Dungeon Master unreleased MAC version

[dlfrsilver]

Hello,

Back in 1991, i was in UK for a family exchange with a student. My english correspondant has a step father, and when we went at his house, i met for the first time in my life a MAC computer (after finding the picture, it was a MAC IIsi, with frontal motorised disk insert).

Then, i played Dungeon Master on this MAC computer. I remember that it was an original, and i remember the horrible noise when the disk protection was accessed after the FTL logo.

I'm sure that due to the motorised disk insertion, it could not be an Atari ST, an Amiga or even a PC.

His step father was not programmer, but just a regular user.

I'm disturbed since some people told me (it was an ST or an Amiga 3000), but i remember it was a MAC with the Apple logo on the front. The Central Unit was horizontal and the monitor (color) was sitting on the top of it and it was white.

It seems that i am possibly one of the rare person that have seen Dungeon Master MAC version running (i played with it).

What informations do we have regarding the Dungeon Master MAC version ?

[ChristopheF]

FTL did port Dungeon Master to the Macintosh, but that version was never released commercially. I remember reading somewhere they struggled with issues to scale up the graphics for the Macintosh screen that had higher resolution than the other platforms that the game was ported to.

Macintosh was their primary development platform. In fact, except the Atari ST versions and the Amiga 2.x versions that were both developed using native compilers on these platforms, development of all other versions targeting the 68000 processor took place on Macintosh (Amiga 3.x versions and CSB Utility disk, CSB Atari ST Utility Disk, DM and CSB X68000 Japanese). Even development for the Apple IIgs version was performed on Macintosh using cross-compiler tools named MPW IIGS (I've been looking for version 1.0 of these tools for ages by the way, this is the version they used and I only have later versions).

From your recollection, it seems most probable to me that you played Dungeon Master on an Apple IIgs that you mistook for a Macintosh. Please check out Apple IIgs photos on Google for confirmation.

[ChristopheF]

By the way, as a member of SPS, do you have some insider information about any progress towards IPF releases of Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back for Atari ST and Amiga?
I have reverse engineered all the executables (viewtopic.php?t=29805) and studied the copy protection in great detail (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/210), so I proposed my help to build the IPF many years ago at https://forum.kryoflux.com/viewtopic.php?p=16105#p16105 but I never got any meaningful reply...
From the outside, it seems the SPS/Kryoflux project is stalled with no progress nor announcements for years...

[dlfrsilver]

FTL did port Dungeon Master to the Macintosh, but that version was never released commercially. I remember reading somewhere they struggled with issues to scale up the graphics for the Macintosh screen that had higher resolution than the other platforms that the game was ported to.

Macintosh was their primary development platform. In fact, except the Atari ST versions and the Amiga 2.x versions that were both developed using native compilers on these platforms, development of all other versions targeting the 68000 processor took place on Macintosh (Amiga 3.x versions and CSB Utility disk, CSB Atari ST Utility Disk, DM and CSB X68000 Japanese). Even development for the Apple IIgs version was performed on Macintosh using cross-compiler tools named MPW IIGS (I've been looking for version 1.0 of these tools for ages by the way, this is the version they used and I only have later versions).

From your recollection, it seems most probable to me that you played Dungeon Master on an Apple IIgs that you mistook for a Macintosh. Please check out Apple IIgs photos on Google for confirmation.

It was not an Apple IIgs. The dungeon Master disk was 3.5" not 5.25". It was in 1991. The game was a carbon copy of the ST version.
I remember also that the disk was autobooter, and the disk protection was doing a great noise when accessed.

PS : the apple IIgs has not a frontal motorised disk insertion. And more over, the floppy disk drive is external, and it was not the case.

Here is the Apple model i played on Dungeon Master :

https://oldcrap.org/2018/11/25/macintos ... ousel-2981

[dlfrsilver]

By the way, as a member of SPS, do you have some insider information about any progress towards IPF releases of Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back for Atari ST and Amiga?
I have reverse engineered all the executables (viewtopic.php?t=29805) and studied the copy protection in great detail (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/210), so I proposed my help to build the IPF many years ago at https://forum.kryoflux.com/viewtopic.php?p=16105#p16105 but I never got any meaningful reply...
From the outside, it seems the SPS/Kryoflux project is stalled with no progress nor announcements for years...

