My name is Sam, and I'm a recovering Eamon-haulic. (Altogether now: "Hello, Sam!")
My favorite Eamon of all time is "The Deep Canyon." My brother and I loved that one. Almost-equally-favored was "The Magic Kingdom." We built up our characters' attributes to ridiculously-high levels by beating that CESS POOL MONSTER up over and over again. The ORC and the SEMI-GIANT similarly were slaughtered repeatedly in the name of acquiring better weapon skills. (With respect to the "SEMI"-GIANT, Roger Pender would later observe, dryly, "I guess the author wasn't sure if the situation warranted the real thing or not.")
We heard a rumor that there was one Eamon in which you could get a "diamond sword" that was something like 10d10. Boy, did I want that sword. But we never did confirm that rumor. And when my brother got the special sword in "Temple of the Trolls" before I did, it really pissed me off.
I have a vivid memory of the night when, sitting around in my underwear as usual, I got a call from John Nelson. It was the probably the first long-distance call I had ever received at that time from anyone other than a family member. John told me that the NEUC was going to publish "The Mines of Moria" (my first Eamon submission). That was, as we say in California, "way cool." Over the years, I corresponded with Tom Z in North (?) Carolina, Roger Pender in Iowa one or twice (I found out early that college professors are tough graders!), and Nate Segerlind (also a tough critic, but a witty one). Once and I while, I would get a nervous call or barely-legible letter from some young kid who wanted to know where the Red Key was in such-and-such a dungeon or what the secret was to killing so-and-so. Absolutely precious!
But alas, the adult world has caught up with Eamon. Which explains how I found this discussion group. Today I entered my name in an internet search engine just to see what, if anything, would happen. Eventually, I linked up to a page sporting a list of "Tolkien-inspired Eamon games," where all of the "Tolkien-inspired Eamon games" written by me in 1985-86 were prominently featured.
Well, not so prominently. The host of the site, a professional "freelance writer," had studiously critiqued each of my childhood masterpieces and declared, "Sam Ruby butchers Tolkien!" The thought of Professor J.R.R., lying in pieces at my young feet as I stooped over him, a bloodied Sting in one hand and a bloodied Anduril in another, deeply disturbed me. But then I had to wonder why a professional "freelance writer" in Sweeden was wasting his talents on skewering silly old computer games written by a 14-year-old novice American programmer.
(Especially when the game that really generated some controversy "back in the day" -- the four-disk epic, "Elemental Apocalypse" -- is far worthier of analysis, having been written by a much-more-mature 15- or 16-year-old me.)
If I could vote for who should be hosting the "unofficial Eamon website," I'd have to vote for Greg Gioia, whose recent post ("I like Eamon. Eamon is fun.") demonstrates a more profound appreciation of the spirit of the NEUC and later, the EAG. But that's enough venting at the outrageous judgment history has visited upon me. Truth be told, I am really impressed that anyone other than Tom Zuchowski (whose Eamon mettle could never be doubted) would take the time to establish any kind of Eamon presence on the Web. So although I may forever be known to the international community as "The Butcher of Middle-Earth" (I hate to think what Mr. Ekman will have to say about Peter Jackson's upcoming film!), I have to thank Fredrik for his efforts.
Still, for the record, I have to take issue with Fredrik's comment that "The Iron Prison" was an "all-time Sam Ruby low." That award really should go to "The Ring of Doom." At least "The Iron Prison" had some cool monsters from The Silmarillion. As I recall, "The Ring of Doom" was just one long windy trail to Mount Doom with a lot of orcs and Nazgul in the way.
Then again, "The Valley of Death" has a pretty good claim to shame, too.
Judging from the ratings, I got better when I left the overt Tolkien themes behind. Either that, or the people who submitted ratings for those adventures never got past the first ridiculously-subtle puzzle, gave up, but kindly gave me the benefit of the doubt. Thanks to all of them.
I'm very pleased that Tom Z's CD-ROM will include my last three games, which I wrote exclusively for the Softdisk magazine after they offered me truckloads of cash. I've always felt a bit guilty about selling out the way I did.
