
Grumpy Gamer – SCUMM Notes from the C64 - ksherlock
http://grumpygamer.com/scumm_notes
======
acomjean
Grumpy Gamer is a fun site. Its basically Ron Gilbert's blog. He worked at
Lucas Arts (Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island) making some inovative adventure
games. is still making games and blogging about them.

I like the game dependency charts post.

[http://grumpygamer.com/puzzle_dependency_charts](http://grumpygamer.com/puzzle_dependency_charts)

As someone pointed out in another post, he has a kickstarter for a "old
school" adventure game. (Not affiliated. But backing!.)

[http://grumpygamer.com/kickstarter](http://grumpygamer.com/kickstarter)

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organsnyder
Thank you. Not sure why it took me ten years to discover Ron Gilbert's
website. I've been a Monkey Island fan since I was a kid, and just completed
replaying MI1 on my newly acquired Tandy 1000. Really looking forward to
Thimbleweed Park as well.

~~~
smacktoward
Oh, man. A Tandy 1000 was the first "real" computer I ever had, as a kid. (An
_original_ 1000, with no hard drive, just two 5.25" 360K floppy drives. Two
floppies! Luxury!) Brings back memories just thinking about it...

For those too young to have encountered one, the 1000 was probably the most
popular of a wave of mid-'80s PCs that could be described as "kinda sorta
nearly almost IBM-compatible." Meaning that they offered software
compatibility with MS-DOS and the original IBM PC, but with some _slight_
differences, usually put in place in an attempt by the manufacturer to
differentiate their product from IBM's.

In the case of the 1000, these features were mostly swiped from another IBM
product, the ill-fated PCjr (see
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PCjr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PCjr)).
So unlike the IBM PC, the Tandy 1000 included joystick ports, 16-color
graphics
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Graphics_Adapter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Graphics_Adapter))
and 3-voice sound.

This happened to make it an excellent machine to play PC games on for many
years, as game developers who added Tandy support to their titles could offer
a much enhanced presentation that wouldn't be matched by mainline IBM-
compatible machines until EGA
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Graphics_Adapter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Graphics_Adapter))
support became widespread.

My father bought the 1000 as a home business machine, but it didn't take long
for me to discover its excellence as a game machine, and that in turn became
the gateway drug that got me into programming. So I guess I owe Radio Shack
something.

~~~
organsnyder
The funny thing about the 1000's lineage: Initially the PCjr compatibility was
supposed to be a big selling point. However, when the PCjr tanked, it became a
liability, so Radio Shack switched the advertising to play up its "MS-DOS
compatibility" instead.

Getting back to adventure games (albeit of poorer quality than Ron Gilbert's):
Apparently the Tandy's success saved Sierra from some serious trouble, as they
had primarily targeted the PCjr platform for the King's Quest series.

~~~
orionblastar
Yeah but once VGA/SVGA and Adlib/SoundBlastaer cards came out, it broke the
Tandy 1000 series.

Still early games like Bard's Tale 1 played better on the Tandy 1000 than an
IBM PC Clone with Monochrome/CGA and the PC Speaker beeping.

I had a friend with an IBM PCJr, had to do some work to get it over 512K by
modifying some expansion packs, and the PCJr also had a cartridge slot.

I think the PCJr was aimed at home use to fight Commodore and Atari, then
Apple entered with the Apple //c to enter the home market. Eventually Atari
and Commodore won the home computer wars with cheaper systems that got
upgraded ala cart. When the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga came out both
Commodore and Atari had switched management but lost to Microsoft and Windows
on PC Clones with VGA/SVGA and Adlib/Soundblaster cards. Windows 95/98 was the
final nail in the coffin.

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alexisnorman
This is fascinating! Last semester I made a clone of Maniac Mansion in Java
for a game development class and it was probably the most fun I ever had
making anything. Does anyone know what the doodle on the left is on the last
picture?
[http://images.grumpygamer.com/gg_scumm_docs11.jpg](http://images.grumpygamer.com/gg_scumm_docs11.jpg)
Or is it just that (; a doodle)?

