BC'S Quest for Tires formatted my floppy - why?

[+Nezgar]

23 hours ago, Mclaneinc said:

I suspect that it would be the same for the Archiver and any other programmable drive...

The thing with the Archiver -- unlike most other "enhanced" drives -- is that it's extended commands were not available by default until a special "open code" was sent to the drive, or it was turned on with a special disk in the drive, so it was pretty immune to detection. The code was a 2-byte code unique to each drive, so it would take up to 65,536 attempts to even attempt brute forcing it by software.

 

The happy for instance you had to explicitly set it to "unhappy" to disable the extended commands and track buffering. Regardless, always a good idea to write protect those disks hehe

[Rybags]

So has the relevant binary been found?

 

I kinda doubt it'd use an IOCB/CIO based Format operation since that only works if a valid handler is present, ie provided by a DOS (though that could be explained by reported larger binaries)

I'd think more likely it'd use the resident disk handler via $E453 which receives the parms via the DCB and requires no extras.

[Rybags]

Tried (Sierra OnLine) (US) (a) in Altirra but couldn't replicate any such result - it goes to Self Test without any apparent disk activity.

 

The tragedy of this game - such potential but let down immensely by lack of polish and the infuriating way it has that delay when you lose a life then just plonks you back into the action sometimes 1/4 of a second from an obstacle that makes you die again.

Just played it and got to the pond jump guarded by the snake, I don't think I ever got much further than that (though watching a longplay that's almost at the end and I have finished it before)

 

Just noticed - the C64 version has a nice title screen bitmap that might lend well to a G2F or RC conversion.

 

Then... just when you think what a turd we got handed, look at what the Apple II got:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WI_QLX1Hhw

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by Rybags

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

So strange ... am I the only one who gets an auto-formatted floppy here, then?

 

Maybe it's my specific Atari then? It's a 1200XL and the drive is a XF551.

[TGB1718]

3 hours ago, Rybags said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WI_QLX1Hhw

That is painful to watch ?

[+kheller2]

5 hours ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

So strange ... am I the only one who gets an auto-formatted floppy here, then?

 

Maybe it's my specific Atari then? It's a 1200XL and the drive is a XF551.

You have a bone stock 1200XL and XF551?  Supply an ATR of your floppy before it erases itself.

 

[ijor]

On 2/25/2021 at 12:48 AM, Nezgar said:

As an early copy protection mechanism, IIRC Brøderbund's "A.E." checks if your disk drive responded to Happy commands, and if so issue a format command and show "Gotcha!" on the screen.

 

That protection, present in several Broderbund releases, actually seems to target The Chip, not the Happy. The protection issues command 'T' ($74). That is an Archiver/The Chip command. Not a Happy one.

 

Quote

The thing with the Archiver -- unlike most other "enhanced" drives -- is that it's extended commands were not available by default until a special "open code" was sent to the drive, or it was turned on with a special disk in the drive, so it was pretty immune to detection. The code was a 2-byte code unique to each drive, so it would take up to 65,536 attempts to even attempt brute forcing it by software.

 

The happy for instance you had to explicitly set it to "unhappy" to disable the extended commands and track buffering.  ...

 

This is true, but most extended Happy commands are not available until you run the Happy software. The Happy will not ack command 'T' by default.

 

 

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

5 hours ago, kheller2 said:

You have a bone stock 1200XL and XF551?  Supply an ATR of your floppy before it erases itself.

 

Hmm! That's not a bad idea. I'll try tonight and see how that goes. I've written ATR file to floppies but never made an ATR file of a floppy.

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

I recreated my 360k floppy with MyDos and one of the BC's Quest for Tires executables. After booting up fresh and running the game a bit I pressed the reset button. Sure enough, the floppy formatted.

 

I repeated this one more time and got the same result. 

 

I recreated the disk a 3rd time and created an ATR file. It is attached here. Both copies of BC's Quest for Tires inside the ATR formatted the floppy after pressing reset.

 

Now the kicker. I booted from the ATR and the disk image didn't format itself after a reset.

 

I returned to the floppy and the floppy wouldn't format itself! It may sound odd but I was very disappointed. Was I just getting lucky (or unlucky) here or are there some other variables in play here that I can't even begin to imagine?

 

It's late now. I will try all this again tomorrow. When I do I will try to record a video on my mobile phone. 

BC Formats My Disk.zip

[+bf2k+]

I am pretty sure I had this happen to me once back in the 80's.  I can't remember what program did it (could have been BC) but I certainly had 2 happy 1050s in the chain.  