And I would like to apologize for a few things:
1.   The long intros within which a critical clue might be buried.
2.   Flashing text.
3.   The automatic deaths. That is, the game-ending catastrophes visited upon players with little or no warning. Honestly, because my characters always died in everyone elses' games several times before I would achieve victory, I thought this was an acceptable, if not expected, part of the game. Fortunately, Tom Z eventually talked me out of them. But if anyone should have so much free time on his hands that he may play one of my first five (or six, or seven) adventures on the CD-ROM, I warn you: save often.
Finally, with respect to the FAQ, I echo Tom Z's comments that John Nelson's contributions should not be underrated. However, because Tom is too modest to do it himself, I'd like to say the same thing about Tom's contributions. It appears well-known that Tom single-handedly kept the Eamon community together after John Nelson lost interest. However, you may not know that Tom edited all but the first five of my adventures (and probably many other authors' games) and suggested terrific improvements which I was sometimes wise enough to implement. I also think it was Tom who introduced the machine-code subroutines, without which my later adventures would have been impossible.
So, does anyone need to know how to get into the tower in "Storm Breaker"?
-- Sam Ruby
Â
Â
Â
Â
Â
Â
Â
Sam Ruby wrote:
>
>
> We heard a rumor that there was one Eamon in which you could get a
> "diamond sword" that was something like 10d10. Boy, did I want that
> sword. But we never did confirm that rumor. And when my brother got
> the special sword in "Temple of the Trolls" before I did, it really
> pissed me off.
Yeah, well it couldn't have taken you too long to learn how to
modify the character files to give you whatever you wanted. This is
what I loved about the game; that, with the DDD, you could easily
make your own dungeons, and since the code was all there, you
could see how to implement effects (how do I make the mimic appear
when I open the chest? gee, I just change his room from zero to
the current room).
I think eamon was a very good introduction to programming,
although of course nowadays I'd want it written in som other
language, java maybe, maybe c.
> Well, not so prominently. The host of the site, a professional
> "freelance writer," had studiously critiqued each of my childhood
> masterpieces and declared, "Sam Ruby butchers Tolkien!" The thought
> of Professor J.R.R., lying in pieces at my young feet as I stooped
> over him, a bloodied Sting in one hand and a bloodied Anduril in
> another, deeply disturbed me. But then I had to wonder why a
> professional "freelance writer" in Sweeden was wasting his talents on
> skewering silly old computer games written by a 14-year-old novice
> American programmer.
>
That is really funny.
> I'm very pleased that Tom Z's CD-ROM will include my last three games,
> which I wrote exclusively for the Softdisk magazine after they offered
> me truckloads of cash. I've always felt a bit guilty about selling
> out the way I did.
People made money for writing Eamon games? Seriously? I thought
they were all basically given away.
> I also think it was Tom who introduced the machine-code subroutines,
> without which my later adventures would have been impossible.
I suppose it's necessary sometimes, but it makes it a lot harder
for someone listing the program to get useful inofrmation out of it.
I remember trying to look inside "little brick out" to see how it
worked, and being really pissed to find out the guts weren't really
applesoft at all, it was all peeks, pokes, and calls.
>
> So, does anyone need to know how to get into the tower in "Storm
> Breaker"?
when all else fails, list the program (yeah, I know, that's no fun).
still, I remember the first thing I'd do on a new adventure is just
type in some garbage text to see what special verbs that adventure
understood.
I hope you're writing something cool now.
>
> -- Sam Ruby
>
George
Your name is familiar to me...you wrote some yourself, no?
Greg
In article <39581BDA...@postoffice.pacbell.net>, sam...@pacbell.net
wrote:
> --------------B9B135C9C9C3A3EDA623B1B5
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> --------------B9B135C9C9C3A3EDA623B1B5
> Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> <!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
> <html>
> Hi everybody,
> <p>My name is Sam, and I'm a recovering Eamon-haulic. (Altogether
> now: "Hello, Sam!")
> <p>My favorite Eamon of all time is "The Deep Canyon." My brother
> and I loved that one. Almost-equally-favored was "The Magic
Kingdom."
> We built up our characters' attributes to ridiculously-high levels by beating
> that CESS POOL MONSTER up over and over again. The ORC and the
SEMI-GIANT
> similarly were slaughtered repeatedly in the name of acquiring better weapon
> skills. (With respect to the "SEMI"-GIANT, Roger Pender would later
> observe, dryly, "I guess the author wasn't sure if the situation warranted
> the real thing or not.")
