At KansasFest in 2019, Mark Pelczarski (Penguin Software president) gave Brian Wiser a few boxes of disks for which he no longer had the equipment to read, but said that according to the labels, “There might be some interesting stuff on these,” wondering if the disks were still even readable and if anything could be extracted.
There was indeed “interesting stuff” on the disks that Brian preserved for the first time. Over several months, Brian archived the 5.25″ and 3.5″ disks, painstakingly converted documentation into a modern format, and collaborated with Mark. This collaboration included analysis of the disks, historical insights, and licensing. Beyond preserving the source code and graphics, the goal was to create a series of articles highlighting each program and capture some of the history with quotes from Mark. Saving these works of art and acknowledging the authors is very important to both Brian and Mark, along with making them available to future generations.
Releases of The Graphics Magician Painter 2.02 (Double Hi-Res / ProDOS) and Comprehend adventure development system are being coordinated with Mark Pelczarski, and those programs will be released under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. And there are many other nifty surprises coming! Thank you Mark! 🙂 Click on the pictures below to read about each program, and the disks to download the software.
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 |  | Graphics Magician Painter 2.02 Double Hi-Res / ProDOS Printed Manual & Disk COMING in 2023 | COMPREHEND Adventure Development System Printed Manual & Disk COMING in 2023 |
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