Post by: FRAGKI-2012 on 01:30, 28 March 13
is any program to do this??
and of Corse a game bigger than a 16k with more files than one bin file and bas
is possible to write to roms in different rom address and play ??
for example to start the game from rom address 1 and continue load the from rom 2??
any information will be very helpfully!!!!
Post by: Bryce on 10:27, 28 March 13
Bryce.
Post by: arnoldemu on 11:32, 28 March 13
I m wondering if is possible to convert a game to rom file and play from megarom ???I have some code for a "rom" filesystem.
is any program to do this??
and of Corse a game bigger than a 16k with more files than one bin file and bas
is possible to write to roms in different rom address and play ??
for example to start the game from rom address 1 and continue load the from rom 2??
any information will be very helpfully!!!!
I planned to make a tool on pc that could be used to build the rom data and this filesystem, this could then be written onto roms on the megarom.
The idea is that it would be easier to use in this way.
Perhaps it will be time to finish that code?
Post by: TFM on 21:41, 28 March 13
I m wondering if is possible to convert a game to rom file and play from megarom ???Yes, of course! You can use the Softbrenner ROM for that. It has a function to integrate files into ROMs. However the maximum file size is limited to 31 KB.
is any program to do this??
Let me attach that ROM...
Post by: FRAGKI-2012 on 22:44, 28 March 13
THANKS A LOOOOOT !!!!!!!!!but unfortunately I need a guide or an example to help me as I 'm not an expert like you guy's !!!
I;m interested to convert the Classic Muncher (UK) (1987) for me is the best pacman in cpc or the lemmings or the Solomon's key just for fun and to have a creative time !!!as I love the pcs and the old computers!!!
ps. fell free to attach anything!!!!
and for the new friend arnoldemu the answer is that we will be waiting for this brilliant and useful program.
Post by: TFM on 22:53, 28 March 13
Ok, using CPCTurbocruncher first to make it smaller...
Attach CPCT DSK...
Crunching file...
Result 15 KB! Great it will fit in ONE ROM!
Test: Game still works!
Attaching game DSK....
Now I have to give a presentation... tell you soon how to finish the ROM...
Post by: TFM on 23:22, 28 March 13
Install Softbrenner ROM in an MegaFlash or CPC emulator
Insert Disc with "Munch.", the 15 KB file
Start Softbrenner with !SB
Type "M" for Make ROM
Press "X" for add RSX
Move black bar over file "MUNCH." (ok, it is there already)
Press RETRUN to load file
Now you see a RSX command, that can be changed. Press DEL just once to delete the point
On the screen you see "!MUNCH", press Return
Press "2" for "load file into RAM and autostart"
Press Return twice to admit the load and autostart addresses of the file
Press N for No autostart after reset
Now press "S" for save ROM
And that's it you have your ROM!!!
One last thing remains to do: You must adapt the checksum. That can be done with the samall basic program "checksum.bas"
It's all done on the DSK here:
Post by: Gryzor on 13:28, 29 March 13
Post by: TFM on 03:31, 30 March 13
There it comes... (Start with !MUNCH)
Post by: TFM on 03:57, 30 March 13
Classic Muncher on a ROM? I'm sold! How about Classic Axiens? :DHere... start with !AXIENS
Post by: Puresox on 19:47, 30 March 13
Post by: TFM on 00:37, 31 March 13
Post by: Gryzor on 01:32, 01 April 13
Here... start with !AXIENS
Oh man! Pity it's late - will try it tomorrow. Thanks =)
Post by: TFM on 20:13, 01 April 13
Post by: Gryzor on 13:09, 10 April 13
Here... start with !AXIENS
Yesterday I noticed that you made the init message of the ROM to read "Classic Axiens by Gryzor 2013". Heh... cool :D
Post by: Bryce on 13:58, 10 April 13
(Installed on my MegaFlash too :) )
By the way, the entire Interweb seems to think that this game was released in 1987, however, the CPCWiki claims it was a 1986 release. Which is correct?
Bryce.
Post by: Gryzor on 20:17, 21 April 13
Post by: mr_lou on 08:26, 17 September 13
Added to the ROM List in the Wiki under Games: ROM Table - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_Table#Game_ROMs)
This is awesome! How did I miss this thread? Can't wait to try it out on my CPC
Let's have more games added to the Games ROM list. :D
I may attempt the process myself later.
When meeting up with my mates for our retro gaming events, it will be so cool to go: "Hey, wanna see how fast I can load a game?" to a C64 user. 8)
Post by: mr_lou on 16:51, 18 September 13
Where does one figure that out, if it isn't listed at boot? I found the cpcwiki page for the program, where it doesn't say either.
Post by: Bryce on 17:00, 18 September 13
It also has the commands |INSTALL, |KILLROM, |HELP, |ROMHELP, |ROMOFF and |ROMPARK.
If you install MAXAM or Utopia, they offer a |Help command that lists all the installed ROMs and |HELP,n will list all the available commands for the ROM in slot n.
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 17:08, 18 September 13
This is using Caprice emulator though, but Relentless and Puzlo works fine. Also got the Axiens rom running with |axiens.
Copying the SB rom into same folder, and adding it to a slot in the Caprice config file, doesn't let me start anything with |SB though. :(
Does it have to be put in a certain slot?
Post by: Bryce on 17:30, 18 September 13
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 18:29, 18 September 13
Does the file possibly have a header that needs to be removed?
I don't know. I've tried the one TFM attached in this thread, and also another one I found elsewhere.
I don't know about headers. But I do see that the file is 16.1kb rather than 16.0kb like the other roms...
How do I remove this bastard header git?
Post by: TFM on 19:10, 18 September 13
Yes and sorry. My ROM file has an header. Just delete the first 128 bytes of it. I would do it on my PC, but this one here (work) has no hex editor (shame). Well...
Post by: mr_lou on 20:03, 18 September 13
Can't do this using any emulator on Linux it seems (?). Caprice doesn't let me save files to disk. Whatever files I save is gone from the DSK again after a reset.
And Arnold doesn't seem to support adding additional ROM files.
I guess I'll have to wait till there's time and room for me to setup my CPC+ somewhere.
Post by: TFM on 20:25, 18 September 13
You could generate a ROM using SB and save it to disc.
From DSK you can extract it (w/o header) to PC filesystem.
Then add the ROM to an emulator.
Let me know if there are questions to a particular step.
(Hope to get my car done tonite, then I can help more).
Post by: mr_lou on 21:49, 20 September 13
As far as I can see, the ROM file is created fine.
I use TFM's recipe, and generate a ROM file. This file cause a *CHECKSUM ERROR at boot.
Therefor I run the BASIC program TFM gave me, that runs though the code and adds a checksum value at the last byte and save it again.
Then all seems fine when starting, except calling the command just gives me a Ready. Nothing happens.
The file I'm testing with is the game Astro, and I tried the process twice now.
What am I missing?
Also... the whole Exomizer thing seems even more complex. What's the Excomizer command to use on a CPC binary?
If I run this command on a CPC binary, will it figure out for itself to depack before running, as seen with e.g. Relentless?
Post by: mr_lou on 22:08, 20 September 13
So I need to learn how to force a binary to autostart first I guess...
Any easy way to do that?
Post by: mr_lou on 22:11, 20 September 13
There's no way I can figure out that part.
Anyone bored enough to convert some games into ROM files for me? ::)
Post by: TFM on 22:52, 20 September 13
Then all seems fine when starting, except calling the command just gives me a Ready. Nothing happens.- The binary program needs an auto start address.
The file I'm testing with is the game Astro, and I tried the process twice now.
What am I missing?
- When adding an RSX with SB, enable the autostart feature.
Post by: mr_lou on 22:56, 20 September 13
- The binary program needs an auto start address.
- When adding an RSX with SB, enable the autostart feature.
Oh... lemme try that.
I still need to "hire" someone for the games that takes up more than 16kb though.
Post by: TFM on 23:18, 20 September 13
Post by: mr_lou on 23:20, 20 September 13
- When adding an RSX with SB, enable the autostart feature.
That doesn't seem to change anything...
If Exomizer is too complex, then give MadRams great Turbocruncher a try.
It's not the Exomizer part itself. It's that I have to write some assembler code to decompress it, according to this page:
Exomizer - CPCWiki (http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Exomizer#Decompression)
Post by: TFM on 00:25, 21 September 13
Can you post the program, which does not work on as DSK here? Then I can check the problem.
Post by: mr_lou on 07:41, 21 September 13
Yes, and therefore use TurboCruncher. It creates an output file which will self-decompress. Search for CPCT or so. I have the dsk at home, but not here at work. It's the most efficient cruncher on CPC (but not on PC, there it's exomizer).
Alright, I'll check it out. Thanks
Can you post the program, which does not work on as DSK here? Then I can check the problem.
Attached.
I noticed that SB didn't figure out the correct start address, so I changed that to the address called from BASIC.
Then caused Arnold to freeze at boot.
Then I tried again, selecting NO to autostart at boot, still using the start address called from the BASIC loader. Then it freeze when I call |astro
Obviously the whole problem is about the starting address... So looking closer at the BASIC loader, I spot the problem:
It's calling two addresses to start the game.
In line 540 it calls &8D80
And in line 550 it calls 35800
Any way to solve something like that, other than manually adding code to call two addresses?
Post by: mr_lou on 08:36, 21 September 13
So I tried compressing Tempest instead.
I can't get the resulting compressed files running though, and in any case they're still (just) too big for a single rom.
I also notice that in most cases, a game consist of more than one BIN file. What to do in those cases?
Anyway, throwing in the towel. Hoping someone is bored enough to convert a few games. If there are, here are a few titles I'm interesting in:
- Fruity Frank (should be possible I think)
- Spindizzy (3 BIN files!)
- Dead on Time (wishful thinking probably, but 2-3 ROM slots is fine if possible)
- Radzone (doubtful possible, since it's BASIC with some RSX commands)
What about Donkey Kong, Killer Gorilla, Thrust, Oh Mummy, West bank, and Who Dares Wins II. Possible to convert any of those?
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 18:35, 21 September 13
Also attached is the original .GAM file for said game! (&4000 & relocated to &A000 and unpacked)
Post by: mr_lou on 18:42, 21 September 13
I can do that too.
From now on, I will call you distastefulmrship. :P
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 18:48, 21 September 13
Post by: mr_lou on 19:55, 21 September 13
I then startup SB, and have it process the file. It says the file is too big, and requires two ROM files.
Ok, I let it create the two ROM files. Then I create a checksum, export from the DSK without header, and tries them. Doesn't work.
I then download the TESTFILE.ROM that distastefulmrship attached, and add a checksum to it. Export from the DSK without a header, and try it. Doesn't work.
I then download the KGORILLA.ROM file that distastefulmrship attached, and it works. WTF?! (Except that it auto-starts on boot, but still: WTF?!)
I mean WHAT?! SOMEONE tell me wtf I'm doing wrong. It's the same 14kb file, KGORILLA.GAM, but SB tells ME (and apparently not distastefulmrship) that it's too big for 1 ROM.
Am I using some stupid old buggy version of SB or something?
Or maybe something is going wrong because I'm running the emulator using wine?
Ok.... giving up. It's rather clear I won't be getting anywhere, so I'm hereby offering 2 euro pr. game anyone would convert for me. :)
If interested, PM me for a list (to avoid anyone converting the same game).
Games converted is free to put in the ROM list too. Thanks.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:10, 21 September 13
[Stuff that means nothing really]The problem is that the .BIN file that |SB spits out has a checksum error. That BASIC program that TFM gave you will correct the checksum problem, making the game work.
Try running any of my (or your) other .ROM/.BIN files through that "patcher" and I think you'll find they work. Any .ROM/.BIN file that works when you use T&J's ROM loader (from the 16k ROM compo thread)
Code: [Select]
10 LOAD "XXXXXX.ROM",&C000
20 CALL &C009
will work when the checksum has been corrected. THIS is why my projects are "half finished" as you say, because I do not have such a program and so can only get so far before having to stop.And as for Exomizer, you need the Z80 depacker, this is why TFM told you to use a CPC packer that autoruns. It's far easier to use than going through the assembly program... however, as I mentioned, it's pretty easy to do and I recommend grabbing the depacker routines (from Metalbrain for Exomizer or T&J for BITBuster) and using them instead.
And insulting me is childish; try growing up, hey?
Post by: TFM on 21:44, 21 September 13
Lets say the BASIC loader 'BAD' will load a binary like 'TASTE', then you put that binary 'TASTE' as RSX in the ROM and you change the BASIC loader from 'LOAD"TASTE" to !TASTE. Then put that new BASIC loader into the ROM.
Attached is an example.... (I had no time to test if it works...) ... doesn't work... maybe on 464??
Ok, checked it. The original does not work. Send me a working copy and you get the ROM.
Post by: mr_lou on 22:40, 21 September 13
The problem is that the .BIN file that |SB spits out has a checksum error. That BASIC program that TFM gave you will correct the checksum problem, making the game work.
Try running any of my (or your) other .ROM/.BIN files through that "patcher" and I think you'll find they work. Any .ROM/.BIN file that works when you use T&J's ROM loader (from the 16k ROM compo thread)
As I wrote in the previous post, I did create a checksum (using TFM's BASIC program yes), and it didn't help. It removed the "* CHECKSUM ERROR *" message at boot, but still wouldn't run the game. Either just a Ready message or else a reset or another crash.
And as for Exomizer, you need the Z80 depacker, this is why TFM told you to use a CPC packer that autoruns. It's far easier to use than going through the assembly program... however, as I mentioned, it's pretty easy to do and I recommend grabbing the depacker routines (from Metalbrain for Exomizer or T&J for BITBuster) and using them instead.
Yes I get all that, but I can't even make it work on a simple BIN below 16kb, like e.g. Killer Gorilla. I'm not even using any compressing yet. Like e.g. Astro Attack, is a small file of 10kb. Creating the ROM is easy. Getting it to run is not. That's why your chatbox comment + first post looked like a "You suck - see *I* can do it", except you didn't really - until your 2nd post.
I'm surprised you feel insulted, unless you consider your own chatbox message insulting too. I thought we were just having fun.
@Lou: SB can also process BASIC programs. So insdead of the LOAD command in the BASIC program, you use an RSX which calls the binary, which is also in the ROM.
Lets say the BASIC loader 'BAD' will load a binary like 'TASTE', then you put that binary 'TASTE' as RSX in the ROM and you change the BASIC loader from 'LOAD"TASTE" to !TASTE. Then put that new BASIC loader into the ROM.
Aaah.... I didn't think it could handle BASIC programs! That means Radzone could theoretically be converted to a ROM. Well, it would have to be 2 ROMs then, right? One for the BASIC part and one for the machine code?
Post by: Bryce on 22:55, 21 September 13
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 23:06, 21 September 13
Post the two BIN files and I will tell you why.
Well, attached is the TESTFILE.ROM that tastefulmrship attached, except I added the checksum using the BASIC program.
loading it at address &c000 and calling &c009 gives me a Ready signal.
You should know though, that so far it's all been on emulator. I haven't used the real hardware yet.
Post by: TFM on 23:20, 21 September 13
BASIC and BIN files can be put (compressed) in the same ROM.
Sadly I have to work 7 days a week, so I only have time during incubation breaks to look at it. But it's not forgotten.
Post by: Bryce on 23:26, 21 September 13
At address &01E1 your file has the value &82, the working file has &83.
The same at &0304, yours: &82, other &83.
What is this value and what sets it?
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 07:56, 22 September 13
Ok, there are two differences in the files (other than the checksum):
At address &01E1 your file has the value &82, the working file has &83.
The same at &0304, yours: &82, other &83.
What is this value and what sets it?
I have absolutely no idea. All I did with that file was to import it into a DSK, so I could run TFM's BASIC checksum-adder program on it, and then export it again.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:00, 22 September 13
When the GORILLA.ROM file is loaded ( LOAD"GORILLA.ROM",&C000 : CALL &C009 ) it works fine.
When the ROM is installed and you type |KG, the sprites are corrupt and it fails to play.
I've checked the data and when the game starts ( JP &4100 ), both create the same data in memory. (ie I've tried both methods and checked via the debugger in WinAPE).
What is the actual wrongness in this mess?
Post by: mr_lou on 19:35, 22 September 13
What is the actual wrongness in this mess?
....this is where I should not post something like: "I thought you said anyone can do it?", right? Right... so I won't do that. ;)
Welcome to the Twilight Zone btw.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:56, 22 September 13
....this is where I should not post something like: "I thought you said anyone can do it?", right? Right... so I won't do that. ;)
Maybe re-reading what I put might uncloud your blinkered judgement.
A quick recap, if I may?
Quote
@mr_lou; I've got Killer Gorilla packed and ready, but it's so simple to do I don't know wh you can't do it. I'm no CPCist and I can do it, anyone can do it!
Quote
I meant it's easy to pack and depack .bin files with Exomizer/BITBuster... anyone can do that! Fitting a 64k game into 16k/32k is the key!
Anyway...
I've just tried with ROLAND GOES DIGGING and it has exactly the same problem; works fine in BASIC, the sprite-routine fails miserably as a ROM.
Post by: mr_lou on 20:05, 22 September 13
Post by: arnoldemu on 20:17, 22 September 13
Ok, I've built a ROM from Octoate's instructions and it still isn't working. (Both .ROM file and .ASM attached)
When the GORILLA.ROM file is loaded ( LOAD"GORILLA.ROM",&C000 : CALL &C009 ) it works fine.
When the ROM is installed and you type |KG, the sprites are corrupt and it fails to play.
I've checked the data and when the game starts ( JP &4100 ), both create the same data in memory. (ie I've tried both methods and checked via the debugger in WinAPE).
What is the actual wrongness in this mess?
The Rom is still active when called inside within the Rom. When using call from basic the Rom is disabled. Two choices use mc start program or run code in ram that disables the Rom and calls 4100. I am guessing killer gorilla uses firmware. If it hit hardware direct it would disable Rom when changing mode.
The reason the sprites are corrupted is its reading from c000 but Rom is there, when it then writes that goes to the ram under the Rom.
Post by: arnoldemu on 20:21, 22 September 13
....this is where I should not post something like: "I thought you said anyone can do it?", right? Right... so I won't do that. ;)
Welcome to the Twilight Zone btw.
I agree with Mr.Lou not everyone can make a Rom. For programmers it's fairly easy. For non programmers I would say it is restricted to single files which can be run direct and which fit into 16k.
Post by: redbox on 20:24, 22 September 13
What is the actual wrongness in this mess?
I expect you're forgetting to page out the ROM before starting the game.
You need to jump to your own routine in RAM first and switch off the ROM. So if you're calling &C009 this could JumP to &A000 and you'd do this:
Code: [Select]
org &a000
ld bc,&7f8d ; disable ROMs
out (c),c
jp &4100 ; start game
Post by: TFM on 20:50, 22 September 13
I agree with Mr.Lou not everyone can make a Rom. For programmers it's fairly easy. For non programmers I would say it is restricted to single files which can be run direct and which fit into 16k.
Ah no. It's easy. You just need an unprotected game:
- If you have a BASIC loader, replace all LOAD commands by RSX commands (corresponding binaries get this RSX name from SB).
- Use Exomizer for Crunching (nice step by step manual in the CPCWiki).
- Use SB to put it into a ROM (very easy[nb]If you don't speak German, then it's time to learn this wonderful descriptive language[/nb]). SB can process files up to 31 KB. So you will get any game up to 64 KB in ROM (crunched of course).
- Use a simple BASIC program to adapt the checksum
- Use ManageDSK to get ROM from DSK to emulator, if you don't have the real machine.
Post by: mr_lou on 20:57, 22 September 13
Ah no. It's easy. You just need an unprotected game:
- If you have a BASIC loader, replace all LOAD commands by RSX commands (corresponding binaries get this RSX name from SB).
- Use Exomizer for Crunching (nice step by step manual in the CPCWiki).
- Use SB to put it into a ROM (very easy[nb]If you don't speak German, then it's time to learn this wonderful descriptive language[/nb]). SB can process files up to 31 KB. So you will get any game up to 64 KB in ROM (crunched of course).
- Use a simple BASIC program to adapt the checksum
- Use ManageDSK to get ROM from DSK to emulator, if you don't have the real machine.
Except that's not the full recipe.
After using Exomizer, you also have to assemble some decompressing code and compile it e.g. with pasmo, and somehow merge the compressed binary with that decompressing routine binary, before you can create a ROM from it.
And don't say that's easy. It's not. It involves calculating a lot of addresses, which is confusing for anyone who's not a coder. I didn't even manage to get the decompressing working, after spending a whole day on it. So I definitely won't define it as being easy.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 20:57, 22 September 13
-yay-
EDIT: However, mr_lou, once you've got the compression/decompression worked out, the rest is quite straight forward.
Post by: mr_lou on 21:01, 22 September 13
Ok, it works! Thanks to the programmers, this Irish pretender has finally done it!
-yay-
Congratz!!!
EDIT: However, mr_lou, once you've got the compression/decompression worked out, the rest is quite straight forward.
Hm, not when I tried. Before experimenting with Exomizer I tried a few games that didn't require compression. Didn't succeed in any of those either.
That's where Bryce said it was because a single byte from different. I have no clue why.
Post by: mr_lou on 21:04, 22 September 13
My preference is that nothing is displayed at boot though. Because considering all the games I plan on installing in ROM, I'll have a wall of text then.
I'm also picky enough to not want KG as the starting command. I'd want |GORILLA as starting command.
Let the mocking begin.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:05, 22 September 13
Hm, not when I tried. Before experimenting with Exomizer I tried a few games that didn't require compression. Didn't succeed in any of those either.Ok, post here which game that was and I'll try and see if my "code" (ie Octoate, redbox & arnoldemu's code) will be able to convert it to a ROM.
That's where Bryce said it was because a single byte from different. I have no clue why.
Quote
My preference is that nothing is displayed at boot though. Because considering all the games I plan on installing in ROM, I'll have a wall of text then.
I'm also picky enough to not want KG as the starting command. I'd want |GORILLA as starting command.
Fair enough. I'll change the parameters after I've had a quick ruby and post it once done. (Unless someone else has already done it in that time, of course)
Post by: mr_lou on 21:12, 22 September 13
Ok, post here which game that was and I'll try and see if my "code" (ie Octoate, redbox & arnoldemu's code) will be able to convert it to a ROM.
It was nothing in particular. Just whatever I could find that had a small filesize. Not a game I was interested in as such.
Fair enough. I'll change the parameters after I've had a quick ruby and post it once done. (Unless someone else has already done it in that time, of course)
Really? That's rather tasteful of you... :)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:34, 22 September 13
Really? That's rather tasteful of you... :)It won't take a minute to do... done! ^_^
EDIT: And I've just "patched" the ROLAND GOES DIGGING ROM as well! Enjoy! ^_^
Post by: mr_lou on 22:42, 22 September 13
It won't take a minute to do... done! ^_^
EDIT: And I've just "patched" the ROLAND GOES DIGGING ROM as well! Enjoy! ^_^
Awesome! And the right start commands for both too. Thanks a lot. PM me your paypal for the 4 euros. :)
Want to convert more? Let me know. 2 euro per game.
(afaik arnoldemu is also converting a few)
What about the plus version of Jet Set Willy? Possible?
ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/jetsetwp.zip
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:44, 22 September 13
Awesome! And the right start commands for both too. Thanks a lot. PM me your paypal for the 4 euros. :)I forgot to mention |DIGGING for ROLAND GOES DIGGING.
Want to convert more? Let me know. 2 euro per game.
No need for money; just donate any monies to CPCWiki instead.
Oh, here's |TRASHMAN if you're interested! ^_^
Post by: mr_lou on 22:47, 22 September 13
Someone add these to the ROM games list. :)
ROM List - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_Table#Game_ROMs)
Post by: Bryce on 23:04, 22 September 13
Bryce.
Post by: andycadley on 23:06, 22 September 13
What about the plus version of Jet Set Willy? Possible?
ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/jetsetwp.zip
Doubt it, it's 128K and a lot of that is solid data. There's no fancy packing on it so it might compress a bit, but things like the level data were never designed to pack well (because they're already pretty tightly compressed to fit in ram).
Course if I had a programmable cartridge, I could just fudge out the odd bit of self-modifying code from the source, tweak the paging routines to fetch from ROM instead of RAM and make a genuine GX version. But then I do still have the source code! ;-)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 23:13, 22 September 13
Post by: Bryce on 23:24, 22 September 13
Bryce.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 23:49, 22 September 13
EDIT: Well, I think I'm done.
Post by: mr_lou on 08:34, 23 September 13
And ralferoo converted Fruity Frank! (attached here)
Post by: ralferoo on 10:16, 23 September 13
I don't know about headers. But I do see that the file is 16.1kb rather than 16.0kb like the other roms...As you're using linux:
How do I remove this bastard header git?
Code: [Select]
dd if=file_with_header.bin of=file_without_header.bin bs=128 skip=1
Post by: ralferoo on 10:18, 23 September 13
And ralferoo converted Fruity Frank! (attached here)It was a bit of a git as the BASIC loader sets up all the envelopes the game requires and every noise the game makes sounds awful if this isn't done (or if the system is reset after doing MC_BOOT_PROGRAM)...
Anyway, you can use |FF or |FRUITY.
Post by: mr_lou on 10:29, 23 September 13
I've asked him to paste the list here, for the games he hasn't looked at yet.
Post by: arnoldemu on 10:52, 23 September 13
I mailed a list of games to arnoldemu. Don't know if he's had a chance to look at them yet. So don't want to post the list here before I've heard from him.I haven't looked at any yet, I can do that later today in my lunch break.
I've asked him to paste the list here, for the games he hasn't looked at yet.
Here is the list mr_lou sent me.
These 4 are high on the priority list:
ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/deadtime.zip (ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/deadtime.zip) |dot (there's probably a more updated version elsewhere online?)
ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/radzone.zip (ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/radzone.zip) |radzone
ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/spindizz.zip (ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/spindizz.zip) |spindizzy
Some others that would be nice to have too:
It's been done and is in this thread.
ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/killgori.zip (ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/killgori.zip) |gorilla
ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/westbank.zip (ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/westbank.zip) |westbank
ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/wdaresii.zip (ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/wdaresii.zip) |whodares2
Post by: ralferoo on 10:56, 23 September 13
Code: [Select]
3c3
< 00000020 55 49 54 d9 46 c6 c5 00 00 46 72 75 69 74 79 20 |UIT.F....Fruity |
---
> 00000020 55 49 54 d9 46 c6 c5 00 20 46 72 75 69 74 79 20 |UIT.F... Fruity |
Post by: arnoldemu on 10:57, 23 September 13
Post by: arnoldemu on 10:58, 23 September 13
Oh, I forgot. Fruity Frank doesn't display a startup message because mr_lou didn't want one.I understand where he is comming from with this. Loads of games = loads of messages.
So, as long as we can get the info with UTOPIA or it's listed in the wiki/docs then all is good I think.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 11:27, 23 September 13
(HELP! I'm running out of expansion slots! ^_^)
EDIT: Ocean's |DONKEYKONG has now been done, too. (Barely fit into 16k...)
Post by: Axelay on 12:09, 23 September 13
ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/deadtime.zip (ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/cpc/games/arcade/deadtime.zip) |dot (there's probably a more updated version elsewhere online?)
How do you mean more updated?
Post by: arnoldemu on 12:10, 23 September 13
These are mr_lou's words.
How do you mean more updated?
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 12:25, 23 September 13
A CASE IN POINT; the stupidly addictive |TEMPEST (it's the cracked version, unfortunately).
Works fine on a 6128 ROM, but not with a 464 ROM.
EDIT: I'm not doing any more until this is sorted out. It's kinda wasting everyone's time if it only works on one CPC!
