Adventure II XE demo and testing

[+Cafeman]

To Order Adventure II XE from AtariAge, see this link:    https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1241

 

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December 14 2020 UPDATE:   New Demo!  Check below for the BIN/ATR files based on the Final Code.    You can play games 1 through 6. 

 

Explanation of the 5 different demo formats: 

 

• The current demo can be run on your Atarimax 1mb  or 8mb carts, or in an emulator such as Altirra.  For example, I use Altirra with the _XEGS.bin  file -  set Altirra to 64k XE bank switching. 
• You can run the XEGS bin (perhaps you need to rename to .ROM) on a Brewing Academy Ultimate Cartridge.
• I used MaxFlash to create ATR's converted from the 1mb and 8mb Atarimax bin's.   Reminder: the ATR's will only work if you use SIO2PC into an Atarimax cart that is in the Atarimachine. The ATR will not work trying to use it direct from PC ==> SIO2PC ==> ATARI with no Atarimax flash cart due to the bankswitching used. Sorry.  

 

Adventure II XE gameplay instructions: 

 

http://cafeman.www9....structions.html To check out the Atari 5200 Adventure II Instructions - pretty similar in overall gameplay to the XE version despite many revisions.  

 

Controls on Title Screen:

 

 

Use your joystick controls to move the > cursor up/down, to choose which Game Options line you want.

Hold Left/Right to change the options. 

Start or Joystick1 button to start game.

 

Controls during Gameplay: 

 

R Key or SELECT button to REVIVE AT CHECKPOINT.  

If you are EATEN , you can also press Joystick button to REVIVE to CHECKPOINT. 

 

Spacebar or OPTION button to PAUSE/UNPAUSE.   

You can also UNPAUSE by pressing the Joystick button. 

 

Tap Joystick button briefly to rotate a carried object.

Hold Joystick button for a moment to drop a carried item.

 

3 Key or START button to QUIT TO RANKINGS/STATS screen. 

 

Adventure II XE Gameplay notes: 

 

• Goal:  Return the Golden Chalice to the Seashore Castle!   
• Power-Ups:   Speed, Shield, and Flight may be granted at times. 
• Wood planks:  create them by holding the Sword still overtop a log in Kingdom 1. Drag planks to the island screens to build bridges over water. 
• Beginner Difficulty are games 1,2 and 3.  The Troll will not steal items but can make you drop them.  
• Intermediate and Advanced difficulty games have the Troll able to steal items and re-hide them in the same general area. You will be rewarded with SPEED if Troll steals from you here, so you can stuff unwanted items onto Troll to gain free SPEED. 
• Bat Eggs  - aka "Dots" -- there are 3 hidden in their own unique locations on each game variation.  Find all 3 and you will be able to access a secret screen somehow.  
• Alternate Icons: each has an ability.  Sir Square is the smallest and most nimble.   3D square can sense when a Bat Egg is near.  Knights are armored and can take more bites and even harm a dragon biting it sometimes. Bat gets Flight powers more often, Crab can crawl over the backgrounds. Glove is 50% less likely to have Troll steal from him.

 

AdvII_XE_DEMO_121420_AM1.atr AdvII_XE_DEMO_121420_AM1.bin AdvII_XE_DEMO_121420_AM8.atr AdvII_XE_DEMO_121420_AM8.bin AdvII_XE_DEMO_121420_XEGS.bin

Edited December 15, 2020 by Cafeman
12/14/2020 New DEMO files from Final Code!

[Shannon]

Nice!

[+Philsan]

Someone could make .atr flasher images?

BTW, I am unable to run the demo wih Altirra.

[+Cafeman]

Philsan: I just tried it and successfully attached both carts in my Altirra 2.20.

 

File: Open, pick 1mbit version, then Cartridge mapper = *41: MaxFlash 128K / 1Mbit. Runs fine for me.

[suspicious_milk]

Someone could make .atr flasher images?

BTW, I am unable to run the demo wih Altirra.

 

Yeah! I'd love an ATR . . .

[+Philsan]

Philsan: I just tried it and successfully attached both carts in my Altirra 2.20.

 

File: Open, pick 1mbit version, then Cartridge mapper = *41: MaxFlash 128K / 1Mbit. Runs fine for me.

I have Altirra 2.40. I only get a screen with AtariAge logo.

