Need help figuring out what these Rom files are?

[NIAD]

I've had these rom files on my system for years and they have even been part of the Software Archive that I have made available in the "Unsorted" subdirectory, but have never had any luck getting them to work. So, I am posting them here to see if anyone can help and figure out what exactly we have here. The roms include:

 

• ADAM Resident Debugger v2.0 - Three *.bin files containing the respective dumps of the rom chips on the cartridge PCB that need to be merged into one rom image file. I have never seen the cartridge or cart PCB and can only assume that someone acquired it from a former Coleco employee. The name of the program is pretty self explanatory and like other ADAM utility cartridges, it probably will not work in an emulator, but will have to be copied to one of the AtariMax Multi-Carts or burnt back to prom chips and installed on a cart PCB for testing purposes on a real ADAM.
• Monkey Academy with Degugger - Three *.bin files containing the respective dumps of the rom chips on the cartridge PCB that need to be merged into one rom image file. I have never seen the cartridge or cart PCB and can only assume that someone acquired it from a former Coleco employee. This is probably an in-development version of Monkey Academy, so it may not be very exciting to most since the game was officially released, but the inclusion of debugger features could prove interesting to some.
• James Bond proto - A single 16K rom file that could be an early version up to the final version of the officially released game by Parker Bros.
• bankswitchtest (2 different rom images) - No idea where these may have come from or what exactly they are.

 

 

Unknown - Roms.zip

[Ikrananka]

I had a quick look at these and explored them with my limited skill set.

• ADAM Resident Debugger v2.0 : I don't have an ADAM and so can't test this but attached is the combined 24K rom.
• Monkey Academy with Degugger : This doesn't run on a CV emulator so I am guessing that the debugger code requires this to be run on an ADAM.  Combined 24K rom file attached.
• James Bond proto : This rom does NOT start with the required cartridge header (0x55 0xAA or 0xAA 0x55) and so will not run as a cartridge.  It starts with 0x77 0x0A.  I replaced the first two bytes with 0x55 0xAA and it still does not work.  I also did a byte by byte comparison of this "proto" rom against the official Parker cartridge game and they are completely different, no common sections at all.  Also, the official rom contains clear words, such as "JAMES BOND" and "1984 Parker Brothers" whereas the proto rom has no clear words in it at all.  I also did a search of ALL of the rom/binary files I have (including your ADAM & CV sets) for any other files containing portions of this proto rom and came up empty.  So, this proto rom is certainly unique to every other rom dump we have.
• bankswitchtest (2 different rom images) : There are only two bytes that are different between these two roms so they are only very subtly different.  Again, these roms do not contain the required cartridge header and instead both start with 0x78 0xD8.  They seem to contain virtually no code with ~4K sections filled with 0x00 and 0xFF with occasional other byte values.  Each ~4K section is prefixed with the same 192 bytes that all start with 0x78 0xD8.  I'm guessing these were bankswitched roms that another program called and read to verify correct 4K bankswitching behaviour.  But that's just a guess on my part. 

ADAM Resident Debugger Rev. 20.bin Monkey Academy with Debugger.bin

[NIAD]

Thanks Ikrananka. I will test out your merged versions and report back. Will also do some further testing of the James Bond proto rom. I think these came from an FTP years ago, so no idea where and whom they originally came from.

[NIAD]

One Bad and One Good.

 

The ADAM Resident Debugger v2.0 frooze up the ADAM at a black screen. I have a feeling that it's looking for another computer system connected via RS-232, but will have to pass this merged rom file onto some more knowledgeable people that can look at and hopefully decipher the code. The files before merging may possibly be corrupt but if looked at with an editor program, you can see a lot of the menu options which are in the working Monkey Academy with Debugger rom file.

 

Monkey Academy with Debugger works and boots into a SmartKey program that includes many more options than the previously available Coleco Graphics Processor (Project Name by Line) program that we have had disk, data pack and rom images available of for a long time. I assume that it's a similar setup where the user would connect to another system (VAX ?) via an RS-232 interface in order to transfer and edit game code that was being developed. Again, will take someone with the necessary skill set to look at the code to decipher it's full capabilities, but to me it looks like a very complete debugger program with development features. Some pics of the SmartKey screens...

 

 

[Geoff Oltmans]

I wonder if the non-working cart images are ROM disk carts for CP/M...

[+nanochess]

The James Bond ROM isn't Z80 code. It is 6502 code, maybe for Atari 5200, it uses $D40A for WSYNC.

 

The cartridge apparently is loaded at $6000-$9fff, but I wasn't able to run it on an Atari 5200 emulator for Mac OS X.

 

Edit: Also the bankswitch ROMs are 6502 code.

Edited January 26, 2020 by nanochess

[NIAD]

Thank you Nanochess.

 

Jim Walters is looking at the ADAM Resident Debugger v2.0 and reports that it is looking for communication with another computer. Will see what else he is able to come up with.

 

The Monkey Academy with Debugger rom is pretty impressive and I have to get back to that one to see what else I can discover about it. Unfortunately for most here, you need a real ADAM to use it.

 

[+Yurkie]

Cool stuff Jim. It's Awesome you shared this.