LINKS Golf Original Version IBM PC 1990
Access Software released LINKS: The Challenge of Golf for IBM PC MS-DOS in 1990.
LINKS employs 3D flat-shaded terrain-draws, accurate golf ball physics and complex controls via its Swing Panel. In addition, Links features digitized photos and animated sprites as well as RealSound sampled commentary and wildlife sound effects.
LINKS was originally shipped with only one course: Torrey Pines of San Diego, California. 20 more courses were released from 1991-96 [1].
LINKS displays in 256-color VGA 320x200.
LINKS was designed by Vance Cook and programmed by Vance Cook, Kevin Homer and Roger Carver.
The original version of LINKS requires an i80286 CPU and 555K of free conventional RAM in order to experience all features. A minimum of 530K of free conventional RAM is required to run LINKS, which can also employ 256K of EMS LIM 4.0 or XMS 2.0 in order to greatly increase screendraw speed. Back in the day, LINKS course screendraw updates took about 10 seconds on i80386SX CPUs with 1.3 megs of EMS RAM.
LINKS audio supports RealSound, Sound Blaster, Adlib, IBM Speech Adapter and M-Sound.
LINKS: The Challenge of Golf was distributed on 2x 3.5" 1.44MB HD diskettes, 3x 3.5" 720kB DS DD diskettes or 5x 5.25" 360kB DS DD floppy disks. The hard disk drive install size is 1.5 megs.
LINKS: The Challenge Golf Manual: 23 pages.
List of Links Championship Course Add-ons [1]
- Links: Championship Course: Banff Springs
- Links: Championship Course: Barton Creek
- Links: Championship Course: Bay Hill Club
- Links: Championship Course: Belfry, The
- Links: Championship Course: Bighorn
- Links: Championship Course: Bountiful Golf Course
- Links: Championship Course: Castle Pines Golf Club
- Links: Championship Course: Firestone Country Club
- Links: Championship Course: Hyatt Dorado Beach
- Links: Championship Course: Innisbrook Resort: Copperhead
- Links: Championship Course: Mauna Kea
- Links: Championship Course: Pebble Beach
- Links: Championship Course: Pinehurst Resort & Country Club
- Links: Championship Course: Prairie Dunes Country Club
- Links: Championship Course: Troon North
LINKS 386 Pro IBM PC MS-DOS 1992
Access Software released Links 386 Pro for IBM PC MS-DOS 4.0 in 1992. Links 386 Pro features aerial flybys, digitized terrain texture-mapping, male and female digitized golfer sprites, 9 different viewing windows with 345 arrangement combinations, and online tournaments versus up to 200 other players via Computer Sports Network.
Links 386 Pro employs Phar Lap's 386 DOS-Extender 4.1 and 386 Virtual Memory Manager 4.1 swap file.
Links 386 Pro displays in 256-color VESA 640x400, not square-pixel SVGA 640x480. The CD-ROM version of Links 386 Pro can be set to display in 800x600 or 1024x768, but the active render-field does not scale to full-screen.
Links 386 Pro only comes bundled with the Harbor Town course file module, but eight courses from Links: The Challenge of Golf can be converted to the Links 386 Pro format. In addition, Links 386 Golf is compatible with the above-listed Links: Championship Course modules.
Links 386 Pro requires an i80386SX 16 MHz CPU, 2 megs of RAM and a VESA-compliant ISA-, VLB- or PCI-bus SVGA graphics card with 512K of vRAM. 12,000 kb/sec video transfer rates are recommended for aerial flybys. Back in the day, screen-draw times varied from 30 seconds on stock 386es up to 1 second on Pentium 90s. Links 386 Pro can take advantage of up to 12 megs of RAM.
Links 386 Pro audio supports Sound Blaster 1.0, Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster AWE-32, Microsoft Sound System, Ensoniq SoundScape, Pro Audio Spectrum, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, AdLib, AdLib Gold, ESS Audiodrive, Gravis UltraSound, Gravis UltraSound Max, Roland RAP-10 and Sound Galaxy Nova16. The CD-ROM version of Links 386 Pro supports digital sound only.
Links 386 Pro was distributed on 4x 3.5" 1.44MB HD diskettes or 1x CD-ROM and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via Links 386 Pro Install. The install size is 12 megs and consists of 60 files.
Links 386 Pro was programmed by Vance Cook, Kevin Homer and Roger Carver.
Links 386 Pro Manual: 87 pages.
Links 386 Pro CD-ROM Courses
(Available as of December 1, 1994.)
- Bountiful Golf Club: Bountiful, Utah
- Prairie Dunes Country Club: Hutchinson, Kansas
- The Belfry: Wishaw, Warwickshire, England
cf.
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