Another A8 disk archive started

[Mclaneinc]

11 hours ago, Tuxon86 said:

It's really nice to see I'm not the only one doing this... There are dozens of us A8 archivers! DOZENS! ?

 

The more the merrier..

 

And what is nice is that we are seeing actual good finds, which you can only hope for..Well done to all

[Zarxx]

13 hours ago, DjayBee said:

From today's batch some MECC educational titles:

 

0160B - Basic Arithmetic[cr CSS].ATR 90.02 kB · 4 downloads

0161A - 609 - Elementary Biology[cr CSS].ATR 90.02 kB · 4 downloads

0162A - 608 - Expeditions[cr CSS].ATR 90.02 kB · 4 downloads

 

Your ATRs are still protected and therefore crash.

Perhaps you can redump these disks when you have your Kryoflux running.

 Protection and Skew re-added to the original dumps in the interim.

 

MECC fixes.7z

[SpicyChronos]

I have uploaded the side A images of Disks 0160, 0161 and 0162 as ATX files, and the raw Kryoflux data. The disks I have are from copies of the originals.

 

Disk 0160 has a text document with it, explaining the issues I am having with it. It requires under Altirra that the drive emulation be a Happy 810, and when you try to select an option, it tries to access sectors beyond 720 and reboots.

 

I don't have a "flippy" drive, yet.... I have a Panasonic JU-475-4 1.2Meg floppy drive that can be modified to work as a "flippy" drive. I plan on doing the modification soon. Just need to find the time to do it, now that I've gotten back to work after being off for several months.

 

So the B sides will have to wait a bit, or I can provide ATR images, and see if they can be modified to work, ahem.... crac... yeah, modified. LOL.

 

-Marshall

[Tuxon86]

7 minutes ago, SpicyChronos said:

I have uploaded the side A images of Disks 0160, 0161 and 0162 as ATX files, and the raw Kryoflux data. The disks I have are from copies of the originals.

 

Disk 0160 has a text document with it, explaining the issues I am having with it. It requires under Altirra that the drive emulation be a Happy 810, and when you try to select an option, it tries to access sectors beyond 720 and reboots.

 

I don't have a "flippy" drive, yet.... I have a Panasonic JU-475-4 1.2Meg floppy drive that can be modified to work as a "flippy" drive. I plan on doing the modification soon. Just need to find the time to do it, now that I've gotten back to work after being off for several months.

 

So the B sides will have to wait a bit, or I can provide ATR images, and see if they can be modified to work, ahem.... crac... yeah, modified. LOL.

 

-Marshall

I just received my 3 optical sensors i ordered from the UK. Funny thing is that I have only about 2 and ¼ boxes to do out of 12... Oh well, it'll be ready for the next lot I can get my hands on.

[SpicyChronos]

If I count for double sided disks, I should have at least 3000 images to upload in total. I am in the 1500's now for disks imaged, and I would estimate that I have at least another 200 disks to go through. Not including re-dumps, etc.

[+DjayBee]

52 minutes ago, SpicyChronos said:

Disk 0160 has a text document with it, explaining the issues I am having with it. It requires under Altirra that the drive emulation be a Happy 810, and when you try to select an option, it tries to access sectors beyond 720 and reboots.

The disk was made with the Happy Compactor and contains four titles from Inhome Software:

 

 

EDIT: I have no clue why this disk was done the way it's done.

The idea behind the Compactor is to put several source disks (including their copy protections) onto one copy disk to save physical disks at the price of dependency on a Happy drive to run it.

Now, the Math Pack originally was only one disk with a menu to select and therefore saves nothing except the fact that the copy protection seems gone because the initial menu is replaced by the one from the Compactor. This does not make sense if you need a Happy drive anyway.

 

In Altirra you have to define a fully emulated Happy 810 to make it work.

 

 

52 minutes ago, SpicyChronos said:

So the B sides will have to wait a bit, or I can provide ATR images, and see if they can be modified to work, ahem.... crac... yeah, modified. LOL.

The images of MECC titles I uploaded yesterday are cracks I did. Your disk of Geography has no protection.

Edited February 22, 2022 by DjayBee

[kenames99]

hi Marshal,

  thank you for doing this.

 

Ken

 

[SpicyChronos]

All,

 

I've added another batch of images. (ATR 02-23-2022.zip)

 

I think I saw something rare in one of the educational images... Heathcliff Fun! with Letters. I didn't see it listed on Atarimania.

 

Regards,

Marshall

[ijor]

On 2/22/2022 at 4:25 PM, DjayBee said:

The disk was made with the Happy Compactor and contains four titles from Inhome Software:

 

 

EDIT: I have no clue why this disk was done the way it's done.

The idea behind the Compactor is to put several source disks (including their copy protections) onto one copy disk to save physical disks at the price of dependency on a Happy drive to run it.

Now, the Math Pack originally was only one disk with a menu to select and therefore saves nothing except the fact that the copy protection seems gone because the initial menu is replaced by the one from the Compactor. This does not make sense if you need a Happy drive anyway.

 

How weird. It is a hacked Happy Compactor menu because the title legend with the Happy copyright was removed. One consequence of this is that the Happy utilities will not recognize this disk as "compacted" and then it would require some work if you want to recover the original disks.

 

Note that this disk has no copy protection. You can convert the disk to ATR and it still would work fine. The Happy is still needed to remap the compacted tracks.

 

I would assume this is a different version originally released on separate, not copy protected, disks. But hard to know for sure.

 

[SpicyChronos]

Greetz All!

 

Another batch of ATR images have been uploaded (ATR 02-25-2022). I think there might be some gems in there. Tried searching Atarimania, and didn't see them listed at all or they were missing images.

 

Enjoy!

[www.atarimania.com]

The absolute gem here is Name That Song by Quality Software, I thought this title would never surface!

 

Huge thanks!

[SpicyChronos]

Another ATR image upload. ATR 02-26-2022.zip and ATR 02-27-2022.zip.

 

Enjoy!

[www.atarimania.com]

OK, I need to know if I'm completely off track on this one... It's common knowledge that one of the early betas of Rescue on Fractalus! was called Rescue Mission. Was this widely available? 'Cause I found it in this very collection and can't recall having ever seen it before...

 

Here you go: Rescue Mission.xex

[bfollowell]

20 minutes ago, www.atarimania.com said:

OK, I need to know if I'm completely off track on this one... It's common knowledge that one of the early betas of Rescue on Fractalus! was called Rescue Mission. Was this widely available? 'Cause I found it in this very collection and can't recall having ever seen it before...

 

Here you go: Rescue Mission.xex

 

That's awesome. I was aware of Behind Jaggi Lines, having acquired a copy in my college years, and later finding out that it was a pre-release copy of ROF after seeing a review of that game after it's release. Until very recently, I'd never even heard of an earlier version titled Rescue Mission.

 

[Mclaneinc]

Wow, don't remember seeing it as Rescue Mission bitd...Nice.. Just booted it, wonder in what order it is, Behind Jaggi, then Rescue Mission and then Fractalas?

Edited March 1, 2022 by Mclaneinc

[_The Doctor__]

There was talk about this in the past, in order to avoid making a mistake, I'll simply say do a meticulous search as I don't remember if it was live talk or typed but it's was on the internet in some form. Maybe even in some archive or another. I think it was Rescue Mission, and then the nick name Jaggi lines (Jagged line graphics) and then the R.O.F. title.

 

The Eidolon is fun game that can catch you off guard as well.... (since folks are talking about goose pimple games elsewhere)

Edited March 1, 2022 by _The Doctor__

[SpicyChronos]

Small additions to my archive (ATR 03-01-2022.zip) added.

 

I believe I found a few more gems. More Random House Software. Enjoy.

[Kr0tki]

On 3/1/2022 at 3:57 PM, www.atarimania.com said:

OK, I need to know if I'm completely off track on this one... It's common knowledge that one of the early betas of Rescue on Fractalus! was called Rescue Mission. Was this widely available? 'Cause I found it in this very collection and can't recall having ever seen it before...

