8-Bit Software: A Preservation Effort

[pmgraphics]

1 hour ago, _The Doctor__ said:

PDF's are provided, maybe the answers are in them

The manual states to press the spacebar while making selections with the light pen and to activate the light pen. It's hard to believe the programers expected users to hold the spacebar the entire time while drawing and creating, but then manual states, "Releasing the space bar turns off the light pen." So maybe they did.

[+SoulBuster]

Compute Your Roots 1.1 (1985)(Wasatch Genealogical Software)(US)[BASIC][disk] - New Package

 

Boot either ATR with BASIC.
 

Compute Your Roots 1.1 (1985)(Wasatch Genealogical Software)(US)[BASIC][disk].zip

Compute Your Roots 1.1 Manual.pdf

 

[+SoulBuster]

CPS 1050 Diagnostic Disk Rev. 02 (198x)(Atari)(US)[BASIC][disk]

 

Boot with BASIC.
 

CPS 1050 Diagnostic Disk Rev. 02 (198x)(Atari)(US)[BASIC][disk].zip

 

[+SoulBuster]

Cyborg Warrior (1990)(Marcel Programming)(US)[disk] - Set #2 - New Package

 

Boot without BASIC.

Cyborg Warrior (1990)(Marcel Programming)(US)[disk] - Set #2.zip

 

[+SoulBuster]

Jupiter Mission 1999 (1983)(Microcomputer Games)(US)[disk]

 

Boot with BASIC.

 

I spent a couple hours on this one.  It looks like someone opened a can of coke over the disks.  I had to clean the disks, the drive and re-record several times.  I finally did get clean copies.

 

Jupiter Mission 1999 (1983)(Microcomputer Games)(US)[disk].zip

Jupiter Mission 1999 Manual.pdf

 

[+SoulBuster]

Millipede (1987)(Atari)(US)[Cartridge] - New Package

 

Millipede (1987)(Atari)(US)[Cartridge].zip

Millipede Manual.pdf

Millipede Warranty.pdf

 

[+SoulBuster]

Robotron: 2084 (1987)(Atari)(US)[Cartridge] - New Package

 

Robotron 2084 (1987)(Atari)(US)[Cartridge].zip

Robotron 2084 Manual.pdf

Robotron 2084 Warranty.pdf

 

[+SoulBuster]

Spider Quake (1983)(Gentry Software)(US)[disk]

 

Boot without BASIC.

 

Interesting tidbit: The cassette version requires OS-B, and this disk does not.

 

Spider Quake (1983)(Gentry Software)(US)[disk].zip

 

[+SoulBuster]

Super Breakout (1987)(Atari)(US)[cartridge] - New Package

 

Interesting fact about this particular package: The cart locking system is missing.  You can just push the bottom up without unlocking it.

 

Super Breakout (1987)(Atari)(US)[cartridge].zip

Super Breakout Manual.pdf

Super Breakout Warranty.pdf

 

[+SoulBuster]

APX 20142 - Text Analyst (1982)(APX)(US)[BASIC][disk] - New Package

 

Boot with BASIC.

 

APX 20142 - Text Analyst (1982)(APX)(US)[BASIC][disk].zip

Text Analyst Manual.pdf

 

[+SoulBuster]

Tower Toppler (1988)(Atari)(US)[cartridge]

 

Recorded as a 64k XEGS Cart.

 

From the seller:

 

Tower Toppler 8-bit cartridge for the Atari 64K XL/XE NTSC/USA.

 

We recently found the the colors are wrong on a 32k or 48K Atari 400/800 so we have marked this 64K only. It will not work on a 400/800 with CTIA or less than 32KRAM, you must have a GTIA and 32K or more RAM and the colors will still be different than on an XL/XE computer.

 

We have recently found that Tower Toppler has the wrong color and graphics on PAL computers. It appears to work(??) but looks unfinished compared to how it looks on NTSC computer.

 

This game was never released by Atari for the 8-bit computer systems. 

 

In this sensational sci-fi action/adventure game, your mission is to prepare the planet Nebulous for human colonization. Unfortunately, the water is being mysteriously poisoned by eight enormous towers which you must destroy.

