Can someone address a decades-old curiosity?

[SlagOMatic]

This is something I'd been curious about for literally decades but until recently never thought to ask about it.

 

I have a small stack of "compilation" disks with games downloaded from BBS's back in the day. Shortly after I got my first 1050 I figured out how to create a boot loader (a skill which I've long since forgotten) so that I could pick the game I wanted to play more easily. At first I used DOS 3 (since that's what came with my 1050) but I soon switched over to DOS 2.5 for obvious reasons. Eventually I got a US Doubler and switched to SpartaDOS to take advantage of true double density and the faster speeds.

 

Throughout these changes I noticed that some games weren't happy with certain environments. I'm not talking about the Atari Translator disk; that's a whole different equation. No, I'm talking about DOS environments. For example, I have a copy of Junior Pac-Man that refuses to run from a SpartaDOS boot loader, but has no problem running on a SmartDOS boot loader (with both disks being SS/DD). Furthermore, I have a copy of Super Zaxxon which not only refuse to run from a SpartaDOS boot loader but also refuses to run from a SmartDOS boot loader, forcing me to put it on a SS/ED Atari DOS 2.5 disk (w/boot loader). Those are just two out of many examples that I have.

 

I know it's not an insufficient memory issue as I'm able to run much larger/more complicated games with SpartaDOS, while the problematic games are substantially smaller. The only theory I have is memory allocation, that certain DOS's are using memory in locations that these games want to use and therefore are crapping out. But I'm not sure how accurate this is since (as I understand it) the boot loader purges itself from memory once a title is selected.

 

So, why do some games just not like certain DOS environments?

 

EDIT: It gets better. The reason why I'm asking this now is because I'm cataloging all of the games that I have, and I just now finished. In this process I've discovered that I have a few games on different disks that behave differently. For example, I have a copy of Montezuma's Revenge that works perfectly fine under SpartaDOS (without a Translator), but I also have another copy of Montezuma's Revenge that requires a Translator and only runs under DOS 2.5 (won't run under SmartDOS or SpartaDOS).

Edited April 16, 2023 by SlagOMatic

[Beeblebrox]

I think the short answer is yes - some games/demos/software use memory addresses/allocations that clash with a particular DOS and (AFAIK) visa versa.

 

Someone with far more knowledge of these things will chime in I am sure. There are whole topics/threads and debates about bootloaders and the like on this subject.

[+gnusto]

Needs translator = is (usually) improperly using memory map locations directly instead of using the OS pointers, as things moved around in later versions of the OS roms.

Sensitive to DOS environment = depending on a very specific lomem/himem situation. Sometimes even if it could load properly, once it started executing a program would make assumptions about where the top of memory was (or how much there was!) and that led to issues. So even if you have more memory than was intended, it's confusing to poorly coded programs, because they assume memory layout is exactly like what they were programmed for - like 48K on original 400/800 having a specific top of memory address.

[+CharlieChaplin]

short answer: memlo!

 

Some file programs have a start adress way below $2000, so they will not work under DOS, they may require a gamedos, a bootloader, a 3-sector DOS, etc. to load. Back then some gamedos versions were so popular, that bootdisk to file conversions were made for them, e.g. NanoDOS converter was so popular here in Germany, you will find some fileversions (of former bootdisk or boottape programs) that work very well with it, but not with other gamedos or DOS versions. Problem nowadays: NanaDOS converter supports only 90k and 130k, no higher formats, no highspeed-SIO and max. 18 files per diskette or image. (And many other gamedos versions that do support more formats, more files per diskette and highspeed SIO require more RAM and thus do have a higher memlo.)

 

Here in Germany there were also type-in listings made especially for the tape recorder (and of course boottapes), that start as low as $0400 (?), so no DOS, gamedos, bootloader, etc. will be able to load them from diskette - you need someone to hack or patch them to work from diskette (and a higher memlo).

 

Attached are two programs:

 

Memlo: Load this from DOS, Gamedos or Bootloader, it will show the memlo and memtop of the DOS, Gamedos or Bootloader (so you can see if there might be conflicts with loading a certain ML file), press any key to exit

 

Tracer: Load this from DOS and input a filename (D:Filename.Ext), it will trace the whole file and show all its data/memory segments, including start, end, init and run adresses (so you can also see if the file may conflict with DOS, Gamedos or Bootloader)

 

Note: Depending on the DOS or gamedos you may have to rename these two programs to *.COM (e.g. the mentioned NanoDOS will only list+load files with .COM extension).

MEMLO.xex TRACER.xex

[zzip]

SpartaDos uses the upper memory on XL/XE systems.   This is where the OS roms normally reside and it doesn't exist on 400/800 systems, so  a lot of programs don't use this are.    But those that do will conflict with Sparta.

 

The Translator programs use this same memory address.    They work by replacing the XL/XE OS with some version of the 400/800 one to increase compatibility with older programs,  so it makes sense this would conflict SpartaDos

[SlagOMatic]

19 minutes ago, zzip said:

SpartaDos uses the upper memory on XL/XE systems.   This is where the OS roms normally reside and it doesn't exist on 400/800 systems, so  a lot of programs don't use this are.    But those that do will conflict with Sparta.

 

The Translator programs use this same memory address.    They work by replacing the XL/XE OS with some version of the 400/800 one to increase compatibility with older programs,  so it makes sense this would conflict SpartaDos

You're misunderstanding. I'm not referring to a conflict with Translator and SpartaDOS.

[zzip]

17 minutes ago, SlagOMatic said:

You're misunderstanding. I'm not referring to a conflict with Translator and SpartaDOS.

ok well anyway SpartaDOS was known for having conflicts with other software because it used the upper memory and most other DOSes did not.   The people you used Sparta tended to be power users who wanted a more MS-DOS-like environment with batch files and the like and were happy to give up compatibility with certain apps in exchange for the power-user features.

 

I'm not sure if the cartridge versions of Sparta use the upper memory though.

[+kheller2]

23 hours ago, SlagOMatic said:

 

 

EDIT: It gets better. The reason why I'm asking this now is because I'm cataloging all of the games that I have, and I just now finished. In this process I've discovered that I have a few games on different disks that behave differently. For example, I have a copy of Montezuma's Revenge that works perfectly fine under SpartaDOS (without a Translator), but I also have another copy of Montezuma's Revenge that requires a Translator and only runs under DOS 2.5 (won't run under SmartDOS or SpartaDOS).

What two versions do you have?

 

http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari_search_77.111.110.116.101.122.117.109.97.39.115.32.82.101.118.101.110.103.101._8_G.html

 

The Translator version implies and earlier version of the game.

 

And when you say "runs under [DOS]" do you mean the full DOS and DUP menu or do you mean from a boot loader game menu?