Bill Loguidice wrote: > I'm aware of Rich's excellent site, thank you. In fact, Rich was the one > who helped me source an NTSC Sinclair QL, which was much appreciated. A > gentleman at my Website, Armchair Arcade, apparently found out the story > regarding the Pawn (not sure where he got the info from): > > " > Basically Pawn was written first for QL, then the QL died a horrid death. > The quickest way to get the game on other machines was to write a 68k QL > emulator, which became the "game driver" for Magnetic Scrolls. The version > of Pawn or any other Mag Scrolls game (pre Wonderland) basically was a 68k > cpu emulator that ran QL compiled code on the pc/st/apple etc.
The copy I have also has what were described as "debugging" aids (by a friend) still working. eg you don't need to move the boulder to get past it (you can do something else which doesn't require all the effort of executing the [proper] solution, ie when debugging the game, you could skip that puzzle ^_^). ... > The first game released by Magnetic Scrolls was QL-Pawn, the originate > version 1.o of the later so popular The Pawn. QL-Pawn came on two > micro drives that were enclosed within a micro drive wallet that was badged > by Sinclair Research. A sleeve was also produced for the wallet along with > an instruction booklet containing a short narrative to introduce the > adventure. The game was text only, but it already had the powerful > parser which was one of the basics for the success of Magnetic Scrolls. > QL-Pawn also was the only Magnetic Scrolls game that was produced for > the ill fated QL. What is interesting is if you look at the clone program - it starts with a few REMarks: ``The Clone Programme ``Just in case you are thinking of Pirating this Adventure ``Pause for a moment and ask yourself ``Would you steal from shops? ``Would you break into a house? ``Steal a car? ``is (sic) the answers to the above are no - then why steal from us??? ``if the answers are yes... ``then don't pirate this one ... wait for our next adventure ``"The Guild of Thieves...." ``Thank you. ``Magnetic Scrolls. ``------------------'' I wounder how much FACT have paid Magnetic scrolls for use of their [obviously] copyrighted (in 1985) questions and idea(s) above in the unskippable FACT adverts against Piracy? _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
