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Compile like it's 1992

fabiensanglard.net

1–10 of 42 posts

Re: Compile like it's 1992

#3

Its nice that they made it public domain. There are 1000 more games from that era whose code will simply dissapear despite being simply bits and bytes that may be perfectly preserved for ever.

Only the engine is open, though, not the data files. EDIT: And it's not "public domain" either. Look at the license.doc in the github repository, there are tons of restrictions as to what you can do with the code. https://github.com/id-Software/wolf3d

Re: Compile like it's 1992

#5
I remember getting the Borland C compiler as a ten or eleven year old and thinking, twenty megabytes! What in the world could they need twenty megabytes for? That was like, my entire hard drive.

N.B. you have a typo

    Z:/> mount c ~/systen/c

Re: Compile like it's 1992

#7
post #5

I remember getting the Borland C compiler as a ten or eleven year old and thinking, twenty megabytes! What in the world could they need twenty megabytes for? That was like, my entire hard drive. N.B. you have a typo Z:/> mount c ~/systen/c

Thanks for taking the time to report it. I fixed it now.

Re: Compile like it's 1992

#8
post #3

Its nice that they made it public domain. There are 1000 more games from that era whose code will simply dissapear despite being simply bits and bytes that may be perfectly preserved for ever.

Only the engine is open, though, not the data files. EDIT: And it's not "public domain" either. Look at the license.doc in the github repository, there are tons of restrictions as to what you can do with the code. https://github.com/id-Software/wolf3d

It is like when Microsoft released the source code for MS-DOS 2.0 and MS-Word 1.1C not open sourced but some kind of commercial license that limits use and derivatives.

It kind of reminds me of that old Borland Museum that had the old Turbo languages for free download. http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum

Sadly they stopped releasing old versions in 2005. I had hoped there to be a Delphi 1.0 release. I actually got Delphi 1.0 on a magazine CD-ROM from some UK magazine I bought, and then forgot where I placed it. I used to program in Delphi 1.0 and 2.0 I still got my 2.0 book and how to make code Y2K compatible in it.

I got old Visual BASIC versions as well.

It seems this is the Wolf3D source code without the data files so you have to use the shareware version of Wolf3D or Spear or buy the commercial versions.

It is written for 16 bit code for DOS, so converting it to 32 bits won't work. They had to use a lot of tricks for 386 and under machines just to get it to work in 3D mode. 486+ machines run it better but at a certain level it does not scale very well.

Basically it was a f*-it by ID, just release the code for the LULZ, throw on a commercial license to limit use, and then see what happens to it.

Re: Compile like it's 1992

#9

Have to hand it out to Fabien, he's not just an amazing developer with baffling skills to understand code and graphical routines, his dedication to understanding old games of yore is second to none. Nice job, Fabien!

Maybe off-topic, but the rest of the website is a trove of knowledge. As a long-time developer who is now trying to pick up graphics/gaming side of coding ... I'm so glad there are folks generous enough to spend time writing and sharing. Thank you!

Re: Compile like it's 1992

#10

Its nice that they made it public domain. There are 1000 more games from that era whose code will simply dissapear despite being simply bits and bytes that may be perfectly preserved for ever.

Is that Borland C++ compiler also in the public domain? It was cool that he provides it but it made me wonder if it was ever released like that.
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