Original C Code Please

pizza2004 · Post by **pizza2004** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 12:22 am

How difficult would it be to get the original code for the physics and the AI of all 7 games? We could use this to make Commander Genius virtually identical to the originals, without having to mess around with it too much!

Just wondering, because I know that these are two areas where we have the most trouble with creating properly.

CommanderSpleen · Post by **CommanderSpleen** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 1:28 am

Only through reverse engineering. Between Napalm and Lemm they can definitely figure out the physics, it's just a matter of whether they have the inclination and time.

lemm · Post by **lemm** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 5:28 am

For vorticons, this would not be difficult at all. Keen1 is pretty much "figured out", so that would take little time, and likely not very long for keens 2 and 3 either.

For galaxy.. there is that keen4 disassembly, and that's all I can tell you.

pizza2004 · Post by **pizza2004** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 5:38 am

Lol, okay, it is fine if we don't get it. On a brighter note, John Romero may actually have a copy of all the original source code, which means we may still have a chance at it getting released open source!

lemm · Post by **lemm** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 5:45 am

Really? That's awesome. Did you email him recently? I would imagine many people have asked him to release the keen source.

(I can tell you that there are mouse and demo functions that were never used. =) )

levellass · Post by **levellass** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:19 am

I'd be interested in those as I have accidentally activated them once or twice. (Also I'm wondering if the screenshot code that makes KEENSCRN.PIC files is functional?)

pizza2004 · Post by **pizza2004** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:04 pm

Great news! Tom Hall found some old SyQuest cartridges with "Keen Source" written on them. Hopefully that is the original source code to most of the games. If it had all 7 games then we would really be home free, and it would make a huge difference in the modding community.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

doomjedi · Post by **doomjedi** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 3:06 pm

pizza2004 wrote:Great news! Tom Hall found some old SyQuest cartridges with "Keen Source" written on them. Hopefully that is the original source code to most of the games. If it had all 7 games then we would really be home free, and it would make a huge difference in the modding community.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Oh, don't play with us.... hope it's not a joke.

pizza2004 · Post by **pizza2004** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 6:07 pm

I'm not joking, I can give you a link to prove it (I would now, but I'm at school so it is blocked) and I have emails from John Romero.

Deltamatic · Post by **Deltamatic** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:19 am

So...
The actual source code is coming?

pizza2004 · Post by **pizza2004** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:59 pm

http://tomtomtom.wordpress.com/toms-work/ Scroll to the bottom and we talk about it down there. (On a side note, isn't it so cool how we can just talk to Tom Hall like that?)

Deltamatic · Post by **Deltamatic** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:08 pm

So he needs hardware. Think he'd get it faster if we covered the cost via PayPal?

pizza2004 · Post by **pizza2004** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 10:15 pm

Maybe, post a comment and ask him that.

Tulip · Post by **Tulip** » Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:52 am

Reading that, I see you can be annoyingly persistent. But that seems to be the right way with Tom, nobody ever before has come that close to the keen source. Congrats pizza2004, if it really works out you'll enter the keen community's hall of fame!

lemm · Post by **lemm** » Wed Mar 10, 2010 12:23 pm

// Think he'd get it faster if we covered the cost via PayPal?

He probably has more than enough money...