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Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
- therein 8y agoThis brings back memories I hadn't recalled in a long time. https://youtu.be/nyZ2X73VrGs https://youtu.be/nyZ2X73VrGs
- aninteger 8y agoI am interested but not enough to pay over $1000. I actually hope that some (well all) of this code makes it to the computer history museum.
- kevin_b_er 8y agoIf rare video game market is anything like I think it is, this will disappear into a jealous "private collector". You'll never ever see the source code because they feel that dumping or providing digital copies of the disks would degrade the value of their collection. And public suffers just a little more under greed and selfishness.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago> And public suffers just a little more under greed and selfishness. I don't know if "I don't have a copy of King's Quest 3 source code" counts as suffering.
- subway 8y agoThe public suffers anytime knowledge is lost.
- gisely 8y agoWill the public suffer from not knowing what this comment said a century from now?
- all2 8y agoYes. Already massive amounts of data have been lost to the grind of technology forging 'forward'. As we lose the information, we lose context, and without context 'facts' about the past begin to lose meaning to the present reader. History, and the stories we have, is/are mankind's most important asset. Without the context of our past as a species, we lose the ability to navigate into the future effectively (without crossing into unfortunate places again, like world war, or slavery, etc.). We have nothing but stories. Without those, we are nothing.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoI think that raises an interesting problem - if you want to look back 1000 years the sources are scarce, and largely composed of the thoughts of the educated or the wealthy - people who could read and write and store these items. 500 years from now we're going to be faced with a totally different problem - if a user wants to learn about the year 2018 where do they start? Official documents will appear to be stored beside the thoughts of Kardashians besides trolls. It'll be very hard to parse through any information to get an actual sense of what was happening. I mean, it's the same problem, using the primary sources to try and figure out the truth, but it'll be the opposite problem as we have now.
- akkartik 8y agohttps://www.amazon.com/Glasshouse-Charles-Stross/dp/0441015085 https://www.amazon.com/Glasshouse-Charles-Stross/dp/04410150... describes a different problem. In the 27th century the 21st century is considered a dark age not because anything particularly bad happened but just because data archival technology took a big step back. Early storage media were far more fragile than paper.
- BillyBreen 8y agoI was hoping someone would reference that. One of my favorite Stross books, and a decade since reading it I frequently think back to it and worry about this mass of data we’re creating and obsoleting each year.
- afarah 8y agoSuch as with IP law.
- lscotte 8y agoBut this is property, not knowledge...
- insulanus 8y agoWell, this is both property and knowledge. I'd argue that the information content is more "real", since information is a real property of things in the universe. Property is a (useful) abstraction that humans have collectively agreed on, so that people don't get clubbed as often as in the past.
- laythea 8y agoAgree. Context, people. First world suffering at best.
- yellowapple 8y agoIs there a non-profit that would be willing to buy this stuff specifically for archival purposes if a bunch of folks pooled their money to that effect?
- TarpitCarnivore 8y agoFrank Cifaldi and the Video Game archive do a lot of preservation work. https://gamehistory.org/ https://gamehistory.org/
- st3fan 8y agoShould have just donated it to archive.org instead of making a quick buck out of it.
- nacs 8y agoWell you're free to do this bit of charity after buying it yourself.
- djsumdog 8y agoWell no, he says in the post he doesn't own the IP. The winner could post it, but it'd probably have to be as a torrent or from a country that won't enforce the IP/copyright.
- TheDong 8y agoUnfortunately, it's still copyrighted and so cannot be legally displayed or distributed by the internet archive for another ~65 years (95 years from publication for copyright to expire). Many of us won't be alive to see this code legally. The copyright period could also increase again if the law retroactively increases it again.
- djsumdog 8y agoYea that's what confuses me. Is he even legally allowed to sell this stuff? Should he even still have that stuff?! This gets into sketchy legal ground. I wish he had contacted the German company he claims currently owns the rights and just asked if he could post it all up for free. It's not like it's going to hurt sales on platforms like GoG if they still have it up. He's already gotten some of the rights back for LSL1 at least when he did that remake (which honestly isn't all that great). He could have posted all the code and then sold the originals too; so it's in the commons and one person gets to be a collector and everyone wins. So .. EA doesn't own this? I thought Sierra was owned by EA (or got bought by some company that got bought by EA). I know The LSL rights went to some other company for a bit who produced the two PC/PlayStation Larry games (the university and movie one. Honestly I liked the University one; don't know why people hated on it. It was funny).
