Wow , If you keep doing the job as fast as now, there won't be more screens for tomorrow! :D
Thanks!
I was fortunate enough to get the day off work today. So in between the usual chores, I squeezed in some Speccy activities, which is always fun. :)
On the first day of seeing this thread, I cherry picked the games/utils I thought would be the easiest ones to grab.
As is apparent from my initial reply in this thread, I did not immediatly realise the games in the list all fit into the general category of "non-obvious how to RUN" or even problematic. I thought I was just unlucky in picking a few broken titles.
But when I realised (particularly after your reply) that many of these titles were quite a challenge to grab a screenshot from, this thread became more interesting, and I was hooked for a couple of days.
On the second day, I started at titles beginning with 'a', and worked my way alphabetically through the list. I have now finished my "first pass" of the list.
After uploading the "GRAF 3" screen, I allowed myself no more than thirty minutes per title to either grab the screenshot, or give up. Luckily most titles I've done so far were simple, in that they just needed either a specific speccy model selecting, or "MGT/+D" enabling, or maybe microdrives. In which case, I could typically download the program, grab the screen and upload it in less than ten minutes.
Some were more challenging, like the aforementioned Russian "GRAF 3" which demanded a seperate BASIC program to be written just to generate the needed input data. It also needed translating into English in order for me to work out how it works. So it probably took about three hours in total, just for that single screenshot! Others like "MC Screensave", had errors in the listing, which had to be corrected before proceeding.
Others were worked out by using the SPIN dissasembler, or BASin. Particularly the ones with anti-piracy measures.
Now I've grabbed screens for something like a little over a quarter of the programs in the original list.
However, I had more serious problems with most of the programs that I did not succeed with. Or rather more likely, I was just "barking up the wrong tree", in my attempts to load them up.
I'm sure other forum members will have a breakthrough on many of these remaining titles.
I'd say though there is a small number of titles that may never get done unless they are re-uploaded.
Some titles are corrupt in the archive and crash the Speccy, or malfunction in other ways. (they are normally labelled as broken/corrupt in the archive). However, I did get a few of these to RUN regardless of their broken status.
One or two titles I think have files missing within the tape, or maybe a missing companion tape.
A small number of titles e.g. "Spectrum toolkit" (by David Spagnol, not to be confused with "Spectrum Toolkit" by Elfin Software) doesn't actually write directly to the screen as far as I know. Therefore a valid screenshot would probably consist of an input program for these utilities, rather than the utility itself.
Some titles consist merely of DATA files for use with existing programs. I think one or two are for programs that are either MIA or themselves broken.
I had many problems with programs using the microdrive. Some were OK, but many of them locked up under SPIN. Maybe my config was wrong, or my .mdr image in use was not quite right.
And as for the first batch of cricket games, well they remain a mystery as to why the DIM() statements are missing!
I will have further investigations into some of the titles I could not succeed with. But alas my rate of uploads is about to sharply decline, as I get into the more tougher titles!
Also, I have to get back to my "onliner contest" commitments.
So I haven't given up on the remaining titles, but it may be some time before I do some more!
It's been really good fun though, working out how some of these games/programs work. :)
I was fortunate enough to get the day off work today. So in between the usual chores, I squeezed in some Speccy activities, which is always fun. :)
On the first day of seeing this thread, I cherry picked the games/utils I thought would be the easiest ones to grab.
As is apparent from my initial reply in this thread, I did not immediatly realise the games in the list all fit into the general category of "non-obvious how to RUN" or even problematic. I thought I was just unlucky in picking a few broken titles.
But when I realised (particularly after your reply) that many of these titles were quite a challenge to grab a screenshot from......
Excellent explanation, Digital, I know your help is really appreciated, and I know these things become a challenge and you don't stop til you solve them. After all, the Spectrum is very special for all of us!
Excellent explanation, Digital, I know your help is really appreciated, and I know these things become a challenge and you don't stop til you solve them. After all, the Spectrum is very special for all of us!
:)
Yes, Thanks! It feels good when you manage to run a game or app that you couldn't get working before!
This evening, I came across "ZX-Blockeditor" for the first time. I'm just learning the basics of that application. I'm very impressed by it!
I'm revisiting some of the programs that failed with "R: Tape loading error".
