More goodies from Romero (DoomEd source, maps, graphics)

Vorpal said:

Any chance of getting our hands on that dd image?

As it appears theres no proprietary id software data on there, I would say yes (I wouldn't release any such data into the wild without their permission)... but since it has NextStep OS on it (and bootable to it), that's "technically" tech owned by Apple... so that's questionable, though its abandonware.

If moderators allow it, I'll post link to the dd image. If not, you're out of luck, sadly.

Vorpal said:

Any chance of getting our hands on that dd image?

From what I've seen it's not worth bothering with. It's pretty much just a fresh NeXTStep install.

It looks like the disk was cleanly (re-?)installed in late 1998. If there was ever anything interesting on there it was overwritten by a disk re-format. A simple 'strings and grep' on the dd image found nothing of interest, so there's nothing that was deleted and hiding in unallocated space.

The /etc/fstab file referenced a disk that was once mounted on a mount point named /monster. NeXTStations had a SCSI2 port on the back, so it could have been an external hard drive or a CD drive. I read an article that said the limited disk space could be restrictive (seems the internal drive was only ~400MB) and recommended attaching an external disk. Would make sense.

My guess is that either that machine was never used for id development, or if it was, the interesting stuff was on a separate disk, and Romero reformatted the internal drive after he left id.

fraggle said:

A simple 'strings and grep' on the dd image found nothing of interest, so there's nothing that was deleted and hiding in unallocated space.

Ah ok, this was pretty much my interest.

Still, it'd be a cool historical image to have ;-)

fraggle said:

My guess is that either that machine was never used for id development, or if it was, the interesting stuff was on a separate disk, and Romero reformatted the internal drive after he left id.

I'll also add, while the model number of the Seagate drive matches what would have been installed and shipped with a next station turbo color, the drive screws look like they've been removed before (with a screwdriver slightly too large for the phillips head mount holders). There's been RAM added to machine at one point, and the case has been opened before (clips that lock the case in plaace are cracked on the inside.

I agree with fraggle.

My best guess(es)? This is either just a personal machine of his that was never used, a spare that was never used at id, or a machine that was used but had a bigger harddrive at one point (and this OEM drive was stored as a spare) and the upgrade drive (which next allowed upto 4gb hdd) was swapped out and the oem placed back in before he listed it. Or it was wiped and reimaged (per the prior UFS partition records from testdrive) a long time ago.

Or he could have had a nostalgiac kick at somepoint, bought this machine from say, blackhole inc (a site that sells refurbed nextstations and hardware), never really used it, decided it was taking up space, and poof... sold it.

Oh, btw, vorpal, check your PM's.


EDIT: here are screenshots of logs and that reference fraggle discovered under ETC/FSTAB

http://s9.postimg.org/3stoxdxcf/monster.png
http://s9.postimg.org/viq9ybm6n/next1.png
http://s9.postimg.org/gcotl4ljj/next2.png
http://s9.postimg.org/e9eedglqn/next3.png
http://s9.postimg.org/ejlwwt0cv/next4.png
http://s9.postimg.org/den9dooi7/next5.png

Heh, that little NeXT cube looks more like the iMac of its era, and less like some hardcore dev workstation :-)

Yeah, I've wondered sometimes if the infamous Mac G3 cube was a nod to the NeXT heritage:

I have a question for those "in the know" on those anonymously leaked maps from the other Next cube. Is there any chance whatsoever that they might be released to the public to study, even if it's years from now?

Maes said:

Heh, that little NeXT cube looks more like the iMac of its era, and less like some hardcore dev workstation :-)

Maes, your avatar, man...

well...

https://tcrf.net/images/e/ec/Doom-SWxSTARG.gif

ya know what I mean :P

40oz said:

Speaking of Tom Hall, does DoomEd have anything that would hint to why Toms maps all look like they would fit snugly in a square box?

Pretty sure it was due to early engine limitations in the blockmap building or somesuch. Remember reading something about it once.

kristus said:

Pretty sure it was due to early engine limitations in the blockmap building or somesuch. Remember reading something about it once.

Unlikely, since the early Doom alphas didn't even have BLOCKMAP lumps.

Sodaholic said:

I have a question for those "in the know" on those anonymously leaked maps from the other Next cube. Is there any chance whatsoever that they might be released to the public to study, even if it's years from now?

Some confusion, I think. It's a NeXTStation, not a cube, and nothing was on there. Unless you're referring to something completely different.

Linguica said:

Unlikely, since the early Doom alphas didn't even have BLOCKMAP lumps.

Not only that, they were only present in Hall maps but not Romero maps.

fraggle said:

Some confusion, I think. It's a NeXTStation, not a cube, and nothing was on there. Unless you're referring to something completely different.

I'm talking about the maps that the public only has DoomBuilder screenshots of.

Sodaholic said:

I'm talking about the maps that the public only has DoomBuilder screenshots of.

To add to this, were there any more of them that we didn't see?

I'm so confused

Marnetmar said:

To add to this, were there any more of them that we didn't see?

