Microsoft's PAC-MAN for Windows! Woops!
Paulo Sérgio Coelho
Hi!
Yesterday, while trying to install Quake from a Computer Buyer's
CD-ROM, I came across a Pac-Man version for Windows 95, by Microsoft.
Now, there are 2 things here that don't mix: MS and games. Even if
games like Pac-Man... Let me tell you, I have a 486-40 with 8Mb.
First, installing the thing (yes, I dared...) took more or less the
same time loading up Ms Pac Man on my Spectrum. Probably more. And
then I had to re-initialize Windoze, since it had installed DirectX.
Ok, now let's run it. Okay, 't was Pac-Man alright. So, how big is
this? Well, the EXE is just about 500000 bytes(!), with some more
files, having a grand total of 750K or so.
Well, I know that Pac-Man on the Speccy wasn't that smooth or
anything, still, it was a 16K game. But Ms Pac-Mas was much better
than Pac-Man, and still only required a 48K to run. Yet, M$ made it
more than 50 times bigger...=20
I'm pretty sure if they managed to get Manic Miner or JSW converted
to Windows, we would be facing a 1Mb game or so, since the "engineers"
at M$ wouldn't know how to store all those rooms in less than that...
Oh yes, I have redeemed myself, and have erased the thing. :-)
Bye!
John Dow
On Fri, 20 Dec 1996 10:56:55 GMT, Paulo Sérgio Coelho <pse...@mail.telepac.pt> wrote:
> Well, I know that Pac-Man on the Speccy wasn't that smooth or
>anything, still, it was a 16K game. But Ms Pac-Mas was much better
>than Pac-Man, and still only required a 48K to run. Yet, M$ made it
>more than 50 times bigger...
Am I allowed to be smug here? Yes? Oh good! (opens up xterm on linux box and starts typing)
[jmd@osiris jmd]$ ls -l /usr/X11/bin/xchomp
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 37568 Jul 31 21:26 /usr/X11/bin/xchomp
Oh dear. Xwindows version of pacman is only 37K. Ah for the good old days....
John
--
John M Dow : UNIX Systems Administrator
Cybersurf Scotland : Web Authoring with cool socks
Born to GNU
Paulo Sérgio Coelho
j...@osiris.cybersurf.co.uk (John Dow) wrote:
>On Fri, 20 Dec 1996 10:56:55 GMT, Paulo S=E9rgio Coelho =
<pse...@mail.telepac.pt> wrote:
>> Well, I know that Pac-Man on the Speccy wasn't that smooth or
>>anything, still, it was a 16K game. But Ms Pac-Mas was much better
>>than Pac-Man, and still only required a 48K to run. Yet, M$ made it
>>more than 50 times bigger...=20
>
>Am I allowed to be smug here? Yes? Oh good! (opens up xterm on linux box=
and starts typing)
>
>Oh dear. Xwindows version of pacman is only 37K. Ah for the good old =
days....
Yup! Seems Linux wins on that front too! Anyway, I guess it would be
hard to have a Pac-Man game bigger than 700Kb+... until a new Windows
version comes along :-)
Any other numbers from other Pac-Man versions for other platforms?
(Mac, Amiga, Atari...)
Bye!
IDT CORE
Hum... I didn't notice any Microsoft's PAC-MAN for Windows. ;> Only an arcade
emulator, packaged as a (quoting here Microsoft) 'perfect rewrite of the
original game will all it's quirks'... they bougth it to someone and licensed
the ROM sources from NANCO....
So, you have an arcade emulator, using DirectX, and traps for the Windows
menus...
A WIN PAC-MAN game, would not necessarily look like so old ;>....
In article <slrn5br1o...@osiris.cybersurf.co.uk>,
j...@osiris.cybersurf.co.uk (John Dow) writes:
>On Fri, 20 Dec 1996 10:56:55 GMT, Paulo Sérgio Coelho <pse...@mail.telepac.pt> wrote:
>> Well, I know that Pac-Man on the Speccy wasn't that smooth or
>>anything, still, it was a 16K game. But Ms Pac-Mas was much better
>>than Pac-Man, and still only required a 48K to run. Yet, M$ made it
>>more than 50 times bigger...
>
>Am I allowed to be smug here? Yes? Oh good! (opens up xterm on linux box and starts typing)
>
>[jmd@osiris jmd]$ ls -l /usr/X11/bin/xchomp
>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 37568 Jul 31 21:26 /usr/X11/bin/xchomp
>
>Oh dear. Xwindows version of pacman is only 37K. Ah for the good old days....
>
>
>John
>
>--
>John M Dow : UNIX Systems Administrator
>Cybersurf Scotland : Web Authoring with cool socks
>
>Born to GNU
>
--
--Rui Ribeiro (r...@ipp.pt) http://www.idt.ipp.pt/~rff-ribe
Centro de Operacoes de Rede (CORE) [Network Operation Center],
Instituto para o Desenvolvimento Tecnologico,
Instituto Politecnico do Porto, Porto, Portugal.
Tel: +351 (0)2-8302554/5 Fax: +351 (0)2-8302556 CORE E-mail: co...@ipp.pt
--------------------------------------------------------
Official Spectrum for Windows emulator homepage:
http://www.idt.ipp.pt/~rff-ribe/wspecem.html
Russ Juckes
co...@idt-isep.ipp.pt (IDT CORE) wrote:
> So, you have an arcade emulator, using DirectX, and traps for the
> Windows menus...
> A WIN PAC-MAN game, would not necessarily look like so old ;>...
What about CHAMP programming's PAC MAN? That's pretty smart - both versions
in fact.
