How to make the Sierra DSK images work.
Rob
ftp.apple.asimov.net and I thought I would share this...
If you look thru the unsorted folder on asimov.net there are alot of
.dsk files that don't appear to work, King's Quest IV, leisure Suit
Larry, Space Quest, The Games Winter Edition, etc. They actually do
work but you have to convert them to .NIB images and then change the
Volume Numbers to 001, 002, 003, etc. using the Init program in Bag
of Tricks.
This is what I did for Leisure Suit Larry...
First make several copies of an existing .NIB image and rename the
files appropriately
- In AppleWin fire up Disk Muncher and load "Leisure Suit Larry 1 -
DIsk 1 - Front.dsk" into Drive 1.
- Load a blank.NIB in Drive 2
- Copy "Leisure Suit Larry 1 - DIsk 1 - Front.dsk" to "Leisure Suit
Larry 1 - Disk 1 - Front.nib"
- Repeat for all six sides of Leisure Suit Larry.
- Now fire up Bag of Tricks and run the Init program.
- Load "Leisure Suit Larry 1 - Disk 1 - Front.nib" into Drive 1
- Make sure "Preserve Data" is set to Yes.
- Change the Volume Number to 001
- Press Return. Bag of Trick will go thru and change the volume label
of the .NIB image to 001.
Repeat this process for "Leisure Suit Larry 1 - Disk 1 - Back.dsk"
only this time change the Volume Number to 002.
Repeat the process again for "Leisure Suit Larry 1 - Disk 2 -
Front.dsk" but change the Volume Number to 003
The same patern continues for the remaining sides of the games
As far as I can tell all Apple II Sierra Adventure games seem to
follow this same Volume Number pattern (Disk 1- Side 1 is 001, Disk
1-Side 2 is 002, Disk 2-Side 1 is 003, Disk 2-Side 2 is 004, Disk
3-Side 1 is 005, ....Disk 6-Side 1 is 011, ...etc.
Now if only someone would upload more Sierra Adventure games... :-)
Andy McFadden
> If you look thru the unsorted folder on asimov.net there are alot of
> Larry, Space Quest, The Games Winter Edition, etc. They actually do
> work but you have to convert them to .NIB images and then change the
> Volume Numbers to 001, 002, 003, etc. using the Init program in Bag
> of Tricks.
Thanks for figuring this out!
If AppleWin respects the volume number field in .2MG files, you should
be able to convert .DSK to .2MG with CiderPress and then use the 2IMG
properties tool to set the volume number.
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Bryan Parkoff
"Andy McFadden" <fad...@fadden.com> wrote in message
news:46925422$0$14117$742e...@news.sonic.net...
> Rob <mk_d...@no-spam.hotmail.com> wrote:
>> If you look thru the unsorted folder on asimov.net there are alot of
>> dsk files that don't appear to work, King's Quest IV, leisure Suit
>> Larry, Space Quest, The Games Winter Edition, etc. They actually do
>> work but you have to convert them to .NIB images and then change the
>> Volume Numbers to 001, 002, 003, etc. using the Init program in Bag
>> of Tricks.
Well, I have original King's Quest I - IV disks. I was able to copy
them to the blank disks using sector copy in Copy II Plus before I disabled
copy-protection by modifying "20 xx xx" to "EA EA EA" (I think so, but I
don't remember.). It ran on real Apple II machine without any problem.
Then, I converted them into DSK image. I transported them to another real
Apple II machine. I converted DSK image back to real Apple II disk to run
on real Apple II machine. It ran without any problem.
It failed running on any Apple II Emulator such as AppleWin and Kegs32.
The garbage Text40 appears on the screen in AppleWin or Kegs32. I tried to
convert from DSK image to NIB image, but the result was the same. If
modification is needed, it may run without any problem on AppleWin and
Kegs32, but it has nothing to do with copy-protection scheme. I have no
idea why.
Bryan Parkoff
Rob
Space Quest series up to asimov as .NIB files. If they ever get
moved out of the incoming folder you can grab them.
They all work fine for me in AppleWin v1.13.2.0. I obviously didn't
play them all the way to the end but I did boot them up and play them
far enough to have to swap disks a few times. I don't know what
your doing wrong.
Bryan Parkoff
"Rob" <mk_d...@no-spam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4695d86a...@news.cablespeed.com...
>I downloaded converted and re-uploaded the entire King's Quest and
> Space Quest series up to asimov as .NIB files. If they ever get
> moved out of the incoming folder you can grab them.
>
> They all work fine for me in AppleWin v1.13.2.0. I obviously didn't
> play them all the way to the end but I did boot them up and play them
> far enough to have to swap disks a few times. I don't know what
> your doing wrong.
Well, I don't accept cracked King's Quest II. King attempted to rescue
a woman at the white castle in the strange world when he tried to climb up
the stairs, but he could not go through. It could be someone to modify the
6502 code of King's Quest II to prevent the King to climb up. Original
King's Quest II worked fine.
Another example, you type, "Take stake" near the tree. Cracked King's
Quest II responded, "I don't understand stake." Alternative word was pole.
Original King's Quest II accepted stake and pole.
Bryan Parkoff
Rob
worked for me. What emulator are you running?
See screenshot:
http://pichostonline.com/u/070714/c27c6ffe0f.jpg
Bryan Parkoff
> worked for me. What emulator are you running?
>
> See screenshot:
> http://pichostonline.com/u/070714/c27c6ffe0f.jpg
Well, if you use King's Quest II with cracked information screen during
boot, you will experience strange. There are some bugs to prevent you from
pick up "stake" and prevent to go upstairs in the white castle to meet a
woman.
