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Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 17:22:41 -0800
From: Chip Hayes <jwhayes@attglobal.net>
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Subject: Lost Treasures uncovered...
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Xref: news.duke.edu rec.games.int-fiction:60575

While not quite on the level of a missing Van Gogh or a signed first
edition of Alice in Wonderland, I did uncover a few gems in my attic
this week: a box of old Macintosh disks, among them some Infocom games.
Not commercial versions mind you, but gamma-test versions of Trinity,
LGOP, and Hollywood Hijinx.

From '83 to '89, I was one of those outside gamma testers (beta testing
was done in-house at Infocom, gamma tests were sent out to various
die-hard players on their testing lists) that got to pound on these
games before their official release.  If I remember right, I tested 8-9
games over the years.

I would have hunted for these sooner, but I don't recall even making
these copies, as I was a very good boy when it came to adhering to my
tester's agreement about non-disclosure and piracy and stuff.  Besides,
they said they had imbedded our names in the games and would shut us out
of testing if any copies got out (in fact, the Trinity file has my legal
name in the banner).

But I obviously did copy at least these three for my own files, and they
have been collecting dust along with all my other old Mac stuff.  I
figure that after all these years they might be of some historical
interest, as they all have some debugging code still activated, and
perhaps might shed a little light on the development process of some of
the Infocom authors.

Thanks to Andrew Plotkin, who helped educate me in the ways of the patch
file, I have been able to create patches for these three games, and have
uploaded them (as one zipped folder) to the gmd:

ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/incoming/Gamma_Patches.ZIP

I have no idea what bugs still exist in these games (I always found my
share), but a quick txd of them showed a number of debugging verbs
(those starting with $) and I'm sure many of you will find other nifty
hidden treasures in there as well.

The Trinity file is marked as a beta, not a gamma, and still has a
number of placeholders where descriptions were not yet written,
especially in the latter part of the game at Trinity site.  One very
amusing such verb is in Hollywood Hijinx, $de, which toggles the
debugging code (similar to Inform's Trace) and supplies a couple of very
funny messages when activated and de-activated.

The version numbers are as follows:

Trinity: beta release 14 / serial 860313
LGOP: release 160 / serial 860521
Hijinx:  release 235 / serial 861118

Anyway, finding these made me very nostalgic.  I remember well that, no
matter how crazed I was at work in those days, a phone call from the
testing department at Infocom (Liz Cyr-Jones most of the time) telling
me a new game was on its way would make me instantly clear the decks of
all pending work.  Then, like a kid on Christmas Eve, I'd  go and wait
by the mailroom for the FedEx man to appear.  Ah, the innocent age.

I hope those of you interested will enjoy.

Chip Hayes


