In the twilight of 1.09..

[--Pete]

Hi,

I got D1 the first day it was available from retail outlets in the US, and it was definitely January '97

I didn't get it till Feb. '97, so couldn't say from personal opinion. I was pretty sure that an early Jan. date was right, but did find a couple of sites that gave a late Dec. date. As I said, I suspect that those were some kind of a pre release evaluation copy.

at one time Gyrefalcon on the old DSF put up a link to download the original D1 demo, and I didn't get that either.

I downloaded that, but that was a few systems ago :) And, yep, things did wear out *very* fast.

Bliz missed the Christmas '96 deadline,

Don't they always? ;)

rather than their attempt to get two shots at the game of the year

That was humor. I think that the success of Diablo took a lot of people, including people from Blizzard South, by surprise. Not everyone liked it. http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/zones/...b97/diablo.html is one example. And, he is pretty much correct on all points, but he overlooked one important fact. Diablo was (and often still is) *fun*.

--Pete