Image runner for Atari machines

[ppera]

Program is for running floppy image files on real Atari machines without writing them on floppies.

Of course, it is interesting for people which have hard disks on their Ataris.

 

Preliminary version has not all features implemented, but may show whole concept, and will work with many games (ST images).

 

http://www.ppest.org/atari/imgrun.php

 

There is a TXT file with instructions in ZIP. I will write here some relevant parts:

 

Program will set CHS parameters in edit boxes, but for now it ignores user entries there.

Very important is to avoid loading of hard disk driver right after reset - for data safety and keeping low memory free.

 

I would like to hear how it works on Falcon - best test with some ST image with Falcon compatible games.

[vulgar]

Great idea Pera. thank you and keep going, theres many users who waiting for such utility, youll be famous with that. told ya

[ppera]

It's now practically complete.

MSA, ST images supported.

As I see, some 60-70% of programs work (on Mega ST(E) ) .

[ppera]

Some good news: I found reason for display bugs in some games - it was because of bad documented system variable at $45E (namely screen base).

 

Version 3 has again only 1 executable, with selectable boot from image or not. There is a table with results of running games from first 15 Automation menu disks - over 95% worked well.

[+CyranoJ]

That would be because the first 15 or so automation menus dont use DMA, and nearly everything is in a single file which would work anyway.

 

I'm also willing to bet that the ones that you say do "work" will corrupt a disk in the floppy, or crash when they try to write the high score table.

 

What you will find is that nearly every single Automation menu post around 100, the vast majority of Pompey Pirates menus, quite a huge chunk of Medway Boys menus, FOF, BBC etc will not run, and also hardly any single disk cracks will work. Also, anything that uses a RAMdisk is going to fail.

 

We thought of this many,many months ago and abandoned it. ULS is the way to go in converting things for Hard Disk, otherwise your just guessing and playing with fire.

 

But apart from all that, nice app.

Edited May 21, 2007 by CyranoJ

[ppera]

That would be because the first 15 or so automation menus dont use DMA, and nearly everything is in a single file which would work anyway.

 

I'm also willing to bet that the ones that you say do "work" will corrupt a disk in the floppy, or crash when they try to write the high score table.

 

What you will find is that nearly every single Automation menu post around 100, the vast majority of Pompey Pirates menus, quite a huge chunk of Medway Boys menus, FOF, BBC etc will not run, and also hardly any single disk cracks will work. Also, anything that uses a RAMdisk is going to fail.

 

We thought of this many,many months ago and abandoned it. ULS is the way to go in converting things for Hard Disk, otherwise your just guessing and playing with fire.

 

But apart from all that, nice app.

 

I tested first 32 Automation until now - score is same so far (~95%). I know that later will be not so good. Probably they get tired of filing. But similar should be with FOF and Super GAU. DBug will have bad score, I tried some...

 

So what if it will corrupt floppy? Just don't hold anything valuable in drive... Btw. pos saving worked in many cases.

RAMdisk may work, and may not work - it depends on how game will install vectors. We will see after checks.

 

I don't think that it is play with fire - machine can't go on fire, only on ice (freeze)

 

In any case, for me it was absolutely worth to make it - I was able to start over 200 hundert games without writing floppies.

Edited May 22, 2007 by ppera

[+CyranoJ]

So what if it will corrupt floppy? Just don't hold anything valuable in drive...

 

Data integrity has never been high on your priority list, has it? And again you release something without warning people about the dangers of using it.

 

YOU might not have a disk in the floppy with anything valuable on it, but other people may. I'm sure they'll be pleased you made the decision not to care when/if it gets destroyed.

[ppera]

Data integrity has never been high on your priority list, has it? And again you release something without warning people about the dangers of using it.

YOU might not have a disk in the floppy with anything valuable on it, but other people may. I'm sure they'll be pleased you made the decision not to care when/if it gets destroyed.

 

Interesting is that I almost never had data loss - even when I had virus in machines. Why? Because I don't hold anything valuable on C partition, or in case of Atari - I did not used floppies with some valuable datas as working floppies. Not to mention that I had backups of everything really valuable and unique.

 

I really don't have time and mood to explain very basic things to people. Do you heard about floppy deteriation - by unnecessary rotating in drive surface will damage sooner or later. Why keeping some floppy with precious datas in drive while playing games? It is really stoopid. Blaming me for such situation is almost like blaming Jodie Foster about Reagan assasiniation

And I have warnings in instructions for Drive Image, have warnings in program itself...

 

How is about ULS? How many title is 'adapted'?

