Now what do we have here...a beta!

Here, you can get help with anything or just chat about the original Commander Keen games.
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KeenRush
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Post by KeenRush »

Great find! So that's a small piece of original Keen 1 code? :eek :foot :dead2

This is something I just talked about with someone -- that maybe there could be some source code in there as well. And so it seems. Are you sure there isn't any more? Imagine it if we had found the complete source of the beta from that disk...
My newest mod - Commander Keen: Sunset: viewtopic.php?t=8568 | codename H.Y.E.N.A.
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Roobar
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Post by Roobar »

Wow! All this is so cool and exciting! Great find Litude! It feels like we're doing science here ;). Like we've just made a major discovery. An important DNA code ;). Small, but important step for the keeneversity :).
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Post by Calvero »

Another difference between this version and version 1.0/1.31:
When you run the game on a computer without an EGA or VGA card you get a different message:
New beta version:
Sorry, you need an EGA or VGA graphic card to play Commander Keen.
Buy one!
Version 1.0 and version 1.31:
Hey, I don't see an EGA or VGA card here! Do you want to run the program
anyway (Y = go ahead, N = quit to dos) ?
Is it just me or does it hang the computer in version 1.31 when you see this message? I tried it in DOSBox with the machine=cga setting.


That "Buy one!" message reminds me of another message that you get when you try to run an id Software program on a computer that doesn't meet the system requirements: When you try to run TED5 level editor when you don't have a mouse installed, it says "Only REAL developers have a mouse!".


Also the ending message when you are back in DOS is a bit different.
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DaVince
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Post by DaVince »

This is so cool. Wish there were even more differences! :drool
Found another difference:

- The game save dialog doesn't show the "you can continue later" message after saving.
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Calvero
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Post by Calvero »

KeenRush wrote:Great find! So that's a small piece of original Keen 1 code? :eek :foot :dead2
Until we get the whole source code, I can't be sure.
KeenRush wrote:This is something I just talked about with someone -- that maybe there could be some source code in there as well. And so it seems. Are you sure there isn't any more? Imagine it if we had found the complete source of the beta from that disk...
I'm pretty sure there isn't any more. You could investigate it on your own by downloading the disk image, opening it with a hex editor and looking for readable text.
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Levellass
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Post by Levellass »

Great find! So that's a small piece of original Keen 1 code?
Those are the names found in the SOUNDS.CK1 file, this may be something to do with building that, as KEEN1.EXE doesn't have the sound names in it.
Wow! All this is so cool and exciting! Great find Litude! It feels like we're doing science here Wink. Like we've just made a major discovery. An important DNA code Wink. Small, but important step for the keeneversity
Note just the keeniversity, but the entire KEENIVERSE!

The EXE doesn't seem to be compressed at all? What makes you think it is?
Every other one I've seen was. An uncompressed one takes me completely aback. Good gracious! I guess they compressed the EXE for the release, is any Keen release NOT compressed like this one is?

As an aside, the EXE actually contains LESS $00 than the decompressed 1.31 EXE. (The game stores stuff in that space you know.)

On the subject of that beta... I don't really know how that works, but might it be possible in any way, to figure out which parts are uncorrupted of a file, for example egahead.ck1 and then try to replace those bytes in a egahead file of 1.0 or so, thus enabling us to see at least some graphics?
Possibly if the EGA's weren't LZW compressed. Since they are, they are likely to be almost impossible to reconstruct.

Not if you pm me the custom title you want.
Wait WHAT? :O
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KeenRush
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Post by KeenRush »

Levellass wrote:Those are the names found in the SOUNDS.CK1 file, this may be something to do with building that, as KEEN1.EXE doesn't have the sound names in it.
I think those are constants they used in the code (these definitions don't end up in the compiled product, just like other variable names don't) -- instead of doing something like 'playsound(37);' they did 'playsound(SHOTHITSND);'.
Levellass wrote:Wait WHAT? :O
If you have 314 posts and you've been a member for six months you can get a custom title if you ask for it (and it has to be Keenish, just to note).

Anyway, as for graphics, I think they probably were quite complete and as they are in latter versions. Just a hunch of course.
My newest mod - Commander Keen: Sunset: viewtopic.php?t=8568 | codename H.Y.E.N.A.
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_mr_m_
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Post by _mr_m_ »

This is a great find! Thanks for sharing with us!
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Post by DOSGuy »

Don't bother mirroring on public sites like MegaUpload, I've added keenbeta_restored.zip to the Keen 1 page on Classic DOS Games. I normally only publish betas if they were publicly available, and this beta was (accidentally) publicly available. It wasn't leaked, but was released on one of Softdisk's own shareware disks, which they encouraged people to share in its entirety.

I'm using the full beta disk instead of the Keen 1-only disk even though Keen 2 can't be legally distributed because, a) I think the whole thing is worth preserving, and b) Keen2.exe doesn't work anyway, and c) to whatever extent the corrupted files might allow someone to build a copy of Keen 2, it was nevertheless on a disk that Softdisk distributed to the public.

Awesome initiative running an undelete program on Calvero's disk image! If anything else gets recovered, I'll update the file on my site.
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tulip
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Post by tulip »

Oh you're that guy with that cool dos game site... I downloaded quite some things from your site already, I like your site because it has always more information than other sites of that kind... Now I'm sure you're is the only site of that kind that has the Keen beta.
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Roobar
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Post by Roobar »

Off topic, I tried to play some games online on www.classicdosgames.com, but they're too fast. Also, it may have info, but it doesn't have videos or enough images. But anyway, this is other topic.
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

My playing of this has been very belated. I'm loving the subtle differences that didn't make it into the final cut (different yorp monologue, vorticon BwB cutscene). Is it just me, or does the story text scroll TOO FAST when pushing the arrow keys? I have to fritter around pushing up and down a million times to get past to huge chunks of text it skipped over.

Also, I'm not very far into it, and I noticed I've racked up A LOT of lives. Where did they all come from? I would've only expected to have 4 or 5 by that point, but they it already overflows the amount of keens it will show you and I only died twice.

Were the die signs near the pat pats always there? I haven't played in a long while, so maybe they might have been, but I'm just noticing them now as if they weren't there in the final version.
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thehackercat
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Post by thehackercat »

This is way too awesome to be true! :drool

To think that now we can reverse-engineer things like that.. Wow. I feel like I'm dating myself, and I wasn't even born when this happened.

Anyway, I'm playing it now. HOLY GARG! That cutscene is neat! Why oh why did they get rid of it?

I vote for somebody more technically apt than me to FIND that code, dissect it, and place it inside another Keen EXE. Then we can mod it! The possibilities are ENDLESS... :dopekeen :drool

EDIT: We could also do a mod similar to DDICI, where we import that beta title screen and such. :D
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Roobar
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Post by Roobar »

thehackercat wrote: Anyway, I'm playing it now. HOLY GARG! That cutscene is neat! Why oh why did they get rid of it?
I have a few guesses.

1. They didn't have enough time to make cut scenes for Keen 2 and 3 and decided to remove it completely.

2. They did have time, but they run out of ideas for cutscenes for Keen 2 and 3 and removed the one in keen 1.

3. For some reason, they didn't like much the one in keen 1 or were not satisfied with it and decided to remove it from the game.

4. Back in the days, file size was crucial. You have to put games in 5.25 disketes etc. If the cutscenes were taking a lot of space, they removed them to save some.

5. Tom was in a bad mood? :)
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Commander Spleen
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Post by Commander Spleen »

Also they may have realised it could become annoying if it played every time you went to the story screen, and didn't have the time or inclination to create a separate option to view it on its own.
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