new ProDOS ports

[qkumba]

New life for old games.

Conan (also fits on one side of a floppy now)
Jungle Hunt
Karateka
Swashbuckler
Mr. Do (in Asimov incoming, the currently available version is not compatible with all hardware)

For Virtual ][ users, remove the clock card first from slot 7.
For Sweet16 users, the issue with Karateka is still unsolved.

[sicklittlemonkey]

On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 08:55:23 UTC+12, qkumba wrote:
> New life for old games.

Cool!

Did you do these in a generic way - like the RWTS replacement Oliver and I were discussing over in c.e.a2?

Cheers,
Nick.

[qkumba]

> Did you do these in a generic way - like the RWTS replacement Oliver and I were discussing over in c.e.a2?

No, they are customised specifically for each game.
I captured all of the data that are read, consolidated as much as I could, saved the blocks into files, and then replaced the RWTS calls with ProDOS-specific ones, where necessary. For something like Joust or Moon Patrol, I even managed to convert a multi-load game into a single-load one, without loss of fidelity.
The result is a collection of small files, not one monolithic one in each case.
I find this to be more elegant, though it takes a lot more work. In some cases, it's also the only way, because ProDOS can't always remain resident alongside the game (e.g. Mr Do).

[Steve Nickolas]

I use basically the same approach. The main differences between qkumba's
ProDOS ports and mine are that I integrate the first stage of the loader
into the SYSTEM file rather than simply use a generic SYSTEM file that
will load anything (though I do have such a file, and it works just as
well with qkumba's cracks as his own loader), plus I usually use the file
type $F1 instead of BIN for my overlays. (My code is pretty dreadful,
btw.)

-uso.

[qkumba]

> I use basically the same approach. The main differences between qkumba's
> ProDOS ports and mine are that I integrate the first stage of the loader
> into the SYSTEM file rather than simply use a generic SYSTEM file that
> will load anything (though I do have such a file, and it works just as
> well with qkumba's cracks as his own loader), plus I usually use the file
> type $F1 instead of BIN for my overlays. (My code is pretty dreadful,
> btw.)

I use BIN because the files are coming from DOS disks, so I don't change anything.
The SYSTEM file exists for the same reason - just a way to boot the BIN, so I don't have to change anything.

[Steve Nickolas]

Makes sense. I on the other hand pull them in from outside using
Ciderpress, and DOS 3.3 isn't involved in the process. So I usually give
the first file type $FF and the others $F1, and it's as easy for me to do
that as to give them all $06.

The wrapper I use with Exomizer produces type BAS, corresponding to how
Exomizer itself outputs for the C64 - and for me that's usually easier
since I use RDOS for some compressed game disks (since it's faster and has
less overhead) and while you can BLOAD stuff with RDOS, you can't BRUN it.

-uso.

[Antoine Vignau]

I'd vote for the std: bin
av

[bpi...@gmail.com]

I'm greatly impressed by your work

Will you kindly consider making uncompressed, single-load versions of your Moon Patrol and Joust ports which can be used with Beautiful Boot or Compatiboot available? Is Mr. Do! also possible to make into a single-load binary? I seem to recall a three-level demo was cracked into a ~140 sector Binary file.

Do you also use Exomizer or some generic LZMA compression scheme to compress the single-load games? All the single load ports seem to be compressed.

Will your multi-file Prodos ports also work in regular DOS 3.3?

[Steve Nickolas]

On Fri, 17 Jul 2015, bpi...@gmail.com wrote:

> Will you kindly consider making uncompressed, single-load versions of
> your Moon Patrol and Joust ports which can be used with Beautiful Boot
> or Compatiboot available? Is Mr. Do! also possible to make into a
> single-load binary? I seem to recall a three-level demo was cracked into
> a ~140 sector Binary file.

I'm not sure that's possible, apart from adding some sort of mini-DOS
(such as FASTLOADER binaries have) to the initial BIN file.

> Will your multi-file Prodos ports also work in regular DOS 3.3?

