Jump to content
IGNORED

Remaining OS-B games still not fixed to be XL friendly?


ACML

Recommended Posts

Shoot! was a game by John Palevich (of Dandy fame) published in the September 1981 COMPUTE! (#16) magazine with full source code. As published, it was an OS-A only game, as there was a direct call into the system vblank. The next issue of COMPUTE! published a fix to allow it to work on both A and B roms by calling into SYSVBV instead, and issue 18 republished the BASIC hex listing again in larger type to further address problems people were having getting the game working. The ANTIC podcast has an interview with the author where he recounts how dozens of people called him directly to complain about the game not working and how he got quite adept at giving out the two byte patch over the phone.

 

This game was likely the first full source code game published for the Atari. Even though the game is very simple (it's only a little over 1KB) it's historically interesting. The six pages of source code is about half Atari system equates, which at the time were probably not yet well known.

 

The game has problems on XL/XE machines because it uses the ATASCII->internal character lookup table in the ROMs at address $FEF6 (ATAINT: .BYTE $40,$00,$20,$60), which doesn't appear in the later ROMs. I've taken the atr from AtariMania and patched the 4-byte table into the image, which I believe addresses the XL/XE issues. I've also included the source code listing as a bonus.

shoot.zip

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
Personal Software, best known for VisiCalc, also produced at least two early games for the Atari 8-bit. MicroChess and Checker King were announced in COMPUTE! #10, from March 1981, and were possibly available earlier. Checker King is credited to Michael Marks and Brad Templeton. MicroChess is credited to Brad Templeton on AtariMania, but is likely a port of the original KIM-1 product by Peter R. Jennings.
Both of these programs directly use the keyboard table from the OS ROM at $FEFE. Since the table moved in the XL/XE roms, the programs can't properly decode keyboard input and thus only work on the 800 roms (OS-B in fact wasn't out when these were available). They only use 64 bytes of the full 192 byte table, so to make these XL/XE compatible, I patched the table into the program image directly.
There may be other issues, but I was able to run these and make a move using AltirraOS for the XL to verify the are at least minimally functional now.

 

CheckerKing-fix.xex

Microchess-fix.xex

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm surprised MASH never got converted. I don't know if it's any good because I never spent much time playing it, but it's such a recognizable brand name, I guess.

 

My sister received Fastgammon on tape for Christmas one year. It was ok. Also, not XL/XE compatible. It sort of looked like a basic program, but I believe it was ML.

 

 

Note: The same year my sister got Fastgammon, I received Rally Speedway. I think I won that round of gifts.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Yep, that's MASH. Thanks for the tip.

 

 

Sorry if this has already been asked. I know Gremlins, Mario Bros., and Moon Patrol (5200 versions) have all been fixed (sound issues).

 

Was Space Invaders (filed a8 cart version) ever fixed? The sound is wrong when the saucer appears. If you run it with a translator, it's correct. It's kind of funny because Atari criticized 3rd party developers for violating programming "rules" yet this was their own release.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting topic ... I just did a quick search of the thread but got no hits. Has Gorf ever been fixed? I have a bunch of .xex and hackced .atr versions but they're all OS/B only.

 

Hmm,

 

at least in one topic at AA someone released an ATR version of Gorf that saves highscores and works fine on XL/XE...

Gorf_Hi.zip

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Hmm,

 

at least in one topic at AA someone released an ATR version of Gorf that saves highscores and works fine on XL/XE...

That was me I created an ATR from the XEX and it worked:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/169969-atari-gaming-goodies-ixion-pole-position-race-designer-x/?hl=%2Bixion&do=findComment&comment=2119988

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 6 years later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...