NeXTDoom 1.2 Shareware iwad

[morb]

As most of you are quite familiar with the Doom development backstory and know about iD's usage of NeXT workstations, I'll skip over a lot of details.

I was stumbling around and found the archived release of NeXTDoom 1.2 and was quite intrigued as the checksum of the iwad distributed with it didn't match up to any of the other shareware releases.

Code: Select all

2a380f28e813fb0989cae5e4762ebb4c  NeXTDoom/DOOM1.WAD
90facab21eede7981be10790e3f82da2  0.99/DOOM1.WAD
52cbc8882f445573ce421fa5453513c1  1.1/DOOM1.WAD
30aa5beb9e5ebfbbe1e1765561c08f38  1.2/DOOM1.WAD
c428ea394dc52835f2580d5bfd50d76f  1.666/DOOM1.WAD
5f4eb849b1af12887dec04a2a12e5e62  1.8/DOOM1.WAD
f0cefca49926d00903cf57551d901abe  1.9/DOOM1.WAD

gzdoom has no trouble loading up the NeXTDoom iwad; all the DOS shareware executables wanted absolutely nothing to do with it including 1.2.

I noted zero differences in gameplay and assets. So what gives with the different checksum?

Well, delving deeper into some wad exploration via omgifol and using ImageMagick's compare utility I eventually found the main difference between DOS 1.2 and NeXT 1.2 on E1M5:

[imgur]http://i.imgur.com/qWayPMa[/imgur]

The section highlighted in red was introduced in DOS Shareware 1.2 and was missing from 0.99 and 1.1

This puts the NeXTDoom 1.2 shareware iwad packing before DOS 1.2; E1M5's pentagram room addition happened somewhere in-between Feburary 4th and Feburary 17th, 1994.

Earliest/Latest archive file datestamps between DOS 1.2 Shareware and NeXTDoom 1.2 Shareware basically confirms this; within a matter of a week and some change:

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Feb  4  1993 0.99/DEICE.EXE
Dec 10  1993 0.99/SYSOP.DOC

Feb 17  1994 1.2/DEICE.EXE

Feb  4  1994 NeXTDoom/Doom1_2_FAT/Doom.app/doom1.wad

The More You Know ~~~*

[Redneckerz]

As most of you are quite familiar with the Doom development backstory and know about iD's usage of NeXT workstations, I'll skip over a lot of details.

I was stumbling around and found the archived release of NeXTDoom 1.2 and was quite intrigued as the checksum of the iwad distributed with it didn't match up to any of the other shareware releases.

Its a holy macaroni thread bump but as i am reading Fabian's book and the NeXTStep section, i am curiously amsued that you found that, since i added it in in February 2020.

NeXTDoom per definition is a curious little bee. Its essentially the original Doom as it existed back then, way before even Linux Doom was even a thing. It can't really be called a source port: NeXTDoom is as original as it can be. Its even more impressive an actual binary is available.

Your discovery is oddly interesting and i am considering adding this little tidbit in as a trivia piece for the heck of it. Its very very similar to Doom 1.2 but its also funny that these changes were made either way. Again, its a curiosity piece that there is even a NeXTDoom binary available, even more awesome would be the earlier builds.

Thanks for this, by the way. Its stuff like this that make documenting and archiving/linking this stuff all worthwhile.

[morb]

As most of you are quite familiar with the Doom development backstory and know about iD's usage of NeXT workstations, I'll skip over a lot of details.

I was stumbling around and found the archived release of NeXTDoom 1.2 and was quite intrigued as the checksum of the iwad distributed with it didn't match up to any of the other shareware releases.

Its a holy macaroni thread bump but as i am reading Fabian's book and the NeXTStep section, i am curiously amsued that you found that, since i added it in in February 2020.

NeXTDoom per definition is a curious little bee. Its essentially the original Doom as it existed back then, way before even Linux Doom was even a thing. It can't really be called a source port: NeXTDoom is as original as it can be. Its even more impressive an actual binary is available.

Your discovery is oddly interesting and i am considering adding this little tidbit in as a trivia piece for the heck of it. Its very very similar to Doom 1.2 but its also funny that these changes were made either way. Again, its a curiosity piece that there is even a NeXTDoom binary available, even more awesome would be the earlier builds.

Thanks for this, by the way. Its stuff like this that make documenting and archiving/linking this stuff all worthwhile.

Don't know why I didn't get notified that there was activity on this thread; glad you found it

Hopefully one day we'll find earlier revisions to compare and contrast against.

[Redneckerz]

Don't know why I didn't get notified that there was activity on this thread; glad you found it

Hopefully one day we'll find earlier revisions to compare and contrast against.

Its an extremely unlikely possibility. There are a lot of Doom Alpha's and Beta's around but the original NEXTSTEP code is non-existent safe for this 1.2 version. It is also practically unusuable and Linux Doom gives users all they need.

If anything i'd consider NeXTDoom a nice relic that happens to still work and a nice historic build.