Uploaded screens for "Jet Set Willy: Dr. Jet Set Willy Microdrive Tape" and "The Prince".
"The Prince" is one of those programs that locked up whilst accessing the microdrive in SPIN. I tried it just now in the emulator WinZ80, and it worked fine.
I can't say it's a problem with SPIN, as it may just be that I have an emulator setting wrong somewhere.
But in any case, I can now use WinZ80 to try the remaining microdrive related titles that I couldn't get working in SPIN.
Champions of Cricket + World Cup Cricket - 2 To 6 Version
Champions of Cricket - Expanded Version
Champions of Cricket - Extended Version
Revised Champions of Cricket 1993
Revised Champions of Cricket 1994
Revised World Cup Cricket - Great Players of the Sixties
Revised World Cup Cricket 1993
Tape-Snap
Text Conversion Program
ZX-DISCOM
International Cricket on Tour - 1 Day
International Cricket on Tour - 3, 4 & 5 Days
International Cricket on Tour 2 - 3, 4 & 5 Days
SO4 Tape to Opus Drive Utility
Blok Load
"Micro-print 42/51" is a 42/51 column text driver (screen and printer) that stays resident in a high part of RAM. It's not an app in it's own right. Therefore any screen grab of this title is really a screen grab of a client app that uses the driver.
In this case, I chose to use "Masterfile" as the client app, running in 51 column mode.
The reason for choosing this is that since version 8 (according to some speccy mags in the archives), Masterfile was supplied with the the "Micro-print 42/51" driver already incorporated. I used Masterfile version 9 on this occasion. Plus you can see in the screen grab that the "Micro-print 42/51" column driver is mentioned. :)
OK, by my reckoning, we are now down to 50 screenshots needed in the current list.
Out of the 50, there's a small number I do already have screenshots for, but have not yet uploaded. The reason is the they fall into the category of "poor screenshots".
e.g. one program just outputs an integer to the screen and then quits.
However, I would like to see this job completed, and in the spirit of "any screenshot is better than no screenshot", I will upload these shortly with a description of each problem, or why I think the screenshot is poor.
After that, I may as well post my initial findings of all of the other remaining titles, so that it may be of help to others who wish to help, since I have already looked at all of them at least twice.
I certainly haven't given up on the remaining titles, but have encountered significant difficulties with them , which means it is unlikely I will be able to provide further useful screenshots of the remaining ones without further analysis or research. I am confident that many of them are still very possible to do however, and other people might have more luck with ones where I have either inadvertantly taken the wrong approach, or missed something.
OK, as previously stated here are the remaining "poor quality" screenshots I had lying around on my HDD.
I have now uploaded all of them, so again, I'll leave the choice up to you Martijn as to whether you want to use any of these or not. Perhaps in the absence of any screenshots whatsoever, they could be used until better screenshots are supplied (if ever). I explain below the problem with each one.
First, the list:-
Arcade Trivia Quiz Question Creator
Beta ROM
Beta ROM 2
Speech
Sz-Pa-Tasm
Hack
Interface III Printer Interface Tape
Omnicalc 2 Expansion Tape
Saga Sprites Table
Basic 64
Problems:-
Arcade Trivia Quiz Question Creator:-
The tape simply contains the same four question data blocks as the original "Arcade Trivia Quiz" game (I have done a binary compare).
It also contains a small BASIC program which loads these files into memory and saves them out again (presumably onto a second tape), and does nothing else. The screenshot I have captured is of this program in action (simply the displaying ROM routine to save a file).
Beta ROM, Beta ROM2:-
Looks like these snapshots have a ROM file embedded in them (Beta disk interface ROM perhaps?). The BASIC programs contained within the snapshots seem to perform checksum operations on the embedded ROM files. The captured screenshots are simply the output of these checksumming programs (i.e. just numbers).
Speech:-
The tapefile contains a few programs. The core speech programs load into memory, but do not print anything out. (Maybe a dissasembly would show if they ever do print to the screen). The screenshot I have taken is from the editor program which is the last program in the tapefile. So it is technically a screenshot from the tape, however it is a screenshot of an ancillary program, rather than the main program.
