Gyruss Proto?

[Tempest]

What does everyone make of this?  I have a Gyruss proto that's listed as RLS.1 which 99.99% of the time is exactly the same as the final, but when I was doing a compare on it I was surprised that it had major differences.  When I fired it up in the emulator and compared it against the rom image I had I noticed that the color order for the stages was different.  However now I'm wondering if the prototype I have is actually the same as the final version and the 'final' rom image I have is different somehow.  Or are the colors for the stages randomized?  The two roms have large chunks of code that are different as well, but running through the game with each rom I didn't see anything else that was different.

 

Gyruss (4-23-84).bin

Gyruss (FINAL).bin

[+MrFish]

It definitely has some different colors. I know the first level on the release version is always red, which I always thought was a bad choice, given the red score/texts (at least for an opening level, which makes the thing seem monochromish, starting off).

 

It looks like this other version might have some different sprites for some objects/enemies too? I'd have to examine it a little more closely.

 

[Tempest]

8 minutes ago, MrFish said:

It definitely has some different colors. I know the first level on the release version is always red, which I always thought was a bad choice, given the red score/texts (at least for an opening level, which makes the thing seem monochromish, starting off).

 

It looks like this other version might have some different sprites for some objects/enemies too? I'd have to examine it a little more closely.

 

Ok so I wasn't imagining it.  Here's the list of color differences I saw, I imagine they just keep going but playing it through once was enough. 

 

    Enemies on stage 1 are purple instead of red.
    Enemies on stage 3 are green instead of tan
    Enemies on stage 4 are red instead of green
    Enemies on stage 5 are purple instead of tan
    Enemies on stage 6 are tan instead of green
    Enemies on stage 7 are green instead of tan
    Enemies on stage 8 are red instead of green
    Enemies on stage 9 are purple instead of tan
    Enemies on stage 11 are green instead of red
    Enemies on stage 12 are red instead of purple
    Enemies on stage 13 are purple instead of green
    Enemies on stage 14 are tan instead of green
    Enemies on stage 15 are green instead of tan
    Enemies on stage 17 are purple instead of green
    Enemies on stage 18 are tan instead of green
    Enemies on stage 19 are green instead of purple
    Enemies on stage 20 are red instead of tan
    Enemies on stage 22 are tan instead of red
    Enemies on stage 23 are green instead of red
    Enemies on stage 24 are red instead of green
    
    
    The enemies on stages 2, 10, 16, and 21 are the same color in both versions
   

[Tempest]

Here are two more protos that SHOULD be final but tested differently.  Mr. Do's Castle is only different by 3 bytes so I wonder if that's just bankswitching hot spots or bit rot.  Montezuma's Revenge has some significant changes, but trying to play it through an emulator with the keyboard is difficult so I haven't explored that one much.

 

 

Monty (5-30-84).bin Mr. Do (5-25-84).bin

[Kr0tki]

Matt, the ROM image of Mr.Do!'s Castle that you are comparing the proto to, is in fact a cracked ROM - that's why you are seeing the 3-byte difference. deathtrappomegranate uploaded a dump of his original Mr. Do!'s Castle cartridge back in 2012, and it was discovered at this time that the popular ROM of Mr. Do floating on the net was a crack. So grab the correct ROM image from deathtrappomegranate's post and compare the proto with it - you will discover that a) the proto ROM is an overdump with first 8KB empty; and b) it is identical to the final version.

[Tempest]

36 minutes ago, Kr0tki said:

Matt, the ROM image of Mr.Do!'s Castle that you are comparing the proto to, is in fact a cracked ROM - that's why you are seeing the 3-byte difference. deathtrappomegranate uploaded a dump of his original Mr. Do!'s Castle cartridge back in 2012, and it was discovered at this time that the popular ROM of Mr. Do floating on the net was a crack. So grab the correct ROM image from deathtrappomegranate's post and compare the proto with it - you will discover that a) the proto ROM is an overdump with first 8KB empty; and b) it is identical to the final version.

Ah thank you.   I assumed it must be something like that.

