Night Stalker hack

[pacman3211]

Night stalker with black background

 

nightstalker.rom

 

Robot never fires

 

nightstalker.rom

 

No background music

 

nightstalker.rom

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2014 by pacman3211

[+Rick Reynolds]

Neat! I'd love to see a hack that gives the player infinite bullets!

[intvnut]

Neat! I'd love to see a hack that gives the player infinite bullets!

 

 

With the .BIN format, you can do hacks like this entirely with .cfg files. For infinite bullets, copy stalker.bin to, say, infbullet.bin and use this .cfg file:

[macro]
@P 5B6D 34

The "@P" means "POKE", and can be used to overwrite ROM. This works in jzIntv and INTVPC. (Note: In jzIntv at least, it can only overwrite ROM that's part of the game being loaded, and won't overwrite other ROMs, and it won't poke into memory with no ROM. Not sure about INTVPC.)

 

Anyway, the above @P will poke a NOP opcode over the DECR that decrements your bullet count.

Edited March 24, 2014 by intvnut

[intvnut]

And since this is a programming forum, I guess I should say how I did the hack.

 

1. Fired up Night Stalker in jzIntv's debugger.
2. Run game and tap disc to get into the main game screen.
3. F4 to break out to debugger.
4. "m 35D" shows me the address of the EXEC hand controller dispatch. ($51C6)
5. "m 51C6" shows me the hand controller dispatch table. Entries are in SDBD order. The second entry ($5B14) is the entry used for the keypad.
6. "u 5B14" shows the code for processing keypad events. Running "u" a couple more times shows more code.
7. Notice a series of compares and branches: "If 2 goto $5B42; if 4 goto $5B48" etc. Disassembling further sees those code paths converge on code at $5B5A.

The code at $5B5A looks like this:

 $5B5A:    0280 0168              MVI  $0168,R0                              
 $5B5C:    0008                   INCR R0                                    
 $5B5D:    0240 0168              MVO  R0,$0168                              
 $5B5F:    0004 0114 02D5         JSR  R5,$16D5                              
 $5B62:    0004 015C 016B         JSR  R5,$5D6B                              
 $5B65:    0001                   SDBD                                       
 $5B66:    02B8 0082 0018         MVII #$1882,R0                             
 $5B69:    0240 0325              MVO  R0,$0325                              
 $5B6B:    0280 0160              MVI  $0160,R0                              
 $5B6D:    0010                   DECR R0                                    
 $5B6E:    0240 0160              MVO  R0,$0160                              
 $5B70:    02B7                   PULR R7 

I put a watch on $168 and $160 and run again. I notice that $168 gets set to 1 while a bullet is in the air, and cleared when the bullet is gone. $160 is the number of bullets. Looking at the disassembly, the DECR R0 at $5B6D is what decrements the bullet count.

 

So, I NOP it out. Et voila! Infinite bullets.

 

The opcode for NOP is $34. Hence the poke statement above. It pokes $34, the NOP opcode, to lcoation $5B6D, the DECR R0 instruction.

[intvnut]

Another neat trick with SDK-1600's tools: You can "bake in" a patch such as the one above with rom_merge.

 

So, to bake in that hack above, assuming you've copied Night Stalker to "infbullets.bin", and written the "infbullets.cfg" shown above.

 

rom_merge infbullets.bin infbullets-baked-in.bin

 

Now that patch is applied within the BIN file "infbullets-baked-in.bin"

 

 

BTW, it appears that jzIntv will do something when you try to @P outside the ROM's space. Currently, it appears to just poke zeros, though. So, don't do it. :-)

[intvdave]

Neat hacks pacman. I have been messing around a bit with NS also. Mine is still a work in progress but the below video (click on image to watch it) gives you an idea where I am going with it. I have a thread about this at:

 

http://www.intellivision.us/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=219

 

Edited March 24, 2014 by intvdave

[Rev]

Nice! I like the added speed!

 

Good to see maze variations......now where is my snow level!

 

 

hmmm, but how would snow get inside the caves? D'oh!

[Zendocon]

If you want to disable all the enemies in Vectron, start the game, and at the "number of players" screen, enter this command into the debugger:

 

p 104 4

 

$104 is the Exec variable for "number of sprites in use". Fortunately, the last 4 of the 8 sprites are used for the Nasties, and it looks like you only have to set this once for the whole game.

 

Unfortunately, you can't just put this into the .cfg file as a macro, because that variable needs to be left alone during startup.

