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turn OS-B carts into XL/XE carts, please...


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Hello folks,

 

think this topic came up several times, there are some carts that work on OS-A or OS-B only. Some of them were patched to work on XL/XE, but released as .XEX or ATR versions and I would like to have them as ROM/CAR versions, if possible. Here are the few remaining cart versions (8k and 16k) I would like to have patched so the ROMs work fine on XL/XE...

 

- Danger Ranger: a selfmade cart, the original tape works fine on XL/XE, so maybe one could fix this cart ?

- Gorf: there is a disk version for XL/XE, but maybe someone finds a way to fix the cart also ?

- K-Krazy Kritters

- K-Star Patrol

- Monster Maze

- Picnic Paranoia

- Pool 400/800 by IDSI

- Protector II

- Seafox

- Shamus: there was a patched XEX version released

- Slime: again, exists as a patched XEX version

- Speedway Blast

- Survival of the Fittest

 

As said before, I would like to have these programs as ROM/CAR versions that work fine on XL/XE computers - maybe someone already fixed one of these programs ?

 

OLD_OS_Carts.zip

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Mentioned elsewhere as investigated before, Gorf uses Page 3 of memory and so causes the OS lockup due to it thinking the cart has been pulled. It pretty much uses all of memory and so doesn't have an 'easy' fix. Easier just to play an XEX/Disk version.

The patching of the Synapse titles I think uncovered that it was something to do with the startup screen that could be bypassed with one of the console keys held down maybe?

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Here's where this goes time and time again,

Using studio X you can use a flash cartridge with os patch so no need

Using an exe you can put that on a flash cartridge so no need.

other such work around suggestion are to skip this part of the cartridge or that denying the full experience

and on and on...

 

What would be cool is a proper ROM with the changes made within the code. That way is could be burned to a prom in a real cartridge or put on any cartridge for that matter. This is little work for some titles or major work for others.

Edited by _The Doctor__
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- Picnic Paranoia

- Protector II

- Shamus

- Slime

 

These are Synapse originals that were on tape/disk and like most pre XL Synapse games have some issue or another on the XL.

But their games later released on cart - surely that was well into the XL and probably XE era so they shouldn't have issues.

 

In the case where only an executable can be found but it still lives at the proper cartridge address - fair chance you could just dump out the memory block from an emulator (either 8K or 16K working backwards from $BFFF) and they should function as a raw ROM file just fine (ie would prompt for type if mounted in emulation)

 

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16 minutes ago, Rybags said:

- Picnic Paranoia

- Protector II

- Shamus

- Slime

 

These are Synapse originals that were on tape/disk and like most pre XL Synapse games have some issue or another on the XL.

But their games later released on cart - surely that was well into the XL and probably XE era so they shouldn't have issues.

 

 

Well,

 

I do have Slime and Protector II on an original red cart and they both do not work on my 800XL computers. Had also Fort Apocalypse on an original grey cart. (but gave it away) and this did not work on the XL-OS (Rev. 2), luckily Wrathchild already did an XL fix for Fort Apocalypse...

 

These carts were released in 1982, so the only XL available then was the 1200XL (the mentioned carts were not re-released as grey XE/XEGS carts)...

 

 

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1 hour ago, CharlieChaplin said:

As said before, I would like to have these programs as ROM/CAR versions that work fine on XL/XE computers - maybe someone already fixed one of these programs ?

 

I have gathered four of them as fixed car file. Have a look to the attachment.

  • Monster Maze
  • Pool 400
  • Shamus
  • Survival of the Fittest

OLD_OS_Carts_fixed.zip

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Thank you larryleffaovell !

 

So, only 9 programs from the above list remain:

 

- Danger Ranger

- Gorf

- K-Krazy Kritters

- K-Star Patrol

- Picnic Paranoia

- Protector II

- Seafox

- Slime

- Speedway Blast

 

Maybe Gorf could be packed/compressed and then additional (fix) code be added ?!? Or one could turn it into a 16k ROM cartridge (instead of 8k ROM)...?!?

 

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1 hour ago, CharlieChaplin said:

These carts were released in 1982, so the only XL available then was the 1200XL

Just to be clear, the 1200XL was not available at retail in 1982. Engineering sample production started in like November ‘82, with the first production models not coming until December or so. They weren’t likely in any buyers’ hands until at least late January ‘83 and thereafter. They sold very poorly and new 800’s remained available well into ‘84 at least. Production of the 800 actually continued well into 1983 - two of the three 800’s I own currently were built in the summer of ‘83, as was the one I had as a kid that we bought new in August ‘83. 

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10 hours ago, larryleffaovell said:

I have gathered four of them as fixed car file. Have a look to the attachment.

  • Monster Maze
  • Pool 400
  • Shamus
  • Survival of the Fittest

OLD_OS_Carts_fixed.zip 23.43 kB · 16 downloads

The Shamus fixed cartridge attached on this compilation has an issue in the colors. Here's fixed:

 

Shamus (1982)(Synapse Software)(US)[!][XL Fixed] v3.rom

 

 

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5 hours ago, larryleffaovell said:

Thank you @venom4728a and @Wilheim, added these to my huge collection. I'v attached the last five of my ~600 car's which are still running as OS-B only, hoping that one can fix them too...