I would sell my soul to see Tom Hall's original level layout draft of the Tei Tenga base (in full detail, all buildings and floors) before they told him to scrap all his work when they rebooted the map development.

fraggle said:

Yeah, I've wondered sometimes if the infamous Mac G3 cube was a nod to the NeXT heritage:

Actually the Cube had a G4 CPU, not an G3. But yes, seems to be some kind of an heritage. I never have seen an NeXT Cube in action, but own an G4 Cube, which is a nice little machine. Fanless, and therefor the only thing you can hear is the harddisc.

cybdmn said:

Actually the Cube had a G4 CPU, not an G3. But yes, seems to be some kind of an heritage. I never have seen an NeXT Cube in action, but own an G4 Cube, which is a nice little machine. Fanless, and therefor the only thing you can hear is the harddisc.

If it sounds anything like the tazer-like, rocket-propelled startup of the mind-blowing 400mb Nextstation Turbo/Cube SCSI drive... I'd much rather hear fans.

And by fans, I mean jet engines. 'cus they can't be much more deafening than that SCSI.

No, just an IDE-HDD which isn't really noisy. Some users installed an SSD to make the Cube completely silent.

But there are around ten years between the NeXT Cube and the G4 Cube. ;-)

fraggle said:

Some confusion, I think. It's a NeXTStation, not a cube, and nothing was on there. Unless you're referring to something completely different.

Look at this album: http://doomwiki.imgur.com/

Gez said:

Look at this album: http://doomwiki.imgur.com/

Those maps are the ones in the DoomEd zip aren't they?

Not all of them. I think we basically have this one and the next until the end of the album, but not the previous few.

I believe we have the early Refueling Base, too. It's comm2.dwd~ in the /doom2map/notused directory. There's also another version of that early Spirit World (comm1) that differs from the one in the /old and /temp directories, and two scraps (comm5 and comm6), along with two blank maps (comm3 and comm 4). The blank maps are WorldServer version 0.

In the /DoomMapsSE directory, there's a binary file named d2maps. No clue what format the file is, but there's a list of .wad and .txt names in it. Definitely seems related to the Master Levels:

manor.wad
titan.wad
titan.txt
manor.txt
ttrap.wad
ttrap.txt
willits.wad
willits2.wad
jsf02ai!.wad
jsf03x.wad
jsf05k.wad
fistula.txt
fistula.wad
subspace.wad
subspace.txt
catwalk.wad
catwalk.txt
the_fury.wad
the_fury.txt
the_cpu.wad
the_cpu.txt
the_dmz.wad
the_dmz.txt
vortex.wad
vortex.txt
combine.wad
combine.txt
bunker.wad
bunker.txt
virgil.old
virgil03.wad
run.bat
chiron-5.wad
deadlock.wad

Xaser said:

Kinsie helped me out over Steamchat; long story short, you need to use the v1.0 version of idbsp and add a "level" directive (e.g. "level:E1M1") to the second line of the .dwd in order to get it to compile. But yep, it works. :P

It doesn't work. Is it this one?

This "extremely early" MAP28 looks like it came straight out of an 80's tabletop D&D game.
http://i.imgur.com/NmN0LOe.png

Superluigieth1 said:

It doesn't work. Is it this one?

It works, I've been compiling maps with it. It's a DOS exe, are you running it on something that supports it or in DOSBox?

The neat thing about proto-MAP28 is that since it resides in the MAP22 slot in the alpha Doom2 lineup, it's pretty clearly the original map entitled "The Catacombs." It quite fits -- moreso than the MAP22 we finally got. :P

Hmm, since what became MAP22 is MAP04 in the early versions as well, I wonder if it was the one originally meant to be titled "The Focus"? It kinda fits with the central platform hub and the arbitrary pseudo-compass.

@Xaser

Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions like that with so little evidence (frankly, none in this case). It's quite possible that they had entirely different names or none at all.

Sodaholic said:

It's quite possible that they had entirely different names or none at all.

There are no Doom 2 names in Doom v1.6 beta, so names are probably one of the last things they did. They probably cared as much as they did with the story line, ie. barely.

Dragonsbrethren said:

In the /DoomMapsSE directory, there's a binary file named d2maps. No clue what format the file is, but there's a list of .wad and .txt names in it. Definitely seems related to the Master Levels:

jsf02ai!.wad
jsf03x.wad
jsf05k.wad
vortex.wad
vortex.txt
deadlock.wad

huh. i read that there was another author who was slated to contribute to the master levels, but had to pull out at the last second, which is where sverre joined in. unfortunately, no one can remember who it was, tho presumably he had some kind of released material. i don't recognize the "jsf" moniker, but there is a JSF01 on the archives dated early '95, attributed to one joe fouch. there's also DEADLOCK, which might be related to this scott harper level, which makes sense to me since scott did some work with jim flynn, another master levels author (ORACLE) and it's apparently a sequel to a doom map he had earlier released (QUAD) prior to ORACLE (since it is mentioned in ORACLE's .TXT). the /idgames timeline isn't as clean since i guess harper uploaded his stuff in '97 after he'd published it all on compuserve? idk about VORTEX and BUNKER, but i wouldn't be surprised if they were actually VORTEX and BUNKER, maybe pulled during the selection process

edit: silly me! i forgot that tom mustaine submitted two levels that eventually wound up in final doom as MAP01 and MAP17. BUNKER and VORTEX might be them as well