Help: "High Rise" (1986)(Compute!"

[ballyalley]

Hi, I'm looking for a game called "High Rise" that was in the February 1986 issue of "Compute!" magazine.

 

Here's a "screenshot" of the game from the magazine:

 

 

"High Rise" Game Descripiton

 

"High Rise"
By Charles McGuyer, Atari Version by Kevin Mykytyn
For Atari 400/800, XL, or XE with at least 48K RAM
McGuyer, Charles. "High Rise." Compute!, 8.2 (Feb 1986): 49-57. Print.

Overview

You're a construction worker, trapped in a partially completed high-rise building after dark. Can you make it safely to the ground floor without being snared by a giant bird or zapped by the patrol robot? This unique game was originally written in machine language for the Commodore 64. We've added new versions, also written completely in machine language, for Atari and Apple II-series computers. It's one of the best arcade-style games we've ever published, particularly for the Apple. A joystick is required to play the 64 version. The Atari version also requires a joystick and runs on any 400/800, XL, or XE with at least 48K RAM.

About the Game

 

The time is the not-too-distant future, and the place is a downtown high-rise building under construction. You're just finishing the day's work when you realize that it's already dark. Everyone else has gone home, leaving you alone in a shadowy, multistory maze of naked girders and bare concrete. A chill creeps down your spine as you think about the recently installed antitheft robot. It patrols the structure from dusk to dawn, automatically disposing of any intruder it might find. Even worse, the half-completed building's shell is infested with nocturnal birds of prey. They're big enough to carry you away, and so hungry that they roam the empty structure all night long, swooping easily from one floor to the next.

Your only hope is to use the temporary elevators. They move randomly during the night hours, going up and down, stopping at some floors, skipping others. With skill and a little luck, you just might evade the dangers around you and make it safely to the ground floor- but it won't be a cakewalk.

Since all three versions of "High Rise" are similar, follow the general game rules under the Commodore 64 instructions. Then refer to the specific section for your computer for additional information and typing instructions.

 

What I've Got and Tried to Do

 

I've cut and pasted the Atari version of the game out of the February issue of "Compute!" This pdf is about 6MB:

 

High Rise (1986 Feb)(Charles McGuyer and Kevin Mykytyn)(Compute)with MLX.pdf

 

I have a disk image of the game, but the trouble is, I can't figure-out how to get the game to load! The "High Rise" article says that the game needs to be typed into MLX and then saved as an autoboot disk. I can't get the game to load into MLX, nor can I load it from DOS 2.0s (either with or without BASIC). I'm using Altirra 2.3.

 

The game is actually on this "Compute!" disk that containts all the files from January-March 1986:

 

Compute!, Vol 8, No 1-3 (Jan-Mar 1986)(Issues 68-70).atr

 

Here is a disk that I made that has MLX for the Atari (from the February issue):

 

Atari Proofreader and MLX (1986)(Compute)(Atari 800).atr

 

Can anyone help me figure-out how to get "High Rise" to load? I'd like to actually load it from the Compute! disk, if possible (this way I can learn to use other Compute! disks that I may try). There just must be something that I'm not getting...

 

Please, help me figure this out.

 

Thanks!

[Synthpopalooza]

One thing you can try is renaming the program to AUTORUN.SYS and booting with the disk. Also make sure you hold down OPTION when booting. This disables BASIC, and some games won't boot properly with BASIC enabled.

 

Or, just boot the disk with OPTION held down ... it should drop you to the DOS 2.5 menu (if the disk has DUP.SYS on it) then binary load the game from there.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Synthpopalooza

[ballyalley]

One thing you can try is renaming the program to AUTORUN.SYS and booting with the disk.

 

Tried that. It didn't work. The Atari started the boot process and then Altirra crashed.

 

Also make sure you hold down OPTION when booting. This disables BASIC, and some games won't boot properly with BASIC enabled.

 

I tried that too. No good. Since this program is machine language, I expect that it can't have BASIC resident.

 

Or, just boot the disk with OPTION held down ... it should drop you to the DOS 2.5 menu (if the disk has DUP.SYS on it) then binary load the game from there.

 

The Binary Load option doesn't work either.

 

The Compute! disks are available in the first post. It's my hope that someone can try them out, and with the help of the Compute! pdf that I also included, get "High Rise" to work. I'm quite surprised that I can't find this game anyplace, but it's not just that. I can't figure-out how to load the binary file of the game into MLX. It's confounding to me!

[+David_P]

If someone can get it running (and I'm planning to try tomorrow), Atarimania is missing the file:

 

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-high-rise_6113.html

[Xuel]

Here it is as an .XEX file:

 

hirise.xex

 

I used franny to extract it from the disk.