 

I know there was a very old thread on the Yahoo group "intvprog" regarding the Easter Egg that JZ discovered through ROM disassembly. I'm using dasm1600 for the first time to poke around a bit. I think I can replace the code segment to set $104 to 4 instead of setting that one value to 1, if the player presses 9 to activate the easter egg.

 

Stay tuned ...

[Zendocon]

Okay. My first suggestion wouldn't work, but I came up with something that does.

 

Append the vectron.cfg file with this:

 

[macro]

@p 55ed 2b8

@p 55ee 4

@p 55ef 240

@p 55f0 104

 

This replaces the code to check if you want 2 players (so you can't have 2 players anymore). The only thing that matters at the "number of players" screen is whether you enter '9' to make the easter egg possible.

 

Have fun!

[Zendocon]

I just tried the "Infinite bullets" poke for Night Stalker and it worked. Now, using the same technique to disable sprites as in Vectron, I found a place to write 7 to $104, eliminating robot bullets.

 

p 5073 7

p 5077 104

 

This replaces a 6 with a 7, just before it writes that value to $015f (lives counter) as well as $0162. If you replace 5077 with 5075, you start the game with 0 lives. Unfortunately, that gives you an automatic GAME OVER.

 

The side effects are that you start the game with 7 lives (which doesn't matter since you can't die anyhow), and you don't hear the heartbeat for the first 15 seconds of the game or so. So $0162 must be a timer for the heartbeat.

 

Some time ago, I was using the debugger to find variable addresses for other games. I recall messing with Lock & Chase and AD&D (Cloudy Mountain). My notes are on my old laptop. If I dig those up and try disassembling those ROMs, I can create patches for those as well.

[+grips03]

 

 

With the .BIN format, you can do hacks like this entirely with .cfg files. For infinite bullets, copy stalker.bin to, say, infbullet.bin and use this .cfg file:

[macro]
@P 5B6D 34

The "@P" means "POKE", and can be used to overwrite ROM. This works in jzIntv and INTVPC. (Note: In jzIntv at least, it can only overwrite ROM that's part of the game being loaded, and won't overwrite other ROMs, and it won't poke into memory with no ROM. Not sure about INTVPC.)

 

Anyway, the above @P will poke a NOP opcode over the DECR that decrements your bullet count.

 

 

Anyway to add game cheats via LTO Flash?

[intvnut]

 

Anyway to add game cheats via LTO Flash?

 

If you add these sections to your CFG file, the LTO Flash GUI will apply them when sending the game to the LTO Flash unit. This is true whether you download the file to flash, or you use the immediate "Download & Play" function.

 

So, copy stalker.bin to stalker_hack.bin, and stalker.cfg to stalker_hack.cfg, add the [macro] section, et voila. You're done. Add it to your menu or D&P and off you go. Infinite bullets.

[kinseliplier]

the roms at the top of this page do not work for me. i tryed using nostalgia emulator to run it but when it opens there is no sound and no matter what button i press it automatically closes and it will not start. please fix.

[Zendocon]

I created my own "no robot fire" hack.  It's available on my website.  Instructions are at the top of the page.  If you need help, let me know.

[kinseliplier]

On 1/10/2022 at 9:44 AM, Zendocon said:

I created my own "no robot fire" hack.  It's available on my website.  Instructions are at the top of the page.  If you need help, let me know.

ok how do i run this? this is confusing? its saying i need a cd for jzintv and intellivision dosent even have cds cause cds didnt even exist when the intellivision first came out in the 80s.

[kinseliplier]

On 1/10/2022 at 9:44 AM, Zendocon said:

I created my own "no robot fire" hack.  It's available on my website.  Instructions are at the top of the page.  If you need help, let me know.

i didnt notice your comment until just now cause im not on here that much.

[Zendocon]

4 hours ago, kinseliplier said:

i didnt notice your comment until just now cause im not on here that much.

That's fine.  To get the hacks working, follow the instructions in the link, at the top of the page.  If you still need help, let me know.

[kinseliplier]

On 6/11/2022 at 12:46 PM, Zendocon said:

That's fine.  To get the hacks working, follow the instructions in the link, at the top of the page.  If you still need help, let me know.

but the instructions dont explain anything and make no sense. it dosent tell me how to set up jzintv emulator and i cant find any youtube tutorials about is or anything else to explain it. i dont understand how to get this emulator working or how to get it to open and play games or how to even get a working copy of night stalker and get your hack file in it. the instructions dont explain any of this. my discord is Trappinonrapetube#5443 can you just add me and show me how to do this.

