MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Mar 01, 08 - 12:53 pm Comment from: loopy_nj

I have the original Dark Castle 3.5" disks that I used in my old Mac Plus many years ago. It's good to see that someone's bringing this retro game back.

Mar 01, 08 - 01:04 pm Comment from: ken1w

Pretty cool...

This is a classic.

Love to play this to bring back memories when computing was safe and private.

Mar 01, 08 - 01:32 pm Comment from: ABQ Peter

i think i still have my old 3.5" disks too. that was a great game. especially when the stockings were hung on the fireplace mantle at christmas time. i can still hear the sound the snakes made when hit with a rock.

Mar 01, 08 - 01:33 pm Comment from: Lurker_PC

Hmm... None of the screenshots work for me - a "File Not Found" error message appears. The game trailer looks good though.

Mar 01, 08 - 01:38 pm Comment from: Micro Me

@loopy_nj. Ditto. I also still have my old Mac Plus.

Mar 01, 08 - 01:51 pm Comment from: The Other Steve

I loved Dark Castle! There goes my free time.

na-na-na-na-na-na-na

Mar 01, 08 - 02:28 pm Comment from: theloniousMac

help.
i'm trapped in wow and i can't get out.

Mar 01, 08 - 02:49 pm Comment from: Unfettered

Pardon the old fart history lesson but it should be noted that the original Dark Castle game was programmed by the same guy who went on to develop the Splash vector animation tool and sold it to Macromedia (who renamed it Flash.) I think he is still part of (maybe in charge of) the Flash team.

Any "Bard's Tale" fans out there? That was my coming-of-age video game, for sure. Remember how you could transport to the second level of the final castle and go up against 99 Somethings, 99 Somethings, 99 Somethings, and 99 Somethings (can't recall what!) just to get your experience up to kill the last bad guy? <sigh> Those were the carefree days. 16 colors. Text action. I still remember the theme song.

Was one of the kewl games on my Mac Plus 128k...

...hey Steve get the game thingy going... would hate to have to run Windblows to any kewl games on my Mac!

Mar 01, 08 - 03:53 pm Comment from: The Other Steve

@MacGuy

The original Mac was <<shivers>> 128k, the Mac 512k was . . . 512k and the Mac Plus was a whopping 1 Meg of ram. I'm sure it was just a typo.

Anyone remember the MacBottom? The Levco MonsterMac? Switcher? Silicon Beach Software's Airborn? The Dove Fax? ADB Ports?
What was the name of that monitor that turned sideways?

I've got one of the original Mac Portables in its case somewhere in the cellar. Haven't even looked at it in years, but i bet it still works...

Think it'll run leopard?

Oh, and "Other Steve",

I remember about half of those. coincidentally, i was cleaning out my office today and threw away a few PhoneNet Turbo adapters

Switcher?

Yep I remember that. It allowed one to use more than one program at once.

What was the name of that monitor that turned sideways?

Radeon?

I know ATI made some of their Mac video cards to support landscape and portrait modes.

Apple never made a monitor that changed orientation, and they should have because of the DTP market.

The original game cost me a couple of points on my GPA in college - we spent all of finals week playing this game instead of studying. Cool that it's back!

Mar 01, 08 - 06:39 pm Comment from: El Guapo

anyone remember "Oids"?

THAT was a classic!

Any "Bard's Tale" fans out there?

How about "Bard's Tale GS"? Or "The Thief of Fate"?

Or "Wasteland" for that matter.

I think the pivoting monitor was from Radius.

Of course I remember the Levco "Monster Mac". I wrote software for MassTech, whose FastMac product was a direct competitor. Both of these used an incredible clip to grab all the leads on the 68000 CPU. It worked pretty well, considering what a kluge it was. My original 128K Mac got upgraded to 1.5MB RAM plus a 20 MB Rodime hard disk.

After MassTech went bust I licensed the same software to Jasmine for their disks and put it out as shareware, too. Good thing I kept the day job -- all these flash-in-the-pan companies came and went real fast.

Oids for OS X was released sometime ago:

http://www.xavagus.com/Products/Products.html

Mar 01, 08 - 08:46 pm Comment from: Jimbo von Winskinheimer

I wish that someone would release Scarab of Ra for Leopard. I loved that game!

Mar 01, 08 - 08:51 pm Comment from: jimhoyt

The monitor was the Radius Pivot. Radius was founded by Mike Boich who was one of the original Mac Evangelists.

HA! Got you all beat!

Anyone remember MacPlaymate?

Got the WDEF virus, the only computer virus I ever got, from a copy of that game.

Pre-internet.

The really best "old-school" games were the Infocom text adventures. Zork, Enchanter, and of course, the ultimate: Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy! The stuff they packed in the boxes were great. Of course, for the graphic based adventures, Ultima III was beyond great.

Dark Castle on the Mac ate a huge part of my life. And Crystal Quest - now there were some great sound effects.

I still have the original disk and box for "Alice" the first (and only) game Apple produced for the Mac - an arcade style game played on chessboard with you as Alice in Wonderland facing off against a bunch of Wonderland characters.

"Leather godessess of Phobos next? Oh please.

damn i'm old!!

It's great to see all of these old farts like me recalling the heyday of the 512x384 black and white Trinitron. I had my MacPlus hacked with an internal muffin fan to aid the passive cooling, and 4MB of RAM, back in 1987.

I still have disks for both of the Dark Castle games, and the Plus still runs, 22 years after it was made. I was just telling a 19 year old kid that I work with how I have about six computers older than he is, and they still run.

I'm literally sitting at the bottom of the world, it is a -99F windchill outside my window, and I am downloading this game across an old weather satellite, using a swanky 4GB 2.4GHz C2D MacBook Pro. My how far we've come.

Other Steve,

The monitor you're thinking of was the Radius Pivot monitor. Very clever hack, by several of the original Mac team members who left Apple to found their own company. Burrell Smith was among them.

-jcr

Mar 02, 08 - 01:49 pm Comment from: Attitude Adjuster

Speaking of vintage games - any 1 remember Spectre? Whatever happened to that?

This is a really horrible, un-fun game!

And why does it tax the CPU so much if it looks so old?

Is there some kind of emulator to alow play this arcade classics on OS X?

Mar 02, 08 - 09:39 pm Comment from: drmacnut

@South Pole Sysadmin - happy to hear you and your MBP are doing well down there! It's great that the Net can allow this kind of communication and connection between all of us in the Mac world! Take care.

drmacnut with MBP in Hawaii!

Mar 02, 08 - 10:37 pm Comment from: MacRaven

Dark Castle! I remember lugging the old MacPlus home from work in what looked similar to a back pack so we could play Dark Castle on the weekends. Great Comback!

Now if they'd bring back Scarab of Ra.

Mar 04, 08 - 02:24 pm Comment from: NCIceman

Yep, still have an old disc of this too. My mac plus has a cracked flyback transformer, I had to cram a fan in it to keep it cool, but used to play this all the time...I sucked at it lol.

I love the game. I still have it on my Mac Plus and occasionally play it. Simple but really fun and the sounds are just incredible. Of course, for someone who never knew this computer era, it may look awful but for those like me who discovered the Macintosh in the mid 80's, it sure brings back great memories !

Anyone know where I can get a copy of those two original disks? I still have mine, but they seem to have had some sort of unfortunate incident with extreme heat in storage. :(