I got this email about a week ago, and have been lax in posting it to the site here for community input.

Do you know where I might find technical information about how the tile shape data is stored/encoded on Commodore 64 disks? The graphics for the tiles for the C64 version of Ultima 4 are mono-coloured. i.e. a single coloured. Therefore, I suspect the characters do not follow the same encoding format as was is used for the DOS version in shapes.ega.

I recently discovered that the map data is actually stored as 256 chunks of 16×16 data. (the DOS EGA version uses 64 chunks of 32×32 data)

To be honest, I haven’t the first clue about how to answer this question. The C64 predates my first foray into computing by a few years, and I’ve no “hands on” experience with that system, nor with the Ultima 4 version released for it. I had perhaps thought that Nodling Dragon would be a good resource to ask, and have suggested that the reader try and contact him…but any input from the community at large would be much appreciated!

Update: I love this community. Thanks everyone for helping George out! (see the comments)

Tags: C64, Commodore 64, DOS, EGA, Ultima 4