Identifying ALL physical releases of DOOM? - Official retail, mail order, big boxes, floppys, CD-ROMs, etc

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

12 hours ago, Jjjj said:

Someone could help me identify this copy and tell me a price for it ?

It's one of the shareware releases by GT Interactive.

 

It is not extremely rare; it regularly shows up on eBay. There's also really nothing special about shareware copies aside from this one being "official" in the sense that GT Interactive published the retail releases of id's early games.

 

I cannot give a value for it, but keep in mind you would be paying for something that was free:

 

Spoiler

 

[Doomkid]

A signed copy that someone bothered to have graded is almost certainly going to cost way more than it's worth / way more than is reasonable. Grab yourself a boxed copy of Ultimate Doom or Doom II - there's no reason to be paying over 100 bucks for most of this stuff, especially if you're not a hardcore collector.

[Gentlepoke]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

A signed copy that someone bothered to have graded is almost certainly going to cost way more than it's worth / way more than is reasonable. Grab yourself a boxed copy of Ultimate Doom or Doom II - there's no reason to be paying over 100 bucks for most of this stuff, especially if you're not a hardcore collector.

This is why when I got the chance to get John Romero to sign something, I went with Daikatana on Nintendo 64.

[LoatharMDPhD]

Pedigree...

[Azuris]

 

@Doomkid

 

That Version is lacking in your List :)

Has a german Manual and Hintbook sold by Pearl Magazine.

 

As ludicrous_peridot figured out, even some unique Bug.

[ludicrous_peridot]

Any ideas of where this beauty may have come from?

 

[Henso Akira]

11 minutes ago, ludicrous_peridot said:

Any ideas of where this beauty may have come from?

 

Holy shit that looks cool but pretty ass in the same time, might be a cheap bootleg copy, i mean, do you own this or you just saw somewhere on the internet because what im trying to know is, it is a rare legal copy or bootleg ?

[ludicrous_peridot]

That were my thoughts as well, so I have purchased the disks to see for myself. Sadly, though, these have the notorious 25.08.1994 version. Moreover looking at disk image in a hex editor, I can see @AZOR.NFO from 11.09.1994 in the disk root directory, that has since been overwritten. These appear to be "genuine" German bootleg disks for the game (as in formatted with a German version of MS-DOS). I have not seem much bootleg disks with color printed stickers, tbh, and it does have its charm :)

[BFG_retro]

On 1/18/2023 at 11:43 AM, Doomkid said:

At this point I'm pretty much convinced Disk 4 is not from a Manaccom release - I think it's strictly the manual, and even then I only say that because it has a black back rather than a red back (the red back seemingly the "correct" one for mail order Doom, since the graphic matches the back of the actual box, but anyone else who owns an Aussie mail order copy, I welcome you to weigh in).

 

All of the disks have 1.2 on them, and oddly, Disks 1, 2 and 4 (the non-copied ones) all do share a serial code on the disk itself. I'm thinking they came from the same distributor who sent out mail order copies to Aussies under license from id, just at slightly different times of year. Would explain the matching serial codes and disk color, but non-matching labels.

 

I also checked the file attributes on all the disks - the others all had "date created" listed as 1-1-1980 as they should and a "date modified" of Feb 1994, but the copied disk had a "date created" from late 1998 which must have been when the owner moved the file over to the disk. To me the clean timestamps just further cement 1, 2 and 4 as legit non-copied disks.

I'm the original owner of this purchased 1993:

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

An auction for a boxed v1.2 Manaccom release has been listed by a seller on eBay. This is a pre-OFLC release which lacks the printed rating on the cover, but interestingly there is a "parental guidance" sticker on the box which I have never seen before. I don't know if the sticker is something Manaccom did or if it was added by some retailer.

 

 

Additionally, the contact information in the manual has been obscured with a Manaccom label (this is presumably normal for Manaccom manuals as it is not the only one I have seen like this):

 

Spoiler

 

The floppies, which are a little different from the ones in BFG_retro's photo in the above post:

 

Spoiler

 

 

A photo of all the contents:

 

Spoiler

 

Note the box includes the 5 1/4" floppy request form, which is absent from some copies I've seen. Given that the spine of the box says details for ordering 5 1/4" floppies are enclosed, I would assume all Manaccom boxes originally included the form.

[Boaby Kenobi]

On 11/20/2022 at 2:48 AM, Doomkid said:

DOOM for PC-98 (3.5" disks)

 

 

[OZScott]

Dug out my 1.1 version today 

[ludicrous_peridot]

Have fuchsia color floppies like this been discussed before? Only have the disks (i.e. no manual or packaging) and have no idea how legit they are. I was under impression these were bootleg disks, until I checked the thread and the stickers somehow looked reminiscent to those on a photo @Boaby Kenobi has shared about a year ago, only mine are black and white.

 

Anyway, the disks were perfectly readable and installed without an issue. I was able to patch successfully with a 1.1 to 1.2 patcher from an unrelated floppy I have, so assuming they carry the 1.1 "normal" registered version. The disks were not pristine, even though I got them with the latch in read-only position, as one of them (4th) had a very recently created system directory, as if it was interacted with in a modern Windows OS, e.g. by previous owner.

 

This made me have a look at root directory entries which got me surprised: in addition to the Doom distro file and the Windows trace directory, the table referenced deleted files (*.c and *.h) with last update timestamps predating Doom release date. There were no traces of file contents.

 

 

I am now curious if this is because the disk was in private use before it was made into semblance of Doom distro floppy - e.g. as a backup, - or if this trace of deleted files comes from the master floppy, in which case there would be other copies with the same entries in root directory...

[Doomkid]

Just updated the links in the OP.. They actually broke like 1 month after I posted and it's been long overdue!

 

On 2/8/2024 at 7:52 AM, ludicrous_peridot said:

Have fuchsia color floppies like this been discussed before? Only have the disks (i.e. no manual or packaging) and have no idea how legit they are.

[..]

I am now curious if this is because the disk was in private use before it was made into semblance of Doom distro floppy - e.g. as a backup, - or if this trace of deleted files comes from the master floppy, in which case there would be other copies with the same entries in root directory...

 

It would be great for someone to check, but that looks like a recently copied disc to me, between the traces of deleted files and evidence of recent copying on a modern OS. I've never seen an official one with a black photocopied-looking label, it's always red or blue and the ink of the Doom logo itself is always quite high quality, you can see all kinds of white dots over the logo on that disc. (I honestly like the pink and black look though, lol..)