Welcome

Back in 1997, I began working on a tool for viewing Maniac Mansion (PC V1) LFL files, which are very similar to the original Commodore 64 format. The tool was called lflview. This web site is a place to store that application and its associated file format document. It is also a place to collect links to web sites that have attempted similar projects in the 14 years since I wrote that tool. Perhaps it will also be a place where I will continue to work on the tool and investigate more of the original Commodore 64 LFL format.

The lflview.exe no longer completely works on today's modern machines, so when I get the time I will convert the code to Java and hopefully look to get it running as an applet on this site. It is still possible to run it using DOSBOX.

The following are some screen shots from the original DOS version of LFLVIEW:

It is easy to see from the above images how the game screen works. The first two pictures are hidden from the user. They are used solely by the SCUMM interpreter to control various things. In the first case, it controls where the main character you are controlling is able to walk. In the second case it controls what parts of the image are drawn on top of the main character. There is a bit more detail to it than that but from this it is easy to get the basic idea. The third picture shows a custom Commodore 64 multi-colour character set, which is a concept that was very familiar to computer users of the 1980s home computer generation. And finally the fourth picture shows the game screen that has been drawn by placing these customer multi-colour characters at various points on the screen. The screen is essentially a grid of characters. It is easy to notice that many of the characters are repeated at various points on the screen.