#26 2020-10-25 16:48:30

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

I'm not sure who you're talking to. To me or Hal?

I perfectly understand what's going on and if this is going to be the attitude then I'm on my way out as I don't need another Duke4 sort of jerks.

Last time I tried to take screenshots it couldn't capture it properly but it is so simple that I find it laughable nobody tried to run it without the netconfig, which probably won't have a full result but at least you can get to the actual loading screen. And even then given your attitudes I won't be surprised if I'd be accused of faking it so no thx. You figure it out, I gave you an incentive and told you you shouldn't trust trolls with such obvious troll names. This is a documented release, I spoke to several people from defacto and around who explicitly told me that the beta releases were discarded at some point and not documented anymore as proper releases.

EDIT: take it or leave it, I told you what I used to run it. but it should be run preferably on real ms dos setup it will not work on windows 95, you will also need the BW tcp/ip drivers or similar.

Or ask acidglow that he used to run thism he made quite a name over the time.

Last edited by Leo(T.C.K.) (2020-10-25 16:57:56)

#27 2020-10-25 19:09:46

onetruepurple
Banned

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

Edit: nvm

Last edited by onetruepurple (2020-10-26 19:58:09)

#28 2020-10-25 21:37:11

Spirit
Administrator

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

Sorry Leo, I thought you were some random enthusiast.

I regard Rich and Rick as major experts on the topic of disassembling and reverse-engineering so I take their word rather than some rumors that this might magically DO contain something interesting. The user with the weird nick is a capable guy.

This might be a historical artifact but only as a hoax from back in the days.

#29 2020-10-25 22:35:48

THEBaratusII
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

Hey, I'm new to the forum, and needed to post the screenshots of what Leo is referring to.

Startup
StartupNet

FloppyLoading
This one shows the floppy graphic and that was how far Leo's progress went.

#30 2020-10-26 04:26:16

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

I had html error last time I tried to post so I asked him to post them.

This was my original post:

I took screenshots finally. I hope this will prove that there are indeed graphics and not zero, even though it is just the flashing diskette symbol when loading that was present in something else iirc, maybe doom or heretic/hexen. But it is a graphic.

In regards to reverse engineering, I don't doubt they are sucesful in modern programs but this was written completely differently than what they are expecting and I spoke to someone else on the subject who also found such statements that it is just garbage ridiculous. They are taking it out of context.

I don't believe it'a a hoax, you have that NFO description and word from people back then who I trust like AcidGlow.

Its perfectly plausible to have it that small given everything. Some disassembler programs can be inaccurate given the age of this thing. That means you shouldn't trust their word as a given, they dismissed it too quickly and I think the screenshots prove something that they said wasn't the case.

EDIT: Also it might say netmode disabled but in practice still depend on part of the driver. If you can get BW to run which I wasn't able to install myself then there might be some progress too.

You really shouldn't dismiss it like that, look you can't compare the output of doom2 to some very early alpha like this. Besides it did say an interesting string somewhere which was TRIDENT. That might be a weapon the only one that's in this prototype. It looks to me that this is certainly not hoax and matches with what acidglow told me back in the days.

Last edited by Leo(T.C.K.) (2020-10-26 04:39:21)

#31 2020-10-26 06:08:10

Spirit
Administrator

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

Thanks, those screenshots are nothing new though. That's the stuff that was already discussed.

Why would an NFO give this any more credibility? If one makes a hoax, of course one would include that as well.

Rich for example is the author of Noesis if that helps you consider their input reasonably.

#32 2020-10-26 09:05:22

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

What about the last screenshot? I haven't seen anyone getting that far, the diskette symbol flases in and out and then get stuck on the black screen.

And one of the posts said there were no graphics. So, this is a graphic thus it must be new.

My main points remain though, AcidGlow played this back in the day, it was a barebones version that was leaked late 1995 which fits this. This was leaked way before qtest was there or any of the known screenshots.

Besides I have seen hoaxes. Back then the hoaxes were far more simple than this and the complex config with the net cfg? No absolutely not likely. I have seen a hoax from years after this which was called commander keen 3d and that's how far that went, nothing like this absolutely not.

I don't know what Noesis is but again that's from a modern perspective. You need to take a look at it from back then's perspective.

I play Quake ocassionaly, I am not familiar with the modern community enough.

Someone fooled me once with a hoax but it was created in the modern times and only examining the content closely proved it (even though in theory some of it could be copied from another build), but it was a fake, however we didn't even get to see the content or see people try further.

