h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...not that it's for sale, but I wondered if it is (or is ever likely to be) a collector's item
- the sort of thing that my grandchildren will take to the antiques roadshow.

It still has all the bits inside (peril-sensitive sunglasses, don't panic button, destruction
plans, fluff and microscopic space fleet (un-opened)) - however it is the Apricot version,
and I have never seen an Apricot, so have no idea whether the disk actually works!

I thought apricots were IBM compatibles. Or apples with big pips maybe. I bought the original game way back in '84, don't remember getting all those interesting bits with it though. Maybe it IS a collectors item!

the apricots made recently were just wintel boxes, but they used to be their own platform
with their own os, as far as I can remember

I also still have the original game with all of the novelty parts. In fact I recently wore the 'Don't Panic' button to a wedding. Rather apt I thought. I haven't opened the space fleet either... I didn't want my dog to eat them.

Well I have the Amstrad PCW version. It too is complete - apart from the Don't Panic badge which I wore and scratched a bit.
It is held together with blu-tak now.

One of the really good things about the Infocom games is that they used a data file & an interpreter. The data files were the same for all platforms (I'm pretty sure) so all you need to run them is an interpreter for your current box & the data file.
The good news is that you can download an interpreter for just about anything from here -> http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/interp.html

They also have the a copy of the original Invisiclues so you can cheat a bit - > http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pete/Infocom/Invisiclues/hhgg/

The bad news is that you might have a little trouble if the original data file is on 5 1/4" disks.

;^)#

You say you might have some trouble if the original data files are on 5 1/4 inch disks.
Well my data files are on 3inch disks. The 3inch disks which used to go into Amstrad PCW's

Alex

Ohhhhh dear - well they may be more valuable with that as a guarantee that the game has hardly ever been played.
Say Hi to your mum for me.

;^)#

If I recall, the original Apricot machines (long before the Mitsubishi purchase) were x86 machines that ran DOS - but *not* IBM clones.

They had sufficiently different hardware that meant Apricot licensed their own build of DOS from MS (or Digital Research - not sure), but sufficiently similar to make ports (like your H2G2 game) practicable..

They had some groovy features like infra-red keyboards with LCD function key labels

I wonder if we could get tdv to put h2g2 mark 1 in h2g2 mark 2? Im sure infocom wouldn't want much money...

I wouldn't... One of the things I specifically asked for when I had my new (couple years ago) system built (and got plenty of the 'You're -insane-!' looks for) was a 5.25 disk drive.

However.. I don't have the data file at all.

like maniac mansion in day of the tentacle? lol