to no effect, before it got to the point where I was out of options. Any attempts at this point just fail completely so I don't know the exact problem or what else might work. The plan was always to come out with a Victory! II at some point whereupon we would move over to more current hardware and back into an environment and code that we were familiar with and the old Mac would be retired. But with one thing after another the development project just kept getting put off and put off until suddenly it was today and too late. The development of Victory! II isn't a bad thing and the project is probably long overdue - I just always hoped we would have the luxury of letting current games play out to their conclusion as we brought Victory! II games online. Appreciate all the help and input regardless, Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTGRuss Posted December 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 (edited) Russ, will you be creating a new forum under Game Development for Victory! 2?Otherwise ideas will pop up all over the place and it will be a mess. Yes - I'm getting pretty close to collapsing right now (been a long day) but sometime tomorrow (edit - er...later today) I'll create a new forum for Project Victory! so we'll have a specific forum to discuss ideas and such. Russ Edited December 23, 2009 by RTGRuss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gobo Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 I appreciate all the help - technical problems like this are definitely not my strong suite. The machine is a Quadra 800, circa 1993 as I recall, running System 7 and used an old SyQuest 135 EZDrive (SCSI connection I believe) for backup. The game data should still be good but right now I can't get a successful boot off the hard drive or an emergency disk and without that I don't have the hardware/experience to get at the backup data to see exactly what I have that's good. The system failure started with lockups, followed by very difficult reboots (multiple attempts before a limited success) then finally no successful boots at all. The progression was fairly quick so I only had time to try a few things, to no effect, before it got to the point where I was out of options. Any attempts at this point just fail completely so I don't know the exact problem or what else might work. Okay, if that's the case, then the first thing needed to be done is find some place to hookup that harddrive and get the data off the machine. Once the data is available, I'm pretty confident we can create a virtualised machine that can run the old code. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a new and improved Victory!, but I've invested a lot in my current game and have gotten used to handling the ancient and quirky old Victory! I'm not willing to give it up just like that. But get some sleep first so that you can approach this freshly tomorrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falco Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Hi Guys, I appreciate all the help - technical problems like this are definitely not my strong suite. The machine is a Quadra 800, circa 1993 as I recall, running System 7 and used an old SyQuest 135 EZDrive (SCSI connection I believe) for backup. The game data should still be good but right now I can't get a successful boot off the hard drive or an emergency disk and without that I don't have the hardware/experience to get at the backup data to see exactly what I have that's good. The system failure started with lockups, followed by very difficult reboots (multiple attempts before a limited success) then finally no successful boots at all. The progression was fairly quick so I only had time to try a few things, to no effect, before it got to the point where I was out of options. Any attempts at this point just fail completely so I don't know the exact problem or what else might work. The plan was always to come out with a Victory! II at some point whereupon we would move over to more current hardware and back into an environment and code that we were familiar with and the old Mac would be retired. But with one thing after another the development project just kept getting put off and put off until suddenly it was today and too late. The development of Victory! II isn't a bad thing and the project is probably long overdue - I just always hoped we would have the luxury of letting current games play out to their conclusion as we brought Victory! II games online. Appreciate all the help and input regardless, Russ Not to sound to demanding, but I do hope you will at least be trying to make things work on either a virtual or physical machine, at least for those games that have just started or aren't anywhere near decided yet. Or let anybody who has adequate knowledge of Macs (and virtualization) give it a try. Stopping the games now would mean a waste of lots of time and money, at least that is my feeling for vic87. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTGRuss Posted December 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Hi Guys, I appreciate all the help - technical problems like this are definitely not my strong suite. The machine is a Quadra 800, circa 1993 as I recall, running System 7 and used an old SyQuest 135 EZDrive (SCSI connection I believe) for backup. The game data should still be good but right now I can't get a successful boot off the hard drive or an emergency disk and without that I don't have the hardware/experience to get at the backup data to see exactly what I have that's good. The system failure started with lockups, followed by very difficult reboots (multiple attempts before a limited success) then finally no successful boots at all. The progression was fairly quick so I only had time to try a few things, to no effect, before it got to the point where I was out of options. Any attempts at this point just fail completely so I don't know the exact problem or what else might work. The plan was always to come out with a Victory! II at some point whereupon we would move over to more current hardware and back into an environment and code that we were familiar with and the old Mac would be retired. But with one thing after another the development project just kept getting put off and put off until suddenly it was today and too late. The development of Victory! II isn't a bad thing and the project is probably long overdue - I just always hoped we would have the luxury of letting current games play out to their conclusion as we brought Victory! II games online. Appreciate all the help and input regardless, Russ Not to sound to demanding, but I do hope you will at least be trying to make things work on either a virtual or physical machine, at least for those games that have