The Magic Telephone (aka "The Magic Telephone Box")

[lurkio]

----------
EDIT: The Magic Telephone game has now been found!

Play it online here.
----------

Okay, I thought it was time to put out another call for possibly one of the most mysteriously lost games in Beeb history. There are now quite a few mentions of The Magic Telephone Box online, but no sign of the actual program.

If you have a copy of the still-missing Part 2, please get in touch! EDIT: All parts of The Magic Telephone have now been found!

Here I've collected all the significant info on the game that I can find. EDIT: But see below for new developments!

I have semi-fond memories of The Magic Telephone Part 1 (except for the scary crocodile!) It's a fairly traditional MODE 7(?) graphical adventure with comparatively reasonable puzzles.

http://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewto ... 4&p=134994

Keen for a bit of nostalgia recently, I started Googling for a game I recall playing in primary school when I was 8 or 9 or so (about ten years ago) and have been desperate to play ever since. For some reason I'd not previously bothered to have a look around the 'Net - convinced that I was of its obscurity that nobody other than myself will have remembered it - but got some confirmation tonight about certain other details about it that I'd forgotten. For a start, its name: The Magic Telephone Box (I knew there was something red, and possibly magic, that your character travelled about in - seems so obvious now), characters called Mr. Red, Mr. Blue, Mr. Invisible and so on that lived in houses that corresponded to their colours, tying a dragon's tail to a tree to get at some treasure, a snake in a tree you feed an apple to make go away, and the fact that it was on the BBC Microcomputer (I wouldn't have had any idea at the time). Oh, and this annoying sobbing idiot who'd block your way from all sides if you didn't give her a hanky, effectively forcing you to start all over again.

http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/i ... ic=13952.0

I have a vivid memory of playing an educational type game in primary school, and I'm fairly certain it was on a BBC Micro B. From what I remember, it was an adventure/puzzle type of game, and the only scene I can remember is something to do with defeating a dragon, and rescuing the prince or someone important. The dragon was red, and lived in a large cave, and in the scene I can remember the "screen" on show had only the dragon's tail showing, out of the side of the cave, and you had to solve a puzzle before proceeding onto the next screen... Really sorry to dredge up this old post, but I know now what the game is called - "The Magic Telephone Box". Not only that but I may have tracked down a physical copy... (this game is not available anywhere on the internet, and I have spent considerable time searching for it) I'll keep you posted

http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic. ... 97#p108397

Anyone remember a cool little game called the magic telephone box? At least I think it was called that... It's probably around 12 - 16 years old, mind and I think it was on the old school BBC's or an Acorn. It was one of those east west north south pick up blaa di blaa games and there was a dragon in a cave guarding a treasure chest and you had to go round the cave and tie his tail to a tree so you could go in. // I think we played this at school back in the 80s. Did it also feature characters like Mr Red, Mr Blue, Mr Invisible etc who lived in houses that corresponded to their colours? I remember something about an apple tree and a crossroads too. I've been trying to get hold of it for the emulator but so far have had no success. // I remember this game. We did play it at school (late 80's early 90's) and I seem to remember it starting with the phone ringing and you had the option to answer it. There was a cat involved somewhere along the way and also maybe a well.

http://www.nordinho.net/vbull/still-tro ... e-box.html

Does anyone here remember this game? It was a graphical text adventure with characters such as Mr. Red, Mr. Blue, Mr Invisible etc. I played it in school when I was very young and would love to give it a shot again.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bbcmicro/comme ... phone_box/

All I want is for someone to find a working copy of "The Magic Telephone Box". Only when I get past that dragon will I be able to carry on with my life without the constant pain of defeat.

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1 ... #c_1351973



---
[EDIT: The Magic Telephone game has now been found! Play it online here.]
---

[poink]

If you have a copy, please get in touch!

Well, that's somewhat easy. I've got an 'unofficial' copy of 'Part 1' from BITD (it was with a load of discs when I got my Beeb). I have no idea whether there's actually a Part 2; but no one seems to be describing anything that's not in Part 1.

I guess this is where I actually have to go and finish building the computer with a 5.25" floppy drive because I'd no idea that it was 'missing'.

[lurkio]

If you have a copy, please get in touch!

Well, that's somewhat easy. I've got an 'unofficial' copy of 'Part 1' from BITD (it was with a load of discs when I got my Beeb). I have no idea whether there's actually a Part 2; but no one seems to be describing anything that's not in Part 1. I guess this is where I actually have to go and finish building the computer with a 5.25" floppy drive because I'd no idea that it was 'missing'.

