Hi Marcos.

1. The extension format seems to depend on how it's unzipped.

I perform the zip using QDOS ZIP and my Zip Manager program in QPC2,
with QDOS format enabled, so it should be putting "_bas" and "_scr"
etc in the archive.

If I unzip in QDOS with QDOS/SMSQ format enabled in the configuration
of QDOS Unzip it unzips with correct extensions (on QPC2 at least). If
I unzip using a Windows program (i.e. not in QDOS or SMSQE) it unzips
with period extension no matter what I do.

Thank you for trying it on SMSQmulator. I do not have a copy of that
emulator installed to test it on.

2. Case message
I originally left that in because it was part of the original, and I
wasn't confident I'd changed everything to case independence. I guess
I have changed some of the code in the game to make it work in
SuperBASIC, so there is probably no harm in removing the message - I
just hope that I have used "==" everywhere to catch all the upper-case
only tests in the original. If you find any line where I have not done
this, please let me know!

3. Source.
The original source was on a backup drive containing a lot of
Microsoft BASIC listings I salvaged last year. There is a reference on
the drive to a website called CPMARCHIVES and this URL:
http://cpmarchives.classiccmp.org//ftp.php?b=cpm/Software/UserGroups/

The site seems to be an archive of old CP/M disks from various
American user groups, the DRACULA.BAS is to be on the "First Osborne
Group" section, disk FOG138. It looks like there's a lot of very old
BASIC programs on there if you are interested in searching for
something to convert to QL BASIC.

I know there is also a DRACULA.BAS on the IF Archive, but it is a
different Dracula game by a different author. Unfortunately, the IF
Archive is blocked in the UK at the moment, so I can't go there to
check (I will see if there is a copy on that old hard drive when I get
time). The IF Archive site currently just says:

"Access Restricted.
Due to the UK Online Safety Act, all games on the IF Archive are
currently unavailable to users in the United Kingdom.
This broad restriction is temporary. We are currently working to
review our holdings and flag works that are legally required to be
restricted. We apologize for the service disruption for these users
and hope to have everything back to as-normal-as-possible as soon as
possible.
This page last updated July 28, 2025."

I enjoyed porting this adventure to QL BASIC. I am not a very good
game player, so I was a poor tester of the game. I quickly learned
that recently when I bought  a "The Spectrum" and tried to play some
games I remember from 1984 before realising I am probably too old now!

Dilwyn

On Fri, 12 Sept 2025 at 14:10, Marcos Cruz via Ql-Users
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Dilwyn Jones via Ql-Users escribió/skribis/wrote/scrit 
> (2025-09-10T17:20:11+0100):
>
> > Dracula is a horror text adventure I've ported to the QL. Originally
> > written by Elizabeth Arkush in 1984, it's been ported to SuperBASIC
> > and slightly enhanced.
>
> Thank you, Dilwyn.  Good work!
>
> I love to program and to port text adventures.
>
> I have tried it with SMSQmulator and it works great.
>
> I have noted two issues:
>
> - The <BOOT> file loads <DRACULA_bas> and <dracula_scr>, but the files
>   in the zip are called <DRACULA.bas> and DRACULA.scr>.
> - Your version is case-insensitive, so you may remove the original
>   message "Please type in CAPITALS ONLY." at the start.
>
> By the way, do you know where the original code is published?  It is not
> in IF Archive (https://ifarchive.org), IFDB (https://ifdb.org) or even
> Internet Archive (https://archive.org). I have tried also several search
> engines but got no useful result.
>
>
> --
> Marcos Cruz
> http://programandala.net
> _______________________________________________
> QL-Users Mailing List
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