Prince

[Sebatianos]

Our member Ermuli contributed a game named Prince to the site. As far as I can tell it seems to be abandoned. The problem is, I can not get it to run (seems it has some problems, since it's a disk image and should probably be booted from a floppy).

Can anybody get the game running?

[Japo]

It's not a bootable disk. To make the game run you need to call PRINCE.EXE from a floppy labelled "PRINCE PC". (If the label isn't correct you'll be told "Key disk not found".)

However trying to run the game causes but a severe crash in DOSBox and also in a Win98 virtual machine, and in DOS 6.22 in the same virtual machine (booting from a DOSv6 floppy). Other devices could be tried, but anyway this doesn't look very playable in practice for the average abandoneer. :( I have no idea whether this is supposed to run well in some system from Stone Age or the file is corrupt. Can Ermuli himself play it?

[Sebatianos]

That's the problem, he hasn't been able to play it either. He provided the manual and box scans as well (some screenshots on the box) and the game looks OK, but all the manual says abou tit is to start the floppy.

I know it's not a straight forward boot image, but I thought (since there's also a scan of an old 5'25'' floppy) that once you get all the three files you still need to boot it. Never got it to run (haven't got the old machine here with me, to try in real DOS, so thanks for trying that one as well).

Hopefully the file isn't corrupt and the game can be played, but just has compatibility issues.

[Japo]

There's no way you can boot that disk since it lacks the DOS system files (MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM) to start with. I think that the 5.5'' disk would most likely have the exact same content and was only for other computers that had that floppy drive instead of the 3.25'' one. I think that what I did and caused crashes was the right way to run it back in the day, but I'd bet this is a severe compatibility issue as you said.

[jg007]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Sep 2 2007, 07:25 PM) 308413</div>
There's no way you can boot that disk since it lacks the DOS system files (MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM) to start with. I think that the 5.5'' disk would most likely have the exact same content and was only for other computers that had that floppy drive instead of the 3.25'' one. I think that what I did and caused crashes was the right way to run it back in the day, but I'd bet this is a severe compatibility issue as you said.
[/b]


what is the name of the game???, I have extracted out the 3 files but still get the keydisk error but as I haven't a clue of the name it makes it hard to search for stuff :)

[Japo]

You must do what I said above, the program must see the original floppy (some kind of copy protection I guess); but in DOSBox it doesn't work well. Mounting the image directly with IMGMOUNT and then running the game, sometimes the keydisk error appears, sometimes it doesn't, even if I do exactly the same. :huh:

In Virtual PC it's easy, you only have to mount the image file as floppy drive of the virtual machine and it's like the real deal. The keydisk error never appears and there's a crash when PRINCE.EXE is run. Win98 warns about it attempting an illegal operation and kills it; if run from DOS a severe crash happens and I've got to hard reset the machine because even Ctrl+Alt+Supr won't do anything.

[jg007]

This program utilises ' copylock ' protcetion -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Northen_copylock

I would guess that unless you can crack it it will not work even if you make a disk image, as the wikipedia articles explains it is actually quite a solid disk protection and was quite hard for hackers to crack

[Japo]

Maybe (I remeber Lemmings couldn't be pirated with the DISKCOPY command). But even in that case, even if you can't write the image to a real floppy without specialized hardware, you don't need to if you mount the image as a virtual floppy. Images are equal bit by bit to the original disk. Even if these long tracks can't be written with ordinary hardware, they can be read (otherwise they would serve no purpose), so the disk imaging software should have got the disk image right.

The copy protection gives you a keydisk warning and returns you to the command prompt. I've managed past that so I don't think the subsequent crash is due to the same copy protection, but most likely to understandable compatibility problems.

[jg007]

I am only trying to start through windows / dosbox but I have not yet managed to get past the stupid keydisk thing! so that is why I am looking at that as the issue at present and if I knew the game I could look for an old crack to check this.

[Japo]

In DOSBox it's worked sometimes with IMGMOUNT, sometimes not, which is very odd. I think it's faulty disk label support, what I don't understand is why it works sometimes. Anyways.

