Luc

I thought about that; that maybe I hit the select button, but then I thought about it and realized I played through all of the levels in order, starting on numero uno. It is indeed a glitch, I just tried it in Stella. I don't know exactly when it happens - sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Here's a screenshot:

Thank you for the explanation and the binaries. Steady colors is exactly what I wanted (although the dot in the black castle is now visible, but that's a nice side effect) I have attached my (faulty) version to this post. I don't know exactly what I did wrong, but you'll notice the flashing and change of color when you go into one of the mazes (wait for the bat). adv-ns.bin

I tried that, but that makes everything grey... Is there really no way to turn these dark rooms into normal orange+grey rooms? Right now I have changed the color $08 in the RoomDataTable (FE6E, FE77, FE80, FEC9, FED8 and FEE3) to $09 so that the CMP #$08 in the Surround routine always returns false. This works great, except for the color changes that happen when the bat or an object is present. But at least it makes the whole maze always visible.

Hello, Could a more experienced rom hacker please tell me how to completely remove the invisible surround in Adventure? I can't seem to do it without making the whole screen changing color everytime the bat flies by or when there's an object present. Any help? Thank you.

Just for history's sake, I feel I should mention that back in 1983 I programmed my own version of Swordquest Fireworld on the Commodore 64. The game was supposed to be played by a friend of mine who also loved the Swordquest games, but unfortunately we lost contact and I don't know if he ever managed to solve it. The object of the game was to find a word or phrase, hinted at by some of the banners. Here's a few screenshots: http://home.scarlet.be/~pin00842/sq/fireworld.htm The game was complete, but unfortunately I never got around to programming the starting screen or the ending.

Here you go: moonpatrol_.bin (lives counter is in $ec - dec instruction at $f14c)

Hi Omegamatrix, Thank you very much for the Dig Dug hack, I had already given up on that one. The problem is that I don't know much about the Atari bankswitching - guess I should RTFM too. But then I'm not very ambitious anymore when it comes to programming and hacking, I've done my share of that back in the C64 days. I will probably post some more hacks if and when I make them. If you can help with the Miner game(s), that would be great. Thank you.

It seems that Indenture uses a certain graphics mode that Dosbox doesn't support (yet), although the new version (v0.73) claims to support more graphics modes than the previous release. I don't really think you can set up the program to correct this, but maybe someone in the Dosbox forum knows more about it.

Can I make another suggestion? I think it would be interesting to have a right-click option "save as text file" in the debugger to save the disassembled code of the rom file loaded. I think that being able to search for strings like "DEC $" in Notepad would be easier than having to use a command like "runto c6" in the debugger. Just a thought that occurred to me when I was busy playing with Stella this afternoon, I don't know if it's even possible. Anyway thank you for a great emulator!

That's it! I would never have figured this out myself. Thank you very much!

If the changed code works fine if you run it before saving it, but the game goes wonky if you save the changed code and try to play it, then it sounds like something isn't getting saved correctly. I should also note that Asteroids is an 8K game. I'll bet that's the problem, because Stella shows only one bank at a time in the debugger window. Where is the instruction you changed (which bank, and what address)? Michael The instruction is at $F89F, bank 1. I did a filecompare like you suggested but there was only 1 byte different, as it should be. But just to make sure, I opened up the original rom in a hex editor (not the one from Stella), changed the one byte and then saved it from there. The result is the same... I'll attach the two files so you can see for yourself. originalasteroids.bin hackedasteroids.bin

Why is it that the graphics in Asteroids start flickering when I change just ONE byte in the program? If I start the game, enter the debugger, make the change and then go back to the game, everything is fine. But if I save the rom and then load the changed rom file back into Stella, the graphics start flickering horribly. This is really puzzling, because the change I make has nothing to do with drawing the graphics, all I do is change the instruction SBC #$10 to SBC #$00 to get infinite lives. Like I said, everything works fine as long as I do this from within the debugger, but as soon as I try loading the changed rom file, the flickering starts. Thanks for any help.

By increasing the time counter a bit, it's actually possible to catch the thief at the entrance of the store instead of the roof. When you take the elevator, go to the third floor so that the thief starts running the other way. As soon as he's past the elevator on the first floor, you get back in the elevator and come back down. The thief cannot escape the store and will keep bumping into the wall on the right, where you can easily catch him.

