[Ohrrpgce] More sleuthing into the first OHR release

Wed May 17 21:48:08 PDT 2017

the internet had a lot more tildes and "/cgi-bin/" in the urls back then

On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 4:27 PM, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com>
wrote:

> I remember I made that whole site in a text editor and tested it only with
> Lynx. Netscape wouldn't run on my computer back then
>
>
> On Monday, May 15, 2017, Michael Kidder <mkidder at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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 have been archived anyway)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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>>>>>> amster.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>
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