A-MIS Adventure

//* Help for "A-MIS Adventure" (1993) by Helmar B. Herman
//* Download from http://baf.wurb.com/if/game/16
//* Walkthrough and map created by David Kinney in January 2006

It seems the program was meant to be run from a DOS prompt. Using a hex editor on AMIS.EXE, you can see that DOS 2.10 is required and there is mention of GOSUB, so my guess is that Quick-BASIC was used. If you run the program under Windows, you won't see the final congratulation screen; it aborts immediately without giving you a chance to read the last screen. For this reason, I created a batch file that inserts an appropriate pause. In fact, it will loop indefinitely in a series of pauses (waiting for you to press a key to continue each time) but I did this so that tap-happy fingers wouldn't accidentally miss just one pause. It's anti-climactic to not see the final win screen.
To break out of the loop at the end, click on the little x in the upper right corner of the window.
The author created a hints program called AMISHELP.EXE which is certainly useful. It even comes with three different levels of hints. But I wanted to create this walkthrough and a map for completeness sake.

The game's introduction says you are Norm, the programmer. Yesterday you made a wee small change to one of your programs. The change was so small that it wasn't really worth a full test! Well...Here you are on Saturday because your program bombed out.

Note: About 34 steps into the game, you will get a full screen talking about an angry dragon, a golden sword MALGRANAM, a beautiful princess, and other such adventuring fair. It eventually snaps back out of fantasy back into reality and says let's resume this adventure. Press ENTER when this happens.

And now for the walkthrough:

S, S, S, S, E, E, GET NEWSPAPER

For fun: READ NEWSPAPER

W, N, N, W, N, E, DROP NEWSPAPER, GET KEY, GET HEX, W, UNLOCK DRAWER, OPEN DRAWER, E, GET PAPER, DROP KEY, W, W, GET X-14-W (the other 3 kinds are pre-printed form paper for which the resulting prints would be illegible), E, N,

READ PAPER (shows the 3 digit door code, but so does CHEAT)
PRESS # (* Click *)
PRESS # (* Click *)
PRESS # (* Click *)

OPEN DOOR, N, W, LOAD X-14-W INTO 3203 (or printer), GET DUMP,
(It's too noisy here to concentrate, so go to my office)

E, OPEN DOOR, S, S, S, S, S, E, E, READ DUMP

(If you dont' have the hex calculator with you, then it says only system programmers can read hex. Since you still have the hex calculator, it says you've fixed the program and submitted the job, presumably from your 3179 terminal. But nothing is happening yet. So now we need to go load a tape. To know which one, we'll need the manual)

W, N, N, W, N, W, N, GET MANUAL, S, E, N,

(remember the door code? If not, READ PAPER again or just type CHEAT)
PRESS #
PRESS #
PRESS #
OPEN DOOR, N, N, READ CONSOLE

(Without the manual: There's a message, but I don't understand it!
While holding the manual, you see: 6M45I MOUNT REEL=000384 on 683
You need to know which tape reel is needed)

For added amusement: KISS NANCY (3 or 4 times for different responses)

S, E, E

For extra bonus material: MOVE RACK, E, GET BILL, READ SIGN (for a throw-back to the original Adventure), W.

GET 384 (the reel number is 384. The other reels #658, 847, and 982 would crash the master file and you'd lose the game), W,
MOUNT 384 ON 683, or just abbreviate it to MOUNT 384
Congratulations! You Won. Time to go home and get some well deserved rest.

Repeated play shows that Reel # 384 is always the end solution. And so you might try to go straight there from your starting point using the door code CHEAT, but you won't win the game unless the core has been dumped which required the paper to be loaded into the printer -and- you had to go back to your office to submit your job changes. That would've been neat to see some Job Control Language fly by on the screen, but nevertheless, a fun little game.

//WALKTHRU JOB (93,2),HERMAN,CLASS=E,MSGLEVEL=(1,1),
// REGION=1024K,PRTY=10
//STEP1 EXEC PGM=NATURALB,
// PARM='STACK=(LOGON MSHBH)'
//STEPLIB DD DSN=AMISWALK.TXT,DISP=SHR
//* END OF DUMP