EDIT: In practice they didn't have back then such resources like later to make hoaxes. Sometimes, even betas that get released are altered from users who find them and its impossible to find the original anymore.

EDIT2: I am very much invested in the original Unreal and recovered many of the long lost leaks such as this
https://tcrf.net/Proto:Unreal/November_ … _Tech_Demo where I wrote the article for as well
and even got some bare unrealed versions from devs themselves, which were also leaked by another person involved with me who (unfortunately) altered them like adding the monsterhall map I made to show more monsters/weapons and backdated it. I never agreed with his actions but those versions are unfortunately the most circulating ones.

There were a couple of identified leaks that I wasn't able to track down though and were even more obscure, one of them was called unreal beta network game from 1997 and Unreal beta (unrealb.zip) from 1996. There is also an undated version rumored to have the child3 music track by alex brandon. But if they weren't persued the lost ror versions like the september and november 1995 ones would never get found again.

The three 1995 prototypes on tcrf were all leaked originally by release on rampage and the description wasn't that unsimilar to the nfo in this quake version.

Last edited by Leo(T.C.K.) (2020-10-26 10:01:36)

#33 2020-10-26 17:54:46

Spirit
Administrator

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

The thread has a link to https://twitter.com/schbirid/status/1096507034302906373 which is a video of the exe being launched, including the disc icon at the end.

I feel like a weird groupie now but some links on Rich: https://www.richwhitehouse.com/, https://gamehistory.org/who-we-are/, https://www.richwhitehouse.com/index.php?postid=68, https://www.richwhitehouse.com/index.ph … project=91

You can rest assured he would have spent as much time as necessary to get this to run if there was a remote chance of it being legit.

Sorry :\

#34 2020-10-26 18:29:52

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

You think I am gonna trust that more just because they happened to make a new website? How can he explain the presence of that graphic then? Sure not a garbage, but I'm sure he's too classy to devout more time to researching this. Most of the so called game preservation people who try to make a profile like that are nothing but elite hoarders. So no I'm not convinced and I believe people should feel free to research this on their own further.

I don't see any video just a picture.

Last edited by Leo(T.C.K.) (2020-10-26 18:33:49)

#35 2020-10-26 19:26:41

Anon
Guest

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

Please stop, you're embarrassing yourself.

Take a moment to consider that two people with a lot of experience in disassembling software, both old and new, came to the same conclusion. You on the other hand have absolutely no experience in that subject whatsoever.

Also, you clearly know nothing about Rich Whitehouse's background. He has had exceedingly more experience than you do and has dealt with significantly old software.

https://gamehistory.org/days-of-thunder-nes-unreleased
http://richwhitehouse.com/index.php?postid=71

Everyone appreciates the work you do chasing things down, but you're no expert and people should stop regarding you as such.

#36 2020-10-26 19:34:49

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

Perhaps you should reveal yourself instead of posting as an anon. Thing is I did talk to an expert and I am an expert when it comes to Unreal. I am doubting these people's experiences because of that yes. I am not someone who disassembles software but clearly my main questions have been dodged. I know enough to shoot holes in their way of disassembly. It is not perfect and never has been.

Can someone now then englighten me on the image of that diskette? Why hasn't that shown up in his disassembled stuff then or any of the images I've seen? I also rather trust the word of AcidGlow that such an alpha version existed and this is before this thread popped up here.

The only one who's embarassing himself is you. That disassembly is clearly incomplete and it can be notoriously faulty. That much I know.

Until I see people try to run this with BW Utils and so on, I'm not going to consider any of this relevant.

EDIT: And if you only value people on their reputation do I have to remind you that Roninmastafx who was on a team of Make Something Unreal winners turned out to be schizophrenic hoaxer who made up stories about upcoming unreal beta releases and what not? Meaning status means a big pile of horseshit here.

Last edited by Leo(T.C.K.) (2020-10-26 20:03:15)

#37 2020-10-26 20:19:41

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

Zeurkous says that this doesn't look like way all the code and it looks like he only reconstructed a single module. At least we can't see more than the module he called "main" in there. It really looks to me just like the signon screen (as id used to call it).

As you can see on the third screenshot there's more. So where's your expert's input on that HUH?

#38 2020-10-26 20:47:00

Anon
Guest

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

[Insult removed by Spirit]

Last edited by Spirit (2020-10-26 21:21:04)

#39 2020-10-26 21:22:30

Spirit
Administrator

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

Point of order, keep it civil.