Sz-Pa-Tasm:-
This Polish utility I think is an assembler/monitor, so an ideal screenshot would probably be of it assembling some code. The snapshot I have supplied is of the initialisation screen. Since I can't find any documentation for this program, I'm not sure how to get it to assemble code. If anyone knows of any documentation on the web (even in Polish), then I will try to work this out.
Hack:-
Looks like a type-in program (related to the "how to hack" articles?), but the two checksums generated by the machine code loader both fail. Therefore there are at least two typos or mistakes in this BASIC listing. I have captured the output of the program as it currently stands (i.e. "DATA ERROR"). Again if anyone can locate this program listing on the web (maybe it is in an old speccy mag), then it could be corrected and resubmitted to the archive in working form.
Interface III Printer Interface Tape:-
It's a memory resident printer driver (at least I think it is). However it does output to the screen in one instance, when it prints "STOP THE TAPE" on loading. This is what I have captured.
Omnicalc 2 Expansion Tape:-
The screenshot I have is from an ancillary program on the tape, called "COPY". The main extension program "om2ex" appears to simply crash the speccy, and I can't find a way of LOADing it from within the base program "Omnicalc 2". Loading the program "om2ex" into a tzx editor reveals it may be corrupt. Much of the file appears to be obliterated with the 'X' characater, leaving only a few pieces of valid data remaining in the file. (it could be it is meant to be like that, but if it was corrupt, then it would explain the crashing.)
Saga Sprites Table:-
I have simply captured the screen after this program has modified it on loading. I'm not completely sure if it is meant to look like this or not, but as the main purpose of the program is a "Sprite Table", I can't find anything that looks like a "user interface" or an exectutable progam in this file.
BASIC 64:-
Used on the Timex clones I believe, this program provides support for a 512x192 display mode. These BASIC extensions can be entered and interpreted fine on the speccy. However, when such programs are run, every alternate character is missing, presumably due to the fact that the speccy is still in a real display mode of 256x192. The snapshot I uploaded shows this behaviour on a standard speccy.
Hack:-
Looks like a type-in program (related to the "how to hack" articles?), but the two checksums generated by the machine code loader both fail. Therefore there are at least two typos or mistakes in this BASIC listing. I have captured the output of the program as it currently stands (i.e. "DATA ERROR"). Again if anyone can locate this program listing on the web (maybe it is in an old speccy mag), then it could be corrected and resubmitted to the archive in working form.
*HACK is referred to in Richard P. Swann's unpublished "How to Hack on the ZX Spectrum" but the listing isn't given so I don't know exactly where it's appeared from. It seems to be Jon North's *LOAD and *LIST routines glued together with no amendments (the checksums in *HACK's BASIC portion exactly match the checksums of *LOAD and *LIST). I've tried making a working version myself by simply correcting the DATA statements (I did this a while ago so can't remember exactly what was wrong) but unfortunately it doesn't work; once the *LOAD portion has been done it stops with a "Nonsense in BASIC" error (as the BASIC portion of *HACK calls *LOAD then *LIST separately, but it's overwritten with the BASIC program you've just *LOADed so it can't do the RANDOMIZE USR it needs to execute *LIST).
Here's a version which corrects the incorrect DATA:
If you want to see it work as I assume it was intended, you have to remove the JP statement at the end of *LOAD so that it simply moves on to *LIST without having to be called from BASIC. The easiest way to do this is to enter the following line:
Thanks for the useful info, StuBruise. I have now downloaded your corrected file. I will follow your instructions shortly, and see if I can come up with a better screenshot for this title,
It certainly did. I NOPped out the JP instruction exactly as you specified, and allowed the program to run *LOAD, followed by which it immediatly ran *LIST.
I have now captured the output of the working program, and re-uploaded it as "Hack (2nd upload).scr". This can replace the first erronoeus one.
It's a screenshot of *LIST running on the HACK program itself.
Also, I think your .tzx of the program itself should now really replace the broken one that's currently in the archive.
Could it be that it worked for me because I also nopped location 30084, which seemed to be a one-byte gap between the two programs. However, that would probably be set to zero anyway!
In any case at least we have a suitable screenshot for the archive (and a broken program fixed)!
Could it be that it worked for me because I also nopped location 30084, which seemed to be a one-byte gap between the two programs.
