I have been searching everywhere for the original 1989 CD-ROM release of The Manhole.
As far as I know, only the 1995 'Masterpiece' version is available for purchase either new or second-hand. I couldn't care less about the color version - I want to see and hear it like I remember it from my childhood.
So, I would be very grateful if someone could help me locate this.
I have never heard of a CD release for the Manhole that was black and white. Then again, I remember getting a full-color print out of screenshots from the colorized version of Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel somewhere on the Internet. I've been told that a colorized version never existed, but from what I remember in the screenshots IS what's in Beyond the Mackerel, which I discovered years later. Bizarre, huh?
I first saw the Manhole CD version back in 1990 running on an SE/30 with an external CD-ROM drive, those huge single-speed things that sat underneath the Mac itself.
It certainly exists - I clearly remember the full voice, crisp b&w graphics on the SE/30's small screen, and the *very* slow loading CD-drive, which nevertheless was amazing to me at the time. It was the first CD game I had ever seen.
Wikipedia makes reference to it, saying the original b&w disk version was released in 1988, with the CD version following in 1989.
Just for the record, I finally found a copy of the 1989 Macintosh CD-ROM release on eBay. This is the original black and white version published under Activision. I believe it was the first CD game ever released for the Mac.
The CD can be imaged and works perfectly in Mini vMac. All the game files, including the audio, are just Hypercard stacks that do not need to directly reference a physical CD. If anyone wants to know more about this, feel free to contact me. (ameath@eftel.com)
Are you planning to upload it here? It would be a very good addition.
I plan to - I have just asked for some help with this in the forum section.
A different version, it's worth a separate entry.
You can run a DOS version of manhole in Boxer. Boxer is DOS Emulator. http://boxerapp.com/
Or you can run Manhole in Scummvm.
http://www.scummvm.org/
Yes, I was wondering whether to give it a separate entry. It is identical to the original floppy disk version except for:
1) musical score
2) more digitized sound effects
3) full voice overs for all dialogue (as opposed to small snippets in the floppy version)
The DOS version is actually a full remake of the original with new artwork. There is a very interesting article on all this here:
