Atari Games

[John Doe]

Edited February 22, 2014 by Tony Knerr

[John Doe]

Edited February 22, 2014 by Tony Knerr

[sometimes99er]

Using a text editor I replaced 9 spaces with one, and linefeed with a single space, and got this. Was it something like that you were looking for ?

 

Do you have the disk or disks with the Atari games that load from Extended Basic? If you do, I'm sure you're not really pleased with that loader (it seems to take about an hour and a half to load that object code!) Well, hope is in sight, those files can be converted rather easily to work from Editor/Assembler option 5 or any other similar program image loader like FUNNELWEB or XBOPT5. The game files are already in program image format, they just don't contain the necessary file header information on where to load and where to start execution. The loader decides where to load the game and where to begin execution. Fortunately the first few bytes of each game file are not used by any of the programs and we can change them to the necessary file header information. (For those who are interested, the first 20 or 30 bytes are the Cartridge headers left over from when the games were in Cartridge form.) To make the changes use a sector editor or file editor (Disk Utilities works real well) to edit the beginning bytes of each file as listed in the chart below. You'll find that the files usually start with something like AAFF 0000 0000 or AA01 0000 0000 or AA01 0100 0000. if you see that sort of information, you'll know you're at the start of the file. Replace the string at the start of the file with the string from the chart, and write the sector back to the disk. For two-file games, you need to change both files. Please do not use your original disk to make the changes, copy the files to another disk and work with the copy disk in case you make a mistake! After the changes are made, you can load the games from Editor/Assembler option 5 (or equivalent) by running the file ending with a 1. For example, type "DSK1.DK1" <enter> from the "File Name ?" prompt to run "DONKEY KONG" after selecting 5 from the Editor/Assembler menu. The games load and run now without the need of the special loader. We also have the added bonus in that the games will still run from the special loader, the changes do not affect the operation of the loader. Happy game playing!

[sometimes99er]

To retain multiple spaces I think there's only one way, and that is using the "code" control in the forum editor.

 

Game           File(s)  Patch to Start of File
-------------  -------  ------------------------
Centipede      CP1      0000 1FFA A006 0460 A056
              
Dig Dug        DD1      FFFF 1FFA A006 0460 C03C
              DD2      0000 1FFA C006
              
Defender       DF1      0000 1FFA A006 0460 A072
              
Donkey Kong    DK1      FFFF 1FFA A006 0460 A086
              DK2      0000 0FFA C006
              
Jungle Hunt    JH1      FFFF 1FFA C006 0460 C020
              JH2      0000 1FF4 E006
              
Moon Patrol    MP1      FFFF 1FFA C006 0460 C0FE
              MP2      0000 1FF4 E006
              
Ms Pacman      MS1      FFFF 1FFA C006 0460 E0AE
              MS2      0000 1FF4 E006
              
Pacman         PM1      FFFF 1FFA A006 0460 A052
              PM2      0000 0FFA C006

Pole Position  PP1      FFFF 1FFA A006 0460 A060
              PP2      0000 1FFA C006

Protector 2    PT1      FFFF 1FFA C006 0460 DE3A
              PT2      0000 1FF4 E006

Shamus         SH1      FFFF 1FFA A006 0460 CBDA
              SH2      0000 10FA C006

[RobertLM78]

Although this thread seems a bit technical, I still thought it a good place for this question:

Where can one find the manual to Defender? The only thing on whtech is the box cover, which doesn't really help much in knowing what keypress does what. It looks like the spacebar deploys the "energy bomb" (to steal Elite terminology), but I'm not sure what's going on with some of the other keypresses..

[matthew180]

The problem with the spacing in the code blocks on the forum happened a while ago after an "upgrade". Some developer somewhere decided that any series of four spaces should be converted into a tab. Mind you, this is done on the output of the post, so you don't know about it until aftr you post. I brought it up to Al a loooong time ago, but I guess it is not important enough to fix. It really makes posting technical examples, diagrams, and assembly code a pain in the ass.

 

The only way around it is to never have four spaces in a row. I started using periods to maintain spacing where possible, or redesigned my diagram.

[RXB]

Thanks Matthew that helps I always wondered why the hell no matter how I formated the code the freaking web site AtariAge would screw it up.