[Kr0tki]

With Monty the story is much more interesting. The known ROM image of Monty that is available on the Internet, e.g. at Atarimania, has a few bugs that were not present in the final US disk version by Parker Bros:

1. It lacks the sound when the dagger is used,

2. The leftmost room on the 9th level of the pyramid is broken, (as seen on these maps - click the "poziomy 1/3/4" links)

3. The room immediately below the aforementioned room is also different than in the final version.

 

What is interesting, the UK releases by Databyte (both disk and tape) contain the same bugs. Also, all cracked file versions of Monty (known as Preliminary Monty)  that I've seen, also contain these bugs.

 

And what is even more interesting, this new proto image of yours does not contain the bugs. It is "more final" than the known ROM image!

 

Now, since you had reviewed the Monty proto on your website years ago, I had always assumed that the known ROM image was dumped from that old prototype and then shared. It is stated in your review that the old proto held the label "Atari 400 Monty  12K.RLS.1  5/30/84".

 

But the new prototype, judging from the filename that you assigned to it, has the same date. This is quite confusing and raises some questions:

1. Is the old known ROM a legitimate prototype at all?

2. Did you base your original review on an actual ROM dump from the prototype cartridge, or was it mistakenly based on this buggy ROM that was obtained from elsewhere?

3. What was first: the supposed old ROM proto or the Databyte releases? Which is based on which?

[Tempest]

9 minutes ago, Kr0tki said:

With Monty the story is much more interesting. The known ROM image of Monty that is available on the Internet, e.g. at Atarimania, has a few bugs that were not present in the final US disk version by Parker Bros:

1. It lacks the sound when the dagger is used,

2. The leftmost room on the 9th level of the pyramid is broken, (as seen on these maps - click the "poziomy 1/3/4" links)

3. The room immediately below the aforementioned room is also different than in the final version.

 

What is interesting, the UK releases by Databyte (both disk and tape) contain the same bugs. Also, all cracked file versions of Monty (known as Preliminary Monty)  that I've seen, also contain these bugs.

 

And what is even more interesting, this new proto image of yours does not contain the bugs. It is "more final" than the known ROM image!

 

Now, since you had reviewed the Monty proto on your website years ago, I had always assumed that the known ROM image was dumped from that old prototype and then shared. It is stated in your review that the old proto held the label "Atari 400 Monty  12K.RLS.1  5/30/84".

 

But the new prototype, judging from the filename that you assigned to it, has the same date. This is quite confusing and raises some questions:

1. Is the old known ROM a legitimate prototype at all?

2. Did you base your original review on an actual ROM dump from the prototype cartridge, or was it mistakenly based on this buggy ROM that was obtained from elsewhere?

3. What was first: the supposed old ROM proto or the Databyte releases? Which is based on which?

I honestly don't remember where I got the previous rom image.  It's probably the buggy rom that I reviewed.

 

So what you're saying is this version is basically the disk version on cart and contains no bugs.  Also that the rom that's floating around out there (which I got from Atarimania) is either a hack/bad crack or possibly an earlier version? 

 

So what does that corrupted room look like in the rom I provided?  what about the room below it?

[lbaeza]

Deleted

Edited November 18, 2021 by lbaeza
Clarification

[Kr0tki]

2 hours ago, Tempest said:

So what you're saying is this version is basically the disk version on cart and contains no bugs.  Also that the rom that's floating around out there (which I got from Atarimania) is either a hack/bad crack or possibly an earlier version? 

Yes, more or less. Though given that the differences between the new ROM and the old one are significant, it is not possible for the old ROM to be a hack of the new one. I believe that the old ROM is some kind of a WIP leak, on which all the hacked "Preliminary Monty 16K" DOS files are based; and I would not be much surprised if the official Databyte releases turned out to be based on one of those hacked DOS files - we've seen such cases before.

Quote

So what does that corrupted room look like in the rom I provided?  what about the room below it?

Consult the maps for the C-64 version - the uncorrupted Atari version is identical.

