Re: Bards Tale GS

[m_spect@pavo.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article cain@vanilla.cs.umn.edu (Chris Cain) writes...
>
>I own a copy of Bards Tale for the GS on 5 1/4" disks.  Is there any way
>I can convert this to 3 1/2" disks.  I do not own a 5 1/4" drive (my dad
>has one).

	Bard's Tale for the Apple IIgs came shipped on an 800k 3.5" floppy
disk, what you have there is the original 8-bit Apple ][ Plus version. It may
be possible to copy it 3.5 disk using DOS 3.3 Launcher, however, a better idea
is try and find the GS-specific version instead! The graphics, animation and
music are light years ahead of what you now have (as with most any GS-specific
game ports). 
	
	There are two version of Bard's Tale for the GS. A ProDOS 8 version
written in 1987 (v1.0), and a slightly enhanced version (v2.1) written around
1991-92. The later supports GS/OS, MIDIsynth music and is hardrive installable.
It's also worth mentioning there are two GS-specific ports of Bard's Tale II, 
and possibily Bard's Tale III, though I'm uncertain if it was ever released. 
Bard's Tale I and II can be bought through BRCC, at least until the end of 
this year... 

>Also, does anyone know if it is possible to install Mini-Putt or Marble Madness
>on a hard drive?

	Most likely it is. I know it is for Marble Madness, it involves a
patch to the pathname within the program. You might want to check out
a freeware program from France called "HD Install". It's available as a
two part archive on the 'grind.isca.uiowa.edu' FTP site. It includes a
wide range of old IIgs game software that can be patched and installed
to any hardrive.

>Thanks!
>--
>Chris J. Cain
>cain@vanilla.r.umn.edu

Mitchell Spector
m_spect@pavo.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca