• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Donald Duck's Playground on the PCjr

geoffm3

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2009
Messages
1,272
Location
Huntsville, AL
Hey everyone... I've been trying to get this game working on my PCjr to no avail. Supposedly there is a driver for the game that will use PCjr native graphics and sound, but I've yet to get it to work. The same game works on a 486 PC, but it looks like there might still be some problem with it (weird artifacts left behind when moving Donald around).

Anyone else had success with this game?
 
I guess I should clarify. The copy of Playground I have is not a booter... it's a DOS compatible version and in the directory listing there is a file which seems to indicate PCjr compatibility from the name.
 
ah!

I bet you're referring to "Donald Duck's Playground v1.0c (1988)(Sierra On-Line, Inc.) [Educational].zip" and JR_GRAF.OVL would certainly lead me into thinking that the game supports PCjr graphics!
Completely disregard my earlier post then, but sadly I have no further advice here- The game should do what they need to do on a PCjr just fine, being from sierra and all...
 
Last edited:
No prob. Hey, I'll take a working booter version of the game too. I was curious to see how it compared to the C-64 version, which I have fond memories playing from my childhood.
 
The disk image of the booter version from Retrograde Station of DDPG has problems working in a PCjr. The DOS version requires 256KB of RAM regardless of system. However, according to the developers of scummvm, it's a hack :

Donald Duck's Playground PC was OFFICIALLY released on a booter, version 1.0Q, combined with AGI v2.001! The 1.0A and the 1.0C version floating around are "hacked" copies. 1.0A is an Atari ST version, combined with an 2.272 PC interpreter and has no sound & menu. 1.0C is an Amiga version, which uses the same interpreter as 1.0A and pushing ESC (to access the menu) results in "Bad action 161".

So, it may have problems with a marginal, from a hacker's perspective, system like the PCjr. It works in DOSBox with the pcjr. machine type, but that is not a guarantee that it will work in a real machine.

The AGI Interpreter is 2.272, and this is known to have problems with faster machines due to some self-modifying code that happens to be speed sensitive. So it having trouble with your 486 is not surprising.
 
The disk image of the booter version from Retrograde Station of DDPG has problems working in a PCjr. The DOS version requires 256KB of RAM regardless of system. However, according to the developers of scummvm, it's a hack :



So, it may have problems with a marginal, from a hacker's perspective, system like the PCjr. It works in DOSBox with the pcjr. machine type, but that is not a guarantee that it will work in a real machine.

The AGI Interpreter is 2.272, and this is known to have problems with faster machines due to some self-modifying code that happens to be speed sensitive. So it having trouble with your 486 is not surprising.

Interesting. On the PCjr while starting the DOS version of the game it gives some red screen error message complaining about not enough stack or somesuch (I played around with the stack setting in config.sys to no avail) and hangs there.
 
Hey, I'll take a working booter version of the game too.
Shoot me a PM with your address and I'll make you one and send it to you. I am currently of the belief that only a central point option board is capable of creating a proper disk, until a new cracked copy can be created in .IMG form. [this offer valid for anyone reading this]

Anyone have the 1.0A hack? That is absolutely fascinating that someone put one together for the PC, and that two of them are floating around out there. Thanks for dredging that up GH!
 
Back
Top