Unfortunately not! The problem is that although it seems to work if you run it on itself, in actual fact you'll get the *HACK listing no matter what you run it on! However changing the JP statement to a CALL fixes this.
Anyway, this is mainly academic. As you say, we've killed two birds with one stone so I'll upload the corrected version to WoS later on (along with a patched, fully-working one) and put this one to rest!
Unfortunately not! The problem is that although it seems to work if you run it on itself, in actual fact you'll get the *HACK listing no matter what you run it on! However changing the JP statement to a CALL fixes this.
Yes, that's completely correct, I later realised that the program I had *LISTed was the one already in memory. The one I thought had loaded from the inserted tapefile had not in fact been loaded in.
Anyway, this is mainly academic. As you say, we've killed two birds with one stone so I'll upload the corrected version to WoS later on (along with a patched, fully-working one) and put this one to rest!
...I had many problems with programs using the microdrive. Some were OK, but many of them locked up under SPIN. Maybe my config was wrong, or my .mdr image in use was not quite right....
There are at least two Sinclair variants of the Interface One ROM. Some microdrive software will only work with certain versions of ROM. IIRC Spin only emulates the second issue of ROM, and I have encountered some problems with it. Other emulators (Spectaculator/RealSpec/et al) support both the official issues, and other customised IF1 ROMs.
There are at least two Sinclair variants of the Interface One ROM. Some microdrive software will only work with certain versions of ROM. IIRC Spin only emulates the second issue of ROM, and I have encountered some problems with it. Other emulators (Spectaculator/RealSpec/et al) support both the official issues, and other customised IF1 ROMs.
Thanks for the info jp, that explains a lot as regards to the emulated microdrive issues I had been experiencing.
This is very similar to another problem I had the other day with "Blok load" needing an earlier version of the multiface (i.e. not the emulated multiface 128 ). I couldn't get it going in SPIN or WinZ80 at all. However, an option in Spectaculator 5.3 allowed me to switch to the earlier multiface model, and the title finally worked correctly. ("Blok Load" resides in the multiface RAM, and the multiface must support a "programmable jump" feature, so it's very fussy about the exact model).
*HACK is referred to in Richard P. Swann's unpublished "How to Hack on the ZX Spectrum" but the listing isn't given so I don't know exactly where it's appeared from. It seems to be Jon North's *LOAD and *LIST routines glued together with no amendments
This bit of very useful information has been added as a comment to the entry.
Comments
OK, great! :) I've now uploaded screens for the following:-
"Ram-Disc", "RITTY-9", "Sales Ledger", "Skyline Extended Basic", "Spectrum Assembler 2"
Thanks!
I was fortunate enough to get the day off work today. So in between the usual chores, I squeezed in some Speccy activities, which is always fun. :)
On the first day of seeing this thread, I cherry picked the games/utils I thought would be the easiest ones to grab.
As is apparent from my initial reply in this thread, I did not immediatly realise the games in the list all fit into the general category of "non-obvious how to RUN" or even problematic. I thought I was just unlucky in picking a few broken titles.
But when I realised (particularly after your reply) that many of these titles were quite a challenge to grab a screenshot from, this thread became more interesting, and I was hooked for a couple of days.
On the second day, I started at titles beginning with 'a', and worked my way alphabetically through the list. I have now finished my "first pass" of the list.
After uploading the "GRAF 3" screen, I allowed myself no more than thirty minutes per title to either grab the screenshot, or give up. Luckily most titles I've done so far were simple, in that they just needed either a specific speccy model selecting, or "MGT/+D" enabling, or maybe microdrives. In which case, I could typically download the program, grab the screen and upload it in less than ten minutes.
Some were more challenging, like the aforementioned Russian "GRAF 3" which demanded a seperate BASIC program to be written just to generate the needed input data. It also needed translating into English in order for me to work out how it works. So it probably took about three hours in total, just for that single screenshot! Others like "MC Screensave", had errors in the listing, which had to be corrected before proceeding.
Others were worked out by using the SPIN dissasembler, or BASin. Particularly the ones with anti-piracy measures.
Now I've grabbed screens for something like a little over a quarter of the programs in the original list.
