Re: Why No Ultima VI?

["Great Hierophant" <great_hierophant@hotmail.com>]

MagerValp wrote:
> >>>>> "T" == Tempest  <tempest@atariprotos.com> writes:
>
> T> Then it occured to me, if the C64 got a port of Ultima VI, why not
> T> the Apple II?
>
> As others explained, it was for economical rather than technical
> reasons. However, I think it should be pointed out that the C64
> version of U6 is stripped down compared to the PC and Amiga versions.
> I don't remember exactly what they cut out, but there was no in-game
> music, and there were several bugs.
>
> --
>     ___          .     .  .         .       . +  .         .      o
>   _|___|_   +   .  +     .     +         .  Per Olofsson, arkadspelare
>     o-o    .      .     .   o         +          MagerValp@cling.gu.se
>      -       +            +    .     http://www.cling.gu.se/~cl3polof/

I concur that no technical reason prevented Origin from porting Ultima
VI to the Apple IIgs, after all, they released a 256-color port to the
SNES.  Both machines shared a 65c816 processor, the SNES (probably)
running at 2.68MHz and the Apple IIgs at 2.8MHz.  The SNES had only
128KB of RAM while the Apple IIgs started out at 256KB of RAM.  The
800KB disks could have held the game on four disks.

Now, to port Ultima VI to a non-GS Apple II would have been much more
difficult.  While the Commodore 64 and the Apple II share almost the
same processor and run it at the same speed, that is where the
similarities end.  The Commodore has dedicated graphics hardware, the
Apple II does not.  The Apple II would have had to use the double high
resolution graphics mode to allow anything approaching a 256-color
graphics conversion to take place.  On the other hand, an Apple II port
of Ultima VI would have required an //e or //c with 128KB of RAM, while
the Commodore 64 was stuck with 64KB.  If the Apple II got a port of
Ultima VI, it would have behaved very much like the Commodore 64 port,
slow, silent and stipped down.