 

--------

Now about Gyruss, it's an interesting case again: most if not all known DOS file hacks of Gyruss that are floating around, show the same colours on stage 1 as the 4-23-84 proto, so they are not actually based on the final version.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Kr0tki

[Tempest]

So Gyruss is actually a late WIP that for some reason most of the dos file hacks are based on and Montezuma's Revenge is the final version but all the 'final' roms out there seem to be based on a WIP version?  Interesting.

[ascrnet]

9 hours ago, Tempest said:

Monty (5-30-84).bin 16 kB · 13 downloads

I played this version and it doesn't have the bugs of the hack versions. here you have the bugs of this version.

[+MrFish]

Monty has a bit of a tangled history. When is Jaeger's update supposed to be released?

 

[Tempest]

1 hour ago, ascrnet said:

I played this version and it doesn't have the bugs of the hack versions. here you have the bugs of this version.

Good to hear.  Glad there's a fixed version out there now.
 

So is the rom that's out there based on the preliminary Monty version (which I've never looked into) or is it a corrupted hack of the disk version (or 5200 version)?

[Kr0tki]

The "old" Monty ROM occupies 16KB of memory at $8000-$BFFF (it's actually a 12KB cartridge, so $8000-$8FFF and $9000-$9FFF are duplicated), and the Parker Bros disk release loads into different memory areas, and is different enough to assume that the PB release and the ROM are not directly related.

 

The 5200 version is layed out differently, so it's not directly related either. BTW the 5200 version does not contain the errors of the old 8-bit ROM.

 

The Databyte releases actually load into $8000-$BFFF and, after loading, that memory area is 100% identical to the old ROM.

 

There also exist old DOS file hacks that load to $8000-$BFFF (along with supplementary initialization routines loaded into other areas) and are identical to the old ROM (or differ in a few bytes for unknown reasons). Curiously, none of the hacks are based on the correct PB release. (I'm judging from the contents of the AtariOnline.pl software archive - it is rather comprehensive.)

 

So, in my view two options are possible:

a) Source of the old ROM is a leak from PB, that was then hacked to file by pirates (most likely by Steve and Bruce, who famously released their version under the title "Preliminary Monty 16K"); and Databyte later went the lazy route and based their releases on a cracked file (same as what Atari Corp. did when they released "Centipede" on tape - they simply used Glenn's hack from Atari 5200). Maybe the known ROM file itself was re-created back from one of the DOS files at a later date, who knows.

b) Source of the old ROM is the Databyte release - maybe they screwed something up and made the releases buggy, and all the hacked DOS files, and the ROM file, originate from the Databyte disk or tape. But this seems unlikely. The Databyte releases are from 1986, the PB release is from 1984, but none of the known file versions are based on the PB release. How would that be possible that no one would make a file version of Monty between 1984 and 1986?

Edited November 19, 2021 by Kr0tki

[Tempest]

Wow that's a great analysis.  Since piracy was so rampant on Ataris (especially for good games) I'm going to guess that your first idea is the correct one.  I wish we had access to the unaltered 'preliminary Monty' rom so I could review it.  I'm also curious as to why no one bothered to just convert the 5200 version like they did with other 5200 only titles back then.  Maybe the hacked beta got leaked before the 5200 version came out and no one thought there was a need?  I'd really like to know the story behind all of these versions.  At least we now have the official unaltered Atari 8-Bit version.  
 

What about Gyruss?  Any further thoughts on that one?

[Kr0tki]

7 hours ago, Tempest said:

Maybe the hacked beta got leaked before the 5200 version came out and no one thought there was a need?

Looking at the interview with the developers, my understanding is that they did the 8-bit version first. That would make your assumption rather probable.

7 hours ago, Tempest said:

What about Gyruss?  Any further thoughts on that one?

? I checked all disk and file hacks of Gyruss from the AtariOnline archive - they all load to$8000-$BFFF and are mostly identical in that area to the 4-23-84 proto, with a few bytes different here and there.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Kr0tki

[Kyle22]

Is there a good Gyruss that doesn't cut the sound off?

 

[Tempest]

16 minutes ago, Kyle22 said:

Is there a good Gyruss that doesn't cut the sound off?

 

The proto dump I have does that too.  I thought it was kind of odd myself.