Commander Keen VI "The Humble Guys" release?

[TomVDJ]

Hey all, I'm new here and don't know if my question is actually allowed, since it's a question about a very specific pirated version of Commander Keen VI: Aliens ate my Babysitter.

As a kid I had Commander Keen 4 & 5 original, but I had a pirated version of 6. It was a realease by release group "The Humble Guys" who also released games like Lemmings, Prince of Persia, etc... I'm now recreating the "universe" I had as a kid, and those Humble Guys releases are part of it. But my floppy AND the backup floppy of this particular Commander Keen VI release are failing. On one disk I was able te recover the .NFO file that was included, but all other files are unreadable.

So now I'm looking for this specific "The Humble Guys" release of Commander Keen VI, but can not find it anywhere online. Is there someone here that has this specific release with the .Bat file and .NFO file etc that was included? I realize the game is exactly the same, but just for "historically completeness" I'd really like to have a copy again of "The Humble Guys" version of Commander Keen VI. If someone here could help me, that would be fantastic! So thanks in advance!

[dark]

If you haven't yet, download the windows program "badcopy" and see if it can retrieve the files from the disk you have. I had great luck using it and a USB floppy drive on a modern pc to get files off ancient disks that otherwise didn't display anything in Windows explorer and otherwise seemingly couldn't be read.

I also had good luck using a real 30+ year old disk drive and dos on an ancient computer to get files off a particular disk that badcopy was telling me were fully corrupt or otherwise couldn't get any files off of. If you live nearby or would like to send me your disks I could give that a shot.

If you have it on an old HDD and the HDD is not mounting in Windows explorer and is damaged, I had really good luck with the program dmde to retrieve files from damaged hdds. Heartily recommend it. Just connect the HDD to your modern PC with one of those cheap USB to ide adapters.

Sometimes just trying the floppy read method 30+ times will eventually get you one instance of things working out and you being able to get the files off. I bet there's still a shot you can get what you need off your disks.

Was there a cracktro or anything else that made this release interesting or distinct compared to other cracked keen 6 copies?

[TomVDJ]

Thanks for the suggestions. I only have an external USB floppy drive. I tried bad copy, but it can not even read the file table of one floppy and of the other one, it tells me only the .NFO file is recoverable.

I don't remember if it had a cracktro, to be honest. I'm pretty sure other THG releases had one (I also had Lemmings and Golden Axe, for instance. Those floppies were still readable and these had cracktro's).

So if someone would just have a copy of that release, along with the .NFO file and possible cracktro (or an ohmygod!.doc file maybe, as this was included with some other THG releases too), that would be great.

[dark]

Over on this topic, https://pckf.com/viewtopic.php?t=17901 there is some discussion about a hundreds of gb archive from a 90s pirate BBS. Cracked versions of Keen 6 are in there, however looking at the file descriptions, it might be from a group called Fairlight, and maybe another crack is from a group called INC... So no THG version here. However, there are many other non-Commander Keen games in the archive where the file list says "THG", so if you were looking for the nostalgia of a THG cracktro or bragging document, maybe one of those pirate copies of non-Keen games will have what you are looking for. The problem is that you might need to download the entire ginormous archive to get the files you might be looking for... but if you're very motivated, I'm sure you can do it

[TomVDJ]

Thanks for the tip! Indeed the Fairlight release is the most common cracked one out there. Luckily that huge archive has an index, so I could just download the zips that seem interesting. There are a few that are just listed as "KEEN IN ALIENS ATE MY BABYSITTER", without the 6 or VI. Might be possible that it's one of these. I'll take a look. Seems like this particular THG release was not distributed a lot. Strange...

[TomVDJ]

And got it! The Keen6C release in that archive is the one! No cracktro. Only a KEEN6.NFO file, a (BBS) LEGAL.NFO file and a DAMNSPAM.DOC document for Spam Land, the Humble Guys Member Board.

For those interested (probably nobody but me ), the correct file is KEEN6C.ZIP, located in ibm0050.tar (so in ibm0050-0059.zip).

For reference purposes:

The index I used can be found here: https://archive.org/details/ibm-lists-details
The archive itself can be found here: https://archive.org/details/ibm-wgam-wbiz-collection

It's indeed HUGE (Half a terrabyte), so better use the index (badly structured CSV file, so I recommand just opening it in notepad++ or something), find what you want, and only download the specific zips and tars. (tar can be opend by winrar, BTW. Winzip can also unpack these.)

Huge thank you, dark! Your directions were really helpful!

[dark]

So what does this stuff look like, any funny bragging or bravado in the crack documents?

[TomVDJ]

Nope, just a simple KEEN6.NFO file with not a lot of content:

Code: Select all

              Commander Keen VI: Aliens Ate My Babysitter
                           by Apogee Software

Cracking: Simple Doc Check
Graphics: VGA/EGA/CGA
Controls: Keyboard/Joystick/Moose
Sound:    Squeaker/Adlib

Cracking Notes:
   Ooh, Apogee resorts to COPY PROTECTION!  Wow..  Here's Yet Another Commander
   Keen Game!

