The Official Book of Kings Quest (split from New Acquisitions)

[Tawmis]

It is indeed first edition. When I get home, I will be happy to scan it to verify it. But I am 99.999999999999999% certain it's first edition.

Thanks. That would be really great.

To clarify something from my post above, both of the examples I have given are first editions. Where they differ is in the printing number. One is a first edition, fourth printing. The other is a first edition, first printing. I assume you meant that you're 99.99% certain it's a first printing rather than first edition?

Hope this helps.

[Tawmis]

The scans attached so far unfortunately show AGI code. SCI code looks quite a bit different from this. For starters there will be no curly braces {} and no semi-colons. Instead there will be a lot of standard () braces. The syntax of SCI code is LISP-like. As a comparison, the code shown in the above images would say something like:

position(smoke, 95 16);

The SCI equivalent would be more like this:

(smoke position: 95 16)

Interesting that you say it's AGI code, when the top of the text in TOBOKQDAB-01.png is mentioning SCI code, and how they'd do the loop with the smoke...?

But I have never programmed in AGI or SCI, so I wouldn't know. The book just lends to the fact that it seems to be showing an SCI example...

[lance.ewing]

Well there goes that theory. That is definitely a first printing as you say.

I happen to know that the code shown is an exact match for the code in the AGI version of KQ4. It is from room 7. I wrote a tool back in the mid 90s to display scripts from AGI games and I used my copy of this book to help work out the format. SCI code is very different.

The point you make is the reason why the search for a first printing was begun. Everywhere else in the book in talks about SCI, even immediately above those code snippets as you say. This didn't make sense to me at all and suggested that perhaps an earlier version of the book contained SCI code but may have been replaced with the older AGI code at a very late stage in order to protect Sierra's intellectual property. If the first printing had AGI code from day 1 then the SCI code version was never published.

[Tawmis]

Well there goes that theory. That is definitely a first printing as you say.

Uh, sorry?

I happen to know that the code shown is an exact match for the code in the AGI version of KQ4. It is from room 7. I wrote a tool back in the mid 90s to display scripts from AGI games and I used my copy of this book to help work out the format. SCI code is very different.

The point you make is the reason why the search for a first printing was begun. Everywhere else in the book in talks about SCI, even immediately above those code snippets as you say. This didn't make sense to me at all and suggested that perhaps an earlier version of the book contained SCI code but may have been replaced with the older AGI code at a very late stage in order to protect Sierra's intellectual property. If the first printing had AGI code from day 1 then the SCI code version was never published.

I always assumed it was SCI code. But like I said, I have never programmed in SCI or AGI, and you definitely know what you're talking about by the sounds of things; so I'd most certainly trust your opinion.

I wonder if Roberta or Ken could be reached to ask why the book mentions SCI, and yet the coding is AGI?

I would if Al Lowe would know?

I will drop him an email.

[lance.ewing]

I always assumed it was SCI code. But like I said, I have never programmed in SCI or AGI, and you definitely know what you're talking about by the sounds of things; so I'd most certainly trust your opinion.

I wonder if Roberta or Ken could be reached to ask why the book mentions SCI, and yet the coding is AGI?

I would if Al Lowe would know?

I will drop him an email.

The book certainly does imply that the code shown is SCI but it is definitely AGI.

I think Al would be the best bet. He is really good at answering emails. He would certainly be able to answer the question about whether it is AGI or SCI code. He may not know why the book implies SCI code but shows AGI code though.

Let us know what he says.

[Tawmis]

I think Al would be the best bet. He is really good at answering emails. He would certainly be able to answer the question about whether it is AGI or SCI code. He may not know why the book implies SCI code but shows AGI code though.
Let us know what he says.

Al Lowe rocks my socks! From Al Lowe:

That code is definitely AGI, not SCI, although there are parts of it that I'm not sure would compile.

The book has errors (for instance, we never capitalized "ego" in code nor in writing about it).

As to why they'd use AGI code for examples, I have no idea. Perhaps the book's deadline was before they had enough KQ4 code ready? Perhaps you could ask Don Trivette? I'm sure he's still around the web somewhere.

Wish I could be more help,

AL
Laugh at http://www.allowe.com
For free jokes daily, send a blank email here

So... does anyone have a contact for Don Trivette?

EDIT: Found two Don Trivette's on FB - sent them both a message.

[lance.ewing]

Al Lowe rocks my socks! From Al Lowe:

That code is definitely AGI, not SCI, although there are parts of it that I'm not sure would compile.

The book has errors (for instance, we never capitalized "ego" in code nor in writing about it).

As to why they'd use AGI code for examples, I have no idea. Perhaps the book's deadline was before they had enough KQ4 code ready? Perhaps you could ask Don Trivette? I'm sure he's still around the web somewhere.

