How, who and when? How come there are two versions of Joe's?!

[Cas]

Today, in late 2024, I've come across another discrepancy that fills me with questions. I was reviewing Permanent Competition replays in R4K and decided I'd post my own in Joe's, where I hadn't posted one before. After I made a nice time and tried to upload it, I got an error telling me it was the wrong track. So I looked and it seemed it was the same. Also, Duplode had posted a replay there and it was OK. So I downloaded the track that's in R4K and compared it with my local one and found something very interesting. I'm sharing with you the two versions here and I'll call them version "A" and version "B".

So, they different in the central section. Version "B" can be identified, among other things, because there's a jump with a barn in it, so we could say "B" stands for "barn". I've observed the following:

• My 1.1 copy, which I downloaded from R4K as Stunts 1.1 standard, includes Joe's "B". If you download Stunts from there today, that's what you get
• The one presented in the Permanent Competition as of today is Joe's "A"
• ZakStunts as of today in it's current year distribution of Stunts includes Joe's "A"
• Duplode is pointing out that older seasons appear to have featured version "B" in ZakStunts
• My old copy of Stunts 1.0 included version "A"
• The old Kalpen's tournament page includes the two diskettes of Stunts 1.1 and the version there is Joe's "B"
• In the WIki, the article about versions features a copy of 1.0 that does not include any version of the track
• Also in the versions article, the copy of Stunts 1.1 includes Joe's "B"
• In the same Wiki page, the copy of 4D Sports Driving from 1990 features Joe's "A"
• Curiously enough, also on that page, the 4D Sports Driving copy from 1991 includes Joe's "B"

Tell me guys if you're still not confused

Anyway, this is a very interesting thing because both versions appear to be old an they are both good tracks. It's not just "noise" that makes them different. I'd like to see if we can track down where these versions come from.

[Frieshansen]

All of this versions contain joes_b.trk:

@Daniel3D which versions are these?

4D Sports Driving (ID 558)
is the red sector cracked version of 4D sports driving 1.1 OF 13 DECEMBER 1990

4D Sports Driving (ID 1111)  [720KB - 2 disk version]
UNCRACKED version of 4D sports driving 1.1 OF 25 FEBRUARY 1991

4D Sports Driving (ID 1112)  [360KB - 4 disk version]
UNCRACKED version of 4D sports driving 1.1 OF 25 FEBRUARY 1991

Stunts (ID 1354)  [720KB - 2 disk version]
UNCRACKED version of STUNTS 1.1 of 12 FEBRUARY 1991

Stunts (ID 1355) [360KB - 4 disk version]
UNCRACKED version of STUNTS 1.1 of 12 FEBRUARY 1991

------
aside of the first one the others seem original

a download link to all versions with original image files and the unpacked files
plus a txt with the information from the site.
to save downloading and unpacking separately and stuff.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmubl16hkf55jtl/morestunts.zip?dl=0

[Duplode]

Duplode is pointing out that older seasons appear to have featured version "B" in ZakStunts

Indeed. Here's a rundown of Joe's versions at ZakStunts:

• Sampling some of the old yearly download packages, the ones from 2007, 2009, 2015 and 2022 have the "B" track.
• 2023 and 2024, though, have the "A" track. The change might be related to some other differences between the packages that were spotted last year.
• ZCT118, from 2011, is "B" with some added trees.
• However, the track pack from the old permanent competition, which is from 2002, has the "A" track!

By the way, my Joe's lap for the permanent competition was driven on the "B" track, which I presumably got from a ZakStunts yearly package sometime in the late 00's.

All of this versions contain joes_b.trk:

Thanks @Frieshansen (and @Daniel3D as well); that provides further evidence that the "B" track was distributed with the original 1991 versions at least. There isn't as much evidence about the "A" track. Still, the file timestamps in JOES.TRK tracks from the Mindscape (4D Sports Driving) versions as obtained from the Wiki/pigsgrame.de are contemporary with the version releases, which hints at the "A" track having originated with Mindscape 1990 specifically:

[dreadnaut]

Ooooh, that's an interesting discovery! The crossing is almost the same, but B has a more interesting double jump.

You cannot view this attachment.

[Cas]

Thanks, guys, for all the details. So... it seems "B" is without a doubt an original track, whereas "A" was probably also originally distributed with Stunts as it's apparently featured in the Mindscape 1990 version. However, the fact that the Mindscape 1991 version includes "B" casts some doubts. Why would they revert this?  Isn't it possible that not Mindscape, but somebody through which we got that copy of MS 1990 actually modified the track?

One way or another, if "A" were not official, it still is sufficiently old and we have played it enough that we have to consider it official. This means we'll have to take this into account. As far as R4K is concerned, I guess we'll have to split that scoreboard to include the two versions, that is, we'll need another Permanent Competition track entry there. If we ever race Joe's again in any tournament or event again, we'll need to be clear about which track. Incredible that we didn't notice in all this time... and I realised by sheer chance.

[Cas]

Created this article about Joe's track(s): https://wiki.stunts.hu/wiki/Joe's

[Duplode]

Nice work, thanks! By the way, I probably should try setting a lap time on the "A" track...

[rallyfiend]

Interesting topic; I had recently found a old archive of Stunts 1.0 disks made in the late '90s (probably around the time I retired last PC with floppy drives) and got it going again under DOSBox-X. I'd never seen the later versions and only just found this site. Did some comparisons and have noticed there are also other track changes from 1.0 to 1.1, and I haven't found the 1.0 ones elsewhere.

Track	Variation
BERNIES	In 1.0 the first few turns are different
CHERRIS	In 1.0 this track is called CHERRY.TRK, but is same
DEFAULT	In 1.0 the horizon is City (03), not Tropical (01)
HELENS	Not in 1.0*
JOES	Per this topic
SKIDS	In 1.0 the horizon is Alpine (02), not Tropical (01)

Given these slight variations, it should be possible for tools like Bliss to correctly identify the different versions; right now, 1.1 tracks are reported as 1.0 by DSI, and 1.0 versions I have are reported as 1.1 tracks by Anonymous.

I was going to attach the tracks and a comparison image for BERNIES, but I don't seem to be able to do that, probably due to being a first-time poster.

* The zip I have found was made in 1999 from STUNTS 1.0 diskettes, and the tracks retain their original October 1990 dates, so I would be confident they're unmolested. I'm pretty sure I didn't delete any, so the missing HELENS.TRK is likely to be missing from the source (and there's no corresponding .HIG file, either).

[Duplode]

Hello and welcome, @rallyfiend ! That is useful evidence, thank you. Those differences match things seen in the last couple of ZakStunts packages which had us puzzled. That specific Stunts folder having originated from someone, a long time ago perhaps, remixing BB 1.0 data files with BB 1.1 binaries sounds like a plausible course of events. (BTW, I don't think I had heard anyone mentioning the Bernie's or Default differences before now!)

On the attachments: I don't think we have a restriction for new posters. Did you post your reply with the "quick reply" box at the bottom of the page, or with the "reply" button directly under the post? The option to attach files only shows up with the latter. (We also found that pretty confusing when the SMF interface changed to be like that!)

[rallyfiend]

Hello and welcome, rallyfiend!

Thanks. It's cool to discover folks are still interested in an almost 35 year-old game. That said, was probably my most played in the early '90s; even made a terrain editor (just found out about the Shift+F1 option!)

Did you post your reply with the "quick reply" box at the bottom of the page

Yes, that was it. Here's the BERNIES 1.0 track and comparison:
You cannot view this attachment.

[alanrotoi]

Also there are two versions of Skids