Original King's Quest II does not have bugs. I suspect that someone had
modified 6502 code in cracked King's Quest II. Original King's Quest II and
cracked King's Quest II have running on real Apple //e machine. I don't
play them on emulator.
Bryan Parkoff
Rob
there appears to be two different versions floating around the net. I
have no access to originals so the cracked versions are all I can test
with. I can confirm the problems you have are not present in the
floppy images on asimov in the \Upload and \Unsorted folders.
Keep in mind Sierra progressively updated the interpreter in their
games during manufacture. The KQ2 NIB images I fixed on Asimov are
interpreter version v1.10. The old images in the \Adventure folder on
Asimov are v1.08 and crash when you play the game (even on real
Apple's). The save games are also not fully compatable between
interpreter versions. You appear to be talking about v1.08 or other
older version not v1.10 which works 100%.
Incidently, I also transferred these v1.10 NIB images back to real
floppies and tested them on a real ROM 01 //gs....again no issue.
{Sigh} Try to help out and get a freakin' hassle. If you don't want
to bother with it and can't take 5 minutes to verify what I say before
coming up with some completly absurd suspicion about some cracker from
20 years ago modifying 6502 code just to prevent you from typing "Get
Stake" on a modern emulator, so be it. After this I have very little
motivation to fix or upload anything new to Asimov.
Polymorph
>
> {Sigh} Try to help out and get a freakin' hassle. If you don't want
> to bother with it and can't take 5 minutes to verify what I say before
> coming up with some completly absurd suspicion about some cracker from
> 20 years ago modifying 6502 code just to prevent you from typing "Get
> Stake" on a modern emulator, so be it. After this I have very little
> motivation to fix or upload anything new to Asimov.
>
Don't lose faith in the A2 community, I'm sure that many of us are
indeed greatful of your efforts in both finding a fix for these images
and also for explaining why people could be experiencing differing
results. I'm sure Bryan meant no disrespect.
I and others without original copies of these games salute you! It is
people like you who will be responsible for keeping software versions
alive, for current and future A2 hobbyists. Without guys like you,
software titles would eventually be lost in the mists of time. Just
remember that. :-)
Thanks,
-p
magnusfalkirk
> The screenshot IS from A Cracked version. I say "A cracked version" as
> there appears to be two different versions floating around the net. I
> have no access to originals so the cracked versions are all I can test
> with. I can confirm the problems you have are not present in the
> floppy images on asimov in the \Upload and \Unsorted folders.
>
> Keep in mind Sierra progressively updated the interpreter in their
> games during manufacture. The KQ2 NIB images I fixed on Asimov are
> interpreter version v1.10. The old images in the \Adventure folder on
> Asimov are v1.08 and crash when you play the game (even on real
> Apple's). The save games are also not fully compatable between
> interpreter versions. You appear to be talking about v1.08 or other
> older version not v1.10 which works 100%.
>
> Incidently, I also transferred these v1.10 NIB images back to real
> floppies and tested them on a real ROM 01 //gs....again no issue.
>
> {Sigh} Try to help out and get a freakin' hassle. If you don't want
> to bother with it and can't take 5 minutes to verify what I say before
> coming up with some completly absurd suspicion about some cracker from
> 20 years ago modifying 6502 code just to prevent you from typing "Get
> Stake" on a modern emulator, so be it. After this I have very little
> motivation to fix or upload anything new to Asimov.
>
I have just one question. What program did you use to transfert he NIB
images back to real disks? I'd love to get a copy of it becausethen
Icould transfer Might and Magic II back to real 5.25 disks to play on
my GS.
Thanks,
Dean
Rob
Dean,
Just do the reverse of the steps in my original post.
- In an emulator copy the .NIB's to .DSK's
- Transfer the .DSK's to real Floppies
- Run the Init program in Bag of Tricks to reset the Volume Numbers.
Make sure you leave the PRESERVE DATA option in Bag of Tricks to Yes.
The Volume Numbers for Might and Magic II are:
Disk A: 193
Disk B: 194
Disk C: 195
Disk D: 196
Disk E: 197
Disk F: 198
Naturally, you'll also need to transfer Bag of Tricks to a real floppy
in order to run it on a real Apple II. Bag of Tricks is in the
\utility\disk_utils folder on Asimov.
This same technique should work for any "cracked" NIB images where the
Volume Number is used by the game to determine which disk was in the
drive.
Andy McFadden
> - In an emulator copy the .NIB's to .DSK's
> - Transfer the .DSK's to real Floppies
> - Run the Init program in Bag of Tricks to reset the Volume Numbers.
> Make sure you leave the PRESERVE DATA option in Bag of Tricks to Yes.
Another random (and, unfortunately, untested) thought: if you make ShrinkIt
archives of the disks from within the emulator, the volume number should
get tucked into the archive. Unpacking the ShrinkIt archive should result
in a disk with the correct volume number.
Easy enough to test in an emulator -- pack from .nib, unpack to blank .nib,
boot in emulator -- but I'm away from my Stuff at the moment.
If it works it'd save a step (plus you get to copy ShrinkIt archives around
instead of whole disks).
Linards Ticmanis
> {Sigh} Try to help out and get a freakin' hassle. If you don't want
> to bother with it and can't take 5 minutes to verify what I say before
> coming up with some completly absurd suspicion about some cracker from
> 20 years ago modifying 6502 code just to prevent you from typing "Get
> Stake" on a modern emulator, so be it. After this I have very little
> motivation to fix or upload anything new to Asimov.
Rob,
Bryan might come across a bit curt sometimes, but I'm sure this is not
based on disrespect of any soft.
--
Linards Ticmanis