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Psycho III

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2018 10:49 am
by Symoon
dave3622 wrote: Wed Oct 17, 2012 5:28 pm Here's a link to the review published in 'Personal Computer News' back in April 1984. What I find interesting is the other Oric review on this page for the games 'Psycho II' and 'Psycho III', neither of which have ever heard of before. Does anybody know if these games were ever released?

ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sincl ... 600048.jpg

edit. just seen it says 'mail order' so suspect the games are rarer than hen's teeth.
Well I saw Psycho III recently on Ebay, quite expensive. Though I hate speculation on our old machines and software, I hadn't bought anything for a long time so I decided to bid.
There it is now ;)
https://www.oric.org/index.php?page=sof ... um_log=661

(note that sadly, Dave's link to the article is dead)

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2018 11:25 am
by Dbug
Yeah I saw it as well, was too expensive for my tastes :D

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2018 5:04 pm
by Symoon
Dbug wrote: Sat Nov 03, 2018 11:25 am Yeah I saw it as well, was too expensive for my tastes :D
Well to be honest it took me a few hours before clicking on it.
But we already had missed Psycho II and III once... And most of the time, we never hear of the games again, once they are bought on Ebay. But I won't ruin myself to save and share software. I think from now I'll decide of a budget (like 10€ per month) to spend when something interesting shows up.

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 12:08 am
by NekoNoNiaow
Symoon wrote: Sat Nov 03, 2018 5:04 pm
Dbug wrote: Sat Nov 03, 2018 11:25 am Yeah I saw it as well, was too expensive for my tastes :D
Well to be honest it took me a few hours before clicking on it.
But we already had missed Psycho II and III once... And most of the time, we never hear of the games again, once they are bought on Ebay. But I won't ruin myself to save and share software. I think from now I'll decide of a budget (like 10€ per month) to spend when something interesting shows up.
A way to make sure these games are not lost could be to setup a small "collective purchase fund" for such purpose.
People could contribute whatever they want and the money would go to purchases of games which are not yet preserved in their original form yet.

Obviously, it would probably be a good idea to setup an actual non-profit association so that ownership of the games is clear and that this is not used to grow one's personal library. The games could possibly then sent/offered to the SPS (Software Preservation Society, http://softpres.org/) or the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/) for durable archival/preservation.

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 8:35 pm
by Symoon
Nice idea but I think it's... Complicated.
I tried to submit the idea when I was at the CEO finances, but got no echo at the time. I didn't push the idea much because I wanted to solve a main problem first anyway: even if the entity is the owner of the tapes, where will they be stored? Or more specifically: WHO will store them? ;) The CEO had numerous experiences of (really) involed people who, for a reason or another (not trying to blame anyone here), suddenly vanished without giving any news anymore.

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:17 pm
by Dbug
That's kind of the problem of the Oric community: We have many motivated individuals, but it's more like a lose collection of people who sometimes meet here and there. I guess the CEO is most "stable" entity around regarding Oric stuff, and what was suggested requires a significant organization, with room, insurance, etc...

If this type of thing was done, imo that would work better through "lending" software to some specialized entities like MO5.com or some of the preservation museums who would be in charge of conserving them, in exchange for the right to present them to the public, etc....

Kind of complicated to setup :)

That being said, I was wondering: For the ones among you who are collecting some Oric games, how many do you typically have?

I was asking an Atari ST guy the other day about how he did for the storage of games, and he said that he now had more than 1500 games (Atari ST tend to have large boxes), and that basically his entire basement was full of games :D

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:27 pm
by Symoon
I think I have about 200-300 original tapes. Stored at my Parents' :D (which one day or another will need to move).
It's actually "half a collection", because if I already have a transfered tape (scanned, pictured, with double-checked TAP transfer) I won't look for the real tape.

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:35 am
by NekoNoNiaow
Symoon wrote: Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:27 pm I think I have about 200-300 original tapes. Stored at my Parents' :D (which one day or another will need to move).
It's actually "half a collection", because if I already have a transfered tape (scanned, pictured, with double-checked TAP transfer) I won't look for the real tape.
Make sure they are stored in a temperature controlled room/building. Some of my old Amiga stuff used to be stored in my parent's attic which goes through huge variations of temperature throughout the year, causing many errors on hard drives so I assume cassettes and floppies might suffer equally.

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2018 6:27 am
by Symoon
Don't worry, they are in my old room ;)
And 80-90% of them are compleltely scanned and transfered ;)

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2019 12:09 am
by Steve M
I listed Psycho II and psycho III when I did the software list and I got most of the info from looking through magazines and books. I don't remember where all the info came from but I had the full set of Oric Owner, Oric Computing most of Théoric and Micr'Oric.
There's was a French site that listed many Oric titles that was the inspiration, and soon after I started researching that page disappeared.

There's a description here of the two later titles. I'm not aware of the first one being released for the Oric, but the implication is that it was. Maybe it was a very limited release?
http://www.everygamegoing.com/egg/landi ... e-psychos/

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:21 am
by Steve M
Just found this picture in the vaults.

Re: Psycho III

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:22 am
by Symoon
Yeah, that was the picture from an ebay auction - I know cos' I had saved it, too ;)
Didn't win the bid at the time... Not sure I did even try as IIRC, the price was high.
Now all we can hope is that the person that collected it contacts us some day, to transfer it :?