Wizardry 1 - any workarounds?

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beerslayer
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Wizardry 1 - any workarounds?

Post by beerslayer »

When trying to use Mini vMac to play the old Wizardry game from disk images, it insists on reading the "master" disk (which must be write-protected) before it will proceed. On Mini vMac, this makes it impossible to run this program.

Here's the sequence of events:

0) Make two copies of the image file on the host system. Make sure one is write-protected and the other isn't.
1) Mount the unlocked image of the Wizardry disk (the "Scenario" disk).
2) Launch the Wizardry application from the scenario disk. It immediately prompts you for the "MASTER" disk. This prompt is a modal dialog, so no return to the OS is possible.
3) Mount a LOCKED image of the Wizardry disk (the "Master" disk). This satisfies the application, which then tries to prompt for the scenario disk again using another (sigh) modal dialog. (Why it doesn't believe that disk is already or still mounted, I don't know.)
4) Try to remount the same image from step 1, which fails (since Mini vMac sees the image file as being already in use).
5) Try to mount an identical image to the one used in step 1 - Wizardry rejects it since it is not the *exact* same one.

There is no way that I've found to get any farther using Mini vMac. The only thing I can do at this point is reset the emulator, since the modal dialog won't even let me get back to the system and does not respond to Cmd-Q or any other command that I can find.

If Mini vMac emulated some sort of "paper clip" ejection method, that might work here. Since I have no idea what disks the Wizardry application thinks are mounted at that point, nor why it won't resume using the already mounted scenario image, I do not know what other workaround might satisfy it.

If anyone can enlighten me as to a workaround that already exists, please let me know.
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24bit
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Post by 24bit »

Hello,
I do not know your game, but I found that some old games
would only work with MFS disks, or to be correct, MFS disk images.
The Mac OS needed is OS4 or lower.
If that should be true in your case you might try the following:
-Create two suitable new volumes
-Boot MiniVmac with Mac OS4 and format them
-Boot MiniVmac with Mac OS6 and copy the contents of your game disks to the two new volumes
-Boot MiniVmac with Mac OS4 and take your files out of the "New Folder"
-Rename the volumes to something your game is expecting

Than cross your fingers and try to run your game...

Good luck!
beerslayer
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re: Wizardry 1 - any workarounds?

Post by beerslayer »

24bit:

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, I don't believe that will address the problem. Perhaps this will help explain why:

Wizardry was one of the first true RPG games to make it to the home computer. As such, it was not intended to be completed in a single session, but rather characters were to be developed over a long period of time.

The program itself was originally shipped on a single locked floppy (mfs vs hfs irrelevant, I'm pretty sure) called the "master" disk. It was never intended to be installed to a hard drive, hard drives not being mandatory equipment at the time the game was released. According to the instructions, the user was instructed to make a copy of the master disk onto a new floppy, and leave it unlocked. This copy was referred to as the "scenario" disk, and was the one used to store character data, etc. No disk other than these two were ever used by the application.

On a physical Mac, the user would start the game from the scenario disk as I originally described. The first thing the program would do would be to eject the scenario disk and (modally!) prompt the user to insert the master briefly. Once the game was satisfied the master had been inserted, it would eject that and prompt for the scenario disk again, at which point the game would continue.

On the Mini vMac emulator, however, the "eject" process does not appear to work as intended. Once the "master" (a locked disk image) has been read, and the program prompts for the scenario to be re-inserted, the setup fails because the emulator sees the scenario image as still in use, and refuses to allow it to be mounted again. The application never sees the scenario disk being re-inserted, and never proceeds past that modal dialog.

My guess would be that there may be a bug in the disk mounting/dismounting routine in the emulator.

Again, 24bit, thanks for your help. I'm still hoping that someone out there has tried this before, and knows a workaround.
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Cat_7
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Post by Cat_7 »

Does this weird but wonderfull website offer any help at all?:
http://www.virtualapple.org/wizardrydisk.html

Best,
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beerslayer
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re: Wizardry 1 - any workarounds?

Post by beerslayer »

Cat_7, thanks for the reply.

The problem I'm describing above concerns use of a Mac emulator. Unfortunately, the Virtual Apple 2 website is not relevant here, since it is an emulator of the Apple II computer, not the Macintosh. All of the disk images and information on that site are related to the Apple II and are not useful on a Mac (except perhaps by using an Apple II emulator).

While I could play the Apple II version of the game, I suppose, I really wanted to play the Mac version for nostalgia's sake.
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gryphel
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Re: Wizardry 1 - any workarounds?

Post by gryphel »

Hi, I'm catching up on mail after a trip. (I'm posting this same reply on both discussions on E-maculation and 68kmla.)

I believe that "Dog Cow" is generally correct, though this may or may not apply specifically to Wizardry. Mini vMac does not emulate the disk hardware at low level, and so most copy protection schemes won't work with it. For that matter, I don't believe the standard disk image format can accurately contain all the information on most disks with copy protection. No matter what Mini vMac did, the needed information from the Master disk just isn't there on your disk image copy.

At step 3 you say that the application is satisfied, and asks for the original disk back. But my guess is that it is not satisfied, and just wants the original disk back to get access to the code to display an error message. If it was satisfied, it would be extremely incompetent copy protection.

As for why it is asking for the original disk back when it already has it, my guess would be that it tried to eject the disk using a low level method that Mini vMac doesn't support, since it was already trying to use low level access for verifying the copy protection.

In summary, emulating the paper clip ejection method is a possible feature for Mini vMac, but I don't expect it would help you at all here, assuming the copy protection was implemented at all competently.

You might want to try the MESS emulator, whose Macintosh emulation appears to emulate disk access at a lower level. But I don't expect it will help. As I said, I think the needed information just isn't there.

Some people had a hobby of breaking copy protection on Mac 68k programs. I don't know what the DMCA law would say about breaking the copy protection on software you own for your own use, for software that predates that law.
mattbarton.exe
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Re: Wizardry 1 - any workarounds?

Post by mattbarton.exe »

I was able to get this to work by creating a folder on another disk volume that I had created, then dragging and dropping all the contents from the disk image into it.
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adespoton
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Re: Wizardry 1 - any workarounds?

Post by adespoton »

gryphel wrote:Some people had a hobby of breaking copy protection on Mac 68k programs. I don't know what the DMCA law would say about breaking the copy protection on software you own for your own use, for software that predates that law.
Old thread, but I thought I'd follow up:

DMCA has safe harbor provisions: you can break copy protection on software you own for your own use whether it predates the law or not: what you can't do is redistribute the cracked software or break copy protection for other people. It's also a gray area as to whether you can tell other people how to do it (intent here is important).

However, there's also a bit in the DMCA about preservation of software; it is fully legal under the DMCA to reverse engineer and defeat DRM for the purpose of software preservation -- as long as you are an official library or archive (such as the Internet Archive or the Library of Congress).
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Re: Wizardry 1 - any workarounds?

Post by neozeed »

I hope the world doesn't go Acta, I don't want to worry about inane us laws
don't do today what you can put off until tomorrow.
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