Post by: gerald on 13:02, 23 September 13
Ok, I've just tried some of these on a(n emulated) 464 and they don't work (Unknown Command)... but they all work fine on a(n emulated) 6128. Any reason why?464 only initialise rom 0 to 7 while 6128 goes up to 15 (and 31 with FW 3.x)
A CASE IN POINT; the stupidly addictive |TEMPEST (it's the cracked version, unfortunately).
Works fine on a 6128 ROM, but not with a 464 ROM.
EDIT: I'm not doing any more until this is sorted out. It's kinda wasting everyone's time if it only works on one CPC!
Tempest ROM in ROM 6 works fine on winape with 464 config
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 13:39, 23 September 13
464 only initialise rom 0 to 7 while 6128 goes up to 15 (and 31 with FW 3.x)PHEW!
Tempest ROM in ROM 6 works fine on winape with 464 config
Thanks for the info, sir! ^_^
Post by: mr_lou on 14:34, 23 September 13
How do you mean more updated?
Wasn't there released an updated version of Dead on Time a while after the first release?
Or did I dream that? (I might have. Dead on Time was played a lot when it came out ;) )
Thanks for all the conversions! This rocks! :D
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 15:23, 23 September 13
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:36, 23 September 13
Defend or Die :)
|DEFEND
Post by: mr_lou on 15:38, 23 September 13
I know it's not on the list, but this game is great ;)
Defend or Die :)
Agreed!
However, I must admit, after having tried Guardian II I kinda like that version better because of its much smoother scrolling.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 15:46, 23 September 13
I will start on thrust. This is also one of my favourites :)I've done a quick version of |THRUST, but there might just be enough room to put the loading screen & music on as well... but that's a little beyond my capabilities.
(LITTLE = FECKING MILES)
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:53, 23 September 13
Post by: mr_lou on 16:00, 23 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 16:12, 23 September 13
Is it difficult to do Spindizzy and Radzone?Even when packed, both games exceed 24k in size, so it is possible if you use 2 ROMs.
It might be nice if someone could explain (in general terms) how to deal with 2 ROM images for one title.
Post by: arnoldemu on 16:16, 23 September 13
Then I'll explain how to do 2 rom games.
I want to make sure I get it right first ;)
Post by: mr_lou on 16:23, 23 September 13
The BASIC part would have to be edited to NOT load the binary part, and instead of CALL <startaddress> it would |RADZONE.BIN for example.
At least that's what I imagine, after reading TFM's posts in this thread.
Post by: andycadley on 16:33, 23 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 16:35, 23 September 13
Eventually, I'd like to experiment with multi-ROMs for JET SET WILLY: THE FINAL FRONTIER.
Post by: mr_lou on 16:42, 23 September 13
Post by: TFM on 17:09, 23 September 13
It might be nice if someone could explain (in general terms) how to deal with 2 ROM images for one title.
Softbrenner (SB) can process compressed files up to 31 KB and also generate and save two ROMs of 16 KB each. If you run an emulator, then you just have to translate very few words of the menu. To learn a bit a German won't harm you ;)
Actually I already did explain all that. READ THREAD FROM THE BEGINNING!
how to convert a dsk image to rom??? (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?topic=7854.msg60412#msg60412)
Post by: steve on 17:27, 23 September 13
Thank you very much. ;D
Post by: mr_lou on 17:28, 23 September 13
To learn where this is located, I view the The Defend of Die ROM because it shows the game name fine.
But the Hex Editor only shows "DEFEND OR DI.".... where's the last E?
Seems to be the case with all ROMs. The last character of the name isn't there. What gives?
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 17:41, 23 September 13
Post by: mr_lou on 18:11, 23 September 13
"Astro" display "HOLA" ?? What? Why? Why doesn't it display "Astro"?
"Axiens" displays "CLASSIC AXIENS". Yay! :)
"BoulderDash" displays "DASH" why not "Boulderdash"?
"Defend or Die" displays "DEFEND OR DIE" yay! :)
"Roland goes Digging" displays "ROLAND" why not "Roland goes Digging"? Not enough room?
"Donkey Kong" displays "OCEAN"... why not "Donkey Kong"?
"Fruity Frank" displays "Fruity Frank". Yay! :)
"Killer Gorilla" displays "KG" why not the full name "Killer Gorilla"?
"Hunchback" for some reason displays "FECK"
"Classic Invaders" displays "QWERTY".. ? Why?
"Mutant Monty" displays "SP"
"Manic Miner" displays "GIRLS"....
"Tempest" displays "THEE"
"Thrust" displays "ARSE"
and "Trashman" displays "DEAD".
These are the names I see in the ROM list in Arnold Emulator, so I'm assuming it's the same names that'll show up if using Utopia ROM |HELP command.
Why not display the actual game name in such a list? It sure would be a lot more helpful in my opinion.
EDIT: Yup, the same names show up with the Utopia |HELP command. This is not that great mates. It should really display the actual game name.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 18:24, 23 September 13
"Hunchback" for some reason displays "FECK"
"Manic Miner" displays "GIRLS"....
"Thrust" displays "ARSE"
No prizes for guessing what my NEXT conversion will say! ^_^
Post by: mr_lou on 18:25, 23 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 18:46, 23 September 13
I can always rebuild the other games to fit any naming convention, but it might take a day or two.
Post by: TFM on 18:48, 23 September 13
"Axiens" displays "CLASSIC AXIENS". Yay! :)
"Defend or Die" displays "DEFEND OR DIE" yay! :)
"Fruity Frank" displays "Fruity Frank". Yay! :)
Haha! Well, at least you like my stuff 8)
Post by: mr_lou on 19:00, 23 September 13
Ok, try |SPACEMANIA. See if the name for this one is any better.
I can always rebuild the other games to fit any naming convention, but it might take a day or two.
Yes. It says "Space Mania" which is perfect, because it's the title of the game. :)
Haha! Well, at least you like my stuff 8)
Yes, because you put the title of the game. (I would prefer if it was written "Classic Axiens" instead of "CLASSIC AXIENS" though, but that's just me being picky). ;)
Post by: robcfg on 19:34, 23 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:40, 23 September 13
Yes. It says "Space Mania" which is perfect, because it's the title of the game. :)You really DO want your cake and you really DO want to eat it! Crikey!
Ok, here's 50% redone for you...
|ASTRO, |BOULDER, |HUNCHBACK, |MANICMINER, |DIGGING, |TEMPEST
Post by: arnoldemu on 19:58, 23 September 13
So I'm looking at these ROM files in a Hex Editor, because I'd like to just show the game-name when I call |HELP from the Utopia rom.The last character of the name has bit 7 set to 1 (ascii value + 128). This indicates it is the last character of the string.
To learn where this is located, I view the The Defend of Die ROM because it shows the game name fine.
But the Hex Editor only shows "DEFEND OR DI.".... where's the last E?
Seems to be the case with all ROMs. The last character of the name isn't there. What gives?
Some other languages have an additional character to indicate the end. C uses NUL (0) for the end. CP/M often uses "$" as the end.
The "name" of the ROM which is seen in UTOPIA and Arnold emulator is always the first string.
The others are the commands available.
The v1.1 part is taken from the header, it's the second and third byte I think with a "v" before it.
Post by: TFM on 20:09, 23 September 13
how to convert a dsk image to rom??? (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?topic=7854.msg60411#msg60411)
Post by: TFM on 20:12, 23 September 13
(I would prefer if it was written "Classic Axiens" instead of "CLASSIC AXIENS" though, but that's just me being picky). ;)
You can easily change that by usage of an HEX editor, use ROManager to tell you the new checksum (use HEX Editor again to put checksum in ROM file).
Post by: mr_lou on 20:18, 23 September 13
You can easily change that by usage of an HEX editor, use ROManager to tell you the new checksum (use HEX Editor again to put checksum in ROM file).
Yes, I might try that. :)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 20:46, 23 September 13
If anyone has ANY problems with these, then tough! I ain't doing no more of this ROM shyte... no fecking way!
Post by: Gryzor on 20:55, 23 September 13
Post by: mr_lou on 20:58, 23 September 13
And here's the other 50% redone for you...
If anyone has ANY problems with these, then tough! I ain't doing no more of this ROM shyte... no fecking way!
Your sacrifice will be cherished and deeply appreciated for many years ahead. There might even be a statue of you at some point, in a virtual reality world.
Thanks!
Post by: Gryzor on 21:03, 23 September 13
Please do moar!
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:13, 23 September 13
Please do moar!Hmmm.... ok, then. I'm torn between ATOM SMASHER, SULTAN'S MAZE or HOME RUNNER.
Choices, choices! ^_^
Post by: mr_lou on 21:27, 23 September 13
Hmmm.... ok, then. I'm torn between ATOM SMASHER, SULTAN'S MAZE or HOME RUNNER.
Choices, choices! ^_^
If it was me, I'd just do all of them!
And then I'd convert Spindizzy and Radzone too! :D
Post by: Gryzor on 21:29, 23 September 13
Go! :D
PS Hm, maybe a new vid resource? Both are very fresh!
Atom Smasher Review for the Amstrad CPC by John Gage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbQznJGcrs#)
Home Runner Review for the Amstrad CPC by John Gage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBFdZmeB5SA#)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:58, 23 September 13
Post by: Gryzor on 22:10, 23 September 13
[AMSTRAD CPC] Punchy! Longplay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXMgp5iuEC4#)
Post by: mr_lou on 22:15, 23 September 13
Don't Panic
Zorro
Wriggler (Romantic Robot)
Collapse
Super Sleuth
Nuclear Heist
Street Machine
Atlantis
Star firebird
Gauntlet
5th Axis
Bruce Lee <-- that's almost a must. How did we miss that so far?
Frostbyte
Gilligans Gold
Kungfu Master
Light Force
Tapper
...but I could go on...... (and I probably will!) :)
Post by: Gryzor on 22:15, 23 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:33, 23 September 13
Bruce Lee <-- that's almost a must. How did we miss that so far?
Well, that's one oversight corrected! ^_^ |BRUCELEE
However, here's |HOMERUNNER... a 6k game on a 16k ROM! Such an amazing waste of space! ^_^
EDIT: |GILLIGAN'S GOLD is next...
EDIT: |TAPPER follows it pretty quickly.
EDIT: I noticed an assembly window open... it was EgoTrip's LAB ESCAPE, half converted... now finished as a ROM! |LABESCAPE
Post by: redbox on 00:01, 24 September 13
But the Hex Editor only shows "DEFEND OR DI.".... where's the last E?
Seems to be the case with all ROMs. The last character of the name isn't there. What gives?
The first name entry in a jump list for a ROM is a bogus entry as the associated jump address is the initialisation routine for the ROM. This name entry has therefore been commonly used as the "description" for the ROM but you only see this in programs such as ROM managers for the MegaFlash.
This entry usually (and is good practice) contains spaces so it can't be called from a RSX. The last character is there but in a ROM name list you add &80 to the last character, so if you subtract this it will make sense.
Post by: robcfg on 01:54, 24 September 13
Quote
EDIT: |TAPPER follows it pretty quickly.
Nchts! I thought you'd use |DRINK for that... ;D
Post by: MiguelSky on 03:05, 24 September 13
I have some time without read any post here, I'm very busy last times... I read about this post in FB today. Here Amstrad CPC - Juegos en Rom - Amstrad CPC (http://amstradcpc.mforos.com/305097/2587660-juegos-en-rom/) we spoke some years ago about putting games in rom. The cngsoft packed games collection cngsoft.no-ip.org (http://cngsoft.no-ip.org/cng_cpc_zip.htm) is great to use with SoftBrenner to make rom games.
EDITO: Hmm, I see I have the CHECKSUM problem too, but I can't fix it !!
EDITO2: Changed files !! Now working :)
Post by: mr_lou on 08:30, 24 September 13
EDITO: Hmm, I see I have the CHECKSUM problem too, but I can't fix it !!
This little BASIC program will fix it.
Code: [Select]
10 CLS:CAT
20 INPUT "ROM filename: ",n$
30 MEMORY &3FFF
40 PRINT "Loading ROM"
50 LOAD n$,&4000
60 PRINT "Calculating checksum"
70 w=0:FOR adr=&4000 TO &7FFE:w=w+PEEK(adr)
80 IF w>255 THEN w=w-256
90 IF adr MOD &200 = 0 THEN PRINT "=";
100 NEXT
110 PRINT
120 PRINT "Saving ROM"
130 POKE &7FFF,w
140 SAVE n$,b,&4000,&4000
Post by: ralferoo on 11:13, 24 September 13
This little BASIC program will fix it.I'm genuinely interested now. So, the "official" way of doing this is byte 0x3fff = sum(bytes 0 to 0x3ffe) ?
Because I actually thought that it was sum(bytes 0 to 0x3fff)=0. But in either case, out of my entire ROM collection, I have very, very few where this checksum matches.
Here's some quick and dirty python code:
Code: [Select]
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
import sys
for name in sys.argv[1:]:
f=open(name,"rb")
x=0
s=0
rom = f.read(16384)
if len(rom)<16384:
rom = rom + (chr(0) * (16384-len(rom)))
for c in rom[0:16382]:
b=ord(c)
s=s+b
c = ord(rom[16383])
print "%-20s : sum %02X xsum %02X"%(name,s&0xff,c)
and running this over amy entire ROM collection:
Code: [Select]
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/amsdos.rom : sum C2 xsum 1A
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/basic464.rom : sum E5 xsum 54
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/basic6128.rom : sum 62 xsum C9
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/basic664.rom : sum 62 xsum C9
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/bj1.rom : sum 42 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/bj2.rom : sum AD xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/bj3.rom : sum 4B xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/Harrier.rom : sum 6D xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/hoh_01.rom : sum C6 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/hoh_02.rom : sum E1 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/hoh_03.rom : sum 78 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/os464.rom : sum 00 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/os6128.rom : sum 00 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/os664.rom : sum 00 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/Stk12-1.rom : sum C0 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/Stk12-2.rom : sum 34 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/wincpc/roms/Stk12Gen.rom : sum B2 xsum 00
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/AMSDOS.ROM : sum C2 xsum 1A
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/BASIC1-0.ROM : sum E5 xsum 54
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/BASIC_1.1.ROM : sum 62 xsum C9
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/COMPO_CH.ROM : sum B4 xsum B4
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/COMPO_OVERKOB.ROM : sum DD xsum 00
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/COMPO_PUZLO.ROM : sum 3E xsum FF
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/COMPO_RELENT.ROM : sum 9C xsum 00
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/DDEMON.ROM : sum 41 xsum 72
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/OS464.ROM : sum 00 xsum 00
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/OS_6128.ROM : sum 00 xsum 00
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/PARADOS.ROM : sum 26 xsum 00
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/ArnorBCPL.rom : sum 09 xsum 09
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/disc_micropower.rom : sum B9 xsum FF
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/discpowe.rom : sum 6D xsum FF
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/fract.rom : sum 37 xsum 00
/home/ralf/cpc/roms/sugarlumps.rom : sum 9B xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/arnold/arnold/src/roms/parados.rom : sum 26 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/amsdose/amsdos.rom : sum C2 xsum 1A
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/cpc464e/basic.rom : sum E5 xsum 54
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/cpc464e/os.rom : sum 00 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/cpc6128e/basic.rom : sum 62 xsum C9
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/cpc6128e/os.rom : sum 00 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/cpc6128s/basic.rom : sum 62 xsum C9
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/cpc6128s/os.rom : sum 00 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/cpc664e/basic.rom : sum 62 xsum C9
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/cpc664e/os.rom : sum 00 xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/kcc/kccbas.rom : sum 62 xsum C9
/home/ralf/src/cpc/arnold_tng/src/roms/kcc/kccos.rom : sum AB xsum 00
/home/ralf/src/cpc/pace/x/COMSTAR1.ROM : sum 38 xsum FF
/home/ralf/src/cpc/pace/x/COMSTAR2.ROM : sum CD xsum FF
/home/ralf/src/cpc/pace/x/PACE232.ROM : sum 38 xsum FF
/home/ralf/src/cpc/pace/x/RS232101.ROM : sum 00 xsum 00
In fact, only Cyber Huhn, ArnorBCPL, one of the serial ROMs (see below) and the firmwares (which TFM claims shouldn't be checksummed anyway).
BTW, the serial RS232101.ROM checksum only computes if you pad the ROM to 16KB. It's actually only an 8KB ROM and the last few bytes are 0xFF so if you duplicate the ROM twice as you'd get on a real machine, the checksum doesn't match. But apparently, that's enough for TFM to brand me a liar.
So, my question: is this really a standard? Looks more like a coincidence to me. And there certainly seem to be enough exceptions to make this something not worth worrying about.
Post by: arnoldemu on 11:24, 24 September 13
So, my question: is this really a standard? Looks more like a coincidence to me. And there certainly seem to be enough exceptions to make this something not worth worrying about.Standard: No.
Recommendation: Yes.
Post by: arnoldemu on 11:28, 24 September 13
Even when packed, both games exceed 24k in size, so it is possible if you use 2 ROMs.I have attached my work in progress code to show how I am making 1 of the games that uses 2 roms.
It might be nice if someone could explain (in general terms) how to deal with 2 ROM images for one title.
The main rom has the rom name (I added (A) and (B) to distinguish the order to insert them).
The main rom also has the | command to execute it.
The | command copies pucrunch decruncher into ram, then decrunches one block which fits into the first 16k rom.
Then it calls the second rom using kl_rom_pchl (name??). This then decrunches the other blocks and returns back to the main rom where the game is launched with mc start program.
This is incomplete because I need to setup some envelopes.
But this is one way it can be done.
Other ways are:
- using | commands. This allows you to insert the roms as you wish and the | command is found and executed to complete the running of the program - TFM's suggestion
- using the ROM like a filing system and stretching the data across up to 4 roms. I'll do one of these later - probably for spindizzy.
Post by: MiguelSky on 14:32, 24 September 13
This little BASIC program will fix it.Thanks, mr_lou !! I was using the checksum.bas into the Classic Muncher dsk of the earlier posts. I edited the files in my message.Code: [Select]10 CLS:CAT
20 INPUT "ROM filename: ",n$
30 MEMORY &3FFF
40 PRINT "Loading ROM"
50 LOAD n$,&4000
60 PRINT "Calculating checksum"
70 w=0:FOR adr=&4000 TO &7FFE:w=w+PEEK(adr)
80 IF w>255 THEN w=w-256
90 IF adr MOD &200 = 0 THEN PRINT "=";
100 NEXT
110 PRINT
120 PRINT "Saving ROM"
130 POKE &7FFF,w
140 SAVE n$,b,&4000,&4000
Anyway, I think the checksum doesn't need be fixed if you load the roms with SoftBrenner in real CPC.
Post by: Axelay on 15:55, 24 September 13
Wasn't there released an updated version of Dead on Time a while after the first release?
Or did I dream that? (I might have. Dead on Time was played a lot when it came out ;) )
Oh sure, there was a bug fix release a month or so later. But the version in the link on arnoldemu's post looks to be that version.
Oh, I did like a bit of Star Firebirds myself: |STARFIRE to start.
Post by: TFM on 20:34, 24 September 13
out of my entire ROM collection, I have very, very few where this checksum matches.
Sure because you check 100 times the BASIC or AmsDOS ROMs. Further some French stuff, where coder obviously haven't been acquainted to the checksum protocol.
Why don't you check regular commercial ROMs which have been sold back the day? 100% of them have the ckecksum, all using a similar algorithm.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 12:56, 25 September 13
How the living poo-poo do you RUN a BASIC program from a ROM?
I noticed that there's a thread about RUNning a BASIC program from assembly (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?topic=7585.msg57340#msg57340) and the general consensus is that it's not possible.
EDIT: Just added Micro Power's |GHOULS to my list of ROM games. And seeing as this is my LAST DAY AT WORK (-yay-), I'll have a few days to catch up on the titles I wanted to do before venturing into multi-ROM territory.
EDIT: Ok, just to complete the Micro Power all-time Top 3 games of all time, here's |GAUNTLET for your enjoyment.
Post by: mr_lou on 12:59, 25 September 13
How the living poo-poo do you RUN a BASIC program from a ROM?
I used the Softbrenner utility to convert a simple BASIC program of my own into a ROM. Worked fine. (The only successful conversion I did).
Post by: Bryce on 15:22, 25 September 13
You can browse the entire list here: ROM List - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_List#Game_ROMs)
I had to add (Defender Clone) to Gauntlet's name to avoid people mixing it up with the U.S. Gold Gauntlet.
(Now if any of you can get the U.S. Gold Gauntlet onto ROM, I'll be seriously impressed :) )
Bryce.
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:31, 25 September 13
Post by: mr_lou on 15:37, 25 September 13
Woaw, slow down guys (Tastefulmrship), I can barely keep up!
Disregard that. Do not slow down. I repeat. Do not slow down. Just keep going as fast as you can. :)
You can browse the entire list here: ROM List - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_List#Game_ROMs)
I had to add (Defender Clone) to Gauntlet's name to avoid people mixing it up with the U.S. Gold Gauntlet.
Awesome! Minor correction. The game "Star Fire" is really "Star Firebirds".
Post by: Bryce on 16:00, 25 September 13
Edit: Star Firebird edited (release date and Author were still wrong), added Defend or Die and Space Mania. Now 33 Games on 39 ROMs!!
Bryce.
Post by: Axelay on 19:06, 25 September 13
Post by: TFM on 20:23, 25 September 13
I used the Softbrenner utility to convert a simple BASIC program of my own into a ROM. Worked fine. (The only successful conversion I did).
Maybe you should first make a disc version using compressed files. And then - if it works from disc - put it to the ROM.
Post by: mr_lou on 20:39, 25 September 13
Maybe you should first make a disc version using compressed files. And then - if it works from disc - put it to the ROM.
I have given up.
History has shown that other people can make 100 ROM files for every 0 ROM I make.
Post by: TFM on 22:03, 25 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:08, 25 September 13
Woaw, slow down guys (Tastefulmrship), I can barely keep up! The ROM List page now offers a whopping 31 games! on 37 ROMs! That should keep your MegaFlash running hot for quite a while!
Disregard that. Do not slow down. I repeat. Do not slow down. Just keep going as fast as you can. :)
Well, I AM now unemployed... (for four days)... so I have plenty of time to go through most of 1984 and the beginning of 1985.
Tonight I have Spanish red wine to drink (@Vanity; please don't release a demo tonight ^_^), so I will make a new start in the morning!
Post by: TFM on 22:11, 25 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:18, 25 September 13
Wine? YOU are Irish! So the heck DRINK BEER!!! AND WHISKY!!! ;)Well, normally I'd prefer a pint of the BLACK STUFF and a smooth JAMESON chaser... but beggars can't be choosers.
Post by: TFM on 22:33, 25 September 13
Post by: mr_lou on 22:40, 25 September 13
Well, I AM now unemployed... (for four days)... so I have plenty of time to go through most of 1984 and the beginning of 1985.
Sorry to hear you lost your job.
My offer for the 2 euro pr. game still stands (for the games I request - not for all games you convert).
I've lost overview though. But I think you basically converted all except 2 or 3 from my list, of the ones I have so far. And it's great! :)
Just PM me your paypal address - and then convert more for me. :D
Post by: mr_lou on 23:14, 25 September 13
My wish-list
Dead on Time
Radzone
Spindizzy
Who Dares Wins II
Astro Attack - done by tastefulmrship
Donkey Kong - done by tastefulmrship
Killer Gorilla - done by tastefulmrship
Thrust - done by tastefulmrship
Tempest - done by tastefulmrship
Boulder Dash - done by tastefulmrship
Westbank - Done by MiguelSky
Later suggestions
Don't Panic
Zorro
Wriggler (Romantic Robot)
Collapse
Super Sleuth
Nuclear Heist
Street Machine
Atlantis
5th Axis
Frostbyte
Kungfu Master
Light Force
Gauntlet - done by tastefulmrship
Bruce Lee - done by tastefulmrship
Gilligans Gold - done by tastefulmrship
Tapper - done by tastefulmrship
Not requested by me
Defend or Die - done by arnoldemu
Manic Miner - done by tastefulmrship
Mutant Monty - done by tastefulmrship
Space Mania - done by tastefulmrship
Roland goes Digging - done by tastefulmrship
Classic Invaders - done by tastefulmrship
Trashman - done by tastefulmrship
Punchy - done by tastefulmrship
Lab Escape - done by tastefulmrship
Home Runner - done by tastefulmrship
Knightlore - done by MiguelSky
Ghouls - done by tastefulmrship
Anarchy - done by Axelay
Classic Muncher - done by TFM
Classic Axiens - done by TFM
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 23:59, 25 September 13
Sorry to hear you lost your job.I wouldn't worry too much about my current plight; I start my new job at 08:00 on Monday morning. It's really not a problem!
Anyway, have a quick game of |FIREANT to keep you amused. (I'm not sure this one's 100% perfect, it loads between 0200 and AB18 which is well into ROM territory and I'm not sure the compression routine captured everything. Any issues with it, then please delete it from any records)
EDIT: As a general response to your large list of games above; all of the games I personally haven't done won't fit on 1 ROM, so I'd prefer to get the 1 ROM games done first, then look into multi-ROMs later.
EDIT: And, in response to TFM's suggestion of using SOFTBRENNER to create 2 ROMs; I'd personally prefer to do it myself in assembler (thanks to arnoldemu), so I can have a vague understanding of what it's doing and why.
EDIT: Ok, vision is a little impaired... will HOUSE OF |USHER work on your emulator/real hardware? I really don't fecking know! It's a lottery! Good luck!
EDIT: Seeing as I did a ROM version SPACE MANIA, here's the retail original... KARL'S TREASURE HUNT. |KARLS runs this one. Hopefully!
EDIT: I think I'm gonna be sick... no... it's just gas! Panic over! Ok, here's KONG STRIKES BACK! |KONGBACK runs this little beauty. Nice mixed MODE and rasters in this 1985 classic!
Post by: ralferoo on 00:10, 26 September 13
EDIT: yes, I know the CPC only supports 252 expansion ROMs, but 256 would let me have the firmware and BASIC ROMs also in the chip, with some for "spare".
Post by: mr_lou on 09:29, 26 September 13
As a general response to your large list of games above; all of the games I personally haven't done won't fit on 1 ROM, so I'd prefer to get the 1 ROM games done first, then look into multi-ROMs later.
I have no idea or even a sense of how many ROM files whatever game require. I just list interesting titles. :)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 10:51, 26 September 13
I have no idea or even a sense of how many ROM files whatever game require. I just list interesting titles. :)That's fair enough.
Ok, going through that list again, I'll see which ones are possible in 1 ROM and get them done before I continue with my 1984 titles.
|ATLANTIS is first. (Never played this game back in the day, but it's a real corker! I love it)
DON'T |PANIC is the other one I can do from that list (all the others are over 16K packed... except for NUCLEAR HEIST, which is BASIC & M/Code)
Post by: Bryce on 12:41, 26 September 13
Link: ROM List - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_List#Game_ROMs)
Bryce.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 12:45, 26 September 13
Ok, all uploaded again! Current count: 40 Games, 46 ROMs.Just for completeness; I didn't convert ANARCHY. I wish I had, though, 'cos I love that game. The music is great (as are all of JDR's tunes)
Link: ROM List - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_List#Game_ROMs)
Post by: Bryce on 12:48, 26 September 13
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 13:03, 26 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 13:53, 26 September 13
How do you create a repeated ENT command in assembly? (I already know it's Firmware CALL &BCBF)
For example; this ENT command
Code: [Select]
10 ENT -1,10,10,1,10,-10,1
20 SOUND 1,10,100,15,,1
sounds infinitely better than this ENT command
Code: [Select]
10 ENT 1,10,10,1,10,-10,1
20 SOUND 1,10,100,15,,1
However, I cannot seem to create a repeated ENT command in assembly. The game itself uses a lot of them to create the SFX.