It would be nice if you could make an ATR flash image to test the game on real hardware.

I don't have the AtariMax cart programmer.

[accousticguitar]

I also could test it on real hardware if an atr was available.

[+Cafeman]

Perhaps one of you guys could create the ATR. From what I've read, you could go to the Atarimax site and download the maxflash studio software to convert the image to ATR. I've never done this but as I understand it, the software is free and it can be done. I assume you want the ATR for an SIO2PC and in-system flash cart setup. I don't have time to figure it out right now. Perhaps somebody can volunteer to do this.

[+Philsan]

I made two ATR to flash AtariMax MaxFlash 1Mbit and 8Mbit carts.

I've successfully tested 8Mbit version with my cart.

 

 

You'll find the ATR to flash Atarimax MaxFlash carts in the first post.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Philsan

[bfollett]

Ignore this post, I found my answer in a previous post in the thread. I wish there was a delete option.

 

Bob

Edited June 22, 2013 by bfollett

[Goochman]

Ugg I cant get to this until next weekend but I will test across a variety of machines!

[iesposta]

Just put this on my 8mBit AtariMax.

Running on my 800XL.

Does it need extra memory that the XE has? (Adventure II XE)

I am not sure, but I have a 320XL memory attached.

I also have an XEGS to try it on.

[phaeron]

I think there may be a PIA initialization problem with this cartridge image -- it does not set the port output B register before setting the data direction B register to $FF (all output). This means it is relying on the power-up state of the ORB register. The 6520 spec says that all registers reset to $00 so this would cause the kernel ROM to bank out, leading to the startup screen crash.

 

I've done some testing on real hardware with a SIC! cartridge and it looks like this is state is inconsistent -- on one machine with a U1MB all three CRB/ORB/DDRB registers are $00, and on the other two the cart fails to activate in diagnostic mode on power-on and runs as a normal cart instead, after the OS has initialized the PIA, but then runs as a diag cart and shows 00/00/00 on subsequent resets (!). I'd recommend removing the dependency on hardware power-up state by fully initializing PIA port B (PBCTL=$3C, PORTB=$FF, PBCTL=$38, PORTB=$FF, PBCTL=$3C).

[tep392]

I think I know what happened. I just reviewed the xl os and I made a mistake when trying to duplicate the PIA init code.

 

This is my implementation:

 

0016+ A505 ;Clear all hardware registers

0017+ A505

0018+ A505 A9 00 lda #$00

0019+ A507 A0 1F ldy #$1F ;do 32 registers

0020+ A509

0021+ A509 su_hdw

0022+ A509

0023+ A509 99 00 D0 sta $D000,Y ;GTIA

0024+ A50C 99 00 D2 sta $D200,Y ;POKEY

0025+ A50F 99 00 D3 sta $D300,Y ;PIA

0026+ A512 99 00 D4 sta $D400,Y ;ANTIC

0027+ A515

0028+ A515 88 dey

0029+ A516 10 F1 bpl su_hdw ;Done?

0030+ A518

0031+ A518 ;Initialize Ports A and B

0032+ A518 A9 38 lda #$38

0033+ A51A 8D 03 D3 sta PBCTL

0034+ A51D 8D 02 D3 sta PACTL

0035+ A520 A9 00 lda #$00

0036+ A522 8D 00 D3 sta PORTA

0037+ A525 A9 FF lda #$ff

0038+ A527 8D 01 D3 sta PORTB

0039+ A52A A9 3C lda #$3C

0040+ A52C 8D 02 D3 sta PACTL

0041+ A52F 8D 03 D3 sta PBCTL

0042+ A532 AD 00 D3 lda PORTA

0043+ A535 AD 01 D3 lda PORTB

 

My mistake is that I clear clear PORTB while clearing the other registers. The os has a couple lines of code that skip clearing PORTB. This is the os code:

 

[+Cafeman]

Just put this on my 8mBit AtariMax.

Running on my 800XL.

Does it need extra memory that the XE has? (Adventure II XE)

 

It needs 48K RAM.

 

Also, thanks for the testing and analytical work, Phaeron.

Edited June 24, 2013 by Cafeman

[tep392]

Cafeman,

 

I've pm'd you an update. I've changed the hardware initialization to match the XL OS.

[accousticguitar]

Bummer, the atr doesn't work on my 800xl when loaded from sio2pc.