[mr_me]

http://spatula-city.org/~im14u2c/intv/jzintv/doc/jzintv/jzintv.txt

Jzintv is a command line program.  It comes with an instructions file linked above.

 

To use it in Windows without having to type a command, create a text file named "jzintvrun.bat" with a line like the following.  Make sure it doesn't have a .txt extension.

 

C:\jzintv\bin\jzintv.exe -z3 -v1 %1

 

Jzintv needs two system files exec.bin and grom.bin, with those exact names, placed in the jzintv\rom folder.  We're not allowed to share them because they are copyright protected but you can find them along with game rom files in Intellivision collections on archive sites.

 

Once you have all the files, just drag and drop game rom files on the bat file.

Edited June 13, 2022 by mr_me

[kinseliplier]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

http://spatula-city.org/~im14u2c/intv/jzintv/doc/jzintv/jzintv.txt

Jzintv is a command line program.  It comes with an instructions file linked above.

 

To use it in Windows without having to type a command, create a text file named "jzintvrun.bat" with a line like the following.  Make sure it doesn't have a .txt extension.

 

C:\jzintv\bin\jzintv.exe -z3 -v1 %1

 

Jzintv needs two system files exec.bin and grom.bin, with those exact names, placed in the jzintv\rom folder.  We're not allowed to share them because they are copyright protected but you can find them along with game rom files in Intellivision collections on archive sites.

 

Once you have all the files, just drag and drop game rom files on the bat file.

why do i need the command and how tf do i make the command?

[kinseliplier]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

http://spatula-city.org/~im14u2c/intv/jzintv/doc/jzintv/jzintv.txt

Jzintv is a command line program.  It comes with an instructions file linked above.

 

To use it in Windows without having to type a command, create a text file named "jzintvrun.bat" with a line like the following.  Make sure it doesn't have a .txt extension.

 

C:\jzintv\bin\jzintv.exe -z3 -v1 %1

 

Jzintv needs two system files exec.bin and grom.bin, with those exact names, placed in the jzintv\rom folder.  We're not allowed to share them because they are copyright protected but you can find them along with game rom files in Intellivision collections on archive sites.

 

Once you have all the files, just drag and drop game rom files on the bat file.

what line do i use? i dont know what to put?

[mr_me]

If you're using Windows, use Notepad to make the .bat file as described above.  You can copy and paste the line that starts with the letter c colon backslash from my post.  Adjust the directory path as required to where you have jzintv.exe on your computer. 

 

Once you have all that set you don't need to type a command.  You do need to execute a program.  Dragging and dropping a game rom file like I described will automatically execute the jzintv program.

Edited June 13, 2022 by mr_me

[kinseliplier]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

http://spatula-city.org/~im14u2c/intv/jzintv/doc/jzintv/jzintv.txt

Jzintv is a command line program.  It comes with an instructions file linked above.

 

To use it in Windows without having to type a command, create a text file named "jzintvrun.bat" with a line like the following.  Make sure it doesn't have a .txt extension.

 

C:\jzintv\bin\jzintv.exe -z3 -v1 %1

 

Jzintv needs two system files exec.bin and grom.bin, with those exact names, placed in the jzintv\rom folder.  We're not allowed to share them because they are copyright protected but you can find them along with game rom files in Intellivision collections on archive sites.

 

Once you have all the files, just drag and drop game rom files on the bat file.

also how  do i get the night stalker rom? i've been looking for it and all i found is an exe for intellivision lives 2 thats runs night stalker and 2 other games in an exe file and has no roms. i dont understand this. im so confused.

[kinseliplier]

1 minute ago, mr_me said:

If you're using Windows, use Notepad to make the .bat file as described above.  You can copy and paste the line that starts with ? from my post.  Adjust the directory path as required to where you have jzintv.exe on your computer. 

 

Once you have all that set you don't need to type a command.  You do need to execute a program.  Dragging and dropping a game rom file like I described will automatically execute the jzintv program.

but what dose the (-z3 -v1 %1) part mean? what is that for?

[kinseliplier]

4 minutes ago, mr_me said:

If you're using Windows, use Notepad to make the .bat file as described above.  You can copy and paste the line that starts with the letter c colon backslash from my post.  Adjust the directory path as required to where you have jzintv.exe on your computer. 

 

Once you have all that set you don't need to type a command.  You do need to execute a program.  Dragging and dropping a game rom file like I described will automatically execute the jzintv program.

also how come when i click the exe for jzintv it opens command prompt for a split second and then instantly crashes and closes?