Until yesterday I’d thought the authoring system I’d tinkered with on the Amiga 500 was probably TADS, but I found a disk yesterday saying “F.R.A.C.” I can’t remember the details, and couldn’t find much about it online, but can remember it was easy to use.
If the disk works I could eventually upload a copy to the IF Archive, if anyone else feels nostalgic and if it’s not already online.
I think the only games made with FRAC that I’ve come across are the two by Darryl Sloan. [*edit: actually only one was by Darryl, the second was by Paul Hardy]
I looked at my archive of Amy files, with a spectacular FailAt 
all those fractal-related files swamps the find -name results, and an eyeball MK.I search of the results yields nothing. I find the Daryl Sloan story (Genocide Earth) on IFDb, but I can’t find Paul Hardy; you can point to the IFdb entry of his IF ?
Later I’ll look to my collection of mag scans, but not all the .pdf was OCR’d, so I’m not optimist. Jonathan, you can try to give something that can narrow the timeframe ?
(believe it or not, but the Amy 68k’s coding scene is still active, as the continuously updated whatsnew in the Aminet site shows… so I have as termini ad quo only the mid-1987)
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
See: :: CASA :: Games - FRAC (2 results)
I used it early- to mid-1990s (though of course never published anything).
The Paul Hardy game was the first instalment in his Jerrick Bonesnapper series (The Dungeon of Doom). I have been unable to locate a surviving copy of it. (The second game in the series was made with CAT)
another question (not that I’m doubting you, but as trained Historian, I can’t underestimate the haziness the passage of years lays upon reminescences…): I find a reference to a commercial IF language in the fish #300 README, whose name sounds similiar to TADS:
perhaps the language was this ? (I doubt it, the example source there are more ALAN-like than TADS-like)
… aaand the research get an interesting side effect: perhaps I have dig out an forgotten CYOA IF engine in the Fish #655 :
I’ll look @it, then duly upload it in our Archive…
TACL went on to become Visionary.
TACL games :: CASA :: Games - TACL (6 results)
Visionary games :: CASA :: Games - Visionary (5 results)
Both are different to FRAC, which was a real thing. 
:: CASA :: Games - FRAC (2 results)
According to Amiga Shopper’s review, FRAC was Derek Whiteman’s A-Level computing project! (Issue 18, October 1992)
Congrats, Strident for finding it !!!
but the screenshot looks like a Quill-like language/creator, and Jon remember somewhat akin to TADS; I’ll unadf(1) the image and… interesting. uses a basic-like language named FRACTOL for the actions/routines.
Now we have recovered not one, but TWO lost IF languages, and also a demo and interpreter for a third, commercial, IF language…
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
None of the ones I was posting links to were lost. But we do regularly find new systems that were only ever used for a handful of games.
It would be interesting to know which version it is. There was definitely something referred to as “FRAC 2.0”.
From the Readme.doc, seems that we have version 1.1
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio
I have found a letter from Derek Whiteman dated 17 October 1993. It wouldn’t be cricket to put the whole thing online but it contains this:
Please find enclosed a disk containing FRAC version 2.1 which is the latest (and probably the last I will create).
FRAC is very interesting find. Although I was aware of such companies like “F1 Licenceware”, my only knowledge of “Amiganuts United” Public Domain series was due to Teijo Kinnunen and his MED music editor. I can’t find more information about this series. It was sold on floppy diskettes back then and sent via a postcard.
I only have collection of CDPD I-IV which contains some more software than Fred Fish disks. For sure there are many more adventure systems there, but I recall and have used only my favourite: ADL, AdvSys, Haktar, Alan.and some further: EAC, ADMS.
I don’t think that version 2.1 is available anywhere online, and it would be great to try it out.
From what I can determine:
Are there any downloads for the later versions? The two known games were released in 1996 and 1997, so they were most likely written with one of the later versions.
Also, are there any other FRAC games known?
This 2.1 review makes reference to two small demo adventures, “Escape from Desert Island” and “The Forest”.
As soon as I dig out my old Amiga I’ll likely get an external Gotek for it, at which point I’ll be able to submit FRAC 2.1 to the archive. If the disk still works! Hopefully that will be this year or next.
If it were possible to read Amiga disks on a PC I’d give that a go sooner, but I’ve heard that it isn’t.
It is possible to read and write PC disks (DD 720kB) under Amiga. Workbench 3.0 has special PC0 driver for this purpose (located in Storage/DOSDrivers directory).
So you can format a blank 3,5" diskette on Amiga in MS-DOS format using PC0 driver.
It’s simple: double-click PC0 driver icon, then insert blank diskette, select PC0 disk icon on the desktop and choose “Format” from Icons menu).
Now you can copy files to it and then insert into floppy disk-drive on your PC.
Of course you can compress and split the files if required.
The other option is to link Amiga and PC serial ports with null-modem cable. I use it as my PC’s motherboard has serial port and it’s a great option to transfer data (I use Amiga Explorer program).
P.S. I’ve heard there are special devices that can read Amiga disks. Gotek is good option as well.