 

Btw. , hardware solution with some floppy emulator is certainly better, and will run much more titles - when will be available.

And for people who will want to pay for such luxory. How simple usage will be, we shall see.

Edited May 22, 2007 by ppera

[+CyranoJ]

Interesting is that I almost never had data loss - even when I had virus in machines. Why? Because I don't hold anything valuable on C partition, or in case of Atari - I did not used floppies with some valuable datas as working floppies. Not to mention that I had backups of everything really valuable and unique.

 

I really don't have time and mood to explain very basic things to people. Do you heard about floppy deteriation - by unnecessary rotating in drive surface will damage sooner or later. Why keeping some floppy with precious datas in drive while playing games? It is really stoopid. Blaming me for such situation is almost like blaming Jodie Foster about Reagan assasiniation

And I have warnings in instructions for Drive Image, have warnings in program itself...

 

How is about ULS? How many title is 'adapted'?

 

Btw. , hardware solution with some floppy emulator is certainly better, and will run much more titles - when will be available.

And for people who will want to pay for such luxory. How simple usage will be, we shall see.

 

Well where to start here?

 

[1] Again you say you never had a problem, but you have again failed to mention that there is a high probability that DMA written titles WILL overwrite data. Thanks for gambling with peoples data. Again.

 

[2] Basic things? Give me a break, Mr Mighty Author of a RAMdisk. How can MSA files deteriorate? And lets face it, your app only uses MSA or ST files. WTF has floppy deteriation got to do with digital image formats?

 

[3] ULS can, given the time to patch something, make EVERYTHING work from HD. How many DMA load games will this thing ever run? I'm glad you can run all the stuff that works if you file copy it over anyway. What a breakthrough

 

[4] Hardware solution would be perfect, my god we agree on something. Lets hope its someone else who makes it.

 

Congratulations on reinventing the wheel

 

Now, for everyone else who'd like to see things working PROPERLY, and TESTED, and also FIXED for the Falcon, please visit http://www.dbug-automation.co.uk - we even have a forum so you can request things for us to fix. Hell, its better than playing with fire!

[potatohead]

So what if it will corrupt floppy? Just don't hold anything valuable in drive...

 

Unfrickingbelievable!

 

And your defense is that you keep lots of copies of things? No wonder you have all those copies...

[ppera]

I don't know what DMA overwriting you talk. Overwriting files on floppies? - I told everything about it.

Overwriting files on hard disk? Very hardly - if driver is not loaded then chances are 1 to billion.

If there is IDE interface even less.

Very careful people can make some hardware switch to turn off floppy or hard disk writing... Will be cheaper than floppy emulator.

 

I didn't talk about file deteriation, but floppy in drive (unnecessary) deteriation. You could see it, but easier is to assuming that other is idiot or whatewer.

Additionally, it is thing of game author, publisher to warn that game requires clean disk for pos save, that will destroy datas on it.. etc.

 

It is not just file copy, but memory handle, plus couple other, simple thing. Right, program is nothing revolutionary - I could make it before 15 years, and I had then 80% of code. But nobody made it.

 

Who expects 100% solution will be disappointed. It's not my problem. I don't sell illusions.

 

That 'tested and fixed' reminds me on some unfinished SW (there is too much such). Only starting 200 games took me over 2 weeks...

 

I appreciate your effort in adapting games for hard disk run, Falcon. I did some titles too, and will publish it soon (no Falcon compat). But all it is too much time consuming, and we have thousands of games. Right, 80% is crap, but I was able to start and abort such titles really fast in last couple weeks. Maybe to add 'crapiness level' field in database?

[ppera]

So what if it will corrupt floppy? Just don't hold anything valuable in drive...

 

Unfrickingbelievable!

 

And your defense is that you keep lots of copies of things? No wonder you have all those copies...

 

I don't need to defense myself. I just said that it is stupid to play with valuable datas in drive. That is stupid not to have backups (that was the point) .If you don't like my program, my approach, don't use it - make it (something) himself better, write something sticky in forum, Wiki, make WEBsite about data safety etc...

Maybe after 25 years of practice I know why and how to make backup copies. Certainly not because some game overwitten some my hard work...

[+CyranoJ]

So what if it will corrupt floppy? Just don't hold anything valuable in drive...

 

Unfrickingbelievable!

 

And your defense is that you keep lots of copies of things? No wonder you have all those copies...

 

Yeah, exactly.

 

Most games, even filed ones, will write the hiscore or saves to floppy directly using the hardware DMA registers. Anything doing this will trash whatever is in the floppy drive.

 

And, depending on how the save is loaded, might not even load again.