I know he has a DOS 3.3 port of Conan...

-uso.

[qkumba]

> I'm greatly impressed by your work

Thanks. It's nice to know when people enjoy the results.

> Will you kindly consider making uncompressed, single-load versions of your Moon Patrol and Joust ports which can be used with Beautiful Boot or Compatiboot available?

Hmm, I think that both of them are too big to load uncompressed alongside any OS, which is why I compressed them in the first place. However, the fact that they are compressed should not interfere with their ability to be used in Beautiful Boot or similar. Just drop them into the right place on the disk - they carry the unpacker so they can run directly. They don't have any ProDOS dependencies.

> Is Mr. Do! also possible to make into a single-load binary? I seem to recall a three-level demo was cracked into a ~140 sector Binary file.

Ah, I believe that the "demo" was intended to be the full version, and someone overlooked that the cutscenes are loaded from disk, so it crashes as a result.
If the machine has 128kb, then my port *is* a single-loader (unlike the original). It's just not a single file.
It could be made into a single file, ~120 sectors, but the experience wouldn't be "authentic" (the screen would be visibly filled with garbage during the load).

> Do you also use Exomizer or some generic LZMA compression scheme to compress the single-load games? All the single load ports seem to be compressed.

I use aPLib to compress, and my own unpacker (see http://pferrie.host22.com/misc/aplibunp.zip)
All of the multi-load ports are compressed, too, except for the Aquatron high score file.

> Will your multi-file Prodos ports also work in regular DOS 3.3?

No, you'd need a DOS version of the port. I have a DOS port for Conan on Asimov, but my more recent titles (Karateka, Mr Do, Jungle Hunt, Plasmania, Swashbuckler, Aquatron) are only for ProDOS. They're intended to be run from a hard-disk. There's no point in a DOS port for them, because you could use the full disk image instead.

[qkumba]

Regarding Aquatron, it's in Asimov incoming right now.
This is the only file-based version with the "dissolve" effect on the title screen, and the high-score file. If the aquatron.1 file is not locked, then it will save the high scores. I reset the table because the version that I have was used previously by impossibly good players whose scores I could never hope to beat. ;-)

[bpi...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, July 18, 2015 at 12:18:36 AM UTC-7, qkumba wrote:

> Ah, I believe that the "demo" was intended to be the full version, and someone overlooked that the cutscenes are loaded from disk, so it crashes as a result.
> If the machine has 128kb, then my port *is* a single-loader (unlike the original). It's just not a single file.
> It could be made into a single file, ~120 sectors, but the experience wouldn't be "authentic" (the screen would be visibly filled with garbage during the load).

I see. Well, it would be *very* interesting and much appreciated if you could post a single file, compressed version of Mr. Do! which will run in 128k. I'd very much like to test this with Beautiful Boot on a 128k real Apple, without a hard drive. That's the reason for my asking if your compressed ports will run from Beautiful Boot. I've still got my trusty //e with Duodisk drives.

> > Will your multi-file Prodos ports also work in regular DOS 3.3?
>
> No, you'd need a DOS version of the port. I have a DOS port for Conan on Asimov, but my more recent titles (Karateka, Mr Do, Jungle Hunt, Plasmania, Swashbuckler, Aquatron) are only for ProDOS. They're intended to be run from a hard-disk. There's no point in a DOS port for them, because you could use the full disk image instead.

There's still a point in making DOS 3.3 ports for those who have the real hardware and still use good 'old 140k floppies, as ProDOS takes additional time to load, and consumes some ~68 sectors of additional disk space, and imposes memory limitations, etc. DOS 3.3 ports just seem more 'clean' to me. Go figure.

Glad to see you're giving new life into the old games by making single-file and more optimized versions of the old cracks we've had for 30+ years.

[qkumba]

> > It could be made into a single file, ~120 sectors, but the experience wouldn't be "authentic" (the screen would be visibly filled with garbage during the load).
>
> I see. Well, it would be *very* interesting and much appreciated if you could post a single file, compressed version of Mr. Do! which will run in 128k. I'd very much like to test this with Beautiful Boot on a 128k real Apple, without a hard drive. That's the reason for my asking if your compressed ports will run from Beautiful Boot. I've still got my trusty //e with Duodisk drives.