> <p>We heard a rumor that there was one Eamon in which you could get a "diamond
> sword" that was something like 10d10. Boy, did I want that sword.
> But we never did confirm that rumor. And when my brother got the
> special sword in "Temple of the Trolls" before I did, it really pissed
> me off.
> <p>I have a vivid memory of the night when, sitting around in my underwear
> as usual, I got a call from John Nelson. It was the probably the
> first long-distance call I had ever received at that time from anyone other
> than a family member. John told me that the NEUC was going to publish
> "The Mines of Moria" (my first Eamon submission). That was, as we
> say in California, "way cool." Over the years, I corresponded with
> Tom Z in North (?) Carolina, Roger Pender in Iowa one or twice (I found
> out early that college professors are tough graders!), and Nate Segerlind
> (also a tough critic, but a witty one). Once and I while, I would
> get a nervous call or barely-legible letter from some young kid who wanted
> to know where the Red Key was in such-and-such a dungeon or what the secret
> was to killing so-and-so. Absolutely precious!
> <p>But alas, the adult world has caught up with Eamon. Which explains
> how I found this discussion group. Today I entered my name in an
> internet search engine just to see what, if anything, would happen.
> Eventually, I linked up to a page sporting a list of "Tolkien-inspired
> Eamon games," where all of the "Tolkien-inspired Eamon games" written by
> me in 1985-86 were prominently featured.
> <p>Well, not so prominently. The host of the site, a professional
> "freelance writer," had studiously critiqued each of my childhood masterpieces
> and declared, "Sam Ruby butchers Tolkien!" The thought of Professor
> J.R.R., lying in pieces at my young feet as I stooped over him, a bloodied
> Sting in one hand and a bloodied Anduril in another, deeply disturbed
me.
> But then I had to wonder why a professional "freelance writer" in Sweeden
> was wasting his talents on skewering silly old computer games written by
> a 14-year-old novice American programmer.
> <p>(Especially when the game that <u>really</u> generated some controversy
> "back in the day" -- the four-disk epic, "Elemental Apocalypse" -- is far
> worthier of analysis, having been written by a much-more-mature 15- or
> 16-year-old me.)
> <p>If I could vote for who should be hosting the "unofficial Eamon website,"
> I'd have to vote for Greg Gioia, whose recent post ("I like Eamon.
> Eamon is fun.") demonstrates a more profound appreciation of the spirit
> of the NEUC and later, the EAG. But that's enough venting at the
> outrageous judgment history has visited upon me. Truth be told, I
> am really impressed that anyone other than Tom Zuchowski (whose Eamon mettle
> could never be doubted) would take the time to establish any kind of Eamon
> presence on the Web. So although I may forever be known to the
international
> community as "The Butcher of Middle-Earth" (I hate to think what Mr. Ekman
> will have to say about Peter Jackson's upcoming film!), I have to thank
> Fredrik for his efforts.
> <p>Still, for the record, I have to take issue with Fredrik's comment that
> "The Iron Prison" was an "all-time Sam Ruby low." That award really
> should go to "The Ring of Doom." At least "The Iron Prison" had some
> cool monsters from <u>The Silmarillion</u>. As I recall, "The Ring
> of Doom" was just one long windy trail to Mount Doom with a lot of orcs
> and Nazgul in the way.
> <p>Then again, "The Valley of Death" has a pretty good claim to shame,
> too.
> <p>Judging from the ratings, I got better when I left the overt Tolkien
> themes behind. Either that, or the people who submitted ratings for
> those adventures never got past the first ridiculously-subtle puzzle, gave
> up, but kindly gave me the benefit of the doubt. Thanks to all of
> them.
> <p>I'm very pleased that Tom Z's CD-ROM will include my last three games,
> which I wrote exclusively for the Softdisk magazine after they offered
> me truckloads of cash. I've always felt a bit guilty about selling
> out the way I did.
> <p>And I would like to apologize for a few things:
> <p>1. The long intros within which a critical clue might
> be buried.
> <p>2. Flashing text.
