CPCWiki forum

Hello,

As you may know, Orion Prime has been released as a Packaged version in French, in both 3,5" and 3". The free DSKs release will be available on September, 28th.

We intend to release the game in English, German and Spanish. But we are wondering whether or not we will release it on 3".

Why ? First of all, nowadays 3" are not as reliable as 3,5", the drives are also getting old, so we really want to avoid having to send disks again if a user can't read what we duplicated. And we really want to avoid you having to send us your disks, because what will happen if we fail to copy the game if we find corrupted sectors ? Waste of time and money for both parties.

The duplication is also slower, the tool I made use multiple checks to ensure all went well. Orion Prime is only on one 3,5" disk, but two 3", so it doubles the time to make a copy. We also have to make extra care not to make a mistake when filling the package with the right disk. So that's a lot of time spent for us because of this release.

And last, but not least, are there people wanting the game still having a 3", and not having a 3,5" ? In France we have plenty of people who ordered the 3" only to have it, but plays on the 3,5" disk they also ordered. They keep the first as some kind of treasure :). We don't create games for collectors. We'd like to, but we duplicate the games one by one. No time for that. We rather concentrate on gamers.

But our decision hasn't been taken for now, hence this poll.

Just to add some information :
- The 3,5" release is MUCH more comfortable to play with. No side switching is EVER needed, the 80 tracks and both sides being used by our state-of-the-art loader (yeah :) ). And the ending is also extended, since we had more room.
- The 3" DSKs will still be released, so if you really want the game on 3", you can still have it. But HOW will you transfer the game on 3" without having a 3,5", that a wonder I really want to know about (I'm serious) !

Please spread the link of this poll to any user you know that wouldn't read this forum, whether he speaks english, spanish or german !

Thanks and see you soon,
Targhan/Arkos.

Quote from: Targhan on 09:57, 27 September 09
- The 3" DSKs will still be released, so if you really want the game on 3", you can still have it. But HOW will you transfer the game on 3" without having a 3,5", that a wonder I really want to know about (I'm serious) !

I always have a 3" FD-I connected to my PC.
So, my PC does not have a 3,5" drive. (my CPC has an external 3,5" drive, so I can also use 3,5" disks.)

CPCDiskXP works very fine with connected 3" drive @ PC.

(http://cpc.devilmarkus.de/PICT0059.jpg)(http://cpc.devilmarkus.de/PICT0064.jpg)

Wow :). Well, you must be the only one who has such setup, I bet :).

Quote from: Targhan on 11:58, 27 September 09
Wow :). Well, you must be the only one who has such setup, I bet :).

I don't think so...
I was often asked how to connect the 3" FD-I to PC and it's quite simple:
- Open 3" drive case
- Disconnect 5v cable from power supply to cable interface
- Close it
- Connect it to PC using a normal floppy cable
- Declare it as 5,25" drive in BIOS setup

- Download CPCDiskXP
- Install low-level floppy driver (In CPCDiskXP package)
- Have fun

Only sad thing:
WinAPE does not work with it :(
Hope, Richard can fix that.
Maybe with useage of the same low-level floppy driver, which is used in CPCDiskXP?!?

Quote from: Targhan on 09:57, 27 September 09
- The 3,5" release is MUCH more comfortable to play with. No side switching is EVER needed, the 80 tracks and both sides being used by our state-of-the-art loader (yeah :) ). And the ending is also extended, since we had more room.

Normally I would have voted 3", but if the 3,5" release is actually better why bother.

How about putting a 3" disc label in the box as well? So people can make an original looking 3" disc themselfes.

regards,
Andreas Micklei

On a 3.5" is just more space, and like I know these guys, they will use every bit on it ;-) Can't wait for the german release :-)

Quote from: Devilmarkus on 12:30, 27 September 09
Only sad thing:
WinAPE does not work with it :(
Hope, Richard can fix that.
Maybe with useage of the same low-level floppy driver, which is used in CPCDiskXP?!?

WinAPE does use the same driver as CPCDiskXP, FDRAWCMD.SYS. If this is installed on the machine, WinAPE can read and write floppies directly under Windows XP (not sure if it also works under Vista). I haven't implemented the Read ID command to use it though, so you must select the correct format and it only supports standard formats and those supported by ParaDOS.

Although I haven't tried it myself with a 3" drive, I quite often use WinAPE to assemble code directly to 3.5" disc using the write direct "a:filename" command.

Richard

Release the game in English already...  ;)

I used to have an external 3" drive connected to my old Pentium or Pentium II or something, but at some point, with the OS upgrades, the low-level driver stopped working. The hardware setup was really easy actually, but software is another issue. Markus, what OS are you running?

On the matter at hand: I'd buy both the 3" and 3.5" version. But, as Targhan correctly points out, I'd only buy the 3" version just to have it :D Otherwise, I've got two 3.5" drives.

Really, it'd be nice. But if it's too much trouble, then....

Btw, could I have a 3" version if I promised not to send it back if it's problematic? :D

Quote from: Gryzor on 06:55, 13 October 09Markus, what OS are you running?

ASUS P5KPL-AM board, Intel P-IV 3 ghz dual core CPU, 2GB ram,
Windows XP Professional

Quote from: Devilmarkus on 12:30, 27 September 09
I don't think so...
I was often asked how to connect the 3" FD-I to PC and it's quite simple:
- Open 3" drive case
- Disconnect 5v cable from power supply to cable interface
- Close it
- Connect it to PC using a normal floppy cable
- Declare it as 5,25" drive in BIOS setup

- Download CPCDiskXP
- Install low-level floppy driver (In CPCDiskXP package)
- Have fun

Only sad thing:
WinAPE does not work with it :(
Hope, Richard can fix that.
Maybe with useage of the same low-level floppy driver, which is used in CPCDiskXP?!?

Thanks for the tips !

So if I understand correctly, that way you can transfer cpc roms downladed from the internet and play them on a real cpc ?

I would like to buy Orion Prime (in English!) on 3" discs because I have a 6128+ and no 3.5" drive for it.

But if you supplying the 3" discs is not possible then:

1) I could send you the four 3" discs for the game or
2) You send it with the DSK images on a CD-R (and maybe some 3" disc labels) and I transfer it with my parallel cable - this way I still get all the packaging etc.

Redbox... i'm not sure if I've understood this correctly, but from what I've heard, the Plus version doesn't look as good as the stock CPC version. If you can afford a 3.5" disk drive it'll give your CPC a new lease of life, really is worth the investment.