[jvas]

Why don't we simple say, that one should not have floppy inserted in drive when runs floimg and doesn't want data overwritten on the floppy? PPera, you should state this on your site, just to make everybody satisfied. I think both of you agree with that. (btw some of the HDD fixed games still writes game data to real floppies, some of them formats it)

 

I also agree that it is not a 100% solution, but if there is only one more game that runs this way (and accidentaly that is my favourite one), then it is worth for me: I got something for nothing (I mean PPera'a effort is in that thing). You can consider it as a "cheaper" variant (and not so complete) of the hardware emulation of the floppy drive.

 

It has no real danger to any software/hardware. If you like it, you use it. If the testing of the ST/MSA images goes on, we will see finally how much of the will run this way. I volunteer to try to copy floppy content to HDD to see if they run that way if it matters.

[ppera]

Why don't we simple say, that one should not have floppy inserted in drive when runs floimg and doesn't want data overwritten on the floppy? PPera, you should state this on your site, just to make everybody satisfied...

It has no real danger to any software/hardware. If you like it, you use it. If the testing of the ST/MSA images goes on, we will see finally how much of the will run this way. I volunteer to try to copy floppy content to HDD to see if they run that way if it matters.

 

Well, I did not stated it specifically, because it actually has not much with ImgRun itself - it is common for playing games - from original disks, cracked, menu disk or even running directly from hard drive (Atari executables).

Same danger of data loss stays for all situations. Anyway, I will add it to site and Readme file.

 

I don't understand how exactly you meant to do testing - you need floppy images on hard disk, not copying floppy content.

We can make some divide - who to test which images - by group for instance. I started with Automation with reason . they are probably most known menu disks, and so far it appeared as very good runnable this way.

[jvas]

Why don't we simple say, that one should not have floppy inserted in drive when runs floimg and doesn't want data overwritten on the floppy? PPera, you should state this on your site, just to make everybody satisfied...

It has no real danger to any software/hardware. If you like it, you use it. If the testing of the ST/MSA images goes on, we will see finally how much of the will run this way. I volunteer to try to copy floppy content to HDD to see if they run that way if it matters.

 

Well, I did not stated it specifically, because it actually has not much with ImgRun itself - it is common for playing games - from original disks, cracked, menu disk or even running directly from hard drive (Atari executables).

Same danger of data loss stays for all situations. Anyway, I will add it to site and Readme file.

 

I don't understand how exactly you meant to do testing - you need floppy images on hard disk, not copying floppy content.

We can make some divide - who to test which images - by group for instance. I started with Automation with reason . they are probably most known menu disks, and so far it appeared as very good runnable this way.

 

CyranoJ said: "That would be because the first 15 or so automation menus dont use DMA, and nearly everything is in a single file which would work anyway". I think he says, that by copying the disk content to HDD, the menus could be run. It can be easily checked, thats what I volunteer for.

 

I can also test imgrun, just tell me which compilations.

Edited May 23, 2007 by jvas

[ppera]

CyranoJ said: "That would be because the first 15 or so automation menus dont use DMA, and nearly everything is in a single file which would work anyway". I think he says, that by copying the disk content to HDD, the menus could be run. It can be easily checked, thats what I volunteer for.

I can also test imgrun, just tell me which compilations.

 

It is not so simple. Menu disks usually start from AUTO folder - with good reson - games don't need GEM. Additionally, hard disk driver occupies some 40-200KB RAM depending on version and cache. All it means that many game will not run directly from hard disk. Games are usually made to run from low RAM, with good reason - they need all of 512K (or 1MB). What my program does is reset after RAMdisk creation, and start without drivers, GEM. If game needs GEM (some adventures usually) it will jump to desktop and you can start from there, with GEM. Additionally, it is good for safety, because hard disk driver is not installed while game runs (despite what some saying, I care for data safety).

So, I recommend to you to get some image files and copy them on Atari hard drive. For instance you may test FOF menu disks.

I tried some 10 of FOF, and most of games worked.

[potatohead]

"Anyway, I will add it to site and Readme file."

 

Cool! (And the right thing to do)

 

That's the important thing, and was the point of my post. I've no beef with what you wrote, nor how it works. Inviting people to run it, without making sure they know the score, was very worrysome to me, that's all.

 

Sorry for going off.

[+CyranoJ]

It is not so simple.........I tried some 10 of FOF, and most of games worked.

 

 

Clearly being behind quite a few of those disks, I don't know what your talking about. Oh Lordy Lord, silly me.

 

Played them all the way through did you?

