Post here everytime you get something new for your Vic

[ral-clan]

I just bought myself a copy of Temple of Apshai for my beloved Vic.

Congratulations! I am a big fan of the Epyx games for the VIC and it was a long time goal to get boxed versions of all their RPG cassette games for the VIC. Temple of Apshai is the hardest one to track down (I was looking for the N. American release). I finally got a complete boxed copy a couple of years ago. I was surprised how cheaply I got it for - for some reason the auction I bid on had no other bidders (I got it for $16.00 - no other bidder - whereas the previous month a copy had gone for about $50).

The only game I don't have is Ricochet. It's not really an RPG though - which was what I was interested in.

Anyway, I had that automatic search set up in Ebay for years before a copy came along. This game is actually so scarce that it isn't even mentioned in a lot of Epyx's literature as being ported to the VIC-20 (when they list all the platforms it's available for). Perhaps it was a late release for them.

Anyway, Apshai is a definite piece of RPG Rogue-like history.

We got Realms of Quest III (an Ultima/Questron type RPG). Now all we need is for Telengard to be ported to the VIC and things will be complete (and I think a Telengard port would be highly possible - it's much less technically advanced than Realms of Quest, for instance).

[Pedro Lambrini]

Thanks very much! I'm very happy with it. The box is in as good condition as I hoped and all the paraphernalia is in the box - all of which is immaculate.
All in all, £13 seems like a fairly good price.

It's now my proudest old-school Vic software possession and sits beside my Mega-Cart box, Carling the Spider and ROQ III on my bookcase.

Now, if only I could find Rescue at Rigel... My quest is never-ending!

[ral-clan]

Now, if only I could find Rescue at Rigel... My quest is never-ending!

Purchased a shrink-wrapped copy of that one about seven years ago from an old software dealer online. It cost about $29 plus postage but was worth it. Mint condition of course.

Since I was archiving these games for the VIC community, I did open it. (yes, these EPYX games had not been archived before - the ones on Zimmers are from my tapes).

It's a good game and it's cool that it's based on the Apshai game engine (DunjonQuest/StarQuest).

That was one of the few VIC-20 games I actually bought for my VIC as a kid. I got it from CompuCentre somewhere around Toronto for $9 when the VIC was on its way out and the 64 was coming in. Of course I never kept the original (except for the manual - for which I have two now!).

[English Invader]

Anyone know what this is?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0308591985

[ral-clan]

Yup. That's just a datasette clone. A cool one though. I've seen it before.

[Pedro Lambrini]

Anyone know what this is?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0308591985

Step away from the auction, there's nothing to see here...just step away! :p

[Jeff-20]

That's exactly the form of the tape deck I used to mass produce DC3. Except mine is just and audio deck, not a data recorder.

http://www.djcarl.com/images_equipment/ ... 50x295.jpg

And ebayUK has so much better categories than US.
Video Games>Vintage & Retro Gaming >Commodore >C16/ Plus-4/ Vic-20

Awesome! We need that.

[Bacon]

Now, if only I could find Rescue at Rigel... My quest is never-ending!

Purchased a shrink-wrapped copy of that one about seven years ago from an old software dealer online. It cost about $29 plus postage but was worth it. Mint condition of course.

Since I was archiving these games for the VIC community, I did open it. (yes, these EPYX games had not been archived before - the ones on Zimmers are from my tapes).

Your game and a few others on zimmers are in a format I've never seen before, CSM, which VICE doesn't recognize. Is there a way to convert CSM files to TAP? Marko Mäkelä's cbmconvert apparently handles CSM files, I couldn't figure out whether it could convert them to a format VICE can use.

[carlsson]

CSM is a higher level format, preserving only the data instead of pulses. I think cbmconvert will extract PRG out of those, which will lack info from the tape buffer but otherwise contain pretty much the same info. I'm not sure how CAS/CSM translates to the T64 format, but I agree those files are quite uncommon. However theoretically it is an excellent format for archiving as you would get every single byte of data from the tape but without the need of storing hundreds of thousands of individual pulses.

I believe the TZX format on Speccy etc is logically similar to CSM, but you have no real use of that knowledge.

[Mayhem]

I think almost all the Epyx titles are in GB20 as TAP format already, so you should be able to use them from there

[bokvamme]

Some of us created a new format that reduce file size to a minimum and still makes it possible to write mages back to tape. It was created as a replacement for TAP.
The point being: a format to be used for preservation (and playback in emulators) and no need to use external programs to compress the files.

[bokvamme]

Luftkampf (Commodore), tape
Gold Rush (Mr. Micro), tape
Matrix (Llamasoft), single cassette case version
Demolition (Nanuq), tape only
Zap!Zap! (Nanuq), tape only
The Thing (Nanuq), tape only
Downhill Skiing (Nanuq), tape only
Trap Man Nanuq), tape only
Maze Amaze (Nanuq), tape only

[Bacon]

Some of us created a new format that reduce file size to a minimum and still makes it possible to write mages back to tape. It was created as a replacement for TAP.
The point being: a format to be used for preservation (and playback in emulators) and no need to use external programs to compress the files.

I understand the rationale for creating and using the format - in fact, I applaud your efforts. The TZX format for the Spectrum is clearly superior to our TAP format so it's great to see something similar for our beloved Commies. Hopefully VICE will support it soon. MESS apparently supports it but I prefer VICE.

[Mayhem]

Luftkampf (Commodore), tape
Gold Rush (Mr. Micro), tape
Matrix (Llamasoft), single cassette case version
Demolition (Nanuq), tape only
Zap!Zap! (Nanuq), tape only
The Thing (Nanuq), tape only
Downhill Skiing (Nanuq), tape only
Trap Man Nanuq), tape only
Maze Amaze (Nanuq), tape only

Ah, you bought the loose Nanuq tapes... I would have had them if they'd been either boxed or not already in GB20. The same seller had Caves of Annod so I grabbed that and archived it already...

I'll need a scan of the Gold Rush inlay at some point, the one I have already is a bit small and poor quality...

[Ghislain]

I just bought myself a copy of Temple of Apshai for my beloved Vic...

Congratulations. This is the holy grail of VIC-20 collecting, as far as I'm concerned. Is this version on disk or on tape? I know that the one you download from zimmers is a disk-based version.

I remember this game being advertised in the Epyx software catalog, and I always wondered how it would look like on the VIC-20. There was even a PET version as well, but it can only show PETSCII graphics (the PET could not have user-defined graphics).