 

Your alter ego is a "space pig" named Pogo—armed only with a snowball gun—who, by running, jumping, shooting, and careful timing, must work his way to the top of each tower to topple it before the clock runs out. Steps ring the outside of each tower, while elevators take him from one platform to the next and doors open into passages within the tower. Sound easy? Wait 'till you see the obstacles along the way!

 

Graphically, what makes this game really awesome is a unique perspective which keeps Pogo in the center of the screen while the tower rotates and moves as you guide him to the top.

 

The game starts out with Pogo emerging from his BA-1 mini sub, ready (or so he thinks) to take on the first tower. Suddenly, the sub sinks back into the poison sea, and there he stands, anxiously awaiting your help in guiding him through this dangerous and puzzling adventure.

 

As you guide Pogo to the top, timing your moves wisely and warily avoiding the trap doors, you must either shoot or avoid rolling cannonballs, relentlessly ruthless robots, erratic eyeballs that enjoy wasting your valuable time by knocking you part way down, and flashing blocks that eat away at the clock. And then there are the "swirlers;" spinning menaces that seem to appear just when you think you are making some progress. Travelling horizontally, they speed up as you try to escape onto an elevator or duck into the nearest door.

 

When (and if) you reach the top, Pogo is lowered back into his sub for an underwater journey to the next tower. On the way you can relax a bit as you rack up bonus points by netting and gathering fish.

 

While this game is chock-full of complex game action, it is easy to understand and highly addictive! Each tower has its own character, layout, and combination of enemies and obstacles. I found no peace until I had figured out the way to the top of the first tower, and then couldn't wait to scale the next. The challenge increases with every new tower, and you'll feel a real sense of accomplishment when you figure out how to topple eash successive one into the poison sea.

 

You'll love the graphics and animation! The moving obstacles jump out at you, the steps and bricks look totally real, and Pogo quickly responds to each twitch of the joystick.

 

Tower Toppler will challenge even the most proficient game fanatics, yet there is plenty of great game play for casual players as you learn, play, and eventually master this exciting, entertaining and amusing game.
 

I found Tower Toppler along with many others unreleased games in desks at Atari after one of their famous layoffs. We are producing this un-released game for others to enjoy. We are selling this as a un-released cartridge but believe it is complete. The original had no label or case so we have made a label and added a new original Atari Grey XE Case. This game is identical to the original un-released game I found at Atari. IT IS NOT THE ACTUAL GAME CARTRIDGE I FOUND AT ATARI but a reproduction of it using original Atari parts!!! No manual or box. 

Tower Toppler 8-bit cartridge for the Atari 64K XL/XE.

 

Tower Toppler (1988)(Atari)(US)[cartridge].zip

 

[+SoulBuster]

MASH (19xx)(Fox Video)(US)[cartridge]

 

From the Seller:

 

M*A*S*H/Mash 8-bit cartridge for the Atari 800/XL/XE. This game was never released by Atari or ROMOX in a package. A few were sold at ROMOX Kiosk that were EPROM carts without instructions. I could not find any instructions except for the 2600. Here are the 2600 instructions but this version is slightly different. Higher resolution and more options.

TO SETUP the 2600 version:
Set up your video computer system and left and right joystick controllers as instructed in your manufacturer's owner's manual.  Move the color lever to the correct setting.  Turn power off and insert the MASH game cartridge.

 

TO BEGIN:
Turn the power on.  Use the Game Select lever - and Difficulty Switches to choose a play level.  Press the Game reset lever and get ready to ship out to the Korean front!

 

THE OBJECTIVE:
You are Hawkeye Pierce, Chief Medical Surgeon of the 4077th MASH.  Your responsibilities include rescuing injured men from the battlefield, performing surgery in the operating room, or, in an alternative game, picking up Colonel Potter's skydiving medics.  You pilot your chopper low through the trees, avoiding shells fired at you from a North Korean tank.  After picking up the medics orr wounded and rushing them back to the hospital, the pressure really starts to get heavy.  Time is running out for the injured men and you must operate.  You have to work fast. You are competing with your fellow surgeons, either B.J. Hunnicut, Trapper John McIntyre or Frank Burns.