Leo, you are wasting your time but since you are stubborn to take the advice, I don't care anymore.

#40 2020-10-26 22:43:47

dwere
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

That diskette image is so basic it barely counts as a graphic. But yes I suppose this thread did jump the shark.

#41 2020-10-27 06:41:44

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

But my point still remains, that graphic is part of the program that hasn't been decompiled. How would such an expert miss it? If he was as  good as he potrays himself to be. Only shows me that whatever he used must have ommited that. And that decompilation stuff doesn't equal disassembly.

It actually tries to load at that point and switched to a different part of the program, that diskette graphic flashes in and out and then it hangs on the black screen for me if I disable the tcp/ip stuff. However I'm afraid its still dependand on that in practice so people should try to run it in a faithful environment.

Last edited by Leo(T.C.K.) (2020-10-27 06:46:13)

#42 2020-10-27 09:37:50

hogsy
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

Rick actually disassembled the entire thing to C here, and as others have stated, it basically does nothing interesting. You can also see the code that displays the graphic you're seeing in the draw_screen function (it's not actually a graphic at all, it's just drawn out of basic rectangles).

https://gist.githubusercontent.com/gibb … 4be/main.c

I can only guess someone was very bored.

I know you're trying to tell us that there's more there, but none of the procedures in the application actually go anywhere else or do anything else beyond what you see disassembled. Again, it's beyond doubt, at least to me, that this is a fake.

If you can provide something solid to the contrary that totally debunks that, we'll be all ears, but right now you're argument is that you just doubt it...

Last edited by hogsy (2020-10-27 11:13:24)

#43 2020-10-27 10:09:34

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

This is too precise to be a raw decompilation anyway and he says he took liberties. So how accurate is this, if that graphic is not really a graphic why didn't he take it from doom which has a diskette graphic in the wad? And this is not.

If that code is any correct it could still be a hoax but the hoax can be the deconstruction itself. Why doesn't he explain what shortcuts he took in "being lazy"? This is a completely polished code. It just doesn't match that well.

What about Trident? Where does that appear in the code? It's not here. Yet that was in the strings.

So I'm not convinced and I doubt it will have the same behavior when ran from this reconstruction. Might be similar enough but still. People didn't make hoaxes back in the day like this. The reconstruction seems to be faked/rewritten. Because in practice it never ends up so perfect.

Zeur said it looks like someone tried to observe the behavior of the program and try to write a facsimile

#44 2020-10-27 10:39:33

hogsy
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

This is pointless.

If you're going to accuse someone of being a liar, please actually try to prove it. There is literally nothing to be gained from falsifying this and you're not providing anything constructive.

I can say as far as I am concerned, everything in Rick's decompilation is everything you've seen it do. From it's "initialization" to it displaying the diskette "graphic", followed by it exiting once it's done iterating through the LVM. You're not going to get any further with it than that.

In addition to that, I am aware of Rich's background and have no reason to doubt his expertise either.

Both are experts in this subject and both came to the same conclusion.

Everyone has shown you evidence that it's fake. You've disputed that with no foundation.

Everyone has provided you information on the experience of the guys involved. You've disputed that with no foundation.

If you believe everyone is wrong, prove it.

#45 2020-10-27 10:43:47

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

The strings about the comments with "have fun getting it to run" is also missing from this, so this cannot be in ANY WAY an actual decompilation, it seems to be rewritten what we could get to run and that's it. The comments about garbage etc tell a lot. Looks like there's a con-artist on the loose there and it isn't the 0.8 alpha.

And if he was honest he would post the raw data and not reconstruction.

#46 2020-10-27 10:48:01

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

It is up to the ones who deconstructed it to PROVE that it is accurate. Not up to me to prove something, THEY have to prove it.

All you've shown me so far is arguments of convenience.

Last edited by Leo(T.C.K.) (2020-10-27 10:51:06)

#47 2020-10-27 10:51:51

hogsy
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

The strings about the comments with "have fun getting it to run" is also missing from this, so this cannot be in ANY WAY an actual decompilation

You have a lot to learn about decompilation. Just because there are additional strings in the executable does not necessarily mean they are used during execution (you're not accounting for the fact that compilers were significantly less efficient back then too).

I should probably add, but a straight up decompile is just going to give you the instructions the executable uses. Rick's taken the liberty to translate that into C for readability.

