THE ISLAND - native Atari ST English edition
Original game: DIE INSEL 1.0, Christian Machens, 1989/90
English edition: 8 October 2026

RUNNING THE GAME

Use an Atari ST with a monochrome display (ST High, 640 x 400), or an
Atari ST emulator such as Hatari with a compatible TOS ROM and a
monochrome monitor setting. The ROM and emulator are not in this package.

Insert THE-ISLAND-EN.st as floppy drive A, open drive A in the Atari
desktop, and run INSEL.TOS. Leave BILDER, MUSIK, SPIELE, WOERTER,
INFO.TXT and INSEL.TOS together. Alternatively, extract the THE-ISLAND
folder and use it as a GEMDOS drive in an emulator.

The disk must be writable to save a game. Keep a fresh copy of the disk
before playing. The original save format and six save slots are retained.

COMMANDS

N, E, S, W; NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, WEST; UP, DOWN.
LOOK, LOOK AT TREE, TAKE BUCKET, OPEN DOOR, READ DIARY.
OPEN DOOR WITH LONG KEY, TURN TORCH ON, GIVE TORCH TO RIEUX.
I or INVENTORY; SAVE GAME; LOAD GAME; QUIT GAME.
Join commands with commas or AND. Use Y or N for yes/no questions.

The native parser retains the original limits and word-stem behavior.
Some multiword names use a compact command word: KEYCARD, ANTIGEN,
INSECTSPRAY, GUMMYBEARS, AIRSHAFT, SUIT, HELMET, HOOK, MISTERX.
The descriptive text still shows their complete names.

Puzzle passwords and number codes have not been changed. Their original
substitution symbols, including accented characters used for digits,
remain part of the puzzle. Letter clues and diary prose are English.

ABOUT THIS EDITION

This is the native 68000 Atari program with translated text, vocabulary,
instructions and raster lettering. It does not require a web browser or
a translation overlay. The original illustration pixels outside text
regions, all five music files, numeric game identities, puzzles and save
structures are retained. The original German files are preserved apart
from this separate English package.

The input grammar accepts English directions, articles, prepositions
and Y/N. One byte corrects the original keyboard upper bound from
$1fff to $ffff. Hatari with Atari TOS 1.02 confirmed that the original
bound rejects the normal difficulty key 1 and exits the program.
Other changes to program instructions serve translated string lengths
and picture record addresses. The original executable segment sizes and
relocation stream are retained.

The author's original public-domain notice is translated in LIESMICH.
Historical postal and source-code-order information in INFO.TXT is
retained as part of the original game, not as a current offer.
See PRUEFBERICHT.txt for the emulator checks and their limits.