- dstroot 8y agoLeisure Suit Larry was the first game I played as a kid that felt “adult” and “naughty”. Somehow that made it irresistible to my younger self. This brings back some great memories. Thanks for sharing!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- DonHopkins 8y agoI played Softporn Adventure on my Apple ][, which Leisure Suit Larry was based on. There was a casino that let you bet negative amounts at the blackjack table, then lose on purpose to make lots of money! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softporn_Adventure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softporn_Adventure Then there was "Interlude: The Ultimate Experience". It came with a paperback book full of naughty stuff, which my pirate friend gave me a xeroxed copy of to go with the floppy disk. https://boingboing.net/2012/08/10/sexy-video-game-from-the-apple.html https://boingboing.net/2012/08/10/sexy-video-game-from-the-a... You'd load the game on the computer, run it, answer some questions, and it would tell you and your (probably imaginary) partner: "For a good time, turn to page 74 for Interlude No. 82 - Caveman Caper!" Looks like this PDF has the table of contents, but it's missing all the "good" parts: http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/syntonic/k7_syntonic_interlude_manual.pdf http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/syntonic/k7_sy... And I'll never forget the HyperCard Smut Stack! ("ping!")
- jfoster 8y ago> There was a casino that let you bet negative amounts at the blackjack table, then lose on purpose to make lots of money! Sounds a bit like one of the early bugs on Amazon.com: https://youtu.be/-hxX_Q5CnaA https://youtu.be/-hxX_Q5CnaA
- PavlovsCat 8y agoAs a German kid with nothing but a dictionary, and no clue who people like Nixon were, those questions took me some dedication and note taking to suss out by trial and error. It wasn't even the lure of the forbidden so much, I just didn't want to miss a thing, I loved Larry 1-3 so much. Still adore the music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1om9GlBhn8&t=3m17s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1om9GlBhn8&t=3m17s Oh yeah! Ladies and gentlemen, Al Lowe! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLXSGPY4Pkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLXSGPY4Pkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUokHW32jL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUokHW32jL4
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dec0dedab0de 8y agoI miss typing commands in the classic sierra games. Trying to figure out the right commands and names of items was much more fun than the point and click games that followed. Also you never know when you would stumble upon a joke while saying something ridiculous.
- GijsjanB 8y ago~Am I understanding wrong or is Leisure Suit Larry not a classic?~ Edit: I misunderstood
- catoc 8y agoI played everything. Kings Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest... hated it when they went the 'point-n-click' way. Still whistle the police Quest opening tune to my daughters sometimes... What are you whistling daddy? How do you get the experience of classic adventure games across...?
- rvanmil 8y agoI’ll never forget being stuck for months until I learned “INSERT CARTRIDGE”. Great memories indeed :)
- CobrastanJorji 8y agoHrm....he says he hasn't tested it, but there was a remake of the game, and Lowe supposedly worked with them on it. You'd think they'd have jumped to at least examine the original source. Or maybe they explicitly decided not to check if the IP rights were owned by a different company than the one that owned the copyright for the code itself.
- glwtta 8y agoWhy would they? Code from 1987 is of exactly zero interest to someone developing a game in 2013.
- CobrastanJorji 8y agoIt's a text command driven game, isn't it? Getting an encyclopedic listing of all of the different text that the original recognized would be most easily handled by reading it from the original code. I suppose just examining the original media might have been enough. Or maybe they abandoned that command style? I didn't play the remake.
- gknight 8y agoIt was a remake of a remake, actually. In 1991, they remade the original Leisure Suit Larry to be a traditional point-and-click adventure game. It's referred to as Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards or just Leisure Suit Larry 1 VGA. The modern-day remake was an update of the point-and-click version.
- djsumdog 8y agoIf they wanted to referrer to the original dialogue or images, it's easy to do without the source. ScummVM and other projects already have tools out there to extract all the game data from old Sierra games.