However, I had more serious problems with most of the programs that I did not succeed with. Or rather more likely, I was just "barking up the wrong tree", in my attempts to load them up.
I'm sure other forum members will have a breakthrough on many of these remaining titles.
I'd say though there is a small number of titles that may never get done unless they are re-uploaded.
Some titles are corrupt in the archive and crash the Speccy, or malfunction in other ways. (they are normally labelled as broken/corrupt in the archive). However, I did get a few of these to RUN regardless of their broken status.
One or two titles I think have files missing within the tape, or maybe a missing companion tape.
A small number of titles e.g. "Spectrum toolkit" (by David Spagnol, not to be confused with "Spectrum Toolkit" by Elfin Software) doesn't actually write directly to the screen as far as I know. Therefore a valid screenshot would probably consist of an input program for these utilities, rather than the utility itself.
Some titles consist merely of DATA files for use with existing programs. I think one or two are for programs that are either MIA or themselves broken.
I had many problems with programs using the microdrive. Some were OK, but many of them locked up under SPIN. Maybe my config was wrong, or my .mdr image in use was not quite right.
And as for the first batch of cricket games, well they remain a mystery as to why the DIM() statements are missing!
I will have further investigations into some of the titles I could not succeed with. But alas my rate of uploads is about to sharply decline, as I get into the more tougher titles!
Also, I have to get back to my "onliner contest" commitments.
So I haven't given up on the remaining titles, but it may be some time before I do some more!
It's been really good fun though, working out how some of these games/programs work. :)
Sorry for the long post :D.
Excellent explanation, Digital, I know your help is really appreciated, and I know these things become a challenge and you don't stop til you solve them. After all, the Spectrum is very special for all of us!
:)
Yes, Thanks! It feels good when you manage to run a game or app that you couldn't get working before!
This evening, I came across "ZX-Blockeditor" for the first time. I'm just learning the basics of that application. I'm very impressed by it!
I'm revisiting some of the programs that failed with "R: Tape loading error".
Cheers, DP
"The Prince" is one of those programs that locked up whilst accessing the microdrive in SPIN. I tried it just now in the emulator WinZ80, and it worked fine.
I can't say it's a problem with SPIN, as it may just be that I have an emulator setting wrong somewhere.
But in any case, I can now use WinZ80 to try the remaining microdrive related titles that I couldn't get working in SPIN.
Did all these using WinZ80.
Uploaded screens for "TasMerge", "Trans-Express 85.2", "Trans-Former", "Trans-Express Tape To Cartridge", "Trans-Express Tape To Microdrive", "Daten Manager 84".
Trans-Express
Spectrum Assembler
Specta Draw 3
Supadrive
ToBoS Fp
Disciple Disc Manager
Headlights
Sinclair-Basic
Apocalypse Expansion Volume 2 - Chapter 1
Apocalypse Expansion Volume 2 - Chapter 2
Total War
Champions of Cricket - 2 to 6 Version Mod
Simon Saw
Plus D Hacker
(P.S. By my calculations that's exactly half of the screens in the original list now done :) , not all by me of course!)
Champions of Cricket + World Cup Cricket - 2 To 6 Version
Champions of Cricket - Expanded Version
Champions of Cricket - Extended Version
Revised Champions of Cricket 1993
Revised Champions of Cricket 1994
Revised World Cup Cricket - Great Players of the Sixties
Revised World Cup Cricket 1993
Tape-Snap
Text Conversion Program
ZX-DISCOM
Hehe, Don't worry I will! :D
A few of the remaining ones are going to be tricky to do, IMHO.
I've learnt a few tricks doing some of the above though. So I'm glad I got involved. :)
Cheers, DP
Endzone - 90f Program
To Format UDG Code
Disk Basic
International Cricket on Tour - 1 Day
International Cricket on Tour - 3, 4 & 5 Days
International Cricket on Tour 2 - 3, 4 & 5 Days
SO4 Tape to Opus Drive Utility
Blok Load
This isn't a standalone title, rather it is a data cassette for "On The Ropes II".
Lerm Run Utility
M-C Library
Micro-print 42/51
Willibald
Notes:-
The Willibald tape file in the WOS archive is corrupt.