Here's an example of the code I'm using;
Code: [Select]
ld b,0
ld hl,ENTStart
.ENTLoop ld a,(hl)
inc hl
ld c,(hl)
push bc
inc hl
push af
push hl
call &bcbf
pop hl
pop af
pop bc
add hl,bc
inc a
cp &0b
jr nz,ENTLoop
ret
.ENTStart defb 1,04
defb 1,5,40,1
defb 02,04
defb 1,50,-1,10
defb 3,07
defb 2,3,-2,2,3,2,2
defb 4,13
defb 4,3,-2,2,3,2,2,10,-2,2,3,2,2
defb 05,07
defb 2,4,-8,1,5,1,20
defb 6,13
defb 4,2,-2,2,2,5,2,2,-2,2,2,2,2
defb 7,13
defb 4,10,-2,1,5,2,1,10,-3,1,5,3,1
defb 08,04
defb 1,100,-50,1
defb 9,07
defb 2,6,-5,1,15,5,1
defb 10,07
defb 2,1,-20,6,1,20,6
The data lines that are "pushed in" (and have a leading 0) are the standard ENT n commands without the minus sign.
I can't see how to define it as repeated in the Firmware manual. !!HELP!!
EDIT: ELECTRO |FREDDY... while you wait!
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:01, 26 September 13
How do you create a repeated ENT command in assembly? (I already know it's Firmware CALL &BCBF)Not sure, but you could test it from basic, assemble to &4000, then call &4000.
basic dissassemly seems to indicate you set bit 7 of the "number of parts" (C in your code).
Your code confuses me.
So the env, you pass the number in A, then HL points to the data.
first byte is number of "parts". Each part is then 3 bytes each.
Is this how you have setup your data?
Post by: ralferoo on 15:07, 26 September 13
QUICK (related) QUESTION: (I'm converting the Centipede clone, WRIGGLER by Blaby)I had to learn this when I was converting Fruity Frank. Add &80 to the 1st byte (which is number of sections).
How do you create a repeated ENT command in assembly? (I already know it's Firmware CALL &BCBF)
Also, you'll discover that you can't use any area that's covered by either ROM, so you need to copy the data to middle RAM first. You can look at my fruity frank source if you like...
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 15:19, 26 September 13
I had to learn this when I was converting Fruity Frank. Add &80 to the 1st byte (which is number of sections).Ah! I was trying to add &80 to the ENT number... I didn't even think of doing it to the sections byte! Nice one!
Your code confuses me.Yeah, welcome to my "coding" style! (sorry; it's always such a mess... but somehow it usually works!)
I was trying to add &80 to the ENT number... as well as using negative numbers (#FE, #FD etc) to see if it repeated the tone.
The first number is the ENT number, the second is the amount to increase HL to get to the next ENT section (as #BCBF adds 16 to HL on return), then the data block underneath.
It'll be a lot easily now that I know just to change the sections number, so that first number is redundant!
EDIT: |WRIGGLER by Blaby Software. I didn't realise it had a title screen and demo mode; quite a lot fit into 24k.
EDIT: |CHOPPER SQUAD by Interceptor Software. Never really liked it, but I did own it, so it gets added to the collection.
Post by: Axelay on 17:08, 26 September 13
My wish-list
Dead on Time
I havent done anything with Dead on Time yet as it's a two ROM job. I havent had time yet to work out how I'm going to handle the aspect of how the first ROM will find the second.
On the other hand, |FROSTBYTE does fit into one ROM!
Post by: redbox on 17:39, 26 September 13
I havent done anything with Dead on Time yet as it's a two ROM job. I havent had time yet to work out how I'm going to handle the aspect of how the first ROM will find the second.
I don't understand why the principle of two, three or even more ROMs should be tricky.
I was thinking that you have a 'normal' first ROM with RSXs etc and then just mark the second, third ROMs etc as background ROMs (i.e. start them with a 2). The system then ignores these ROMs on boot.
You then copy a routine into RAM from the first ROM that does a ROM walk (from 31 to 0) looking for your background ROMs, i.e. starting with a 2 and then a custom string you can search for.
For example, a header for the ROMs would just need to be:
Code: [Select]
org &c000
defb 2 ; background ROM
defb "Dead on Time ROM 2" ; custom string
; rest of ROM data
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 17:44, 26 September 13
On the other hand, |FROSTBYTE does fit into one ROM!Was that using Exomizer? It didn't fit using BITBuster.
|BLAGGER, however, does! ^_^
EDIT: I spy a programmer war below... I think I'll dump ROLAND |AHOY here instead of interrupting their "discussion". ^_^
EDIT: Ok, still quiet on the Western Front, but I ain't taking no chances! |SQUAREBASH starts ROLAND GOES SQUARE BASHING.
EDIT: Another Roland classic... FRED or ROLAND ON THE |ROPES, depending on where you come from! Anyway, it's still a corker!
EDIT: Wow, this one was really difficult to convert. Two LDIRs and a JP later and |SPANNERMAN is a goer!
Post by: mr_lou on 17:54, 26 September 13
Post by: arnoldemu on 17:58, 26 September 13
kl_side_pchl equ &0013
call it from your main rom, with a value between 0 and 3 in the top 2 bits. It automatically calls the appropiate rom based on the current rom number. You don't even need to know which rom number your main rom is.
It does require that all other roms are inserted side by side and are marked as extension roms.
Post by: redbox on 18:04, 26 September 13
It does require that all other roms are inserted side by side and are marked as extension roms.
Exactly, and being side by side is a problem because you're restricted to slots 0-16 (and even worse 0-7 on the 464).
Where as using my method you could have one 'launcher' ROM containing all the RSXs, decompression routines etc in a normal slot and then all the game ROMs etc anywhere you like (and up to slot 31) without patching the OS or anything.
Post by: TFM on 19:14, 26 September 13
I havent done anything with Dead on Time yet as it's a two ROM job. I havent had time yet to work out how I'm going to handle the aspect of how the first ROM will find the second.
Compress it to less then 32 KB, then use Softbrenner, it handles two ROMs.
Post by: Axelay on 19:20, 26 September 13
Was that using Exomizer? It didn't fit using BITBuster.
Yep, Exomizer. I always go with Exomizer first, and have only used Bitbuster the once with Super EG, since Exomizer took longer to decompress that than it did to load uncompressed! :laugh:
I don't understand why the principle of two, three or even more ROMs should be tricky.
Oh, I was not suggesting it was tricky. I was saying I've only just barely read up enough on ROM handling to manage the 16K ROM compo! :)
Compress it to less then 32 KB, then use Softbrenner, it handles two ROMs.
I think tastefulmrship has already said much the same thing, but I expect it's straight forward to do, I just need to read up on the details, so I dont want to use a tool to do it for me.
Post by: ralferoo on 20:58, 26 September 13
I was thinking that you have a 'normal' first ROM with RSXs etc and then just mark the second, third ROMs etc as background ROMs (i.e. start them with a 2). The system then ignores these ROMs on boot.Yes, definitely a good idea. It'd be nice to keep going beyond 32 ROMs though, just in case people have bigger ROM boards...
You then copy a routine into RAM from the first ROM that does a ROM walk (from 31 to 0) looking for your background ROMs, i.e. starting with a 2 and then a custom string you can search for.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:52, 26 September 13
(I can't be arsed creating lots of posts for this stuff... I'm just gonna fill this one instead!)
EDIT: Although it's nice to have my name against the ROMs done in the ROM List on CPCWiki, but wouldn't it be a better idea to have the bar command in the comments field, instead? Some of them are not easy to work out & none of them have an initialisation message.
1. |AHHH by CRL.
Post by: Bryce on 10:58, 27 September 13
Bryce - Tastefulmrships official Wiki uploader.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 13:04, 27 September 13
Bryce - Tastefulmrship's official Wiki uploader.I'd do it myself, but I've got;
- A feck load of games to ROM-up!
- My 4th musicdisk (coding by ****, graphics by *********)
- Two game projects with ****
- Converting Pocoro & Shape Shifter to m/code.
- Fixing my teleport-coded JSW:TFF with the Cartographer fix. (ok, that's an easy one, but I have to prioritise)
As well as that, I've got TBs of pr0nography to download and peruse.
Basically, I'm at day 2 of a 4 day "rest" and I'm 0.1% into my scheduled workload. (SMART objectives? Feck that!)
EDIT: WRIGGLER is only 1 ROM, not 2! Ta! ^_^
Post by: Bryce on 13:48, 27 September 13
EDIT: WRIGGLER is only 1 ROM, not 2! Ta! ^_^
Oops, copy paste strikes again.
You say it as if I'm sitting around here with my thumb up my ass. I have other things to do too, but I thought the files would get lost and forgotten in the Forum.
Edit: I've also added a News Item to the main page to let others know about it too.
Bryce.
Post by: Axelay on 15:04, 27 September 13
|FINDERS Keepers, |SPEEDKING and Into |OBLIVION.
EDIT: Three more ROMs. |HARVEY Headbanger, |SENTINEL and |ARKANOID
Post by: Bryce on 15:07, 27 September 13
Bryce.
Edit: The 3 games from Axelay directly above are not included.
Edit 2: Axelays 3 new games have now been added to ROM_Games_6.dsk/hfe and to the Wiki.
Post by: TFM on 19:04, 27 September 13
Next batch of ROMs...
(I can't be arsed creating lots of posts for this stuff... I'm just gonna fill this one instead!)
EDIT: Although it's nice to have my name against the ROMs done in the ROM List on CPCWiki, but wouldn't it be a better idea to have the bar command in the comments field, instead? Some of them are not easy to work out & none of them have an initialisation message.
1. |AHHH by CRL.
That batch doesn't work.
Post by: Gryzor on 20:29, 27 September 13
I've stickied the thread (and changed its title too).
Btw, isn't Axiens done by TFM?
Post by: mr_lou on 20:53, 27 September 13
Btw, isn't Axiens done by TFM?
Yup. On the very first page of this thread.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:15, 27 September 13
That batch doesn't work.Ok, well it works fine on WinAPE (tested with 464 and 6128 ROMs). Maybe it's one of the few titles that needs to be run through the checksum patcher before it will work in a real CPC?!?!? Worth a try, huh?
Post by: TFM on 21:21, 27 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:50, 27 September 13
Try to install a couple of ROMs more... maybe it works fine without other ROMs... dunno what's the problem (used WinCPC to test it). Good luck!Here's a screenie from WinAPE with a few ROMs "plugged in".
Still works fine on WinAPE.
EDIT: Also tried it with no "other" ROMs installed. Still ok in this emulator. ANYONE ELSE GOT A PROBLEM WITH THIS? (especially on real hardware)
EDIT: ONE MAN AND HIS |DROID. Although I love the CPC music, I do wish they'd used the Rob Hubbard classic instead!
EDIT: Even though I am already 90% through converting this, ralferoo has already converted it (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/how-to-convert-a-dsk-image-to-rom/msg67853/#msg67853)... and it doesn't yet appear in the ROM list.
EDIT: Ok, 6 bottles of red in 2 days is seriously impairing my ability to remember how to convert this stuff... thankfully THE |PRIZE isn't too difficult to do and so is attached below! ^_^
EDIT: Right, I'm taking a little "time-out" now and enjoying some CPC demo awesomeness! Type |SUGARLUMPS, press ENTER, put your feet up and let your CPC chill you out! (Goes well with a nice Merlot, by the way!)
EDIT: This may be the Spanish red talking, but I'm dang fecking proud of this one! |URIDIUM for your pleasure, sirs. No offence to Steve Turner, but J.Dave Rogers just top-trumped you with your OWN music! Booyakasha!
EDIT: It was lucky I did so much work on the Hewson titles back in the day (ie last year)... here's a reworked Exomizer original pack of AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL. |ATC does the dirty deed, here!
Post by: 00WReX on 11:05, 28 September 13
I have updated the wiki rom list with these.
Tested on WinCPC & a real CPC6128.
Very simple conversions as I mentioned, but I have never converted a game to ROM before, so gotta start somewhere.
CPC Invaders (|CPCINVADERS to start)
Space Hawks (|HAWKS to start)
ZblastSD (|ZBLAST to start)
Cheers,
Shane
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Post by: ralferoo on 13:47, 28 September 13
EDIT: Right, I'm taking a little "time-out" now and enjoying some CPC demo awesomeness! Type |SUGARLUMPS, press ENTER, put your feet up and let your CPC chill you out! (Goes well with a nice Merlot, by the way!)Thanks! But there is an "official" ROM that's built automatically if you use the source release at ralferoo/sugarlumps · GitHub (https://github.com/ralferoo/sugarlumps)
Doesn't look like I ever made that public though (as in it was in the github but I never released the image), so here's the official one. It'll be almost immeasurably quicker too as it decompresses directly from ROM. ;)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 20:52, 28 September 13
|RALLY2 to play Loriciels' RALLY 2.
|GPDRIVER to play Britannia's GRAND PRIX DRIVER.
EDIT: There were more, but I'm too fecking tired... I might finish them tomorrow!
Post by: 00WReX on 02:53, 29 September 13
Today's feast of bytes;
|RALLY2 to play Loriciels' RALLY 2.
|GPDRIVER to play Britannia's GRAND PRIX DRIVER.
EDIT: There were more, but I'm too fecking tired... I might finish them tomorrow!
Added to the Wiki ROM GAME list (thought I'd give Bryce a break ;) )
ROM List - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_List#Game_ROMs)
Cheers,
Shane
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 11:28, 29 September 13
Added to the Wiki ROM GAME list (thought I'd give Bryce a break ;) )Mwahahahahahaha! I will get you ALL doing my dirty work! ^_^
ROM List - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_List#Game_ROMs)
(Thanks, though!)
And here's a little something something I'm proud to post - |SNOOKER loads and plays (the horrible) ALEX HIGGINS WORLD SNOOKER, but it does display the brilliant loading screen of the late, great man himself. Press any key to actually "play" the game.
(* No offense to Chris Hunt)
Secondly, here's |MOONBUGGY by Anirog Software. I always loved this game, but it's even better when you switch on TURBO MODE in WinAPE. Fecking insane! ^_^
Also, I've just completed |AIRWOLF, however I've noticed that the "copyright" notice stays on the screen during play (behind the lives counter). It doesn't look too bad, but it looks obvious. I might redo it if people think it looks shyte, but I've had to delete all my working files due to the .dsk file having an error! (Oh, and it's another press any key to play job!)
|LOOM loads up this preview version (and only existing as far as CPCPower is concerned) of their Connect 4 clone. Nice music as ever from the Arkos crew. ^_^
|DRAGONSGOLD is the next one. Such a difficult game to convert. 16000 bytes in size, 16384 available for the ROM image. Yawn!
(Sorry... I just have to...) Now, FU-KING IN LAS VEGAS! (Hahahahahahaha! Sometimes I just make myself laugh so much I die a little inside!) |FUKUNG to run this horrid platformer!
Post by: 00WReX on 12:43, 29 September 13
Added
Alex Higgins World Snooker.rom
Moon Buggy.rom
Airwolf.rom
Dragon's Gold.rom
Fu-Kung In Las Vegas.rom
to the Wiki list.
ROM List - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_List#Game_ROMs)
Cheers,
Shane
Post by: Axelay on 16:18, 29 September 13
I have taken the approach of searching through all the ROMs to find the second, and aborting back to BASIC if it's not found, but I have a couple of questions if anyone can answer them.
Firstly, I only search up to &fb as I read that ROMs &fc-&fd are off limits because of how those addresses are dealt with, and also on this thread I think I saw mention of the maximum number of ROMs being 252. Is that a reference to 0,7,&fc,&fd, or maybe to &fc up, or can &fe-&ff be used and I need to add a check for that theoretical possibility?
Secondly, in the case of returning to BASIC after not finding the second ROM, I've used the SCF before the final RET as was used on the initialisation routine, but is that needed, or is it only required for the initialisation routine?
Also, I've preserved all the registers I use just because I dont know if they need to be preserved or not. Is that required? Is there any documentation I can read online about the conditions for making an RSX that plays nice with the OS?
I'm attaching the ROM boot code in case it's useful to anyone, or if there's glaring issues that anyone can spot! I havent had a chance to try them on anything except an emulator just yet.
Code: [Select]
Work_Space equ &a410
Work_Offset equ &c000-Work_Space
KL_CURR_SELECTION equ &B912 ; KL_CURR_SELECTION (A = ROM select address for our rom)
KL_ROM_SELECT equ &b90f ; C = required ROM, C returns previous ROM, B returns ROM enable states
KL_U_ROM_DISABLE equ &b903 ; disable upper ROM
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORG &C000
write direct "b:HIGHWAY1.ROM"
NOLIST
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
; ROM Header
rom_type
DEFB 1 ; Background ROM
rom_version
DEFB 0,0,1 ; Version 0.0.1
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
rsx_names
DEFW rsx_name_table
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
JP initialize_rom ; Called by the firmware during system initialization
JP run_game ; Launch the game
rsx_name_table
DEFB " Highway Encounter" , " "+&80 ; Use a name that basic can not run
DEFB "HIGHWA","Y" + &80 ; RSX for launch the game (|GAME)
DEFB 0 ; End of RSXs name table
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
; Show initialization text and telling the firmware everything OK
; ENTRIES:
;; DE: Pointer to the lowest RAM address that we can use.
;; HL: Pointer to the highest RAM address that we can use.
; EXITS:
; Carry true.
;; DE: Pointer to the new lowest RAM address that we can use.
;; HL: Pointer to the new highest RAM address that we can use.
; A, BC and the other flags corrupt.
; All others registers preserved.
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
initialize_rom
SCF ; Signal to the firmware everything was correct
RET
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
; RSX '|GAME' launch the game
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
run_game
push hl
push de
push bc
push af
; copy down patch code
ld hl,FindROM
ld de,Work_Space
ld bc,FindROMEnd-FindROM
ldir
; go find the ROM
call Work_Space ; if routine returns, ROM 2 was not found
LD HL,fail_message
CALL show_message
; exit ROM and return to BASIC
pop af
pop bc
pop de
pop hl
SCF ; Signal to the firmware everything was correct
RET
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
; Print a string finished in $FF using the firmware
; ENTRIES:
;; HL : Pointer to the string
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
show_message
LD A,(HL)
.loop_show_message
CALL &BB5A ; TXT_OUTPUT
INC HL
LD A,(HL)
CP &FF
JR NZ,loop_show_message
RET
fail_message
DEFB "Highway Encounter ROM 2 not found",&FF
.FindROM
; Get the ROM number
CALL KL_CURR_SELECTION
ld (Work_Space+&80),a ; store current ROM in &a490
inc a
ld c,a ; start checking from first ROM after the boot ROM
.FindROMLoop
push bc
call KL_ROM_SELECT ; select ROM defined by C
ld bc,FindROMEnd-SearchText
ld de,SearchText-FindROM+Work_Space ; Start of search string after code moved to RAM
ld hl,&c001 ; position of ROM 2 label
.FindTextLoop
ld a,(de)
inc de
cpi
jr nz,TextNotMatched
jp pe,FindTextLoop-FindROM+Work_Space ; if not end of string, keep matching chars
;
; have reached end of string, and all chars matched, so ROM has been found
pop bc ; get ROM number back in c, if required
; copy this code block to main RAM
ld hl,&c000+FindROMEnd-SearchText+1 ; beginning of data in second rom
ld de,&7302
ld bc,11082
ldir
ld a,(Work_Space+&80) ; get boot ROM number back
ld c,a
call KL_ROM_SELECT ; select ROM defined by C
ld hl,Highway1 ; start of data in boot block to copy down
ld de,&4302
ld bc,&3000
ldir
; disable the upper ROM, no longer required
call KL_U_ROM_DISABLE
; remove return address and saved registers, not returning to ROM boot routine
pop hl ; return address
pop af
pop bc
pop de
pop hl
; go to start of game depacker
jp &9d00
;
.TextNotMatched
pop bc
inc c
ld a,&fb ; &fc-&fd unusable?
cp a,c
jr nc,FindROMLoop
; if c reached ROM &fc, have not found second ROM, exit back to BASIC
ld a,(Work_Space+&80) ; get boot ROM number back
ld c,a
call KL_ROM_SELECT ; select ROM defined by C
ret
.SearchText
text "Highway Encounter ROM 2"
.FindROMEnd
; data
read "highway_1.asm"
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
; Pad the rom with zeros until the 16 KBs
; DEFS $0-$ ; in pasmo
; ORG $10000 ; in vasm
defs &f1f
list
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
.RomEnd
and here's the simple code from the second ROM:
Code: [Select]
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORG &C000
write direct "b:HIGHWAY2.ROM"
NOLIST
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
; ROM Header
.rom_type
DEFB 2 ; Extension Foreground ROM
; search tag
text "Highway Encounter ROM 2"
.Data2_Start
; data
read "highway_2.asm"
; fill rom to end
defs &149e
list
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
.RomEndEDIT: corrected error in the source of the boot ROM. Removed faulty Highway Encounter ROM. See my post on page 15 for updated version.
Post by: ralferoo on 21:34, 29 September 13
Firstly, I only search up to &fb as I read that ROMs &fc-&fd are off limits because of how those addresses are dealt with, and also on this thread I think I saw mention of the maximum number of ROMs being 252. Is that a reference to 0,7,&fc,&fd, or maybe to &fc up, or can &fe-&ff be used and I need to add a check for that theoretical possibility?Yes, the maximum is 252. If you wrote directly to &DFxx, you could use the remaining 4 slots, but the issue is that the firmware uses this convention for most of the ROM related functions:
Quote
&00 to &FB-- select the given upper ROM, enable the upper ROM and disable the lower ROM
&FC - no change to the ROM selection, enable the upper and lower ROMs
&FD - no change to the ROM selection, enable the upper ROM and disable the lower ROM
&FE - no change to the ROM selection, disable the upper ROM and enable the lower ROM
&FF - no change to the ROM selection, disable the upper and lower ROMs
Post by: redbox on 21:44, 29 September 13
I have taken the approach of searching through all the ROMs to find the second, and aborting back to BASIC if it's not found
That's so cool, you've made my day :)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 06:58, 30 September 13
GAME OF |DRAGONS, the ropey but pretty Amsoft platformer.
Ah, go on then... have |JAMMIN as well as a "bonus".
Post by: Bryce on 10:23, 30 September 13
Can someone take a look at doing AgentXII. Was one of my favourite games and the music wasn'T bad either :)
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 11:04, 30 September 13
At this rate my HxC is starting to gather dust and my MegaFlash is overheating. I need to look at making a 128 ROM version :D
At this rate it looks more like you have to look into making one with 252 slots. :D
Post by: Bryce on 11:23, 30 September 13
btw: I've updated the Wiki page again with the ROMs from Axelay and Tastefulmrship that hadn't been added yet, so I think the list is complete at the moment (until tastefulmrship logs on that is).
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 11:45, 30 September 13
Without making the mistake of offering yet another new project.
What are you talking about? :) Why would it be a mistake to offer such a project? :)
It would be rather easy to add parallel Flash ICs to the MegaFlash. This wouldn't give you 252 ROMs all at the same time, but you could have multiple banks of 32 ROMs that you could select manually with DIP switches.
Not a bad idea. Personally, I would wait for the 252-slot version though, and hope that it would be relatively easy to replace the 32-slot version with the 252-slot version without sending my CPC to the "shop". :)
Post by: Bryce on 12:25, 30 September 13
Although the CPC can technically (electronically) accept 252 ROMs, the RAM couldn't handle it. Each ROM takes up a little bit of RAM to record its RSX and ROM position/number. If I made a 252 Slot Mega-MegaFlash, electronically it would work fine, but as soon as you have installed about 64 ROMs most of them wouldn't run any more due to lack of RAM.
My solution would be to make a switchable system, where the CPC only sees 32 ROMs, but you would have multiple banks of 32. So you could have a Utilities Bank, several Gaming Banks, a FutureOS Bank, a SymbOS Bank etc. The DIP switches would decide which bank the CPC sees when you start the computer. This way the CPCs RAM stays relatively free. You'd have all the ROMs installed all the time, but you could only swap banks when the CPC is turned off. It also wouldn't be limited to 252 ROMs, you could do this endlessly. And no, you wouldn't need to send me your CPC, the new circuit would plug into the MegaFlash where the Flash IC is currently installed. All the signals I'd need are present in that socket :)
Bryce.
Post by: Axelay on 16:48, 30 September 13
Yes, the maximum is 252. If you wrote directly to &DFxx, you could use the remaining 4 slots, but the issue is that the firmware uses this convention for most of the ROM related functions:
Ah, thanks!
Ok, here's today's ROM. (I'm starting at a new school today & haven't got time to play around with ROM imaging until I get home).
GAME OF |DRAGONS, the ropey but pretty Amsoft platformer.
Oh, I had Game of Dragons! OK so it was sluggish and fiddly, but it was the first time I think I saw a game that really impressed me visually. And speaking of ropey games I played in the early days, that reminds me of |BRAXX Bluff!
But then I thought, every Plus got Burnin' Rubber, so why shouldnt the CPC at least have itself |WEC Le Mans?
EDIT: Removed faulty ROM build of WEC Lemans, see my post on page 15 for corrected version.
Post by: Gryzor on 20:38, 30 September 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:16, 30 September 13
Only these seem to work... but they are pretty good'uns!
|CYBERNOID, |EXOLON & |NEBULUS. Press [SPACE] at the loading screen to start the relevant game.
EDIT: I've tried to get NETHERWORLD working, but I can't seem to see where I'm going wrong (basically because my new job is taking up both my braincells and I can't concentrate on anything else). If you assemble both data-chunks to their respective ADDResses (ie ROM 2 first, then ROM 1) and then CALL &A000, it works fine. However, installing ROM 2 into a slot and then assembling & CALLing the first ROM (ie CALL &C009), it fails. If anyone wants to get this working for me (it's probably something really stupid I've missed), then that'd be great! Ta!
Post by: TFM on 22:39, 30 September 13
Post by: arnoldemu on 11:04, 01 October 13
Although the CPC can technically (electronically) accept 252 ROMs,It can accept 255 roms. KL ROM SELECT also allows you to select rom number 253-255.
I think it's the other KL functions that reserve 252-255.
I have a question:
- If a rom board implemented roms 128-255, and only decoded these rom ids. if you plugged this into a plus, would it autoboot like on a real plus or must you implement some kind of "lower" rom signal too?
I just wondered what the asic sends out to the expansion when it selects cart pages.
Post by: Axelay on 11:40, 01 October 13
EDIT: I've tried to get NETHERWORLD working, but I can't seem to see where I'm going wrong (basically because my new job is taking up both my braincells and I can't concentrate on anything else). If you assemble both data-chunks to their respective ADDResses (ie ROM 2 first, then ROM 1) and then CALL &A000, it works fine. However, installing ROM 2 into a slot and then assembling & CALLing the first ROM (ie CALL &C009), it fails. If anyone wants to get this working for me (it's probably something really stupid I've missed), then that'd be great! Ta!
The game worked from ROM for me with those two files, after just padding the two ROM files to the correct length. You must be working yourself too hard! ;)
Post by: Bryce on 12:25, 01 October 13
It can accept 255 roms. KL ROM SELECT also allows you to select rom number 253-255.
I think it's the other KL functions that reserve 252-255.
I have a question:
- If a rom board implemented roms 128-255, and only decoded these rom ids. if you plugged this into a plus, would it autoboot like on a real plus or must you implement some kind of "lower" rom signal too?
I just wondered what the asic sends out to the expansion when it selects cart pages.
Yes, electronically it could of course be 256 ROMs if you enable them yourself, but I'm not sure if there are any drawbacks to using the reserved ROM slots. Did any hardware ever use this reserved space?
I haven't tried this, but as far as I know it will not boot from an external 128 - 255 ROM board. The reason for this is that the Cartridge has its own ROMEN signal, so when you turn on the computer it will still be trying to find and enable a ROM connected to the Cartridge port.
