talkmagic.co.uk

Inspired by the Egyptology 101 thread in Miscellaneous, I thought I'd make a couple of non-magical Egypt-related recommendations (but who knows: they might get your creative juices flowing if you're planning an Egyptology-themed show).

For example, I'd like to mention P. S. Neeley's downloadable reconstruction of Senet, the ancient Egyptian board game. It's a very simple game (actually, nobody knows for sure how it was played), but playing it provides you with an experience of history. (Advice: don't bother downloading the game Mehen from the same site, as the implementation is virtually unplayable.)

Also, I wonder if anyone here is into eighties computer games nostalgia. If so, my favourite computer game of the eighties was The Seven Spirits of Ra, which is an adventure game themed after the legend of Osiris. You can still play it today if you're willing to take the following three steps: (1) download, install, and learn to use the Dosbox emulator; (2) download a functional copy of the game itself; (3) download and read the instruction manual (which contains a goldmine of information on Ancient Egyptian religion).

I actually provide all the links you need myself, including my own copy of the instruction manual. Now, if you're thinking of the dreaded word copyright, let me point out that the programmers have stated in public that they're happy for the game to be distributed free, and that the relevant publishing companies no longer exist and are impossible to contact. There is no conceivable way that copying this game from twenty years ago is going to deprive anyone of any money, and as the programmers themselves say "I suppose it's OK to distribute free", that's good enough for me.

Please add your favourite Egypt-related links. (Or, I suppose, your favourite eighties computer games. Could go either way.)

Dos box 2.0 is great I must agree with Mr Morgan.

I can't get the game to work after downloading it.

monker59 wrote:I can't get the game to work after downloading it.

What exactly happens? PM the details if you like.

On the suject of 80s computers my Dad phoned me up t'other day asking if I wanted any stuff that he'd cleared out of the attic. I asked him what treasures he was proffering, he said "Some Jennings books and the old dartboard and an extension lead, I think it works, and the Amstrad."

The Amstrad! I was round there faster than Greedoniz to a Bertrand Russell lecture. Now I'm the proud owner of a vintage but fully operational Amstrad CPC 464 with a pile of tapes and magazines and a manual that tells me how to program in BASIC, should I ever get bored of pushing lit matches under my fingernails and wish to spend three weeks of my life writing a Pong imitation that then fails to run due to a 'syntax error'.

My favourite games are Target Renegade, any of the Dizzys and Operation Wolf. Also Daley Thompson's Olympic Games but I can't play that because all the events require you to wiggle the joystick furiously from side to side and thus break at least one every time you play, and I've only got one as it is.

bronz wrote:The Amstrad! I was round there faster than Greedoniz to a Bertrand Russell lecture. Now I'm the proud owner of a vintage but fully operational Amstrad CPC 464 with a pile of tapes and magazines and a manual that tells me how to program in BASIC, should I ever get bored of pushing lit matches under my fingernails and wish to spend three weeks of my life writing a Pong imitation that then fails to run due to a 'syntax error'.

My dad taught me BASIC. And showed me a game he wrote himself. Kind of like space invaders.
We spent 9 hours punching the whole thing in and it refused to run. We did some kind of BASIC wizardry to find out which lines were wrong. Turns out we got one number wrong on one line. 9 hours to be told we couldn't play this damn game because of an incorrect bloody number!

Anyway, we finally sorted the stupid number out and started the game.
It was pretty good fun actually! Although after playing for about 2 minutes we had a power cut.

9 Hours of my life that I'll never ever get back. Sigh.