Wow, great news! If the disc works, the Internet will thank you!

But are you saying you currently have no way of reading the 5¼” floppy disc that contains your copy of The Magic Telephone Box? If so, I'm sure I or others could help out if necessary — although sending an ageing floppy through the post should probably be a last resort!

[leenew]

Great news!
Also, if you get time, check the MIA list please poink.
Although this does not cover educational software.
If you could give a rough idea of what is on the big pile of discs, flaxcottage will recognise anything that is missing from the educational archive...


Lee.

[flaxcottage]

... flaxcottage will recognise anything that is missing from the educational archive...


Lee.

Sure will.

[lurkio]

I've got an 'unofficial' copy of 'Part 1' from BITD (it was with a load of discs when I got my Beeb.

Any progress on archiving this, poink?

[poink]

Any progress on archiving this, poink?

More frustration than progress, I'm afraid.

The PC I'd hoped to use doesn't do floppies very competently; it'll read FM discs, but it doesn't seem to entirely behave...and not at all when faced with a 40 track one. I think the core problem is that it's old enough to have a floppy connector, but new enough that it wasn't designed to do much else than handle a single 1.44MB DOS floppy (I had to override the BIOS to configure a 5.25" disc, and even then, it only supports one drive).

I guess the next step is probably to drag the K6-2 out of the loft.

[poink]

So, having acquired a P4/NetBurst-era Celeron whose sole purpose in life will be to read old media, and spending far too long poking fdutils under Linux, and finally resorting to scripting raw floppy controller commands to read it sector by sector, I bring you MAPE TAPE IV, which includes the fabled 'The Magic Telephone' (note, the name does not include 'Box').

It also includes 3 other educational programs that might have been missing: News Bulletin, Pond Dipping and Topol. It does occur to me that if as we were missing The Magic Telephone, and this is titled 'MAPE TAPE IV' that there might be others; especially considering the message at the end of the disc:

MAPE is a national organisation which aims to promote and develop awareness and effective use of microelectronics as an integral part of the philosopy and practice of primary education. Further details and membership forms are available from Mrs G Jones, 76, Sudbrooke Holme Drive, Sudbrooke, Lincs LN2 2SF

Screenshots:

Menu:

mape-iv-menu.png

News Bulletin (some sort of MODE 7/Teletext creator)

mape-iv-newsbulletin.png

Pond Dipping (Biology simulation)

mape-iv-ponddipping-1.png

mape-iv-ponddipping-2.png

The Magic Telephone (Adventure):

mape-iv-themagictelephone-1.png

mape-iv-themagictelephone-2.png

mape-iv-themagictelephone-3.png

mape-iv-themagictelephone-4.png

Topol (Sort of cerebral Snake for Maths lessons)

mape-iv-topol.png

[leenew]

He he. This makes me smile
Definitely worth the effort
Lee.

[lurkio]

Well done, poink!

Thanks for the heroic effort!

Your copy of The Magic Telephone is playable online here: http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=2679

[poink]

Your copy of The Magic Telephone is playable online here: http://bbc.godbolt.org/?autoboot&disc=h ... MAGICT.ssd

Well, that's a bit more convenient than actually getting it off the disc was. A bit of a shame that it's been edited to hide the other programs on the disc though.

[Montenvers]

Wow! I just wanted to pass on my thanks to the contributors in this thread, and particularly to Poink for getting the game back out there.

I thoroughly enjoyed replaying it, funny how the memories were so strong on this one, though I must admit, at my young age in the late 80's it did seem a lot longer! I had forgotten, however, how unhelpful the invisible man was.

Thank you so much for the work you did in recovering this.

Well, that's somewhat easy. I've got an 'unofficial' copy of 'Part 1' from BITD (it was with a load of discs when I got my Beeb). I have no idea whether there's actually a Part 2; but no one seems to be describing anything that's not in Part 1.

I can confirm that Part 2 does exist, though I have only my memory and no hard evidence to show. I distinctly remember mapping the games on an old drawing pad, and I definitely had most of 2 mapped, but I didn't play it much because I found it harder. I am also fairly sure there is a Part 3, although, I have no memory of playing it, and my map was only a few sections before I gave up and moved on to something else.