I see. I've never tried to add files to a Beautiful Boot disk. I'll see what can be done.

> There's still a point in making DOS 3.3 ports for those who have the real hardware and still use good 'old 140k floppies, as ProDOS takes additional time to load, and consumes some ~68 sectors of additional disk space, and imposes memory limitations, etc. DOS 3.3 ports just seem more 'clean' to me. Go figure.

Fair enough. I'll investigate making DOS versions alongside the ProDOS versions.

> Glad to see you're giving new life into the old games by making single-file and more optimized versions of the old cracks we've had for 30+ years.

I'm glad that you'll be able to enjoy them.

[qkumba]

Goonies (ProDOS) is now in Asimov incoming.
I've added a character selection feature, too.
Details are in the release notes in the same place.

[qkumba]

> I see. I've never tried to add files to a Beautiful Boot disk. I'll see what can be done.

I checked - Moon Patrol and Joust can be added directly to Beautiful Boot (you can use Copy ][+ 7 or later to copy the files from the ProDOS disks to a DOS disk, and then run Beautiful Boot to convert the DOS disk). All of my single-file titles (Alien Rain, Apple Panic, Choplifter, Drelbs, Galaxian, Shamus, Spy Hunter, Wavy Navy) should work similarly. The multi-file titles will require some minor surgery to replace the ProDOS support with DOS support instead.
Unfortunately, Beautiful Boot places data in the text screen, which is visible when Moon Patrol loads. It's ugly, but the game runs.

If you want a really slim OS, perhaps you should consider my Compact Disk OS. It's boring (just text menu), but only 4 sectors total.
The source code is available from my website (http://pferrie.host22.com/misc/appleii.htm), but adding titles currently requires a sector editor.

[bpi...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, July 21, 2015 at 8:46:18 PM UTC-7, qkumba wrote:
> > I see. I've never tried to add files to a Beautiful Boot disk. I'll see what can be done.
>
> I checked - Moon Patrol and Joust can be added directly to Beautiful Boot (you can use Copy ][+ 7 or later to copy the files from the ProDOS disks to a DOS disk, and then run Beautiful Boot to convert the DOS disk). All of my single-file titles (Alien Rain, Apple Panic, Choplifter, Drelbs, Galaxian, Shamus, Spy Hunter, Wavy Navy) should work similarly. The multi-file titles will require some minor surgery to replace the ProDOS support with DOS support instead.
> Unfortunately, Beautiful Boot places data in the text screen, which is visible when Moon Patrol loads. It's ugly, but the game runs.

If the game loads and runs, no harm, no foul. It's streamlined and very convenient to have a single file compressed binary! Would love to see Mr. DO! singlefile if you can swing it!

>
> If you want a really slim OS, perhaps you should consider my Compact Disk OS. It's boring (just text menu), but only 4 sectors total.
> The source code is available from my website (http://pferrie.host22.com/misc/appleii.htm), but adding titles currently requires a sector editor.

Thanks for considering the DOS ports, it is much appreciated. I've tested all your single file compressed files, and they load with Beautiful Boot perfectly. Alas, your Compact Disk OS seems *wonderful*, utilitarian, but requires the 65c02. I still have my trusty old 128k unenhanced IIe. I never got around to enhancing it back in the day.

Your slim OS seems to work perfectly on various emulators which I've tried. Getting a basic RWTS down to 4 sectors is mighty impressive.

[wss...@gmail.com]

Unless you have a particular need for an unenhanced IIe, the enhancement kit is definitely worth it. I recommend it strongly.

Of course, keep your old chips so you can "unenhance" if you ever need (or want) to.

[qkumba]

> > Unfortunately, Beautiful Boot places data in the text screen, which is visible when Moon Patrol loads. It's ugly, but the game runs.
>
> If the game loads and runs, no harm, no foul. It's streamlined and very convenient to have a single file compressed binary!

