Prehistoric SP -- July 1996 Beta

[MarkSheppard]

Recently I learned that a beta version of SP from July 1996 had been leaked -- it got mistaken as a demo -- onto game magazines back in 1996.

https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/vi...p?f=14&t=38921

“It appears that SSI were sending out pre-release versions of some of their games to magazines for preview, and several have ended up on magazine cover disks, mistaken for legitimate demo versions of the respective games. This false impression was probably reinforced by the fact that the betas came with the same type of installer as the regular SSI demo versions.

Steel Panthers Beta

The beta is dated 18 July 1995, the installer files 8 August 1995. The catalogue records four cover-disks with this version: SCORE No. 25 (January 1996), PC Power (March 1996), PC Games (March 1996) and PC Action (March 1996). The main installer file (DATA.A00) is 15 561 910 bytes.

This version appears to be not limited in any way, it contains a large number of scenarios, the campaign mode and mission builder, and several saved games, apparently intended to show gameplay to reviewers. The installer help file contains text in French which suggests that perhaps the beta was originally leaked by a French magazine, but this is not certain.”

I downloaded it and dove into it, as an archaeological project.

15 MB Zip of 1996 Beta of SP, must be installed under DOSBOX

It installs to the C:\PANTH directory and includes:

AAPLAY.EXE – Autodesk Animator Public Domain Player v1.0 from 1989.

EDITPZ.EXE – Apparently the original SSI editor for SP, used by the dev team.

PZ.EXE – Main program.

To get the Beta to run, you have to select NO SOUND.

What's in the Beta:

Four Saves:

US vs Soviet (5/1945)
Jap vs US (12/1941)
Brit vs Ger (9/1944)
Jap v US (12/1941)

It seems to contain some information on the FIRST round of icons which were drawn up for the game, as it contains several LBM files named BRI.LBM, etc which are attached in PNG format to this post.