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Transforming .com games into autobooting .atr


Philsan

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It's a wasteful way to do it if you're using real floppies.

 

There's a recent thread about disk menus which lots of us uploaded images - why not try some of them.

 

COM (binary load) files can have segments which load all over the place, so you can't just simply create a boot disk with one.

 

If you're really desperate for a true autoloader, I suppose I could modify the menu I did to forcibly load the first file.

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I've used Ken Siders' AtrUtil95 available on this page to drop com files onto an image an then via ape to real floppies Ken Siders Page

 

It will create a kboot disk image as an atr, which is basically a minimal boot disk with a small boot sector and whatever exe you've dropped on it.

 

The process is :

 

Click "Create" and choose density. I'd go for SSSD to be safe. Select the AutoBoot button in the bottom right and click "Create".

A file selector should appear. Select your exe file and it will be added to the disk.

Hit "Save" to save the atr file.

Test in an emulator.

 

Hope this helps. AtrUtil is a great tool. I've also used one called arc64.exe (arc65.exe???) in the past.

 

It's pretty wastefull though if you want to go to real floppies, you'd be better off with a menu system.

 

Cheers

Paul

Edited by spookt
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I didn't bother mentioning that before because DOS tends to have trouble with lots of games since many of them like to load in the low memory area.

 

Prettywell anything that wants to occupy $700-$1F00 will trash DOS and crash the machine part way through the load process.

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Why?!!!!

Rename file *.com as *.XEX and copy to SD CARD!!!! SIO2SD support XEX files!

.com and .xex files are the same thing?

I didn't know that! Thanks

 

For ATR files I recommend fantastic plugin for Total Commander written by Pajero!

(TOTAL COMMANDER ATR PLUGIN v1.5) You Can find it -> http://madteam.atari8.info/index.php?prod=uzytki

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Why?!!!!

Rename file *.com as *.XEX and copy to SD CARD!!!! SIO2SD support XEX files!

.com and .xex files are the same thing?

I didn't know that! Thanks

 

For ATR files I recommend fantastic plugin for Total Commander written by Pajero!

(TOTAL COMMANDER ATR PLUGIN v1.5) You Can find it -> http://madteam.atari8.info/index.php?prod=uzytki

 

It looks nice but I cannot read polish and the 2 translators had trouble.

so how does one use it?

 

James

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  • 12 years later...
On 9/1/2007 at 7:14 AM, sup8pdct said:

 

It looks nice but I cannot read polish and the 2 translators had trouble.

so how does one use it?

 

James

http://madteam.atari8.info/index.php?prod=uzytki
I just load the web link in Chrome browser and tell it to always translate Polish and it looks fine.  Now figuring out the programs written in Polish is of course another challenge but not impossible to work through :) 
see?

image.thumb.png.e55bd723fc730d43e4fc7d279f08ad87.png

Edited by Ray Gillman
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On 9/1/2007 at 7:14 AM, sup8pdct said:

 

It looks nice but I cannot read polish and the 2 translators had trouble.

so how does one use it?

 

James

While I was thinking about it I just converted the ASM of the Atari Commander from Polish to English here.  Not sure it may need dratex or something to atascii it before it works in the emulator but will mess with it more later.  I just used libre office to save it as an HTML file then loaded that into Chrome browser so it would auto-translate then had to search replace double stacked CR LF in notepad++ then saved it back again.  Was just making sure it would work.  Seems like it does.
 

ac1.81.asm

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