Bryce.
Post by: gerald on 13:02, 01 October 13
I haven't tried this, but as far as I know it will not boot from an external 128 - 255 ROM board. The reason for this is that the Cartridge has its own ROMEN signal, so when you turn on the computer it will still be trying to find and enable a ROM connected to the Cartridge port.Yes ans no :)
Yes, The LowerROM is working on a plus, so we know that the ROMDIS can override access to the cartridge (at least for lowerRom and upperRom 0 to 32, I never tried other mapping)
No, the plus is booting on ROM 0 of the cartrigde only because the ASIC does the re-mapping/aliasing like it does for upper rom 0 and 7. An external ROM will only be accessible as usual (ie from 0xC000 to 0xFFFF).
Post by: redbox on 15:10, 01 October 13
- If a rom board implemented roms 128-255, and only decoded these rom ids. if you plugged this into a plus, would it autoboot like on a real plus or must you implement some kind of "lower" rom signal too?
Now that's an idea.
Cartridge games without the 'cartridges', i.e. make a MegaFlash that starts at 128. Then you could make your own cartridges to plug into this, no ACID required.
Post by: Bryce on 15:35, 01 October 13
@redbox: The ACID is needed no matter where you plug the ROMs onto the Plus. No ACID = Computer doesn't run.
Bryce.
Post by: redbox on 17:36, 01 October 13
@redbox: The ACID is needed no matter where you plug the ROMs onto the Plus. No ACID = Computer doesn't run.
Yes, but the ACID is already in the system cartridge.
If the Plus/GX4000 does boot from a MegaFlash type device set to slots 128+ then you could create your own cartridges without an ACID in (i.e. just an EPROM).
Post by: Bryce on 17:50, 01 October 13
Bryce.
Post by: TFM on 18:31, 01 October 13
That's more or less what my Man-In-The-Middle Cartridge was for: MITM - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/MITM)
A smart project, but the PDF is not enough if you want to send that to a company for producing PCBs. It would be nice to have Eagle files or what ever companies do accept.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:35, 01 October 13
The game worked from ROM for me with those two files, after just padding the two ROM files to the correct length. You must be working yourself too hard! ;)
(It's not that I'm doubting you, it's just I REALLY can't get it to work!)
I had the Cybernoid, Exolon, Nebulus AND Netherworld ROMs installed in random slots around the 15 slots. Netherworld failed to work!
I took the others out and ONLY had Netherworld ROMs in 1 & 2 and it worked! |NETHERWORLD (press [SPACE] at the title screen).
I gave a second go at my single-file version of |VICTORYROAD. I always loved that loading-screen music.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! I even tried the "STE reworked title-screen" version of |WIZBALL! I still have NO FECKING IDEA how the hell that game works... there's nothing in the code that points to a start address. It just... RUNs! Madness!
Post by: Axelay on 13:45, 02 October 13
I still can't get it to work on WinAPE; any chance of posting the working ROMs? Ta!Ah! I see a problem!!!
(It's not that I'm doubting you, it's just I REALLY can't get it to work!)
I had the Cybernoid, Exolon, Nebulus AND Netherworld ROMs installed in random slots around the 15 slots. Netherworld failed to work!
I took the others out and ONLY had Netherworld ROMs in 1 & 2 and it worked! |NETHERWORLD (press [SPACE] at the title screen).
Argh! So do I!!!
And I'm sorry to say it is in the source I posted. :-[ On the bright side, I did manage to squeeze two stuff ups into a single line of assembly! That's ... effecient. :-\
What you need to do is find the FindTextLoop routine and replace the line:
Code: [Select]
jp po,FindTextLoop-Work_Offset ; if not end of string, keep matching chars
with:Code: [Select]
jp pe,FindTextLoop-FindROM+Work_Space ; if not end of string, keep matching chars
So it was using the wrong condition and only matching the first letter of every search string. So I imagine the problem you had was that the second Nebulus ROM was being found before the Netherworld ROM. But even if the condition had been correct, it would have jumped to the wrong address!Sorry to have caused you so much wasted time. :(
I've attached fixed versions of the two 2 ROM games I've posted previously, as well as for Netherworld.
Post by: TFM on 20:01, 02 October 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 07:26, 03 October 13
So it was using the wrong condition and only matching the first letter of every search string. So I imagine the problem you had was that the second Nebulus ROM was being found before the Netherworld ROM. But even if the condition had been correct, it would have jumped to the wrong address!I like the fact that you also have the work-ethic of; "if it's gonna fail, you may as well do it properly!". For me, it's a mantra. ^_^
Seriously, top job for getting the 2 ROM code done in the first place and then sorted to work 100%. Obviously, (and this, TFM, is the reason why people prefer to program code themselves rather than rely on a software package) the code should, going forward, be able to handle 3 or more ROMs.
For example; the CPC-Wiki version of ZYNAPS is 40k in size (very impressive splash screen, naff converted C64 music, cheat mode & main game with title-screen "fix") which would fit on 3 ROMs (@TFM; as far as I am aware, SoftBrenner doesn't support 3 ROMs).
NOTE: I have attached the 3 data blocks for the ROMs here along with the Start & Execute addresses for the program.
Code: [Select]
Start Address - &08F6 -> &A47D
Total Length - &9B88
Exececute Address - &A000
Each DATA block is &33D8 bytes long ( &9B99 / 3 )
08F6 - 3CCD - DATA block 1
3CCE - 70A5 - DATA block 2
70A6 - A47D - DATA block 3
Now, I've only spent a few minutes trying to procedurise (made up word) the code, but haven't had much success. I might have a look over the weekend when I'm not working, but if you can quickly jiggle things around and get it done, then mucho thankos to you. From there, maybe it could be possible to have multi-load games on ROM!
Post by: Axelay on 17:17, 03 October 13
Now, I've only spent a few minutes trying to procedurise (made up word) the code, but haven't had much success. I might have a look over the weekend when I'm not working, but if you can quickly jiggle things around and get it done, then mucho thankos to you. From there, maybe it could be possible to have multi-load games on ROM!
This is not very elegant, but it appears to work! You could probably make use of a table or list so the details of ROMs, where the data in them goes etc is entirely contained within a loop that reads the particulars of each ROM from the list.... You might say it could be better 'produrised'. :)
Post by: TFM on 19:41, 03 October 13
(and this, TFM, is the reason why people prefer to program code themselves rather than rely on a software package)
Ah, I wouldn't mind if it would work. Look, if I put a ROM there, then I check it working first. Here I had too often problems with your ROMs, which don't work if other ROMs are already installed.[nb]ROMs created using SB have no problems though.[/nb]
You would be right, if your code would work. However I have no time to check this again, so I wish you just good luck for the future[nb]The Future is owned by FutureSoft[/nb]!
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 07:19, 04 October 13
Ah, I wouldn't mind if it would work. Look, if I put a ROM there, then I check it working first. Here I had too often problems with your ROMs, which don't work if other ROMs are already installed.[nb]ROMs created using SB have no problems though.[/nb]All ROMs worked when I posted them; admittedly they were tested on their own (well, with BASIC, STarkos & PARADOS), but I have manage to fill the 15 slots and still get them all to work.
The only thing I can think of is that I am not using the SCF command when initialising the ROM (it just RETs to BASIC). Is this a mandatory command? If so, then this could be reason why some of my ROMs are simply failing for you. It shouldn't take too long (a few weeks maybe) to completely re-build them all with it in. My build code has it in; so all subsequent ROMs will have it. Other than that, I am using Octoate's ROM code like everyone else.
I still believe in "doing it yourself" rather than relying on a software package. I am learning a hell of a lot more about programming than I would if I was just clicking 'R' and 'S' and giving a file a name. I realise you guys are all experts at everything and very little is new or difficult for you; well, I am far from being even "clueless" (ok, "mostly clueless"). A lot of things on the CPC are difficult to me and I like to learn. So stop trolling people who are trying to learn what you already have known for 25 years and maybe this community can get back to being a nice place to be. (I'm pointing at MORE than just one person, here)
This is not very elegant, but it appears to work! You could probably make use of a table or list so the details of ROMs, where the data in them goes etc is entirely contained within a loop that reads the particulars of each ROM from the list.... You might say it could be better 'produrised'. :)Excellent stuff, as ever, thank you!
Post by: redbox on 09:21, 04 October 13
My build code has it in; so all subsequent ROMs will have it. Other than that, I am using Octoate's ROM code like everyone else.
It's really cool that you're learning Z80 instead of just using a utility, good work :)
Can you post your template code? I couldn't find the original Octoate code anywhere.
Post by: TFM on 20:02, 04 October 13
Other than that, I am using Octoate's ROM code like everyone else.
Dunno that code, use my own.
Well, as long as one know that if a ROM doesn't work it's just needed to switch all others off, that's fine.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:33, 04 October 13
It's really cool that you're learning Z80 instead of just using a utility, good work :)Sure, here's the code (with the added SCF) I am using...
Can you post your template code? I couldn't find the original Octoate code anywhere.
Code: [Select]
; ROM build code by Octoate (c)2013
; BITBuster depacker by T&J (c)2013
org &c000
defb &01, 0, 0, 1
defw rsx_name_table
jp init_rom
jp run_game
.rsx_name_table defm "Game Name her", "e"+&80
defm "RSXCOMMAN","D"+&80
defb 0
.init_rom scf
ret
.run_game
ld hl,DATAStart
ld de,&6420
ld bc,&3Cc0
ldir
jp &A000
org &6420
.DATAStart
nolist
[The BITBuster packed code goes here]
list
; The decompressor code usually ORGs to &A000 unless the packed version I'm working from needs to be located at 0100 or above A000.
ld c,&ff
ld hl,RestartROMs
call &bd16
.RestartROMs call &bb57
call &bccb
call &bb54
ld hl,DATAStart
ld de,&2710
.BITBuster DI
EXX
PUSH BC
PUSH HL
PUSH DE
EXX
CALL depack
EXX
POP DE
POP HL
POP BC
EXX
EI
ld bc,&7f8d ; disable ROMs
out (c),c
jp &620C
[The BITBuster decompressor code goes here]
Now, I use a quick &C000-&FFFF LDIR code to fill the screen with &FF. Then assemble the code and SAVE the screen.
I always test them in WinAPE before posting here!
Well, as long as one know that if a ROM doesn't work it's just needed to switch all others off, that's fine.
Right, now
If I know which ones YOU are personally having problems with, then I can see if I can work out where it's failing and maybe fix all the others while I'm at it.
Post by: TFM on 23:21, 04 October 13
Your code does miss the most important part! It does not integrate the RSX into the system!
Your init_rom just does nothing! It must tell the system about the RSX.
Post by: IanS on 02:06, 05 October 13
Your init_rom just does nothing! It must tell the system about the RSX.No, the init_rom just needs to reserve workspace memory if it needs any. It's common to display a message to show your rom on the startup screen, but the very fact it has a command table is enough to let the system know about the RSXs.
What do you think it should do?
Post by: TFM on 03:45, 05 October 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 09:38, 05 October 13
Hey bad taste ;-)Again you insist on insulting me instead of actually answering my question... which in itself is an insult.
Your code does miss the most important part! It does not integrate the RSX into the system!
Your init_rom just does nothing! It must tell the system about the RSX.
The RSX table is enough to initialise the ROM name and RSX command. init_rom usually just displays pretty text; the reason why no-one has done so for any of these game ROMs is because mr_lou requested that nothing be displayed on boot.
Admittedly, I did omit the SCF command from the init_rom section, which may be the issue you are experiencing with non-working ROMs.
So, I ask again;
WHICH ROMS DO NOT WORK FOR YOU?
EDIT: Anyway, here's a 2 ROM version of the stupidly buggy, but beautifully sounding (thanks to JDR's immaculate AY version of Jochen Hippel's original masterpiece) BATTLE VALLEY. Now, I know this one doesn't work; it's well documented on CPCPower (http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=376) for those of you who like to moan and troll and generally tell people how crap they are at everything. |BVALLEY loads this one up!
EDIT: Once again I am indebted to one of our expert programmers; thanks to Axelay, I have been able to cobble |CYBERNOID2 to 3 ROMs. Everyone here (Axelay, arnoldemu, redbox, etc) deserves far more praise than I can ever type! Top work, guys! Top work! Oh, and press [SPACE] at my "updated" (ie fecked-up) title-screen to play the game.
EDIT: Ok, slowly going through all of my Hewson rips; this time it's the stupidly over difficult; THE CHIP FACTORY FEATURING |TECHNICIANTED. Also known as the sadist's JET SET WILLY.
EDIT: Just had a chance to go through the other ROMs done by other people; good job, all! Nice! Whoever did SENTINEL; I HATE YOU! ^_^ I've just spent 4 hours playing that... and totally lost track of time! I love that game! One thing, though; I cannot get the HEAD OVER HEELS ROMs to work. Anyone else had the same problem? Do they have to be in specific slots?
EDIT: One more... |RANARAMA with or without the loading screen on real hardware (I've checked my code and I can see why it fails EVERY time for me on WinAPE).
EDIT: Ha! After going a little off-the-rails with mr_lou's original list, here's CNGSoft's trained version of |SPINDIZZY. So, there's another 2 EUROs donated to the CPCWiki fund! ^_^
EDIT: Finally, for today, here's an updated version of my BATTLE SQUADRON MUSICDISK. It contains the Title, Ingame & Hiscore tunes (this one doesn't loop on purpose). Press 1, 2 or 3 to listen to the music. |BSQUADRON loads up this little waste of time!
EDIT: Like a drug, I just have to have more! One more for the road... TRAVEL WITH TRASHMAN one ROM'd! |TRASHMAN2 to play this interesting title! (It also means I can still build single ROM titles... with an SCF this time!)
Post by: TFM on 04:09, 06 October 13
Post by: mr_lou on 06:55, 06 October 13
Take it easy lad, you do a good job. Have a Jameson on me.
You still didn't answer his question. Lemme try: Which ROMs doesn't work for you?
Post by: mr_lou on 07:15, 06 October 13
Ha! After going a little off-the-rails with mr_lou's original list, here's CNGSoft's trained version of |SPINDIZZY. So, there's another 2 EUROs donated to the CPCWiki fund! ^_^
Yay!!! :)
Thanks a lot!
How about Teodoro no sabe volar? Fits into 2 ROMs? :)
I'm kinda surprised I seem to be alone in liking this game. I think Teodoro is exactly the kind of game the CPC should have had more of back in the day. It's the kind of game the CPC is good at, and here we have awesome music and great graphics and comedy in the story and great gameplay (at least in the CPC version) and smooth movement. In short, this game has all the things I like in a CPC game.
When loading it at our last retro gaming event, my mates were all like: "Woah... is that a CPC game? I had no idea it could do graphics like that".
Yes mates... Teodoro gave the CPC respect among Amiga users.
You gotta give this game a second chance, if you dismissed it first time you played it.
I made sure of course to donate to the authors in the hope that they'll port their next game to the CPC too. :)
(Also... it's very rare that I manage to complete a game. But I completed Teodoro. :D )
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 11:21, 06 October 13
How about Teodoro no sabe volar? Fits into 2 ROMs? :)TNSV will fit onto 3 ROMs and will take quite a bit of fiddling to get it to load properly from ROM, at least for me, but one of our expert programmers would be able to do it without a second glance.
EDIT:
EDIT: Ok, I found this disk in my folder and thought it would be nice to bring it back... it's the brilliant TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES musicrip by SyX. |TMNTM brings up this wonderful find!
EDIT:
Post by: andycadley on 13:36, 06 October 13
The only thing I can think of is that I am not using the SCF command when initialising the ROM (it just RETs to BASIC). Is this a mandatory command? If so, then this could be reason why some of my ROMs are simply failing for you. It shouldn't take too long (a few weeks maybe) to completely re-build them all with it in. My build code has it in; so all subsequent ROMs will have it. Other than that, I am using Octoate's ROM code like everyone else.
V1.1 of the firmware checks the status of the carry flag and assumes the ROM init was successful if it is set and failed somehow if not, so without it ROMs may 'randomly' fail to initialise depending on the carry flag status. The V1.0 firmware ignores this and treats every ROM init as successful regardless.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 14:02, 06 October 13
V1.1 of the firmware checks the status of the carry flag and assumes the ROM init was successful if it is set and failed somehow if not, so without it ROMs may 'randomly' fail to initialise depending on the carry flag status. The V1.0 firmware ignores this and treats every ROM init as successful regardless.Thanks for the information. It looks like next weekend is going to be full of rebuilding all the single ROM games I have already done! -yay- My ignorance has, once again, befallen me!
But, to tide everyone over until then (it has been a busy weekend for multiple ROM titles), here's the near-impossible |ROLANDINSPACE.
Post by: mr_lou on 17:24, 06 October 13
It looks like next weekend is going to be full of rebuilding all the single ROM games I have already done! -yay- My ignorance has, once again, befallen me!
Er what? Why?
Can someone explain to me in plain english why? What's wrong with the current builds?
Does this mean that all the downloads can/should be deleted?
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 18:56, 06 October 13
Er what? Why?Yeah, they're all dead! Game over, man! Game over! Delete them all! (the ones I did, anyway)
Can someone explain to me in plain english why? What's wrong with the current builds?
Does this mean that all the downloads can/should be deleted?
Nah, it's just a little issue that some ROMs may fail in random circumstances. It's my fault for trying to save a little bit of memory where ever I could. (D'oh!) It won't take me too long to redo them, as all my builds are simply relocated blocks of data, anyway. Those blocks are saved on the relevant .dsk file and so I can possibly get through them all by the weekend if I do a few a day after school. (After school?? Hahahaha, how absurd!)
Basically, I think this is what the troll was trying to say for the past few pages, but decided to be dick instead of actually helping out. It's no biggie. The ROMs will work as long as you RUN them after a reboot or when using a BASIC1.0 ROM (ie on a 464).
Post by: mr_lou on 19:24, 06 October 13
The ROMs will work as long as you RUN them after a reboot
If that's the only trouble, then I fail to see any reason to redo them all....
You mean to say, that if I just turn off and on my CPC, before calling |GAME, then it will always work?
In that case, I don't see a problem.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:41, 06 October 13
If that's the only trouble, then I fail to see any reason to redo them all....I'd prefer to make them all 100% than leave them 99% done. A job worth doing... and all!
Post by: Bryce on 23:38, 06 October 13
Bryce.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 06:47, 07 October 13
Can you zip all the new versions into one file and post it here or send it directly to me. Then I'll update all the Wiki links / pages with the new files.No worries. Once they're all done I'll PM them all across.
Post by: Axelay on 07:38, 07 October 13
EDIT: And some |LIGHTFORCE! At least I dont think I've seen that one done yet.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:27, 09 October 13
However, I have taken an hour off and managed to cobble |SPELLBOUND onto 2 ROMs. (2 of 4 MAGIC KNIGHT games done)
EDIT: As an aside, I did have a choice of title screens; a CPC palette recolour of the C64 loading screen (the one I used), the original Spectrum-port loading screen or the reworked one. All three attached so you can see the differences.
Post by: Axelay on 17:21, 11 October 13
EDIT: Just added another early Amsoft favourite of mine to the ROM page - Satellite Warrior.
Post by: TFM on 17:23, 11 October 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:51, 12 October 13
Anyway, it's all done now! From now on, it's all new and complete ROM games.
Rebuild batch #1; |AHHH, |SNOOKER, |ASTRO, |ATLANTIS, |BOULDER, |BRUCELEE, |CHOPPER, |DONKEYKONG, |DONTPANIC, |FUKUNG, |GODRAGONS, |GAUNTLET, |GHOULS, |GILLIGAN, |RALLY2, |HOMERUNNER, |USHER, |HUNCHBACK, |JAMMIN, |KARL, |INVADERS, |LABESCAPE, |MANICMINER, |MOONBUGGY, |OMAHD, |PUNCHY, |ROLANDAHOY, |DIGGING, |TAPPER, |TEMPEST, |THEPRIZE, |THRUST, |TRASHMAN, |URIDIUM, |WRIGGLER
Rebuild batch #2; |GORILLA, |ATC, |SPACEMANIA, |ROPES, |LOOM, |SQUAREBASHING, |GPDRIVER, |SPANNERMAN, |ELECTRO, |MUTANTMONTY, |AIRWOLF, |DRAGONSGOLD, |BLAGGER, |FIREANT
EDIT: Also did a little fix for Airwolf, Blagger and Fire Ant in the process.
EDIT: For some reason I've also ROM'd ROLAND TAKES A |RUNNINGJUMP, the ACU tutorial into basic sprite handling. It was an easy LDIR, so...
EDIT: Another brilliant CPC game; THE SACRED ARMOUR OF |ANTIRIAD. BITBuster gave me 5 whole bytes spare to use... such a lot you can do in such a huge amount of space! (Press any key at the title screen to continue) Oops, forgot to remove AMSDOS header; not that it really matters, but...
EDIT: I find it funny that 5 people (so far) like my SPELLBOUND screens, but no-one has yet downloaded the ROM files. Maybe it's just my sense of humour, then? No? Oh, well! ^_^
EDIT: Penultimate game from me this weekend; INTO THE |EAGLESNEST. One thing though, I could've sworn the HUD at the bottom of the screen had more (useful) information on it; like AMMO, HEALTH & KEYS for example! Oh well, it makes for a more "interesting" game if you don't know when you're going to die!
EDIT: Ok, this is the last from me until next weekend; the highly Monty Python inspired Norse epic; BRIAN |BLOODAXE. Complete with obligatory system reset joke! Hahaha, how we laughed!
EDIT: One more, for the road! |GHOSTBUSTERS.
EDIT: And to start the new working week; |FEUD on 3 ROMs (only because that loading screen is so dang delicious!)
EDIT: Another great loading screen... |GHOSTSNGOBLINS this time! And that music... Mr Whittaker wins again! ^_^
EDIT: Seeing as you can only have 10 attachments per post; here's my last ROM game until someone else posts here (double posting is naughty). THE WAY OF THE EXPLODING |FIST for your bone-breaking enjoyment!
Post by: Axelay on 17:53, 17 October 13
Post by: mr_lou on 15:06, 18 October 13
Tempest
Atlantis
Blagger
Killer Gorilla
and many more
Also, can someone fix Spindizzy so that ROM 2 doesn't clear the screen in the ROM flasher manager? Apparently a character has been used in the name, that clears the screen.
EDIT: Ok, I'm suddenly just getting a Ready prompt on various games, including some that used to work like Donkey Kong and Bruce Lee.
This is after I installed the Booster ROM in slot 15.
Post by: TFM on 20:09, 18 October 13
Post by: redbox on 23:05, 18 October 13
The Booster is not causing the problem.[nb]It works fine with all commercial ROMs.[/nb] It's the way the ROMs have been generated.
I've said it before but I'll say it again - the Booster ROM is buggy.
I've analysed it and it basically intialises, copies a piece of code into RAM (which is poorly written), patches the kernel, re-initalises the CPC and then hopefully it will run through ROMs 31 to 0. This is far from an eloquent solution and because the CPC is particlarly touchy about the order in which ROMs are intialised can lead to problems with some setups.
The fact that it works with 'commerical'/SoftBrenner ROMs is probably because they are the ones it was tested with and not because of some 'superior' design that you elude to all the time. Sure it was a worthy solution once (and still a 'workaround' if you don't want to/can't update your OS ROM) but has been super-seeded now.
The only way for it to be done properly is to patch the OS, which has been done directly by myself for the 6128 & Plus and TotO/SyX with Firmware 3.12.
And I'm not saying this because it's German (don't care) or because I'm a "Churchill waging war", it's just because I've looked at the code and it's fact.
Post by: Bryce on 23:30, 18 October 13
Bryce.
Post by: TFM on 23:42, 18 October 13
Post by: Bryce on 23:45, 18 October 13
Bryce.
Post by: TFM on 23:47, 18 October 13
These ROMs check their number, and refuse to work if the number is too high ITO.
Post by: Bryce on 23:51, 18 October 13
Bryce.
Post by: redbox on 00:18, 19 October 13
Which is a nice piece of code, but still not understand by everybody bitching at it without reason.
It's not a nice piece of code, it's bugged. It uses RAM it shouldn't, doesn't patch the kernel properly and messes with the ROM initialising by forcing the CPC to initialise twice.
And I did 'debug' it by working out that the only way to do it properly (after studying it's code) was to patch the actual OS. I also corrected a similar bug in Firmware 3.1 (hence the 3.12 version).
Post by: 00WReX on 05:01, 19 October 13
For starters it cannot read any ROMS (other than 0) with Booster ROM enabled.
|help from utopia usually lists all ROM's, and with the ROM number will list all ROM RSX's (|help,3 for example).
This does not work with the Booster ROM inplace.
I don't know about how buggy Booster is, but that is something I have observed.
For all I know it could be the Utopia ROM that has a bug (or poorly implementing some code).
Cheers,
Shane
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 08:52, 19 October 13
Also, can someone fix Spindizzy so that ROM 2 doesn't clear the screen in the ROM flasher manager? Apparently a character has been used in the name, that clears the screen.Not being familiar with the ROM Flash Manager, but being someone of infinitely random luck when it comes to fault identification; I would assume that the Manager is looking for bit 7 set to denote the end of the ROM name... and because our build of ROMs 2 or 3 (as appropriate) is built with a name that doesn't end with bit 7 set (and defined as a background ROM), is it blindly PRINTing out characters from the actual ROM data. It just happens we've just been pretty lucky that the first few data bytes have been over &80 and so not PRINTing random characters when interrogated by this application?
Am I even close?
Oh, and is there an easy way to determine the BASIC type in assembler? ie 1.0 or 1.1
I ask this because the HUNCHBACK II cracked-loader has a patch that fixes a 6128 fault where the game is unplayable. The patch checks address &AE45 and if it's bigger than 0 it patches the game. As below;
Code: [Select]
10 MODE 1:BORDER 0:INK 0,0:INK 1,20:CLEAR:RESTORE:MEMORY 5999
20 LOAD"HUNCH2.bin":IF PEEK(&AE45)>0 THEN GOSUB 1000
30 LOCATE 10,2:PRINT"H U N C H B A C K I I":LOCATE 10,3:PRINT"-----------------------
40 LOCATE 10,11:PRINT"1 > Partie normale
50 LOCATE 10,13:PRINT"2 > Vies infinies
60 LOCATE 18,20:PRINT"Votre choix ?
70 A$=INKEY$:IF A$="" THEN 70
80 IF A$="1" THEN GOTO 110
90 IF A$="2" THEN POKE 34038,0:GOTO 110
100 GOTO 70
110 CALL 17000
1000 FOR f=1 TO 22:READ a,b$:POKE a,VAL("&"+b$):POKE a+1,&B6:NEXT f:FOR f=1 TO 6:READ a,b$:POKE a,VAL("&"+b$):NEXT:RETURN
1010 DATA 17216,49,17339,51,17352,50,17368,4a,17381,49,17389,4b,17592,51,17598,4e,17619,4f,17627,52,17637,4f,17683,52,17945,49,17955,49
1020 DATA 20140,49,34411,52,34417,52,34423,52,34429,52,34435,52,34441,4e,34447,51
1030 DATA 20161,41,20172,41,20187,41,20219,bf,20220,b8,20240,4a
I haven't managed to get that patch to work unless it's RUN manually (ie just GOSUB 1000 without the IF...THEN).
I did think of interrogating ROM slot #00 to see which it is (looking for a .0 or a .1), but how would that work for PLUS machines?
Any ideas, sirs?
EDIT: I have just noticed that CPCPower has this game (http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&onglet=dumps&num=1118) as a BASIC1.0 only game, but the crack-loader patch DOES work for 1.1 when RUN manually... I just need it to work automatically, as it were! ^_^
EDIT: Ok, I've interrogated ROM slot 0 and determined which BASIC is which and I have tested the ROM with numerous configurations in WinAPE. Can someone check that it even RUNs on a real hardware? |HUNCHBACK2 should give you your (my) answer. Ta!
