Help Loading Crypt of the Undead with Incognito

[Tempest]

I've been trying to load the Epyx game Crypt of the Undead with my Incognito but no matter what image I try I can't seem to get the game to load.  I'm using XL/XE (so I can use the SIDE loader) with BASIC enabled (game requires it IIRC) and it will start to boot and say something like 'The cemetery gates are locked...' and then nothing happens.  Has anyone gotten this game to load through Incognito?  If so, can you post your disk images?

 

Perhaps the game doesn't like the XL/XE OS?  If so, then I'd need to put the Incognito into Colleen mode and boot from an SIO2PC or real floppy right?

[+DjayBee]

Try BASIC Rev. A. I cannot verify it currently but this might help. 

[Tempest]

1 hour ago, DjayBee said:

Try BASIC Rev. A. I cannot verify it currently but this might help. 

I'm limited to Basic C with the incognito I think.

[Beeblebrox]

Post the game images you have tried here and others can have a go on their rigs. 

Also, have you tried in Altirra with incognito emulated? 

 

As suggested try Colleen mode. 

[flashjazzcat]

13 hours ago, Tempest said:

I've been trying to load the Epyx game Crypt of the Undead with my Incognito but no matter what image I try I can't seem to get the game to load.  I'm using XL/XE (so I can use the SIDE loader) with BASIC enabled (game requires it IIRC) and it will start to boot and say something like 'The cemetery gates are locked...' and then nothing happens.  Has anyone gotten this game to load through Incognito?  If so, can you post your disk images?

I've just tested this one (from AtariMania) in Altirra (which doesn't emulate Incognito) with U1MB and SIDE3, and it works if you enable BASIC in the loader settings. XL/XE OS and any BASIC (Altirra 8K BASIC in my case) appears to work fine. The AUTORUN.SYS file runs 'GO' in BASIC, so if BASIC is disabled (as it usually is), it doesn't work.

 

Crypt_of_the_Undead.zip

 

Instead of having to enable BASIC every time you want to run the game, you can add the [BASIC] metatag to the filename as shown here:

This will cause BASIC to be enabled when this ATR is booted, on a 'one-shot' basis (so you can leave BASIC disabled in the loader settings). This all should work in the same way in the Incognito loader, IIRC.

 

I also tried simply extracting the contents of the disk image and running AUTORUN.SYS straight from a folder in the card's FAT partition (which should also work with the Incognito loader), but that didn't work presumably since the XEX loader fails to properly initialise BASIC when it's enabled. If I fix that, it might be possible to run the game (and others which chain BASIC code) straight from the FAT partition. I also noticed that 'SYS' isn't a recognised executable type, so I need to fix that as well.

 

Note that you can replace BASIC on the Incognito with any revision you like using UFLASH.

 

EDIT: If you copy all the files off both ATRs into a FAT folder, delete DOS.SYS and AUTORUN.SYS, and rename 'GO' to 'GO.BAS', you can launch the game (by running 'GO.BAS') straight from the loader, bypassing AUTORUN.SYS entirely.

Edited March 28 by flashjazzcat

[Beeblebrox]

4 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Altirra (which doesn't emulate Incognito)

Ah, you learn something everyday!    

Glad you got the game running. 

[flashjazzcat]

I fixed up the XEX loader to initialise the cart (including BASIC) after jumping through the XEX run address, so AUTORUN.SYS is able to chain 'GO' now:

I'll incorporate this into the next firmware update. I ran into the OP's apparent issue (Error 170 - file not found after 'The Gates are Locked') while testing this (I forgot to remove the 'BAS' extender I'd appended to the 'GO' file), but it's unclear why such a problem would be encountered when booting the ATR, unless there's an IO issue preventing the 'GO' file from being opened by DOS.

 

Edited March 28 by flashjazzcat

[Tempest]

I never knew about the [BASIC] keyword before.  That's really handy since many other programs won't load if BASIC is enabled.  But I had enabled BASIC when I tried it (otherwise you don't get the message about the gates).  After I got that message the screen went black almost immediately, so I never saw an error code.  Maybe I still wasn't booting it correctly though. it's been a long time since I've tried this.  I hit tab to mount the two images to D1 and D2, what do I do next to load them?  Do I just hit enter like any other file or do I have to do something special?

