BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => General BattleTech Discussion => Topic started by: Fear Factory on 06 June 2020, 21:01:20
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Amazingly, not a topic bashing the program!
I do have a question... what is the oldest version of the program we can get? Did it start on Windows 3.1 and work it's way up?
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The oldest version that I'm aware of was written for Win95/98 and released in 1999. I still have the 3.5" floppy disk around somewhere.
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The oldest version that I'm aware of was written for Win95/98 and released in 1999. I still have the 3.5" floppy disk around somewhere.
That is so cool.
Is there anyway to get a hold of this? Maybe Rick has it laying around?
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I found the disk. The label says it's version 4.00 for Windows, so there may have been an earlier Win3.1 version. As far as availability, you'd need to contact Rick. The oldest version for sale on his site is the most recent one from around 2007.
http://www.heavymetalpro.com/contact_us.htm
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That is so cool. I sent a message... hopefully I'll get something.
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for your own retrotech PC build?
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for your own retrotech PC build?
Either that, or through a virtual PC or emulator.
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if you have one that runs on DOS you may run it under dosbox
and i was able to run it under campatibility mode on windows ultimate but not pro
did not try windows 10
but ...one of my friends got it run on linux box running windows emulation....
i still have the software somewhere not sure which version
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Either that, or through a virtual PC or emulator.
I admire that; going back to a version of windows you can trust.
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Amazingly, not a topic bashing the program!
I do have a question... what is the oldest version of the program we can get? Did it start on Windows 3.1 and work it's way up?
I don't remember there being an official mech editor for the PC in the 3.x days. I remember using one that you plugged the sheet details into a formatted text file and it would generate you a record sheet based on it, and that was pretty good for the time, but of course you had to still design the mechs yourself with a spreadsheet or pen and paper.
The big Record Sheet books (3026&3026, 3050, 3055&3058) had a note in the front about an official editor for Mac, but not PC.
According to the HMP website, Rick Raisley developed the first version of the software for DOS in 1993, started discussing the idea of licensing it with FASA in 1994 but they wanted a windows native version, which he initially submitted to them in 1995. The first licensed version of Heavy Metal came out in 1998.
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I believe there was noting official, pre-Rick; I only half-remember something for Quarto Pro, in the '90s, found at cons.
My ancient MyCalc sheet didn't handle crits, ever, so … :-\
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I admire that; going back to a version of windows you can trust.
The only version Windows I can actually "trust" is NT... That OS did more than a six month deployment with me and only required TWO reboots...
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I don't remember there being an official mech editor for the PC in the 3.x days. I remember using one that you plugged the sheet details into a formatted text file and it would generate you a record sheet based on it, and that was pretty good for the time, but of course you had to still design the mechs yourself with a spreadsheet or pen and paper.
The big Record Sheet books (3026&3026, 3050, 3055&3058) had a note in the front about an official editor for Mac, but not PC.
According to the HMP website, Rick Raisley developed the first version of the software for DOS in 1993, started discussing the idea of licensing it with FASA in 1994 but they wanted a windows native version, which he initially submitted to them in 1995. The first licensed version of Heavy Metal came out in 1998.
Heavy Metal was the first official software I believe.
I remember when the Champions Blue Book came with a character generation program insider the cover, that was crazy for the time!
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Heavy Metal was the first official software I believe.
I wouldn't tell you if the Mac software they advertised in the old Record Sheet books ever actually got released, it just sticks out to me because back then it frustrated my friends and I - who used Macs outside of designers? The HMP about page claims that another person worked on an official PC-based one before Raisley but the project fell apart, so it's definitely a thing that was on FASA's radar by the mid-90s.
I remember when the Champions Blue Book came with a character generation program insider the cover, that was crazy for the time!
I had a similar feeling when I saw friends' copies of the B5Wars rules and ships compilations that came with bundled CDs of the contents as PDFs
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The previous one was The Drawing Board. I remember trying to find out back in the day what happened to it, but I never found concrete info, just a vague note by the programmer on their (now almost certainly dead) website.
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There were a number before the drawing board like BMD and mechworks. I didn’t get into the game until after windows-based designers were plentiful so I never used any of the DOS ones more than as a curiosity.
Sarna has a number of them in the downloads section but they’re incompatible with modern systems for the most part
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Grab some damn off-lease system (https://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=4294967292+519&sortby=pricelow) running a 32-bit OS …
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I believe there was noting official, pre-Rick; I only half-remember something for Quarto Pro, in the '90s, found at cons.
My ancient MyCalc sheet didn't handle crits, ever, so … :-\
I used to use MechEd, back in the day. It didn't do all the calculations, but was easy enough to use.
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I wouldn't tell you if the Mac software they advertised in the old Record Sheet books ever actually got released, it just sticks out to me because back then it frustrated my friends and I - who used Macs outside of designers?
Well as I come from a family of and married into another family with teachers, I got into Mac early on 8). I might still have one on 1 of the 24+ year old laptop I use for gaming. Not that they still can connect to a printer anymore.