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anyone every play the DOS port of Akalabeth on a 8088 era machine?

oblivion

oblivion

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I ask because the official DOS port came out in 1998 so I figure it was assumed it would be getting played on P1 and II machines but the game looks style wise like it came out in 80 or 81. that said I'm curious if anyone's every played it on a 8088 machine or if it can be played on one. I figure you can just transfer the files from the CD to a floppy or something. Also I read it had midi support but does anyone know if it supports PC speaker as well, at least for any sound effects? I never played the Apple II original so I'm not sure how the SFX were or even if there were any.
 
If you have a modern machine, it is best to play Akalabeth simply using an Apple II emulator.

If you MUST play it on an XT, you can use the apl2em emulator (requires NEC V20 or 286+). It will run roughly half speed, but you won't notice because Akalabeth doesn't have any realtime sections (movement and combat is turn-based).

Looking at the apl2em source, it should be possible to rewrite it to work on an 8088.
 
I always considered writing an assembly-language port of Akalabeth as it would have been done in 1981/1982. It would certainly be an interesting "retro-programming" project...
 
hmm, its no biggie. I was just wondering. I have a 300mhz dell XPS sitting here win Win 98 that seems like an appropriate fit for when the rerelease was made so I think i'll just use that.
 
Pretty perfect system for it actually :) I don't know if it's complete but there's also an Ultima Collection (in box but I haven't seen if it has the book which I think is all it normally has) at the Half Price books on South Lamar here in Austin. I recall it being a little pricey like $30-40 IIRC but anyone local who wants the anthology it's may not be a bad find (especially if you ask them about the mailing list coupons for this week/Sunday). Also quite a few other vintage boxed games for x86 but most are around $20 which I can't tell if they're really worth that price tag.
 
barythrin said:
Pretty perfect system for it actually :) I don't know if it's complete but there's also an Ultima Collection (in box but I haven't seen if it has the book which I think is all it normally has) at the Half Price books on South Lamar here in Austin. I recall it being a little pricey like $30-40 IIRC but anyone local who wants the anthology it's may not be a bad find (especially if you ask them about the mailing list coupons for this week/Sunday). Also quite a few other vintage boxed games for x86 but most are around $20 which I can't tell if they're really worth that price tag.
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lucky, I hardly ever find x86 era games around here. sure a lot of early windows and 386/486 very late 80's stuff but not much of the early stuff. I actually found a sealed copy of the Ultima collection at a local thrift a few months back for $2
 
Does that mean all the Ultima titles in the Ultima Collection need to be played through a Windows environment? I was planning to just transfer them from the CD to floppy and play them from period PC's.
 
Ultima 2 onwards were available for the PC. Ultima 1 never was, and Akalabeth was an Apple II BASIC program. However I don't know what the format of the titles in the Ultima Collection are; they might not be in a form you can copy to physical media.
 
oblivion said:
Does that mean all the Ultima titles in the Ultima Collection need to be played through a Windows environment? I was planning to just transfer them from the CD to floppy and play them from period PC's.
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Trixter said:
Ultima 2 onwards were available for the PC. Ultima 1 never was, and Akalabeth was an Apple II BASIC program. However I don't know what the format of the titles in the Ultima Collection are; they might not be in a form you can copy to physical media.
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The original 1981 Apple II version of Ultima (1) was only ported to the Atari 8-bit computers, however the 1986 remake, Ultima I : The First Age of Darkness, is available for PCs.

Other than Akalabeth, all the Ultima games in the Ultima Collection can be played from DOS. In fact, Ultima VII and VIII must be played from DOS, according to the Collection. (There are fan patches that let you play from Windows). The first three Ultimas (including fixed Ultima II) can fit on a single 360KB floppy, Ultima IV will fit on a 720KB floppy, but Ultima V will not fit onto either type of drive. It is better to install it on a hard drive. Ultima VI can technically be played off floppies, but that is an exercise in tedium.
 
NewRisingSun said:
I always considered writing an assembly-language port of Akalabeth as it would have been done in 1981/1982. It would certainly be an interesting "retro-programming" project...
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Would it have been in assembly, or would it have been a BASIC conversion of the original? (IIRC the original was applesoft basic)
 
I concur with that. I'd always thought that akalabeth was in basic and then richard garriet wanted to learn assembly, and ultima 1 was the first product of that learning experience.

I have always wanted to write a new Ultima game based around Ultima III. I'd do it entirely in x86 assembly and it would be CGA only too. It would essentially be a clone of U3 but with a larger map and maybe a few tweaks to the AI and melee routines. U3 is directly responsible for my poorish grades and lack of vitamin D from sunlight back in 7th grade. I could not find enough time to play that damn game.
 
Would it have been in assembly, or would it have been a BASIC conversion of the original? (IIRC the original was applesoft basic)
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You are right that realistically it would have been released as a BASICA program. For the retroprogramming project, assembly. By "as it would have been done in 1981/1982", I meant by what was technically optimal for 1981/1982, i.e. CGA graphics and a self-booting 160K disk. The game only uses pink and green on the Apple, so the cyan/magenta palette could be used without having separate RGBI/Composite monitor selections.

Rather than start that kind of ambitious retroprogramming project, I have instead begun (and have almost finished) to convert Ultima II to run with 16-color RGBI graphics on a PCjr/Tandy 1000 and add the Apple II version's title screen animation. I did this because I cannot stand the regular "EGA" upgrade that actually requires VGA and a DOS extender, and the animated title screen is still missing.
 
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