[a8isa1]

DOS 2.0 and MyDOS 4.53/4 couldn't do anything with the disk but SpartaDOS X 4.46 had no trouble at all (at least in Atari800 emulator it didn't)

 

Just as the disk instructions said I was able to get into the menu from BASIC with

 

RUN "D:MENU"

 

 

I wasn't able to load HIRISE.FEB from the menu, told it was not the correct type of file, but I was able to load it from SDX's CLI using

 

X HIRISE.FEB

 

 

-SteveS

[ballyalley]

Here [is the game High Rise] as an .XEX file [...] I used franny to extract it from the [Compute!] disk.

 

Thanks, Xuel! I used it with Altirra and it works fine. I also put it on an AtariMax 8-Mb flash cart and just played through a few games on my NTSC 130XE.

 

"High Rise" is a neat, little game. The XEX is just 2,416 bytes… which makes this game just over 2K. I was wondering how big the final file would be when the typing was done (that is, IF, I'd typed it!). It would seem that one page of MLX-formatted machine code for the Atari is about 2K.

 

For a type-in game, "High Rise" is certainly clean and fast! I don't like how random the game's elevators are though; it seems to make working on a strategy to get to the bottom of the building rather more difficult than it needs to be. Which is really the point, isn't it? If I could just walk in an elevator and choose Ground Floor then I suppose there wouldn't be much of a game there.

 

I plan to play the game some more this afternoon and see where I end up. Regardless, I can tell you already that if I'd typed this game into my C64 back in 1986 (presuming that the game plays the same and as well), then it would have been well work my time.

 

As for extracting "High Rise" using "Franny." I thought of that myself, but I had NO idea how to go about doing that. Besides, this isn't how Compute! planned to have the game loaded in the first place. The game's instructions from the magazine say that MLX needs to make a boot disk. I think that meant the idea was the game was to take up a whole disk. I wonder if that was typical for type-in ML games?

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

1) rename HIRISE.FEB to HIRISE.COM or HIRISE.XEX

2) add a run adress of $3000 (e.g. use Superpacker on the PC or on the A8)

3) use a DOS or Gamedos to run/execute this game...

 

The main reason that this game will not run/execute under DOS 2.x is the missing run adress. I added it here... hirise.xex

 

Under Turbo-DOS XL/XE one can use HEA FILENAME.EXT to show the data-segments of a ML file (will give you an error if its not a ML file); this way one can also see if there is a run adress or not; if the run adress is missing, then most of the time the run adress is the start adress of the first data segment (some DOS and gamedos versions will use the start adress of the first data segment automatically as run adress if a run adress is missing)...

 

-Andreas Koch.

 

Edited March 23, 2014 by CharlieChaplin

[ballyalley]

DOS 2.0 and MyDOS 4.53/4 couldn't do anything with the disk but SpartaDOS X 4.46 had no trouble at all [loading "High Rise.]

 

That was the same trouble that I ran into when trying to load the game. The Compute! disk's menu did allow me to load BASIC programs, but I was informed that "High Rise" couldn't be loaded from the menu. Which I THOUGHT meant that it should be loaded with good 'ol Atari DOS. But no, as we've discovered, that doesn't work. I've never used SpartaDOS, so I wouldn't have taken that route. Any idea why that DOS could load the program? What does it do differently when loading an ML program that Atari DOS doesn't do?

 

Also, I'm still wondering how Compute! expected regular users to load the game from the disk back in 1986. Certainly they didn't expect everyone to have SpartaDOS. Actually, I'm not even sure if that was available yet.

 

When I loaded HIRISE.FEB into MLX as a binary file, it did work, but the data didn't match, at all!, with the game's type-in data in the magazine. So, does anyone have any idea how to load this game into MLX?

 

I have a feeling that this problem is going to pop up again when I'm exploring the Compute! disks, and I'd certainly like to learn how to avoid it in the future.

[a8isa1]

 

That was the same trouble that I ran into when trying to load the game. The Compute! disk's menu did allow me to load BASIC programs, but I was informed that "High Rise" couldn't be loaded from the menu. Which I THOUGHT meant that it should be loaded with good 'ol Atari DOS. But no, as we've discovered, that doesn't work. I've never used SpartaDOS, so I wouldn't have taken that route. Any idea why that DOS could load the program? What does it do differently when loading an ML program that Atari DOS doesn't do?

 

Also, I'm still wondering how Compute! expected regular users to load the game from the disk back in 1986. Certainly they didn't expect everyone to have SpartaDOS. Actually, I'm not even sure if that was available yet.

 

When I loaded HIRISE.FEB into MLX as a binary file, it did work, but the data didn't match, at all!, with the game's type-in data in the magazine. So, does anyone have any idea how to load this game into MLX?

 

I have a feeling that this problem is going to pop up again when I'm exploring the Compute! disks, and I'd certainly like to learn how to avoid it in the future.

I'm surprised to learn that there were disks for Compute!. That magazine catered to many 6502 based machines.