 

OLD_OS_Carts.zip 38.47 kB · 4 downloads

Here are the XL running versions. The Protector file is mislabled, it is actually Protector II, I have attached a running  version of Protector. I loaded the Car files into Altirra resaved them as Bin files, then I created a new car file in Cart Studio, with the OS-B option enabled. So now if run on an xl it automatically loads the correct OS before running the bin.  

XL Conversions.zip

Edited by venom4728a
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20 minutes ago, venom4728a said:

Here are the XL running versions. The Protector file is mislabled, it is actually Protector II, I have attached a running  version of Protector. 

 

Aaah, my hero, my Wizard of Wor! :) Many thanks, venom4728a!

I'll search for and refference to an old AA thread where I placed all of them already in the past, but download link is broken because of shutdown of ShareOnline.

 

EDIT: Refferencing to Any done a full cart to CAR conversion as yet?

New link is Game-Cartridges

Edited by larryleffaovell
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Yes, Wrathchild is the winner! The goal is patched ROMs.

So NO on the translators and pre-pended OS's

as that isn't what the goal is, the goal is to fix the binary... not to load an OS or some translator chaining the ROM's to a virtual, flash, or SD emulation cartridge. The goal is to be able to burn them to same sized Prom and put it in the actual cartridge.

 

Most of the fixes center around changing keyboard to proper location, s, e, k etc.

the off sound problem with init etc etc

 

maxflash cartridge studio, mybios, translator have soft loaded OS's and the like stuff forever...

so this sort of keeps popping up...

Edited by _The Doctor__
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  • 1 month later...

I looked a bit into what's wrong with Protector II, which I have fond memories of playing from cassette BITD.

 

The first problem I found is this bit of code.

954D: A2 25             LDX #$25
954F: BD 80 E4          LDA VCTABL,X
9552: 9D 00 02          STA VDSLST,X
9555: CA                DEX
9556: 10 F7             BPL $954F

VCTABL isn't valid outside of OS-A/B, so this initializes the vectors in page 2 incorrectly.  To work around this temporarily, I nop'd the STA.

 

With that fixed, the cart boots and plays the music, but the screen is disabled and it never responds to input.  It turns out GINTLK is zero, so the OS thinks the cart was pulled and falls into an infinite loop.

 

That seems to be due to this code:

9346: A2 00             LDX #0
9348: 8A                TXA
9349: 9D 00 04          STA $0400,X
934C: 9D 00 05          STA $0500,X
934F: 9D 00 06          STA $0600,X
9352: 9D 00 07          STA $0700,X
9355: 9D 00 03          STA $0300,X
9358: 9D 00 80          STA $8000,X
935B: CA                DEX
935C: D0 EB             BNE $9349

Page 3 is zero'd, which includes GINTLK.  I changed this to a double zero of page 7 for now.

 

With those two changes, the cart is playable on XL/XE (well, in Altirra) with some graphics glitches.

 

There are likely other issues, so don't consider this "fixed", but hopefully it will inspire a more clever developer to further look into this.

p2hack.car

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On 7/26/2020 at 12:37 PM, Atari_Ace said:

There are likely other issues, so don't consider this "fixed", but hopefully it will inspire a more clever developer to further look into this.

OK, no one took a stab so I took another look.

 

The reason there is code to clear pages 3-7 is because Protector II uses a PMBASE of 0 with single line resolution, and those 5 pages are the missile and player data.  So my 2nd attempt at fixing this is to move all those references up by $3800 and change the code that sets PMBASE.  Near as I can tell, this is all of them based on my disassembly of the code.

84F5: 99 00 04          STA $0400,Y ; change to $3C00
8505: 99 00 05          STA $0500,Y ; change to $3D00
8579: 99 00 06          STA $0600,Y ; change to $3E00
857F: 99 00 07          STA $0700,Y ; change to $3F00
8C43: 99 00 07          STA $0700,Y ; change to $3F00
8C46: 99 7F 07          STA $077F,Y ; change to $3F7F
8C4C: 99 00 06          STA $0600,Y ; change to $3E00
8C4F: 99 7F 06          STA $067F,Y ; change to $3E7F
8C63: 99 00 07          STA $0700,Y ; change to $3F00
8C69: 99 00 06          STA $0600,Y ; change to $3E00
9341: A9 00             LDA #0 ; change to >$3800
9349: 9D 00 04          STA $0400,X ; change to $3C00
934C: 9D 00 05          STA $0500,X ; change to $3D00
934F: 9D 00 06          STA $0600,X ; change to $3E00
9352: 9D 00 07          STA $0700,X ; change to $3F00
9355: 9D 00 03          STA $0300,X ; change to $3B00
9987: 99 00 04          STA $0400,Y ; change to $3C00
998D: 99 00 05          STA $0500,Y ; change to $3D00
9996: 99 00 04          STA $0400,Y ; change to $3C00
999C: 99 00 05          STA $0500,Y ; change to $3D00
99A1: 99 00 03          STA $0300,Y ; change to $3B00
99B5: 99 00 03          STA $0300,Y ; change to $3B00

I possibly missed some, but here's my v2 hack of Protector II.

p2hack2.car

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