Johnny Castaway ScreenSaver

[amethyst]

Has anyone been able to run this classic with Puppy? A package will be nice, would love to have it again.

[ozsouth]

@amethyst - I've made a rough 13 min video from the 20000 odd stills. Check your pm's.

[amethyst]

Thanks but I want the real thing. Should be able to run with 32-bit Wine, perhaps someone can make a package that works.

[ozsouth]

@amethyst - check your pm's again - almost there!

EDIT: link in post following this one is now wrong.

NEW LINK: https://www.mediafire.com/file/8txc4nu0 ... s.zip/file

[amethyst]

Thanks to ozsouth for a great find. I'm sharing with the rest of the community. Can be downloaded here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ht9yayvf ... s.zip/file
Unzip the files to a folder of your choice. Code to run:

Code: Select all

cd PathOFTheFolderContainingTheFiles
./jc_reborn_32     OR    ./jc_reborn  if you are using a 64-bit system

Good news - you can run this like a screensaver of old using the Run Video feature of my nicOS-PowerTimeout utility. Just use the above code in the RunVideo script in /usr/local/bin

[rockedge]

@amethyst the screen saver works great! Bionic64

[mikewalsh]

@amethyst :-

Even works great in jrb's 'lite' spin on Barry's old Quirky64 April 701.....which, despite running most of the new Pups, etc, is still my 'daily driver' of choice. What can I say? I just really like older Puppies!

And this is.....what, exactly? A screensaver, yes? Does it loop?

(For those among us who've never heard of Johnny Castaway before, how about a little bit of background.....please? )

LATER:- Day-um. 30 years old..?? Wheeww.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Castaway

Mike.

[amethyst]

@amethyst :-

Even works great in jrb's 'lite' spin on Barry's old Quirky64 April 701.....which, despite running most of the new Pups, etc, is still my 'daily driver' of choice. What can I say? I just really like older Puppies!

And this is.....what, exactly? A screensaver, yes? Does it loop?

(For those among us who've never heard of Johnny Castaway before, how about a little bit of background.....please? )

LATER:- Day-um. 30 years old..?? Wheeww.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Castaway

Mike.

It was a very old screensaver and apparently the first ever animation one. No!!! - it's an ongoing saga like a movie which never ends. It truly is the greatest screensaver I have ever seen. The creator should get some international reward, it's genius. I'm not sure how long one must watch continuously to see all the scenes but it surely must be days (11 days apparently). And everytime you restart it, it starts somewhere else. It's great. Not sure if this version is as complete as the original because I don't see a configuration file where one can put in the correct date and time and so on. In the original version you have day and night time viewing, some elements for special times of the year like Christmas, Easter. Halloween and so on, not sure if this one has it.

[ozsouth]

There's about 20,000 stills - I initially made a rough .flv video - ran 13mins @ 25fps.

Screensaver package runs fine in most 'ubuntu derivatives', which contain following libs needed
for Slackware Current to run it: libbsd , libsndio & libSDL2-2.0

Also runs fine in the crostini container on my HP14a Chromebook.

[amethyst]

Okay, so whilst this is a good LInux alternative it does not quite seem the real deal. It does seem to be a shortened version because it looks like the different scenes play out quicker (which actually may not be a bad thing). There is a configuration file in /root, however, the options do not seem to be implemented fully as with the original (there should be many options that can be set). Probably a work in progress. I've played around with it but no luck. So to get the real deal running (all the available options) one will have to run the original in WINE. This can be done, however, I have tried before and have not been able to do so. Maybe someone can try their hand at it and make a package?
Edit: There is a portable for Windows (to be run with WINE) here: https://1fichier.com/?3yqykpigettg7j7pawma I can't quite figure out how to run it from the instructions provided, doesn't work for me. Someone want to give it a try?

[rockedge]

I'll see if I can get it to run....

@amethyst The secret is not to use WINE but to use DOSBox in this case.
I am currently setting it up to run on DOSBox with a Bionic64 host. I decompressed the app file and see all the components for DOSBox are included but the Windows version. Which means this portable runs a DOSBox instance in a Windows environment.

I am skipping that and extracting what it needs to run in a native Linux DOSBox version which I have handy.

Run in DOSBox and go full screen should do the trick to get this full version running. Once I have it I'll post what I did.

[amethyst]

The original source files seem to be identical for this linux version but just as a matter of testing I replaced it with the files of the original version. Runs no problem. So any differences must be related to implementation (which I read has some minor errors) and the user configuration that seems to be lacking (or can not be changed). A good effort to get it working in linux nevertheless and probably sufficient for most.