About
Disco Dan is an arcade game for the Tatung Einstein, released on the Einsoft label. The title screen reads “©1984 Tatung (UK) Ltd. & Gem Software, Coding & Design by D.White & J.Line”. Despite the name it has nothing to do with dancing: the discs are the ones Dan jumps between.
The inlay describes it as an “Atomic Crisis Arcade Style Game”:
Can daredevil Dan decontaminate the atomic fuel rods in time? In this 3D game you control Dan Dan the Atomiser Man, jumping him from disc to disc trying to reduce the ever increasing radiation levels in an atomic pile. However Up ‘n’ Atom ‘Arry and his gang of vagrant particles are thirsting for the energy in your backpack – use your laser to keep him away. Watch out for Ron the Rapacious Robot, and take care as you journey through hyperspace from one reactor to the next!
Inlay: Einsoft Disco Dan 05-2370-4, Copyright © Tatung (UK) Ltd 1984, ISBN 1-85086-008-4.
Running It
Boot either side of the disc; there is no DOS prompt. As the inlay says, “Disco Dan will start automatically”. Press a key at the title screen for the menu, which offers joystick or keyboard, the high score table, music on or off, instructions, a demo mode and play. The keyboard controls are O and P to move and rotate left and right, Q to jump and SPACE to fire. To leave the game, take out the disc and press RESET.
Files in the Package
| File | Side | What it is |
|---|---|---|
DISCODAN_A_DISCODAN.scp | A | raw flux capture |
DISCODAN_A_DISCODAN.mfi | A | MAME flux image |
DISCODAN_A_DISCODAN.dsk | A | sector image |
DISCODAN_B_DISCODAN.scp | B | raw flux capture |
DISCODAN_B_DISCODAN.mfi | B | MAME flux image |
DISCODAN_B_DISCODAN.dsk | B | sector image |
README.txt | details of the dump and checksums |
About this Dump
Dumped on 26 September 2026 from an original Einsoft disc with a Greaseweazle V4 and an original Einstein 3″ drive. Both sides hold the same game, identical sector for sector. The disc has no directory: the game loads itself from the first six tracks, and those are the only tracks ever recorded. The remaining tracks were never formatted, which is how the disc was made, not damage. Every recorded sector reads cleanly, and both sides boot in MAME.
The library previously held the game as a program file, DISCO.COM, on an ordinary DOS disc. That file is the contents of these boot tracks with a short jump added at the start and a few bytes changed so it can run from DOS. This package is the disc as Tatung sold it.
Gallery