The fact that the games are so elusive, definitely make the appeal even greater. I have been googling for years. I hope the other games can be found somewhere one day.

[lurkio]

I've got an 'unofficial' copy of 'Part 1' from BITD (it was with a load of discs when I got my Beeb). I have no idea whether there's actually a Part 2

I can confirm that Part 2 does exist, though I have only my memory and no hard evidence to show. I distinctly remember mapping the games on an old drawing pad, and I definitely had most of 2 mapped, but I didn't play it much because I found it harder. I am also fairly sure there is a Part 3, although, I have no memory of playing it, and my map was only a few sections before I gave up and moved on to something else.

That seems to confirm what LordTyranus told me that a contact had said about the sequels to Part 1 of The Magic Telephone:

The other games were part of the Magic Telephone series. There was a part 2 given, as so many people had enjoyed the first one, and then a harder part 2 (2b) as the first (2a) was felt to be too easy.

Montenvers, can you remember any more details about the sequels?

The fact that the games are so elusive, definitely make the appeal even greater. I have been googling for years. I hope the other games can be found somewhere one day.

LordTyranus's contact apparently has physical discs that have possibly got some or all parts of The Magic Telephone on them. I'm PMing LordTyranus to see if the archiving of those discs can be progressed, but LordTyranus has been trying to get the contact to take action for over a year now, without success, so I'm not too hopeful, unfortunately...

[Montenvers]

Montenvers, can you remember any more details about the sequels?

I wish I could, I'm sorry I can't be any more helpful. I was born in 1985 so I was very young when I used the BBC, by 1992 I had a Mega Drive and the BBC had fallen out of use. All memories of the games of that time are hazy, I had the feeling that number 2 was more complex and darker in tone but again I can't remember anything that will significantly help a search for it. I have conflicting memories of others games like grannies garden, little red riding hood, some sort of teddy bears picnic thing, and a program where you could give commands to a tomato with legs, called Pob or Pod or something, and make him explode. I also have a memory of a platformer with a kangeroo, possibly called Wallaby or something, that had quite a lot of yellow colouring, this didn't seem to run from a floppy but straight from the hard drive, with the right command, and I have no idea at that age how I found the command! Excuse the digression.... nostalgia.

I liked the magic telephone for the exploration element combined with the graphics. I was too young to have the patience for text adventures like castle of riddles, but I enjoyed making the maps for magic telephone so I could play it quicker the next time.

All the disks were loose 5.25 floppies, with the exception of a collection of acornsoft stuff we had on cassette, and those boxes were very memorable in their art style.

I wish I knew more about this sort of thing, I didn't get back into computers until Pentium 2 and Windows 98 in the later 90's. I have a soft spot for the BBC though in a big way.

Our BBC Master along with the disk drive, the disks and everything else, was donated to my school, and I'm sure it probably ended up in the skip shortly thereafter, as BBC's seemed to disappear from schools almost overnight in my early years of secondary.

I am looking forward to have a dig around the forums and learning more.

[poink]

The fact that the games are so elusive, definitely make the appeal even greater. I have been googling for years. I hope the other games can be found somewhere one day.

I think the reason that The Magic Telephone is elusive is because it was distributed by a charity (MAPE) to primary schools. So whilst it was widespread, few individuals ever got their own copy (most MAPE programs seem intended to be a learning aid in a broader topic). Unless a teacher made a copy for you (essentially how I got mine), the only place it existed was in a cupboard at school (and has, therefore, in most cases, presumably, long gone to a skip).

Later MAPE tapes may have distributed the later part and the media is more likely to be labelled as MAPE than to have a listing of the programs on it. (Acorn User suggests that LEAs had copies, although, I've seen flaxcottage say that LEAs have typically long ago binned everything.)

Regarding tracking down MAPE media, Centre for Computing History apparently have a disc copy of the MAPE 3 tape, which probably has some interesting educational software on it; but for TMT we'd almost certainly need MAPE V onwards (given The Magic Telephone was on MAPE IV).

MAPE was around since at least 1982, became a charity between in Nov 1985, was removed from the register in Dec 2004 when it 'ceased to exist'. However, I wonder if http://www.mape.org.uk/ is related (or, more precisely, whether they have archives we could pillage?).

(Looks like there was also a MUSE - Micro Users in Secondary Education.)

and a program where you could give commands to a tomato with legs, called Pob or Pod or something, and make him explode.