> <p>3. The automatic deaths. That is, the game-ending
> catastrophes visited upon players with little or no warning. Honestly,
> because my characters always died in everyone elses' games several times
> before I would achieve victory, I thought this was an acceptable, if not
> expected, part of the game. Fortunately, Tom Z eventually talked
> me out of them. But if anyone should have so much free time on his
> hands that he may play one of my first five (or six, or seven) adventures
> on the CD-ROM, I warn you: <u>save often.</u>
> <p>Finally, with respect to the FAQ, I echo Tom Z's comments that John
> Nelson's contributions should not be underrated. However, because
> Tom is too modest to do it himself, I'd like to say the same thing about
> Tom's contributions. It appears well-known that Tom single-handedly
> kept the Eamon community together after John Nelson lost interest.
> However, you may not know that Tom edited all but the first five of my
> adventures (and probably many other authors' games) and suggested terrific
> improvements which I was sometimes wise enough to implement. I also
> think it was Tom who introduced the machine-code subroutines, without which
> my later adventures would have been impossible.
> <p>So, does anyone need to know how to get into the tower in "Storm Breaker"?
> <p>-- Sam Ruby
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br> </html>
>
> --------------B9B135C9C9C3A3EDA623B1B5--
and don't worry about your games being sucky. the two i wrote (fire island
and gartin manor) are hardly worth mentioning. I should surf over and see
what mr. ekman says about them. do i suck too? :)
you know, i started writing a FAQ a while back, but realized quickly that
i am too clueless about a lot of eamon stuff to really qualify to complete
it. you seem to have been in better touch with the folks in charge back in
the day...perhaps we can collaborate?
Greg Gioia wrote:
you seem to have been in better touch with the folks in charge back in
the day...perhaps we can collaborate?
I don't know if it's in your best interests to collaborate with me, "The Butcher of Middle-Earth". . . are you planning to visit Sweeden any time soon? This could happen to you:
"Hey, that's the guy who wrote that FAQ with the guy who wrote that Apple BASIC game where stormtroopers on speeder bikes show up in Mirkwood! GET HIM!"
Â
Â
> .....<snip>.....
Hey Sam! Posting a virus isn't nice.
Mark Percival
Montreal, Quebec
Sam made a couple grand selling three of his best Eamons to Softdisk. They
went straight to Softdisk with no public release. Technically, the Eamon
programs were probably still public domain, but the database was definitely
copyrighted.
The other 242 Eamons that I know of are all in the public domain.
>
> > I also think it was Tom who introduced the machine-code subroutines,
> > without which my later adventures would have been impossible.
>
> I suppose it's necessary sometimes, but it makes it a lot harder
> for someone listing the program to get useful inofrmation out of it.
Not at all. The machine-language routines had a clear Applesoft interface
that anyone who read the docs could understand. You used its syntax to hand
the routine the search object string, the array to be searched, and the
variable you wished to use for the search result. You did not need to know
anything at all about machine language.There were two routines that did
little more than replace the Applesoft search routines at 4700 and 4800.
They improved program speed enormously and vastly improved the playability
of the big Eamons that used it.
My first play of the original version of "The Death Star" without the later
EAG "Speed-up mods" really caught my attention, where it took maybe a minute
or more to heal yourself after a battle. I always resolved to fix that if I
got the chance. I fixed up the old ones with the "Speed-up mods," and then
greatly improved on that speed with the machine code added to version 7.
I thought I had posted the location here for Eamon DSK files, but I don't
see it. Did you get that info? You can find them several levels deep on
ftp.gmd.de/if-archives.
Tom Zuchowski
Should be gone now <fingers crossed> but we'll see . . .
Ahhh...the memories. I remember having the same complaints about Death
Star and Eamon in general being so slow so I started trying to convert the
whole thing into machine language. By the time I finished the game was so
different it wasn't even Eamon anymore, but all my friends and I thought
it was lots of fun.
Someone really ought to program Eamon for the Mac or the IBM clones. Maybe
it would catch on all over again. Too bad I have no idea how to program
one of these new-fangled computers.
In article <396a4...@news3.prserv.net>, "Tom Zuchowski"
<tzu...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> <gwei...@fastpointcom.com> wrote in message
> news:39596A...@fastpointcom.com...