- scrollaway 8y agoSierra games did not use SCUMM. That was LucasArts (the MM stands for Maniac Mansion).
- crooked-v 8y agoI'm suddenly reminded of Betrayal in Antara. Man, that game was weird.
- dccoolgai 8y agoThe Manhunter games were probably the weirdest ones from Sierra that no one really remembers...
- PavlovsCat 8y agoDid anyone say Kult - The Temple of Flying Saucers? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeyZ57rWdGg&t=6m21s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeyZ57rWdGg&t=6m21s
- mpeg 8y agoI was obsessed with that game as a child, if it was remade it would have quick-save and be ruined :) That and Future Wars are probably the first sci-fi games I played in the Amiga 500.
- mschuster91 8y agoSemi-OT: Anyone who knows who holds the copyright and/or source code to Sierra's Earth Siege 2, please contact me by the email in my profile! I'd be really happy if someone can shed a light here...
- crooked-v 8y agoCurrently Hi-Rez Studios at least has the rights to distribute the full series, since they legally have the ISOs available to download as a promotion for Tribes: Ascend. https://www.tribesuniverse.com https://www.tribesuniverse.com
- ru999gol 8y agoif he were to actually care about digital preservation he would just put all of it on github even anonymously. But he doesn't so he doesn't. I know what Jason Scott would do.
- Reedx 8y agoAnyone know the odds of the floppies still working? I'm guessing some will and some won't. They must be nearing or past expiration date...
- DonHopkins 8y agoWell the Elephant Memory Systems floppy disks claim to "Never Forget"! https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/s-l1600-2-980x549.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/s-l16... https://youtu.be/v7AgSapZAi8?t=500 https://youtu.be/v7AgSapZAi8?t=500
- djmips 8y agoMy anecdata is very strong for floppies from that era having a great chance of still working and there even some tech out there that can read borderline floppies and get the data from a population of reads using simple statistics.
- DonHopkins 8y agoHow perfect: he used Elephant Memory Systems floppy disks -- they never forget! https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/s-l1600-2-980x549.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/s-l16... I loved my Elephant t-shirt! https://www.etsy.com/listing/603919849/vintage-80s-1981-elephant-memory-systems https://www.etsy.com/listing/603919849/vintage-80s-1981-elep...
- djmips 8y agoThis seems so odd to me since I remember when Elephant was the new cool kid on the block; cooler than Verbatim etc.
- reaperducer 8y agoWe were a BASF/3M house. And they were $5 a pop. If you could find a place that sold floppy disks at all. FAO Schwartz to the rescue!
- VikingCoder 8y agoFirst, what's the legal status of this code? Second, should we do an immediate crowd funding campaign to purchase this, and make the contents available to everyone?
- merlincorey 8y ago> First, what's the legal status of this code? Apparently it is currently owned by a German entertainment company: "Realize that, while you’ll have my data as of the day of Larry 1’s creation, you will not own the intellectual property rights to the game, the code, the art, or anything else," Lowe says in the LSL1 listing. "Nor do I. The IP rights were sold over and over again, until they are now owned by a German game company."
- paxy 8y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong but he can't legally sell these disks then right (at least before wiping them first)?
- icebraining 8y agoHe can, he just can't make copies of them. It's like selling an used book. In the US, it's called the First-sale doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
- ChrisLomont 8y agoHe may not have such rights. It’s unlikely he was legally allowed to have this copy of the code; he likely just kept the copy because he felt like it. If the copyright owner didn’t sell/transfer/contract this to him, he basically has a stolen copy. I do wish this copy is legally transferable; I suspect it is not.
- djsumdog 8y agoYea that's what I thought. This might have been made before modern NDAs and all the IP documents you handover when you join a tech shop today, or maybe Ken and Roberta W made some special deal with him since he was there really early on with the company? Even if that's not the case, there's a good chance all the original contracts were lost too. I mean, it really all depends on if Activision (or whoever currently owns the original LSL/Sierra IP) finds out and decides to come after him.
- ngneer 8y agoI remember my father taking me to see the Sierra offices, right by Coarsegold, CA. They were closed, but it was a fun trip, given how happy those games made my childhood. I know I am not the only one here.