 

THE CONTROLS:

Tilt the joystick forward, backward, left and right to maneuver your chopper around the screen.  Use the red trigger button to start games.  Once in the operating room the joystick is used to maneuver your surgical instruments around the screen.

 

DIFFICULTY SWITCHES:

 

LEFT DIFFICULTY: Position A - Left joystick player begins game with 0 points. Position B - Left joystick player begins game with 99 points. In position B the computer (Frank Burns) will get dumber the farther he gets ahead.

 

RIGHT DIFFICULTY: Position A - Right joystick player begins game with 0 points. Position B - Right joystick player begins game with 99 points. The right joystick player is the computer in 1 player games.

 

CHALLENGER VARIATION:

With the left difficulty switch in position A the challenger mode is entered for 1 player games.  Frank Burns will play at maximum intensity in this mode.  Also Frank Burns will receive 8 points per second during the bonus surgery round.

 

Whenever your difficulty switch is in position A (1 player or 2 player games) your opponent will receive the point value of the shrapnel if it touches the patient while you are removing it.

 

PLAY LEVELS:

There are 8 play levels (or games) in MASH.  Each game consists of several "rounds."  A round ends when a certain number of men have been rescued. Between each round surgery is performed in the operating room.  The exception is in games 7 and 8 which are devoted totally to the surgery game.  The games are won by the first player to reach 999 points.

 

GAME        TITLE                                       # PLAYERS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
  1         Welcome to Korea                                1
  2         Welcome to Korea                                2
  3         Colonel Potter                                      1
  4         Colonel Potter                                      2
  5         Cease Fire                                           1
  6         Cease Fire                                           2
  7         O.R. (Operating Room)                         1
  8         O.R. (Operating Room)                         2

-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

WELCOME TO KOREA

GAME 1 - In this game you, Hawkeye, must rescue more men than your computer opponent, Frank Burns.  With your joystick, you maneuver through the forest of trees and pick up men by touching them with your helicopter.  After rescuing 5 men your chopper will appear overloaded and you will not be able to take on more wounded until you have dropped them off at your MASH base.  Every time you return to the base the point value of each man rescued is increased by 2 points.  The maximum point value for a rescued man is 25 points.  The North Korean tank at the bottom of the screen will chase the chopper which has the most points, and will launch projectiles which you must dodge.  If a chopper collides with a projectile it flutters to the ground, where it is rescued by Klinger in the ambulance.  The round is solved after a total of 30 men are rescued.  The airplane has no function in this game.

 

Between each round a bonus round of surgery is performed in the operating room where you must remove as many pieces of shrapnel as you can in 15 seconds. Shrapnel must not touch the patient.  If it does, the bonus surgery round is over.  In the normal variation (difficulty B) Frank Burns receives no points in the bonus surgery round.  In the challenger version (difficulty A) Frank Burns receives 8 points per second plus the point value of the shrapnel if it touches the patient.

(For more details on surgery see games 7 and 8.)

 

GAME 2 - This game is identical to game 1 except the 2 players play against each other.  One player uses the left joystick, while the other uses the right joystick.  In the operating room each player gets 15 seconds to removes as many pieces of  shrapnel as possible.  (For more details on surgery see games 7 and 8.)

COLONEL POTTER

 

GAME 3 - When we last left Colonel Potter he and his skydiving medics had just jumped from a plane without parachutes.  Your mission is to rescue them before they reach the ground.  You maneuver your helicopter around the trees in order to rescue more medics than your computer opponent Frank Burns.  Each man rescued is worth a variable number of points.  The close your chopper is to the ground when a medic is rescued the more points you receive (points vary from 5 at the top to 20 at the bottom).  The North Korean tank at the bottom of the screen will chase the chopper who has the most points, and will launch projectiles which you must dodge.  The round is over when a total of 40 medics have been rescued.

