Wilheim Posted November 30, 2017 Share Posted November 30, 2017 Hi, all! Recently Nir Dary asked me if I have a version of Karateka that it would work on a multigame cartridge. I tried to put the ATR image on a MaxFlash studio image, but surprisingly it crashed when loading the first stage. Looking into the disk I was amazed that for some reason it reads the disk onto the $C000-$C3FF area (a bug?? I don't know), which it didn't have any use of it. It can work on an standard configuration, because the standard OS rom is protected, but when it comes with Maxflash, which patches the OS ROM disk reading routines, it overwrites the cartridge reading routines, which causes the crash. Well, I patched that ATR image, so it doesn't writes the OS area anymore. And now it works! Attached is the patched ATR file. I hope you find it useful. By my side, I was able to rescue the princess in this version. Best regards! Karateka (1985)(Broderbund)(US) - MaxFlash patch.atr 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted November 30, 2017 Share Posted November 30, 2017 (edited) Hi, all! Recently Nir Dary asked me if I have a version of Karateka that it would work on a multigame cartridge. I tried to put the ATR image on a MaxFlash studio image, but surprisingly it crashed when loading the first stage. Looking into the disk I was amazed that for some reason it reads the disk onto the $C000-$C3FF area (a bug?? I don't know), which it didn't have any use of it. It can work on an standard configuration, because the standard OS rom is protected, but when it comes with Maxflash, which patches the OS ROM disk reading routines, it overwrites the cartridge reading routines, which causes the crash. Well, I patched that ATR image, so it doesn't writes the OS area anymore. And now it works! Attached is the patched ATR file. I hope you find it useful. By my side, I was able to rescue the princess in this version. Best regards! Alas, this version has a small graphic glitch, black+grey lines under the fighters... On my PAL setup (1088k, XL-OS, Altirra palette) under Atari 800 Win and Altirra 2.90... Edited November 30, 2017 by CharlieChaplin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted November 30, 2017 Author Share Posted November 30, 2017 Funny. Didnt happen on Altirra on 64k and 128k NTSC... Can you try on another setup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndary Posted November 30, 2017 Share Posted November 30, 2017 The Glitch is only in the Demo, not in the real game.. and i think that the disk reading is the disk protection hack!? Nir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted November 30, 2017 Author Share Posted November 30, 2017 Ill look forward on another version that it doesnt have the glitch. Ill let you know. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted December 1, 2017 Author Share Posted December 1, 2017 I looked into different versions on different sites, and all of them have the same glitch, even the VAPI (original??) version from atarimania. Does anyone have an unglitched version? Besides the CAR file, of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndary Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 (edited) here Karateka Atari 85-08-30 Jordan's.atr Edited December 1, 2017 by ndary 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted December 1, 2017 Author Share Posted December 1, 2017 Here's patched now. It was easier to patch cause it's not encrypted. I noticed that this version is preliminar one. The music is slightly different, as well as the difficulty. Regards! Karateka Atari 85-08-30 Jordan's - MaxFlash patched.atr 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted April 21, 2020 Author Share Posted April 21, 2020 On 11/30/2017 at 6:21 PM, CharlieChaplin said: Alas, this version has a small graphic glitch, black+grey lines under the fighters... On my PAL setup (1088k, XL-OS, Altirra palette) under Atari 800 Win and Altirra 2.90... Bumping an old thread. I just patched Karateka and fixed the bug on the demo. The bug exists because there is an error on the initialization of a zero page address by the desencryption routine. I had to be creative to fix this and maintain the encryption as well. I think it could be fixed on the original ATX version as well, I'll take a look into it. Cheers! Karateka (1985)(Broderbund)(US) - MaxFlash patch - v2.atr 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 okay so this is for the demo, are you doing the retail disk as well as 130xe retail cart versions too? is there a difference between them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted April 21, 2020 Author Share Posted April 21, 2020 10 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said: okay so this is for the demo, are you doing the retail disk as well as 130xe retail cart versions too? is there a difference between them Sorry, maybe I didn't make myself clear. This is the retail version, and the bug occurs in the intro when the protagonist appears on the island. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 Yeah I kinda had that feeling once I read your post in the preservation thread.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 16 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said: ...as well as 130xe retail cart versions too? is there a difference between them Doesn't happen on the cart version. Doesn't happen on the file version either, which I think was derived from the cart version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 Just for clarity, is it not a 130xe retail version, i.e. requiring 128K to run, but for all XL/XE's with 64K and even 400/800's with 48K? The 'car' image from Atarimania should therefore run fine from any multigame cartridge that supports XEGS ROMs. So when the above patched ATR image is setup on an AtariMax menu (to autostart) then presumably the replacement code under the O/S is required and so 64K becomes the baseline? But for carts that can boot from ATR images then they'll only need 48K? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 While we're talking about graphical problems, has anyone else ever noticed that there are a few pixels missing on the Atari copyright section of the cartridge version? I've dumped the cartridge myself in order to verify that I wasn't seeing the results of a bad dump; but the pixels were missing in the dump I made as well. A minor problem, but should probably be fixed anyway. I've highlighted the missing pixels in red here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 45 minutes ago, MrFish said: I've dumped the cartridge myself in order to verify that I wasn't seeing the results of a bad dump; but the pixels were missing in the dump I made as well. I said that wrong. What I did was checked out the screen from an actual Atari Karateka cartridge I owned, and the pixels were missing there too. So, no need to dump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted April 21, 2020 Author Share Posted April 21, 2020 19 minutes ago, MrFish said: Doesn't happen on the cart version. Doesn't happen on the file version either, which I think was derived from the cart version. Maybe they work because they're not using any encryption process. The disk version is heavily encrypted, using DAUX1, DAUX2 and 128 bytes starting at address $80. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 Not sure if anyone is interested, but I attached Karateka binary file, which requires 130XE to run, though. KARATEKA.EXE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 saved as karateka130... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 2 hours ago, Jacques said: Not sure if anyone is interested, but I attached Karateka binary file, which requires 130XE to run, though. KARATEKA.EXE 80.54 kB · 7 downloads Karateka.xex (128) is available on Homesoft, without starting glitches (as usual with Homesoft games). http://www.mushca.com/f/atari/index.php?idx=K 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 @Philsan There are no starting glitches in 130XE version I attached, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 1 minute ago, Jacques said: @Philsan There are no starting glitches in 130XE version I attached, though. Some games shows some garbage at the start and Homesoft removes it. Here's what appears at the start of your version (for less than a second). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 I recorded a video that shows an example (Karateka) of the starting glitches that some games have and Homesoft removes, if possible. Karateka garbage.avi 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Oh, that thing, I haven't even considered it an issue, but if it's removed, that's even better. At first I suspected you mentioned this rectangle shadow near karatekas someone pictured above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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