Yes, but I'm trying to preserve the look-and-feel of the original, where possible, including the in-memory delays (not the disk access ones, obviously) and blank screens. I have a policy of not requiring more memory than the original did (so Plasmania accesses the disk for the sound, even though I could store it in 64kb). I also have a policy of not requiring more sides than the original had (so Prince of Persia and Toy Shop were compressed very heavily - the technical details are on my site, in case you are interested), again to preserve the original behaviour.
I'm going to have to break that rule for some titles, because it's simply impossible to convert them otherwise. That makes me sad, but I have to accept it.

> Would love to see Mr. DO! singlefile if you can swing it!

It won't need to be single-file - I can drop in a DOS filesystem parser and use that. I just have to actually do it.

> > If you want a really slim OS, perhaps you should consider my Compact Disk OS. It's boring (just text menu), but only 4 sectors total.
> > The source code is available from my website (http://pferrie.host22.com/misc/appleii.htm), but adding titles currently requires a sector editor.
>
> Thanks for considering the DOS ports, it is much appreciated. I've tested all your single file compressed files, and they load with Beautiful Boot perfectly. Alas, your Compact Disk OS seems *wonderful*, utilitarian, but requires the 65c02. I still have my trusty old 128k unenhanced IIe. I never got around to enhancing it back in the day.

If the Beautiful Boot titles are actually running, then you have a 65C02, because the decompressor requires a 65C02.

> Your slim OS seems to work perfectly on various emulators which I've tried. Getting a basic RWTS down to 4 sectors is mighty impressive.

Thanks, that one required some tricks and careful cycle counting.

[sicklittlemonkey]

On Friday, 17 July 2015 12:02:47 UTC+12, qkumba wrote:
>Moon Patrol

I see a problem with Moon Patrol. Double mountain ranges at start of game.

Will try to email you a pic.

Cheers,
Nick.

[qkumba]

> >Moon Patrol
>
> I see a problem with Moon Patrol. Double mountain ranges at start of game.
>
> Will try to email you a pic.

Ah, I believe that the issue is in AppleWin.
Shamus has an issue with AppleWin, too - random resets.
Both work in other emulators.

[qkumba]

I've fixed the double-mountain issue - I had to preserve address $41 across the disk access. I've fixed the unplayable ProDOS issue in AppleWin - I had to turn off the drive, because I can't require that authentic disk speed is in use.
Thanks for reporting those.

[qkumba]

There's still an issue with Shamus, though - when using the numeric keypad in place of a real joystick, the keypad presses are occasionally registering as keyboard keypresses. That causes the game to either pause or restart.

[Steve Nickolas]

Remind me to make the same fix. ;)

-uso.

[Alex Lee]

Thanks for your continued efforts qkumba!

I finally got round to testing the Goonies and Mr Do! on my real IIGS
and they both come up with a screen full of '2's, repeated horizontally
and vertically across the entire display.

Everything else works fine on the real hardware however.

- Alex

[qkumba]

> Thanks for your continued efforts qkumba!
>
> I finally got round to testing the Goonies and Mr Do! on my real IIGS
> and they both come up with a screen full of '2's, repeated horizontally
> and vertically across the entire display.
>
> Everything else works fine on the real hardware however.

Yes, this is a known issue. Both of them try to display text page 2 for the joystick calibration. I don't know how to make it display properly. Both MAME and KEGS behave similarly.
After a second or so after that screen shows, hold the joystick to the far right, press the button, far left, press button, far top, press button, far bottom, press button. Both games should start and be fully playable.

[sicklittlemonkey]

On Sunday, 16 August 2015 09:35:33 UTC+12, qkumba wrote:
> Yes, this is a known issue. Both of them try to display text page 2 for the joystick calibration. I don't know how to make it display properly. Both MAME and KEGS behave similarly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_graphics#.22Alternate_Display_Mode.22_on_the_Apple_IIGS

Should be OK on ROM 3.