[flashjazzcat]

Just now, Tempest said:

I never knew about the [BASIC] keyword before.  That's really handy since many other programs won't load if BASIC is enabled.  But I had enabled BASIC when I tried it (otherwise you don't get the message about the gates).  After I got that message the screen went black almost immediately, so I never saw an error code.  Maybe I still wasn't booting it correctly though. it's been a long time since I've tried this.  I hit tab to mount the two images to D1 and D2, what do I do next to load them?  Do I just hit enter like any other file or do I have to do something special?

Nothing special, no. If you've gotten as far as the 'Gates are closed' message (I now realise), you've done everything right, BASIC is enabled, and 'GO' has been launched. So perhaps there is some BASIC version dependency I haven't encountered yet. Can you post the exact version of the game you're using, so I can attempt to replicate the exact issue you're seeing?

[Tempest]

Just now, flashjazzcat said:

Nothing special, no. If you've gotten as far as the 'Gates are closed' message (I now realise), you've done everything right, BASIC is enabled, and 'GO' has been launched. So perhaps there is some BASIC version dependency I haven't encountered yet. Can you post the exact version of the game you're using, so I can attempt to replicate the exact issue you're seeing?

I can do that when I get home.  I think it's the file I got off of Fandal's site or possibly AtariMainia.  If I had to guess it's the BASIC version since I *think* this game needs Rev A and I'm using whatever comes with the Incognito XL/XE profile (which I assume is C).  You said that can be changed with UFLASH?  Is that in the instructions somewhere?  Rev A would be far more useful as some games require it but no game I know of requires Rev C (maybe some utility stuff I don't use).

[flashjazzcat]

1 minute ago, Tempest said:

If I had to guess it's the BASIC version since I *think* this game needs Rev A and I'm using whatever comes with the Incognito XL/XE profile (which I assume is C). 

I think you're right about the BASIC revision. I just tried Rev. C here and the game no longer runs. Odd that it works with Altirra 8K BASIC, though (kudos for Avery's compatibility work there).

3 minutes ago, Tempest said:

You said that can be changed with UFLASH?  Is that in the instructions somewhere?

The installation instructions are in the manual provided with the Incognito firmware, and those instructions pretty much apply to flashing any slot (instead of navigating to the 'Firmware' or subordinate slots, go to the 'BASIC' slot and locate your desired 8K BASIC ROM using the file selector; you can do this straight off the CF Card's FAT partition).

[Tempest]

On 3/28/2024 at 9:31 AM, flashjazzcat said:

I think you're right about the BASIC revision. I just tried Rev. C here and the game no longer runs. Odd that it works with Altirra 8K BASIC, though (kudos for Avery's compatibility work there).

The installation instructions are in the manual provided with the Incognito firmware, and those instructions pretty much apply to flashing any slot (instead of navigating to the 'Firmware' or subordinate slots, go to the 'BASIC' slot and locate your desired 8K BASIC ROM using the file selector; you can do this straight off the CF Card's FAT partition).

Two questions for you. 

 

1. I got the UFLASH.XEX to work through SparataDOS X, but I need to be able to access the BASIC rom in order to flash it to my slot.  I have it on the CF card with my other images and roms, but this does not appear to be accessible through UFLASH.  Do I need to put the rom on a disk and mount that to access it?  If so, what's the easiest way to do that?  Can I drop it on the firmware.atr disk?

 

2.  I have the cartridge image for BASIC A, but it appears that UFLASH is looking for a ROM file.  Should I just change the extension from .CAR to .ROM?

[flashjazzcat]

36 minutes ago, Tempest said:

1. I got the UFLASH.XEX to work through SparataDOS X, but I need to be able to access the BASIC rom in order to flash it to my slot.  I have it on the CF card with my other images and roms, but this does not appear to be accessible through UFLASH.  Do I need to put the rom on a disk and mount that to access it?  If so, what's the easiest way to do that?  Can I drop it on the firmware.atr disk?

Enable 'FAT FMS' in the loader, put UFLASH.XEX and the BASIC ROM in a FAT16/32 partition, and run UFLASH directly from said loader. A CIO FAT filesystem driver is installed before the XEX is launched and UFLASH's file selector is then able to navigate the FAT directory tree and load files as if it was running under DOS (the implementation is read-only with Incognito and SIDE2, but R/W on SIDE3). This removes the requirement to copy files into SDFS partitions or fiddle about with disk images. Certainly you can put your ROMs on the ATR, mount the disk image on D1: (anywhere which doesn't clash with a HDD volume), and go in via SDX if you prefer. SDX has a read-only FAT16 driver but setting up 'external' APT entries for FAT partitions is another discussion entirely.