 

Here you go: Rescue Mission.xex

It must have been very rare BITD. I think this is the first time this version leaked online. @MisterKerr reviewed Rescue Mission on his blog in 2009, as part of his series of reviews of disks he owned BITD, but it apparently went unnoticed, and he did not publish the file back then.

Pinging @Tempest, he needs to add a section on RoF to his website ?

[Tempest]

53 minutes ago, Kr0tki said:

It must have been very rare BITD. I think this is the first time this version leaked online. @MisterKerr reviewed Rescue Mission on his blog in 2009, as part of his series of reviews of disks he owned BITD, but it apparently went unnoticed, and he did not publish the file back then.

Pinging @Tempest, he needs to add a section on RoF to his website ?

Neat!  I'll have to review this one.  Has anyone gone through it already to see what's all different?

[www.atarimania.com]

52 minutes ago, Tempest said:

Neat!  I'll have to review this one.  Has anyone gone through it already to see what's all different?

 

The first visible detail is that the panel is different!

[www.atarimania.com]

1 hour ago, Kr0tki said:

It must have been very rare BITD. I think this is the first time this version leaked online.

 

Yep, was very surprised at this myself, although there are several mentions of the game circulating back in the day. 

[Tempest]

Here's what  I've found so far.

 

There's no Lucasfilm logo or intro, the game starts at cockpit screen
There's no options screen or high score screen
Cockpit screen says * Rescue Misison * instead of Rescue on Fractalus!
Copyright says (C) Lucasfilm Ltd. instead of (c)1985 Lucasfilm Ltd.
Starts on level 1 instead of 4
Pilot Distance meter says L instead of R
Artificial Horizon meter is missing AH text
Long Range scanner right doesn't say LR instead has magnifications (2x, 4x, etc)
No Standby By text on launch
Compass doesn't display on launch, it only appears on planet
The mountains are 'smoother' and don't have dotted lines
E (engines) turns off shield instead of S (systems)
There is no sound when B is pressed and mothership not present
There is no sound when L is pressed when already landed
The Pilot Quota meter shows how many pilots rescued rather than number remaining to rescue.  It alternates between number rescued and number needed to rescue
Ships look like hollow diamond on radar instead of being 'ship shaped'
No Jaggie pilots or Aces
No MOTHERSHIP! text
No demo

[Tempest]

So what's the story behind this file.  It's obviously a beta of RoF that's slightly earlier than the Behind Jaggie Lines proto, but it's a executable for the Atari 8-bits and not for the 5200.  I thought the game was developed on the 5200 then ported to the Atari 8-bits.  Was this a quick conversion of a 5200 proto or were protos developed simultaneously for the 5200 and 8-bits?

[Mclaneinc]

As someone who was knee deep in the 'scene' back then, it was a shock to see Rescue Misson, I like many had seen Jaggi lines but not rescue mission. I had disks coming out of my ears but I can safely say I'd have remembered this. I can only imagine that there was not a lot of time between mission and jaggi lines and jaggi was more leaked / spread.

 

There are games you just remember, every little detail, because they were so good...Jaggi and rescue but not mission..Weird.. Same as I remember the first leak of a classy shoot em up on the C64 called Delta, it fell out the back door of a certain very big C64 magazine and it's file name on the disk was SPACE EGGS. Mind you, the mag team had the Finish programmer stay with them and used to take him out and get him sh*t faced, no wonder the game which they were documenting got leaked.

[www.atarimania.com]

On 3/3/2022 at 3:56 AM, SpicyChronos said:

Small additions to my archive (ATR 03-01-2022.zip) added.

 

I believe I found a few more gems. More Random House Software. Enjoy.

 

Some amazing stuff here!

 

Do you have more details on disk 0638B-521? I understand these are VisiCalc templates but is there any other reference on the label? Is it VisaTax or VisiTax? Probably the latter, right?