Loadstar 217/217.d81/t.mario

Text File | 2022-08-26 | 6KB | 193 lines

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         SUPER MARIO BROTHERS

           Hacked by Abyss
         Text by Dave Moorman


    Let's take the round-about
story....

    I graduated from St. Paul School
of Theology in Kansas City, MO in the
spring of 1985. Now my "home"
Conference (Synod, Jurisdiction) was
Rocky Mountain, which includes
Colorado, Utah, and half of Wyoming.
In the United Methodist Church, clergy
are assigned (we call it "appointed")
to churches in our own Conference. So
I was waiting for the call from Denver
telling me where to go.

    Nothing. Finally, I called one of
the Superintendents, told him I had
graduated, and asked where my
appointment would be. He replied,
"Uh...I'll have to get back to you on
that." Kansas City is a long way from
Denver, and Superintendents are famous
for not worrying about anything a long
way away.

    In a couple of days, he called
back. They had just one more church
available in the Conference -- at
Craig, Colorado. It had been
half-time, but was willing to go to a
full time pastor. We drove out to meet
the people. It was a case of the last
church getting the last guy -- a match
made in desperation!

    We moved to Craig, which is not
the end of the world, but you can see
it from there. I soon realized that my
ancient TRS-80 (Model I Level II
Basic, circa 1979) was not going to
keep up with the office work of even a
small church. While in Denver, I saw a
Blue Chip daisy wheel printer that was
Commodore-ready. I had seen a C-64 at
a friend's house, and was amazed by
its video and sound capabilities.
However, Basic 2.0 was a giant step
down from the Basic I was used to with
the TRS-80.

    Then a fellow in Craig announced
his dealership for Commodore, and all
the parts came together. The C-128
appeared to have a fully developed
Basic. The 1571 drive was great. And
with a daisy wheel printer, my output
would be excellent. About a thousand
dollars later (and with a black and
white TV for a monitor), I was in
business.

    Craig is a rather isolated place,
in the northwest corner of Colorado.
And the community was in the throws of
a economic bust (following an economic
boom). I learned that a great place to
stay out of trouble was the Holiday
Inn, where they had a coin-op arcade
game called "Super Mario Brothers."

    I [loved] that game and spent
hours mastering its intricacies. My
"DMM" filled every slot on the List of
Champions. I could kill the whole
afternoon and a zillion turtles for
two quarters.

    You may be wondering why I wasn't
out doing my pastoring job. The answer
is that this was a very young
congregation. Times were tough, and
everyone worked. Visits and meetings
were evening work.

    Anyway, when I brought home my
C-128, my first programming challenge
was to create a Mario-type game. I
failed miserably. I did not know ML. I
did not realize (yet) that the C-64
mode is where the real programming fun
is. Sure, Basic 2.0 is lacking. But
add an ML module, and the features you
need are just a SYS away. This
knowledge came later. But then other
projects called for my time. I never
got around to my Mario.

    Over 17 years later, I now live
almost as far from Craig as you can
get and still be in Colorado. And I
[love] my clergy career and the
freedom to do computer work.
Sometimes, the former is rather busy
and the latter does not get done by
deadline. However, for LS 216, I was
way ahead of the curve. The issue came
together, everything fit. I was good
to go during the first week in
September.

    That was when my 1541 decided to
quit. I had no way to make the 1541
masters. The only answer was to go on
eBay and get another 1541 drive. The
item I bid on was a C-64c and 1541 II
drive, and I won the auction at a good
price. But then I had to wait for the
thing to arrive. When it did,
everything worked and LS 216 went out
the door.

    The Seller included a big pile of
software in the box, and I was going
through it when I found a disk --
"Super Mario Bros." Well, look at
this! I loaded and ran the program.

    There was the program I was always
going to write!

    Nintendo never produced a SMB for
the C-64. I think they saw their
profits pirated away on Donkey Kong
and Mario Brothers. The C-64 was too
much computer to be a game machine
(from a mono-maniacal game marketer's
point of view), and too much a game
machine to be a computer (from
a mono-maniacal computer marketer's
point of view). What this leaves is
us: mono-maniacal Commodore People who
will try anything with our machines --
even if it has been done before.

    Robin Harbron writes: 'This game
is a hacked version of a commercial
game called "Great Giana Sisters". The
game is quite legendary in both Amiga
and C-64 circles, though it seems
North Americans were much more
familiar with this "Mario" hack than
the original.

   'The "Great Giana Sisters" game was
apparently pulled from the shelves
after Nintendo sued the maker (or
threatened). It was just [too] close
to the original, which is why this
Mario hack is able to look so
authentic.'

    Now for the real question: Will we
get sued over this? Not if the lawyers
looks first into our bank account!
Besides, Nintendo has bigger fish to
fry, right! We are too small to be
even a blip on the radar. Does this
make us Copyright Terrorists? Depends
on whether you own the Nintendo
company or not. I prefer "Copyright
Freedom Fighters!"

    The game is designed for PAL, so
you will see some flickering, but it
does not affect the game. Emulator
users may want to switch to PAL mode.
And, as you might expect, the program
does not return to Basic.

    Here it is -- a great blast from
the past, as bright and shiny as the
day it was first distributed.

 DMM