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Ambrosia Software legacy continues with Decoder Ring
Posted by: joshc on 2026-02-01 10:49:01
Apologies if it's already been posted previously, but I've only just found out about it.

At some point, I'm not sure exactly when, Andrew Burch released an app called Decoder Ring, which allows anyone to legitimately create serial codes for Ambrosia products. It's on the usual places, Mac Garden etc.

I know that up til quite late, they were still selling licences but after Ambrosia completely disappeared, there was no way to buy the products legitimately anymore. I guess that's why this came out.

I also didn't know there's a community forum for Ambrosia stuff as well. I don't know who runs it.

The Ambrosia Garden

community.ambrosia.garden community.ambrosia.garden
Posted by: volvo242gt on 2026-02-01 11:24:17
That's cool... Means that if my Apeiron install somehow gets nuked, including the preferences, I won't have to try to remember the serial I got from Ambrosia back in 1998.
Posted by: CptnCodon on 2026-02-01 15:20:20
Wow. This is fantastic news. Thanks for sharing.

And thank you, Andrew, wherever you may be. (BTW: you mention Andrew Burch, but Macintosh Garden references Andrew Welch.)
Posted by: joshc on 2026-02-01 17:40:05
Hah yes, mixing names up with Matt Burch. 🤦‍♂️
Posted by: olePigeon on 2026-02-02 10:06:48
Nice. Even made a BSNG plugin. 😀
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-02-02 10:15:46
Finally free of that dastardly parrot!
Posted by: adespoton on 2026-02-02 15:39:45
Finally free of that dastardly parrot!
I have to admit, after the first time I installed EV on an emulator where I didn't have my registration handy, I got this idea to invert the logic tied to Cap'n Hector... so now every time he shows up, he doubles the value he was previously stealing.
Posted by: Juror22 on 2026-02-02 16:26:51
Apologies if it's already been posted previously, but I've only just found out about it.

At some point, I'm not sure exactly when, Andrew Burch released an app called Decoder Ring, which allows anyone to legitimately create serial codes for Ambrosia products. It's on the usual places, Mac Garden etc.

I know that up til quite late, they were still selling licences but after Ambrosia completely disappeared, there was no way to buy the products legitimately anymore. I guess that's why this came out.

I also didn't know there's a community forum for Ambrosia stuff as well. I don't know who runs it.
I still have my codes - copies of copies of copies, moved from one machine to another, ...then to VM's which were moved from one machine to another, and now? All the pressure is finally off, what a relief!
I had no idea that there was a group, and that was pretty cool to find out as well.

If there was a 'like' or a 'thanks' button I suppose that I could have said all this much more succinctly. 🙂
Posted by: finkmac on 2026-02-03 05:45:18
this is awful. piracy is le bad. i cant believe the money i paid for ev nova and darwinia was wasted 👿

now i have no choice but to engage in key generation.
Posted by: SkippRnim on 2026-02-04 14:15:59
That's cool... Means that if my Apeiron install somehow gets nuked, including the preferences, I won't have to try to remember the serial I got from Ambrosia back in 1998.
Thankfully I have my serial numbers stored in 1Password.
Posted by: SkippRnim on 2026-02-04 14:34:00
Thankfully I have my serial numbers stored in 1Password.
wow, went through my email, apparently I have 3 licenses for Apeiron X in addition to my Apeiron license.
Posted by: SkippRnim on 2026-02-04 14:36:35
oh no, I was reading that forum… it looks like Peter Cartwright the guy on the design team of Escape Velocity and the one that was making the remake on Kickstarter has passed away. 😢

Peter Cartwright has passed away - The Ambrosia Garden

community.ambrosia.garden community.ambrosia.garden
Posted by: adespoton on 2026-02-04 14:51:09
oh no, I was reading that forum… it looks like Peter Cartwright the guy on the design team of Escape Velocity and the one that was making the remake on Kickstarter has passed away. 😢

Peter Cartwright has passed away - The Ambrosia Garden

community.ambrosia.garden community.ambrosia.garden
I will give more of an update in the coming days; I want to get some things straightened out first, and a plan together. I want to stress that this game will happen, and the project will be completed in honor of Peter. It has been more work than either of us atticipated, but we both believed that the game warranted the additional effort to ensure it could be what it deserved to be.
So Peter has passed, but Cosmic Frontier will live on in his memory! EVO was my favourite game in the franchise, too!
Posted by: LazarusNine on 2026-02-17 07:44:13
From what I can tell, the Mac (only?) version of DecoderRing is an Intel-native application that runs under Rosetta on Apple Silicon Macs. I wonder what will happen when we lose access to Rosetta given this news:

arstechnica.com

Apple details the end of Intel Mac support and a phaseout for Rosetta 2

Rosetta app translation features for Intel apps won't stay around indefinitely.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-02-17 07:52:34
From what I can tell, the Mac (only?) version of DecoderRing is an Intel-native application that runs under Rosetta on Apple Silicon Macs. I wonder what will happen when we lose access to Rosetta given this news:

arstechnica.com

Apple details the end of Intel Mac support and a phaseout for Rosetta 2

Rosetta app translation features for Intel apps won't stay around indefinitely.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
We could always try to port it to the Apple ][?
Posted by: joshc on 2026-02-17 13:33:28
I wonder what will happen when we lose access to Rosetta given this news:
You will have to run it on older machines that still have Rosetta 2. Just the same as I can’t run PPC binaries on an Arm Mac.
Posted by: LaPorta on 2026-02-17 13:54:51
We are the bastion of old machines. Someone on here will be able to run it.
Posted by: adespoton on 2026-02-17 15:56:06
Works fine in an emulator....
Posted by: sfiera on 2026-02-17 20:50:04
Playing Ambrosia games already requires a suitable cache of older Macintoshes, right? Intel is just one more generation for the pile. In any case, the BSNG plugin on the Garden can be used on vintage machines.

The key algorithm for older games has also been known for a while. For quick use, I made https://sfiera.net/~sfiera/tool.html several years ago.
Posted by: LazarusNine on 2026-02-17 21:39:57
Playing Ambrosia games already requires a suitable cache of older Macintoshes, right? Intel is just one more generation for the pile. In any case, the BSNG plugin on the Garden can be used on vintage machines.

The key algorithm for older games has also been known for a while. For quick use, I made https://sfiera.net/~sfiera/tool.html several years ago.
That’s a neat little tool you linked to. Thanks! And yes, good point about BSNG. It had slipped my mind, but that’s the most likely avenue given that the games themselves are being used on classic Mac OS.
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