[invisible kid]

I tried it with BC_DNGR.XEX on an 48k NTCS 800 in atari800 and the start screen was garbled. Played a game and entered my initials. Then it was accessing the disk while standard out printed "Unexpected command frame at state 4." I waited a couple minutes, exited and loaded it again and it came up okay, but didn't have the high score saved.

[xxl]

I think the code of this game is aimed precisely against MyDos users ...

[+kheller2]

9 hours ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

 

 

Now the kicker. I booted from the ATR and the disk image didn't format itself after a reset.BC Formats My Disk.zip

How are you booting the ATR vs a real floppy?

[_The Doctor__]

yeah this might be what DOS you are using related...

[+x=usr(1536)]

1 hour ago, bf2k+ said:

I am pretty sure I had this happen to me once back in the 80's.  I can't remember what program did it (could have been BC) but I certainly had 2 happy 1050s in the chain.  

 

This sounds oddly familiar to me, too.  I similarly don't remember what piece of software it was that this happened with, but I did have both a US Doubler and Happy 1050 at the time.

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

44 minutes ago, xxl said:

I think the code of this game is aimed precisely against MyDos users ...

23 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

yeah this might be what DOS you are using related...

@xxl and @_The Doctor__ Can you add some detail to this? How is this software conflicting with MyDOS?

 

Your comments make me want to try standard Atari DOS 2.0 or something like that. 

 

33 minutes ago, kheller2 said:

How are you booting the ATR vs a real floppy?

@kheller2 I assign the ATR to D1: in my APE software and turn on the computer. Nothing special, I think. Is there more to consider here?

[EddyFree]

 

With that disk image, I was able to duplicate your issue in Altirra. However, I had to make sure VRWSAFE mode is not enabled on the emulated drive so that Altirra will actually allow it to be formatted.

 

Looks like somehow through the reset process it is jumping into the DOS.SYS code format disk routine. I set an execution breakpoint at $113C and sure enough it hit it on reset. If you put the file on a different DOS disk(ie:not MyDos), no formatting occurs. Whether this is a fluke or by design I have no idea.

 

    113C: A9 21             LDA #$21   ; format command
    113E: 8D 0A 03          STA DAUX1
    1141: AC 46 02          LDY $0246
    1144: 20 74 07          JSR $0774
------
    0774: 8D 02 03          STA DCOMND
    0777: 18                CLC
    0778: A9 50             LDA #$50
    077A: 8C 06 03          STY DTIMLO
    077D: A9 80             LDA #$80
    077F: CA                DEX
    0780: F0 0D             BEQ $078F
    0782: AE 0B 03          LDX DAUX2
    0785: D0 07             BNE $078E
    0787: AE 0A 03          LDX DAUX1
    078A: E0 04             CPX #$04
    078C: 90 01             BCC $078F
    078E: 0A                ASL
    078F: 8D 08 03          STA DBYTLO
    0792: 2A                ROL
    0793: 8D 09 03          STA DBYTHI
    0796: A0 31             LDY #$31
    0798: 8C 00 03          STY DDEVIC
    079B: C6 48             DEC $48
    079D: 30 16             BMI $07B5
    079F: AE 02 03          LDX DCOMND
    07A2: E8                INX
    07A3: 8A                TXA
    07A4: A2 40             LDX #$40
    07A6: 29 06             AND #$06
    07A8: D0 02             BNE $07AC
    07AA: A2 80             LDX #$80
    07AC: 8E 03 03          STX DSTATS
    07AF: 20 59 E4          JSR SIOV

 

[+DjayBee]

1 hour ago, xxl said:

I think the code of this game is aimed precisely against MyDos users ...

Exactly.

The game overwrites memory at $1000 and due to this, MyDos BRKs during the reset routine and eventually ends up in its own disk format routine.

 

Might this be triggered by some weird writing to weird mirror locations in the I/O area? ?

/me ducks and runs.

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by DjayBee

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

@EddyFree Wow, that is amazing work! Thanks for digging into this. Now I know this phenomena is real and this isn't me just going crazy here.

 

One of my frustrations last night was how inconsistent the behavior was. Sometimes the floppy would reformat and sometimes not. Any ideas on that? Did the 6502's instruction pointer just land in a different spot sometimes?

 

Tonight I will definitely try a few more times with MyDOS and then definitely-definitely try standard Atari DOS.

 

The lesson for me here is to be careful with what I download from the internet!