Wish I could be more help,

AL
Laugh at http://www.allowe.com
For free jokes daily, send a blank email here

So... does anyone have a contact for Don Trivette?

EDIT: Found two Don Trivette's on FB - sent them both a message.

Good reply! Interesting. I think it would not compile for reasons other than what he says. For example, the print statements have ... on the end, which suggests it is deliberately truncated for display purposes.

Regarding the capitalised Ego, I couldn't see that anywhere in the AGI code, although I only looked over it with a quick scan just now. He may be referring to the text in the book, which, as we have noticed already, is talking about SCI not AGI. So perhaps ego was always in lower-case for AGI but in SCI the Ego "class" would have been capitalised (as in most OO languages) and the instance of Ego was probably written in lower-case. I assume that is how it is done in SCI Studio and SCI Companion but I admit I haven't checked before writing this.

[Tawmis]

Good reply! Interesting. I think it would not compile for reasons other than what he says. For example, the print statements have ... on the end, which suggests it is deliberately truncated for display purposes.

Regarding the capitalised Ego, I couldn't see that anywhere in the AGI code, although I only looked over it with a quick scan just now. He may be referring to the text in the book, which, as we have noticed already, is talking about SCI not AGI. So perhaps ego was always in lower-case for AGI but in SCI the Ego "class" would have been capitalised (as in most OO languages) and the instance of Ego was probably written in lower-case. I assume that is how it is done in SCI Studio and SCI Companion but I admit I haven't checked before writing this.

Well, with the magic of Google, I found and confirmed I found Don.

I just emailed him the same thing I emailed Al Lowe (with the attachments and question).

So hopefully he can remember that far back.

[lance.ewing]

Well, with the magic of Google, I found and confirmed I found Don.

I just emailed him the same thing I emailed Al Lowe (with the attachments and question).

So hopefully he can remember that far back.

I tried writing to Don (the old paper based postal method of writing) back around 1996/1997. I typed up a letter and sent it to his publisher asking that they pass it on. I never heard anything back. I can't recall now what exactly I asked in that letter but it was questions about the very things we're discussing now, i.e. the code, the editors, etc. mentioned in this book and the building of these games. The poor guy probably didn't know what to think. He obviously doesn't know much himself but is just writing up what he has been told by the various people he interviewed at Sierra and the material he was given and was allowed to take photos of.

It will be interesting to hear what he comes back with.

[Tawmis]

Got an email back from him:

I wanted to include some code in the text to give readers an idea of how stuff was programmed. In those days Ken Williams was really secretive about it. Much of the software used to develop KQ and other games was written by Ken. I vaguely remember he did not want me to include software because it might give away some secrets. Finally he let me include the older AGI code even though the game was in SCI. I guess he figured few people would know the difference. As you correctly surmised, nothing was ever "pulled and replaced" in the book. It was that way from the beginning just because of secrecy.

Hope that helps,
Don

[Collector]

Much of the software used to develop KQ and other games was written by Ken.

Curious, as Ken has said on his own board that he didn't really understand SCI.

[Tawmis]

Much of the software used to develop KQ and other games was written by Ken.

Curious, as Ken has said on his own board that he didn't really understand SCI.

Uh, I could email Ken and see what HE says.

[Tawmis]

I'd wager, he probably means that Ken had a hand in supervising SCI, even if he had no idea (or understand) SCI. One can over look something, and be a part of it, without any idea of what it does or how to use it. (Though he did say developed... but then he also said from his memory... which the first printing of the book was SOME time ago... so his memory may be off... but I could see how Ken might have been secretive about the SCI code and such). After all, at KQIV (which is the game that had just been finished) - Sierra still held on pretty strongly to the gaming industry lead.

[Collector]

I think that he meant that he didn't understand the development of SCI. I wish that the search function of his forums worked, but that database has been through too many software changes to be functional. It's really a pity because of the wealth of information contained in some of those threads. Even the older posts no longer are associated with their authors. I can figure out many of the original posters, but someone would probably need to go through the database tables and manually edit them and there are probably only a handful of people that would be able to ID more than just a few. Brandon would be one of them.

It is too bad that Ken has little to do with his own forum, anymore. He kept it alive just by being there with his insight and to respond to questions and observations of the Sierra followers. These days all they seem to do is travel on their boat. Not that he owes us anything, but still it would be nice to have him around for his input.

Beyond all of this, it would be great if some of the old Sierra employees could contribute on the SCI Programming forum. Probably never happen, though.

[gumby]

Beyond all of this, it would be great if some of the old Sierra employees could contribute on the SCI Programming forum. Probably never happen, though.

Though I don't know how much they could help (except provide a glimmer of insight). If somebody asked me to hack something together in BASIC (my first programming language), I probably wouldn't know where to start...

Still, it would be nice if they 'dropped by'