The following is an edited copy of the email thread Michael Crawford, myself (Andrew Ayers), and later, Tim Lindner created as we worked on reconstruction of Diecom Products "Gates of Delirium". We exchanged many and varied number of emails; not every email is reproduced here, only the ones directly related to the reconstruction. Most of the email header information has been removed to reduce the size of this file. Also, certain information that was not directly related to the conversion has been redacted from the emails (do not ask me about this information, I will not discuss it). Lastly, any attachments referred to have been edited out, to save space (all attached BASIC code has been left intact). I hope you enjoy reading this thread, and I hope that it is able to convey the exhileration we all felt when we had a working version of the game - it's an amazing testament to what a few people with a vision can accomplish over the internet... Enjoy! Andrew L. Ayers October 1st, 2004 Phoenix, Arizona ---[ Beginning of Thread ]--- Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 16:03:39 -0700 From: Crawford@willow.he.net To: andrewa@phoenixgarage.org Subject: phoenixgarage - General Real Name: Mike --- message --- Read your message on slash dot about gates of delirium coco game. Did you get it resolved ? I am in the same boatd...thanks Mike. I found daves dies phone number, but havent called him... --- Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 16:06:13 -0700 From: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com To: andrewa@phoenixgarage.org Subject: phoenixgarage - General Real Name: Mike Crawford --- message --- sorry, i forgot to give you my e-mail regarding gates of delirium message again: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com --- Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 19:17:50 -0700 From: Andrew To: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com Subject: re: Gates of Delerium I am sorry to inform you that any hope of resurrecting GofD is likely lost to the mists of time. I spoke with Dave on the telephone regarding Gates of Delerium. He told me that one of the original developers had passed away. He also said that he knew the source code and other floppies to the game were stored in a warehouse, but that without significant time and expense, it wasn't possible for him to gain access to them. I suppose if there was a large interest, enough to pay for someone to go there and personally meet with him, he would probably try to open it up. Whether there would be anything that could be saved though, is anyone's guess. I would imagine that there are likely numerous boxes of floppies, some containing source, some in other states - for all of the products that Diecom produced. He did tell me that he didn't see any profit motives on the software - I asked him if I wanted to recode it or emulate it, etc - he said it wouldn't be a problem. My greatest issue, though, is that my original floppies are dead. I still have the manual, but as for the game it is anyone's guess as to the full size - I never finished it as a kid, and the manual leaves you guessing as to what the final objective was in the game. Do you have a copy of the game? Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 22:51:53 -0400 Hi Andrew, Thanks for the quick response :) My copy too is no good...Since I moved, I can't even find it. :( I did a little homework a while back, found on the internet that Dave started a new company called Cosmic Infinity. www.cosmicinfinity.com (I am assuming you already have this info since you have his phone number) The good news is that I am only about 20 mins away from him. Plus I would be willing to reward his efforts (within reason) to arrange getting this stuff from the warehouse. I am a collector and think its important that we preserve this 'gaming past' before its too late...(emulation of this games is my main interest) I could call him myself but I wasn't sure if I would be bothering him or not by doing so? What do you think? Or perhaps we could collaborate and pick up whats remaining if you are interested. The three original programmers on Gates of Delirium were Dave Dies, Roland Knight and Dave Shewchun. Dave Shewchun was the one who passed away..... He resided in Burlington, Ontario I believe. I think we should combine forces, and maybe Dave Dies will go for it. Let me know what you think...there could be a gold mine of classic goodies in that warehouse :) PS.-Are you from Canada? (I live in Brampton, Ontario) Mike Crawford. --- Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 20:23:00 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Bummer - my copy "sorta" works - it boots into the textmode semigraphics title, then hangs (I think there is some garbage at the bottom of the screen, too). I don't have a backup, either. I went through my entire collection of floppies, and built a P166 box running Jeff Vavasour's emulators - I was able to keep around 90% of my data (some just was unrecoverable). I then burned the lot to a CD. Got the majority of my OS-9 stuff (Sub Battle, KQ3, Flight Simulator, OS-9 Level 2, etc). > I did a little homework a while back, found on the internet that Dave > started a new company called Cosmic Infinity. > www.cosmicinfinity.com (I am assuming you already have this info since you > have his phone number) Yeah, I ran across that. > The good news is that I am only about 20 mins away from him. Cool! > Plus I would be willing to reward his efforts (within reason) to arrange > getting this stuff from the warehouse. > > I am a collector and think its important that we preserve this 'gaming past' > before its too late...(emulation of this games is my main interest) > > I could call him myself but I wasn't sure if I would be bothering him or not > by doing so? What do you think? Or perhaps we could collaborate and pick up > whats remaining if you are interested. Fire off an email to him - mention my name, see if you can jog his memory about the conversation I had with him. I am looking at a piece of paper on some information I wrote down during the conversation (it was fairly short - 15-20 min). > The three original programmers on Gates of Delirium were Dave Dies, Roland > Knight and Dave Shewchun. Dave Shewchun was the one who passed away..... He > resided in Burlington, Ontario I believe. Yes - that is what my notes say - I also noted that he told me he keeps in contact with Roland Knight, but he wouldn't give me any details. > I think we should combine forces, and maybe Dave Dies will go for it. > > Let me know what you think...there could be a gold mine of classic goodies > in that warehouse :) > > PS.