 

I also wonder how loading these files might have been done on real hardware. I didn't own SpartaDOS X back in 1986, which I believe is the year it did come out. I only have modern SpartDOS X, the team producing it.

 

Plain old SpartaDOS probably can't run files from the disk (ATR) directly. No direct access to a DOS 2.0 file system. There was a utility for copying though.

 

I suppose I might have tried Fender's 3 sector boot loader or one of the other game DOS/boot loaders.

 

I only used 2 or 3 back then. I can't remember the names of the others. One had a DLI rainbow effect.

 

-SteveS

Edited March 23, 2014 by a8isa1

[ballyalley]

1) rename HIRISE.FEB to HIRISE.COM or HIRISE.XEX

 

This actually answers a question I've never even asked. Are XEX files compressed? I guess not!

 

 

2) add a run adress of $3000 (e.g. use Superpacker on the PC or on the A8)

 

I use a freely distributable hex editor on the PC called "HxD - Hexeditor" by Maël Hörz. It's simple and works well enough. I've used a hex editor on the Bally Arcade/Astrocade... but I've never actually used a hex editor on the Atari. That seems backward to me.

 

 

3) use a DOS or Gamedos to run/execute this game...

 

So, it's as simple as that. I guess that MLX would have added this to the boot disk upon saving the program. That's why the program's docs tell you to use "Run/Init Address: 12288" [$3000].

 

Thanks for the advice! This may be exactly what I need to do with future Compute! disks that I use.

[ballyalley]

I'm surprised to learn that there were disks for Compute!. That magazine catered to many 6502 based machines.

 

There is a full-page ad for these Compute! disks right in the middle of the ML listing for "High Rise." The February 1986 disk for the Apple II cost $12.95 + $2 S/H and included all the programs for Dec-Feb. It doesn't seem like the magazine itself was included. The ad also says that the subscription is available for the Apple II, Atari, C64 and Amiga. I do recall the Atari ST and Amiga had some listing too. I wonder if there were eventually disks for those computers? It seems that by Compute!'s issue 96 (May 1988) that program listing were stopped. They may have started again later, but I'm not sure.

[ballyalley]

The main reason that this game will not run/execute under DOS 2.x is the missing run adress. I added it here... hirise.xex

 

I moved both of these "High Rise" xex files, which are of different sizes, to my Atari NTSC 130XE and played them on my 8Mb cart. I would expect both file sizes to be exactly the same (since they were extracted from the same disk). The sizes are:

 

1) Andreas Koch's extracted version of "High Rise:" 2,448 Bytes

2) Xuel's extracted version of "High Rise:" 2,416 Bytes

 

While making limited comparisons of both versions of the game, it seems that gameplay is the same. I compared them side-by-side with "Beyond Compare" on my PC and got these results (here's a screenshot):

 

 

The red shows the differences. As can be seen, Andreas Koch's version seems to have a header of some kind. What is that?

 

Also, Xuel's version has some added bytes that are added through-out the file (the first four-byte example can be seen starting at $122). How come the files don't end up identical?

 

Maybe I'm moving into programming territory here...?

[Xuel]

How come the files don't end up identical?

 

Mine is the original file. Andreas used Superpacker to add a run address and optimize the segments.

 

The original has several contiguous segments. The added bytes throughout the file are the headers for those segments. Andreas' file has just four segments:

 

1) Code to disable basic and move the text screen to high mem by closing and reopening E:.

2) INIT segment to run code from segment 1.

3) Original code as a single segment. The original segments are back-to-back anyway so the segment headers just waste space.

4) RUN segment to run original code.

 

BTW, here is the command-line I used to extract using franny:

franny.exe -S -i HIRISE.FEB -o hirise.xex "Compute!, Vol 8, No 1-3 (Jan-Mar 1986)(Issues 68-70).atr"

Edited March 23, 2014 by Xuel

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

like Xuel said, the data-segment $0400-042C is the basic-off switch by Bill Wilkinson (published in Compute! magazine). I almost always add this to ML files, so there is no need to switch off Basic manually (hold down Option key). Okay, its not absolutely required by Hirise, but anyways... -Andreas Koch.

BASOFF.XEX

Edited March 23, 2014 by CharlieChaplin

[The Usotsuki]

I wonder if the Apple version's on Asimov somewhere, I should look.

[ballyalley]

 

BTW, here is the command-line I used to extract using franny:

franny.exe -S -i HIRISE.FEB -o hirise.xex "Compute!, Vol 8, No 1-3 (Jan-Mar 1986)(Issues 68-70).atr"

I downloaded Franny. It looks straightforward enough. However, it's the source code only. Which is nice, but I can't compile it, as I don't have the resources. Sure, free versions of C are available (and good ones too), but I'm not a C programmer. Still, I like the idea of it!