[+Cafeman]

Bummer, the atr doesn't work on my 800xl when loaded from sio2pc.

 

I wonder why it worked for Philsan, who also converted the cart image to atr...

 

I have more to learn about these different A8 memory schemes and formats... I wonder if it has anything to do with the discovered bad PORTB initialization.

[tep392]

I wonder why it worked for Philsan, who also converted the cart image to atr...

 

I have more to learn about these different A8 memory schemes and formats... I wonder if it has anything to do with the discovered bad PORTB initialization.

 

It is probably related. My 800xl isn't working right now so I tested it on a 400, which would not be affected by the PORTB init. The initialization is run out of bank3 while mapped to $A000. When the faulty init code clears PORTB, the Basic rom on XL/XE machines will get switched on at the same location and cause the program to crash.

[Nognir]

I could test it on my PAL Atari 800XL with SIO2SD if you like

[mckafka99]

Probably not unexpectedly, here is what both of the above posted ATRs look like when loaded up onto my 800xl via my SIO2SD. Is there a separate max flash atr I should have loaded along side?

Edited June 25, 2013 by mckafka99

[accousticguitar]

Probably not unexpectedly, here is what both of the above posted ATRs look like when loaded up onto my 800xl via my SIO2SD. Is there a separate max flash atr I should have loaded along side?

That's what I got as well.

[+Cafeman]

I've asked for help from a few knowledgable people, via emails and IM's Not sure why the BIN's work but the ATR won't load. I updated the code with Tep392's PORTB fix, and made ATR's out of the 1mbit and 8mbit BIN files - but I'm getting the same error on Altirra and Atari800winplus.

 

Yet Philsan got his original ATR to work on his computer, so I'm confused.

 

No other feedback has been given. The BINs and PHilsan's ATR were downloaded by over 50 people. So nobody actually played a round of Adventure II XE?

[tep392]

I've asked for help from a few knowledgable people, via emails and IM's Not sure why the BIN's work but the ATR won't load. I updated the code with Tep392's PORTB fix, and made ATR's out of the 1mbit and 8mbit BIN files - but I'm getting the same error on Altirra and Atari800winplus.

 

Yet Philsan got his original ATR to work on his computer, so I'm confused.

 

No other feedback has been given. The BINs and PHilsan's ATR were downloaded by over 50 people. So nobody actually played a round of Adventure II XE?

 

The cart flashing s/w in the ATR is not detecting the cart, so I don't think this is an issue with the game. I suspect it is some kind of issue with the ATR flash code or cart revision. There was a change made to the carts some time ago that caused compatibility issues with flash files created by earlier versions of Maxflash Studio. I'm sure Steve Tucker will have some suggestions to help us figure this out.

 

The problem many people have with in machine programming is re-programming a cart that has been flashed with code that doesn't look for the OPTION key to be pressed and the disk to boot. The Menu loader does this, but Adventure 2 doesn't. I'll look into adding this to the demo version to make peoples life easier when they want to load updated demos.

[accousticguitar]

I've asked for help from a few knowledgable people, via emails and IM's Not sure why the BIN's work but the ATR won't load. I updated the code with Tep392's PORTB fix, and made ATR's out of the 1mbit and 8mbit BIN files - but I'm getting the same error on Altirra and Atari800winplus.

 

Yet Philsan got his original ATR to work on his computer, so I'm confused.

 

No other feedback has been given. The BINs and PHilsan's ATR were downloaded by over 50 people. So nobody actually played a round of Adventure II XE?

Philsan's ATR doesn't seem to work and there has not been any other ATRs to download so I have not played a round yet.

 

 

 

The cart flashing s/w in the ATR is not detecting the cart, so I don't think this is an issue with the game. I suspect it is some kind of issue with the ATR flash code or cart revision. There was a change made to the carts some time ago that caused compatibility issues with flash files created by earlier versions of Maxflash Studio. I'm sure Steve Tucker will have some suggestions to help us figure this out.

 

The problem many people have with in machine programming is re-programming a cart that has been flashed with code that doesn't look for the OPTION key to be pressed and the disk to boot. The Menu loader does this, but Adventure 2 doesn't. I'll look into adding this to the demo version to make peoples life easier when they want to load updated demos.

I'm using sio2pc so I guess this isn't relevant to me.