Podd can explode, but cannot do any of the naughty words that primary school children know. (I remember that we checked...extensively ).

[RoryMakarov]

Thanks for this, have literally been looking for this game since primary school!

[lurkio]

Thanks for this, have literally been looking for this game since primary school!

Haha! I'm glad that we (and especially poink) were able to help!

By the way, do you remember if you ever played the mysterious Part 2 of this game?!

[RoryMakarov]

Thanks for this, have literally been looking for this game since primary school!

Haha! I'm glad that we (and especially poink) were able to help!

By the way, do you remember if you ever played the mysterious Part 2 of this game?!

I'm pretty sure we never had Part 2. Part 1 was on some random floppy we had kicking about, and my memories of Part 1 were hazy enough!

[Waldo Jeffers]

I just discovered this thread yesterday. I'm the guy who left the second comment in the original post - 12 years ago, which is absolutely insane to me. I've now played the game, and I'd just like to say thank you so much to the community for unearthing it and making it available, I feel like a hole in my being has been filled now, somehow, ha ha. So thanks so much! The game is absolutely fantastic, and I can see now why it burned such a distinct impression on my brain when I was a wee lad. Thanks guys!

[lurkio]

I just discovered this thread yesterday. I'm the guy who left the second comment in the original post ... The game is absolutely fantastic, and I can see now why it burned such a distinct impression on my brain when I was a wee lad.

Haha! Welcome, Waldo. I did wonder if word had got back to you about the rediscovery of The Magic Telephone. Glad that it did and that you still enjoy the game after all these years!

I’m still hoping that the intriguing Part 2 of the game (a) actually exists and (b) will turn up at some point, somehow...

[Waldo Jeffers]

Thanks pal! Funnily enough the Google Alert I've had set up this whole time, for the "magic telephone bbc micro" apparently does not work at all, but gave me a hit the other day to some random keyword spam website, which prompted me to actually Google for it myself, and that led me here.

I have a feeling that I must have completed part one - I was scribbling a map on paper in real time this time around, anticipating its difficulty - then finished the game proper in 5-10 minutes without any hassle! I think it must have been part two that left me frustrated, but lots of part one's imagery still left itself imprinted on my brain. Can anyone else remember the crying woman who needs a hanky in part two? I distinctly remember that's the game that I could never complete!

[billcarr2005]

Found this a while ago, but never compared with the version here.
Disk attached doesn't ask for a 4 digit code (i'm not sure how that's used by the program), but instead runs I.MAGICT, which installs an interrupt driven routine. Also contains some saved games, although 2 appear to be at the start (MAR3 and PAUL). CI4 and 5 are further into the game.

Code: Select all

Same filesize
$.MagicCd    A00 +   53    A00
$.AllPics   3000 + 1E2F   3000
$.Part1   FF1200 + 3A2F FF802B
$.Title1     E00 +  693    E00

Different
$.MagicT  FF0E00 +  19F FF802B		(attached disk image)
	  FF1100 +  263 FF802B		(MAPE IV version)

Additional
I.MAGICT    1400 +  17B   1550

[Kazzie]

Found this a while ago, but never compared with the version here.
Disk attached doesn't ask for a 4 digit code (i'm not sure how that's used by the program), but instead runs I.MAGICT, which installs an interrupt driven routine. Also contains some saved games, although 2 appear to be at the start (MAR3 and PAUL). CI4 and 5 are further into the game.

Code: Select all

Same filesize
$.MagicCd    A00 +   53    A00
$.AllPics   3000 + 1E2F   3000
$.Part1   FF1200 + 3A2F FF802B
$.Title1     E00 +  693    E00

Different
$.MagicT  FF0E00 +  19F FF802B		(attached disk image)
	  FF1100 +  263 FF802B		(MAPE IV version)

Additional
I.MAGICT    1400 +  17B   1550

The impression I've gotten from playing it with my kids is that the four digits are used as a randomising seed, for the various characters (bounceman etc.) that you can meet in houses, and where they teleport you to,

I assume that the copy I have (from a box of old discs that my mother-in-law got from a school) is the MAPE IV version; it's labelled as such on the disc. I'll try to remember to check the filesize over the weekend.

[Dan O'C]

Is this it?

http://www.flaxcottage.com/educational/ ... .asp?p=188

As in the part 2 of magic telephone?

[Kazzie]

Is this it?

http://www.flaxcottage.com/educational/ ... .asp?p=188

As in the part 2 of magic telephone?

