Greetings!

I just read an incredible story about a port of Ultima 3 to the
Gameboy.

http://gonow.to/sven/

It seems that the author managed to figure out how to extract all the
map data and graphics data from the original game (by reading hex code)
and then he coded an engine to display that on the Gameboy.

He then contacted Richard Gariott himself to try to get some info about
the game logic, but unfortunately, Gariott didn't remember much of it.
The author then ran the entire code through a disassembler and began
tracking down the different data structures and it's relations.

He succeeded, and made a 100% port, with graphics and game logic of
Ultima 3 to the Gameboy.

I've mentioned my intent to port the games to the Palm platform
earlier. What got me inspired this time is the similarities between
this guys story and ours.

We also have all (most anyway) of the graphics from the games (courtesy
of Jim Norris' wonderfull AR disk viewer program) and Ken Jordan
provided us with the map data for The Dungeon (and the source to see
how it was done).

I have now put together two mock-up shots of how Alternate Reality
could be realized on the Palm (using 2-bit grayscale for compability):

http://user.tninet.se/~lan318o/alternate-reality/temp/

As you see, the Palm's screen is exactly 50% of the original Atari 8-
bit screen, although it's a bit shorter in height (hence the arrow on
the shop menu to signal that more options are availible). Even the font
(though severly cropped) is readable (and will be even moreso on the
Palm's LCD screen due to the high contrast).

As soon as I get my hands on Codewarrior for Palm, I will try to
implement parts of this screen (I'm still kinda lost on the 3d part...
full polys or raycasting?).

What I lack now is exactly the same thing as the author of the Ultima 3
port, namely game logic. This is probably the hardest part of all,
since there's quite a bit of difference between the simplicity of
Ultima and the complexity of AR.

The City is probably not a good canidate for porting. Why? The menus
are unlogical and the interface is very complex by todays standards.
This will confuse new players. The Dungeon does all this much better,
and also adds to almost everything in the game. I also know that The
Dungeon, although made in assembler, used an object-oriented approach.
Almost everything in the game was an object (ie. for those of you who
know programming, both money, torches, food, weapons and even spells
could be seen to be of the same "class").

In addition to that, the PC version of The City, which would seem the
easiest to dissasemble, is no good at all, since it's infact, in part,
an emulated Atari ST version (dig it). This leaves only the 8-bit
Dungeon games, and who knows Commodore or Atari assembly language?
Surely not me.

This I know of The Dungeon: Everything is encrypted, but it was an easy
to break pattern, so the disks should be readable once that's out of
the way. The only machine specific code in it, is a basic operating
system. Everything on top of that is written in Merlin assembler, using
the same code for all platforms. I do believe that if someone with a
bit of know-how asks specific questions to Ken Jordan or Dan Pinal,
they will be able to answer them.

I didn't get any response the last time, and haven't had any time to
work on the project either. But I feel very inspired now (I may even
contact the Gameboy Ultima 3 author and discuss things), so I'll ask
again. Is there anyone who can lend assistance in this matter?

Graphics and interface will probably be handled by me. The large part
in which I need to help is disassembly or hacking of any version of The
Dungeon (Apple, C64 or Atari). Let me know if you are interested!

Sincerely, Robert Hagenstrom

Ps. someone will probably ask why I won't do a Gameboy port instead.

1) I don't own a gameboy (won't own one until International Karate 2000
is released).
2) The Gameboy's screen is even smaller than the PalmOS display,
despite color.
3) The Palm provides better means of input for this particular type of
game.
4) You will never be able to get a cart with the port for Gameboy, but
you will be able to Hotsync the PalmOS version to any Palm device.
5) I've never programmed for the Gameboy, and since it's a dying
format, which Palm isn't, I probably never will.