just started or aren't anywhere near decided yet. Or let anybody who has adequate knowledge of Macs (and virtualization) give it a try. Stopping the games now would mean a waste of lots of time and money, at least that is my feeling for vic87. Sorry if I sounded uncooperative or unappreciative. Right now I'm just exhausted so probably not thinking or writing too clearly. Right now the problem is probably beyond my technical ability/experience but I'm happy to listen to suggestions and take help where I can find it and would like nothing better than to find a solution where I can continue to run the games of Victory! that were ongoing. It's been suggested that I look for some local Mac expertise to help out and I'll try that - I don't think I'll have any success this week with the Christmas holiday and all but hopefully next week things will start getting back to normal and I'll see what I can find then. My last post for a little while - I'm going to try to catch up on some sleep Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predator Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Woke up early to see why turns had posted so late..now I am going back to bed and when I wake up again this better have just been a bad dream Victory! is much more than just a game to some people, it helped me through a very rough time in my life silly as that may sound....no victory fix, I wonder what kind of rehab there is for that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the Wolf Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Well that saves A LOT of time coming year(s?) I guess Amazing such a game can do so much to a human being, I guess most of us grew up with it (and were hoping to get old with it as well). Too bad it happened over the Xmas period, finally some decent time to sit down and plan... I guess this means I have time to get to know the names of my kids... Maybe, just maybe... it might be a good idea to take some standard backup and recovery (software AND hardware...) into account? Oh well, can't wait to dump some ideas for V2, love to see naval operations a bit more succesfull PS many many kudos to the remaining vic80 players, by far the best 'sustaining' enemies ever! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacFreek Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Well, it seems there is an overwhelming consensus to get the old games running before attempting to create Victory! 2. While Russ is asleep, let's see how far we can get helping him. Let's assume for now that the program and all data is on the backup drive, that means the steps are straightforward: - Test if you can still get the hardware to function (if so, you can transfer the files via the network, which is often easiest) - Hook up the backup drive to a modern hardware - Read the data from the drive - Get an emulator to run the program on the modern hardware. First of all, I found you an engineers service manual for the Quadra 800: http://www.macfreek.nl/temp/victory/Quadra%20800.pdf. Russ: you might want to quickly go through the troubleshooting section. The hardware malfunction may be that the internal battery is dead, memory is corrupt or hard disk died. If it is just the battery, reset the PRAM, by holding down option-command-P-R, search for "Clear parameter RAM". (There is even a whole procedure in this manual to check the battery, see page 77). If the SIMM is dead, or -most likely- the hard disk died, I would just give up and start with the backup disk. If this works, put up an FTP server on your regular computer, and quickly upload all files (program and data) to your computer. However, I presume this fails. The next step is to hook up the SyQuest drive to modern hardware and read the data. The specs of the SyQuest drive are at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyQuest_EZ_135_Drive It seems that your Quadra 800 has a 25-port SCSI connector, while the SyQuest has a 50-port connector. So you need a SCSI card to put in your newer computer, and a cable to connect the SyQuest to the SCSI card. SCSI still exists nowadays, but these older 25- or 50-port connectors and not in use since a long time. For example, I have a 5-year old SCSI card in my previous Mac, but that has a different connector. If you like, I gladly donate it to you, but international shipping will take a few weeks. Your best bet might be to get a second hand SCSI card somewhere closer to you. As soon as you have done that, you still need to read the data. Given that you used system 7 (I presume 7.5), the disk will be in HFS format, which is Apple's Hierarchical File System. This should be do-able. These days Apple is using HFS+, a predecessor to HFS. However, I have good hopes that Windows drivers for HFS+ will also read HFS disks. Your options are (According to Wikipedia on both HFS and HFS+): # MacDrive - Commercial software to read and write HFS/HFS Plus formatted disks on Microsoft Windows # HFSExplorer - A free alternative to MacDrive is written by Erik Larsson. # hfsutils - open-source software to manipulate HFS on Unix, DOS, Windows, OS/2 # Apple has recently (with Snow Leopard, Mac OS 10.6) released read-only HFS+ drivers for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, but I have not found more information. I would try HFSExplorer first, http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/hfsx.html The emulator is the next step. You clearly need a Motorola 68040 (often referred to as 68k) emulator. This should be relatively straightforward. Also, you may need a version of Mac OS 7 of Mac OS 8. I used to have this, but I threw these away a couple of year ago. Perhaps you can find something on the Internet. I recommend to first see what the emulator software has to say about this -- surely all other people who use an 68k emulator face the same problem. Hope this helps. Let me know your progress. Regards, Freek Dijkstra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sven Drake Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Hi Guys, I appreciate all the help - technical problems like this are definitely not my strong suite. The machine is a Quadra 800, circa 1993 as I recall, running System 7 and used an old SyQuest 135 EZDrive (SCSI connection I believe) for backup. The game data should still be good but right now I can't get a successful boot off the hard drive or an emergency disk and without that I don't have the hardware/experience to get at the backup data to see exactly what I have that's good. The system failure started with lockups, followed by very difficult reboots (multiple attempts before a limited success) then finally no successful boots at all. The progression was fairly quick so I only had time to try a few things, to no effect, before it got to