 

Between each round a bonus round of surgery is performed in the operating room. You have 15 seconds to remove as many pieces of shrapnel as possible.  Again Frank Burns will receive no points in the normal version.  However he will receive points in the challenger variation.  (See games 7 and 8 for more details.)

 

CEASE FIRE

GAME 5 - The shooting has stopped but the wounded keep coming.  Playing this game is similar to playing game 1 except that the tank has stopped launching projectiles.  You also have smaller helicopters for ease in rescuing the injured men.

 

GAME 6 - This game is identical to game 5 except that 2 players compete against each other, one using the left joystick while the other uses the right joystick.

 

O.R. (OPERATING ROOM)

GAME 7 - You're in the operating room where you must remove bits of shrapnel from an injured man using your extractor.  You play against Frank Burns who receives 6 points per second.  Each piece of shrapnel is worth a varying number of points depending on the difficulty of its removal.  If the shrapnel touches your patient while it is being removed your turn is ended.  Point values range from 15 to 80.  In the challenger version (left difficulty switch in position A), Frank Burns receives the point value of any piece of shrapnel that touches the patient.

 

GAME 8 - This game is very similar to GAME 7 except that each player has 15 seconds in which to remove as many pieces of shrapnel as possible.  When his turn ends, the next player's turn starts.  And in the challenger variation (difficulty switch in position A) your opponent receives points if the shrapnel touches the man while it is being removed.

 

HINTS FROM DALLAS NORTH...

In the 'Welcome to Korea' and 'Cease Fire' game, try to plan your routes so they require no needless detours.  Rescue a man on one pass, and try to force your opponent to cover as much ground as possible.  In two player versions the player who rescues the last guy gets to start first in the operating room, a big advantage when scores get close to 999 points.

 

In the operating room games, a gentle tap on the joystick will yield much better results in moving the extractor than a brute force approach.  And any part of the extractor can be used to remove shrapnel, which comes in handy in a few of the tight corners.

 

In the Colonel Potter games quick reflexes are more important than strategy.  And the tank stops shooting when someone is being rescued by the ambulance so you can be more aggressive in rescuing medics during this time.  And notice that Frank Burns' helicopter is able to fly through trees, while you must fly around them.

This advantage must be compensated for by superior strategy and intelligence.

 

Note these instruction are for the 2600 while this cartridge is for the Atari 800/XL/XE

M*A*S*H/Mash 8-bit cartridge for the Atari 800/XL/XE. The cartridge is produced by B & C ComputerVisions using Atari prototype/test boards and Atari plastic cartridge cases.

 

MASH (19xx)(Fox Video)(US)[catridge].zip

 

[+SoulBuster]

Matchmaker: Spanish Vocabulary Skills (1984)(American Educational Computer)(US)[OS-B][BASIC]

 

Boot with BASIC.

 

This is the 1st recording.  I tried recording several times each time cleaning the drive. The recordings just kept getting worse.  The surface looks horrible.  I was able to get a working ATX using -p 103.  It does not look like there is any kind of protection on the disk so an ATR is also included.

I did not bother with C64 side.

 

Matchmaker Spanish Vocabulary Skills (1984)(American Educational Computer)(US)[OS-B][BASIC].zip

 

[+DjayBee]

On 7/20/2021 at 5:31 PM, SoulBuster said:

SynGraph/SynTrend Stat - Pre-production Demo?

 

 

Can you please redump the Graph disk?

 

I finally found the time to try to crack it and am puzzled about two bad sectors which are being loaded but not copy protection.

Both these sectors lead to the same error code which is one at least unusual for bitrotten sectors. One of these sectors is not really relevant because it gets overwritten shortly after, but the second one stays in memory.

 

A comparison of RAM dumps with the final release shows that a big area surrounding this one sector to be identical, which is an indicator for a bitrotten sector. Moreso the fact that a disassembly of the memory area shows correct code for the final release and more or less garbage for the pre-release.

 

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by DjayBee

[+SoulBuster]

SynGraph re-record

 

There are 5 recordings in the zip. 4 of them appear to have identical errors, #2 has an extra phantom sector.

