How do I ..?-- Save for SSI strategy games
Rubywand
>
> Make a blank disk for something like North Atlantic 86 from SSI that
> requires a disk formatted by the program itself? I have a few games
> that need a save game disk, but can't get them to save on a blank
> floppy file.
>
> Can somebody post a disk or point me to one?
....
If you are using an Apple II with the original disk, a good copy, or a
diskette created from the copy of North Atlantic 86 on Asimov, you can select
the option to create a Save disk from the game's main menu. This will produce a
good Save disk. (Tried it with North Atlantic 86 downloaded from Asimov* and it
works fine.)
*The URL for folder with the game on the Asimov archive is ...
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/games/strategy/SSI/
This does not seem to work when North Atlantic 86 is played on an
emulator-- like AppleWin running on a PC. The game runs well; but, you can not
use the Save disk-- this goes for Save disks produced from both blank .dsk and
.nib images. Evidently, emulators (at least, AppleWin) can not handle SSI's
protected DOS.
Rubywand
Rubywand
>
> You will need to visit the SSI-DHA Project site at:
>
> http://www.brickandivy.com/ssi/links.html
>
> they have a section that shows you how to create an SSI save game disk for
> use on apple emulators, I have tried it myself and it does work. It will
> take a little effort but it is the only way I have found to create a save
> disk for use
> on an emulator.
Thanks for a great lead! Ended up at Apple Emulator's Wargame Pages (
http://home.earthlink.net/~evin1/a2war/help.htm ) which has the information you
mention plus commands for the RDOS used by SSI.
The trick suggested for getting a Save game disk is pretty clever. (You
copy the game .dsk, rename the copy, and delete most of the files.) The
resulting .dsk seems to work like a real Save disk except that things hang
after the save.
Another problem with deleting files to make space is that RDOS saves files
and allocates 'blocks' in sequence, like Pascal. Deleting a file does not
change space allocation-- i.e. you get a bunch of variously sized "unused"
slots.
Most of the marked out "unused" slots are too small for the 25k part of a
game save; so, following the method suggested on AEWP seems to be good for only
one Saved game.
M.M. McFadden's info on RDOS (ref: Computist #52 and rdos11.shk from ACN
Tarnover) helped in finding a way around the problem. You copy the game disk
and wipe the CATALOG sectors except for a copy of the first entry which
identifies the disk as a Save disk-- easy to do on an Apple II+ using Disk
Muncher and Copy II+.
Since the disk has nearly no allocated space, RDOS can create correctly
sized slots as games are saved.
The resulting blank Save diskette was converted to a .dsk and moved to PC.
On the AppleWin emu playing North Atlantic 86 it seems to work just like the
original using diskettes on the Apple II+. (So, I guess it's okay.)
When playing around with RDOS files on an emu, it's convenient to have a
dsk which boots RDOS and leaves you in BASIC able to use RDOS commands. A copy
of the North Atlantic 86 game dsk was diddled to allow this.
The blank SSI wargame Save dsk and the RDOS boot dsk plus an info file
including RDOS commands have been placed in a .zip file and uploaded to the GS
WorldView January 2000 issue as RDOSstuff.zip at ...
http://www.grin.net/~cturley/gsezine/GS.WorldView/Jan2000/Special.Archives/ .
Rubywand
Dr. Charles Forbin
Dr. Forbin
On Wed, 05 Jan 2000 07:10:21 -0600, Rubywand <ruby...@swbell.net>
wrote:
Dr. Charles Forbin
Author: Diaries of Ayesha
ayesha.cjb.net
ICQ ID 16986905
attrax
> You have no idea how happy you have made me ..
>
> Dr. Forbin
>
> Dr. Charles Forbin
> Author: Diaries of Ayesha
Charles, don't get me wrong, this isn't intended to be a flame,
BUT why on earth do you refer to yourself as Dr. Forbin here ?
Why not Charles ?
Are we supposed to be impressed by the Doctor appellation ?
Are we supposed to ask about your CV (Author: Diaries of Ayesha) ?
Are we supposed to ask what your Doctoral Thesis was on ?
If all of us paraded our post-grad. quals. etc. here, this would be
an extremely boring place, and certainly not egalitarian.
Just a gentle suggestion, lose the Doctor bit.
Cheers,
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Pim Blokland
wrote:
> Charles, don't get me wrong, this isn't intended to be a flame,
> BUT why on earth do you refer to yourself as Dr. Forbin here ?
This isn't intended to be a flame either, but I haven't seen you
complain to the other Charles, who also calls himself "Dr." Why pick on
Mr. Forbin?
--
Groetjes, Pim
Same excuse every time
Cturley2
BTW and FWIW...I have my doctrate in Magnetobiology and not in Microbiology -
as some french flame site claims :) Just thought I'd set the record straight
on that while we are on this subject of Doctor. Come on, attrax, pick on me.
I can handle it. But, then, I don't post as Dr. Tom - do I?
Cheers,
Tom
Dr. Charles Forbin
Dr. Forbin
(And bloody proud of it) :-)
Dr. Charles Forbin
Author: Diaries of Ayesha
ayesha.cjb.net
ICQ ID 16986905
Dr. Charles Forbin
Is it that you have nothing better to do than criticize others, or
does your early experience give you some special cachet to do so?
If we're going to talk about the "Good Old Days" I started my
computing career on a DEC System 10 and worked for one of the first
Apple dealers in Southern California.