                                                      -Mad

The Humble Guys are:
   Fabulous Furlough, NightWriter, The Slavelord, Eddie Haskell, Predator,
   Mr. Plato, Fletcher Christian, BamBam, Lord Zombie, Black Plague, Sauron,
   The PieMaN (George), And The Mad Scientist.

                                 ┌─────────────────┐
                                 │The Humble Boards│
         ┌───────────────────────┴─────────────────┴──────────────────────┐
Members  │The Slave Den               (904) 331-1038  The Slavelord       │
         │SpamLand (3 nodes)          (508) 831-0131  Eddie Haskel        │
         │Plato's Place (6 nodes)     (618) 254-5263  Mr. Plato           │
         │The P.I.T.S. (5 Nodes)      (718) THE-PITS  The PieMaN          │
         │HMS Bounty (3 nodes)        (XXX) XXX-XXXX  Fletch              │
         │Iron Fortress               (XXX) XXX-XXXX  Predator            │
Boards   │DownTown                    +31-5750-29313  BamBam              │
         │The Inferno                 (416) 841-1933  Black Plague        │
         ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
Dist.    │Elusive Dream               (317) 452-1257  The Toyman          │
         │The Ice Castle              +47   XXX-XXXX  The Iceman          │
Sites    │Black Ice                   (904) 377-1325  Chaos               │
         │Dark Data Security          +39 2 29519751  Tom Cat             │
         │Skull Island                (514) 647-3096  Skoal Bandit        │
         │Concrete Sea                (901) 274-0019  Razor Face          │
         │Cloud Nine Elite            (XXX) XXX-XXXX  Nimbus              │
         │The Demon's Forge           +44-282-22514   Bryn Rogers         │
         │The Toy Box                 (614) 436-9863  Totally Insane      │
         │Big City Lights             (XXX) XXX-XXXX  The Hook            │
         │The Rose Garden(The Den)    (XXX) XXX-XXXX  Hal 9000            │
         │The Eclipse BBS             (XXX) XXX-XXXX  The Mustang         │
         └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

And this is the DAMNSPAM.DOC file:

Code: Select all

                  ╔═════════©
                  ║  ┌───À  │  Humble Guys Member Board
                  ║  │   Ë──┘ ╔═════© ╔══════© ╔═══════©
                  ║  È══════© ║ ┌─À │ ║ ┌──À │ ║ ┌À ┌À │
                  Ë──────À  │ ║ È═╝ │ ║ È══╝ │ ║ │║ │║ │
                  ╔══©   ║  │ ║ ┌───┘ ║ ┌──À │ ║ │Ë─┘║ │
                  ║  È═══╝  │ ║ │     ║ │  ║ │ ║ │   ║ │
                  Ë─────────┘ Ë─┘     Ë─┘  Ë─┘ Ë─┘   Ë─┘
                  ╔════©          1 gig - 2 DS/HST nodes
                  ËÀ  ┌┘           *** 508-???-???? ***
                   ║  │       ╔══════© ╔════©╔═© ╔══════©
                   ║  │       ║ ┌──À │ ║ ┌À │║ │ ËÀ ┌─À │
                   ║  │       ║ È══╝ │ ║ │║ │║ │  ║ │ ║ │
                   ║  │   ╔═© ║ ┌──À │ ║ │║ │║ │  ║ │ ║ │
                  ╔╝  È═══╝ │ ║ │  ║ │ ║ │║ È╝ │ ╔╝ È═╝ │
                  Ë─────────┘ Ë─┘  Ë─┘ Ë─┘Ë────┘ Ë──────┘
                    NaPE EchoNet Hub  -  Sysops Services

Too bad they did not include a cracktro for this one, because they made some pretty nice ones for other games (Lemmings, Prince of Persia, etc...).

Also no .bat file for Keen 6. Makes sense, because the bat files most of the time just launched a cracktro and then the game. Since this one does not have a cractro, a bat file would not make a lot of sense...

[dark]

"by Apogee Software"

I wonder what these guys like Slavelord, Lord Zombie, PieMan, etc. are doing in 2024. Must be in their 50s or 60s by now.

[TomVDJ]

In my search for this release I came across a blog of Fabulous Furlough and an interview with the guy... Indeed they are in their 60's, I guess. But they gave me a lot of fun when I was young. Games were VERY expensive and I guess all of us had quite a lot of pirated games back then...

[dark]

Could you share the link to the blog? Ought to be interesting.

[TomVDJ]

Sure: http://fabulousfurlough.blogspot.com . Looks like he stopped blogging in 2020, though.

[dark]

There was also a wiki entry for the humble guys. It mentioned a few of the notable members died of heart disease in the 00s and 10s. Sounded like quite an operation for the time. This kind of hidden history of early 90s piracy is fun to learn about.