Alternate Reality : Dungeon image?

[WIZZARD77]

Is there a 16mb image out there of The Dungeon disks combined. If not all 5 sides just the 4 sides of disks 2 and 3, I know disk 1 has some fun copy protection. Swapping all these disks is a bit of a pain on these new virtual drive devices.

[Rybags]

It's not that simple. The game doesn't use a Dos filing system, reads disks by absolute sector so would need extensive modification to work off a single image.

 

What you can do is mount images on seperate drives though I'm not sure to what extent it can work, 2 drives most probably, 4 drives maybe - which should be enough since doesn't disk 1 only get used during bootup?

 

Likely you'd probably want the 4 drives active on bootup. Not sure what detection algorithm it uses, possibly it does a drive detect early on then only tries again on units that were found then.

So a good config to try might be something like (on bootup) -

D1: disk 1

D2: disk 2 side 1

D3: disk 2 side 2

D4: disk 3 side 1

 

Then once disk 1 not needed, put disk 3 side 2 in D1: and also use for the save disk.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Rybags

[WIZZARD77]

Thanks I figured it wouldn't be simple. I'll experiment. I have a MyIDE2 cart and an SDrive2, between the two I should be able to get it all going without loading up APE.

[Rybags]

IDE class devices won't be any help, same deal with turbo SIO Operating Systems.

The problem is the AR games use their own low-level disk IO routines which means you can only run them off real disks or emulated disks at stock speed.

[Kylev]

As I recall from running the game on real devices, place Disk 1 Side 1 in drive 1, and Disk x Side 1 in each of the other 3 drives. The available drives are pinged at the start of the program.

I seem to recall that there is an optimum arrangement for disks 2,3,4 regarding side 1 or side 2 after boot, but I can't remember clearly. The process for a good boot on all 4 drives is documented in the game manual, if you have that available.

 

HTH.

[leech]

I could have sworn I tested this at one point with three drives, but it only worked on two of them. Though I may be thinking of Ultima IV. I do remember quite excitedly that it was one of the few games that truly loved having the 128kb of ram in the 130XE, because disk swapping was MUCH less.

 

Edit: A note on the copy protection....

True story;

On a bad copy, you eventually start to encounter FBI agents who attack you with "The Long Arm of the Law"

But... even with original copies of The City and The Dungeon, if you took a character from the City and transferred him to The Dungeon, you'd still be ambushed by FBI agents. If I recall that's what happened if you tried to modify your character with a hex editor as well. Though I think someone finally must have figured out the crazy editing since I think eventually there was a character editor... I remember we tried forever to figure it out.

Edited August 3, 2017 by leech

[Rybags]

I forgot to mention that... the game will do caching if you have 64K or 128K of Ram. There is a check just before it says "xx K initialization" for console keys so it's possible to have it assume you have less Ram than actual. Probably left in for testing purposes, little point in using less of your Ram in gameplay.

 

In the day I had a copy without any crack applied. You could transfer a city character over just fine and play as long as you wanted, but once you saved it and replayed with it later you'd get the FBI straight up. So in effect they'd created a trial situation where you could get enough of a taste of the game to decide to go out and pay for it.

 

I never got around to trying rev-engineering on character disks - didn't it do something like encrypt the data and attach a checksum/CRC to detect tampering?

[Lord Thag]

There is an Atarimax cart image that boots the entire game as one cart image.

 

The guy behind it never figured out how to save a character, so it's a temp character. I'd love to see it finished.

 

Here's the link:

 

http://www.atarimax.com/flashcart/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248

[Gunstar]

The Dungeon supports 4 drives and 48-128K, The City supports 2 drives and 48-64K. There is a good crack for the dungeon. All cracked versions of The city, you end up getting the disease Scurvey (the pirate's disease) as it had incredible protection schemes. Only original disks will work for The City. Philip price said he allowed pirates to think they cracked the game, and play it for a while before your character gets scurvey and dies. I have played all cracked versions of The City and eventually my character gets scurvey.