As to "pompous arse" .. comments like that have been known to start
flame wars ..
But I have learned to turn the other cheek .. probably better than
most.
Forbin
"Look Ma' .. no SIG line"
On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 04:14:03 GMT, CUTbl...@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)
wrote:
>On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 00:27:08 GMT, attrax <att...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>>Tom, those of us who grew up with ARPANET where formal titles were
>>de rigeur should realise that this is not ARPANET, it is an
>>egalitarian forum, where knowledge-sharing and deeds are of prime
>>currency, not formal titles and academic qualifications.
>>Parading of the latter implies pompous arse, (no slight intended).
>
>If I spent that much time and effort to get some letters to put before
>or after my name, you can bet I'd put them in my signature. After
>all, it is a part of who you are.
>
>However, if people rub their titles in your nose all the time, that is
>the person's problem and not a problem with their title. You run into
>these kind of people regardless of whether they mention their titles
>in their correspondence or not. :-)
>
>+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>| Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II University in A2Pro on Delphi |
>| Delphi Apple II Forums Web Pages |
>| A2: http://www.delphi.com/apple2 A2Pro: http://www.delphi.com/a2pro |
>+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
attrax
> Come on, attrax, pick on me. I can handle it.
>
> Tom
I wasn't aware that I'd got to the stage of 'picking' on Charles,
however Tom, if you view yourself a a white knight riding to the
defence of others, then certainly, make your case why the use of
formal titles here is appropriate.
> But, then, I don't post as Dr. Tom - do I?
No you don't, in fact your pre-christmas signing:
> Cheers & Happy Holidays,
> Tom
.. was delightful. No one could take exception to that.
Tom, those of us who grew up with ARPANET where formal titles were
de rigeur should realise that this is not ARPANET, it is an
egalitarian forum, where knowledge-sharing and deeds are of prime
currency, not formal titles and academic qualifications.
Parading of the latter implies pompous arse, (no slight intended).
Regards,
Jeff Blakeney
>Tom, those of us who grew up with ARPANET where formal titles were
>de rigeur should realise that this is not ARPANET, it is an
>egalitarian forum, where knowledge-sharing and deeds are of prime
>currency, not formal titles and academic qualifications.
>Parading of the latter implies pompous arse, (no slight intended).
If I spent that much time and effort to get some letters to put before
Andy McFadden
Rubywand <ruby...@swbell.net> wrote:
> M.M. McFadden's info on RDOS (ref: Computist #52 and rdos11.shk from ACN
>Tarnover) helped in finding a way around the problem. You copy the game disk
>and wipe the CATALOG sectors except for a copy of the first entry which
>identifies the disk as a Save disk-- easy to do on an Apple II+ using Disk
>Muncher and Copy II+.
The ProDOS conversion utilities, including the updated version from issue
#85, are available on http://www.fadden.com/ in the Apple II downloads
area.
Little piece of history: I wrote the utilities originally as a curiosity.
I'd bought a book that showed how to disassemble 6502 code with a simple
methodology involving highlighter pens, and wanted something to work on.
So I disassembled the RDOS code, and built a ProDOS version from scratch.
It mostly worked, but it turns out that it wasn't perfect, and some games
that I didn't have didn't work right. Evin Mulron sent me a letter
through COMPUTIST, asking for help because he wanted a way to trade
saved games that didn't require snail-mailing an RDOS-formatted disk
around. If the games ran on ProDOS, it would be easy to just send the
saved game files through a BBS (this is pre-WWW).
Issue #85 has detailed instructions for converting about two dozen SSI
games from RDOS to ProDOS, mostly developed by Evin (who had darn near
every SSI game there was). From my own collection, I managed to get
Operation Market Garden, Computer Ambush, Phantasie, and Ringside Seat all
on one 800K floppy, which is kinda neat since two of those games occupy
more than one 5.25" disk. Not only are the game files and save files
accessible from ProDOS, the disk swapping is gone.
A similar technique, for which programs are also present on www.fadden.com,
can convert some of the old SSG games to ProDOS. I have the original
Reach for the Stars and the "1985" wargames on one disk.
--
Send mail to fad...@netcom.com (Andy McFadden)
CD-Recordable FAQ - http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/ (a/k/a www.spies.com/~fadden)
Fight Internet Spam - http://spam.abuse.net/spam/ & news.admin.net-abuse.email
Mark Percival
>Issue #85 has detailed instructions for converting about two dozen SSI
>games from RDOS to ProDOS, mostly developed by Evin (who had darn near
>every SSI game there was). From my own collection, I managed to get
>Operation Market Garden, Computer Ambush, Phantasie, and Ringside Seat all
>on one 800K floppy, which is kinda neat since two of those games occupy
>more than one 5.25" disk. Not only are the game files and save files
>accessible from ProDOS, the disk swapping is gone.
>
>A similar technique, for which programs are also present on www.fadden.com,
>can convert some of the old SSG games to ProDOS. I have the original
>Reach for the Stars and the "1985" wargames on one disk.
I use your RDOS for SSI Baseball and it also works perfectly. Not
only do I have the game accessable from ProDOS but I was also able to
convert all of the team data (about 150 teams) that I inputted by
hand. Disk swapping is gone and all the data is on my hard disk.
Thanks.
Mark R. Percival
Montreal, Quebec
An Apple II fanatic since 1979.