Cheers,
Nick.

[fadden]

On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 2:35:33 PM UTC-7, qkumba wrote:
> Yes, this is a known issue. Both of them try to display text page 2 for the joystick calibration. I don't know how to make it display properly. Both MAME and KEGS behave similarly.

Is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_graphics#.22Alternate_Display_Mode.22_on_the_Apple_IIGS ?

[sicklittlemonkey]

On Friday, 14 August 2015 16:37:01 UTC+12, qkumba wrote:
> There's still an issue with Shamus, though - when using the numeric keypad in place of a real joystick, the keypad presses are occasionally registering as keyboard keypresses. That causes the game to either pause or restart.

Yes, I see it too. Will look into it.

Cheers,
Nick.

[sicklittlemonkey]

On Sunday, 16 August 2015 14:51:36 UTC+12, sicklittlemonkey wrote:
> On Friday, 14 August 2015 16:37:01 UTC+12, qkumba wrote:
> > There's still an issue with Shamus, though - when using the numeric keypad in place of a real joystick, the keypad presses are occasionally registering as keyboard keypresses. That causes the game to either pause or restart.

Ahaha, ah hah, ah. It's alt-numpad codes causing that problem - Windows is sending them via WM_CHAR, and AppleWin is handling them just fine. ; - )

Fixing it would require redesigning AppleWin's keyboard handling. Well, I will log a bug.

Cheers,
Nick.

[qkumba]

> > There's still an issue with Shamus, though - when using the numeric keypad in place of a real joystick, the keypad presses are occasionally registering as keyboard keypresses. That causes the game to either pause or restart.
>
> Ahaha, ah hah, ah. It's alt-numpad codes causing that problem - Windows is sending them via WM_CHAR, and AppleWin is handling them just fine. ; - )

Yes, I realised it shortly afterwards. The reason why it's "occasional" is because it requires several presses to complete the sequence.

> Fixing it would require redesigning AppleWin's keyboard handling. Well, I will log a bug.

Thanks. :-)

[qkumba]

> > Yes, this is a known issue. Both of them try to display text page 2 for the joystick calibration. I don't know how to make it display properly. Both MAME and KEGS behave similarly.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_graphics#.22Alternate_Display_Mode.22_on_the_Apple_IIGS
>
> Should be OK on ROM 3.

Perhaps should be, but either MAME doesn't support it (I'm running with a ROM 3 ROM), or the detection is failing.
I might try to add support for it in the future.

[qkumba]

Lady Tut with ending sequence is now available.

[mver...@libero.it]

On Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 6:55:20 AM UTC+2, qkumba wrote:
> Lady Tut with ending sequence is now available.

Using the ProDOS version with AppleWin. A disturbing but harmless hard disk red light remains lighted. In your opinion is this an emulator bug or is the game "touching" some softswith?

Marco

[qkumba]

> > Lady Tut with ending sequence is now available.
>
> Using the ProDOS version with AppleWin. A disturbing but harmless hard disk red light remains lighted. In your opinion is this an emulator bug or is the game "touching" some softswith?

More likely my mistake, because of juggling work and play (you decide which is which, and see "goonies PRODOS (san inc pack).txt" for example ;-) ).
I'll take a look.

[mver...@libero.it]

OK. At last this is not the case: boot-this-floppy-and-destroy-your-HD
If I don't get wrong you are a virus expert.

Just joking...

Marco

[qkumba]

> > > Using the ProDOS version with AppleWin. A disturbing but harmless hard disk red light remains lighted. In your opinion is this an emulator bug or is the game "touching" some softswith?
> >
> > More likely my mistake, because of juggling work and play (you decide which is which, and see "goonies PRODOS (san inc pack).txt" for example ;-) ).
> > I'll take a look.
>
> OK. At last this is not the case: boot-this-floppy-and-destroy-your-HD
> If I don't get wrong you are a virus expert.
>
> Just joking...

:-) It's Lady Tut touching PHASE1OFF on all slots. If you have the hard-disk support enabled in AppleWin, then that access selects the hard disk.
It's harmless.