 

At one point, many years ago now, someone was attempting to convert it all to a cartridge, 1MB IIRC. I figure they failed or gave up. Edit, I see now a post above about an Atarimax cart version, that was entered while I was typing mine, so I missed it.

Edited August 4, 2017 by Gunstar

[leech]

I forgot to mention that... the game will do caching if you have 64K or 128K of Ram. There is a check just before it says "xx K initialization" for console keys so it's possible to have it assume you have less Ram than actual. Probably left in for testing purposes, little point in using less of your Ram in gameplay.

 

In the day I had a copy without any crack applied. You could transfer a city character over just fine and play as long as you wanted, but once you saved it and replayed with it later you'd get the FBI straight up. So in effect they'd created a trial situation where you could get enough of a taste of the game to decide to go out and pay for it.

 

I never got around to trying rev-engineering on character disks - didn't it do something like encrypt the data and attach a checksum/CRC to detect tampering?

Ah, yeah you had to save it in the dungeon, then you'd load it back up and the FBI would attack.

 

It's been forever, but I think what it'd do is copy your character around to several different sectors, and if you didn't edit them all at the same time, then it'd sense a mismatch, and again you'd get the FBI.

 

Has anyone gotten an image of the original made? Wouldn't mind firing up The City again, then trying for the dungeon. It's really a shame the game wasn't 100% completed, always loved it. Remembered mapping out the entire Dungeon on graph paper...

 

Edit: Weird, just discovered someone released 'HD' versions for iOS. Can't seem to find anything besides that they came out, no screenshots or anything.

Edited August 4, 2017 by leech

[Rybags]

I had 2 or 3 City characters from cracked boot disk - they were around Level 10 and 11 which is a fairly huge amount of hours, never had any disease problems.

And they had been through AFAIK every possible location and experience including the hidden maze.

 

What was annoying in City was a location that locked you in permanently, if you went there by accident your character was as good as lost.

[Goochman]

I forgot to mention that... the game will do caching if you have 64K or 128K of Ram. There is a check just before it says "xx K initialization" for console keys so it's possible to have it assume you have less Ram than actual. Probably left in for testing purposes, little point in using less of your Ram in gameplay.

 

In the day I had a copy without any crack applied. You could transfer a city character over just fine and play as long as you wanted, but once you saved it and replayed with it later you'd get the FBI straight up. So in effect they'd created a trial situation where you could get enough of a taste of the game to decide to go out and pay for it.

 

I never got around to trying rev-engineering on character disks - didn't it do something like encrypt the data and attach a checksum/CRC to detect tampering?

 

The City Transfer thing was a bug - I got the Dungeon the day it came out and had this problem. Datasoft issued an update shortly after release which fixed the transfer problem. It was only supposed to happen if you attempted to crack the disks.

[Gunstar]

I had 2 or 3 City characters from cracked boot disk - they were around Level 10 and 11 which is a fairly huge amount of hours, never had any disease problems.

And they had been through AFAIK every possible location and experience including the hidden maze.

 

What was annoying in City was a location that locked you in permanently, if you went there by accident your character was as good as lost.

can you post the city crack you use then, possibly? None I tried worked right for me. I have been searching for the originals for a decent price for a while ( when I have money).

[Rybags]

I don't think I've got an import and no Atari gear setup ATM so it might be a while.

But I'll look into getting it done in the coming days.

[leech]

The other thing we'd always noticed in the 8-bit copy we had, you could never get hired for a job. They were there, but it would always say 'you're not high enough level' or 'you've not the endurance'. Yet it worked fine in the ST version of it when we eventually got that. Was that also a copyright thing? I know the first copy of Ultima IV we had, you could attack anyone / anything and it would always say 'lightly wounded' no matter how many times you hit them. We fixed that by copying a bad track onto the boot disk!

[Rybags]

Numerous features of the original Atari City game didn't work. You couldn't get a job, and none of the portals to other chapters of the series worked including entrances to the Dungeon (you were supposed to stop and save at one of 2 recommended locations then just reboot from The Dungeon game).