36 minutes ago, Tempest said:

I have the cartridge image for BASIC A, but it appears that UFLASH is looking for a ROM file.  Should I just change the extension from .CAR to .ROM?

Yes, but be sure to remove the 16-byte CAR header at the top of the file as well.

Edited March 29 by flashjazzcat

[Tempest]

7 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Yes, but be sure to remove the 16-byte CAR header at the top of the file as well.

Not sure how to do that.

BASIC.ROM

[Tempest]

12 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Enable 'FAT FMS' in the loader, put UFLASH.XEX and the BASIC ROM in a FAT16/32 partition, and run UFLASH directly from said loader.

It always says that it can't detect my hardware when I do that.  Yes FAT FMS is enabled.

[flashjazzcat]

2 minutes ago, Tempest said:

Not sure how to do that.

BASIC.ROM 8.02 kB · 0 downloads

Here you go. I went into HxD and removed the 16-byte header for you.

 

BASIC.ROM

1 minute ago, Tempest said:

Will that work?  Every time I've tried to run UFLASH from the loader it can never detect my system.

SDX needs to be enabled in the settings and all cartridges need to be removed. Other than that, it should just work. The only other explanation is that your Incognito has an ancient JED file on the CPLD. There was a bug fix very early in the life of Incognito which addressed the exact issue of software launched from the loader not being able to access the ROM banking register.

[Tempest]

5 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Here you go. I went into HxD and removed the 16-byte header for you.

 

BASIC.ROM 8 kB · 0 downloads

SDX needs to be enabled in the settings and all cartridges need to be removed. Other than that, it should just work. The only other explanation is that your Incognito has an ancient JED file on the CPLD. There was a bug fix very early in the life of Incognito which addressed the exact issue of software launched from the loader not being able to access the ROM banking register.

Thank you that worked!  I had forgot to enable SDX.

 

I tested Crypt of the Undead with the [BASIC] tag and it loaded right up.  Did a peek with BASIC and it is indeed REV A.  Thank you for all your help!

 

Were there any games that required BASIC C?  I can't imagine there were, but I've never looked into it.  Maybe some utilities?

[Tempest]

@flashjazzcat one last question for you.  How do you handle games that require a separate save disk?  Do you simply mount a blank atr image to a drive and let the game format it?  Is there a blank atr image?

[flashjazzcat]

11 hours ago, Tempest said:

How do you handle games that require a separate save disk?  Do you simply mount a blank atr image to a drive and let the game format it?  Is there a blank atr image?

You can create a blank ATR with Altirra, AspeQt, and various other ATR tools (one of them might be called 'ATR Tools', in fact). But yeah: make that, mount it, and let the game format it. The ATR handler even returns a dummy bad sector list when a low-level format is attempted (naturally you can't physically low-level format a disk image), so the application or DOS will think a low-level format was successful before witing other information or a file system to the image. HDD partitions, on the other hand, block the format command entirely (this is why you need to skip the low-level format phase when writing a file system to a HDD partition).

 

For info: the SIDE3 Loader - being able to write to FAT - allows in-situ creation of blank ATRs, but unfortunately there was nowhere near enough ROM space in the Incognito loader for this functionality.

[+kheller2]

Would this have worked if you used a real BASIC cart in the Left slot?

[Tempest]

1 hour ago, kheller2 said:

Would this have worked if you used a real BASIC cart in the Left slot?

That's a good question.  I can try that and see

[Tempest]

2 hours ago, kheller2 said:

Would this have worked if you used a real BASIC cart in the Left slot?

Yes it works.

[Tempest]

@flashjazzcat Ok I lied, one more question.  Is there a way to make it so that when I push reset it resets the current loaded program?  Right now pressing reset just brings me to a blue screen with a cursor but nothing happens (almost like it's trying to load a cartridge).

[flashjazzcat]

Pressing reset in what context?

[flashjazzcat]

Thinking about this, perhaps your Incognito lacks the JED update which allows re-running of the loader on system reset or JMP (DOSVEC). Do you see the EXTSEL mode setting in the Incognito setup menu, and is it greyed out?

Edited March 31 by flashjazzcat