Karateka IBM PC Model 5150 Longplay – YouTube
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/11/28
Karateka (which appeared way before the even more famous Prince of Persia which appeared 5 years later) memories of the past, for which I totally agree with the conclusion: the game on Apple ][ was way better:
[Wayback/Archive] πΈπππ₯π ππͺ ππππ€πππππΎ on Twitter: “@textfiles Jordan’s opinion on the IBM version”
JULY 31, 1986
Just looked at the “final” version of PC Karateka. It seemed OK, I guessed, except for overall sluggishness, frequent disk accesses, and a few minor graphics glitches. Then I booted up the Apple version to compare… and it was so smooth, it made me want to cry.
The PC version is maybe 50% of what it should be. I can’t even tell these guys s what to fix… it’s a million little things, and they’re just not up to the hassle. That kind of attention to detail is why the Apple version took me two years. This version is probably the best I’ll ever get out of them.
You can play the PC version online atΒ [Wayback/Archive] Karateka IBM Version 1986-01-30 (1986-02-04) (ID 0873) : Jordan Mechner : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Internal Alpha version (1986-01-30) of the IBM port of Karateka by Jordan Mechner.
It was ported to many platforms, and there was a great documentary too. So there are more YouTube links below than [Wayback/Archive] Karateka IBM PC Model 5150 Longplay – YouTube which has this great description:
This video is a demonstration of the port of Jordan Mechner’s Karateka to the IBM PC taken with original hardware. I wanted to do a video of this game for two reasons. First to show the accurate speed of the game loading and playing on the PC, and second to show off the music and sound effects.
Karateka for the IBM PC and compatibles is a DOS floppy, not a PC booter. It was ported by The Connelley Group in 1986 and appears to be the only port done by that company to the IBM PC. Judging by the quality of this port, developers and publishers were not beating a path to their door. The load times are absurdly long compared to the slower Apple II disk interface and the graphics palette used is uninspired and lazy. I kept all of the loading times in, if you want to go to the start of the gameplay, go to 4:08.
The only place where the developers put any effort is in the combat, which is usually at a tolerable speed, and the music/sound effects. The Apple II used pulse width modulation to produce music and the PC porters tried to replicate that technique, but their faithfulness to the pitch of the original music was less than perfect. More annoying is that their PWM routine was speed sensitive. While this may have been justifiable in 1984 when the IBM PC was the only affordable PC compatible on the market, in 1986 that was absurd. Even though the box says the game is compatible with the IBM PC AT and Compaq Pro 286, the music and sound effects come out as high pitched squeaks on those machines. Emulators usually get the music and sound effect speed wrong or produce the wrong pitch. I wanted to get the speed correct with the hardware on which this port was intended to run, the IBM PC, XT and similar machines.
Karateka had many ports, but only the IBM PC port tried to replicate the music by way of PWM and has sound effects that sound like the Apple II’s. A lot of the ports have rather tinny sounding sound effects, but some of them use PWM for the “Kai” sound your karateka makes when assuming a fighting stance.
If the game used the unofficial but widely supported cyan/red/white CGA palette instead of the official IBM cyan/magenta white, it would have improved the game significantly. The game does autodetect and support Hercules graphics and looks rather nice, but squashed vertically, on my IBM 5151 dye to phosphor bloom. This port has no Tandy or EGA graphics support and no Tandy sound support. Shamefully, while CGA support composite artifact colors that were identical or very similar to the Apple II’s composite artifact colors, this game made not even the minimal effort which would have been required to support them and equal if not better the Apple II version.
I kept an image of the disk’s file display in the video. Why are there so many files? Why does this game, which comfortably fit on a single side of an Apple II disk (143K/side) get twice as large for the PC? One element driving up the file size is that the graphics are twice as large because they use 2-bits per pixel rather than the 1-bit per pixel graphics of the Apple II. The game does not support running from a hard drive, it uses a floppy disk based copy protection scheme.
Via
- [Wayback/Archive] πΈπππ₯π ππͺ ππππ€πππππΎ on Twitter: “Karateka on a real IBM PC 5150 with load times left in, and accurate sound.”
