Author Topic: Pac-Mania (PCW) (Read 4009 times)

Habi · « **on:** 20:23, 06 September 15 »

Well, now it’s my turn to give the PCW another game (albeit ported).
It’s Pac-Mania, ported from CPC (which in turn is ported from Spectrum).

The game is a bit slow in both versions because it’s converting graphics in real time. So I have made a frame skip selection menu at start, that way smoothness can be traded for speed. But personally, I prefer 100% frame rate.
It can be downloaded from: http://habisoft.com/pacmania/
Regards.

FloppySoftware · « **Reply #1 on:** 22:15, 06 September 15 »

Hahaha!!!

Well done, Habi, you are the best!!!

Congratulations!!!

Prodatron · « **Reply #2 on:** 22:28, 06 September 15 »

That's crazy! Thanks a lot!

||C|-|E|| · « **Reply #3 on:** 22:36, 06 September 15 »

This is actually very cool! The machine really lacks games like this one!

Token · « **Reply #4 on:** 23:29, 06 September 15 »

Bravo!
Fantastic game now on the PCW.

Habi · « **Reply #5 on:** 17:48, 08 September 15 »

Thank you for your congratulations!
I'm glad that you enjoyed it.

VincentGR · « **Reply #6 on:** 20:34, 08 September 15 »

Hey Doctor!
Can I borrow your microscope to read the download link?

Sadly I don't have a pcw but I will download it for future use.
Thank you.

Nich · « **Reply #7 on:** 22:36, 08 September 15 »

Quote from: Habi on 20:23, 06 September 15

Well, now it’s my turn to give the PCW another game (albeit ported).
It’s Pac-Mania, ported from CPC (which in turn is ported from Spectrum).

I had a quick go at this game on the CP/M Box emulator and I'm really impressed. I didn't expect to see a game like this on the PCW. Nice work!

Bryce · « **Reply #8 on:** 23:46, 08 September 15 »

@Habi: I don't like to edit other peoples posts, but I corrected the font size on the link. This is an excellent piece of work for the PCW, people should know where it is.

Bryce.

alex76gr · « **Reply #9 on:** 10:59, 09 September 15 »

Habi you scored!
Thank you and congratulations.

GeoffB17 · « **Reply #10 on:** 20:14, 10 September 15 »

Thanks for this, but...

How do I get it to work?

I've downloaded the .ZIP, and unpacked it. The resultant .DSK files seem OKish, and are the correct size. I've looked inside, and there is some unusual data, but

I've tried the 8256 variant only.

If I add that file into Joyce, joyce does not recognise the file. I load it, and Joyce 'ejects' it immed.

If I try to add it as a 'boot' disk, the process rejects it, with a message regarding a header.

I note from looking inside the .DSK that this is a BOOT disk, as opposed to a normal disk to be run after CP/M is loaded. That's reasonable. I assume the software takes over the system totally.

I then tried to do something with CPCTRANS, to make a boot disk for my PCW. See other topic from me on this subject. This again does not work, I just get error messages (actually the same message repeated 11 times) but I note at the top that an extra message refers to 'Extended format not supported' or suchlike. The process still goes through the normal attempt anyway.

I've got hints from checking for info on CPCTRANS via Google that there may be problems if the PC is too fast (?) - I'm trying this on a Pentium 75 (that's the machine that still has the 5.25 floppy).

It would be VERY interesting to see this prog working. Am I missing something 'obvious'??

Thanks.

Geoff

Token · « **Reply #11 on:** 22:26, 10 September 15 »

Hi Geoff
I can't help a lot but I made it run without problem with Habi's emulator, CP/M Box CP/M Box (really good emulator anyway a must have)
Sure I'll run it soon on the real thing, I'm waiting a Gotek.

TFM · « **Reply #12 on:** 22:41, 10 September 15 »

Quote from: Token on 22:26, 10 September 15

Sure I'll run it soon on the real thing, I'm waiting a Gotek.

The real thing would be a so called Floppy Disc.

And this seems to be the problem here.

