27 Jan
2009
27 Jan
'09
1:07 a.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I have original Zork I and Enchanter disks. Booting
up a backup of
the Zork disk gets me to a TRSDOS prompt. I can take a DIR and see
the program and the data file there. If I start Zork, the screen
blanks, the disk gronks and the access light blinks occasionally. I
hear what sounds like successive track seeks (which I'm expecting
since I know how Z-Machines work and roughly what virtual pages need
to be loaded to get a game started), but then after a few seconds
(less than 2 min), it sounds and looks like it's in a loop and repeats
the gronking and flashing. I never see anything on the screen except
for a blinking cursor. The Enchanter disk isn't much better - I think
it spins the disk and gronks for a bit, then goes quiet.
I'm posting because I am reasonably certain, due to age if nothing
else, that these are Model 1 diskettes. Enchanter is a flippy, with
an original Infocom label on both sides marked "side 1" and "side
2".
The Zork disk is a Personal Software release (I have the 8.5"x11"
manual, too, naturally), thus about as old as it gets for Infocom
products. I don't recall when the III came out, but Enchanter is one
of the older titles, along with Starcross and Zork, so sometime around
1982. The dates in the directory for the Zork disk are also 1982
(prior to the most commonly available release of the gamefile from
1983). The part I'm not sure of is if there would be any gotchas
trying to run software from 1981-1982 on a Model III or not.
The Model III was introduced in 1980, so a 1981 or 1982 date isn't a
problem. I don't know about Enchanter, but Zork I for the Model I
(catalog number 26-1950) and the Model III (catalog number 26-1951) were
separate products. Both were Personal Software releases and only the
appropriate disk was included with each package.
If you can boot your disk into TRSDOS, then you definitely have the
Model III version. No version of Model I TRSDOS was ever able to boot on
a Model III. Also, according to the Zork I manual, the Model I version
went directly to the game without stopping at any prompt.
What you describe sounds as though the boot loader is timing out after
failing to read a sector. That might be caused by bad disks or possibly
a drive problem. If you have two drives, you could try booting one of
your TRSDOS 1.3 disks and running Zork from the second drive instead.
--
Matthew Reed
http://www.trs-80.org
mkr at trs-80.org