-Are you from Canada? (I live in Brampton, Ontario) Unfortunately, no - I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area (hence my website name). I am definitely interested in helping out. In my notes, Dave told me that the three principals (Dave Dies, Roland Knight, and Dave Shewchun) held the copyright - but he told me it wasn't actively enforced. He also couldn't tell me anything about the copy protection system on the floppy for GofD. Yes - please try to get in contact with him. My notes indicate I had the conversation with Dave Dies on December 18th, 2003. > Mike Crawford. Why does your name seem so familiar? I am wondering if I am getting your name confused with some other "Crawford" who did game programming/development (not sure if CoCo or some other platform - Atari? Pitfall?)... Anyhow - I would say email him, jog his memory about me - send him my email address, and let him email me - or something. Yes, I am very interested. I wanted to get my copy going again - to play it, but mainly to preserve it. I had also hoped to have a shot at maybe recoding it in Python or something so that it could "live again" (of course, I also dream about coding an OpenGL version of Dungeons of Daggorath, too). Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 23:36:49 -0400 Thanks Andrew, the only e-mail address I have is Dave@cosmicinfinity.com the phone I have no longer works 905-821-9872 How did you track him down? would it be possible to get the contact info you have (if different than mine), and I will e-mail him asap! Gates of Delirium may still rise from the ashes :) thanks Mike C. --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 00:21:23 -0400 > Why does your name seem so familiar? I am wondering if I am getting your > name confused with some other "Crawford" who did game > programming/development (not sure if CoCo or some other platform - > Atari? Pitfall?)... I worked as a game programmer in the mid-90s for a company called Microfourm. Now I just do web development, and play my old games in my spare time... I was thinking about remaking the old Mark Data coco adventure games in Flash format. perhaps call it 'the directors cut' and add some new locations/enhanced graphics...my favorite was Vortex Factor...I have to chat with the original programmer to see if this is possible. Thanks, Mike --- Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 22:43:10 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Michael Crawford wrote: > Thanks Andrew, > > the only e-mail address I have is Dave@cosmicinfinity.com > > the phone I have no longer works 905-821-9872 > > How did you track him down? > > would it be possible to get the contact info you have (if different than > mine), and I will e-mail him asap! > > Gates of Delirium may still rise from the ashes :) That's the same as I have (in my archives during the time I contacted him): Cosmic Infinity www.cosmicinfinity.com 7035 Estoril Road Mississauga, Ontario Canada L5N 1N3 905-821-9872 Dave Dies, president, CEO & founder Maybe an "in-person" visit is in order? If you go there, and the office (or whatever the address is for?) is empty, try to find out who leased the office to him - we are too close to give this up (ok, your proximity is closer physically). I bet if you can track him down, he would probably have no problem getting access for you to dig the old junk out, he just likely doesn't have time to do it himself. I just hope we aren't too late, and it gets thrown out... Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 20:01:02 -0400 Hi Andrew, Bad news...I did get a hold of Dave Dies, but he mentioned that he probably not could get access to any old stock they may have. This sux :( Personally, I think he does problably have access...I feel he is just not intersested at any level in selling what they have..Just a hunch. I find it odd that he seems not to have any interest in preserving his past works...like putting out a site where people can download what has survived (since he doesnt care about profiting from it anymore. Thats the feeling I got from him). If you want maybe you could give him a shot....not sure if this would agitate him or not...I did mention that you chatted with him about it last year. As for alternatives ... searching on the internet is essentially dried up for this game. The only place I have seen this game mentioned anywhere is on the following link. http://cocostuff.stg.net/screens/screeng1.htm Its looking grim...this was a great game that I too didn't finish as a kid, but would love to play again..and finish :) By the way how many disks was it, 2 or 3? And what are the file names on the disks ie. gates.bin or delirium.bin? Perhaps with some funky searching we may hit an ftp site somehere that has these files...i just dont remember BTW- how do you transfer your coco disks to PC? Alas, it looks like you and I are the final crusaders for this holy grail of Coco-rama. For what its worth ... I do have Seventh Link (Coco 3 version of Gates) Any suggestions? Thanks Mike --- Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 19:28:51 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Michael Crawford wrote: > Hi Andrew, > > Bad news...I did get a hold of Dave Dies, but he mentioned that he probably > not could get access to any old stock they may have. This sux :( Hmm - that is strange, though I guess things could change in the last few months - he told me that he had access, but wouldn't go any further with it because...??? not sure - sounded like he didn't think it was worth the trouble (he mentioned that those disks and such were mixed up in all the business records, etc for the old company - if it is like other software companies, it is probably a big mess). > Personally, I think he does problably have access...I feel he is just not > intersested at any level in selling what they have..Just a hunch. I don't know why not - anything sold would be pure profit to him? > I find it odd that he seems not to have any interest in preserving his past > works...like putting out a site where people can download what has survived > (since he doesnt care about profiting from it anymore. Thats the feeling I > got from him). That's the feeling I got as well. It is strange - other old time coco authors have done this, though others haven't. Maybe he is holding out for a cell phone port? Gates of Delerium on your Nokia? > If you want maybe you could give him a shot....not sure if this would > agitate him or not...I did mention that you chatted with him about it last > year. Sure, I will try contacting him. It may be a few days until I can wrangle some time, though. > As for alternatives ... searching on the internet is essentially dried up > for this game. > > The only place I have seen this game mentioned anywhere is on the following > link. > > http://cocostuff.stg.net/screens/screeng1.htm Ahh - Sockmaster. He has done some cool stuff with the CoCo 3. I know I have emailed him in the past, so I emailed him again about Gates - hope to open a dialog with him, I will keep you posted. > Its