EDIT: Having a quick look at SULTAN'S MAZE (100% BASIC game) and getting that to work from ROM. Now, I can get it to work if I dump the entire contents of the program to &0170 and use the BASIC-From-ASSEM code to RUN it, however when I Exomize it (from 14k to 32k) to &0170 and use the same RUN code, it doesn't work (comes up with a "Syntax Error" message, if you then type "RUN" it works). Obviously, Exomizer is doing something that BASIC doesn't like (and yes, I've "backed-up" the alternate registers before CALLing deexo). Anyone got any ideas of how to sort this? (the simple solution is NOT to compress BASIC programs, I know, but ROM space is critical if we're going to have so many games installed at once!)
EDIT: Both .asm files are attached below if someone wants to see if they can fix it for me (use CALL &A000 for both programs)! Ta! ^_^
Post by: mr_lou on 17:55, 19 October 13
:)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:55, 19 October 13
Suggestion for game to convert to ROM: Kane|KANE, but it doesn't work with anything; from WinAPE to real hardware. It's almost not even worth downloading. Infact, you're lucky I was bored, otherwise I'd not have spent the 26 minutes converting it to non-working ROMs. Anyway, it's attached for prosperity. Don't download it.
:)
EDIT: Oh yeah, if you do decide to see if it works, you might want to press ANY KEY at the title screen to continue to the game. Or, you might not.
Post by: TFM on 22:06, 19 October 13
Really? What's the point? Why would it care about being too high if it could be above the DOS?
Bryce.
Ok, a DOS replacement does patch the TAPE vectors the same way AMSDOS patches it. So ... if an advanced DOS has a higher number than AMSDOS, then the AMSDOS would patch the patch of the advanced DOS, so it wouldn't work.
Consider that ROMs get initialized with the highest ROM select first and 0 at the end. So the smaller a ROM number is, the late it get's initialized. And an expanded DOS needs therefore a smaller number than Amsdos.
Other companies (for reasons unknown to me) don't like their ROMs to run outside of an area of certain ROM numbers.
Post by: TFM on 22:09, 19 October 13
Not wanting to get into any arguments, but "Utopia" is a commercial ROM (I believe) that struggles with the Booster ROM enabled.
That's right. Utopia has problems with a lot of other ROMs.
Post by: Bryce on 22:23, 19 October 13
Ok, a DOS replacement does patch the TAPE vectors the same way AMSDOS patches it. So ... if an advanced DOS has a higher number than AMSDOS, then the AMSDOS would patch the patch of the advanced DOS, so it wouldn't work.
Consider that ROMs get initialized with the highest ROM select first and 0 at the end. So the smaller a ROM number is, the late it get's initialized. And an expanded DOS needs therefore a smaller number than Amsdos.
Other companies (for reasons unknown to me) don't like their ROMs to run outside of an area of certain ROM numbers.
I know that. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about ROMs that will work in position 8 to 15 (ie: above AMSDOS) but won't work above 16 using the booster ROM.
Bryce.
Post by: Devilmarkus on 23:47, 19 October 13
|KANE to start
Post by: TFM on 00:05, 20 October 13
I know that. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about ROMs that will work in position 8 to 15 (ie: above AMSDOS) but won't work above 16 using the booster ROM.
Bryce.
One reason is usually, that they reserve a bigger amount of RAM, so the DOS RAM gets pushed too much down, this in turn affects other ROMs negatively.
Why don't you play a bit around and use a !HELP command which shows you the RAM address of the ROM? Then you see what I mean.
Actually I never told that there is a problem with the Booster.
Post by: TFM on 00:06, 20 October 13
Here's Kane:
|KANE to start
Excellent work!!! :) These ROMs just work fine at all positions. Well done!!! :) :) :)
Post by: Devilmarkus on 14:07, 20 October 13
|CAULDRON for Cauldron 1
|CAULDRON2 for Cauldron 2
Press space when title screen shows up
Post by: Devilmarkus on 15:52, 20 October 13
Kaiser (German and English)
|KAISER to start...
Edit: Little bug: The final scene doesnt work (When you become Kaiser) in rest works fine.
Post by: Gryzor on 18:46, 20 October 13
Post by: Urusergi on 23:49, 20 October 13
EDIT: Having a quick look at SULTAN'S MAZE (100% BASIC game) and getting that to work from ROM. Now, I can get it to work if I dump the entire contents of the program to &0170 and use the BASIC-From-ASSEM code to RUN it, however when I Exomize it (from 14k to 32k) to &0170 and use the same RUN code, it doesn't work (comes up with a "Syntax Error" message, if you then type "RUN" it works). Obviously, Exomizer is doing something that BASIC doesn't like (and yes, I've "backed-up" the alternate registers before CALLing deexo). Anyone got any ideas of how to sort this? (the simple solution is NOT to compress BASIC programs, I know, but ROM space is critical if we're going to have so many games installed at once!)
Maybe that's the problem
EDIT2: :D Yes! I found the bug. The program is one byte longer: &7DEF=&50 and the program must end with three "00"
Solution is:
.length defw &7C7E
Un saludo.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 07:20, 22 October 13
That's the true spirit of community; it's a shame certain people still hold onto their self-importance. Ah well, their loss!
Post by: robcfg on 11:29, 22 October 13
May I ask, if it would be possible to convert to rom a game like Topo soft's Spirits? I'd love to have that on my megaflash 8)
Post by: Urusergi on 16:52, 22 October 13
Thanks to Urusergi, here's |SULTANSMAZE on ROM (tested with 464 & 6128 ROMs on WinAPE). Now, any game is possible without having to use an application.
That's the true spirit of community; it's a shame certain people still hold onto their self-importance. Ah well, their loss!
:-[ Thanks to you! for your incredible work.
¿Where can I download the cracked version of HUNCHBACK II that you used it?
Ah! and sorry for my english :'( I promise to learn more and more. I'm currently following the TVE English
course :D
Post by: TFM on 19:16, 22 October 13
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 20:23, 22 October 13
¿Where can I download the cracked version of HUNCHBACK II that you used it?I do not know where I downloaded it from, but it is attached here.
The 6128 patch does not work, so play it on a 464.
Post by: Urusergi on 23:14, 22 October 13
The 6128 patch does not work, so play it on a 464.
For this reason I needed the file, I'm also intrigued with the fact that it doesn't work.
Post by: Devilmarkus on 00:16, 23 October 13
|HUNCHBACK2 to launch
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:32, 10 April 14
Well, here's a little version of that olde-time classic, |SPYVSSPY with my new MODE 1 overscan title screen. Hopefully, the first of many new titles added to the ROM collection. I am hoping to get all single-load games ROM'd up before the end of the year. Or, at least one game ROM'd, anyway!
EDIT: I'm surprised this one hasn't been converted yet, the brilliant |MONTYONTHERUN with a recoloured C64 screen instead of that naff, MODE 1 Speccy image!
EDIT: A tough one to ROM-ify, but thanks to the wonders of the LDIR command, here's GREAT |GURIANOS on two ROMs. It was worth it for the music alone! ^_^
EDIT: Another musical feast, it's David Whittaker's soundtrack to a Speccy port turkey; the fabulous |GLIDERRIDER.
EDIT: Finally, for this post, another superb music track to a pants-bollocks game... NEMESIS THE |WARLOCK.
(Tested and working fine on WinAPE2A18!)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:13, 13 April 14
Firstly, I decided to convert the complete WALLY WEEK series. |PYJAMARAMA, EVERYONE'S A |WALLY, HERBERT'S |DUMMYRUN and |3WEEKS IN PARADISE.
EDIT: Then, as FROSTBYTE has already been done, I thought I'd do the other brilliant MIKRO-GEN action game, |EQUINOX. It's the single-file trained version from CPC-Power... so I didn't actually do anything for this one! ^_^
Post by: Gryzor on 11:16, 22 April 14
You're fantastic!!!
Post by: Gryzor on 12:26, 22 April 14
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 13:36, 22 May 14
Anyway, first up is |AVENGER by GREMLIN GRAPHICS and |HAGAR by THE BLACK SYSTEM.
EDIT: |KRAKOUT, also by GREMLIN GRAPHICS is next.
EDIT: The cartoon "classic" |RUFFNREDDY on two ROMs. Now, this is the single-file trained version (by Nicholas Campbell) from CPC-Power... so I only split it onto the ROMs and did nothing else!
EDIT: THE CURSE OF |SHERWOOD, again, was a split single-file game... simple to convert... took two minutes!
EDIT: Finally, for this post, |TRIBBLE TROUBLE... however, I have NO IDEA HOW THE FUCK TO PLAY THE GAME, so I cannot confirm or deny if it works or not! It loads and starts and everything, but I die in seconds and as confused as hell!
Post by: Bryce on 14:22, 22 May 14
Edit: I've uploaded them all to the Wiki page (except Sherwood as I assume there's a ROM 2 missing)
Bryce.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 14:49, 22 May 14
Is there a reason why you include The Curse of Sherwood ROM 1 twice?Yes... it was done on purpose... just to see if anyone would actually notice! ^_^
Bryce.
(P.S. Ta! I didn't realise I'd posted that one twice!)
Post by: Bryce on 15:01, 22 May 14
Edit: Curse of Sherwood uploaded too now (despite lack of prize).
Bryce.
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:10, 22 May 14
So have I won something for noticing?? :D
Edit: Curse of Sherwood uploaded too now (despite lack of prize).
Bryce.
You're already a hardware god.. and you want more? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 15:10, 22 May 14
So have I won something for noticing?? :D
Bryce.
YES! You win a FREE "The Curse Of Sherwood" download. Just use this simple to remember passcode when downloading;
FGNS-DLIFB-GERIL-TBILS-DFBDF-BTUEG-BTGHR-ITSEI-FBSDI-BGRIG-BSERI-FBGSD-IGBDF-GIBRI-01
Or was it 02...? I can't remember. Try both and see what happens! *hehe*
Post by: Bryce on 15:26, 22 May 14
YES! You win a FREE "The Curse Of Sherwood" download. Just use this simple to remember passcode when downloading;
FGNS-DLIFB-GERIL-TBILS-DFBDF-BTUEG-BTGHR-ITSEI-FBSDI-BGRIG-BSERI-FBGSD-IGBDF-GIBRI-01
Or was it 02...? I can't remember. Try both and see what happens! *hehe*
Oh no, now I've memorised that number It'll be in my head forever....
The IT Crowd - Series 1 - Episode 2: New emergency number (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWc3WY3fuZU#ws)
Bryce.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 12:36, 24 May 14
MEGA |APOCALYPSE; the poor-man's CRAZY COMETS... complete with poor-man's Rob Hubbard tune! (No offense to Jas Brooke or Rob Hubbard, but even the C64 tune was far inferior to the original!) New loading screen included in this one as the olde MODE 1 screen wasn't the best the CPC can do! (Putting it mildy)
EDIT: In keeping the mega theme, here's MEGA |PHOENIX. The only difference here is colour #11 has been changed to colour #14 on the loading screen. Anyone (but TotO) wouldn't have noticed... or cared! ^_^
EDIT: A double whammy here, Nicholas Campbell's rip of |SUPERKID and |SUPERKIDINSPACE. Both posted together because both use the same loader... so I just packed the files and pasted them in! Nice!
EDIT: Finally, |WONDERBOY completes the 10 file attachment limit. Recoloured loading screen and 40 bytes left on 2 ROMs. A big game!
EDIT: Is there any chance that someone could change the details on the ROM page of the CPC-Wiki to show the | command rather than "Converted by Tastefulmrship"? Or, if I have editing rights, I'm happy to do it.
Post by: TFM on 23:58, 24 May 14
EDIT: 5/25/2014 - seems to work.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 07:52, 25 May 14
Uups.... is the download counter broken?Yeah... I'd recommend moving on and flaming someone else, 'cos I'm not rising to any of your snide, negative comments. You're really only wasting your own time and energy... energy which could be used for more productive, helpful, positive means. I quite enjoy packing these games onto ROM(s) and you (or anyone else, for that matter) ain't going to stop me; you tried before, but I came back. So, please go back to whatever it is you do in your world and leave me to do whatever it is I do in mine. (Thanks for the unintentional bump, though)
Post by: mr_lou on 17:38, 25 May 14
I naively thought I would have like 25 games or so in ROM, but my experience was that after about 7 games or so, problems started, for whatever reason.
Post by: Bryce on 21:05, 25 May 14
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 21:10, 25 May 14
True, but it's still nice to have 2 or 3 of your favourites on the MegaFlash for instant playing at any time.
Yes. All I'm saying is, that it explains the low number of downloads.
Post by: Bryce on 21:15, 25 May 14
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 21:55, 25 May 14
It would just have been nice to have many more though.
Is it completely impossible to make room for more? (I don't mean slots, obviously).
I mean, if the price didn't matter, could it be done so that we could have 25 games on MegaFlash somehow?
Post by: Bryce on 22:24, 25 May 14
Bryce.
Post by: TFM on 23:10, 25 May 14
And I can settle for a few games too. :)
It would just have been nice to have many more though.
Is it completely impossible to make room for more? (I don't mean slots, obviously).
I mean, if the price didn't matter, could it be done so that we could have 25 games on MegaFlash somehow?
The problem is that every ROM reserves a bit of RAM. If you have a lot of ROMs installed they use up too much RAM so the game can't run. You can always park the ones you're not using, that way you free up RAM.Bryce.
Well, yes and no. ROMs like Maxam and Protext reserve a couple hundred bytes. But if you put a game into the ROM the ROM will not need more than four bytes of RAM. At least this is the case for all my ROM games made with the Inicron Softbrenner. I never used the ROM creator of roman, but it may be the same for it.
So in principle you can have 30 ROMs with games in it and all they need would be only 120 bytes, which is no problem for 99.7% of all other software.
Post by: mr_lou on 23:26, 25 May 14
Well, yes and no. ROMs like Maxam and Protext reserve a couple hundred bytes. But if you put a game into the ROM the ROM will not need more than four bytes of RAM. At least this is the case for all my ROM games made with the Inicron Softbrenner. I never used the ROM creator of roman, but it may be the same for it.
So in principle you can have 30 ROMs with games in it and all they need would be only 120 bytes, which is no problem for 99.7% of all other software.
Very interesting. But that's definitely not what I experience...
Post by: TFM on 02:20, 26 May 14
X-DDOS may give a hint (using !HELP command)
Post by: mr_lou on 08:31, 26 May 14
You can use X-DDOS to show you the start addresses of ROMs. Ok, it's in hexadecimal, but it there is more usage than 4 byte, then the ROM is wasting RAM. I never uses game ROMs not made with Softbrenner except once and it didn't work. Later I lacked time, so I can not tell about other "ROM maker software".
X-DDOS may give a hint (using !HELP command)
I am but a poor musician. I wouldn't have any clue on how to see how much ram a rom is using.
But if you have a zip file somewhere containing games that you have converted to ROM, then I'd definitely be interested in flashing those onto my MegaFlash to see if there's a difference.
Post by: Bryce on 10:34, 26 May 14
Bryce.
Post by: Axelay on 11:28, 26 May 14
But isn't the Command to start the game saved in RAM? If a game uses the command |SUPERKIDINSPACE, then that's already 15 bytes used up, plus a jump address etc brings this to 19 or 20 bytes per game. So 8 games could be using up quite a bit more RAM.[nb]Or I'm talking complete B0llox, I'm not a coder[/nb]
Bryce.
Oh, that's what I thought, and I'm a coder! Apparently. I dont have much time for the OS though. :D Anyway, the 7 random game ROMs I have installed in WINAPE saved 28 bytes when I disabled them, so it appears the name is indeed left in ROM.
I am but a poor musician. I wouldn't have any clue on how to see how much ram a rom is using.
If you really want to check you can use this from BASIC:
Code: [Select]
? HIMEMTo get the highest memory location free. Add or subtract a ROM and reset the CPC or emulator, and do it again. HIMEM will change by the number of bytes that game ROM used.
Post by: Bryce on 11:35, 26 May 14
Bryce.
Post by: redbox on 11:40, 26 May 14
When writing ROMs you set the amount of memory you want to reserve yourself, but for things like game ROMs it should really only be a couple of bytes...?
Post by: Axelay on 11:46, 26 May 14
Post by: Bryce on 12:48, 26 May 14
Well I wouldn't be surprised if some earlier games dependent on the OS were made with an assumption of only AMSDOS present with no other ROMs, so they might well overwrite RAM above a lowered HIMEM and cause an issue.
Oh, that really would mess things up.
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 13:16, 26 May 14
What are you generally saying? That Softbrenner's utility uses more than 4 bytes pr. game? Or are there other theories as to why I can only install about 7 games before I begin running into trouble?
Post by: ralferoo on 13:25, 26 May 14
But isn't the Command to start the game saved in RAM?No.
A ROM registering any number of RSX commands uses 4 bytes. The ROM's RSXs are stored in a linked list with 2 bytes to point to the next entry and 2 bytes to encode the ROM number and "configuration". The RSX table always lives at #C004 in a ROM, so there is no other data required.
A ROM can additionally reserve EXTRA RAM for its own use, which is then passed to it in IY when any RSX is used, but this is optional. When the ROM is initialised, the firmware calls the ROM with HL set to the highest free address and DE set to the lowest free address. A ROM can choose to allocate memory from either low memory or high memory by increasing DE or decreasing HL by the amount of memory required. These updated values are then the input to the next ROM and after the last, they are stored for BASIC's use as LOMEM and HIMEM.
Post by: Bryce on 13:33, 26 May 14
Bryce.
Post by: ralferoo on 13:48, 26 May 14
It shows a couple of these tricks... It uses a few bytes from high memory to install a function to RAM, copied from staticfunc_start. In this case, it's just a helper routine that reads a byte from (HL) of ROM B, but obviously that needs to exist in either the LOWER ROM (it doesn't) or RAM...
Anyway, |ROMS shows all the ROMS installed on the system along with the table addresses, which you'll see decreases by 4 for a lot of ROMs.
There's also a |MEM command that delves into the HIMEM and LOMEM variables to show you how much memory is left.
Ignore the other commands - they're for an SREC-over-serial bootloader that I use for getting code onto my FPGA board quickly... :)
Post by: Bryce on 14:02, 26 May 14
Edit: What did you compile that on? The other samples I have are for Maxam (which I also intend using) and they look slightly different.
Bryce.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 14:06, 26 May 14
1. It is a generic ROM build application, so it uses a LOT of ROM space for memory manipulation, etc... so, large games (like WONDERBOY) are impossible to convert using this application (see image below) yet are simple enough with the multiple ROM image builder!
2. It can only build up to 32kb files (well, lower than 32kb... see above) onto 2 ROMs... so, games like CYBERNOID 2, HEAD OVER HEELS, BOMB JACK 1&2, CPCWIKI ZYNAPS that fit on 3 ROMs are impossible to convert using this application.
3. It displays a "header" onscreen (so you know the ROM is loaded) as standard... and, as Mr Lou pointed out a while back, if you have a large number of ROMs installed, every time you boot, you get a whole screen-full of useless information! Which is why the multiple ROM code was build without anythign displayed on screen... it just RETs to BASIC. The disadvantage, of course, is not knowing which ROMs are actually installed! ^_^
It's horses for courses, but I prefer to build my own ROMs that work perfectly fine in WinAPE (but ALL fail in JavaCPC) using code written by people here in the CPCWiki community who have a far better understanding of how ROMs work and what's required to get them to work than I ever would! If others insist on undermining my/their work, then that's their problem!
I realise people will probably never download my ROMs; I'm only doing it because I enjoy the challenge of getting games down to as small a size as possible with as much detail as possible (loading screens, etc). My current mission is the FreeScape games... almost all of which cannot be crunched to 2 ROMs if displaying the loading screen and background screen! This is why the 3 ROM code was developed... and SOFTBRENNER simply cannot cope with that! EVER!
Post by: ralferoo on 14:12, 26 May 14
Edit: What did you compile that on? The other samples I have are for Maxam (which I also intend using) and they look slightly different.That code works fine with both pasmo and WinCPC, so it should also work fine in Maxam (although I've never used it, so I could be wrong). If it's just label syntax (.label versus label: then I suspect most assemblers will take either form).
You might have a problem with lines like this:
Code: [Select]
staticfunc_len equ $-staticfunc_start
in which case you should replace with something like:Code: [Select]
staticfunc_xxx:
staticfunc_len equ staticfunc_xxx-staticfunc_start
It should be fine on an equ line, but I've noticed different assemblers tend to consider $ to be variously the current address or the next address, so I try to never use it except in an equ expression... And some assemblers prefer = to equ...
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:39, 26 May 14
Um... I can't keep up.What do you mean by trouble? I want to understand the problems you are seeing.
What are you generally saying? That Softbrenner's utility uses more than 4 bytes pr. game? Or are there other theories as to why I can only install about 7 games before I begin running into trouble?
Post by: mr_lou on 16:37, 26 May 14
What do you mean by trouble? I want to understand the problems you are seeing.
Well.... after flashing a certain number of ROM files, some of them will suddenly not work anymore.
I forget how many it is now, but I remember being somewhat disappointed that it was a low number. I think maybe 7 ROMs.
Definitely no where near the 32 slots that are available on the MegaFlash.
For example. After flashing these about 7-8 ROMs, the HxC ROM would start showing all text as random graphics, so I couldn't read what was going on. And other games would simply just not work. To get the HxC ROM working again, I had to first delete some ROMs and then re-flash the HxC ROM. It wasn't enough re-flashing the ROM without deleting ROMs and it wasn't enough just deleting ROMs. I had to first delete some ROMs and then re-flash.
This happens both on my CPCplus and CPC6128. I should probably mention though, that both CPC's has some chip replacing some other chip that makes all 32 slots on the MegaFlash available. Bryce knows more technical info on this, as he did the replacing for me. I don't remember myself.
Post by: Bryce on 17:42, 26 May 14
Bryce.
Post by: mr_lou on 17:48, 26 May 14
Ok, that really is wierd. So other ROMs are getting corrupted? Either something is overwriting the reserved RAM or something is confusing the ROManager software. Was it a particular game that caused the corruption? Have you tried filling the MegaFlash with utilities instead of games?
No, I just tried other games.
I too suspected it might be a certain ROM file that did something nasty, so I tried flashing different games. But I always ran into the same problem.
At the time, I put the blame on the explanation that it was the name of the ROMs that overwrote something. But now that we know that can't be the case, I wonder what it is then.
Post by: redbox on 17:57, 26 May 14
Good to know. I intend writing my very first ROM program in the near future. I see the learning curve will be steep :(
This is an easy to follow example (http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/tech/cpc/CWTA-writing-ROMs-code.html).
It reserves 32 bytes of memory during the initialise routine.
It then uses this memory to store the string you supply via the |DOUBLE,"my string" command. The location of this reserved memory is passed by the IY register when the RSX is called.
Post by: Gryzor on 18:01, 26 May 14
Post by: TFM on 23:43, 26 May 14
Post by: TFM on 23:47, 26 May 14
Um... I can't keep up.
What are you generally saying? That Softbrenner's utility uses more than 4 bytes pr. game? Or are there other theories as to why I can only install about 7 games before I begin running into trouble?
No. Using the Softbrenner is the GOOD way to make ROMs. And they all run. Other ways lead to problems.
BTW: Softbrenner can be used for nearly all games. Of course the limitation is a bit less than 32 KB. But since we have Exomizer, this means in reality much more. My largest game I converted to ROM has 108 KB uncompressed and fits finally just so in two 16 KB ROMs.
Post by: ralferoo on 00:18, 27 May 14
No. Using the Softbrenner is the GOOD way to make ROMs. And they all run. Other ways lead to problems.Using the Softbrenner is
Post by: mr_lou on 07:16, 27 May 14
No. Using the Softbrenner is the GOOD way to make ROMs. And they all run. Other ways lead to problems.
Other ways may result in the game using more than 4 bytes of RAM?
Post by: ralferoo on 17:20, 27 May 14
To be honest, I can't really see how else you can go wrong when making a ROM... You update the memory size in DE and HL if required as part of the initialisation call, and the system registers the RSX list for you. Beyond that, your ROM is inactive until an RSX command is called and then for a game loader you can pretty much do what you want to memory after that...
Post by: TFM on 20:24, 27 May 14
The main problem I know about are not setting the carry flag before returning - the 464 didn't check this, the 664/6128 consider it an error. It was documented as far as I know, but the 464 ignored the carry.
On a 6128 I tested numerous ROMs for this carry flag. And IMHO the OS doesn't bother. No, it's clearly not that flag. The problems come up when ROM software is fiddling around in the OS, or use up too much RAM, or doing the latter one especially before the DISC ROM gets initialized.
You can easily check by your self!
Post by: redbox on 21:19, 27 May 14
Shhh, don't tell anyone 8)
Post by: arnoldemu on 22:46, 27 May 14
What happens in firmware 3.1 where it supports more or in the rom that extends the range up to 32?
Also where is the rom chaining information stored (rom select + next rom in list)???
So where exactly is the information stored. I am guessing because if it's in a fixed size buffer it may be running out.
I think this may be why mr_lou is seeing problems?
Post by: TFM on 22:51, 27 May 14
Problems usually make Utopia and different DOS ROMs at the same time. Also the AlphaROM is not compatible to everything.
The Games competition ROMs seem all to work fine. If I have some time (during the next month), I'll take a look at it.
@Mr_Lou: Can you provide a screen dump or list of ROMs which cause problems? So the error could be reproduced.
Post by: redbox on 23:23, 27 May 14
What happens in firmware 3.1 where it supports more or in the rom that extends the range up to 32?
Nothing happens, the buffer is the same size as the original OS AFAIK. Same with my MegaFlash version of the Plus cartridge.
So I think you may well be onto something here...
Post by: ralferoo on 23:42, 27 May 14
Also where is the rom chaining information stored (rom select + next rom in list) ???In (#b8d3) (6128), there is a pointer to the most recent RSX block registered.
The first two bytes are the address of the next RSX block, the second two bytes are the "RSX address".
If the RSX address has a zero high-byte, it is a ROM RSX table and the low-byte is the ROM select byte and the table is at #c004. Otherwise, it's a RAM RSX table.
This is exactly what the 4 bytes that gets used per ROM is for.
The "Firmware Guide" claims &b8da->&b8f8 hold the IY value for each ROM. There is space here in CPC6128 for 16 roms, 8 for 464.
What happens in firmware 3.1 where it supports more or in the rom that extends the range up to 32?
So where exactly is the information stored. I am guessing because if it's in a fixed size buffer it may be running out.
You're totally correct, there does appear to have a fixed size block for the IY table for each ROM:
Code: [Select]
034c 23 inc hl
034d eb ex de,hl
034e 21dab8 ld hl,$b8da ; the ROM table
0351 ed4bd6b8 ld bc,($b8d6) ; the currently active ROM (as we're probing them all in sequence this will be set)
0355 0600 ld b,$00
0357 09 add hl,bc
0358 09 add hl,bc ; #B8DA + 2*(#B8D6)
0359 73 ld (hl),e
035a 23 inc hl
035b 72 ld (hl),d ; store IY (which is HL+1 as returned from the ROM)
035c 21fcff ld hl,$fffc
035f 19 add hl,de ; reserve the 4 bytes for the RSX chain
0360 cda002 call $02a0 ; KL LOG EXT
Also, this supports the theory of the fixed-size:
Code: [Select]
;; rom select below 16 (max for firmware 1.1)?