Here's Tutankham with infinite lives. I will look into the Miner games shortly and post them here if I can find a hack for them. Personally I could use some help with Dig Dug, because that one is really hard to hack. I have no idea how and where the lives counter is stored in this one - it sure isn't a simple decreasing counter like in most other games. tutankham_.bin.

Here's a few hacks I made myself recently, just for fun. - Asterix infinite lives - Centipede infinite lives - Demolition Herby infinite cars - Frostbyte infinite lives - Galaxian infinite lives - H.E.R.O. infinite lives + infinite dynamite - Haunted House infinite lives - Jungle Hunt (too silly really): infinite lives, lots of extra time, only two vines to catch, two crocs to kill and two rocks to jump over. - Jr. Pac Man - infinite lives - Kangaroo: infinites lives + infinite time - Midnight Magic: infinite balls - Montezuma's Revenge: infinite lives hacks.zip

No, Italian origin IIRC. I have one of those, so they're not strictly Italian.

I thought I did, but I can't seem to find them. Maybe this was the only one I saved to my hard disk. I remember I got it from an auction that was held here in 2004: http://vu.morrissey-solo.com/moz/perez/info/sq4.htm The article is still there, but the link to the artwork is dead now.

But at least it was started, judging by this picture that I found on the internet a few years ago:

I have a personal file with some cheats - if anyone wants to convert this into a cht file or add his own cheats, please do! Here's what I have collected so far: Road Runner: lives in $c4 (sbc instruction at $fcad) H.E.R.O.: dynamite in $b2, lives in $b3 Kangaroo: lives in $ad (inc $ad at $f06e, dec $ad at $f0cd) Jungle Hunt: lives in $88 time in $86, $87 number of boulders in $c6 Frostbite: time in $e5 lives in $cc Kung Fu Master: Time in $9B, $9C Lives in $9D (dec $9d,x) Montezuma's Revenge: Objects are stored in $c2 like this: 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 lamp sword sword key key key key hammer Asterix: # of objects in $c2 Donkey Kong Jr. Lives in $93 Amidar: score in $d9, $da, $db (anyone knows where the lives counter is??) Galaxian: lives in $b9 level in $af Mario Bros: lives in $87 bonus counter in $f2 level in $85 Night Driver: timer in $b3 score in $b4 Haunted House: number of matches in $82 lives in $96 Jr. Pacman Maze in $f6 (0-6, any other number will scramble the maze) Lives in $ff

How can I disable sprite collisions in Atari 2600 games? I remember the Commodore 64 had certain addresses that kept track of the sprite/sprite and sprite/character collisions, but how does the Atari do it? I've been looking for some info on the net, but could not really find anything helpful. I'd appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction. Thank you.

I was thinking more of increasing the distance PJ can jump, or even changing the screen setup to make the floors longer. But just changing the horizontal position was indeed a lot easier, thanks for the suggestion. It turns out that the player's horizontal position is stored in $aa, so all I had to do was increase the contents of that address (I set it to $80) to get to the floor on the right. As expected, there's nothing there: you cannot go to the right because there's an invisible barrier. Anyway, the mystery's solved now.

As is mentioned on http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/26montezumasrevenge.htm, there is a screen in Montezuma's Revenge with an unreachable exit. I would really like to get up there just to see what's on the other side. Does anyone know how to hack the game so that the exit may be reached? Thank you for any help.

Thank you all for the information.

Hello, Does anyone happen to have a cheat code to get infinite lives in Phoenix? I'd like to see how the game levels evolve, but unfortunately I'm not very good at it. I've been searching for the lives counter myself using Stella, but could not find it. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

I was totally hooked on these games when they came out here. I found five or six clues in Earthworld on my own, and two or three in Fireworld. I remember Atari US sent me the complete solution to Earthworld (there's a scanned picture of the letter somewhere on the net) and I got the solution to Fireworld from a guy in France - who got it directly from the French Atari division. Like Rom said, the games did not come with the comics here, but I managed to get a photocopied version of the Earthworld comic from a video game seller in Amsterdam. He also promised me he would import Waterworld and Airworld when they would come out in the US, and I must have phoned him at least a dozen times to ask when he would go to the US and get the games for me. Unfortunately he never got them... When I finally got on the net in 1995, I think the very first word I ever typed into a search engine was "Swordquest". :-) Ah, nostalgia.