looking grim...this was a great game that I too didn't finish as a kid, > but would love to play again..and finish :) Same here... > By the way how many disks was it, 2 or 3? And what are the file names on > the disks ie. gates.bin > or delirium.bin? Perhaps with some funky searching we may hit an ftp > site somehere that has these files...i just dont remember Two disks - the game disk, and the player disk. However, there is a catch: The game disk could be backed up (ie, BACKUP 0), but you couldn't run the backup, you had to copy the backup back to the original floppy. I don't know what copy protection was used, likely a special floppy with a bad sector or something. I also remember that it wouldn't work right on a CoCo 3 (and I don't think a patch was ever forthcoming, in the Rainbow, at least). But I tried my disks on my CoCo 2 as well, and no dice there, either. IIRC (I don't have my CoCo set up or handy to check for certain right now), it was GATES.BIN. However, the problem is that I don't know for certain that it was the only program or file on the disk. Plus, I don't think it would work unless you could emulate that funky disk, as well. > BTW- how do you transfer your coco disks to PC? I transferred my floppies by getting an old 5.25 inch floppy drive (I think it was a 1.2 meg) and installing that into the CoCo - by tweaking the BIOS to tell the computer it was a different size (this is covered in Jeff Vavasour's docs for his CoCo emu), it can read the floppies fine. It can also write to them, but it is flakey on this, and can cause corruption of the entire disk - so only play with it using "new" floppies (hoo boy, are DSDD 5.25 floppies hard to find - managed to grab two boxes, though, 20 floppies, still shrinkwrapped, from a place here in Phoenix called "Apache Reclamation and Electronics" - a computer/electronics salvage yard). You can also transfer the contents, slowly, via a serial cable, and a small program that uses the DSKI$ command to read, then dump it down the serial port through a null modem cable, then capture it on the other end via a term program. I used the floppy drive, though - since I was working with the floppy drive of my CoCo, and had everything set up. > Alas, it looks like you and I are the final crusaders for this holy grail of > Coco-rama. > For what its worth ... I do have Seventh Link (Coco 3 version of Gates) Hmm - I just looked through a couple of back issues of Rainbow trying to find it, I remember the name, but can barely remember what it looks like. > Any suggestions? At this point, I have none. I hold out for a sliver of hope that someday I will be able to get that disk working, and make a backup - but ever since going through my collection, it doesn't seem likely. GofD might just live on only in our memories (heh - makes me wonder how many copies were really sold - you and I, and maybe sockmaster, seem to be the only people who have ever seen or played it). I will keep you updated on what I find out - I want to let you know, though, that I am getting very busy on other things (I am prepping for a trip to Burning Man this year)... Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 22:59:39 -0400 Do you think you could scan the Gates of Delirium manual and e-mail it me if you get some time....at least I will have somehting to cling to :) Is Gates the only Diecom game you have? Thanks Mike --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 23:38:48 -0400 Just a thought.....do you think the floppy you are using might have a prob with the Diecom protection scheme? perhaps it can seek to the sector the game requires, unlike one of the original coco floppies Also, I have a copy of Ganatelet II which uses (as far as I remember) the same copy scheme, and someone got it to a PC somehow and it works fine...I think the version of MESS that I have somehow knows how to bybass the 'bad sector' or 'beyond last track' copy scheme that Diecom uses... Perhaps if you can try to copy whatever data you can to a .dsk file , and then read it via MESS..it may work! Worth a try.....let me know what you think... thanks Mike. --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 00:25:36 -0400 Sorry for all the e-mails :) Past my bedtime...getting tired.... The last e-mail I sent contained >Just a thought.....do you think the floppy you are using might have a prob >with the Diecom protection scheme? perhaps it can seek to the sector the >game requires, unlike one of the original coco floppies Is better put this way, Just a thought.....do you think the floppy DRIVE you are using might have a prob with the Diecom protection scheme? perhaps it canNOT seek to the sector the game requires, unlike one of the original coco floppy DRIVES. Maybe the BIOS hack you mentioned to get the drive to work on a coco is incompatible with the protection scheme, even though it works flawlessly with normal 'unprotected' reads. I believe if you could at least get the raw sector data from valid areas of the disk onto your PC hard drive (serial port or disk method), MESS will be able to handle (bypass) the copy protection from there even though your original cocos cannot read the disks in their native format (well no 100% anyways). If you can, e-mail me the 2 disks in .dsk format, and I can try to get it to work with MESS note newest versions of MESS cannot bypass Diecom scheme. for some reason the code was removed that handled it. (a MESS programmer told me this) Thanks again.... Mike --- Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 12:32:26 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Michael Crawford wrote: > Sorry for all the e-mails :) > > Past my bedtime...getting tired.... > > The last e-mail I sent contained S'ok - I am going to reply to all three here, though - just easier... > Do you think you could scan the Gates of Delirium manual and e-mail it me if > you get some time....at least I will have somehting to cling to :) Yes, I can - it may be a while, though - my scanner isn't hooked up to my box. I use Debian Woody (Linux) as my OS - I know I can get my scanner going in Linux, because I had it on my prior system before I upgraded to Debian (my old system was a hybrid SuSE 6.3/7.2 system) - I just haven't had a need to set it up. Guess I have a reason, now... > Is Gates the only Diecom game you have? GofD is the only Diecom game I have. --- >Just a thought.....do you think the floppy you are using might have a >prob >with the Diecom protection scheme? perhaps it can seek to the sector >the >game requires, unlike one of the original coco floppies Hmm - that is a thought. You see, when I got my CoCo's (I have a 2 & 3) back from my parent's, the drive wouldn't read any of my floppies. I bought a replacement drive off of eBay, that had no problem with the rest of my floppies (well, some had data corruption - it's been a long time, though) - only Gates refused to