> > > I'm very pleased that Tom Z's CD-ROM will include my last three games,
> > > which I wrote exclusively for the Softdisk magazine after they offered
> > > me truckloads of cash. I've always felt a bit guilty about selling
> > > out the way I did.
> >
> > People made money for writing Eamon games? Seriously? I thought
> > they were all basically given away.
>
> Sam made a couple grand selling three of his best Eamons to Softdisk. They
> went straight to Softdisk with no public release. Technically, the Eamon
> programs were probably still public domain, but the database was definitely
> copyrighted.
>
> The other 242 Eamons that I know of are all in the public domain.
>
> >
> > > I also think it was Tom who introduced the machine-code subroutines,
> > > without which my later adventures would have been impossible.
> >
Nice to see you on-board the group! Sorry I did not respond at once,
but I have not received most of the recent messages through my news
provider, so I have had to read through Deja.com.
> Well, not so prominently. The host of the site, a professional
> "freelance writer," had studiously critiqued each of my childhood
> masterpieces and declared, "Sam Ruby butchers Tolkien!"
Did I write that? Anyway, I do not see that the fact that I am a
free-lance writer has anything at all to do with Eamon and Tolkien,
which are entirely and totally hobbies of mine. I do agree that I
can be a bit harsh at times, especially so when young age and
devotion should excuse some lack of quality. At the same time, I
want to be fair to the users of my site, who want to be able to
tell the good games from the bad without playing through all of
them.
> If I could vote for who should be hosting the "unofficial Eamon
> website," I'd have to vote for Greg Gioia
If I can have a vote myself, I say the more unofficial sites, the
better. I have no plans to leave mine into the hands of anyone
else, but I welcome any and all efforts to produce more sites that
can complement the two I have (counting the Eamon Tolkien games
pages as a "site", which is perhaps a trifle optimistic). In
particular, I would like to see the return of the official Eamon
site, as sanctioned by the EAG. The old one had the particularly
nice goal to HTML-ize all previous news-letters.
As for the FAQ, I would love to see it become a reality, regardless
of who wrote it. If the writer(s) do not have web space of
his/her/their own, I would be more than glad to host it.
I think that Greg's half-finished FAQ had a lot of potential, even
though it was slightly wordy in places.
> (I hate to think what Mr. Ekman will have to say about Peter
> Jackson's upcoming film!)
So do I, actually. I really hope that it will be better than my
expectations.
> I have to thank Fredrik for his efforts.
Thanks, Sam. I appreciate that.
Perhaps in the future, I shall have to re-consider my reviews. Fact
is, though, that no-one has been really upset with me yet, and you
are not the only one to be "skewered".
/Fredrik (the skewering free-lance writer)
PS. Sam: Do you mind if I put a link to your e-mail address from my
Eamon pages?
PPS. For the record: I always pronounced it EE-mon, too, until
Donald Brown contacted me and told me about his original
pronunciation EE-ah-mon. Nowadays, that is what I use. I do not
suppose is makes much of a difference how you pronounce it, anyway.
I see it mostly as a piece of interesting trivia.
PPPS. For new readers who may not be familiar with my sites, here
are the URLs:
The Unofficial Eamon page: http://www.lysator.liu.se/eamon/
Eamon Tolkien Games: http://www.lysator.liu.se/tolkien-games/eamon.html
>
> Someone really ought to program Eamon for the Mac or the IBM clones. Maybe
> it would catch on all over again. Too bad I have no idea how to program
> one of these new-fangled computers.
>
Thinking about it, I don't think it would take me more than a
solid week to port Eamon to Java (although you never REALLY know
how hard something is until you try it). I'm just talking old
Eamon (beginner's cave, lair of the minotaur, etc), I never
played the later ones so I don't know how much more difficult they
would be. I saw a couple "SwordThrust" adventures though, they
didn't seem that different from Eamon, I could probably put in
those extensions with no real sweat.
What do you guys think? Can Eamon make a comeback?
George
My e-mail address is about to change (to what, I'm not sure), so I would
not suggest posting it on your site.
I expect that the film will be fantastic in many respects, but a
"sword-wielding" Arwen and a Gimli who "loves wine, women and song" (actual
descriptions from the casting call) will take some getting used to!