You can download VPC, it's a very handy dandy piece of software and extremely easy to use (it's by Microsoft, duh). You don't even have to install an OS into the virtual machine to test this game, just download a DOS boot floppy from anywhere, mount it and boot the machine with it (without need of any OS in the hard drive). Then when it's booted and you're at the command prompt ("A:\>" instead of "C:\>"), mount the game floppy instead of the boot one, and then finally enter PRINCE. And lo, the catastrophic crash. :wallbash:

[jg007]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Sep 4 2007, 08:01 PM) 308845</div>
In DOSBox it's worked sometimes with IMGMOUNT, sometimes not, which is very odd. I think it's faulty disk label support, what I don't understand is why it works sometimes. Anyways.

You can download VPC, it's a very handy dandy piece of software and extremely easy to use (it's by Microsoft, duh). You don't even have to install an OS into the virtual machine to test this game, just download a DOS boot floppy from anywhere, mount it and boot the machine with it (without need of any OS in the hard drive). Then when it's booted and you're at the command prompt ("A:\>" instead of "C:\>"), mount the game floppy instead of the boot one, and then finally enter PRINCE. And lo, the catastrophic crash. :wallbash:
[/b]

damn it , I have used winimage and dosbox to virtually mount it and spent ages but I can never get it past the keydisk thing, are you sure it wasn't just crashing before the key disk check?????

I would use virtual pc but I can't be bothered to set it up again today as I removed it when I was having some problems and the thought of trying to set up windows 98 again fills me with horror as I don't have any dos disks handy :) also when I mount the virtual image it should work

[Japo]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jg007 @ Sep 4 2007, 09:08 PM) 308846</div>damn it , I have used winimage and dosbox to virtually mount it and spent ages but I can never get it past the keydisk thing, are you sure it wasn't just crashing before the key disk check?????[/b]
I don't think so, of course that's my opinion.

Of course you don't need to install Win98. As I said just mount a floppy image and boot the machine, violÃ*. Boot disk images can be found easily, there's nothing illegal about them (if they're not the DOS installation #1), look for example here:

http://www.bootdisk.com/

I provide the link as is but I've just scanned the images of DOS 5.0 and 6.22 downloaded from there, and again their content, with AntiVir and AVG AS, and found no malware.

But try only if you want, you can take my word for the crash as well. :P As for me I've officially given up trying to run this game.

[jg007]

grrrrr, what is the name for this stupid game!!!!. :)

now it is getting irritating , I have downloaded neverlock and cannot find anything in it other than the merchant prince and prince of persia

[Sebatianos]

The title is (oddly enough) PRINCE.

There's nothing more or less to the title of the game.

Here's the boxshot (by Ermuli) if this helps any (but it's resized), it says ARC and Frames (so that are either producers or publishers).

[Japo]

Surprisingly enough the DOSBox crew haven't even heard about this oddity:

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/comp_list.ph...p;submit=Search (http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/comp_list.php?letter=P&search=prince&submit=Search=prince)

This is just an impossible task.

[dosraider]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Sep 4 2007, 11:50 PM) 308868</div>
Surprisingly enough the DOSBox crew haven't even heard about this oddity:.......
[/b]
The only thing I can find about Prince / ARC / FRAMES:
http://hol.abime.net/1149
An amiga game.
And a nice review:
http://amr.abime.net/review_1891
:unsure:

[jg007]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dosraider @ Sep 4 2007, 11:08 PM) 308871</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Sep 4 2007, 11:50 PM) 308868
Surprisingly enough the DOSBox crew haven't even heard about this oddity:.......
[/b]
The only thing I can find about Prince / ARC / FRAMES:
http://hol.abime.net/1149
An amiga game.
And a nice review:
http://amr.abime.net/review_1891
:unsure:
[/b][/quote]

I did find a few things mentioning amiga but I just ignored them as I though it must be something else, also when I tried to burn the image it was saying my disk drive was not compatible . I don't really know anything about amiga disk format's so does anybody know if they would be readable to an extent with a pc??

[dosraider]

You have Steem with his addons, WinUAE, the Acros projects, and so on, amiga emulators enough around.
Amiga images can NOT run directly on the PC platform, but most can run on an emulator.
Whilst most emulators are freeware / open source , the amiga system ROMs are still sold and not freely distributable.

Shame I'm really lazy, don't really feel the need to tryout that 'prince' thing. A glance@the review tells me enough. :tai:

Maybe later, but don't hold your breath. :whistling:
Someone else can try it out.