 

Please post back with one of them that works so I can update the original zip.

 

Thanks DjayBee!

 

SynGraph Re-Record.zip

[+DjayBee]

1 hour ago, SoulBuster said:

There are 5 recordings in the zip. 4 of them appear to have identical errors, #2 has an extra phantom sector.

 

Please post back with one of them that works so I can update the original zip.

The 4 are identical to the old dump, the 5th is worse because the extra phantom sector is a bad detection of the track's end.

Therefore just keep the original dump from 2021.

 

I will try to repair the bad sectors.
Working more on the dump yesterday revealed three more bad sectors which make the program crash the menu tools "scatter plot" and "pie chart".

[+Allan]

3 hours ago, DjayBee said:

The 4 are identical to the old dump, the 5th is worse because the extra phantom sector is a bad detection of the track's end.

Therefore just keep the original dump from 2021.

 

I will try to repair the bad sectors.
Working more on the dump yesterday revealed three more bad sectors which make the program crash the menu tools "scatter plot" and "pie chart".

I might have an original copy of Syngraph. I could send it to Soulbuster to make an ATX out of. I have acquired some more disks so it would be an excuse to send him some more original disks to make ATXs out of.

[+DjayBee]

18 minutes ago, Allan said:

I might have an original copy of Syngraph. I could send it to Soulbuster to make an ATX out of. I have acquired some more disks so it would be an excuse to send him some more original disks to make ATXs out of.

This is nice but (probably) independent from this particular dump. 

A8SP already has a good dump of the program but it differs a bit from SoulBuster's prototype and I use it as a basis in my try to repair. 

Edited June 19, 2023 by DjayBee

[+Allan]

3 minutes ago, DjayBee said:

This is nice but (probably) independent from this particular dump. 

A8SP already has a good dump of the program but it differs a bit from SoulBuster's prototype and I use it as a basis in my try to repair. 

Sorry. I missed that it was a prototype. . Hopefully you can re-construct it.

[+SoulBuster]

@Allan I always welcome new things to record.

 

@DjayBee Sorry, I did not help much. Good Luck.

[+DjayBee]

Status update:

Sector 16 fixed with same sector from release because surrounding data is 1:1 identical

Sector 30 is one of DOS' buffers which makes it basically irrelevant. Fixed as well with matching sector from release.

=> Main menu is complete

 

Sector 358 fixed by "transposing" the BASIC variable numbers from the released version. (Fortunately the program code is identical.)

=> Scatter plot is complete

 

Sectors 617 and 621 (pie chart) are tough because here the code differs between the prototype and the released version.

With a lot of luck I find code which makes sense and fits exactly into the holes of 128 bytes each. This would bring the needed confidence that it really is a repair and not only a hack.

But for today I'm done.

[+SoulBuster]

Wow! That is awesome!

[ijor]

On 6/18/2023 at 10:44 AM, DjayBee said:

Can you please redump the Graph disk?

 

I finally found the time to try to crack it and am puzzled about two bad sectors which are being loaded but not copy protection.

Both these sectors lead to the same error code which is one at least unusual for bitrotten sectors. One of these sectors is not really relevant because it gets overwritten shortly after, but the second one stays in memory.

 

There are no damaged sectors here. It just happens that the track layout of those tracks is rather unusual, even weird if you want, and that is confusing the conversion tools. I will post a clean image later.

 

[Mclaneinc]

On 5/23/2023 at 4:17 PM, SoulBuster said:

 

 

 

 

Hi Soullbuster, a now rare post from me. In Altirra under VIEW / ADJUST COLORS set the artifacting phase to around 347, it will show nearer to what the colours were intended to be seen as under NTSC artifacting. Just brings the experience a bit closer to home.

 

 

 

 

 

[ijor]

On 6/19/2023 at 9:12 AM, SoulBuster said:

SynGraph re-record ... There are 5 recordings in the zip.

 

Btw, is this Syngraph version recorded on the back side of the disk? And how are you dumping the back side? Seems that the index alignment of these new dumps are completely different than your older dump two years ago.