I highly highly recommend you try decompiling it yourself and checking the result, because you'll find it matches.

#48 2020-10-27 11:35:28

Leo(T.C.K.)
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

But I have spoken and learned from someone who understands decompilation. But since I'm no expert on the subject I will have him speak about it and paste it here.

Last time you told me personally that you haven't tried to decompile it yourself, yet you're telling me I should try and I will for sure find it matches. If you aren't sure yourself, you are falling into logical fallacy. Nobody should tell someone to try something and tell him the result if he hasn't done so himself.

And indeed he shouldn't have just taken the liberty because that leads to further inacurracy and instead also posted the raw data maybe?

But exactly it is also my problem with this, he only reconstructed what we see/got to run but there must be more, those strings are there but unreferenced (maybe, only maybe) but the original code must have had it.

Below I am adding what zeur said about it:
[Disclaimer: me's not an expert on mess-dos programming, at all (in fact
me's a UNIX guy), but me*did* grow up w/ mess-dos and me*does*
understand the complexities me's about to outline.]

Deconstruction of an executable program on mess-dos is not often an easy
task, but let's assume Carmack was already using DJGPP at the time, and
that the 386 part of the executable is in some vaguely UNIX-like format
(such as COFF). That makes the job a whole lot easier.

Let's recap what happens, classically, when creating a program from
source:

0) preprocessing
1) compilation
2) assembly
3) linkage

Some of these passes can be (and are often) condensed, but basically,
that's what happens. At each step, the level of complexity is reduced,
and thus our reconstruction is an execise in managing subsequent
increases of complexity.

First of all, we take the executable apart into separate objects based
on the symbol table (the symbol table is however often stripped from
production software, making this (and debugging) difficult). Then, we
disassemble each object; if the resulting assembler code is garbage: we
know that the object most likely consists of data (if not already so
specified through the symbol table); otherwise, it's more likely to be
actual code (as an experienced programmer will realize: in the end,
"code" is a special case of "data", which means the results of this
separation cannot be definitive).

Then, we can attempt to decompile the code "back" into C code (assuming
it was written in C, but that's more than reasonable assumption here).
Unfortunately, that in particular is very difficult to pull off with any
exactitude (especially if we don't know the habits of the compiler used
to produce it), and indeed most automatic decompilers will produce
rather comical results. This is because of the simple fact that the same
sequence of machine instructions can map to many different expressions
(let alone statements) in the C language (and that's discarding compiler
{opt,pess}imization). Straight decompilation is thus unlikely to yield
clean C code, let alone code that is, in appearance, anything like the
original.

Usually, there are very few traces of preprocessing in the compiled
code, so generally we can forget about reproducing that part altogether.

Of course, it's possible to take a cowboy attitude and skip large chunks
of the process (this can be handy in a hurry, but is useless for
historically-accurate reconstruction), but the above is about how it
goes.

Now, one of the points you folks seem to gloss over: data objects are
objects, too! Why aren't they included in your little "decompilation"?
Though hogsy's comment about compilers not being so advanced is a good
one: code not being referenced does not mean it's not necessarily there!
And (especially since this shit runs on mess-dos), there's no
*guarantee* it isn't referenced in any way.

Oh, and could you folks please define "garbage"? Random data? Stuff you
can't make sense of (a common problem in reverse engineering)? Or
perhaps stuff that you were unable to "decompile"?

Technical considerations don't go away with bluff, bluster, and personal
attacks. They stay. As *many* people in history have already had to find
out the hard way.

Last edited by Leo(T.C.K.) (2020-10-27 11:39:12)

#49 2020-10-27 11:41:44

dwere
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

It must be a conspiracy. These so-called experts must've failed to go anywhere with the executable and now have to protect their reputation  by making sure everyone thinks there's nothing there.

Luckily, we're not talking about E. coli here, so cries for the data to be released are not necessary. Just conduct your own experiments and be the hero when it turns out that a genuine working build is buried somewhere inside this mess.

#50 2020-10-27 11:46:08

hogsy
Member

Re: Quake Alpha Version from 1995 ??

You're still not proving anything... I've asked you to try disassembling it yourself and see what you find. Who knows, maybe you will surprise me. Maybe you could show the build actually progressing beyond where Rick's disassemble ends, that would certainly disprove it.

It should also be obvious why I've not disassembled it myself; as far as I'm concerned, folks that know better than me that I trust have already done the work and I have better things to do than needlessly try to disprove them.

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