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Imphobia #12 for Windows?

category: offtopic [glöplog]
 
I know there will again be a lot of flames in response to this posting, so I will post this without reading the replies, just in order to make my thoughts public...

When I read Imphobia #12 the first time many years ago, I really loved the atmosphere created by the music and the graphics combined. Now on modern PCs, it is still possible to listen to the music, but the graphics of the magazine aren't displayed correctly. This is due to some coding tricks that were used in the magazine engine. For example, it uses screen mode 12h (640x480x16) and with a trick manages to display 48 colours at once instead of just 16. This trick is currently not supported by DOSBox, which is necessary to run the magazine under Windows 7 (as well as XP and Vista).

Wouldn't somebody be willing to code a Windows based engine for Imphobia #12 that looks like the original? I thought about doing it myself, but the data file is too cryptic for me; of course an option would be to contact the original coder (Wizard) and ask him for decryption routines, but I don't want to bother him, maybe he is busy or does not have these routines any more. OK, I realize that without decryption routines, probably nobody will be able to port the magazine to Windows, so maybe I shouldn't have started this thread anyway.
added on the 2012-10-31 17:06:26 by Adok Adok
Quote:
Wouldn't somebody be willing to code a Windows based engine

Any day as long as Darkness uses it for Imphobia 13 :)
added on the 2012-10-31 17:14:14 by hfr hfr
I'll try to reply even if you might not read and later might sent the answer to your email.

In the dosbox settings there is a line:
machine=some graphics card setting, there might be svga_s3 there right now or something else

If you change this to machine=vgaonly it works like a charm. I don't know which version of dosbox do you have, but this is a recent more compatible vga mode that makes it possible now to watch stuff correctly that use hardware vga tricks that need more accurate syncing. It works greatly in most other tricky demos too!
added on the 2012-10-31 17:24:33 by Optimus Optimus
ah, thanks for that tip, optimus. kukoo2 now looks fine too ;)
added on the 2012-10-31 18:09:49 by maali maali
does the coppereffects work as well?
added on the 2012-10-31 18:14:06 by rudi rudi
there's still a minor bug in fc-panic's scroller part (dosbox screws that part up bigtime with svga_s3 ;) ) but yaay. i think i'll just keep this setting as default :)
added on the 2012-10-31 18:19:41 by maali maali
Quote:
the data file is too cryptic for me

Are you serious?

I decoded it by looking at it it for less than 3 minutes - because it's a fucking Caesar cypher.
added on the 2012-10-31 19:27:15 by Gargaj Gargaj
What was the point of "encoding" it then? Might as well go with ROT26. ;)
added on the 2012-10-31 19:34:03 by tomaes tomaes
Quote:
What was the point of "encoding" it then?

Obviously it still keeps some people from hacking around in the file. :)
Mensa protection.
added on the 2012-10-31 19:58:34 by las las
It looks like the words are scrambled a bit too.. try reading straight from the data file and it won't make much sense. It's like it skips around every sentence or so.
added on the 2012-10-31 20:51:54 by phoenix phoenix
phoenix: no, it's just stored in a per-row-per-page manner, i.e. each article is one big screen stored per-row.
added on the 2012-10-31 21:02:48 by Gargaj Gargaj
Oh right, forgot about the two-column thing.
added on the 2012-10-31 21:44:43 by phoenix phoenix
Quote:
I decoded it by looking at it it for less than 3 minutes - because it's a fucking Caesar cypher.


Look! Gargaj was friendly and solved it for you Now brush up your compiler, Adok ;)
added on the 2012-10-31 21:51:25 by Preacher Preacher
He even made a tool for you! :D
added on the 2012-10-31 22:24:52 by Preacher Preacher
(FWIW, I think this is an interesting and a worthwhile project and it would be a great way to preserve a lot of scene history for future generations)
added on the 2012-10-31 22:25:26 by Preacher Preacher
Instant Mensa membership withdrawal.
added on the 2012-10-31 22:40:01 by ara ara
Quote:
ah, thanks for that tip, optimus. kukoo2 now looks fine too ;)


Glad to be of such an assistant :)

More hw heavy demos that one could try. I think most of them worked last time i tried.

http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=2519
http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=2048
http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=3544
added on the 2012-11-01 09:27:26 by Optimus Optimus
optimus: thx for the tip indeed!
added on the 2012-11-04 03:50:10 by BarZoule BarZoule
That is actually a pretty fucking awesome thing.
added on the 2012-11-11 18:02:54 by Preacher Preacher
@Gargaj: OMG, Im loling inside and I cant stop *ROTFLOL*
added on the 2012-11-11 18:14:28 by Danzig Danzig
Spent some time on this again...Listening to the nice F4 music in issue 12. Beginning reminds me of Terminator theme.
Traveling in my past.
Thanks.

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