And their Donkey Kong is bloody brilliant.
Erm, (I think) http://www.champ.com
--
"My God... It's full of stars..." rus...@edgemail.ha1.com
http://www.raiden.demon.co.uk
Paulo Sérgio Coelho
co...@idt-isep.ipp.pt (IDT CORE) wrote:
>Hum... I didn't notice any Microsoft's PAC-MAN for Windows. ;> Only an =
arcade
>emulator, packaged as a (quoting here Microsoft) 'perfect rewrite of the=
=20
>original game will all it's quirks'... they bougth it to someone and =
licensed
>the ROM sources from NANCO....=20
And you do sincerely think that what you saw (you did run it?...)
justifies over 700K of data?
Miss Pac Man fit in the 48K speccy. Even if it wasn't 100% faithful
to the original, I'm sure it was pretty close.
Oh, and 700K worth of ROM in 1980 I believe was something a bit
extraordinary...=20
Not to mention those "sources" are almost certainly 100% assembly
code. I don't think they ported them to the PC just like that. Most
probably they programmed it in some high-level language, to look, feel
and sound like the original. You don't need to copy code to do that.
>So, you have an arcade emulator, using DirectX, and traps for the =
Windows=20
>menus...
Again, that doesn't justify 700K.
>A WIN PAC-MAN game, would not necessarily look like so old ;>....
"Looking" old is not the issue here. Being old is yet another reason
for me to critise it! If it was a new program, with new graphics,
sounds, etc, ok, MAYBE those 700K mean anything besides crap
conversion. But this is not the case...
Bye!
Boas Festas!
joa...@cygnet.co.uk.remove.this.to.reply
IDT CORE (co...@idt-isep.ipp.pt) wrote:
: Hum... I didn't notice any Microsoft's PAC-MAN for Windows. ;> Only an arcade
: emulator, packaged as a (quoting here Microsoft) 'perfect rewrite of the
: the ROM sources from NANCO....
: So, you have an arcade emulator, using DirectX, and traps for the Windows
: menus...
Well, the original Pac Man roms are 24K. Dave Spicer's DasArcadia
emulator (v3) is 82K, and it has emulation code for several other
games as well. Oh, and it runs on a 386.
To be fair though, the X version of Pac Man referred to in an
earlier post, good though it is, lacks sound and is in B/W.
I bet adding colour and sound would bump it to 48K or so...
--
Joakim Pietras <joa...@cygnet.co.uk>
finger for PGP Public Key
Paulo Sérgio Coelho
joa...@cygnet.co.uk.REMOVE.THIS.TO.REPLY wrote:
>: So, you have an arcade emulator, using DirectX, and traps for the =
Windows=20
>: menus...
>
>Well, the original Pac Man roms are 24K. Dave Spicer's DasArcadia
>emulator (v3) is 82K, and it has emulation code for several other
>games as well. Oh, and it runs on a 386.
Great! Where can I get it?
>To be fair though, the X version of Pac Man referred to in an=20
>earlier post, good though it is, lacks sound and is in B/W.
>I bet adding colour and sound would bump it to 48K or so...
Still, much less than our trusty ol' Windoze...
Hapy New Year!
joa...@cygnet.co.uk.remove.this.to.reply
Paulo Sérgio Coelho (pse...@mail.telepac.pt) wrote:
: joa...@cygnet.co.uk.REMOVE.THIS.TO.REPLY wrote:
: >Well, the original Pac Man roms are 24K. Dave Spicer's DasArcadia
: >emulator (v3) is 82K, and it has emulation code for several other
: >games as well. Oh, and it runs on a 386.
: Great! Where can I get it?
You can't. Dave Spicer withdrew his emulator when he found out that
it was being distributed together with copyrighted roms (on the net
and on CD:s). If we're lucky, he'll release the new version
Real Soon Now(tm). Not sure it will be freeware, though.
And, yes, I have heard that v3 is still out there, if you look hard
enough. No, I don't know where.
BTW, it's called DasArcade, not DasArcadia. Guess I've been playing
that speccy classic too much...
As for the roms, I can't remember where I got them. AFAIK, they
are readily available from several sites.
Sam.
The 2600 version is 4K. Ha! My 2600 beats your Unix any day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Where am I" - Charlie Chuck. s...@greenaum.demon.co.uk
http://www.greenaum.demon.co.uk/
Paulo Sérgio Coelho
joa...@cygnet.co.uk.REMOVE.THIS.TO.REPLY wrote:
>: So, you have an arcade emulator, using DirectX, and traps for the =
Windows=20
>: menus...
>
>Well, the original Pac Man roms are 24K. Dave Spicer's DasArcadia
>emulator (v3) is 82K, and it has emulation code for several other
>games as well. Oh, and it runs on a 386.
Great! Where can I get it?
>To be fair though, the X version of Pac Man referred to in an=20
joa...@cygnet.co.uk.remove.this.to.reply
Paulo Sérgio Coelho (pse...@mail.telepac.pt) wrote:
: joa...@cygnet.co.uk.REMOVE.THIS.TO.REPLY wrote:
: >Well, the original Pac Man roms are 24K. Dave Spicer's DasArcadia
: >emulator (v3) is 82K, and it has emulation code for several other
: >games as well. Oh, and it runs on a 386.
: Great! Where can I get it?
You can't. Dave Spicer withdrew his emulator when he found out that
Sam.
R!win
Sam. wrote:
>
> The 2600 version is 4K. Ha! My 2600 beats your Unix any day.
Yeah, but it's hardly Pacman too.