No, I'm afraid that's part 1.

[8271]

There are a number of MAPE items on ebay : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BBC-computer ... -#viTabs_0

Perhaps Pt2 is amongst this lot.

[lurkio]

There are a number of MAPE items on ebay : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BBC-computer ... -#viTabs_0
Perhaps Pt2 is amongst this lot.

Might be worth a shot — though I can't see MAPE Tape 5 or later, which is what we're after for Part 2 of Magic Telephone, I think..?

[lurkio]

I have acquired a semi-broken copy of Part 2 of The Magic Telephone.

[EDIT: The game wasn't semi-broken after all. I had accidentally corrupted it! D'oh! But I've fixed the errors now. I believe that all parts of The Magic Telephone have now been archived. See below for details. The complete copy of the game was kindly sent to me by Christine de Cordova (known as Chris), who is (I think) a retired teacher. Many thanks to her for rescuing this rare and elusive piece of computing history! Now back to my original post...]

Don't ask me how I got it, because the answer doesn't bear thinking about, and anyway I'm not privy to the ins and outs of what exactly went down — but I think it involved fragile hard drives crossing the Atlantic and then nearly perishing in the California wildfires...

Nor do I really know the parties involved — I just barged into an online conversation and pestered them till they caved. But the result was that I was sent, by post, a 3.5-inch floppy disc, the data on which had, I *think*, been written by an RPC — but don't quote me. (I tried reading the floppy with my BBC Master but the incarnation of ADFS must post-date the Master because it didn't recognise the disc at all.) After coaxing an ailing Windows XP PC back to life and installing OmniFlop on it, I managed to archive the floppy as an 800K .ADL disc-image, which I was then able to boot in Arculator.

Part 1 of the game seemed to work fine in Arculator — but we already had Part 1. It was the subsequent parts I was interested in. (Confusingly, the part that comes after Part 1 is called "Part 2a" on the initial menu but "PART 1B" thereafter! Part 2A/1B works in Arculator — up to a point. The in-game location images seem to be missing. There are just large blank spaces where you'd expect to see pictures of hills and phone-booths and crocs and stuff.)

The situation got worse when I transferred the files off the .ADL disc-image and onto a DFS .SSD disc-image (via a Mac). After tidying up all the filenames and making sure that the load and exec addresses of all the files were correct, I tried to boot the .SSD in BeebEm, but it wouldn't run Part 2A/1B at all: it just errored out before the main game had started! Same in all the other Beeb emulators. Boo!

I'll upload the files and disc-images here anyway, as a sort of public backup, but also in the hope that someone with the fortitude to do so might be able to debug the programs and figure out what the flip is going wrong...

EDIT: I appear to have solved the problem. It turns out that when I dragged the files onto the "ArculFS" drive in Arculator in order to transfer them from the ADL disc-image to the Mac's native filesystem, some extra bytes were appended to some of the files for some reason, and the bloated files got carried over onto the .SSD, which is why the game didn't work properly in BeebEm. I've now eliminated the extraneous bytes and everything seems to be working well, including the pictures in Part 2A/1B! Yay! I've attached a corrected .SSD below.

Here's a link to play the game in your web-browser at the Complete BBC Micro Games Archive:

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=2679


And here are the downloadable .ADL and .SSD disc-images for use in Arculator and BeebEm respectively:

MagicTelephone2.adl.zip

MagicTelephone2.ssd

MagicTelephone2files.zip
I've deleted the raw files that I extracted from the .SSD because some of them were corrupted — they had extra bytes appended to them for some reason. See previous EDITs, above.


Just for the record, here's as far as I can get with the .SSD disc-image in BeebEm. EDIT: The updated .SSD disc-image appears to work perfectly in BeebEm. See previous EDITs, above.

Screenshot 2020-11-13 at 19.49.07.png

Screenshot 2020-11-13 at 19.49.11.png

Screenshot 2020-11-13 at 19.49.21.png

Screenshot 2020-11-13 at 19.49.54.png

Passing the baton to Arculator:

Screenshot 2020-11-13 at 19.47.18.png

Screenshot 2020-11-13 at 19.48.48.png

Screenshot 2020-11-14 at 12.50.53.png

[flaxcottage]

Very nice Lurkio, sir!

I'll check this out on real hardware this weekend and add it to my archive too.

[Diminished]

Great effort.