Request: Arcturus disc images

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t.hunt
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Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 6:30 pm

Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by t.hunt »

Perhaps a long shot, but is there any chance I could get a copy of the Arcturus disc images, given I legitimately purchased the game many moons ago?

I'm currently holding my original disc 1 in my hand (no idea if it still works), disc 2 having long since been lost in numerous house moves. My A3010 with the Arcturus hard disc installation on it is sitting in pieces with a (now removed) burst CMOS battery and in need of much cleaning and soldering work.

(I also had an RPC Kinetic with all kinds of fun upgrades in it, but that got lost by my parents during one of their moves. *grumble grumble*)
JonAbbott
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Re: Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by JonAbbott »

I'm afraid the project doesn't have rights to distribute Oregan Software releases.

However, if you would like to help the project by tracking down the owners and pointing them in my direction, I'll ask for permission. I don't actually have any contact names for Oregan, so even finding names would help.
t.hunt
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Re: Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by t.hunt »

Sadly I'm just an end user who bought a copy and would like to play the game again under emulation.

I have no idea how you'd go about getting hold of the original authors. I couldn't find any trace of Armaxess, Thomas Alber or Oregan Software Developments. The German redistributors, Uffenkamp Computer Systeme, seem to still have the last dregs of a web page at http://www.ucs.de/ (contact details on: http://www.ucs.de/Impressum.html). Perhaps they're still about?

I'm guessing Oregan Software Developments weren't at all related to Oregan Networks (Oregano browser) - the former seems to have existed out of someone's front room in Sutton Coldfield, while the latter is still doing business in London.

Thanks for your help anyway.
t.hunt
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Re: Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by t.hunt »

Hang about...

Armaxess was Thomas Alber and Eduard Pfarr. According to a thread on comp.sys.acorn.apps (http://comp.sys.acorn.apps.narkive.com/ ... on-risc-os), Eduard has a web presence at https://sites.google.com/site/epfarr/ which looks to still be current. Again, contact details are on the Impressum page (https://sites.google.com/site/epfarr/impressum).
JonAbbott
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Re: Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by JonAbbott »

I need to get approval from the publishers, where they've reverted rights to the authors then author approval will be required.

Looking at Ian Jeffray's LinkedIn, I'd say Oregan Developments became Oregan Networks. I need to speak to Ian, so I'll drop him an eMail and ask if he knows any contact names I could speak too, I suspect if I just call them they won't have the slightest idea about games they published for the Archimedes.
richw
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Re: Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by richw »

Interesting that Ian has uploaded Burn Out here http://ian.jeffray.co.uk/riscos/BurnOut/
tompickering
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Re: Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by tompickering »

Did we ever manage to get any further in tracking down the rights holders to the Oregan titles at all?

I did manage to track down Thomas Alber some time ago, but he didn't have contact details for anyone at Oregan any more (though he did indicate that he himself would have no problem with granting Arcturus distribution rights to JASPP!).

One thing I've only just realised (thanks to the playlist at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uE02Bm ... PBLW7pWvRa ) was that it looks like Paradise Games collaborated with Oregan on a couple of titles (Burn' Out and Magnetoids). It looks like they might still have an online presence - long shot but might it be worth reaching out to them in case they still have any names or contact details on file? Happy to do that if so :) .
JonAbbott
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Re: Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by JonAbbott »

tompickering wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 1:55 pm Did we ever manage to get any further in tracking down the rights holders to the Oregan titles at all?
No. Mark Perry is a name I have for Oregan. I emailed his last known email address in 2018 but did not receive a reply.
tompickering wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 1:55 pm it looks like Paradise Games collaborated with Oregan on a couple of titles (Burn' Out and Magnetoids). It looks like they might still have an online presence - long shot but might it be worth reaching out to them in case they still have any names or contact details on file? Happy to do that if so :) .
Burn' Out is available on Ian Jeffray's site.
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IanJeffray
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Re: Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by IanJeffray »

Oregan was Mark Perry. I worked casually for him from about 1991 (starting as Arcaynia PD, becoming Oregan Developments when I wrote Archivist) to 1998. Good times. Oregan Networks formed out of Oregan Developments to do NC-based solutions and both effectively ran from Ashby de la Zouch for a time and was my first official job after graduating. Mark Perry is still Oregan (Networks) but the RISC OS stuff (Developments) was essentially forgotten soon after I finished there as NCs never "happened" and Oregano morphed in to the PS2 browser etc. I'm not surprised he's no interest in RISC OS stuff from over 20 years ago, nor have I had any contact since those days either.

I still have a nice collection of boxed copies of most Oregan titles as I created the installers and protection (sorry) for most of the desktop apps. I've just had a look and I also still have the 'source' for the installer and distro for Arcturus here - I should flatten it out! I was always disappointed with Arcturus though - what we originally saw was a working voxel buggy/truck demo that was gorgeous, so how that got turned in to a dull spinning diamond game, I'll never understand.

Paradise didn't 'collaborate' with Oregan though... the Burn 'Out team (3 of us) formed Paradise to create and sell RISC OS stuff independently after Oregan moved away from the games market. I've a dozen unfinished titles here still. One day... one day...
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IanJeffray
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Re: Request: Arcturus disc images

Post by IanJeffray »

I can't get my copies of Arcturus to run right now -- after the loader, the screen just remains black and the machine's locked solid. Bah.
Can't distrib the protected version as it checks for an unverifiable (unformatted) sector on the disk - need to botch that out.
Anyway, here's a copy of the contents of Disc2 which isn't protected and as the OP requested...
http://ian.jeffray.co.uk/riscos/ArctDisc2.zip
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