> What do you guys think? Can Eamon make a comeback?
All I can say is that the main reason that I do not play more Eamon
than I do is that I find it slightly bothersome to have to start up
the thing through a slow emulator. If it was easily accessible as a
fast Windows application, I would probably play it more. I think the
main problem would be to port all the various Eamon games, in
particular since many have special features. After all, several
attempts have been made to port Eamon to MS-DOS, but only a few
games each time.
Perhaps John Nelson's DOS port will take off one of these days?
/F
Tom Z
<gwei...@fastpointcom.com> wrote in message
news:396D1D...@fastpointcom.com...
> What do you guys think? Can Eamon make a comeback?
>
> George
Tom Z
"Fredrik Ekman" <ek...@lysator.liu.se> wrote in message
news:dw8zv52...@sara.lysator.liu.se...
> gwei...@fastpointcom.com writes:
>
> > What do you guys think? Can Eamon make a comeback?
>
> Why do you say that emulators are slow?
No, I did not really mean that, I guess. I, too, can live with a second
or two of delay. Still, I would prefer the lightning-fast response of a
native PC version.
What I do find troublesome is that there will often be times when you
want the game to run on clock speed (or even slower). In particular,
this is true for timed intros and the entire game Sands of Mars. Since
it is often impossible to tell in advance when you want the delay and
when not, you may end up having to quite the game, restore your
character and start over. Sort of like a death-trap built into the OS.
/F
Tom Z
"Fredrik Ekman" <ek...@lysator.liu.se> wrote in message
news:dw1z0tt...@svenolov.lysator.liu.se...
But that is just one side of the story, and everyone colors history with
their own perceptions, be they right or wrong. In any event, Don may or may
not have realized that you can't take back a public-domain release.
Tom Z
"jamesj5223" <james...@home.com> wrote in message
news:nzNc5.63279$dF.24...@news1.rdc1.il.home.com...
> I don't believe Don ever tried to "pull Eamon back out of the Public
> Domain." Donald always said that Eamon was his "gift" to the computing
and
> FRP community of the time. The ONLY time he became restrictive with Eamon
> was when certain computer stores would make copies of his game and attempt
> to sell them for $20-$30 each; the cost was supposedly a "copying" fee,
but
> Donald had a strict $5.00 per copy fee that he felt was reasonable.
>
> SwordThrust and my game, "Mission: Escape" were the first two programs
that
> CE Software ever introduced. Neither lasted long, but at that time few
> programs endured...except, of course, for Eamon!
>
> "Tom Zuchowski" <tzu...@attglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:3971a...@news3.prserv.net...
> > > What do you guys think? Can Eamon make a comeback?
> > >
> > > George
> >
> >
>
>
"Tom Zuchowski" <tzu...@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3973a...@news3.prserv.net...
> OK, I admist that I never did have Don's side of the story, but in many
> conversations with John Nelson, John went on at some length about the
fight
> he had to keep Eamon in the public domain against Don's wishes. John was
> quite clear about Don's change of heart about public-domain Eamon.
>
> But that is just one side of the story, and everyone colors history with
> their own perceptions, be they right or wrong. In any event, Don may or
may
> not have realized that you can't take back a public-domain release.
>
> Tom Z
>
>
> "jamesj5223" <james...@home.com> wrote in message
> news:nzNc5.63279$dF.24...@news1.rdc1.il.home.com...
In fairness to Don, I only have John Nelson's side of the story, and people
do unconsciously color their memories of events and motives. In any event it
seems clear to me that John and Don did have some sort of falling-out about
the direction that Eamon should take, and in the end Don pursued SwordThrust
and John embarked on a major upgrade of the Eamon system.
Tom Z
"jamesj5223" <james...@home.com> wrote in message
news:zg9d5.65560$dF.25...@news1.rdc1.il.home.com...
> And, I will admit it was 20 years ago, and I was only involved with Eamon
> through the first 20+ adventures. Perhaps Donald changed his position
later
> on. I find it hard to believe, though, knowing Donald and his convictions.
> Money was not a big motivating factor for him.
>
> "Tom Zuchowski" <tzu...@attglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:3973a...@news3.prserv.net...