Did the game ever get tested on real hardware? It wouldn't be the first time that something get's created completely on en Emu, but it doesn't run on real hardware. That happened to the best.

EDIT: Just confirmed again, that you can boot the game in an emulator. Yes, use it as boot disc.

Habi · « **Reply #13 on:** 23:55, 10 September 15 »

Quote from: Bryce on 23:46, 08 September 15

@Habi: I don't like to edit other peoples posts, but I corrected the font size on the link. This is an excellent piece of work for the PCW, people should know where it is.

Thanks! I don't have the hang of this editor yet...

Quote from: GeoffB17 on 20:14, 10 September 15

I note from looking inside the .DSK that this is a BOOT disk, as opposed to a normal disk to be run after CP/M is loaded. That's reasonable. I assume the software takes over the system totally.

Yes, it is a BOOT disk.

Quote from: TFM on 22:41, 10 September 15

Did the game ever get tested on real hardware? It wouldn't be the first time that something get's created completely on en Emu, but it doesn't run on real hardware. That happened to the best.

Of course!

Fessor · « **Reply #14 on:** 00:39, 11 September 15 »

Stereo-Speakers on a PCW? Additional Sound-Hardware?

GeoffB17 · « **Reply #15 on:** 00:40, 11 September 15 »

Hello,

I don't dispute any of the above, I'm quite happy to accept that the prog should run OK. If I can actually access it. Problem remains, that nothing I have will do anything with the .DSK file. Something 'odd' about it.

I just got another prog, to try something else - cpcxfs. This allowed me to 'open' the .DSK file, it then immed reported that the file contained two different formats, and promptly dropped the file. Rather like Joyce, which also seemed to access the file and then 'ejected' it. If I could get at the actual files (not via an 'image') then I'm sure I could use 22DISK, ANADISK etc to recreate the bootable disk myself. Or, is there another prog that will handle this variety of .DSK - some sort of Enhanced format?

See separate thread about CPCTRANS - that's got sorted, and I've made my own disk for the PCW that does work. Could do similar for PacMania???

Geoff

TFM · « **Reply #16 on:** 02:14, 11 September 15 »

PcW10 - as nice as the game! Got one too years ago, sadly not working.

MacDeath · « **Reply #17 on:** 00:17, 20 October 15 »

Nice, but... you ported a speccyport from Amstrad CPC into PCW ?

wouldn't it be more logical to directly port Speccy into PCW ?
But I guess without source code it is not easier... PCW having somewhat more relation to CPC (basically PCW uses a Mode2 with bigger screen, which is do-able on CPC as well) all the main port job was done.
I guess you have no more issue with rasters, but other things may get the game slow anyway.

Andrew · « **Reply #18 on:** 00:14, 30 November 15 »

Hi,

Wow! Very impressive work! I've just got my PCW 8512 out of storage, and I am itching to get this running, but I am not sure how.

I've tried using dd to copy the DSK onto a floppy disk, but when I insert the disk into the Amstrad I get the 'beeps' indicating it is not recognised. Do you have any instructions for getting this to work on read hardware?

Thanks,
Andrew

19rsn007 · « **Reply #19 on:** 14:33, 11 November 18 »

Sorry for bringing up an old topic, but does anyone know if there is a PCW-10 version of the disk image ?

I have a PCW-10 and would love to play this.

GeoffB17 · « **Reply #20 on:** 18:28, 11 November 18 »

Unless my eyes deceive me, the picture above shows the game running on a PcW10, so it should work on a PcW10. In terms of system etc, there should not be much difference between the PcW and the usual PCWs.

Of course, you'd need to get the image onto a 3.5" disk, but this disk should appear in all regards (capacity, format, etc) just like a 3" disk, so again, this shouldn't make any difference.

The problem seems to be getting Habi's image onto a disk, any disk, that will then work. Various people above were applauding Habi's production of the game, but I'm not sure that anyone said they'd got it working, or how they'd done so (i.e. what software they'd used to copy the image onto a disk, what system they were running the prog on, etc.