 

Hmm. Actually I installed Visual Studio Express 2012 back in August and haven't even booted it up...

[ballyalley]

I wonder if the Apple version's on Asimov somewhere, I should look.

 

If you find the Apple version, then would you please post it. I'd like to compare the differences to the Atari version.

 

I'm actually going to boot up the C64 version this week and see what I think of that one. I'm finding that I die quite often on the Atari through no fault of my own and without any recourse. Elevators are nowhere even close to me and thus I get stuck on a level and can't leave it. The player should have SOME control over the elevator. A call button or SOMETHING.

[BillC]

 

That was the same trouble that I ran into when trying to load the game. The Compute! disk's menu did allow me to load BASIC programs, but I was informed that "High Rise" couldn't be loaded from the menu. Which I THOUGHT meant that it should be loaded with good 'ol Atari DOS. But no, as we've discovered, that doesn't work. I've never used SpartaDOS, so I wouldn't have taken that route. Any idea why that DOS could load the program? What does it do differently when loading an ML program that Atari DOS doesn't do?

 

Also, I'm still wondering how Compute! expected regular users to load the game from the disk back in 1986. Certainly they didn't expect everyone to have SpartaDOS. Actually, I'm not even sure if that was available yet.

 

When I loaded HIRISE.FEB into MLX as a binary file, it did work, but the data didn't match, at all!, with the game's type-in data in the magazine. So, does anyone have any idea how to load this game into MLX?

 

I have a feeling that this problem is going to pop up again when I'm exploring the Compute! disks, and I'd certainly like to learn how to avoid it in the future.

The US Doubler/SpartaDOS Construction Set were ICD's first product after they started in 1984. I purchased a US Doubler upgrade with SpartaDOS Construction Set in Canada in 1985 or 1986, at the time I only received SD v1.1/v2.3 but it wasn't much later that v3.2 was released. SpartaDOS X/MIO/P:R: Connection/R-Time 8 were available in 1987.

[Nukey Shay]

I took the time BITD to type in the program, and it executed fine under DOS2. If the program on Compute!'s own disk was only missing the address to execute, why not binary load it in the DOS menu and then save it again (using the addresses shown in the PDF)?

[kenjennings]

The Apple version is also a hex dump in the magazine. Worst case, the binary version could be recreated if the text in the mag can be OCR'd successfully (or someone is motivated to go old school and type it in like everyone used to do.)

[Lynxpro]

If the game is only 2K, why does it require 48K RAM ?

[Nukey Shay]

Because it was a real memory-hog to type in manually. Pretty much the whole day was shot. First you had to clear your plate because the data had to be done in one sitting, then enter the data entry verifier/saver BASIC stuff, then lose your eyeballs completely entering all those digits for the actual program and extra stuff for checksums. And all that before you found out if the game was any fun.

[The Usotsuki]

If you find the Apple version, then would you please post it. I'd like to compare the differences to the Atari version.

 

I'm actually going to boot up the C64 version this week and see what I think of that one. I'm finding that I die quite often on the Atari through no fault of my own and without any recourse. Elevators are nowhere even close to me and thus I get stuck on a level and can't leave it. The player should have SOME control over the elevator. A call button or SOMETHING.

Oh my, looks like I had it all along. o.o

 

Judging by CRC32s, it looks to be ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/magazines/compute/Computes%20-%20Best%20of%20Apple%20-%20Back.dsk ?

Edited March 24, 2014 by The Usotsuki

[ballyalley]

I took the time BITD to type in the program, and it executed fine under DOS2.

 

Did you JUST type this program in?! If so, I'm curious as to how MLX created the boot disk. When I typed a few lines of code (eight or ten of them) and then tested the "SAVE as Boot Disk" function of MLX (which the program supposedly requires), I could reload the data back into MLX. However, DOS 2.0s showed the single density disk to be empty. Yet, the data did load back into MLX. I tried saving the program as a Binary Load file, which also worked. The program was then available form the DOS 2.0s menu. Of course without the program being finished I couldn't test it out.

 

It should be noted that the MLX version that I posted in my first post matches perfectly with the magazine listing in the February 1986 issue. I checked it against the version that is included on the April-June 1986 disk (the Jan-Feb 1986 disk doesn't include MLX). I used the Automatic proofreader to check it. There were three differences that were not in the magazine listing of MLX. I fixed them. If I recall they were all the same error on three different lines. In the original from the disk it was something like TRAP 40000 and the magazine listing has something like TRAP 32576. Or something like that.

 

 

If the program on Compute!'s own disk was only missing the address to execute, why not binary load it in the DOS menu and then save it again (using the addresses shown in the PDF)?

 

I'm not what you mean here. As far as I know, a binary load automatically executes. Altirra crashed when I tried to load the program in DOS 2.0s. I didn't check what happens on real hardware. As for adding the load address, that was done in the two xex files that were posted here.