Digger IBM PC Model 5150 Longplay
14Today I present to you a seminal classic, Windmill Software's Digger for the IBM PC. This game was released on a self-booting 5.25" diskette in 1983 and is essentially a clone of Universal's arcade classic Mr. Do! However, Mr. Do and many other classic arcade games were not ported to the still new (1981) IBM PC platform. The IBM PC Model 5150 and IBM PC/XT Model 5160 were very expensive in 1983-84 but had color graphics capabilities and some companies were willing to make action-arcade games for it.
Windmill Software was one such developer/publisher. At this time, the IBM PC, XT and most compatibles did not vary in speed, they used 4.77MHz 8088 CPU. The game was designed for this speed, and if it seems sluggish, remember that everything had to be done in software. The high score table's revolving colors only looks right at this speed.
Digger becomes a more fluid experience with slightly faster CPUs, but it will only run in a system with a CGA card or one that is fully compatible with CGA. It writes to hardware registers on the CGA card not preserved with later adapter standards. Windmill Software targeted computers that used high quality RGB displays like the IBM 5153 Color Monitor and used 4-color CGA mode. The game will be broken on most EGA and VGA cards.
In the early days of the IBM PC, these computers would usually be found in offices, they were too expensive to be affordable by the average consumer. Office workers would play games like these when the boss was not around. This game is rather difficult to find today and the popularity of the game meant it was widely distributed and better known through unauthorized copies than purchased ones.
Sound is rather impressive in this game, especially advanced Pulse Width Modulation technique which required CPU time to manipulate the square wave output by 8253 Timer Channel 2 the PC Speaker. In addition, CGA has no sprite hardware, so moving the player and the enemies and other objects on the screen requires significant CPU time.
I am playing Digger on my IBM PC Model 5150, which is as close to the intended hardware for the game as it gets. I decided against using a joystick and I used the numeric keypad of my IBM 83-key Model F Keyboard. My system has an IBM Color/Graphics Adapter, IBM Diskette Drive Controller and an AST Six Pack Plus card. Digger and other Windmill Software games only require 64K of RAM and I have ten times that amount in my IBM PC thanks to the Six Pack Plus. The graphics were captured via an RGB2HDMI and a Datapath VisionRGB E1s. The sound was captured by the equivalent of alligator clips connected directly to the PC Speaker.
I play the game twice, and the first game is clearly a warmup session. The object of the game is to collect all the emeralds in each level, but you can also win a level by eliminating all the Nobbins/Hobbins in the level. You can eliminate them with a fireball fired using the F1 key, but turning to aim is slow and the projectile takes time to recharge. You can also drop bags of gold on them to take them out and grab the gold which spills out of the bag for extra points. Finally, if you touch the cherries, you can eliminate your enemies by touching them as with a Pac-Man Power Pellet. There are eight levels but I'm not good enough at the game to make it that far.
The music is not original to this game. The main theme which plays during the game is the well known instrumental piece "Popcorn" by Gershon Kingsley. The death theme is from the Funeral March of Chopin's "Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor" and the music heard during the invincibility provided by picking up the cherries is the Finale to the "William Tell Overture" by Rossini.
In the early days of the IBM PC, these computers would usually be found in offices, they were too expensive to be affordable by the average consumer. Office workers would play games like these when the boss was not around. This game is rather difficult to find today and the popularity of the game meant it was widely distributed and better known through unauthorized copies than purchased ones.
As this game was developed for the IBM PC, I decided to use the brown color IBM used on its displays. IBM used a brown that was lighter in color than those used by Tandy monitors. IBM's brown is approximately at RGB 170,113,0 whereas Tandy brown is close to RGB 170,85,0. Monitors and capture methods that are not "CGA brown aware" will show dark yellow around RGB 170,170,0.
A technically-impressive game with solid gameplay like Digger was well-remembered in more recent times by the generation which grew up with the earliest IBM PCs and compatibles. The game was remade to be much less demanding on hardware compatibility in the late 1990s with Digger Remastered. Digger was also released for the IBM JX, IBM's obscure follow up to the IBM PCjr. This release may support the PCjr./JX's four channel sound chip, but the disk has never been imaged.
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