Maybe, if you've got a GoTek device, and can get the image onto that, it will work directly from the image?

I downloaded an image when it was first announced, long ago. I was not able to get anywhere with it, as descibed above. Was there even an updated image released? If so, I might try again?

Geoff

Habi · « **Reply #21 on:** 14:30, 12 November 18 »

Hello again.

Quote from: MacDeath on 00:17, 20 October 15

wouldn't it be more logical to directly port Speccy into PCW ?

In this case, no. Internally, it has a screen buffer in Spectrum format, and the dump routine goes as far as to double pixels on real time. It’s way easier to just change one routine for another.

Fun fact: it has a funny bug, it writes on port $xxFE (Speccy ULA, to make sound) when you eat a big dot; that’s why in CPC that doesn’t make any sound (and also its potentially dangerous, as the upper byte of the port is used as a counter, and the CPC uses those bits to partially select the hardware ports).

Quote from: Andrew on 00:14, 30 November 15

I've tried using dd to copy the DSK onto a floppy disk, but when I insert the disk into the Amstrad I get the 'beeps' indicating it is not recognised. Do you have any instructions for getting this to work on read hardware?

That won't work, the DSK format is not a raw format. It must be used with a program to dump DSK files; I recommend SamDisk, but CPCDiskXP works well too.

Quote from: 19rsn007 on 14:33, 11 November 18

Sorry for bringing up an old topic, but does anyone know if there is a PCW-10 version of the disk image ?

The image is the same for 8256, 8512, 9256 and PcW10. The other is for 9512 and 9512+. At low level, it doesn’t matter if the unit has one or two sides, 40 or 80 tracks. Just use a program to dump it on a MF2DD disk or MF2HD with the density hole covered (not recommended, but it works).

Quote from: GeoffB17 on 18:28, 11 November 18

Unless my eyes deceive me, the picture above shows the game running on a PcW10, so it should work on a PcW10. In terms of system etc, there should not be much difference between the PcW and the usual PCWs.

That's correct.

Quote from: GeoffB17 on 18:28, 11 November 18

Maybe, if you've got a GoTek device, and can get the image onto that, it will work directly from the image?

That works well, too; both HxC and FlashFloppy.

Quote from: GeoffB17 on 18:28, 11 November 18

I downloaded an image when it was first announced, long ago. I was not able to get anywhere with it, as descibed above. Was there even an updated image released? If so, I might try again?

Please, use a program capable of low level write on floppies. As stated above, both SamDisk and CPCDiskXP work fine.
Regards.

GeoffB17 · « **Reply #22 on:** 15:54, 12 November 18 »

Thanks for the update.

I don't know what your setup is, but I need to create the disk from the image on my PCW, and I guess that some others will too.

The programmes you mention are, I believe, both PC systems, and as I don't have a 3" disk on my PC these will not get me far?

The image I got is an 'extended' image, and the systems I have which will work on my PCW (DU54, and DSKWRITE) will neither work with an extended image.

I think that SAMDISK will convert an extended image to a normal CPC image (??), and as far as I can tell, there is no reason for the image to be extended as opposed to a CPC image, so such a conversion may be OK.

Are you aware of a PCW/CP/M programme that will handle an extended image?

Thanks again,

Geoff

Habi · « **Reply #23 on:** 19:35, 12 November 18 »

I see, you require a non-extended DSK file to write on the PCW. I normally write everything on the PC.

Let me know if this one works for you; I will also take note for future releases. If you need another one converted, just ask.

Regards.

GeoffB17 · « **Reply #24 on:** 21:06, 12 November 18 »

Thanks a MILLION.

I've used John Elliot's DSKWRITE, and this has created the disk from the image.

I've booted from the new disk, and lo and behold, PacMania!

So, it works fine. Apart from the fact that I need a note of the key commands, which I saw somewhere, else I cannot control anything and I get killed pretty quickly.

Yes, got them, via the link on the first item on this thread. Knew I'd seen them recently!

Geoff

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Author Topic: Pac-Mania (PCW) (Read 4009 times)

Andrew