the point where I was out of options. Any attempts at this point just fail completely so I don't know the exact problem or what else might work. The plan was always to come out with a Victory! II at some point whereupon we would move over to more current hardware and back into an environment and code that we were familiar with and the old Mac would be retired. But with one thing after another the development project just kept getting put off and put off until suddenly it was today and too late. The development of Victory! II isn't a bad thing and the project is probably long overdue - I just always hoped we would have the luxury of letting current games play out to their conclusion as we brought Victory! II games online. Appreciate all the help and input regardless, Russ Not to sound to demanding, but I do hope you will at least be trying to make things work on either a virtual or physical machine, at least for those games that have just started or aren't anywhere near decided yet. Or let anybody who has adequate knowledge of Macs (and virtualization) give it a try. Stopping the games now would mean a waste of lots of time and money, at least that is my feeling for vic87. Sorry if I sounded uncooperative or unappreciative. Right now I'm just exhausted so probably not thinking or writing too clearly. Right now the problem is probably beyond my technical ability/experience but I'm happy to listen to suggestions and take help where I can find it and would like nothing better than to find a solution where I can continue to run the games of Victory! that were ongoing. It's been suggested that I look for some local Mac expertise to help out and I'll try that - I don't think I'll have any success this week with the Christmas holiday and all but hopefully next week things will start getting back to normal and I'll see what I can find then. My last post for a little while - I'm going to try to catch up on some sleep Russ Somehow, Russ, I think Ken is going to be crushed. But I sent him an email. Gee! Maybe you can also catch up on Overlord! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desfeeney Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Hi Guys, I appreciate all the help - technical problems like this are definitely not my strong suite. The machine is a Quadra 800, circa 1993 as I recall, running System 7 and used an old SyQuest 135 EZDrive (SCSI connection I believe) for backup. The game data should still be good but right now I can't get a successful boot off the hard drive or an emergency disk and without that I don't have the hardware/experience to get at the backup data to see exactly what I have that's good. The system failure started with lockups, followed by very difficult reboots (multiple attempts before a limited success) then finally no successful boots at all. The progression was fairly quick so I only had time to try a few things, to no effect, before it got to the point where I was out of options. Any attempts at this point just fail completely so I don't know the exact problem or what else might work. The plan was always to come out with a Victory! II at some point whereupon we would move over to more current hardware and back into an environment and code that we were familiar with and the old Mac would be retired. But with one thing after another the development project just kept getting put off and put off until suddenly it was today and too late. The development of Victory! II isn't a bad thing and the project is probably long overdue - I just always hoped we would have the luxury of letting current games play out to their conclusion as we brought Victory! II games online. Appreciate all the help and input regardless, Russ Not to sound to demanding, but I do hope you will at least be trying to make things work on either a virtual or physical machine, at least for those games that have just started or aren't anywhere near decided yet. Or let anybody who has adequate knowledge of Macs (and virtualization) give it a try. Stopping the games now would mean a waste of lots of time and money, at least that is my feeling for vic87. Sorry if I sounded uncooperative or unappreciative. Right now I'm just exhausted so probably not thinking or writing too clearly. Right now the problem is probably beyond my technical ability/experience but I'm happy to listen to suggestions and take help where I can find it and would like nothing better than to find a solution where I can continue to run the games of Victory! that were ongoing. It's been suggested that I look for some local Mac expertise to help out and I'll try that - I don't think I'll have any success this week with the Christmas holiday and all but hopefully next week things will start getting back to normal and I'll see what I can find then. My last post for a little while - I'm going to try to catch up on some sleep Russ Somehow, Russ, I think Ken is going to be crushed. But I sent him an email. Gee! Maybe you can also catch up on Overlord! Life without Victory will be like life without life. But there's a more important issue here. Without the income generated by Victory, how will Russ and the gang survive? It's almost Christmas. There are almost impossible expectations by family, friends and others at this time of year which stretch the finances. If Russ and co have had their incomes trashed, then it is fitting that we, as a gaming community, come to their aid. Russ, if you have indeed fallen on hard times because of the crash, then please debit my credit card $100.00 and use it for Christmas. I urge my fellow Gamers to help Russ and co as generously as they are able. Cheers and Merry Christmas Des Feeney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurassier Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Life without Victory will be like life without life.But there's a more important issue here. Without the income generated by Victory, how will Russ and the gang survive? It's almost Christmas. There are almost impossible expectations by family, friends and others at this time of year which stretch the finances. If Russ and co have had their incomes trashed, then it is fitting that we, as a gaming community, come to their aid. Russ, if you have indeed fallen on hard times because of the crash, then please debit my credit card $100.00 and use it for Christmas. I urge my fellow Gamers to help Russ and co as generously as they are able. Cheers and Merry Christmas Des Feeney Here, Here! Best idea I've heard today. Russ, do the same for me. (Hell, at 6 games of Victory, $100 would still save me money......) Merry Christmas! and get Victory II up and running before Des drinks all his homebrew! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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