- lr4444lr 8y agoCoarsegold CA... the setting of Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist, the gamr that was arguably "peak" Al Lowe. The jokes didn't let up for a minute!
- tfandango 8y agoSame with me, but they were open. We walked in and they just gave us a tour. I remember they were working on Space Quest 3 and showed us what it sounded like on the Roland MT-32. I was lucky my Dad was super into technology so as soon as we got home he went out and bought one.
- rixrax 8y agoAl Lowe, if you're reading, I am humbly asking you to consider putting all the source code you have for Sierra etc. games up to GitHub for all of us to {gaze|look|worship...}. Let the collectors have the pleasure of having it all on the original physical medias, but let the rest of us mere mortals have access to the essence. Edit: alas, it's pointed out that above may not be possible as IP is owned by someone else. That out of the way - Your / Sierra games had such a profound impact on my life. I would go as far as to say that without Leisuresuit Larry,Space|Police|Kings Quest and others I might have never started [seriously] learning English and mastered it to the point that later I was able to move abroad and eventually immigrate to the new world. ( btw - that statement probably pretty much accounts for any possible problems with my English and poor choice of language at times ;-) )
- diggernet 8y agoIf he can't give the source away on github because he doesn't own the IP, then he can't sell it either. But he is.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- larsiusprime 8y agoNot true. Otherwise you wouldn't be allowed to sell paintings you own, but don't also own the copyright to reproduce digitally. Copyright and ownership of physical artifacts are two different things.
- Benjamin_Dobell 8y agoNo, that's not how it works. Al Lowe is indeed violating copyright by selling these. You can't just go selling your ex-employers source code because it "happened to be on your laptop". It's absolutely a copyright violation. The reason you can sell physical goods is because of the first sale doctrine and alike. Al Lowe never bought this source code on physical media; rather he created it during his employment. Thus he is not permitted to sell it.
- thrower123 8y agoI wish somebody would make available the Civil War Generals code base. It's getting painful to keep a VM ready to be able to play it. I would gladly pay for a legal modernised version
- washadjeffmad 8y agoIt seems you can play it natively with Steam Play for Linux, DosBox, or WINE.
- thrower123 8y agoCan you? I didn't think dosbox handled windows games. I've been keeping an XP vm around just for this.
- rags2riches 8y agoLooks like the 3.5" floppies have had the hole punch treatment to increase capacity! That wasn't always great for reliability as I remember it...
- fallous 8y agoUm, hole punching was used on 5 1/4" and 8" floppies, not 3.5".
- marcins 8y agoI guess, because technically most people used a drill for 3.5” disks.
- rags2riches 8y agoDid see this photo? https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/s-l1600-5.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/s-l16...
- aidenn0 8y agoIn the original Leisure suit larry, there was actually a (really long) time limit. I don't know how anyone could ever hit it by accident, since the game pauses for input pretty regularly. The VGA remake removed the time limit.
- mosselman 8y agoEBay seems like the worst possible place for this. Why not donate it to some organisation that would work out a way for people to look at at least parts of the code?
- NicoJuicy 8y agoWhy? Amazon auctions never really took off. He got in the news ( see this post). He got what he wanted. A lot of arbitrage/sales still happens on eBay, it's not hard when the sellers are looking at #1 to earn money on #2
- mosselman 8y agoI meant with regards to the loss for society when this disappears into some private collection. I’d be better in a museum. I am sure he’ll earn enough short term money from the auctions.
- prepend 8y agoIt’s been disappeared in a private collection for years. I’m sure he’s cool with someone buying all the stuff to form a private collection.
- NicoJuicy 8y agoI kinda agree on that. The loss for society of the source code of an old game..... I don't see any extra value. I do agree it would be nice to see the source code and look at it. Some have an emotional attachment to it, but if it wouldn't have been sold/shared, nobody would have cared or request it.
- billfruit 8y agoOr why not surreptitiously let it go into the hands of the pirates, which may at-least ensure its distribution.
- tibbon 8y agoArgh - just send these to Jason Scott to archive responsibly instead....
- crb002 8y agoThese have enough artistic value to go to the Library of Congress or the Met.