A good version is available from this German website:-
http://spc.gmc-clan.de/downloads2/TZX_Files/tzx_files.html
"Micro-print 42/51" is a 42/51 column text driver (screen and printer) that stays resident in a high part of RAM. It's not an app in it's own right. Therefore any screen grab of this title is really a screen grab of a client app that uses the driver.
In this case, I chose to use "Masterfile" as the client app, running in 51 column mode.
The reason for choosing this is that since version 8 (according to some speccy mags in the archives), Masterfile was supplied with the the "Micro-print 42/51" driver already incorporated. I used Masterfile version 9 on this occasion. Plus you can see in the screen grab that the "Micro-print 42/51" column driver is mentioned. :)
Out of the 50, there's a small number I do already have screenshots for, but have not yet uploaded. The reason is the they fall into the category of "poor screenshots".
e.g. one program just outputs an integer to the screen and then quits.
However, I would like to see this job completed, and in the spirit of "any screenshot is better than no screenshot", I will upload these shortly with a description of each problem, or why I think the screenshot is poor.
After that, I may as well post my initial findings of all of the other remaining titles, so that it may be of help to others who wish to help, since I have already looked at all of them at least twice.
I certainly haven't given up on the remaining titles, but have encountered significant difficulties with them , which means it is unlikely I will be able to provide further useful screenshots of the remaining ones without further analysis or research. I am confident that many of them are still very possible to do however, and other people might have more luck with ones where I have either inadvertantly taken the wrong approach, or missed something.
I have now uploaded all of them, so again, I'll leave the choice up to you Martijn as to whether you want to use any of these or not. Perhaps in the absence of any screenshots whatsoever, they could be used until better screenshots are supplied (if ever). I explain below the problem with each one.
First, the list:-
Arcade Trivia Quiz Question Creator
Beta ROM
Beta ROM 2
Speech
Sz-Pa-Tasm
Hack
Interface III Printer Interface Tape
Omnicalc 2 Expansion Tape
Saga Sprites Table
Basic 64
Problems:-
Arcade Trivia Quiz Question Creator:-
The tape simply contains the same four question data blocks as the original "Arcade Trivia Quiz" game (I have done a binary compare).
It also contains a small BASIC program which loads these files into memory and saves them out again (presumably onto a second tape), and does nothing else. The screenshot I have captured is of this program in action (simply the displaying ROM routine to save a file).
Beta ROM, Beta ROM2:-
Looks like these snapshots have a ROM file embedded in them (Beta disk interface ROM perhaps?). The BASIC programs contained within the snapshots seem to perform checksum operations on the embedded ROM files. The captured screenshots are simply the output of these checksumming programs (i.e. just numbers).
Speech:-
The tapefile contains a few programs. The core speech programs load into memory, but do not print anything out. (Maybe a dissasembly would show if they ever do print to the screen). The screenshot I have taken is from the editor program which is the last program in the tapefile. So it is technically a screenshot from the tape, however it is a screenshot of an ancillary program, rather than the main program.
Sz-Pa-Tasm:-
This Polish utility I think is an assembler/monitor, so an ideal screenshot would probably be of it assembling some code. The snapshot I have supplied is of the initialisation screen. Since I can't find any documentation for this program, I'm not sure how to get it to assemble code. If anyone knows of any documentation on the web (even in Polish), then I will try to work this out.
Hack:-
Looks like a type-in program (related to the "how to hack" articles?), but the two checksums generated by the machine code loader both fail. Therefore there are at least two typos or mistakes in this BASIC listing. I have captured the output of the program as it currently stands (i.e. "DATA ERROR"). Again if anyone can locate this program listing on the web (maybe it is in an old speccy mag), then it could be corrected and resubmitted to the archive in working form.
Interface III Printer Interface Tape:-
It's a memory resident printer driver (at least I think it is). However it does output to the screen in one instance, when it prints "STOP THE TAPE" on loading. This is what I have captured.
Omnicalc 2 Expansion Tape:-
The screenshot I have is from an ancillary program on the tape, called "COPY". The main extension program "om2ex" appears to simply crash the speccy, and I can't find a way of LOADing it from within the base program "Omnicalc 2". Loading the program "om2ex" into a tzx editor reveals it may be corrupt. Much of the file appears to be obliterated with the 'X' characater, leaving only a few pieces of valid data remaining in the file. (it could be it is meant to be like that, but if it was corrupt, then it would explain the crashing.)