[Wrathchild]

In theory the Dungeon is the easier of the two for trying to make an extended disk version from but I could look at picking up the cart version again.

[+kheller2]

My cracked version of the dungeon never had me die of scurvy that I recall. Eventually I purchased I real copy when the dungeon came out along with it. The later version of the dungeon, 2,1?, fixed the city transfer bug as mentioned. Resurex? Util allowed you to open up areas of the city that were meant to be open by the expansion modules. I used it it a lot for resurrecting my character when discovering the "toast" squares in the city.

[Gunstar]

My cracked version of the dungeon never had me die of scurvy that I recall. Eventually I purchased I real copy when the dungeon came out along with it. The later version of the dungeon, 2,1?, fixed the city transfer bug as mentioned. Resurex? Util allowed you to open up areas of the city that were meant to be open by the expansion modules. I used it it a lot for resurrecting my character when discovering the "toast" squares in the city.

No, it was the City version that has you die of scurvey on cracked versions. But is that just a typo, and you meant City? The long-arm-of-the-law got you in the Dungeon, but some cracks are better than others with the Dungeon and this is alleviated in them. But maybe there is a cracked version of the City that I haven't come across, that works right, as Rybags states.

Edited August 5, 2017 by Gunstar

[Gunstar]

The other thing we'd always noticed in the 8-bit copy we had, you could never get hired for a job. They were there, but it would always say 'you're not high enough level' or 'you've not the endurance'. Yet it worked fine in the ST version of it when we eventually got that. Was that also a copyright thing? I know the first copy of Ultima IV we had, you could attack anyone / anything and it would always say 'lightly wounded' no matter how many times you hit them. We fixed that by copying a bad track onto the boot disk!

It was the ATARI 8-bit version you had? Because I don't recall ever actually seeing an option in any establishments to ask for a job. As stated a feature that was supposed to be add later with expansions that never happened. But the 16-bit version did allow you to get a job, and join guilds, etc. in the City.

 

Anyone: Where there any 8-bit versions (like maybe C64) that were like the 16-bit versions and you could get a job or join guilds? I've only ever played the Atari 8-bit versions of both AR games.

[+kheller2]

No, it was the City version that has you die of scurvey on cracked versions. But is that just a typo, and you meant City? The long-arm-of-the-law got you in the Dungeon, but some cracks are better than others with the Dungeon and this is alleviated in them. But maybe there is a cracked version of the City that I haven't come across, that works right, as Rybags states.

 

Typo on my part. I meant the city.

[Rybags]

OK, I've just copied my Disk 1 of The City (both sides). As mentioned, cracked and never a sign of scurvy in the time I used it.

I verified a boot to the character creation part, seems OK.

 

A quick look in a text editor - there's a message saying cracked by Glenn the 5200 man. And the really weird part, occupying the directory sectors (though not a Dos disk) is a "The Eidelon" copyright message. There's also bits of plaintext assembler code and other stuff that doesn't look to belong there though this is a known artifact of the original. A quick look at the .ATX version I've got, looks somewhat different in some parts.

 

AR City Disk 1.zip

 

ed - seems I copied to 130K ATRs, these can safely be dup'd to single density size.

 

ed2 - the copy at Fandal's has the 5200 man text but not the reference to The Eidelon.

Edited August 5, 2017 by Rybags

[Wilheim]

In theory the Dungeon is the easier of the two for trying to make an extended disk version from but I could look at picking up the cart version again.

That would be great! I wanted the cart version of the dungeon from a long time! Thanks for your effort!

[Rybags]

Even a cart that just wrote the savedisk to disk would be great. The big turnoff for playing the game for me is the disk swapping.

[ricortes]

Penny Ormstrom did a nice port. http://ar.memso.net/I haven't spent a lot of time playing it but it is a kinder gentler version. Time marches on: If this would have come out in the 1980s it would have been considered the greatest game ever. With everything 3d from Everquest to WoW, not so much now especially if you see it after seeing the MMPOGs.