Mclaneinc Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 There's a lot of stuff that has been converted by Jindroshes (spelling) bas to file loader, sadly it conflicts with Altirra's BASIC but I reckon the optimisations in the BASIC could help some of these programs run better and smoother, is there a reverter out there? If I could do it by hand I would but the grey matter just isn't kicking it these days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 (edited) Can you upload an example, preferably one that's not too long or complex? In theory couldn't you just hit Break or Reset then save it to the H: emulated device? OK, plenty of Basic programs disable Break but that's easily gotten around. Some also coldstart the system on Reset which could be a problem. But for most stuff so long as it doesn't go screwing pointers up or otherwise reverting to sabotage as method to stop you viewing them, should be doable. Hint - force a Break in Altirra. From the debug console, E 11 0 Edited May 23, 2016 by Rybags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 23, 2016 Author Share Posted May 23, 2016 Hi Rybags, got the name of the process a little wrong, its BAS2Boot but here's a little example.. Thanks for looking... hookey-basic.atr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 23, 2016 Author Share Posted May 23, 2016 As said its a known issue with Altirra BASIC but not a fault of it, I had a quick look in Ominvore and saw the loader routine but long gone are my days of relocating code etc.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 OK, the ATR generated seems to be one of those annoying truncated jobs. So I'm guessing the entire process is just putting the file onto a booter as raw data. Don't suppose you happen to have a copy of the utility that generates these disks? I'm thinking the easiest method to get back to Basic (see what I did there?) is to just work out how much prepended data has to be thrown away. End result you'd likely end up with a program a little longer than it should be (but hey, XL Basic does that anyway). Then just LIST it to a file. But do note of course, that debug command I mentioned earlier should allow you to break out of virtually any Basic program, if there's no action it probably means there's some assembler routine running. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 23, 2016 Author Share Posted May 23, 2016 I think this is the culprit maker..... Thanks for looking, just rushing out the door...Can't play with it as its a 32bit Windows job..(X64 here) bas2boot_bin.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 hookey.bas OK, this seems to work. I derived it from the earlier enclosed ATR image. The trick seems to be just throw out the first 258 bytes of the file and what's left can be loaded in Basic. Also on x64 here so can't immediately try incompatible stuff... might have 32-bit Win on a laptop somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 23, 2016 Author Share Posted May 23, 2016 How are you trimming the bytes off... Tried in Omnivore and the cut seems greyed out.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 (edited) Hmmm, there is BAS2BOOT by Jindrich and ADir to do the reverse... http://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/data/asoft/adir.txt However, its possibly a 16Bit (DOS) PC application and may or may not run under Win 32 Bit or 64 bit. http://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/asoft.html Edited May 23, 2016 by CharlieChaplin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 23, 2016 Author Share Posted May 23, 2016 Sadly as you guessed its 16 bit and 95% of us seem to be X64 these days... Appreciate the look... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 23, 2016 Author Share Posted May 23, 2016 (edited) Ah, got running via DOSBox v.74, well that and a DPMI program... What I then discovered was that some people had BAS2BOOT made files that were part of a set of files, so if it used a font file supposed to be on the same disk you would get a 130 error because BAS2BOOT only takes one file and makes an ATR of it but its not a true atr, just a bas file with a small loader. BUT otherwise it does the job perfectly, ll I need to do is find a way to script it or some such...Sadly not possible under my beloved Directory Opus on the PC... And as an added reply to Rybags, was able to run the bas2boot software under dosbox and it was set up as a one way only program, apart from offering a choice of output formats including a full size atr and the loading message you could do nothing but make these files... No decoder.. Edited May 23, 2016 by Mclaneinc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Ace Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 The attached perl script should work to bulk convert. perl boot2bas.pl *.atr. It will likely overwrite .bas files in the same directory with the same name, so test it on copies. boot2bas.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Also a good idea to load the programs into the emulator and LIST them to a file. As it is, Basic Rev B bloats by 16 bytes per save, but these ATRs will likely have padding out to the next 128 byte multiple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 24, 2016 Author Share Posted May 24, 2016 Thanks all, just as a matter of interest, how did you strip the files down Rybags, as said I used Omnivore to try abd cut off the 258 bytes and there's no enabled cut option. Would be interesting to know for future uses. And again, thank you all.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 http://seriouscomputerist.atariverse.com/media/install/HxD%201.7.7%20-%20Install.exe From MrFish Signature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 I used UltraEdit which is sort of overkill but lets you have a quick overview of a file in hex and text. It's also a bit cumbersome for doing this sort of thing, it's real easy to get things wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 24, 2016 Author Share Posted May 24, 2016 (edited) Thanks for the HxD link, downloaded and used to mutilate a copied atr using the 258 byte strip and it worked fine... Thank you both... Paul... And back to the point of me doing it, ran some of these reverted files under Altirra BASIC and good speed improvement, ran under Altirra OS AND Altirra BASIC and superb increase where needed ie init times and game movement (depending if its synced or not) PS, thankfully no one adjusted the loading message or I suspect unless there's a set space allowance for the message that the byte's needed to be removed would change depending on message... Edited May 24, 2016 by Mclaneinc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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