work. It is a 360K drive, just like the original drive. I don't have any instructions nor have I been able to find any kind of software on the Net for fixing the drive - I cleaned the heads, they look OK - but I think the timing is off. But, I don't know how to readjust this, or have any software to do this (I remember a package that did do this). The drive itself has a timing pattern on the motor spindle, that creeps when under a florescent light - I think it is out of time. The floppy drive in my emulator, though, is a different drive I got off of eBay and installed. It likely wouldn't work at all with the CoCo's controller. It is a 1.2 meg, IIRC. I have another drive that I haven't tried out that I got from a co-worker - it is a 360K TEAC - but the connector is in a different spot from where it is on the CoCo drive, so it makes getting it into the case difficult (might have to build a new cable, or something). I haven't tried it out, yet. >the >same copy scheme, and someone got it to a PC somehow and it works >fine...I >think the version of MESS that I have somehow knows how to bybass the >'bad >sector' or 'beyond last track' copy scheme that Diecom uses... Beyond the last track? Hmm - interesting. Can you send me a copy of that version of MESS - is it for DOS, Windows, or Linux? My emulator box runs DOS, but I have a 'doze box I could try it out on. >Perhaps if you can try to copy whatever data you can to a .dsk file , >and >then read it via MESS..it may work! >Worth a try.....let me know what you think... Isn't the .dsk format a special format, or is it just the contents of the disk dumped to a file in sector-by-sector format? --- >>Just a thought.....do you think the floppy you are using might have a prob >>with the Diecom protection scheme? perhaps it can seek to the sector the >>game requires, unlike one of the original coco floppies > > > Is better put this way, > > Just a thought.....do you think the floppy DRIVE you are using might have a > prob > with the Diecom protection scheme? perhaps it canNOT seek to the sector the > game requires, unlike one of the original coco floppy DRIVES. Maybe the > BIOS hack you mentioned > to get the drive to work on a coco is incompatible with the protection > scheme, even though it works flawlessly > with normal 'unprotected' reads. Interesting thought - but as I noted before, the disk fails partway through bootup on my real CoCo system using a TEAC 360K drive (though not the original RS drive, as I noted before something is wrong with it - I still have the drive though, just no way to fix it). > I believe if you could at least get the raw sector data from valid areas of > the disk onto your PC hard drive (serial port or disk method), MESS will be > able to handle (bypass) the copy protection from there even though your > original cocos cannot read the disks in their native format (well no 100% > anyways). Ok. > If you can, e-mail me the 2 disks in .dsk format, and I can try to get it to > work with MESS > note newest versions of MESS cannot bypass Diecom scheme. for some reason > the code was removed that handled it. (a MESS programmer told me this) I will see what I can do - as I noted before, I am busy with prep for Burning Man, but as I find free time, I will do what I can and keep you updated... Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 17:10:25 -0400 Hi Andrew, Here is some info about the MESS and coco rom I have; - MESS version 0.61 (older version for Windows, but the last one that supported the loading of Diecom copy protected games...I could be wrong, but I dont think Jeff Vavasours emulator can handle the Diecom copy protection scheme, I doubt they would work with that one) - BIOS required by MESS for Coco 3 (other Coco 3 BIOSs out there have problems with MESS..dunno why but this one works fine) It is about 2.5MB ....Can you recieve that size of an attachment e-mail?...if not let me know of an alternative way to get it too you. (you may still find it on the net somewhere under a google search) note - Oblique Triad was another canadian 'Diecom' style company back in the day. Luckily for me both Diecom and Oblique Triad were within driving distance at the time, and I was able to meet the programmers (Dave Dies, Jeff Noyle, Dave Triggerson etc.) when I went to go buy them. It was a really neat experience for a 12-year old :) I think this is what drives me to help get my old collection back again... (ie Gates of Delirium etc.) >Isn't the .dsk format a special format, or is it just the contents of >the disk dumped to a file in sector-by-sector format? DSK format is simply a virtual image of the original Coco disk you are copying (bar special Diecom sectors..). Maybe a serial port data stream approach might be best to get disk to your hard drive?. Unfortunately I'm not an expert with exact details. I know the JV emulator is capable of creating the .DSK files to be saved to a PC hard drive. If you could attempt to get me the two Gates disks in the virtual .DSK format (like the Seventh Link game) which is pretty standard for most emulators (MESS for sure) before you go away, I would greatly appreciate your efforts! Also the manual if its not too much trouble for you ;) I think the .DSK approach is the only one that has a chance of working with this game. I think simply copying whatever files from the original Gates disks, may cause some missing hidden files not to be copied. I guess if there is only 1 or 2 small binary files on the disks, its a good indication that there is some hidden stuff that only a sector by sector approach could handle. I not too concerned about any Diecom copy protected sectors, because this version of mess(0.61) should handle bypassing them. >Hmm - that is a thought. You see, when I got my CoCo's (I have a 2 & 3) >back from my parent's, the drive wouldn't read any of my floppies. I >bought a replacement drive off of eBay, that had no problem with the >rest of my floppies (well, some had data corruption - it's been a long >time, though) - only Gates refused to work. It is a 360K drive, just >like the original drive. >Interesting thought - but as I noted before, the disk fails partway >through bootup on my real CoCo system using a TEAC 360K drive (though >not the original RS drive, as I noted before something is wrong with it >- I still have the drive though, just no way to fix it). My gut feeling on this one is that your copy of Gates is OK..its just a little cranky with respect to the drive you have (which for all intense and purposes is fine for all your other non protected games), hence the .DSK image under MESS approach should work. Quite honestly, I think your the last hope here. These other people (Dave Dies included) that have Gates, I doubt will respond to requests for a copy of the game (hopefully I am wrong). I think if this last attempt to bring Gates to life doesn't work, I guess it