048c fe10 cp $10
048e 300f jr nc,$049f
;; 16-bit table at &b8da
0490 87 add a,a
0491 c6da add a,$da
0493 6f ld l,a
0494 ceb8 adc a,$b8
0496 95 sub l
0497 67 ld h,a
So, in summary, I'd say if someone is using the standard firmware, there should be no issue. With a modified firmware to accept more than 16 ROMs, this table will need to be moved somewhere else. I'd suggest the following additional patches (untested though):
Code: [Select]
0089 21ffab ld hl,$abff ; decrease this by number of ROMs, so 32 -> #abdf
...
034e 21dab8 ld hl,$b8da ; change to #abe0 for 32 ROMs
...
0491 c6da add a,$da ; change to #e0 for 32 ROMS
0493 6f ld l,a
0494 ceb8 adc a,$b8 ; change to #ab
So,
Code: [Select]
008a df
008b ae
034f e0
0350 ab
0492 e0
0495 ab
This should work reliably as nothing else uses these table, but at the expense of another 64 bytes of RAM...
Post by: ralferoo on 23:52, 27 May 14
Maybe. on the other hand once I had 27 ROMs installed without a problem.This table will only be updated for background ROMs (i.e. with RSXes). Foreground ROMs take over the system and so don't need the IY value and extension ROMs aren't scanned at all.
So, if you only put extension ROMs in the top 16 slots, you'd not experience any corruption.
Post by: redbox on 00:53, 28 May 14
So, in summary, I'd say if someone is using the standard firmware, there should be no issue. With a modified firmware to accept more than 16 ROMs, this table will need to be moved somewhere else. I'd suggest the following additional patches (untested though):
Excellent work, I shall test with my DIY Plus Cartridge as soon as I get a chance.
Post by: mr_lou on 08:08, 28 May 14
@Mr_Lou: Can you provide a screen dump or list of ROMs which cause problems? So the error could be reproduced.
When I find the time, I will try from scratch, installing one game at a time, and testing all games after each installation, and describe everything, and then attach a zip with the ROM files I used.
But this socalled adult life is a real time waster. You have to do boring stuff like work and such, so it'll be a while before I have the time.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 10:27, 28 May 14
Post by: arnoldemu on 11:18, 28 May 14
This table will only be updated for background ROMs (i.e. with RSXes). Foreground ROMs take over the system and so don't need the IY value and extension ROMs aren't scanned at all.I also believe that extension roms will not be registered here.
So, if you only put extension ROMs in the top 16 slots, you'd not experience any corruption.
Question:
The "booster" rom uses the standard firmware. So does the booster rom allocate some memory to fit the additional information in, or if used with a standard OS does it also cause problems?
Post by: redbox on 11:22, 28 May 14
The "booster" rom uses the standard firmware. So does the booster rom allocate some memory to fit the additional information in, or if used with a standard OS does it also cause problems?
The Booster ROM just patches the firmware (by patching the jump lock). It's a very simple patch and doesn't patch the RST routine in the OS ROM which is what leads to it's instability.
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:06, 28 May 14
The Booster ROM just patches the firmware (by patching the jump lock). It's a very simple patch and doesn't patch the RST routine in the OS ROM which is what leads to it's instability.So it allows the firmware to register roms above 16, it'll then try and do that and corrupt memory.
Nice. I think there is some space in there anyway, so you'd get away with a bit.
Post by: TFM on 18:39, 28 May 14
...But this so called adult life is a real time waster. You have to do boring stuff like work and such, so it'll be a while before I have the time.
Tell me about it :laugh: Never mind, as soon as you're ready I'll take a look at it. :)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 16:38, 01 June 14
Starting the FreeScape 3D collection we have |DARKSIDE and |DRILLER. Both of which happily fit in 2 ROMs per game... the other FreeScape 3D titles (CASTLE MASTER, THE CRYPT, TOTAL ECLIPSE, TOTAL ECLIPSE TRAINER, SPHINX JINX and the 3D INTRODUCTION GAME) are a little more irritating and will require 3 ROMs to house them... I'll do that whenever I get time!
EDIT: Someone mentioned Melvyn Wright in a thread a few months back, and that prompted me to convert a few of the Firebird music-load games (from existing hacks). First on my list was the brilliant, but feck-off hard, |DRUID... complete with loading music!
EDIT: Slight leftfield turn now; Arkos & Overlander's |DTC demo. Wobbler meets plasma meets scroller to ZX music... followed by ruptured logo to the Spitting Images theme tune (AY'd by David Whittaker for the game of the same name).
EDIT: Finally, ROMANTIC ROBOT's mega-huge maze race; |WRIGGLERRR. The name has two extra Rs in it as there is already a WRIGGLER ROM in the collection and this will prevent any issues if both games are installed.
Post by: dcdrac on 17:03, 01 June 14
Post by: SyX on 18:36, 01 June 14
will these roms work in the new Xmem and if so how doi transfer them?Of course, X-Mem brings the firmware 3.14, that was fixed along time ago. In our case we use the range $BE00-$BE3F for storage the new pointer table.
With respect to transfer, use your favourite way, using a minibooster or put the roms in a 3" 1/2 or 3" disk, etc...
Post by: Gryzor on 21:16, 01 June 14
Post by: redbox on 22:30, 01 June 14
Firmware 3.14, that was fixed along time ago. In our case we use the range $BE00-$BE3F for storage the new pointer table.
I must have missed this... do you have a download link?
Post by: CraigsBar on 02:30, 02 June 14
On a separate note has anyone managed to get the ROM version of Head over Heals to actually run?
I get a screen of garbage on both my 6128plus and Schneider CPC 6128.
On WinAPE it hangs and on JavaCPC it triggers a reset.
I have downloaded the file many many times and copied the rom images to the Symbiface via the HxC and by pulling the HDD the result is always the same, and only with these roms.
Do these ROMS have specific slots, in which case what are they ;) or are they just fubar :( or have I lost the plot, and this is a sign that I should have 1 more go on Driller, Harvey Headbanger or Chuckie Egg.
Kind Regards
Craig
Post by: CraigsBar on 02:32, 02 June 14
I must have missed this... do you have a download link?
As I understand it is not generally available yet, and requires a X-Mem.
Hopefully soon :)
Regards
Craig
Post by: IanS on 02:52, 02 June 14
The head over heels roms are expecting the roms to be in position 9,16 and 17.
On a separate note has anyone managed to get the ROM version of Head over Heals to actually run?
I get a screen of garbage on both my 6128plus and Schneider CPC 6128.
If you want to relocate them, you need to modify bytes &c05b (rom 1), &c06b (rom 2) & &c07b (rom 3) of rom 1.
Post by: CraigsBar on 03:27, 02 June 14
The head over heels roms are expecting the roms to be in position 9,16 and 17.
If you want to relocate them, you need to modify bytes &c05b (rom 1), &c06b (rom 2) & &c07b (rom 3) of rom 1.
Perfect, thanks. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow
Post by: MiguelSky on 03:49, 02 June 14
the other FreeScape 3D titles (CASTLE MASTER, THE CRYPT, TOTAL ECLIPSE, TOTAL ECLIPSE TRAINER, SPHINX JINX and the 3D INTRODUCTION GAME)Don't forget Ciudadela Fantasma (http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=9271) and A Chance in Hell (http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=10602) !! ;)
Post by: Devilmarkus on 15:18, 02 June 14
The head over heels roms are expecting the roms to be in position 9,16 and 17.
If you want to relocate them, you need to modify bytes &c05b (rom 1), &c06b (rom 2) & &c07b (rom 3) of rom 1.
Confirmed:
[ This attachment cannot be displayed inline in 'Print Page' view ]
Thankyou for this information, as there was no readme included...
Post by: SyX on 15:33, 02 June 14
That must be an urban legend :P, you can download it from the X-Mem page (http://www.centpourcent.net/store/p55/X-MEM_Board.html), everything is available there... aside the ungrateful nazi pirates and spanerds buccaneers clonning Bryce, Pulkomandy, TotO and any interesting new boards.
As I understand it is not generally available yet, and requires a X-Mem.
Hopefully soon :)
With respect to the HoH roms, it was one of the first roms, with Bombjack, that i made for the Megaflash and by then, before the lower rom expansions era :P, the idea was put all the extra weight in rom numbers >15 as FutureOS always did and TFM always recommend :)
Post by: SyX on 15:40, 02 June 14
Thankyou for this information, as there was no readme included...No readme? (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/the-megaflash/msg29774/#msg29774) :P
And the Bomb Jack readme (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/the-megaflash/msg29866/#msg29866), just in case ;D
Post by: Devilmarkus on 16:02, 02 June 14
No readme? (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/the-megaflash/msg29774/#msg29774) :P
And the Bomb Jack readme (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/the-megaflash/msg29866/#msg29866), just in case ;D
Well, as I didn't follow the megaflash-thread (or this thread) very often, I downloaded the rom files on the wiki page:
ROM List - CPCWiki (http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ROM_List#Game_ROMs)
So it would be very handy to have a readme file included here, too ;) :P
Post by: Bryce on 16:21, 02 June 14
Bryce.
Post by: SyX on 16:45, 02 June 14
No excuses Markus, takes 1 minute search in the forum for who made that rom and asking him, and other thing no, but asking for you is nothing strange XDDD
Post by: Devilmarkus on 17:56, 02 June 14
Added! :)
No excuses Markus, takes 1 minute search in the forum for who made that rom and asking him, and other thing no, but asking for you is nothing strange XDDD
Oh I searched for Head over Heels roms... Don't think, I didn't...
Post by: ralferoo on 22:06, 02 June 14
No excuses Markus, takes 1 minute search in the forum for who made that rom and asking him, and other thing no, but asking for you is nothing strange XDDDTo be fair, I did the same thing. Ages ago (maybe a year ago), I just browsed the wiki page and downloaded all the ROMs that sounded interesting. I don't recall seeing a notice about requiring certain slots and when they didn't work where I put them (I think I used 4,5,6), I just assumed they didn't work moved on the next ROM and played that instead!
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 12:20, 03 June 14
Have 4x |4K demos, instead!
Post by: SyX on 14:39, 03 June 14
To be honest, I was about to rebuild the HEAD OVER HEELS ROMs with the generic builder... but if it works as is, then there's no point!But feel free to rebuild it, as you can read in the original post was a test during thefirst days of the megaflash, nowdays i would make very different.
Have 4x |4K demos, instead!
For example, i would make something similar to WHDLOAD, having a game launcher rom and putting the games in roms that can not be initialized, then in this launcher rom is stored a list that is showed at start and you can choose with Cursors and Enter the game to launch. Then add a patch at each game for you can return to the launcher and as the launcher rom is practically empty, you can storage there the game hiscores in a similar way like a PSX memory card works :) And of course, define an standard for everyone can use it.
Post by: redbox on 15:13, 03 June 14
For example, i would make something similar to WHDLOAD, having a game launcher rom and putting the games in roms that can not be initialized, then in this launcher rom is stored a list that is showed at start and you can choose with Cursors and Enter the game to launch. Then add a patch at each game for you can return to the launcher and as the launcher rom is practically empty, you can storage there the game hiscores in a similar way like a PSX memory card works :) And of course, define an standard for everyone can use it.
I remember thinking something along the lines of this... ah, so many ideas, so little time ;)
Post by: SyX on 18:01, 03 June 14
I remember thinking something along the lines of this... ah, so many ideas, so little time ;)Yes, we talked about that and the idea is so brilliant still :)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:55, 03 June 14
But feel free to rebuild it, as you can read in the original post was a test during the first days of the megaflash, nowdays i would make very different.I can't compress it any further than 3 ROMs, anyway... so rebuilding would be pointless at this time. The only viable reason would be so it can be installed to any ROM slot, that's all.
Post by: Tai on 23:23, 06 June 14
For example, i would make something similar to WHDLOAD, having a game launcher rom and putting the games in roms that can not be initialized, then in this launcher rom is stored a list that is showed at start and you can choose with Cursors and Enter the game to launch. Then add a patch at each game for you can return to the launcher and as the launcher rom is practically empty, you can storage there the game hiscores in a similar way like a PSX memory card works :) And of course, define an standard for everyone can use it.
That sounds great! But in the meantime I like to have four or five games in my ROMBoard and I'm missing badly Saboteur2.
So, I converted it myself (tested on WinAPE and real CPC 6128 with Megaflash).
You can put the ROM files in any slot but second ROM file (SABOTE2B.ROM) must be installed contiguous to first ROM (SABOTE2A.ROM).
Run it with: |saboteur2
Post by: CraigsBar on 01:53, 07 June 14
Craig
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:18, 07 June 14
Anyway... are requests being taken for rom conversions? ;) and if so what about Deflector? Yes i know this is a Speccy Port, and whilst I hate lazy programming this game is one I always found addictive and therefore hopefully it is possible that this great little game can come to a ROM (or 2 or 3).
Due to total laziness on my part, here is a complete memory dump (ie; #0000-#BFFF) for |DEFLEKTOR, as requested.
It seems to work, so I'm not going to complain! ^_^
Post by: CraigsBar on 22:25, 07 June 14
Due to total laziness on my part, here is a complete memory dump (ie; #0000-#BFFF) for |DEFLEKTOR, as requested.
It seems to work, so I'm not going to complain! ^_^
yep works here too, thank you very much... That is another game I do not have to disconnect all external roms to play. As the original tape (and DSK) both fail on real hardware if anything other than roms 0 and 7 are populated.... that's a MF2 check gone wrong surely.
Craig
Post by: Tai on 19:48, 08 June 14
It needed 3 ROMs and you can put the ROM files in any slot but they must be installed contiguously (TARGETA.ROM in slot n, TARGETB.ROM in slot n+1 and TARGETC.ROM in slot n+2).
Launch with: |target
Post by: jrodriguezv on 18:50, 09 June 14
Post by: CraigsBar on 21:47, 09 June 14
I wonder how many I can get installed and working before I need another rom card LOL.
Post by: mr_lou on 22:24, 09 June 14
I wonder how many I can get installed and working before I need another rom card LOL.
I'm actually quite interested in hearing how many games people have managed to install without running into problems.
Post by: CraigsBar on 22:31, 09 June 14
OK The SymbifaceII on my 6128 plus is currently working perfectly as follows
0 - Empty
1 - HXC Rom
2 - Symbos 2.0A
3 - Empty
4 - Empty
5 - Empty
6 - Superkid Rom 1
7 - ParaDOS 1.1
8 - Harvey Headbanger
9 - Head Over Heals Rom 1
10 - Bombjack
11 - Deflektor
12 - Mega Phoenix
13 - Spy vs Spy
14 - Superkid in Space
15 - Utopia
16 - Head Over Heals Rom 2
17 - Head Over Heals Rom 3
18 - +Expansion Roms+
19 - +Expansion Roms+
20 - +Expansion Roms+
21 - +Expansion Roms+
22 - +Expansion Roms+
23 - +Expansion Roms+
24 - +Expansion Roms+
25- Empty
26- Empty
27- Empty
28- Empty
29 - Symbos 2.0B
30 - Symbos 2.0C
31 - Symbos 2.0D
Sorry for that list of +expansion roms+ I cannot remember which order I put them in with. but they are the extra ROMS for Superkid, Mega phoenix etc...
I remember HOH because it is static in 9, 16 and 17 and Symbos is installed at then end.
Now to decide what those extra spaces should be LOL
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 00:03, 10 June 14
Now to decide what those extra spaces should be LOLThe CPC-Wiki Zynaps is a nice one to show C64ers or Speccyists... well, turn DOWN the volume for the "loader" and just enjoy the amazing overscan splash-screen... then turn UP the volume for Dave Roger's amazing title tune! 3 ROMs used for good!
The 4x 4k Demos ROM is quite nice... the new loading screen for Mega Apocalypse (2 ROMs) or Ranarama (screen by Devilmarkus, 2 ROMs).
However, they're all winners, basically... you can't go wrong!
Post by: robcfg on 00:44, 10 June 14
Post by: CraigsBar on 00:49, 10 June 14
By playing with roms....
I now have all 32 slots filled and no issues.
They all run, Utopia quite happily reports the RSX's for the first roms in slots 0 - 15
I have not experienced any issues with all these roms in a Symbiface II on a 6128 plus.
Regards
Craig
Post by: mr_lou on 09:11, 10 June 14
I now have all 32 slots filled and no issues.
They all run, Utopia quite happily reports the RSX's for the first roms in slots 0 - 15
I have not experienced any issues with all these roms in a Symbiface II on a 6128 plus.
That's impressive, and definitely not what I've experienced when installing ROMs to MegaFlash.
Hm, I better do my experiment soon.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 10:40, 10 June 14
Would it be possible to convert Freddy Hardest 2nd side or Topo Soft's Spirits to roms?
While getting ready for work, I had a few minutes spare... so, here's |SPIRITS on 2 ROMs.
Post by: robcfg on 14:29, 10 June 14
Post by: SyX on 19:14, 10 June 14
They all run, Utopia quite happily reports the RSX's for the first roms in slots 0 - 15And in the Firmware 3.14, you can make CALL &B8E0 to get a list of roms installed in the 32 slots or CALL &B8E0,rom_number for getting the RSXs of the rom number you have choosen.
And the people using the firmware 3.14 expansion rom (the one with the RAM disk), you can use the more friendly rsx |HELP or |HELP,rom_number for it.
Post by: Tai on 19:18, 10 June 14
I'm actually quite interested in hearing how many games people have managed to install without running into problems.This is the list of installed ROMs in my ROMBoard.
No issues detected so far.
Post by: mr_lou on 19:29, 10 June 14
This is the list of installed ROMs in my ROMBoard.
No issues detected so far.
That is also impressive. I definitely can't have that many ROMs installed without problems. :(
Neither in my CPC6128 or in my CPC+
Post by: CraigsBar on 20:25, 10 June 14
Post by: mr_lou on 20:48, 10 June 14
I have just swapped my 6128 plus over with my Schneider CPC 6128 (both have centronics connectors) and the same 32 Roms all work fine there too. I wonder what combination you were having issues with mr_Lou?
When I find time I'll try installing some ROMs again, and list the process here. I definitely cannot fill all the slots of my two MegaFlash units without running into problems. If I install a certain number of ROMs, they start to not work anymore. I don't remember what the limit was before experiencing trouble, but it was less than 16.
At the time I asked Bryce about it, and he believed it was because each installed ROM took up some RAM to store the RSX command (I think it was). But now people are saying that each installed ROM only takes up 4 bytes. So I'm puzzled.
But as I said, I'll try again when I find the time, and then document in a new thread here at CPCwiki forum when what goes wrong.
Post by: mr_lou on 21:56, 10 June 14
Deleted all ROMS except BASIC in slot 0 and ROM Manager in slot 4 and CPM in slot 7.
Installed Dead on Time in slot 1 and 2 - works
Installed Defend or Die in slot 3 - both games work
Installed Don't Panic in slot 5 - all works
Installed Fruity Frank in slot 6 - all good
Installed Donkey Kong in slot 8 - all work
Installed Spindizzy in slot 9 and 10 - all work
Installed Ghouls in slot 11 - everything still works
Installed Kane in slot 12 and 13 - everything still works, now beginning to be surprised.
Installed Space Harrier in slot 14 and 15 - everything still works!
Installed Ghosts'n'Goblins in slot 16 and 17 - didn't test this game because I forgot the command, but other games worked still
Installed Chuckie Egg in slot 18 - all still works! Very surprised
Installed Atlantis in slot 19 - still works!
Installed Blagger in slot 20 - BANG!!!
After installing Blagger in slot 20, I can't run Space Harrier. It's just a black screen. And Dead on Time crashes on the title screen as the attached photo shows.
The other games seems to still work though.
So... memory issue? Dead on Time and Space Harrier requiring more memory than the other games?
Post by: ralferoo on 22:43, 10 June 14
Post by: mr_lou on 22:53, 10 June 14
Did you apply the patches to the ROM that I suggested a couple of pages back?
Er..... no.
I missed that post. I'll see if I can find it to read what that's about.
EDIT: Oh, well I have no clue on how to apply such patches.
But I can confirm that I'm not using standard firmware in any of the two CPC's that has MegaFlash installed. I had Bryce install a newer firmware in order to have all 32 slots available without needing the booster rom.
Post by: redbox on 23:22, 10 June 14
I had Bryce install a newer firmware in order to have all 32 slots available without needing the booster rom.
If that's the OS I patched then you'll need to do the extra patches ralferoo described.
Or you can use Firmware 3.14 which is on the X-Mem page.
Post by: mr_lou on 23:28, 10 June 14
If that's the OS I patched then you'll need to do the extra patches ralferoo described.
Or you can use Firmware 3.14 which is on the X-Mem page.
I can't remember what firmware it was/is.
And I wouldn't know how to apply the patch.
For now, I'm settling for what works. ralferoo suggested that I install the first ROM of the games in slots 1-15, and the other ROM of the games in slots 16-31. This helps a little at least.
Post by: redbox on 00:40, 11 June 14
Install the first ROM of the games in slots 1-15, and the other ROM of the games in slots 16-31.
That's what all of these ROM games need - one universal ROM (launched by something like |GAMEMENU) which lists available games in other slots.
Then *all* of the game ROMs can be background ROMs which don't take up any system resources and are ignored by normal OS scans.
Post by: SyX on 02:06, 11 June 14
I'm going to explain my idea and we can review it.
1.- Our system is going to have a game launcher rom, that will show a list with the games in our romboard and let us to launch the game we want to play.
The first version can simply print the names and ask for the rom number to run and maybe add support for the two more common compressors (appack and exomizer) and the typical code to copy/decrunch games to ram, for a nice save in space in the game roms (a nice benefit of adding those common things here is that when we have the FAT32 system, we could use directly those roms as the files for loading those games from HD/CF/... ).
2.- Now we need to put a header in this games rom, for our launcher can find them. For the first game rom, the format would be:
Code: [Select]
ORG $C000
rom_type
DEFB 'G' ; It's a Game rom and firmware doesn't initialize
; because is not a Foreground or Background rom
game_id
DEFW 12345 ; CPC-Power game ID
rom_number
DEFB 0 ; 0: First rom, 1: Second, ...
game_name
DEFB 'Game name',0
launch_game
; Routine that copy the game to ram and launch it
With respect to the game_name, we could limit the lenght to 16 chars maximum and padded the rest with 0s. And for the rest of roms of a game, everything is the same and only change the rom_number and those roms doesn't need the launch_game routine, neither the game_name.
Ideas, opinions, ...
Post by: CraigsBar on 02:32, 11 June 14
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Post by: CraigsBar on 02:33, 11 June 14
Post by: redbox on 09:06, 11 June 14
Then I'll release the header information and can easily convert the existing ROM games to work with it.
Post by: mr_lou on 09:38, 11 June 14
Post by: arnoldemu on 11:06, 11 June 14
Then is moment to "bell the cat", and try to agree in an standard for rom games.great idea.
I have one more suggestion to really improve the use of standard roms:
Can we modify the firmware again? this time you can use up to 32 ROMs *with commands*. This means they can be in any slot.
This gives us more flexibility for using normal roms too.
Before it would store data like this:
rom 1, rom 2, rom 3 etc.
how about:
rom 1,rom 7,rom 20 etc, rom 50.
if it found more than 32 it would stop (so it would not break ;) ).
now we can organise our roms as we need without firmware breaking as long as we don't have more than 32 with commands.
Now are free to mix our normal roms and game roms in any slots we want.
Special game boot rom discovers the special game roms in any slot, firmware finds the standard roms in any slot.
Post by: ralferoo on 14:40, 11 June 14
Let's NOT use 'G' here, the firmware already defines type 2 here for an extension rom. It'd be far better to just have some magic number after the correct byte here.Code: [Select]ORG $C000
rom_type
DEFB 'G' ; It's a Game rom and firmware doesn't initialize
; because is not a Foreground or Background rom
game_id
DEFW 12345 ; CPC-Power game ID
...
Post by: gerald on 15:18, 11 June 14
Let's NOT use 'G' here, the firmware already defines type 2 here for an extension rom. It'd be far better to just have some magic number after the correct byte here.The firmware defines 3/4 type of ROMs ;)
0 : foreground (like basic) -> will be foreground program after init of background ROM
1 : background (like amsdos or any classic additional ROM) -> will be initialised for RSX
2 : extension (when SW does not fit in a single slot) -> ignored by init system
128 : this is the specific to the on board basic (bit 7 set as on board flag)
Ideally, the Game ROM should be type 2 (extension), while the game manager uses type 1.
On the Game ROM, we could re-use the 3 version bytes as marker for the manager.
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:28, 11 June 14
Post by: TotO on 16:16, 11 June 14
That is a good way to be system friendly.
The version bytes can be any value, pity Utopia and other tools may expect numbers.Because it's a byte... But, better to expect a version number for... a version number, no?
Post by: SyX on 16:35, 11 June 14
My idea of using a new rom type was only for saving one byte in the first game rom, but sure we should respect the firmware better and mark them as extension. And maybe we should respect too the version bytes for put logical values there, because we can have a 64/128 KBs versions of a game or if somebody discover a bug in a game and make an improved version, then people could have problems in knowing with roms are from the version fixed and which are from the old bugged, ...
@redbox (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=229) is important your feedback, because you are working in a game launcher already. Are you missing anything?
And @arnoldemu (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=122), i like your idea of searching for the first 32 foreground and background roms, it's more logical for the typical 2014 CPC user.
Post by: TotO on 17:37, 11 June 14
And doing something like that:
Code: [Select]
02 00 00 00 05 4D 59 47 41 4D 45 4E 41 4D C5 00 .....MYGAMENAM..So, managers will display all properly.Post by: redbox on 17:56, 11 June 14
@redbox (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=229) is important your feedback, because you are working in a game launcher already. Are you missing anything?
Well I've been working on it today and made some progress.
This is the header I was using for the extension (game etc) ROMs:
Code: [Select]
;; redbox ROM
org &c000
write "CHUCKEGG.ROM"
defb 2 ; extension ROM
DtROMIdentifier:
defb "rbr"
DtROMPart:
defb 1 ; ROM part...
DtROMTotal:
defb 1 ; ...of total
DtROMName: ; description (always 12 chars)
defb "Chuckie Egg ",0
DtCompressor: ; type of compression
defb 1 ; 0 = none, 1 = exomizer, etc.
DtDestination:
defw &8000
DtLength:
defw &233e
DtExecute:
defw &9a97
DtROMData:
incbin "CHUCK.EXO" ; ROM data
.EndOfROMCode
nolist
repeat 65536-EndOfROMCode
defb &ff ; pad out unused space within ROM
rend
list
The launcher ROM is then run by using |RBR. This copies a routine to &BE00 which walks all ROMs from 31 to 0 and searches for the "rbr" string.
If a ROM is found, it prints the ROM number, part number, total number and description to the screen like this:
(http://s11.postimg.org/6uzps181v/rbr.png)
Then, if you type |RBR,number it will execute that ROM.
Still haven't done the code for multipart ROMs (more than 1 ROM) and am wondering if &BE00 is a safe place to hold my routine (which is less than &200 bytes)...?
Post by: SyX on 18:44, 11 June 14
Still haven't done the code for multipart ROMs (more than 1 ROM) and am wondering if &BE00 is a safe place to hold my routine (which is less than &200 bytes)...?Well, in the moment you received a valid game rom number to launch, you are free to use the RAM as you like, because games are going to do that too.
A very different case would be if you were loading & run those roms from floppy, RAM Disk or one of the future FAT32 for CF and similars, because those devices uses RAM between $BE40 - $BE7F (FAT32 is going to use even a few more extra bytes here, before the stack).
Post by: redbox on 20:11, 11 June 14
Well, in the moment you received a valid game rom number to launch, you are free to use the RAM as you like, because games are going to do that too.
But there in lies the problem, finding a piece of RAM that every game etc doesn't use...
Post by: SyX on 20:34, 11 June 14
But there in lies the problem, finding a piece of RAM that every game etc doesn't use...For the 99% of CPC games, putting your code around the stack ($BE00-$BFFF) should be enough.