[sicklittlemonkey]

On Friday, 21 August 2015 05:27:45 UTC+12, qkumba wrote:
> :-) It's Lady Tut touching PHASE1OFF on all slots. If you have the hard-disk support enabled in AppleWin, then that access selects the hard disk.
> It's harmless.

Interesting. I did a visual check when I saw Marco's post, but I didn't have the HD enabled so couldn't reproduce it.

Fairly presumptuous of LT to access registers without checking the device.

Cheers,
Nick.

[Don Bruder]

In article <1caabdc5-504b-4fa3...@googlegroups.com>,

So it's presumptuous to assume that a device exists, since, unless it
did, there would be no way (at the time the game was "current", anyway)
to have the code that was making the assumption in RAM to begin with?

--
Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

[sicklittlemonkey]

On Friday, 21 August 2015 13:21:35 UTC+12, Don Bruder wrote:
> So it's presumptuous to assume that a device exists, since, unless it
> did, there would be no way (at the time the game was "current", anyway)
> to have the code that was making the assumption in RAM to begin with?

But it's writing to slots it didn't load from and hasn't checked the device ID's of.

Cheers,
Nick.

[Michael J. Mahon]

I presumed that it was *reading* from device space initially, not writing.

Of course, reading can change device state, too, but it's hard to see how
to do a slot scan without reading!
--
-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon

[qkumba]

> I presumed that it was *reading* from device space initially, not writing.
>
> Of course, reading can change device state, too, but it's hard to see how
> to do a slot scan without reading!

It's STA $C082, Y.
Then incrementing Y by 16 for each of 7 more iterations.

[mver...@libero.it]

Nick: do you remember the Sky Travel post? That program fiddle with a specific GS softswitch without checking. Who is without sin...

Marco

[sicklittlemonkey]

On Friday, 21 August 2015 19:38:44 UTC+12, mver...@libero.it wrote:
> Nick: do you remember the Sky Travel post? That program fiddle with a specific GS softswitch without checking. Who is without sin...

Yeah, but at least that was a motherboard softswitch defined on the IIgs and mapped to the speaker in earlier models. Safe compared to unknown slot I/O registers.

Cheers,
Nick.

[Michael J. Mahon]

Hmmm, cheeky!

[qkumba]

Bolo - single file, with title screen, is now available for the first time, and awaiting approval in Asimov /incoming. I always loved that game.

[sicklittlemonkey]

On Tuesday, 3 November 2015 10:12:36 UTC+13, qkumba wrote:
> Bolo - single file, with title screen, is now available for the first time, and awaiting approval in Asimov /incoming. I always loved that game.

Cool! Yes, a lovely game that you don't often hear in top X lists.

Great controls, a maze game, a scanner, nice scrolling, that nice animation when your shots hit something, and what a friend and I used to call "toe-nail" collision detection. ; - ) (Probably EOR.)

I also like how auto-repeating the fire key is suicidal.

Cheers,
Nick.

[qkumba]

H.E.R.O. as a clean 12k file is in Asimov /incoming.

[Steve Nickolas]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015, qkumba wrote:

> H.E.R.O. as a clean 12k file is in Asimov /incoming.
>

It's funny that Exomizer spit out a file just 25 bytes shy of being
*exactly* 12K. (I haven't uploaded that - yet, at least - but I did upload
to my own servers a ProDOS port in 3 files.)

-uso.

[Delfs]

Just... Wow! And Thank you!

[qkumba]

Pitfall 2 14k file in Asimov /incoming.

[qkumba]

Outpost 11k file in Asimov /incoming. I can't get past level 7. :-(

[qkumba]

Burgertime 21k single file in Asimov /incoming. What a monster.

[Steve Nickolas]

On Fri, 1 Jan 2016, qkumba wrote:

> Burgertime 21k single file in Asimov /incoming. What a monster.

Tell me about it, given that I did a 3-file ProDOS version that was a
nightmare to put together.

-uso.