will have to RIP which would be sad I'm sure you would agree. Thanks Mike. PS- Good luck with Burning Man :) (for interests sake I checked out their site... very unique event!) --- Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 14:49:09 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium > Here is some info about the MESS and coco rom I have; > - MESS version 0.61 (older version for Windows, but the last one that > supported the loading of Diecom copy protected games...I could be wrong, but > I dont think Jeff Vavasours emulator can handle the Diecom copy protection > scheme, I doubt they would work with that one) > - BIOS required by MESS for Coco 3 (other Coco 3 BIOSs out there have > problems with MESS..dunno why but this one works fine) > > It is about 2.5MB ....Can you recieve that size of an attachment > e-mail?...if not let me know of an alternative way to get it too you. > (you may still find it on the net somewhere under a google search) Give it a shot - it should be OK - I think the limit (on my end) is 5 or 10 meg (through cox). > note - Oblique Triad was another canadian 'Diecom' style company back in the > day. Luckily for me both Diecom and Oblique Triad were within driving > distance at the time, and I was able to meet the programmers (Dave Dies, > Jeff Noyle, Dave Triggerson etc.) when I went to go buy them. It was a > really neat experience for a 12-year old :) I think this is what drives me > to help get my old collection back again... (ie Gates of Delirium etc.) I know what you mean - I had a very unique oppourtunity not too long back to help beta test (then actually influence the direction of) a new text adventure game from Scott Adams. He took his engine (written in GWBASIC, IIRC) and wrapped it in a VB wrapper, then wrote the data file for something he called "Return to Pirates Island" or something like that. Anyhow, that was a very fun and unique experience for me. > DMK is essentially the same as DSK. If you have problems loading it in > MESS, just rename the ext to .DSK and it will work. > I have tried JVs emulator with hit and miss results.. I would recommend MESS > 0.61 only for these Oblique and Diecom games. Its works 100%. Well - as you know I don't have MESS set up - just JVs stuff on my emu box (which isn't set up at the moment, either). If I had MESS, though, I could probably set it up at a later point on my 'doze box. > .DSK format is simply a virtual image of the original Coco disk you are > copying (bar special Diecom sectors..). Maybe a serial port data stream > approach might be best to get disk to your hard drive?. Unfortunately I'm > not an expert with exact details. I know the JV emulator is capable of > creating the .DSK files to be saved to a PC hard drive. Well - when I get around to it, I will try both methods - dumping via serial port and to a floppy. > If you could attempt to get me the two Gates disks in the virtual .DSK > format (like the Seventh Link game) which is pretty standard for most > emulators (MESS for sure) before you go away, I would greatly appreciate > your efforts! Also the manual if its not too much trouble for you ;) > I think the .DSK approach is the only one that has a chance of working with > this game. I will definitely do this at some point - I am working on getting my scanner set back up under SANE on my Debian box. I got it about 90% there - I think (not sure, testing seems to indicate a YES) that I can scan under root, but I am having problems getting a normal user to recognize the scanner (this is one of those areas of Linux that new users complain about a lot - it isn't a "plug-n-play" on the scanner, that's for sure - plus, it is an older parallel port scanner, which always throws something into the mix - but like I said, root seems to be working, but I need to get a normal user working because I try to avoid using root for regular work - just safer, security-wise). > I think simply copying whatever files from the original Gates disks, may > cause some missing hidden files not to be copied. I guess if there is only 1 > or 2 small binary files on the disks, its a good indication that there is > some hidden stuff that only a sector by sector approach could handle. I not > too concerned about any Diecom copy protected sectors, because this version > of mess(0.61) should handle bypassing them. Ok - I will keep that in mind - I can do a sector-by-sector copy, or build a BASIC program to do that, etc - it's just right now I don't have any of the equipment set up (emulator or cocos). > My gut feeling on this one is that your copy of Gates is OK..its just a > little cranky with respect to the drive you have (which for all intense and > purposes is fine for all your other non protected games), hence the .DSK > image under MESS approach should work. You are getting my hopes up - its a line I never considered before our exchange. I hope you are correct, and something can be salvaged from these old disks. > Quite honestly, I think your the last hope here. These other people (Dave > Dies included) that have Gates, I doubt will respond to requests for a copy > of the game (hopefully I am wrong). I think if this last attempt to bring > Gates to life doesn't work, I guess it will have to RIP which would be sad > I'm sure you would agree. Yes - truely it would be a loss. It is one of those games that I think could become a "cult classic" like Dungeons of Daggorath - but hasn't had the proper chance. > Thanks Mike. > > PS- Good luck with Burning Man :) (for interests sake I checked out their > site... very unique event!) It is definitely a very unique event - it has changed my life in many, many ways. I have met and made many interesting friends because of it. If you ever have a chance, and it interests you, get tickets and make the trip. It takes a lot to prepare for (I consider myself a newbie, this year will be my second Burn), but it is worth it in the end. I am almost certain there are Burners in your area - there might even be a regional Burner group. While mostly people from the US go to Burning Man, there are groups that travel from Europe and Asia as well. I am sure Canada and Mexico are also well represented. Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 19:16:33 -0400 Hi Andrew, Here's Mess (0.61) & CoCo 3 Rom.... hopefully they will not get bounced due to size Good luck. Our hopes now rest with you... I eagerly await :) Mike. --- Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 16:59:24 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Michael Crawford wrote: > Hi Andrew, > > Here's Mess (0.61) & CoCo 3 Rom.... > > hopefully they will not get bounced due to size > > Good luck. > Our hopes now rest with you... They arrived fine. I don't know when I will get around to setting them up, though - perhaps Thursday or Friday, if I am lucky. > I eagerly await :) Just to let you know, I got my scanner fully working - but I don't have time tonight to scan - again, likely Thu or Fri. Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 21:51:57 -0400 Hi Andrew, These links might be of great help to you regarding .DSK technical stuff. Tim Lindner is the MESS programmer that got the copy protected Diecom games to work under MESS. He is very helpful if you need assistance :) http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/Mess.html (see July - August 2001) http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/CTU.html (some details regarding .DSK format) his e-mail address is: tlindner@ix.netcom.com Thanks, Mike --- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:13:27 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Michael Crawford wrote: > Hi Andrew, > > These links might be of great help to you regarding .DSK technical stuff. > Tim Lindner is the MESS programmer that got the copy protected Diecom games > to work under MESS. He is very helpful if you need assistance :) > > http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/Mess.html (see July - August 2001) > > http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/CTU.html (some details regarding .DSK > format) > > his e-mail address is: tlindner@ix.netcom.com Thank you for this information - it may come in useful when I start getting down to brass tacks and tackle this project. I have scanned the manual and can send it to you. It is about 2.5 meg - can you get this through email, or will you need another method to get it - I just want to make sure...? BTW - in addition to the manual, I also scanned the "errata" page I got (corrections to the manual) and the "map" they gave you. These scans were done @ 100dpi, black and white (grayscale), jpeg format - to keep them a manageable size (not that resolution really matters - the manual looks like it was printed on a daisy-wheel and photocopied). I scanned *every* page of the manual - including front and back covers (ok, I didn't scan the inside front cover, as it was blank). I also included some of my notes I took at the time (they are crappy, I was a kid) - including a partial map of one of the dungeons. I also scanned one of the disk jackets (sans disk - didn't want to take a chance of harming it, whatever its state). Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 19:37:27 -0400 Hi Andrew...ya should go through fine...I think I have a 5Mb limit Cant' wait... :) Thanks greatly! Mike --- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 16:34:45 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Michael Crawford wrote: > Hi Andrew...ya should go through fine...I think I have a 5Mb limit > > Cant' wait... :) > > Thanks greatly! Here it is! Enjoy! Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:02:29 -0400 Wow! These scans are amazing.... your the best. Totally brought me back in time! Great job, and thanks again :) Mike P.S. - I completely forgot about the contest they had...wonder if I could still win a Diecom baseball cap.. LOL --- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 17:13:52 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Michael Crawford wrote: > Wow! These scans are amazing.... your the best. > > Totally brought me back in time! > > Great job, and thanks again :) No prob - glad you enjoyed them... Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Gates of Delerium Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 22:09:57 -0400 Hi Andrew, I just happend to come across this .DSK in a newsgroup I was browsing through A program on this .DSK called "senddisk.bin" is used to clone coco disks via the coco serial port. Theres not a lot of documentaion but I tried in in MESS and it appears you would launch the program on both cocos then one of the cocos initiates the transfer, and the other will auto receive and begin writing to the disk on its end. Allows baud rate selections too. Kinda sounds what may be needed for Gates (it also allows for 35,40 and 80 track disks). It might be possible to have a real coco at one end with gates disk setup to transfer data to PC at other end running this program under MESS and thus simply writing directly to a blank virtual .DSK within MESS (which is what we want the final form of both Gates disks to be in for emulation puroposes). I send the program for you to check out, if you get some time. Thanks again Mike *************************************************************************** * * Alright, if you notice, there is a BIG gap in between the last email, and * the next. To be honest, I am not sure how that happenned, but I am going * to blame it on Burning Man. The prep work and such needed to go to this * awesome event is insane - time seems to dilate and change, things you * need to get done sometimes don't get done, things you aren't even aware * of just seem to "magically" happen. So - let's just say this gap was * caused by all of this - the prep, the trip, the return, the unpacking, * etc. If you have been, you know what I mean. If you haven't, then I * encourage you to go. * *************************************************************************** Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 12:30:29 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco Mike, I just tried hooking up my CoCo 2 and disk system, to see what I could see. I have two drives at hand, my original Tandy floppy drive (let's call it 'A'), and the drive off of ebay (let's call it 'B'). Anyhow, no matter what I try with drive 'A', I always get "DISK I/O ERROR" - if I stick in a known good floppy, then type DIR, the head moves back and forth across the surface, then the error. Doing the same with 'B', the disk works flawlessly (the test disk was a copy of Pitfall 2 - game loaded fine). Using 'B' with the Gates of Delerium game disk (disk 1) on the CoCo 2, type LOADM "GATES", the GofD semigraphics title screen comes up, the drive spins, then an error of "DRIVE NOT READY". So - it looks like my original drive is hosed, and I only have the other drive that seems to work. Drive 'B' with the CoCo 3, GofD, does the same thing - loads up the semigraphics title screen, then "DRIVE NOT READY". I suppose it could be like you said - that this particular "new" drive can't read the "special spot" on the floppy and that is why it throws the error. But unless/until I can get another DSDD 5.25 drive - I won't know (and even with one, I won't know - unless it is a CoCo drive). I am going to try to write a sector-by-sector read program, to see if it can read the entire disk that way... Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 16:50:43 -0400 Hi Andrew, Great to hear from you :) I have some great info for you, plus an alternative measure for Gates Of Delirium.... Your quote: > I am going to try to write a sector-by-sector read program, to see if it > can read the entire disk that way... I was talking with Tim Lindner a few weeks ago via a newsgroup. Here is a quote from him regarding copying Diecom games (he is the authority on it!) Tim's quote: >Diecom games will prove extra challenging. Track zero is left >unformatted, but it contains a signal that the program loader needs to >see before it will continue loading the game. ==>perhaps this is where you drive is having the trouble? "the GofD semigraphics title screen comes up, the drive spins, then an error of "DRIVE NOT READY". : >Track 1 contains a single 1024 byte sector, containing program code. >Tracks 2 thru 16 contain 2 1024 byte sectors (more program code and >graphics). The remaining of the disk is ordinary: 18 256 byte sectors >per track. >-- >tim lindner >With regard to the Diecome games, I would suspect it was the funky track >zero. The program loader is very particular about what is supose to be >on it. >Anadisk prolly sees zero sectors, so it just ignores it. I have been >meaning to dissasemble the program loader of a Diecom game to determine >exactly what is supose to be on track zero. > >-- >tim lindner My quote to him: Can this copy process be achieved via coco serial port to pc serial port (any software out there to handle this)? Or is there a better/easier way...I want to preserve the software before my disks die on me... (push'n 20 years!) Thanks his response: >The way I choose is to purchase a Catweasel (Google for it). >Then I used Tim Mann's excellent (and free) cw2dmk software to create >the disk images. This leads me to an alternative measure, I couldnt find my Gates disks anymore :( , but I did find my Paper Route and Gantelet II game, and asked if I could send them to him so he could do the conversion for me (his hardware setup with the Catweasel floppy controller seems probably the quickest / full-proof way to do these conversions). He was extremely open to this (gave me his mailing address etc.), and told me he would take great care of any original disks I sent him, and could return them quickly (1-2 days). Fortunately, he too already had these games and had converted them already , so he said not to worry, and just e-mailed me copies of them in .DSK format. I asked him if he had Gates, but he didnt have a copy. :( Not sure how you would feel about this, but it is another option. If you are comfortable with this 'last ditch' option, and would like to give it a shot, I would be willing to foot any shipping costs to get it to him and back to you. I could send you the money via Paypal or U.S. money order. I felt very comfortable regarding shipping my disks to him (even though in the end I didnt have too), but its your call. Maybe drop him an e-mail, to get your own 'vibe' :) tlindner@ix.netcom.com Let me know what you think .......... Thanks, Mike --- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 14:11:08 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: GofD Mike, I just ran some DSKI$ tests on the GofD disks with my one good drive. My code is a BASIC program that loops through the 35 track, and on each track loops through the 18 sectors, reading them. So, something like: 10 CLEAR 1000 20 FOR T=0 TO 34 30 FOR S=1 TO 18 40 PRINT S,T 50 DSKI$ 0,T,S,A$,B$ 60 NEXT S 70 NEXT T If I run it on the GofD player disk, or any other regular RS-DOS disk (or OS-9 disk for that matter), it works fine, spinning through all the tracks and sectors with no issues. If I try the same program with the game disk of GofD, it appears to give an "?IO ERROR IN 50" on every track, sector 1 - until you get to track 17 (directory track), and that track, and every track after it (17-34), all sectors (1-18) read fine. Running individually Track 0, checking each sector 1-18 individually - all gave me the same error. Spot checks on other tracks (1-16) yield the same error. I haven't written a more robust program on the CoCo to skip/report the errors and continue on (there are error trapping commands on the CoCo 3, but I haven't implemented such code yet). At this point, I can't tell is tracks 0-16 are hosed, or if something "special" is going on. Changing the above code to print out what I "see" on the tracks/sectors: Track Sector Information ----- ------ --------------------------------------------------------- 17 1 256 bytes of 0xFF 17 2 This should be the FAT - looks like garbage, but promising, somewhat "regular" garbage. 17 3 Beginning of directory entries - looks both promising as well as "wrong" (?) - first 11 bytes contain the filename of "GATES BIN", as they should - but the rest don't seem to match up (bytes 11-15 look wrong). 17 4 Shows what appear to be "hidden" filenames of "GATES1.BIN" and "GATES2.BIN" (?) 17 5-18 256 bytes of 0xFF 18 1 GATES OF DELERIUM semigraphics mode title screen is visible, first "half" 18 2 Second half? 18 3-6 Data of some sort? 18 7-18 256 bytes of 0xFF 19 1 Game data? I see the words MERCHANT, FIGHTER, GUARDS, JESTER 19 2 More words: CLERIC, WIZARD, THIEF, GORGONS, SKELETONS 19 3 More words: GRIFFONS, GIANTS, KING (?), SEA MONSTERS, TROLLS 19 4 FIGHTER, CLERICS, WIZARDS, PIRATES, SWORDSMEN 19 5 THIEVES, DEMONS, DEVILS, MINOTAUR, SQUIDS 19 6 More game data? Looks interesting, almost like a map? 19 7-18 Same 20 1-18 Same 21 1-2 Same - looks *very* much like map data, but not sure 21 3-9 256 bytes of 0xFF 21 10 Looks like game data 21 11 Game data? I see what also appear to be "filenames", could be "MAPS.IND", "MAPS.MAP", and "MAPS.MON"? 21 12 More game data? I see words WEST, EAST, NORTH, SOUTH, and 21 13 continuing onto sector 13, BLOCKED 21 14 A message of "---CONFLICT!---" 21 15 A message of "---A VICTORY---", "ATTACK", and "NOT HERE!" 21 16 Amid jumbled data, there is a "WHAT?" message 21 17 Amid jumbled data: "TRANSACT!", "DIRECT?", "WITH WHOM?" and "QUIT AND SAVE" 21 18 "IT'S TOO DARK TOO SEE", "LOOK:", "THE SIGN READS:", "FROM WHAT?", "WHO WILL DRINK?", "YOU FEEL REFRESHED", "YUUUCK!!! TASTES AWFUL" 22 1 The words "VOLUME" and "ON","OFF" appear 22 2-4 More "data" - I noticed more words on sector 4, but I accidentally skipped to sector 5 and missed them. 22 5 What appears to be a GofD copyright notice appears here. 22 6-12 Data? 22 13 Data, also the word "PLAYER" appears 22 14-15 Data - in 15, the word "DESCEND" appears 22 16-18 More data, on 18 two sentences "YOUR TORCH HAS RUN OUT!" and "LIGHT SPELL HAS WORN OFF: 23 1 Data and the words "POISONED!!", "STARVING!!" and perhaps "IS DEAD!" 23 2 Data and the words "YOUR PARTY IS DEAD!!" 23 3-16 More data - some sectors have other words. 23 17 More data, interesting, because it has "tile" names, like BLANK, GRASS, MOUNTAINS, FOREST, WATER, TOWN, LAVA, etc. 23 18 More tile or object names HORSE, SHIP, LADDER, FLOOR, etc 24 1-2 Data? 24 3 Various data and possible weapon/armor types? 24 4-5 I see names - apparently the extra people you can find for your party? 24 6-7 I see possibly player types - HUMAN, DRUID, FIGHTER, etc 24 8-12 What appear to be data, etc related to other things. 