[ppera]

Clearly being behind quite a few of those disks, I don't know what your talking about. Oh Lordy Lord, silly me.

Played them all the way through did you?

 

You are really ridiculous. Accusing me that beeing careless about data safety (not to mention what you wrote on another forum), now expect that I should play thousands of games through...

 

When I said that it worked it means what word means - worked. Not specified more details, and will be not specified more.

I have at least 5% corrupt image files - in way that it is visible at first moment. How many is corrupted that it will be visible only at last level of game? All it has again nothing with my program.

How many is cracked shallow - without testing it complete?

After testing over 50 images, I can say with 99% confidence that game which starts first level without direct floppy access will not use it at all for level load (maybe for pos. save, but it will work with floppy, what is good).

 

My opinion is that you are just jelous. Not only at me, but at other crackers, who did much better job than you, with your 'DMA load' (unnecessary in most cases).

People will ask what is DMA load - nice thing to play smarthead in fact. If want to be more clear and explain essencial thing you would call it direct floppy hardware access. Or even better - prevent them to play from hard drive

[+CyranoJ]

My opinion is that you are just jelous. Not only at me, but at other crackers, who did much better job than you, with your 'DMA load' (unnecessary in most cases).

People will ask what is DMA load - nice thing to play smarthead in fact. If want to be more clear and explain essencial thing you would call it direct floppy hardware access. Or even better - prevent them to play from hard drive

 

LOL that is so funny its beyond belief.

 

Why would I be jelous? If your testing the Automation disks (which you claim to be) then the other crackers were myself and the rest of Automation. Get your facts straight. Also, EVERY group moved to DMAloaders, not just Automation, but all of them.

 

DMALoad is Direct Floppy Access. And it *IS* necessary (or, was, way back when and pre-ULS).

 

You make wild assumptions about people and why things work and dont work. You release code without warning people of the consequences of its use. You make wild predictions about things. You tell the world you've written something "new" when its already been done before by someone else. Come to think of it, why don't you move to the Amiga where you'll fit in nicely

 

On another forum, You got yourself flamed there quite nicely when it was plainly pointed out you were wrong. (Windows cant read the disks because of the FAT, anyone? LMFAO)

 

And your last sentence, again, makes no sense at all, gramatically or not. In case you hadn't noticed, D-Bug have released a lot of Falcon/MSTe/HD patched titles of the last year or so, along with ULS and several ULS fixed games.

 

When you learn to defend your position without resorting to personal insults, please come back and post something. I doubt you will ever get to that point tho. Leapords can't change their skins, can they?

[ppera]

Poor Cyrano...

He is accused here... My God! What a shame!

 

Defending myself ? You psycho asshole. Why should I defend myself from idiot who even not reads what other write.

You expected that I will seriously talk with you after your shitty posts? Come down little. Amen.

[+CyranoJ]

Poor Cyrano...

He is accused here... My God! What a shame!

 

Defending myself ? You psycho asshole. Why should I defend myself from idiot who even not reads what other write.

You expected that I will seriously talk with you after your shitty posts? Come down little. Amen.

 

 

I thank you profoundly for so elegantly and perfectly proving my point.

[ppera]

People reading all this thread may wonder what a hell we talk here. Why all this hassle (hate)?

 

Fact is that myself don't know what is wrong with Cyrano. I met that name (person, via his posting) first in other Atari forum, about 1 year ago. Actually, all his last posts in that forum are specially for blaming me (at least I didn't see others) - despite that he said that will not back there.

Is all because of lost C partition, for what is supposedly my program guitly? Even if it would be so, I still say that it is sick.

Thanks to looking in lot of floppy images I observed that he is one of main 'crackers' for Atari ST. Maker of some demos.

 

Well, nice - former pyrate, coder of fancy screen effects and adaptor of games now takes rule of judge : he explicitly says that I'm irresponible, disrespective, that I say that invented something new, what is not new (because there is Amiga version of such thing) etc... Well, there is Spectrum version of such thing too, and who knows for what all other retro machines.

 

But poor Atari scene lacks lot of utils, supporting programs. And when some idiot like me does it, comes great Cyrano to find some flaw... This is one of reasons why Atari scene sucks - some people act as whole Atari scene is their, and them could criticise/spit others by their own pitty criterias... Some experts still repeat their obsolete stamements about Win XP and dloppies, but time never stops ( Darek Mihocka, author of in some times great Gemulator, now almost unusable under XP).

There are some other names too.

 

Enjoy folks....

Edited May 24, 2007 by ppera

[+CyranoJ]

.. a load of dross..

 

Wow, wasn't proving my point once enough for you?