Unknown Version of King's Quest I

vintagegames · Post by **vintagegames** » Thu Dec 29, 2011 12:26 am

Trying to play my grey-box copy of KQ1 with the daily build from Nov 26, 2011, the game is not recognized and I get prompted to report the following.

{"logdir", 0, "f3464778c9ae1a9e1fbed566f917b3d7", 315},
{"vol.0", 0, "6fdab17b9c25ea2d50021091eaaa3767", 46735},
{"object", 0, "2eaba28aeff717742983a57d2c12301f", 339},

Unfortunately, I have no way of seeing the actual version of the game 1.??? anywhere. The disks have the "logo" stickers, which do not give a version. I also tried to run it on my vintage PC but the copy protection scheme expects the floppy to be in drive A: - and my 5.25" drive is B: Sarien or NAGI do not give the game versions, either.

I hope someone can find out which game/interpreter version this is and of course add it to the list in SCUMMVM.

envisaged0ne · Post by **envisaged0ne** » Thu Dec 29, 2011 12:49 am

The original grey box version of King's Quest was a self booting game. Didn't use DOS. And was pretty much only playable on PCJr or Tandy computers. So, can you be more specific as to what computer system the grey box says it supports?

vintagegames · Post by **vintagegames** » Fri Dec 30, 2011 9:35 am

The sticker on my copy says 'IBM PC, PCjr, and compatibles'; it has the number SRL-652. The floppy disk stickers have the numbers KQL-101 and KQL-102.

The 'logo' stickers of the disks in the later (slipcover) gold box have KQL-103 and KQL-104 and contain version 2.0F. So I would presume this is an earlier PC version but later than the original AGI0 release.

Maybe the list of files (incl. their dates) helps?

Code: Select all

13.11.1986  12&#58;31            34.817 AGI
07.11.1986  09&#58;27             6.656 AGIDATA.OVL
07.11.1986  09&#58;25             1.024 CGA_GRAF.OVL
19.09.1985  16&#58;47             8.048 CPC.COM
07.11.1986  09&#58;25             1.024 EGA_GRAF.OVL
19.09.1986  09&#58;41                98 EXIST.COM
07.10.1986  08&#58;21               342 INSTALLH.BAT
07.11.1986  09&#58;25               512 JR_GRAF.OVL
13.11.1986  11&#58;12               315 LOGDIR
19.09.1986  08&#58;51               102 MAKEPATH.COM
09.10.1986  13&#58;45               339 OBJECT
13.11.1986  11&#58;12               255 PICDIR
17.01.1998  13&#58;27               687 README.1ST
07.11.1986  14&#58;35             2.266 SIERRA.COM
13.11.1986  11&#58;12               144 SNDDIR
13.11.1986  11&#58;12               432 VIEWDIR
13.11.1986  11&#58;10            46.735 VOL.0
13.11.1986  11&#58;12           198.087 VOL.1
21.10.1986  09&#58;32             2.970 WORDS.TOK
14.11.1986  08&#58;09               503 _INSTALL.BAT

I have little experience with booters. Would they possibly also use a FAT12 file system? At least this disk does not appear to have a boot sector.

Was the original IBM disk (red sticker) a booter? I never gave that much thought so far. At least I have not been able to read it with my PC.

envisaged0ne · Post by **envisaged0ne** » Fri Dec 30, 2011 2:26 pm

I believe the red label is the pcjr one. If you can look at the files on the disc, then we'd be able to see if it's supported by scummvm.

For the pcjr booter, I'd suggest making a disc image, and running it through DOSBOX.

vintagegames · Post by **vintagegames** » Fri Dec 30, 2011 3:07 pm

Thanks! Just to be clear: the game I posted about is no booter, I merely mentioned that other version for reference. As you can see from the file list, I can access the files; and the (unknown) hash code is what I get running it with SCUMMVM.

Apart from formally adding it to the game list, I am interested in the version number because KQ differs in some puzzles between versions.

Now you got me also more curious about the red label/PCJR booter (which should contain the original version with the trickier puzzles). I tried making an image of that using WimImage, but it says it cannot read the disk. A quick search in this forum and on VOGONS did not reveal anything on floppy disk images for booters, either. From another posting, I understand that the booter versions of games are not guaranteed to work yet anyway.

envisaged0ne · Post by **envisaged0ne** » Sat Dec 31, 2011 1:13 am

I don't think the old booter versions can be read through a regular disc drive. Has probs reading the data on them. I have KQ1 & KQ2 booters from the PCJr saved as image files and they run perfectly through DOSBOX.

vintagegames · Post by **vintagegames** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:13 pm

I managed to determine the version number by swapping the floppy driver letters in the BIOS and running the game. Pressing ALT-D reveals version 1.0U. Strangely, 1.0U is listed on the AGI game version page, so I am wondering why the game is called unknown by that (very recent) daily build.

clone2727 · Post by **clone2727** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 12:56 am

vintagegames wrote:I managed to determine the version number by swapping the floppy driver letters in the BIOS and running the game. Pressing ALT-D reveals version 1.0U. Strangely, 1.0U is listed on the AGI game version page, so I am wondering why the game is called unknown by that (very recent) daily build.

Because not every game on that list is in ScummVM. That list is unrelated to the detection tables in ScummVM.