Technology1 min read

Monkey Island: all 13 versions side by side

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

The archival effort captures a dozen identical scenes across every system to contrast graphical capabilities and platform-specific quirks, such as Macintosh black bars and Hercules column cropping. While most versions are captured in English, the archive incorporates a Spanish PC 16-color release and a French Atari ST monochrome edition. High-resolution scaling is standardized at 1600x1200 with 4:3 aspect correction, utilizing WebGL2 ports of DOSBox Staging CRT shaders to emulate original hardware displays.

Key points

  • The archive relies on nearest-neighbour pixel scaling and aspect correction to simulate h…: The archive relies on nearest-neighbour pixel scaling and aspect correction to simulate historical monitors accurately.
  • WebGL2 CRT shaders recreate the authentic display characteristics of systems like the Ami…: WebGL2 CRT shaders recreate the authentic display characteristics of systems like the Amiga, Sega CD, and FM Towns.
  • The comparative reference tool was created independently by The Paninos without any backi…: The comparative reference tool was created independently by The Paninos without any backing from LucasArts or Disney.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

About these screens

Every screen was captured in ScummVM, except the Atari ST monochrome screens, which come from the Hatari emulator. Each capture was scaled to 1600x1200 with nearest-neighbour pixels and 4:3 aspect correction, so every original pixel keeps the shape it had on a period monitor.

The twelve moments are the same in every version, with the same framing, so switching versions changes the machine, not the moment. The PC 16-color screens come from a Spanish copy and the Atari ST mono ones from a French copy; all the others are in English.

Table of contents

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Char: Decimal: 0 Hex: 00

PxPlus IBM VGA 9x16 by VileR (int10h.org), CC BY-SA 4.0. Stretched x1.35 here for 4:3, shared under the same licence.

- Emulators

- ScummVM, and Hatari for the Atari ST mono screens

- Output

- 1600 x 1200 pixels per screen

[X] Nearest-neighbour scaling

[X] 4:3 aspect correction

[X] The same 12 moments in every version

The Mac draws a 640x400 picture…

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