- [Wayback/Archive] πΈπππ₯π ππͺ ππππ€πππππΎ on Twitter: “Jordan Mechner on PC port of Karateka:”
[Wayback/Archive] πΈπππ₯π ππͺ ππππ€πππππΎ on Twitter: “@textfiles Jordan’s opinion on the IBM version”
[Wayback/Archive] Jason Scott on Twitter: “Karateka: The Alpha and the Beta
ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5039“
[Wayback/Archive] Karateka: The Alpha and the Beta Β« ASCII by Jason Scott
Platforms
- [Wayback/Archive] Karateka IBM PC Model 5150 Longplay – YouTube (spoiler: ends with the fence coming down which I think you could circumvent by forcing the Evil Akuma backwards through the fence while fighting him)
- [Wayback/Archive] Apple II Game: Karateka (1984 BrΓΈderbund) – YouTube (no fence)
A classic fighting game designed by Jordan Mechner who is best known for Prince of Persia. This is probably the first fighting game that allows you to run. It has realistic art and animations for that time. This side scrolling beat ’em up platform game has 1-on-1 elements in it. There are no jump kicks or special moves here. All you have is basic punches and kicks, walk, and run and that’s it.
The object of the game is to rescue the princess Mariko kidnapped from evill villian name Akuma who destroyed your homeland. You the warrior trained in Karate, known as karateka must fight your way to rescue her and fight each opponents who get in your way. You only have one life. There are health recovery points by relaxing and not letting your opponent attacking you. Once all health points are gone, you or the opponent are defeated. Can be played with a PC joystick or on keyboards. You must fight the trained eagle or falcon by evil akuma before facing him in battle. Once you defeat Akuma, you must run to the princess to attribute to your sucess or walk in a stance where she will kick you in one blow and the game is over.
This game is originally designed for Apple II before being ported to other systems such as the NES and Atari ST. Atari ST is graphically the best version since it’s the only 16-bit port of the game. - [Wayback/Archive] Karateka (C64 Longplay) – YouTube (no fence)
Creator: Jordan Mechner / Programmer: Robert Cook / Musician: Francis Mechner / Graphician: Gene Portwood & Lauren Elliott / Publisher: BrΓΈderbund, 1985 / Played by Myrryspeikko
- [Wayback/Archive] Atari ST Longplay [005] Karateka – YouTube (no fence; best graphics)
I admit that Tempest 2000 for the Atari Jaguar was originally going to be my next longplay. But I decided to do this instead since no one did a walkthrough of this Game. Just a short demos that’s it. So decided to do this game. I have seen someone play this on Apple II at the Boys & Girls Club when I was little. A really good classic side-scrolling beat ’em up game with 1-on-1 elements. This game was originally released for Apple II in 1984. Then ported to Atari 8-bit and NES later the same year and other platforms such as commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Dos, and other. This is the first time I played the Atari ST Version as I’ve only played the Dos and NES versions. There are no special moves here. All you have is basic punches and kicks, walk, and run and that’s it.I first played on Steem Engine emulator. But somehow, the last level was buggy. It went blank for long periods of time preventing me from reaching the final boss. Then it went to Atari ST desktop screens. So I gave up on Steem emulator. So I used SainT emulator with avi output and it’s emulated perfectly with no bugs able to reach the final boss and ending with no problems. I wanted to record this at 60 fps but only let me record up 50 fps so I’m stuck with this. I also made a lot of mistakes so Save States had to be use so they are corrected. If you want to play this game get SainT emulator instead. Use Steem Engine emulator for other games. This game was created by Jordan Mechner while he attended Yale University and Karate was a big hit. He is best known for creating the Original Prince of Persia in 1989. In Karateka, the object of the game is to save the princess kidnapped by Evil Akuma who destroyed your homeland. You as a warrior known as Karateka must fight each opponents who get in your way. You must also fight the trained falcon by Evil Akuma before facing him in a battle. This game has 2 endings. A bad one and a good one. Bad one comes first then good comes last. Bad ending at 42:11. Good Ending at 42:56. – Disclaimer: Most videos by World of Longplays use SaveStates!
- [Wayback/Archive] The History of Karateka – video game documentary – YouTube
–jeroen
IBM
Apple ][
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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