Home Coder: Lost Treasure Recovered
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Forgotten what amused your 12 year old self? Rediscover the pleasure of school boy gags and code with this lost game of the 1980s.
Matthew Hall‘s Microbee adventure game the “Jewels of Sancara Island” had survived the last thirty or so years as a Turbo Pascal listing has been resurrected by Alan Laughton from the Microbee Software Preservation Project.
Laughton OCRed the listing correcting any errors that crept in in the process before compiling it for the Microbee. Sadly part of the audio was missing so this version has no sound. Hall assures us that it is not a major loss to Australian Art history however Laughton, as a true conservationist, left no stone unturned in trying to address the issue before the compromise was made.
Download and Play
Files downloadable from the MSPP site
To play the game, download ubee512 emulator (for Windows or Linux), install. Get the 2 ROMs that are needed and put in ubee512/roms folder, then drop the jewels_of_sancara_island_ss80.dsk file into the ubee512disks folder from MSPP. Then in a DOS/Command box, CD to your ubee512 folder and just type in
ubee512 -a jewels_of_sancara_island_ss80.dsk
and it will boot up the same as if on a real ‘bee. Double click the Window to get to full screen, CAPS Lock on and your off and running.
A couple of commands that can help while playing that I found :
HELP will sometimes give you a clue.
? will give a list of Commands the game understands.
I will list your Inventory.
N S E W U P can be used for North, South, East, West, Up & Down.
QUIT lets you exit the game.
Alan