| Posted By
JamesC
on 2006-01-11
19:42:42
|  Gorf addition to the database
To whomever added "Gorf" to the database: I looked in my copy of "The Commodore Plus/4 Book" by Sarah Meyer, and did find your reference to Gorf.
However there are several inaccuracies in that book, and I imagine Ms. Meyer simply listed the software that marketing told her would be available.
I suggest changing the note of "Rare" to "Rumored", as I have not seen any other credible reference to this program being available for the Plus/4. (Like Wizard of Wor, nobody has a picture of a package, nor an executable for it.)
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Posted By
Luca
on 2006-01-11
20:15:15
 | Re: Gorf addition to the database
Probably you just know about this page.
Here we can see the Magic Voice device, and also we can read this:
Commodore also planned a variety of software that was supposed to work with the unit -- even cartridges could trigger speech thanks to a passthrough on top of the Magic Voice. Very few titles actually appeared, of course. The most famous Magic Voice-enabled title is the Wizard of Wor cartridge, which software-modifies the unit to speak, in a menacing male tone, utterances such as "your bones will lie in the Dungeons of Wor -- ha ha ha ha" and "my pets are getting hungry." Gorf was also billed as speech-ready, confirmed by David Vohs, who has successfully used the cartridge with his unit; when I demonstrated the Magic Voice at the Vintage Computer Festival, I also used Gorf. (By the way, the speech for Wizard of Wor gets reeeeeallly annoying quickly.) Nick Coplin has also found a cartridge called A, Bee, C's which *requires* the Magic Voice; it will not function without it. Commodore planned to turn this title into a series, but the announced sequels Spelling Bee and Counting Bee were apparently unreleased.
Could it be an hint?
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Posted By
Luca
on 2006-01-11
20:31:05
| Re: Gorf addition to the database
Simply googlin'a bit, I also spotted out this PDF.
If someone can translate german, probably at the very end they cite a ROM stuff called "Wizard of Wor"...
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2006-01-11
22:10:46
| Re: Gorf addition to the database
Magic Voice is for the C64. It plugs into the cartridge port.
The same book that mentioned Gorf for the Plus/4 also said that the Magic Voice would plug into the Plus/4... on the very next page after the Gorf reference! 
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2006-01-12
03:38:21
| Re: Gorf addition to the database
That German article that Luca linked gets this wrong. I mentions that apart from a few titles in the beginning (among which Wizard of Wor - obvious error, since it should be Jack Attack) all games had been released on tape.
It's funny though, in the las paragraph it talks about the unlicensed conversions of commercial C64 games by East European hobby programmers that took place in the early '90s and helped the platform to sort of survive its own commercial failure.
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Posted By
Plus4Vampyre
on 2006-01-12
05:19:00
 | Re: Gorf addition to the database
I added Gorf to the datasbase - @James you are right In the book "The Commodore Plus/4 Book" by Sarah Meyer, and did find your reference to Gorf, but in the book you can read it will be available. Please also have a look to your homepage  http://www.cbm264.com/cbm/flyer4.jpg in the last part "Recreation" you can also find the same information about Gorf.
I think its that same with 1942 and "Wiazard of Wor" is it rare or rumor? I think nobody have a copy of Wizard of Wor. Maybe some prototypes exists? Who knows it?
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2006-01-12
08:04:46
| Re: Gorf addition to the database
@Vampyre: In my opinion, a designation of "rare" should only be applied to a title that has been proven to exist. Nobody can prove that Gorf, Wizard of Wor, or 1942 existed on the TED platform.
Also note that the book pictures the wrong Hulk box: it displays the cartridge "pre-production" box rather than the diskette "production" box.
Hence, my suggested designation of "rumored" (="prototype" or "planned but never released" in the Rarity thread) for Gorf and Wizard of Wor. And I think someone finally got an answer from the publisher that 1942 was never released?
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2006-01-12
09:34:41
| Re: Gorf addition to the database
I agree with JamesC. When I created the rarity ratings, the first two are these:
- Extremely rare - No known copies
- Extremely rare
However (and this is the important bit), any pieces of software whose existence is not 100% confirmed will not be marked as a commercial release. I will create a new distro type besides Commercial/Freeware/As compilation/Type in and call that "Unconfirmed". So it won't have any release records. We can list them though, it will be cool to have all known info about a particular release on one page, even if it's unconfirmed. Maybe if someone comes around and wants to know info about Gorf, they will know what it is. Maybe we will have a visitor who actually has a copy.
So, you might ask, what is "Extremely rare - No known copies" for? It's for programs that we do know they existed - because we have the crack, or played with it, or have photos of it, but no-one (among us) has a copy. Example would be a whole bunch of Hungarian releases, like Botticelli for the moment. I know it exists, I've seen it in shops way back then, and of course many of us have used it, but right now, no official copy, no cover scan. That's what it's for. Apparently bubis has a copy somewhere though, so once he scans it/dumps it, it will become simply "Extremely rare".
Cool?
About 1942: I don't think anyone has gotten an answer yet. Or did I miss something?
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Posted By
Luca
on 2006-01-12
09:45:52
| Re: Gorf addition to the database
Yeph Csabo, two emails sent, no answer.
The new Elite site now has a little form in order to message them. I tried again just today, but...
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