But if you prefer we can do the logical thing and define an extra parameter in the rom, a pointer to a free zone (the pointer to the stack used by the game) with enough bytes for your game launcher routine. And then your code only would need to use JRs or add a routine for relocate your code in the final destination.
Post by: Axelay on 12:37, 12 June 14
For the 99% of CPC games, putting your code around the stack ($BE00-$BFFF) should be enough.
Hmm, are you sure that's good enough? Only I expect at one time 99% of CPCs had their DOS at ROM 7 too. ;)
But if you prefer we can do the logical thing and define an extra parameter in the rom, a pointer to a free zone (the pointer to the stack used by the game) with enough bytes for your game launcher routine. And then your code only would need to use JRs or add a routine for relocate your code in the final destination.
I think something like that would be a must. Maybe the boot ROM could pass the positions of the additional ROMs to the game ROMs loader as well.
Post by: Tai on 15:03, 12 June 14
- Search for loader game ROMs in all slots
- Show a screen or list found games
- Wait for user to select a game or accept command to select a game
- Create a memory structure with info of the selected game (see below). The main ROM of the selected game will use this structure to know in which slots are the rest of the game data.
- Pass control to main ROM of selected game.
Code: [Select]
; ROM 0 --> main game ROM
; ROM 1 --> first adtional ROM
; ROM 2 --> second adtional ROM
; ROM n --> nth aditional ROM
org &8000 ;address of data structure
defb n ;number of aditional ROMs
defb slot_ROM1 ;ROM slot for ROM1
defb slot_ROM2 ;ROM slot for ROM2
...
defb slot_ROMn ;ROM slot for ROMn
Each game has its own loading process (different addresses, different compressors, etc.)
With this aproach for any new game ROM there is no need to modify the ROMLoader (much easier to maintain and it leaves the task of copying/reallocate/decrunching data to the game ROM creator).
Post by: gdiazlo on 15:05, 12 June 14
regards,
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:27, 12 June 14
I think you can do it all from ROM with the firmware.
It has functions to read a byte from a rom and give it back to you.
Yes it would be a little bit slower but doesn't need ram and therefore would allow more roms to be installed.
Also I think you should scan all 255 roms, this will allow 2mb/4mb rom expansions to be used.
I like your idea but at this time I can't see how you can do multiple part roms.
To do a multiple part rom that can be in any position, you need to have
1) Which rom part is it.
2) which roms qualify for the other parts.
The number of other roms is good for verifying you have installed all of them.
2) is determined from the rom name. Each rom has the same rom name, with different part number.
So if you can determine which roms hold which data then you can pass this to the init function of your first game rom.
e.g. iy points like this:
01 08 09
and then your rom can handle this information to read/write the data as it needs or to install itself.
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:29, 12 June 14
Each game has its own loading process (differente addresses, different compressors, etc.)I agree.
With this aproach for any new ROM game there is no need to modify the ROMLoader (much easier to maintain and it leaves the task of copying/reallocate/decrunching data to the ROM Game creator).
Post by: Tai on 16:07, 12 June 14
Why do you need a routine in RAM?
I think you can do it all from ROM with the firmware.
It has functions to read a byte from a rom and give it back to you.
Yes it would be a little bit slower but doesn't need ram and therefore would allow more roms to be installed.
Also I think you should scan all 255 roms, this will allow 2mb/4mb rom expansions to be used.
I like your idea but at this time I can't see how you can do multiple part roms.
To do a multiple part rom that can be in any position, you need to have
1) Which rom part is it.
2) which roms qualify for the other parts.
The number of other roms is good for verifying you have installed all of them.
2) is determined from the rom name. Each rom has the same rom name, with different part number.
So if you can determine which roms hold which data then you can pass this to the init function of your first game rom.
e.g. iy points like this:
01 08 09
and then your rom can handle this information to read/write the data as it needs or to install itself.
The structure in RAM is generated by the ROM Loader with info of the ROM slots used by the selected game.
The main ROM of the selected game can use this structure to know in which slots are the rest of the game data instead of searching for it (already done by ROMLoader).
Post by: SyX on 20:25, 12 June 14
Hmm, are you sure that's good enough? Only I expect at one time 99% of CPCs had their DOS at ROM 7 too. ;)Yes, and that was the reason for sending you that fix for running Edge Grinder in my machine, jejeje ;)
Post by: redbox on 21:58, 12 June 14
And the 'over engineering' is because then we only need 1 copy of each decompressor, runtime routine etc. and the extension ROMs can almost be pure data.
But I can see the benefit of doing it the other way - I was just attempting to try and get something running that I'd half developed over 2 years ago...!
Post by: Tai on 00:11, 13 June 14
In addition, the game ROM header could use 1 byte as compressor ID (e.g., &00 - appack, &01 - exomizer, &02 - bitbuster, etc).
Post by: redbox on 00:19, 13 June 14
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 13:17, 17 June 14
Would it be possible to convert Freddy Hardest 2nd side?I am still working on a simple method of converting both parts of FREDDY HARDEST to 3 ROMs... the other option is having each part on 2 ROMs, but I thought that was a little wasteful of ROM slots!
However, in the meantime, here's |MAGMAX on 2 ROMs with a recoloured C64 title screen.
EDIT: Also, here's THING ON A |SPRING in 2 ROMs... with a special little surprise for true fans of the game! ^_^
EDIT: Did you ever play the irritatingly hard |PINGPONG? Well, now you can on 1 ROM! (This is getting fun, again!)
EDIT: Xyphoe recently posted his "Must Own/Play Top 10" video and one of them was |WEREWOLVES OF LONDON; a game I had never played until the CPC+ mock-up screens were posted a year or so back. Anyway, here it is on 2 ROMs, so everyone can enjoy it without messing around with those messy discs or tapes. Messy!
EDIT: Finally, for this post, here's Amstrad Cent Pour Cent's |MOLECULARR on 1 ROM and |MOLECULARR2 on 2 ROMs. Some French textstuff on the second game, but even with my low-level understanding of French, I can work out what's going on... so you guys should have no trouble!
Post by: Nilquader on 14:19, 20 June 14
I've programmed a game launcher ROM, this one lets you start your games menu-based. Great for the kids (or even the parents). Despite the name, that piece of software does not only work on the Megaflash but on every ROM board with at lease 32 slots, for example the Symbiface II.
The programm launches the first RSX command in every ROM, so it works best with single-game roms. All ROMs that are below the menu ROM are not listed, so you can have your MAXAM, PROTEXT and ROMAN in slot 1-3, the menu in slot 4 and all your games in the slots above. Of course, ROM 7 won't be listed in any case. (That's probably not a game). You can start your games ion ROM 16-31, even without booster. These slots will be an ideal place for your games, because they won't be initialized so they don't need any RAM.
You can quit the menu by pressing ESC twice or the reset button. Download your MegaFlash Quickstart ROM there:
ftp://ftp.cpcszene.de/pub/Computer/Amstrad_CPC/ROM/MegaFlash%20Quickstart (ftp://ftp.cpcszene.de/pub/Computer/Amstrad_CPC/ROM/MegaFlash%20Quickstart)
Almost all game ROMs are copmpatible. I've tested a few, some from the Wiki and some that I've converted myself. I have a list of working games here:
ftp://ftp.cpcszene.de/pub/Computer/Amstrad_CPC/ROM/Games/MFQS%20compatible (ftp://ftp.cpcszene.de/pub/Computer/Amstrad_CPC/ROM/Games/MFQS%20compatible)
Have fun!
Nilquader
Post by: Gryzor on 16:37, 20 June 14
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 10:50, 05 July 14
Firstly, here's |ANGLEBALL by Mastertronic on 1 ROM.
Then, PROJECT FUTURE on 2 ROMs, use |PFUTURE to load and play.
Next we have the insanely addictive |TRAFFIC on 1 ROM.
No game list can be complete without a |BINKY clone or two... this one on 1 ROM!
The nice looking (for 1985), but impossible to play |KRISTAL on 1 ROM.
Next is |BUBBLEGHOST on 2 ROMs; a nice game, but seriously hard.
Finally, the UK version of |ALIENS on 2 ROMs.
Post by: Gryzor on 10:58, 05 July 14
Btw, anyone keeping track of the ROM table on the wiki ( @Bryce (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=225) ??)? Is it complete up to this batch or should I go back and fill them in?
Post by: Bryce on 17:34, 05 July 14
Gesendet von meinem Motorola DynaTEC 8000X mit Tapatalk 2.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 18:38, 05 July 14
EDIT: Yes, none of the games that I have converted were done by me alone; mucho respects should ALWAYS go to those who showed me the way!
EDIT: I have a VERY large number of requests from people who do not want to to post on this thread, but would like ROM games from the CPC database... numbers that I cannot even cope with! I would like to convert EVERY single one, but this will take me AGES! Access to the ROM page on the Wiki will make that a lot easier... these people are not interested in this thread... just the ROM files involved!
Post by: Gryzor on 19:35, 05 July 14
@Jonah (Tasteful Mr) Ship (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=466) : not sure what you mean by "give me access"? If you have an account on the wiki you can edit it here (http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php?title=ROM_List&action=edit§ion=9). I can make an account for you if you fee bored :)
PS Damn, I want me a Dynatac 8000!
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:42, 05 July 14
@Jonah (Tasteful Mr) Ship (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=466) : not sure what you mean by "give me access"? If you have an account on the wiki you can edit it here (http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php?title=ROM_List&action=edit§ion=9). I can make an account for you if you fee bored :)I have tried to edit the ROM page and have had no joy, it has said that I need access to edit the page... Personally, I would perfer that the page had the BAR command rather than "converted to ROM by tastefulmrship". I am happy to do this for those I have converted, but I need the access rights to do so!
EDIT: @Gryzor; Every time I have tried to update the page it has given me the "you do not have access to edit this page" screen... however, with the link you gave I can access the editor for this page! Maybe I will use this in future to update the ROM page! Thanks muchly! ^_^
Post by: Gryzor on 19:50, 05 July 14
The bar commands is a great suggestion; I'd say an extra column would be the best solution, there's still enough space so we don't have to choose :)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 20:11, 05 July 14
This doesn't make much sense! All I did was to click on "Edit" above the ROM table and copy the link from there, how exactly were you trying to edit it?Every time I have tried to edit the page it has told me that I do not have EDIT rights to update the page; you have given me the link to the EXACT right page I need to update the ROM page to my specs (ie the BAR command). Thanks for that!
Post by: Bryce on 20:30, 05 July 14
@Bryce (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=225) : "this page" depends on how many posts per page you have set it to show... never mind, I'll take it backwards :)
@Jonah (Tasteful Mr) Ship (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=466) : not sure what you mean by "give me access"? If you have an account on the wiki you can edit it here (http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php?title=ROM_List&action=edit§ion=9). I can make an account for you if you fee bored :)
PS Damn, I want me a Dynatac 8000!
Ok, I haven't uploaded any more ROMs since this post: Converting a game to ROM - and LOTS of ROM files inside! (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/how-to-convert-a-dsk-image-to-rom/msg80568/#msg80568)
Bryce.
Post by: Gryzor on 20:39, 05 July 14
As for the edit... still doesn't make sense, since the only thing I did, as I said, was to just copy the link that you were clicking already. Oh well...
Post by: Nilquader on 21:00, 05 July 14
@Gryzor; If you give me access to edit the page, then I'm MORE than happy to update the ROMs page myself with all the BAR commands required to run the games converted with Axelay, robcfg and Octoate's ROM build code!
Axelay and robcfg wrote rom build code? Is it published somewhere? I've only found Octoate's code.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 04:55, 06 July 14
Axelay and robcfg wrote rom build code? Is it published somewhere? I've only found Octoate's code.Axelay's 2 ROM build code (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/how-to-convert-a-dsk-image-to-rom/msg68382/#msg68382) that I use EVERY DAY! Also, there's code I use from arnoldemu, SyX, redbox and others too!
Truly, this is a community project! ^_^
EDIT: @Gryzor; Every time I have tried to update the page it has given me the "you do not have access to edit this page" screen... however, with the link you gave I can access the editor for this page! Maybe I will use this in future to update the ROM page! Thanks muchly! ^_^Actually, upon closer inspection, I still cannot edit the page... however, I do know why, now! I'M NOT LOGGED IN! Duh! Account created and verified! ^_^
Post by: Nilquader on 12:58, 06 July 14
Post by: mr_lou on 15:17, 06 July 14
Well, here is |ASTRO by Lutz Lubjuhn. I've played it a lot when I was a kid.
Groovy. But wasn't this converted already? Or was that another Astro?
Post by: Nilquader on 21:46, 06 July 14
Groovy. But wasn't this converted already? Or was that another Astro?I've only found "Astro Attack" (Astro Attack - CPCWiki (http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Astro_Attack)) converted as ROM, but this "Astro" is another game.
Post by: SyX on 00:37, 07 July 14
I always say that we need to give more light to the CPC german catalog, sometimes looks that only tools and hardware came from there and games like those from the "Magazin Players Dream (http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=staff&lenom=Magazin%20Players%20Dream)" probe the contrary :)
Post by: Nilquader on 01:13, 07 July 14
Post by: Nilquader on 13:12, 07 July 14
Edit: Found a little Bug in the display routine for the startup screen. Fixed.
Post by: Bryce on 13:41, 07 July 14
Bryce.
Post by: Gryzor on 18:40, 07 July 14
Post by: Nilquader on 17:15, 08 July 14
Edit: Small bug fixed. If ROM 3 wasn't found, the system crashed. Now it just returns to BASIC displaying a nice error message.
Post by: Nilquader on 16:36, 09 July 14
- |Match Point
- Daley Thompson's |DECATHLON
- Bomb Jack (I don't like the 3-rom version that much. I wanted to have something MF Quickstart-compatible. Just playing the first part anyway)
Post by: Nilquader on 19:06, 11 July 14
- Advanced Pinball Simulator (2 ROMs)
- Locomotion
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:34, 12 July 14
Here's my new batch of ROM files... hot and fresh from the great WinAPE oven (or something).
ANYWAY, we'll start with an olde favourite of mine, THE DEVIL'S CROWN. |TDC will start this 2 ROM game up for you!
EDIT: Another little gem, Loriciel's |3DFIGHT on 1 ROM. Not as good as DUCK DODGERS from ACU, but a worthy attempt! ^_^
(only kidding!)
EDIT: CNGSoft's single file rip of |TOPCAT is next on 2 ROMs. A simple matter of split and LDIR! I love those!
EDIT: |CONTRAPTION is the next game on 2 ROMs. No title screen for this ANYWHERE. Such a shame as the Exomizer compressed file is 17k. Kinda wastes a ROM slot... but nevermind, it's a pretty neat game!
EDIT: Hell knows why I missed this one; I always loved |BOBBY BEARING back in the day... anyway, here it is on 2 ROMs.
EDIT: Finally for now, THE GALACTIC |PLAGUE on 1 ROM. Yes, the mighty one has finally made it onto the ROM board! ALL REJOICE!
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 16:39, 13 July 14
Castle Master - |CM
Castle Master 2 The Crypt - |CM2TC
Total Eclipse - |TE
Total Eclipse Trainer - |TET
Total Eclipse 2 The Sphinx Jinx - |TE2TSJ
The 3D Kit Game - |T3DKG
EDIT: Still got a few attachment slots left... so let's stick |EXPLODINGWALL onto 2 ROMs. A very pretty game... a bit slow and clunky to play... but a VERY pretty game!
EDIT: Filling up the last 2 attachment slots is PSYCHO |HOPPER from Lothlorien back in 1989. Very pretty game, hardware scrolling and a SERIOUSLY frustrating gameplay! LOVE IT! ^_^
Post by: robcfg on 00:00, 14 July 14
Post by: Gryzor on 00:05, 14 July 14
BB4CPC - awesomeness!!!
Is Match Day II possible?
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 00:35, 14 July 14
Is Match Day II possible?Yes. Very.
|MATCHDAY2 to play this one.
Post by: Gryzor on 00:36, 14 July 14
Post by: CraigsBar on 00:40, 14 July 14
Yes. Very.
|MATCHDAY2 to play this one.
Off topic time.. It's suddenly got very busy here, I assume the wrong World Cup is over. Who won? Will it be the Germans or Argentinians gloating in the office tomorrow. I personally cannot wait until the *REAL* world cup next year, and on that note (and Back on Topic) is International Rugby Simulator for Amstrad CPC (1988) - MobyGames (http://www.mobygames.com/game/international-rugby-simulator) possible?
Craig
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 01:10, 14 July 14
Off topic time.. It's suddenly got very busy here, I assume the wrong World Cup is over. Who won? Will it be the Germans or Argentinians gloating in the office tomorrow. I personally cannot wait until the *REAL* world cup next year, and on that note (and Back on Topic) is International Rugby Simulator for Amstrad CPC (1988) - MobyGames (http://www.mobygames.com/game/international-rugby-simulator) possible?Yes. Very.
INTERNATIONAL |RUGBY SIMULATOR by those chaps from Codemasters! ^_^
Next?
Post by: CraigsBar on 01:21, 14 July 14
Yes. Very.
INTERNATIONAL |RUGBY SIMULATOR by those chaps from Codemasters! ^_^
Next?
Awesome, thanks!
Post by: Gryzor on 09:40, 14 July 14
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 10:33, 14 July 14
How about Basket Master since the Basketball World Championship is next month? :)No problem... and with the nice animation on the title-screen, there's no need for a KM_WAIT_KEY.
Use |FMBM to run the game.
Post by: Gryzor on 12:17, 14 July 14
(not sure what you meant with the KM_WAIT_KEY?)
Post by: Nilquader on 19:45, 14 July 14
Wow guys... someone, please make a 128-slot ROMboard...
Doesen't the CTC-AY/PlayCity support up to 2M Flash? Would be 128 Slots...
Or connect 2 (or more) ROM Boxes to the CPC bus to have at least 64 Slots. Reprogramming the CPLD in the X-MEM to provide ROM 32-63 is probably not that hard. Maybe TotO helps us doing that. Other option: Minor changes to the MegaFlash (or compatible) hardware.
Post by: SyX on 20:22, 14 July 14
EDIT: Filling up the last 2 attachment slots is PSYCHO |HOPPER from Lothlorien back in 1989. Very pretty game, hardware scrolling and a SERIOUSLY frustrating gameplay! LOVE IT! ^_^And thanks for remembering me that game, i have been able to send a lot of credits fixes to CPC-Power about McLothlorien and the later Martin "Amazing Mode 0 Graphics" Holland :)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 23:15, 14 July 14
And thanks for remembering me that game, i have been able to send a lot of credits fixes to CPC-Power about McLothlorien and the later Martin "Amazing Mode 0 Graphics" Holland :)Both PSYCHO HOPPER and EXPLODING WALL are MC Lothlorien games. Really, really nice graphics for the time (and now, infact) and some nice hardware tricks as well! I've seen quite a few in CPC Power, but I'll keep a keener eye out from now!
Post by: SyX on 02:47, 15 July 14
Both PSYCHO HOPPER and EXPLODING WALL are MC Lothlorien games. Really, really nice graphics for the time (and now, infact) and some nice hardware tricks as well! I've seen quite a few in CPC Power, but I'll keep a keener eye out from now!And in the next update in CPC-Power you will see a lot more, because i have sent to Bruno over a hundred of fixes for the credits of a lot of games :P
For example, nobody had seen that Short Circuit was not credit to John "Gryzor" Brandwood or all the games of Canvas, Twilight, ... and i could take weeks fixing these things.
And in there is a lot more interesting things to do. For example, the bug in the level 7 of Edd The Duck (http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=318), where only appears 19 of the 20 stars that you need to complete it. This bug happens in the ZX version (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001572), but the speccy people has fixed it. And the fix (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/knownerrors.cgi?id=0001572) should be not difficult to "port" to CPC and i imagine the corrupted tiles happen too and can be fixed in the same way. Even maybe the level editor (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0010492) for this game could be used for making one for CPC... if anybody has time, feel free of taking a look.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 10:17, 15 July 14
(not sure what you meant with the KM_WAIT_KEY?)KM_WAIT_KEY is better known as CALL &BB18 and can be used as a way of displaying a game's loading screen for as long as the user wishes to view it; ie they press any key to continue. As BASKET MASTER has a doody little animation on the title screen (try RUNning the game file on the original to see where the animations "hang" on a blank screen) there's no need to have that key press requirement in the single file build.
And in there is a lot more interesting things to do. For example, the bug in the level 7 of Edd The Duck (http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=318), where only appears 19 of the 20 stars that you need to complete it. This bug happens in the ZX version (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001572), but the speccy people has fixed it. And the fix (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/knownerrors.cgi?id=0001572) should be not difficult to "port" to CPC and i imagine the corrupted tiles happen too and can be fixed in the same way. Even maybe the level editor (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0010492) for this game could be used for making one for CPC... if anybody has time, feel free of taking a look.Nich has done a quick fix for that; his single file +3 trainer (on CPC Power) has 19 stars for level 7 instead of 20.
Infact, I thought I'd ROM it while I was here! ^_^ (Simple split & LDIR again!)
Post by: CraigsBar on 01:50, 16 July 14
Chuckie egg, international rugby, spindizzy, deflektor, thrust and Harvey headbanger.
Awesome is all I can say. Thanks all.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 10:47, 19 July 14
A game I still have no idea why I hadn't ROM'd before now. A game I loved back in the day and one that showed me that a CPC title can emulate an arcade game with an attract mode, 2 player alternate play and little interludes between levels. The addictively insane SUPER PIPELINE 2. use |SP2 to get fed up with that bloody ingame tune! ^_^
EDIT: |NIBBLER follows; this is a BASIC & M/C snake clone that's actually pretty neat!
EDIT: Next up we have the lengthy titled |WEETABIX VERSUS THE TITCHIES. An advergame from 1984! Even then they were trying to get us to buy other stuff, too! Madness!
EDIT: Oh, I forgot to say; I added a little title-screen to this one and it's taken from the BBC version of the game. However, the whole thing still fits onto 1 ROM (with plenty of spare space), so it's not as if I was wasting ROM space or anything.
EDIT: The great |SABREWULF on 2 ROMs. I still remember the path you need to take to get to the centre of the map... how sad is that?
EDIT: Cascade (yes, those chaps & chapesses who gave us the mighty CASSETTE 50) presents |ACTIVATOR; a decent graphic adventure shoot 'em up.
EDIT: Mastertronic's |RASTERSCAN next; not one of my favourites, but an easy rip! ^_^
EDIT: Finally, Durell's |SPACEHAWKS. An 8k game on a 16k ROM! Wasteful!
Post by: mr_lou on 11:10, 19 July 14
Was anyone working on a menu-system for these game roms?
Post by: pelrun on 12:42, 19 July 14
The addictively insane SUPER PIPELINE 2. use |SP2 to get fed up with that bloody ingame tune! ^_^
It's been twenty years since I last played it and just mentioning that game gets the damn song stuck in my head. AAaaauuugghhh
Post by: Nilquader on 15:40, 19 July 14
Was anyone working on a menu-system for these game roms?
Have you seen my post about the Megaflash QuickStart some posts earlier in this thread? Converting a game to ROM - and LOTS of ROM files inside! (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/how-to-convert-a-dsk-image-to-rom/msg81909/#msg81909)
Post by: mr_lou on 15:47, 19 July 14
Have you seen my post about the Megaflash QuickStart some posts earlier in this thread? Converting a game to ROM - and LOTS of ROM files inside! (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/how-to-convert-a-dsk-image-to-rom/msg81909/#msg81909)
Apparently I missed that post.
Awesome! Thanks a lot! :)
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 12:44, 30 July 14
Let's start with |DEATHSCAPE by Starlight on 2 ROMs; a decent 3D shoot-em-up game from 1987. A nice enough loading screen, too.
EDIT: Second one up is |LAZERTAG from Probe Software on 2 ROMs. Another shoot-em-up, but in the same vein as COMMANDO or SMASH TV. It has a pretty nice two player option, though!
EDIT: Next is the isometric |BATMAN game from Jon Ritman & Bernie Drummond (the guys who did HEAD OVER HEELS if you didn't know) on 2 ROMs. No loading screen for this one, as the Amstrad converted Speccy screen just looks terrible! Still, it's a great game, so deserves to be ROM'd.
EDIT : Mastertronic's |HYPERBOWL on 2 ROMs is up next. An annoying two-player game where it becomes impossible to know where your ship is after 2 or 3 seconds of play! The one player game is simply impossible to beat! I did love the game back in the day, though!
EDIT: Finally, for this batch, is the other Neil Latarche classic, |AIRWOLF2 on 2 ROMs, with another huge opus from Mark Cooksey and a very impressive MODE 0 loading screen. The game itself is a MODE 1 side scrolling shoot-em-up... which is fine until you get to the volcanoes and you'll find your lives disappearing faster than chocolate donuts at a Weight Watchers convention! ^_^
Post by: Nilquader on 16:28, 01 August 14
Post by: XyphoesRe on 02:26, 02 August 14
Post by: nitrofurano on 20:48, 18 August 14
Post by: arnoldemu on 10:47, 19 August 14
btw, is there any chance on running any of these roms on GX4000? ;)Yes these could be used but of course like most CPC games they need patching to run on joystick/joypad.
Many CPC games supported both keyboard and joystick but the menu was controlled by keyboard. Compare this to the c64 where a lot just worked from joystick. So although they could be put onto cartridge fairly easily they still need patching to use joystick.
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:42, 19 August 14
and two more. it didn't take long.
Post by: arnoldemu on 15:51, 19 August 14
binaries attached (for burning onto flash etc)
Post by: CraigsBar on 16:07, 19 August 14
Post by: gerald on 16:34, 19 August 14
Attached is one proof of concept. This uses unpatched roms.Works perfectly on a 6128plus, but loops on copyright message on a GX4000
and two more. it didn't take long.
I've seen you are putting the game ROM on slot 7 (upper 16k of the 64kcartridge), with a minimal ROM0 (basic). Do the rom 7 maps to the upper 16k of the cartrigde when in diskless configuration ?
I have no 464plus to test :(
Post by: arnoldemu on 20:12, 19 August 14
Works perfectly on a 6128plus, but loops on copyright message on a GX4000I keep forgetting the gx4000 effectively has no disc rom. I'm betting it shows the basic page instead.
I've seen you are putting the game ROM on slot 7 (upper 16k of the 64kcartridge), with a minimal ROM0 (basic). Do the rom 7 maps to the upper 16k of the cartrigde when in diskless configuration ?
I have no 464plus to test :(
So it will need a patched firmware that scans 129-(128+15) instead of 0-15. (128 is the OS rom so needs to be skipped)
Post by: arnoldemu on 19:53, 20 August 14
Post by: gerald on 21:41, 20 August 14
New version to try. I patched the OS.Are you sure you uploaded the updated file ? The .bin is identical to the previous version (and cpr still loops on gx4000 :D )
Post by: Gryzor on 19:50, 25 August 14
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 22:59, 25 August 14
Haven't been here in ages because I'm afraid of how many new games will have been released. I was right. Not enough games...Ok, ok. So I've been busy at work instead of ROMing games. Well, here's a new one for you all. ^_^
DRUID 2 (ENLIGHTENMENT) x 3
1. RUN"DRUID2.BAS" to load a standard rip of the game.
2. RUN"DRUID2.GAM" to load the BITBuster single-file of the game.
3. Extract the DRD2ROM1.ROM, DRD2ROM2.ROM & DRD2ROM3.ROM files from the .dsk and insert them into your CPC via whichever means you deem appropriate. Then run the game with |DRUID2.
All three versions use my newly retouched/recoloured title screen from the C64 version (ie, it's the same as the CPC version but with the "Firebird" logo at the bottom left.
