[Ohrrpgce] More sleuthing into the first OHR release

[Michael Kidder]

Yeah, the first time I ever downloaded it was off the cyberverse website. I
still vaguely remember what the site looked like back then even without
checking wayback.

On Fri, May 12, 2017 at 12:41 AM, Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On 12 May 2017 at 17:39, Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 12 May 2017 at 16:22, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I think the first release would have been a custom.zip uploaded to some
>>> location under http://www.cyberverse.com/~spam/ which was my site
>>> before the hamsterrepublic.com domain was ever registered. It probably
>>> happened in late 1996, or early 1997 and it would have been announced in an
>>> off-topic thread on the forums for the Verge RPG maker.
>>>
>>
>> Oh, interesting. I had a look on archive.org (in the beta version they
>> have a keyword search you can use to find all websites on a topic, but it
>> still missin
>>
> Err, it's still missing nearly all individual sites for OHR games. And I
> couldn't find any old verge forums (which would have been very unlikely to
> have been archived anyway)
>
>> But you mean late 1997/early 1998. The 20th anniversary of the first
>> release is still some time away. The 20th anniversary of the start of the
>> OHR was most of a year ago.
>>
>>
>>> I don't think sample.rpg and npc_tag.rpg existed in the first release,
>>> just wander.rpg
>>>
>>
>> In that case I'm inclined to guesstimate a release date of early Jan 1998
>> or Dec 1997.
>>
>>
>>> I know the BAM format pre-dates the ohrrpgce, and was first used for Bob
>>> the Hamster VGA... that was probably 1994 or 1995? I Think notate was from
>>> then too, so timestamps on notate-related files probably aren't helpful.
>>>
>>
>> But those files were touched within a month or two of the release, and I
>> thought there might have been a link, althogh you've almost certainly
>> forgotten that now.
>>
>>>
>>> I know development definitely started in 1996, in the summer after I
>>> graduated from high school. I know I didn't upload it for a while, and I
>>> think I uploaded wh_demo.zip a few months before uploading custom, but I
>>> really don't remember for sure.
>>>
>>> If I had to pick an arbitrary birth-day for the ohrrpgce, I would
>>> estimate that the 20th anniversary already happened at least a few months
>>> ago.
>>>
>>
>>> However, but brain is well known to be fuzzy, and I think that a better
>>> and more satisfying birthday would probably be whatever first release we
>>> actually still have hard evidence of, even if it isn't the actual first.
>>>
>>
>> In that case, might as well use Nov 6 1997, the Wandering Hamster demo,
>> which can still be downloaded and played. It wasn't the first release of
>> WH, though.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 8:35 PM, Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I haven't any new information, but am still trying to figure out when
>>>> the first release was. The 20th anniversary is coming up and maybe we
>>>> should pick a nominal point (period?) at which to celebrate. :)  There was
>>>> a WH demo on Nov 6 1997, so it was after that.
>>>>
>>>> I noticed that in the earliest source backup the zz_486.bat file, which
>>>> packages wh_demo.zip and custom.zip, has a timestamp of Jan 26  1998. I'm
>>>> guessing that this timestamp corresponds to a release, unless it's after
>>>> the first release and James was adding some new files. It includes
>>>> sample.rpg and npc_tag.rpg; would the first release have included those?
>>>> When was the HOWTO written? Also, cleanup.bat, to move files into import/
>>>> if the unzip didn't preserve folders, has a Jan 14 timestamp. The oldest
>>>> surviving .rpg file is April 30th.
>>>>
>>>> Other timestamps which might be relevant:
>>>>      1246  11-26-1997 17:06   IMPORT/DECOLD.BAM
>>>>     73980  11-27-1997 07:00   IMPORT/NOTATE.EXE
>>>>     30588  12-18-1997 20:19   IMPORT/PLAYBAM.EXE
>>>>     33414  01-15-1998 14:53   IMPORT/TEMPLATE.NOT
>>>>
>>>> Also, in an old custom.zip:
>>>>      1543  07-07-1996 12:47   ohrrpgce.mas
>>>> The Timeline article says OHRRPGCE development started in 1996.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> (Relatedly, I haven't spliced those two additional old backups of the
>>>> OHR source into the git log yet but will. This time I might use git-replace
>>>> instead of rewriting history.)
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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