[Coco] Help with The Magic of Zanth for CoCo 3

[CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts]

Definitely Computerware did some nasty stuff to ward off pirates, and
didn't always implement it correctly.

A friend of mine had an original copy of their game "Mister Dig".  He tried
to boot it up from Drive 1, ignoring the instructions that said to put the
disk in Drive 0.
The game started to boot, then checked something on Drive 0 to make sure
the copy was legit.  Not finding the critical information there, it wrote
BUY YOUR OWN all over the directory and GAT of the disk in Drive 0,
destroying critical data my friend had on his Drive 0 disk! THAT'S nasty!!

Art


On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 2:10 PM, CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <
coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:

> Anyone play this 1987 CoCo 3 game from Computerware, The Magic of Zanth,
> before? I like to think I know my way around a game or two, but the scant
> instructions with this text and graphics adventure and my lack of
> familiarity with Anthony's world of Xanth that this is based on seems to
> have doomed me to failure right at the start. I used all of the commands
> mentioned in the manual, including "run" and "talk," and I can't seem to
> get away from the dragon after taking my step in one of the cardinal
> directions after the start of the game.
>
> While this is an original version of the game, I'm concerned that somehow
> this might have flagged itself as a pirate copy and therefore puts the game
> in an unwinnable state (this technique was used on other platforms on
> occasion) on purpose. I have no idea though if I'm missing some obscure
> command not mentioned in the manual or need to know some obscure reference
> from reading the Xanth books.
>
> I put up a very short video of the game in action yesterday (
>
> http://billloguidice.tumblr.com/post/85376731768/super-quick-video-of-the-rare-the-magic-of-zanth
> )
> showing the nifty speech synthesis when using the Speech & Sound Pak. It
> also detects whether or not you have a 512K system and appears to load the
> whole game in memory (at least from as far as I've gotten). In other words,
> cool stuff, but not cool if I can't get past the first few steps.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Bill
>
> ===================================================
> Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade,
> Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
> ===================================================
> Authored Books<
> http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
> Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to get
> in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
> ===================================================
>
>
> --
> ===================================================
> Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade,
> Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
> ===================================================
> Authored Books<
> http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
> Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to get
> in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
> ===================================================
>
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