Well, unfortunately, the only thing i know is that SPS studio is the next step. I have no date to give you unfortunately.

The only solution currently, is to process the dump with Disk Analyse from Keir Fraser. His tool is able to generate IPFs out of an original dump.

[ChristopheF]

The Apple IIgs had a 3.5" disk drive. Dungeon Master for Apple IIgs was released on a 3.5" floppy disk (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/626#toc8) using the same 800K format as used on Macintosh (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/1601)

Maybe you saw an early preview/beta version of DM for Macintosh... I'm 100% sure it was developed but never released commercially.

[dlfrsilver]

I'm sure it was not an Apple IIgs. I remember the guy inserting the disk frontaly in the MAC computer.

There must be a story behind......

The disk he used was printed, and i saw the box as well. It was the purple one from mirrorsoft, and the disk was blue, with the dungeon master sticker.

It was the final release......

I also remember that i asked the guy if the game was hard drive installable and he told me that the disk was copy protected.

I remember seens the FTL swoosh screen, and the protection triggered just after, and then you were in front of the main door at the start of the game.

About being commercially sold, yes it never was

[ChristopheF]

There is an interview of Wayne Holder in the Dungeon Master II hint book "The Official Strategy Guide" (made in 1994) where mentions the Macintosh version of Dungeon Master that was never shipped.
Check here: http://dmweb.free.fr/files/DMII-Scan-Hi ... %20132.jpg
and here for all scans of the hint book: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/411

[slickrcbd]

I'm sure it was not an Apple IIgs. I remember the guy inserting the disk frontaly in the MAC computer.

There must be a story behind......

The disk he used was printed, and i saw the box as well. It was the purple one from mirrorsoft, and the disk was blue, with the dungeon master sticker.

It was the final release......

I also remember that i asked the guy if the game was hard drive installable and he told me that the disk was copy protected.

I remember seens the FTL swoosh screen, and the protection triggered just after, and then you were in front of the main door at the start of the game.

About being commercially sold, yes it never was

My Dungeon Master disk is a blue disk, inserted into an external 3.5" drive. It has a Dungeon Master sticker. Do I need to dig it out to take a picture if the disk?
This link has a small picture of an Apple IIGS not unlike what mine looked like in 1988 (minus the 5.25" drive under the 3.5" drive, which they really should have shown because every IIGS user I knew had at least one of each so they could use Apple II family software). If you scroll down you can see why it can be mistaken for a Macintosh.
https://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/system-4.html

The Apple IIgs had a 3.5" disk drive. Dungeon Master for Apple IIgs was released on a 3.5" floppy disk (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/626#toc8) using the same 800K format as used on Macintosh (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/1601)

Maybe you saw an early preview/beta version of DM for Macintosh... I'm 100% sure it was developed but never released commercially.

Point of order, the Apple IIGS used ProDOS formatted disks, the Macintosh (of that era) used HFS formatted disks. Later the Mac would use HFS+ for hard drives for the same reason Windows switched from FAT16 to FAT32 and later to NTFS.
The Apple IIGS would not gain the ability to read HFS formatted disks natively* until 1992 with the release of System 6.0 and the HFS FST.

*There was a freeware utility available from most public domain vendors as well as AOL and GEnie, possibly CompuSERV called A2FX and later one called HFSlink (both had uses) that could transfer files from HFS disks.
It can be found on Ground's mirror.
https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ground.ic ... le8/Utils/

[Gambit37]

@dlfrsilver: I looked in my notes from an interview with Doug Bell from years ago and he does not mention Macs in the list of machines that Dungeon Master was available for. I'm sorry to say this seems like a mistaken memory (unless your exchange student's step dad was involved with FTL, which seems unlikely.)