EDIT: Just for shits and giggles, here's a .cdt file of the single-file game. Incidentally, I've now worked out where I was going wrong with 2cdt-GUI; no need for AMSDOS headers! Ha! Easy when you know how, huh? ^_^ |TAPE:RUN" will make it happen for this one!
EDIT: I thought I'd found an easy rip; Z looked the part! However, it wasn't! But, I prevailed and here it is. |Z to run this little fella! Considering the game was released in 1986, this game has some really impressive 8-way scrolling! VERY fast and smooth. Lovely stuff!
EDIT: Keeping with the zee theme, |ZUB is next up on 2 ROMs. Another weird Mastertronic MODE 1 game with music from the master, David Whittaker.
EDIT: 3D |STUNTRIDER breaks up any kind of pattern in this batch. DJL's intriguingly infuriating game of precise speed fits onto 2 ROMs.
EDIT: Ok, so another update. |SPYVSSPY2 (THE ISLAND CAPER) fits itself snuggly onto 2 ROMs. Comes complete with a slightly retouched/recoloured C64 loading screen. Usual press any key to continue nonsense... you all know the routine by now! ^_^
EDIT: Finally, to complete the collection, here's |SPYVSSPY3 (ARCTIC ANTICS) on 2 ROMs (zipped because I ran out of attachment slots! ^_^). As before, this one contains a C64 loading screen. However, it doesn't work if you have the SPY VS SPY 2 ROMs installed... it's an issue with memory allocation or something. (Or maybe I'm lying and it works fine, I can't remember!)
Post by: arnoldemu on 23:09, 25 August 14
Are you sure you uploaded the updated file ? The .bin is identical to the previous version (and cpr still loops on gx4000 :D )No I'm not sure.
I will be having another go at this soon. Gerald, it would be great if you would test the new file when it's ready.
Post by: gerald on 23:36, 25 August 14
No I'm not sure.No problem, post it, I will test it :)
I will be having another go at this soon. Gerald, it would be great if you would test the new file when it's ready.
Post by: Nilquader on 17:18, 04 September 14
- The Game in ROM No. 31 is now shown
- Somtimes after pressing reset, only some roms were listed. This issue is now solved.
- No need to press reset twice after playing a game. If you want to leave the menu, press ESC twice.
- BASIC games converted to ROM are now working.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 11:28, 05 September 14
Type |JSW2 to start the game.
Main Features & Cheats:
- Inbuilt teleport mode.
- Recoloured C64 loading screen.
- Start on any room in the 134 room map.
- Collect any number of items to complete the game.
- 1-255 lives.
- Infinite lives and exit on death (so you're not stuck in an infinite death loop.)
- Fall any height without dying.
- Immunity to death objects.
- Walk on death objects and water (so you don't fall through them!)
- Immunity to all the monsters.
- Turn the monsters off entirely (ie remove them entirely.)
- The Trip Switch is always ON (so you can visit the "Deserted Island" without having to travel around the map twice.)
- Play the "final room" once the main game is completed.
Patches & Fixes:
- CPC-6128 patch.
- CNGSoft's "Cartography Room" fix.
Images:
(http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g385/tastefulmrship/JSW01.jpg)
(http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g385/tastefulmrship/JSW02.jpg)
(http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g385/tastefulmrship/JSW04_zpsab5fc1de.png)
(http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g385/tastefulmrship/JSW03.jpg)
Post by: Nilquader on 16:11, 07 September 14
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 20:41, 07 September 14
Firstly, FANTASIA DIAMOND on 2 ROMs complete with a recoloured Speccy loading screen. |FD loads up this infuriatingly annoying text adventure game!
Secondly and thirdly, to finish the MAGIC KNIGHT series, we have KNIGHT TYME and STORMBRINGER... both, again, fit on 2 ROMs and have a retouched Speccy loading screen. |KTYME and |SBRINGER load up these graphical masterpieces.
As a slight departure from adventuring, we have |1942 on 2 ROMs.
And, to finish off, there's the smooth as silk scrolling wonderment of MISSION GENOCIDE on 2 ROMs with a recoloured loading screen. |ZTB runs the vertical scroll heaven!
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 00:36, 10 September 14
Anyway, here is a little batch of 3D games; from masterpieces to monsters to turkeys! All of them classics on CPC!
First up, 3D STARSTRIKE and 3D STARSTRIIKE 2 by Realtime Software. |3DSS loads up a pretty decent STAR WARS clone and |3DSS2 loads up an amazingly fast filled 3D masterpiece!
Next up, the amazing |STARION... a very fast wire-frame monster of a game!
And, here's the one game I just couldn't rip! There's a strange error in WinAPE where it just fails to load any TAPE game that uses BleepLoad protection. CPCE, JavaCPC and Caprice all load BleepLoad fine, but WinAPE just doesn't work! So, I've had to rebuild the .dsk rip from CPC-Power and now it's finally completed! |STARGLIDER on 3 ROMs... for my friend! ^_^
Finally; the biggest, bestest and most impressive 3D game on CPC! The behemoth that is |STARCOMMANDO. You are all welcome!
Post by: Nilquader on 16:12, 09 October 14
Post by: Bryce on 22:42, 09 October 14
Bryce.
Post by: Nilquader on 11:21, 10 October 14
Can you give Steve Davis Snooker a go? It's completely written in BASIC too as far as I can remember.
I'll try that in the afternoon...
Edit: Done! This one was a litte bit more complicated than usual, because it's mixed BASIC/machine language. Start with |SNOOKER
Post by: Nilquader on 19:47, 23 October 14
Code: [Select]
; display screen
ld hl, screen
ld de, $4000
call deexo ; decompress title screen
ld b, 66
ld hl, inks
call printn ; set inks
ld hl, $4000
ld de, $c000
ld bc, $4000
ldir ; display title screen
I now work on a game that uses almost the complete memory while loading a screen. So I cannot use the memory area at &4000. Any ideas? Are there other crunchers which don't need to read the uncompressed binary?
Post by: arnoldemu on 19:52, 23 October 14
One of the KL RAM functions will do it I think.
Post by: Nilquader on 20:24, 23 October 14
You may be able to use a modified exomizer which uses one of the lower kernel functions to read the ram under the rom and restore the rom again.Oh, that would be extremely slow... If i can't find a better solution, I would write s simple RLE-based compression algorithm which doesen't need to read from RAM. Thst shold work at least for simple images...
One of the KL RAM functions will do it I think.
Post by: TFM on 22:00, 23 October 14
Oh, that would be extremely slow... If i can't find a better solution, I would write s simple RLE-based compression algorithm which doesen't need to read from RAM. Thst shold work at least for simple images...
RLE :o Then better take MadRAMs CPC Turbo Cruncher, best results with a CPC ever. Compare here:
http ://cpc-live.com/forum/index.php/topic,171.msg867.html#msg867
(Please Copy & Paste the link, this forum doesn't like comma).
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 15:45, 31 October 14
All of them GARGOYLE GAMES games. I wanted to do them all, but I've simply run out of motivation.
|SWEEVO'S WORLD, |DUNDARACH and the existing trained one-file of HEAVY ON THE |MAGICK.
Post by: CraigsBar on 15:52, 31 October 14
I have a few ROM games lurking in my ROM directory of WinAPE... I can't be arsed doing any more, so here are my final ROM games.many many thanks for all your work on these. That provide an amazing gift to all x-mem / symbiface / romboard owners. Sweevos world is a great one to go out on. The is again.
All of them GARGOYLE GAMES games. I wanted to do them all, but I've simply run out of motivation.
|SWEEVO'S WORLD, |DUNDARACH and the existing trained one-file of HEAVY ON THE |MAGICK.
Craig
Post by: CraigsBar on 15:53, 31 October 14
many many thanks for all your work on these. They provide an amazing gift to all x-mem / symbiface / romboard owners. Sweevos world is a great one to go out on. Thanks again.
Craig
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 21:20, 10 December 14
many many thanks for all your work on these.No problems. I was bored and converting games is easy... just like converting TERRA |COGNITA for example, on one ROM, with a new loading screen (ie not MODE 2) just for the sheer fun of it.
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 13:56, 12 December 14
It is, of course, the mighty |COMMANDO on 2 ROMs with STE's C64 rework title-screen.
Post by: CraigsBar on 14:48, 12 December 14
Post by: Nilquader on 22:11, 01 February 15
Arkanoid 3 (Start with |ARKANOID3 or use the great "MegaFlash QuickStart")
Green Beret (Start with |BERET)
Bumpy (Start with |BUMPY)
Post by: Gryzor on 12:48, 21 June 15
Post by: CraigsBar on 13:58, 21 June 15
Boy how time flies. I guess people have moved over to cartridge conversions!Still room for both in my book.
Post by: McKlain on 16:54, 21 June 15
Post by: CraigsBar on 17:19, 21 June 15
I wanna know how to convert roms to cartridges [emoji23]@arnoldemu is already on it. [emoji3]
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 18:50, 21 June 15
I wanna know how to convert roms to cartridges :laugh:I still have ALL of my single-files in .asm format (which are the basis for all my ROM conversions) if you want to experiment. However, CPCnorm games on a CPC+ console without upgrading the games, first? Why? I see no point. If someone was to (at least) change the palettes to CPC+ then maybe it's viable, otherwise, it's not for me.
I own a 6128 and that plays all the games/demos I (personally) need. The CPC+ range always was an after-thought! I mean, what happened to Similanceata as a CPC+ demo-group? I would buy a CPC+ or GX4K if they were still going! AND, the CPC demoscene would not be so stagnant (other than the Spanish demo, of course).
Post by: McKlain on 19:24, 21 June 15
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 19:31, 21 June 15
I have a 6128 plus and there is a lot of interesting non-game roms that could be used with the C4CPC.Fair point.
I don't usually care for non-game (or non-demo) things on CPC. I've got a PC for those.
Post by: CraigsBar on 21:41, 21 June 15
Fair point.I woudl use Brunword Elite to this day if I could find a way of printing from it to a modern printer. I refuse to buy a BW epson compatible printer for just 1 machine.
I don't usually care for non-game (or non-demo) things on CPC. I've got a PC for those.
However brunword Elite had some Beautiful fonts (Chelmer and Clacton particularly) but also some features that no other WP program had.
As I cannot touch type I regularly do not look at the screen when typing, and the Caps Lock key may inadvertently created some vERY sILLY lOOKING pHRASES if you see what I mean.
Well in Brunword you could cursor to the first letter (In this case v) and press a CTRL Key combo (I cannot remember exactly) and it would toggle the case Upper to lower then move to the next character... So much quicker than retyping. I used this a lot!
For quick notes, Address labels, CV's or even letters for Job applications etc, Brunword is to this day more than capable. I just cannot print anything LOL.
Craig
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 10:55, 22 June 15
|GNG to load, then press any key at the title screen as normal to play.
Post by: TFM on 22:20, 22 June 15
Post by: Gryzor on 16:22, 23 June 15
Post by: CraigsBar on 16:45, 23 June 15
Heheh, "no more gaming for you, go do your homework you lazy bum!" :DSurely that should drop out and into CPM (dr logo or supercalc) or protext. A basic prompt to me says "load another game, you were not great at that one"
Post by: Gryzor on 16:48, 23 June 15
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 12:01, 24 June 15
Obvious troll is a troll!
EDIT: It works fine on WinAPE, JavaCPC, WinCPC, Caprice Reloaded and my own CPC-6128. Maybe having "other software" installed causes issues with Axelay's ROM build configuration. Maybe someone needs to look into that incase someone else decides to use that ROM build.
Post by: TFM on 21:21, 24 June 15
Surely that should drop out and into CPM (dr logo or supercalc) or protext. A basic prompt to me says "load another game, you were not great at that one"
Actually a jump to Protext is doable and it would be really funny! :)
Post by: TFM on 18:31, 16 July 15
And people wondered why this thread had died...Yeah, even changing a pseudo wont change that! ;D
Obvious troll is a troll!
EDIT: It works fine on WinAPE, JavaCPC, WinCPC, Caprice Reloaded and my own CPC-6128. Maybe having "other software" installed causes issues with Axelay's ROM build configuration. Maybe someone needs to look into that incase someone else decides to use that ROM build.Indeed, other ROMs bring the problems, for example Maxam, Protext, Utopia, other DOS (on position ROM 6). So pretty much any ROM. It runs fine and without problems with FutureOS though. :P
Post by: merlinkv on 14:42, 04 March 16
I can ask for .....
- Abu Simbel Profanation
- Alien 8
I don't know if will be possible but thanks anyway .... :)
Post by: TFM on 19:13, 04 March 16
Post by: TFM on 20:24, 04 March 16
Thanks to @cngsoft (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=191) for compression! Give him some Likes! ;)
Post by: merlinkv on 00:21, 05 March 16
Post by: nitrofurano on 13:15, 26 March 16
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 14:30, 26 March 16
i don’t know if i can ask for Tuareg, Wells&Fargo, Emilio Butragueño, Aspar, Perico Delgado, Death Wish 3, Defenders of the Earth, African Trail Simulator, Pang, L’Aigle d’Or, L’Aigle d’Or Le Retour, Alien 8, Alien Highway, AMC, Angel Nieto Pole 500, Ant Attack, Arkos, Atomic Driver, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes... - thanks!!! ;) - and anyway, are there tutorials or documentations that might help us to help converting as well?Alien8 was converted above (but use |ALIEN8 not !ALIEN8 as the ROM text suggests), Alien Highway is in this thread (somewhere) and Arkos is already ROM'd by Targhan.
Some of those other titles are multi-load titles and difficult to ROM. It's easier to convert single-load titles.
Post by: nitrofurano on 17:17, 26 March 16
i’d add these ones to the list: Ice-Breaker, Corsarios, Gonzzalezz, Sol Negro, Ulises, Mortadelo y Filemón, Chicago’s 30, Metropolis, Titanic, Hundra, Bestial Warrior, Capitan Sevilla, Capitan Trueno... and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Tir Na Nog...
Post by: TFM on 22:27, 26 March 16
i don’t know if i can ask for Tuareg, Wells&Fargo, Emilio Butragueño, Aspar, Perico Delgado, Death Wish 3, Defenders of the Earth, African Trail Simulator, Pang, L’Aigle d’Or, L’Aigle d’Or Le Retour, Alien 8, Alien Highway, AMC, Angel Nieto Pole 500, Ant Attack, Arkos, Atomic Driver, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes... - thanks!!! ;) - and anyway, are there tutorials or documentations that might help us to help converting as well?
Hi! I will PM you!
Post by: Phantomz on 21:42, 31 May 16
I've just started to look into how to make roms, I'm not sure how to do games that take multiple roms yet!
I've just done my first rom which is " Frog Alot ", I used " Softbrenner " to make this rom, I believe you can use this program to make games with multiple roms but I'll have to figure it out as can't read
the options as not in English. :doh:
|FROGALOT to run the game.
I hope the rom works ok, I could only test in emulation ( winape ) as I haven't got the real hardware to test it out, I will get a MotherX4 Main Board, X-MEM, and X-MASS as soon as got the cash free. ( stupid bills ) :doh:
I've also included a poked rom which gives infinite lives. :)
Post by: Phantomz on 21:30, 01 June 16
This one is " Harrier Attack " it is now " Harrier Attack - Joypad Version " ;D
Use a Joypad or Joystick with 2 fire buttons, Button 2 is used for Bombs, Use Space to Eject. :)
|HARRIER to run the game
Post by: Phantomz on 21:42, 07 June 16
I'm not sure how to convert more than one file ( if possible? ) like Bas and a Bin, or Bas and 2 Bins etc ( still new to this ). ::)
Post by: TFM on 21:57, 07 June 16
Post by: Phantomz on 22:33, 07 June 16
Softbrenner allows you to use as much files as you want, just add one after the other.
Thanks for the info ;)
When I've tried to add the bas and bins, I convert stuff to rom ok, but it comes up, Drive A:disc missing, Retry, Ignore or Cancel?
I'll have another look at some point, maybe something to do with memory address! ::)
Post by: TFM on 22:57, 07 June 16
Let's say the BASIC loads a Binary at &9000 then replace this line in the BASIC program to an RSX command (for example !LOADBIN). And use the same name for the Binary in the ROM. Also use the correct loading address.
Is this clear in my broken English, or do I need to go more into detail?
EDIT: Look at the ROMs I posted, they can serve as an example. Look at the BASIC loader.
Post by: Phantomz on 23:18, 07 June 16
Ok, this is clear! You need to change the BASIC loader in a way that every LOAD command will be changed into an RSX, since the loaded parts are part of the ROM(s). The program can't apply AI to any BASIC program. So one has to change loaders in BASIC with the hand.
Let's say the BASIC loads a Binary at &9000 then replace this line in the BASIC program to an RSX command (for example !LOADBIN). And use the same name for the Binary in the ROM. Also use the correct loading address.
Is this clear in my broken English, or do I need to go more into detail?
EDIT: Look at the ROMs I posted, they can serve as an example. Look at the BASIC loader.
Your English is great, I understand what you're saying, it's makes perfect sense. :)
Thanks for the Information. :)
Post by: TFM on 00:29, 08 June 16
I really like Softbrenner, the only 'missing thing' is that it doesn't add the checksum to &FFFF. But since it was made for the ROM-RAM-Box they didn't think about adding a checksum when saving a ROM. But I guess we can life with that, since it can be done by hand easy. :)
Post by: zeropolis79 on 18:26, 09 July 18
Post by: The_Mole_UK on 17:47, 06 September 18
Ok... in quick...
Install Softbrenner ROM in an MegaFlash or CPC emulator
Insert Disc with "Munch.", the 15 KB file
Start Softbrenner with !SB
Type "M" for Make ROM
Press "X" for add RSX
Move black bar over file "MUNCH." (ok, it is there already)
Press RETRUN to load file
Now you see a RSX command, that can be changed. Press DEL just once to delete the point
On the screen you see "!MUNCH", press Return
Press "2" for "load file into RAM and autostart"
Press Return twice to admit the load and autostart addresses of the file
Press N for No autostart after reset
Now press "S" for save ROM
And that's it you have your ROM!!!
SOFTBRENNER V1.24 -E- can edit the strings of the ROM and version etc. The string needs an indent or will look odd to other ROM strings.
I used Hex Workshop to add $A4 (c). You can only overwrite the 20 (space). Spaces at the end if left over. I used CPCDiskXP 2.51 (Used the 'Disc Editor'!) to transfer the ROMs between a 40 track, 178k DSK image and my PC. Superb!!!
Quote
One last thing remains to do: You must adapt the checksum. That can be done with the small basic program "checksum.bas"Again, I used CPCDiskXP 2.51 (Used the 'Disc Editor'!) to transfer the ROMs between a 40 track, 178k DSK image and my PC. Superb!!!
Continued in the post below...
Post by: SuTeKH/Epyteor on 23:09, 06 September 18
Post by: The_Mole_UK on 17:52, 07 September 18
[oops... wrong thread!]It happens!!! (Good excuse to highlight my post above!)
Post by: The_Mole_UK on 02:49, 10 September 18
...Continued from above...
Quote
It's all done (snip) here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WvOa6OYQ4kV5J3F1DfyIDjy3FlStYAQi/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11lSDTRUScPgudZu5JSF_O0R9_lAAf5R7/view?usp=sharing
Post by: The_Mole_UK on 02:01, 11 September 18
Quote
I really like Softbrenner, the only 'missing thing' is that it doesn't add the checksum to &FFFF. But since it was made for the ROM-RAM-Box they didn't think about adding a checksum when saving a ROM. But I guess we can life with that, since it can be done by hand easy. :)Check out my disc above...I’ve made something...
Post by: The_Mole_UK on 14:03, 11 September 18
Ok, got the Softbrenner ROM working, but have to give up anyway.Remove the disc from the drive emulation BEFORE you back it up. The drive gets cached I think and the changes are written when you exit WinAPE or eject a disc. So before closing WinAPE, eject your drives first, then it won't mess up the INI/discs and need a reedit!!! I did this initially too...
Can't do this using any emulator on Linux it seems (?). Caprice doesn't let me save files to disk. Whatever files I save is gone from the DSK again after a reset.
And Arnold doesn't seem to support adding additional ROM files.
I guess I'll have to wait till there's time and room for me to setup my CPC+ somewhere.
Post by: VincentGR on 19:20, 05 December 19
Area 51 - |AREA
Save Santa - |SANTA
Post by: VincentGR on 01:04, 06 December 19
Still cannot make a big file in two roms, sb is saving just one.
16KB is the maximum for me :-X
I used a translator on my phone's camera but don't understand a thing ;D
Also I did compress some but can't extract them, oh well...
Here is another one:
Elevator Action |ELEV
Post by: Gryzor on 09:48, 06 December 19
Post by: VincentGR on 13:07, 06 December 19
EDIT: Never mind, I changed the name and pressed save again. It works :picard:
Now have to figure out the crunching method.
Used Turbocruncher but it gives me 1KB file at the end.
I used .BIN file less than 34KB.
EDIT 2: No room in real floppies, used WinAPE. It doesn't work there, with JAVACPC everything is OK.
But the ROM just resets the machine :picard2:
Post by: VincentGR on 15:38, 06 December 19
La Guerra De Gamber - |GAMB
H.E.R.O - |HERO
Post by: VincentGR on 00:11, 08 December 19
Line Runner - |LINE
Killer Cobra - |COBRA
Metal Army - |METAL
Silkworm - |SILK
Storm - |STORM
Tournament Tennis |TENNIS
Indoor Bowling - |BOWL
Post by: VincentGR on 15:52, 08 December 19
CoolBox Revisited - |COOL
Phoenix Arcade (Mode 0) - |PHNX
Phoenix Arcade (Mode 1) - |PHNX
Space Invaders - |SI
Post by: VincentGR on 19:28, 09 December 19
Titus Classiques Volume 2 - |TITUS2
Post by: Gryzor on 17:00, 10 December 19
Post by: VincentGR on 17:11, 10 December 19
For days now I'm struggling to merge bas and bin in one rom and actually load the bin part.
Tried to RSX it with no avail.
Post by: GUNHED on 19:14, 10 December 19
Post by: VincentGR on 19:22, 10 December 19
Post by: VincentGR on 21:17, 10 December 19
Post by: VincentGR on 23:19, 10 December 19
Post by: VincentGR on 15:44, 14 November 20
|ist
Post by: VincentGR on 16:00, 20 November 20
|pool
Post by: Gryzor on 16:08, 20 November 20
Post by: VincentGR on 02:36, 21 November 20
(now in one ROM file, yes it took me one year to figure how :picard: )
Robotron |robo
Post by: VincentGR on 11:47, 21 November 20
Post by: VincentGR on 00:39, 22 November 20
Reuploads (Single ROM)
Indoor Bowling - |BOWL
Istradarion - |ISTRA
Post by: VincentGR on 23:52, 22 November 20
|ikari
Rick Dangerous
|rick
Post by: VincentGR on 00:15, 25 November 20
Here is my
MEGAROM PACK
All new 44 ROMS (CNG was a great help)
Just run the with |xxxx
Type the first four letters of the game's title and not ROM's name.
I.E : Fernandez must die - |fern
| 3D GRAND PRIX |
| 750CC GP |
| 1943 |
| ARKANOID |
| BASKET MASTER |
| EMILIO BUTRAGUENO |
| COMMANDO |
| COP OUT |
| CYBERNOID |
| CYRUS II |
| DAN DARE |
| DAN DARE III |
| DEFLEKTOR |
| DRUID |
| DYNAMITE DAN |
| INTO THE EAGLE'S NEST |
| EMOTION |
| EXOLON |
| FERNANDEZ MUST DIE |
| FROST BYTE |
| FRUITY FRANK |
| GHOSTS N GOBLINS |
| GHOSTBUSTERS |
| GOLDEN TAIL |
| GREEN BERET |
| GUNFRIGHT |
| MAD MIX |
| MAGICA* |
| MARIO BROS |
| MATCHDAY |
| MATCHDAY II |
| MEGA PHOENIX |
| METRO CROSS |
| MISSION ELEVATOR |
| NEBULUS |
| PACMANIA |
| PAPERBOY |
| ROLLING THUNDER |
| RYGAR |
| SABOTEUR |
| SABOTEUR II |
| SLAP FIGHT |
| SMASH TV |
| ZYNAPS *This disk version of Magica runs only on CPCE, I made the ROMs anyway. |
Post by: VincentGR on 17:59, 28 November 20
| 4 first letters
Vectornauts
Foggy's Quest
Apulija
Post by: doragasu on 19:33, 27 December 20
Post by: VincentGR on 19:39, 27 December 20
Post by: doragasu on 19:40, 27 December 20
Post by: VincentGR on 19:42, 27 December 20
Never burned an actual rom for the CPC, I just use the with the M4
Post by: doragasu on 19:44, 27 December 20
Post by: VincentGR on 19:45, 27 December 20
Good luck.
Post by: doragasu on 20:36, 27 December 20
Code: [Select]
$ dd if=NEBULUS1.ROM of=nebup1.rom bs=128 skip=1
$ dd if=NEBULUS2.ROM of=nebup2.rom bs=128 skip=1Then burned the trimmed ROMs on slots 1 and 2, invoked |nebu and it worked ;D Anyway I am wondering why is that header there and what is it for
Post by: VincentGR on 20:41, 27 December 20
I crunch the file if it's big and split if needed.
Then I remove the header with a basic listing, can't remember who posted it.
Post by: VincentGR on 15:27, 27 February 21
|MATA
Post by: arislab on 21:31, 28 February 21
This is my first ROM
Haunted Hedges (Micromega-Amsoft / 1984), an arcade game which is an isometric pacman style and one of my father's favorite game
execute with |hh
Post by: Gryzor on 10:39, 01 March 21
Not bad for its age:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7-YVaVAnHg
Post by: VincentGR on 15:27, 01 March 21
|vict
Post by: VincentGR on 00:26, 07 March 21
Mountie Micks Death Ride from the CPC Compactages version.
|MOUN
Post by: Gryzor on 10:18, 08 March 21
Mountie Micks Death Ride from the CPC Compactages version.
|MOUN
Hehe for some reason I love this :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXWNp0pDO2I
Post by: ukmarkh on 12:26, 08 March 21
Hehe for some reason I love this :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXWNp0pDO2I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXWNp0pDO2I)
I have this but never played it, looks decent.
Post by: VincentGR on 13:15, 08 March 21
Post by: VincentGR on 23:46, 08 March 21
|MOON
Post by: ukmarkh on 00:12, 09 March 21
Post by: VincentGR on 00:27, 09 March 21
Post by: ukmarkh on 05:27, 09 March 21
I use the mighty M4.
I have one of these, but when I place the ROMs in the supposed slots, I experience weird issues. I can load about five games in total, then I get crashes.
Post by: pelrun on 08:11, 09 March 21
Combine 1 and 2 and you get "weird issues" when a program decides to overwrite a ROM's scratchpad area.
Post by: VincentGR on 17:46, 12 March 21
|PING
Post by: arislab on 00:40, 13 March 21
Hewson's Stormlord
command: |STL
Post by: arislab on 01:53, 13 March 21
Bedlam
Command : |BED
Post by: VincentGR on 10:32, 13 March 21
|ZORR
That was a tough one, took some nights troubleshooting with Aris.
Post by: TotO on 11:11, 13 March 21
ZorroWhy not |ZORRO ? :-\
|ZORR
Post by: VincentGR on 11:14, 13 March 21
This is a way to remember the rsx, the first 4 letters
Post by: ukmarkh on 17:43, 13 March 21
next... one of my favorites Shoot'em ups...
Bedlam
Command : |BED
I couldn't get into this, not sure why. I must give it another try.
Post by: VincentGR on 11:41, 16 March 21
|KYDC
Post by: arislab on 23:12, 16 March 21
Daley Thompson's Decathlon
rsx command : |DECA
Post by: arislab on 23:14, 16 March 21
Rsx Command: |SS