7th guest
Okay, listen up, wise guys:
First of all, I work as a consultant and therefore I am quite experienced at
judging the billable time I spend working on particular jobs.
Second of all, I have repaired/upgraded/built/operated dozens of PC's, from the
original 8088 to 486/50s and /66s. I know a DMA from an IRQ. All of our home
computers have a list attached to the case listing all of the DMA, IRQ and
memory addresses of all cards and devices installed in the machine.
I'm using QEMM 6.0 with DOS 5.0. I have *almost* the most up-to-date versions
of all the appropriate software and drivers.
When I say it took 8-10 hours of my time to install this game, I'm deadly
serious 😐 Our office network was a skip in the park compared to the
permutations I attempted to get 7th guest to operate. I finally found a
combination involving switching to a SVGA mode (with the Cirrus Logic video
mode switching software) that rendered the DOS cursor INVISABLE, including what
is typed on the command line. In short, I had to pick a video mode that is
COMPLETELY WORTHLESS in normal computer operations. Furthermore, I only
stumbled upon it completely at random (in other words, in despiration).
Finally, when the game played on my (I admit it, slow Mitsumi) drive, I was so
frustrated trying to move from room to room without falling asleep, only to
find out that the puzzles did not involve using logic gathered from the
interesting story line. Rather, the puzzles involve moving a slow-to-respond
cursor around a board until you figure out the object of the puzzle. I'd
rather play Backammon, to tell the truth. But that's only my humble little
opinion.
If you got 7th guest to run "out of the box", you have to stop to consider how
hard other people had to work to get it working, and consider yourself
fortunate. Don't put yourself on a high horse. If you solved the puzzles
without too much difficulty, then consider yourself intelligent. However, I
have found other ways of exercising my intellect. Even though I can't do the
New York Times crossword puzzle in pen (actually, I can't do it in pencil,
either).
Now I have to go; flying some Falcon 3.0 missions today. Having trouble
threading the needle between pulse-Doppler Radar and Continuous Wave radar. And
remembering to use the AGM-45A Shrike against CW, and the AGM-88A HARM against
pulse-Doppler. But of course, everyone knows how to distinguish between p-D
and CW with a casual glance at the the left REO….
Eric