Re: Re-engineered: Wizardry III, Legacy of Llylgamyn

[TommyGoog <ewerst@msn.com>]

Differences in Versions of Wizardry III (Part 1 of xx)
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Each Wizardry III diskette has a "version number" displayed on the
copyright screen.  The authors were not careful about updating the
version number after software release(s).  Therefore, the version
number remained the same on at least 2 separate released versions of
Wizardry III.

I am of course assuming that the version at ASIMOV for May 1983 is
an accurate rendition of a released version of the software.

The version number that I have seen displayed for Wizardry III is:
  VERSION   -4-   OF 04-MAY-83  SER:

One version at ASIMOV has a creation date of "6/27/1998".  Using the
Apple Pascal system to examine the Wizardry III directory shows that
files were last updated on 04 May 1983.

There is another version (that I uploaded on 3/22/2012) that also
displays:
  VERSION   -4-   OF 04-MAY-83  SER:

Those files were last updated on 20 Aug 1983.

I will now describe the differences between the May and Aug versions.
Some differences are in the code, and others are in the data file(s).

  I apologize in advance about this posting since much of the
  material is not very interesting, especially if you are not
  intimately knowledgeable of the code and data for the program.

I was not very surprised about most of the bug fixes to the program
(including the correcting of the name "LLYLGAMN" in a message), but I
was surprised a bit at the amount of "tweaking" of the data in
SCENARIO.DATA.

Using the Pascal system (or using a disk sector editor to examine T$0 S
$B) displays the Pascal Volume "name".  On the May version of the boot
side it erroneously shows "KODBV2" (Knight of Diamonds - Boot) and on
the Aug version it shows "LOLBOOT".

The only other significant differences in this sector are the dates on
the files:

  Wizardry.code   4-May-83   20-Aug-83
  WizUtil.code    4-May-83    2-Jul-83

(An insignificant change between the 2 versions is the unused byte
following the file name "SYSTEM.LIBRARY".)

Normally Track $0 Sector 5 (T$0 S$5) is the end of the Pascal
directory.  Wizardry III has "stolen" the last sector of the directory
(T$0 S$5) for its own use.  Here the 2 versions differ a quite a
bit.   The information here is used during the "copy protection"
code.  In the May version, a number of the values found from byte $1F
to $67 are used, although a lot is just leftover residual data that is
simply garbage.  In the Aug version, only the values from bytes $0 to
$1E are used.

On Track 35 ($22), Sectors 1-9 and 15 ($F) have residual garbage that
is not there on the Aug version (these are Pascal blocks 275 to 279
($113 to $117 in hex).  In the Aug version, block 279 ($117) is used
in the copy protection scheme and did not transfer using ADT.

The following files are identical on the May and Aug boot diskette:
  SYSTEM.CHARSET
  SYSTEM.STARTUP
  PICTURE.BITS
  SYSTEM.LIBRARY
  RTSTRP.APPLE
  SYSTEM.PASCAL
  SYSTEM.MISCINFO

The files that are different are:  WIZARDRY.CODE and WIZUTIL.CODE.

--Tommy