Saga Sprites Table:-
I have simply captured the screen after this program has modified it on loading. I'm not completely sure if it is meant to look like this or not, but as the main purpose of the program is a "Sprite Table", I can't find anything that looks like a "user interface" or an exectutable progam in this file.
BASIC 64:-
Used on the Timex clones I believe, this program provides support for a 512x192 display mode. These BASIC extensions can be entered and interpreted fine on the speccy. However, when such programs are run, every alternate character is missing, presumably due to the fact that the speccy is still in a real display mode of 256x192. The snapshot I uploaded shows this behaviour on a standard speccy.
*HACK is referred to in Richard P. Swann's unpublished "How to Hack on the ZX Spectrum" but the listing isn't given so I don't know exactly where it's appeared from. It seems to be Jon North's *LOAD and *LIST routines glued together with no amendments (the checksums in *HACK's BASIC portion exactly match the checksums of *LOAD and *LIST). I've tried making a working version myself by simply correcting the DATA statements (I did this a while ago so can't remember exactly what was wrong) but unfortunately it doesn't work; once the *LOAD portion has been done it stops with a "Nonsense in BASIC" error (as the BASIC portion of *HACK calls *LOAD then *LIST separately, but it's overwritten with the BASIC program you've just *LOADed so it can't do the RANDOMIZE USR it needs to execute *LIST).
Here's a version which corrects the incorrect DATA:
http://www.zshare.net/download/448255439af170/
If you want to see it work as I assume it was intended, you have to remove the JP statement at the end of *LOAD so that it simply moves on to *LIST without having to be called from BASIC. The easiest way to do this is to enter the following line:
115 FOR a=0 TO 2: POKE 30081+a,0: NEXT a
Hopefully that should do the trick!
Thanks for the useful info, StuBruise. I have now downloaded your corrected file. I will follow your instructions shortly, and see if I can come up with a better screenshot for this title,
Cheers, DP
115 POKE 30081,205
I've made two SCRs of it; one is using it on Ranarama (first game I had to hand), the other is using it on itself:
http://www.zshare.net/download/4482971ebc833b/
http://www.zshare.net/download/44829823bf783b/
It certainly did. I NOPped out the JP instruction exactly as you specified, and allowed the program to run *LOAD, followed by which it immediatly ran *LIST.
I have now captured the output of the working program, and re-uploaded it as "Hack (2nd upload).scr". This can replace the first erronoeus one.
It's a screenshot of *LIST running on the HACK program itself.
Also, I think your .tzx of the program itself should now really replace the broken one that's currently in the archive.
Thanks again,
DP
I've just seen this post.
Could it be that it worked for me because I also nopped location 30084, which seemed to be a one-byte gap between the two programs. However, that would probably be set to zero anyway!
In any case at least we have a suitable screenshot for the archive (and a broken program fixed)!
Unfortunately not! The problem is that although it seems to work if you run it on itself, in actual fact you'll get the *HACK listing no matter what you run it on! However changing the JP statement to a CALL fixes this.
Anyway, this is mainly academic. As you say, we've killed two birds with one stone so I'll upload the corrected version to WoS later on (along with a patched, fully-working one) and put this one to rest!
Great stuff!
There are at least two Sinclair variants of the Interface One ROM. Some microdrive software will only work with certain versions of ROM. IIRC Spin only emulates the second issue of ROM, and I have encountered some problems with it. Other emulators (Spectaculator/RealSpec/et al) support both the official issues, and other customised IF1 ROMs.
Thanks for the info jp, that explains a lot as regards to the emulated microdrive issues I had been experiencing.
This is very similar to another problem I had the other day with "Blok load" needing an earlier version of the multiface (i.e. not the emulated multiface 128 ). I couldn't get it going in SPIN or WinZ80 at all. However, an option in Spectaculator 5.3 allowed me to switch to the earlier multiface model, and the title finally worked correctly. ("Blok Load" resides in the multiface RAM, and the multiface must support a "programmable jump" feature, so it's very fussy about the exact model).
This bit of very useful information has been added as a comment to the entry.
Splendid, thank you in advance!