Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes - why not for this long time

Linus_H · Post by **Linus_H** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 12:51 pm

Hello!
I am a great fan of both Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes games. Actually I play them in DosBOX and that is very slow on my computer.
I read this forum and see that there have been various persons either asking for Holmes or saying they are working on it.
But for years nothing has happened (the game or its engine aren't even listed on the pages about that).
On the other side there are many games supported now which I have never heard of, neither "in the 90ies" nor now.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to blame anyone for that as everyone is working on this project for free and I can not write programmes and contribute code. I just want to understand why Holmes is still not supported. Is the engine so difficult to support? Is there a lack of interest (I thought, Holmes was far more popular than many games recently added) or what is it?
Can I or anyone else of the "not-programming-skilled"-users do anything to help supporting Holmes (or do more than donate to the project)?
Once again - this is just a question, no accuse or something like that. ScummVM is already a great piece of Software preserving great adventure games from former times
THanks for reply and discussion!
Linus

DrMcCoy · Post by **DrMcCoy** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 1:52 pm

Linus_H wrote:I just want to understand why Holmes is still not supported

Lack of someone who has the necessary knowledge, time and interest. Easy as that.

Oftentimes, people start a project like taking apart a game, then get another great project idea (maybe even taking apart another game) after a short while, and never finish the first project. Story of my life.

Linus_H wrote:Can I or anyone else of the "not-programming-skilled"-users do anything to help supporting Holmes

Apart from learning to programm and RE themselves, no, not really.

Linus_H wrote:or do more than donate to the project

Well, if you're lucky and you have lots of money, you might be able to find someone who's willing to do the work for a normal wage...

sirlemonhead · Post by **sirlemonhead** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 2:27 pm

Hi, I've been working on this and made some decent enough progress, especially with the help of some work that john_doe has previously done.

I decided to get in touch a few months ago with the original owner of the company who made this game, and he told me he retains the rights to the source code and is very happy to release it to the public.

He's in the middle of seeing if he can get hold of the source code, and will then give it to me, as well as the source code for all the companies other games (including rose tattoo)

It's entirely dependent on him overcoming some technical issues with his source code repository servers, though.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 4:26 pm

sirlemonhead wrote:Hi, I've been working on this and made some decent enough progress, especially with the help of some work that john_doe has previously done.

I decided to get in touch a few months ago with the original owner of the company who made this game, and he told me he retains the rights to the source code and is very happy to release it to the public.

He's in the middle of seeing if he can get hold of the source code, and will then give it to me, as well as the source code for all the companies other games (including rose tattoo)

It's entirely dependent on him overcoming some technical issues with his source code repository servers, though.

Great news!

DrMcCoy · Post by **DrMcCoy** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 4:36 pm

Great news indeed.

a.borque · Post by **a.borque** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:58 am

That's really great news! I am really happy.
I heard rumors about continued interest in this project back in october 2012, but now it is a kind of official!
I have my collection of LucasArts adventurers complete and with GOG offering nearly all old Sierra adventures (except Heart of China as far as I am concerned) and ResidualVM also making good progress lately all I have to do is
A) wait for ScummVM supporting Lost Files 1 and 2
B) -perhaps more difficult- find an old 5,25"-FDD, get it to work in a modern computer and hope that some nearly 25years old FDs are readable and the old installer is working in DOSbox.
So thanks once again!! Really, really great.
A.Borque
PS1: I thought that back in 199x projects were much smaller than today, I World have never expected them to need servers for sourcecode managemen!
PS2: Does anybody know whether there are also external (USB-?)-5,25"-FDDs like there are for "modern" 3,5" FDs? I have just noticed there are many more old 5,25"-games here...

sirlemonhead · Post by **sirlemonhead** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 1:24 pm

As far as I know, the only thing you can use to get 5.25 floppy drives working on a modern machine via USB is with something like this http://www.kryoflux.com/

There isn't any way to make a usb 5.25 drive otherwise I believe.

It's probably quite likely that he won't have any luck retrieving the source code, but sure..fingers crossed. He initially got in contact with as many of the original programmers on the project to see if they had a copy of the source, but none did unfortunately.

He's spending quite a bit of money on data recovery to get the source code back so he's certainly keen on helping us!

Reckless · Post by **Reckless** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 8:48 pm

a.borque wrote:PS1: I thought that back in 199x projects were much smaller than today, I World have never expected them to need servers for sourcecode managemen!

Been in IT (nothing to do with game development) since '86 working for small and large companies - always have used SCM products.

sirlemonhead · Post by **sirlemonhead** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 9:45 pm

He said it's 27 years worth of source code so it's probably not the original server. There's 30+ titles on 17 hard drives so fingers crossed he can recover it as he's keen to release it ALL

Les · Post by **Les** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 4:04 pm

Heh you're a big pessimist.

If I may raise my hand here, I'm a really good example. I still have my old Pentium machine ( plus several CPU's working with the mother board ) which has a 5.25 floppy drive.

And guess what ... it's still working.

sirlemonhead wrote:As far as I know, the only thing you can use to get 5.25 floppy drives working on a modern machine via USB is with something like this http://www.kryoflux.com/

There isn't any way to make a usb 5.25 drive otherwise I believe.

It's probably quite likely that he won't have any luck retrieving the source code, but sure..fingers crossed. He initially got in contact with as many of the original programmers on the project to see if they had a copy of the source, but none did unfortunately.

He's spending quite a bit of money on data recovery to get the source code back so he's certainly keen on helping us!

vasyl · Post by **vasyl** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 7:44 am

sirlemonhead: Please check your private messages.

Post by **Strangerke** » Wed Feb 06, 2013 11:43 am

Just to bring my pessimistic opinion in the discussion... DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH!
We are currently discussing of recovering data from a completely wasted raid-set, it's not something straightforward.

Jellby · Post by **Jellby** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 4:56 pm

Well, even if the source code cannot be recovered, the fact that the rights holder is willing to release it may be a good encouragement to get someone to work on supporting the these games. I wonder, though... is he also willing to release the data files?

sirlemonhead · Post by **sirlemonhead** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 7:21 pm

EA still own the rights to the data files as far as I know.

Linus_H · Post by **Linus_H** » Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:58 pm

Hello!
I am very proud that my first post here has so much reply.
And I am very happy there is so much interest in The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes.
I still need my old copy of the games as EA still owns the game, do I understand that correct? But it is easier to write a gameengine for scummvm because no reverseengeneering is needed if programmers can look at the old code?
I hope the code can be found and used.
Cheers from a happy (new) communitymember
Linus

Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes - why not for this long time

Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes - why not for this long time

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