24 13 Interesting - welcome messages to various town pieces, like "WELCOME TO THE ARMOURY" and "WELCOME TO THE PUB!" 24 14-15 Appear to be messages from NPCs to the PC group? 24 16-17 More data 24 18 More messages to the player, it appears 25 1 More messages 25 2-15 More messages, more data 25 16 More data - also the words "INSERT PLAYER DISK" 25 17 Appears to be a portion for chracter generation? 25 18 More data 26 1-2 More data 26-34, all sectors - at this point seem to contain bytes of 0xFF I am not sure - but given the above "map" of the data on the game disk, I would guess one of two things: 1. The game is hosed because we are missing the first 17 tracks. 2. Or, the game is OK - tracks 17-34 are readable, and the first set was to discourage copying in some manner? What do you think? I could try the above program on my emulator box, and see what happens - see if it works (I don't have my emu box set up right now, but it wouldn't take much). If it gives the above similar output, I should be able to make you the DSK copies of the data that can be read from the floppies. Can you help on this low-level stuff, or do you know people who can? Maybe the MESS guys? Maybe Jeff Vavasour? Hmm... Let me know where you want to go with this... Andrew --- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 14:17:56 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco Michael Crawford wrote: > I was talking with Tim Lindner a few weeks ago via a newsgroup. Here is > a quote from him regarding copying Diecom games (he is the authority on > it!) > > Tim's quote: > >> Diecom games will prove extra challenging. Track zero is left >> unformatted, but it contains a signal that the program loader needs to >> see before it will continue loading the game. Interesting... >> Track 1 contains a single 1024 byte sector, containing program code. >> Tracks 2 thru 16 contain 2 1024 byte sectors (more program code and >> graphics). The remaining of the disk is ordinary: 18 256 byte sectors >> per track. Ok - weird sectors - that would explain why DSKI$ can't read them, and why the remaining tracks read ok (or appear to). >> Anadisk prolly sees zero sectors, so it just ignores it. I have been >> meaning to dissasemble the program loader of a Diecom game to determine >> exactly what is supose to be on track zero. What is this "anadisk"? >> The way I choose is to purchase a Catweasel (Google for it). >> Then I used Tim Mann's excellent (and free) cw2dmk software to create >> the disk images. I will have to look into this. > This leads me to an alternative measure, > > I couldnt find my Gates disks anymore :( , but I did find my Paper Route > and Gantelet II game, and asked if I could send them to him so he could > do the conversion for me (his hardware setup with the Catweasel floppy > controller seems probably the quickest / full-proof way to do these > conversions). He was extremely open to this (gave me his mailing > address etc.), and told me he would take great care of any original > disks I sent him, and could return them quickly (1-2 days). > Fortunately, he too already had these games and had converted them > already , so he said not to worry, and just e-mailed me copies of them > in .DSK format. I asked him if he had Gates, but he didnt have a copy. :( > > Not sure how you would feel about this, but it is another option. > If you are comfortable with this 'last ditch' option, and would like to > give it a shot, I would be willing to foot any shipping costs to get it > to him and back to you. I could send you the money via Paypal or U.S. > money order. I felt very comfortable regarding shipping my disks to him > (even though in the end I didnt have too), but its your call. Maybe drop > him an e-mail, to get your own 'vibe' :) tlindner@ix.netcom.com I will get in contact with him - let him know what I found out - maybe between the three of us we can resurrect GofD? Boy, that would be fitting in a manner - CLERIC, RESURRECTION SPELL, QUICK!!! Andrew --- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 14:31:11 -0700 From: Andrew To: tlindner@ix.netcom.com CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Mr. Tim Lindner, My name is Andrew L. Ayers. I have been in contact recently with an individual by the name of Michael Crawford (mrmikecrawford@rogers.com), which I understand you corresponded with regarding Diecom games on a newsgroup? I have been attempting to resurrect or somehow restore operation to a Diecom game called "Gates of Delerium" - I am not certain, but I may have the last real copy of it left. I have not found anyone who has a copy, Michael said he did at one time (which is how he got in touch with me, he saw a post of mine on Slashdot) - but apparently no more. I am wondering if you would be willing to help out on this endevour - either direct hands on, technical help, etc - you seem to know a lot about the Diecom format. Are you involved in MESS or something similar? I have original copies of the Diecom disks for Gates of Delerium. However, they don't appear to work any more. I try to load the game disk, and the first GofD semigraphics title screen pops up, but then I get a "DRIVE NOT READY" error. The floppy drive I am using is a compatible DSDD 5.25 drive - but it isn't the original drive I had on my Color Computer when I was a kid - that drive died in storage, and I had to buy this bare drive off of eBay. All of my other floppies are readable on it (well, almost all - some sufferred from obvious bit rot) - I was able to transfer 95% of my data over to a PC emulator box I built, then further onto a CD-R for safekeeping. I also have some original CER-COMP disks (Window Master and the CBASIC compiler) that I can't transfer properly to DSK format and run on my emu box - but these disks still work OK, and I have backups as well - so I want to concentrate on the bad Diecom Gates of Delerium before I worry about those. My interest is in getting this game working again, then preserving my old games/data onto more modern media and emulating the original hardware (though my original system still runs OK) on a PC. Please let me know if you are interested or intrigued by any of this... Thank you, Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 18:30:04 -0400 Nice e-mail :) There is still hope! Mike. --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 17:36:58 -0700 > Please let me know if you are interested or intrigued by any of this... I am. I can help. I have a Catweasel. It is a device that I use to dump my Diecom disks. I would be able to use it to dump your Diecom disks. I am very interested in preserving the disks so I do not charge for this service. It worries me that the disks are not working on your computer. My Catweasel will still be able to read the disks. But if they are damaged it will read garbage where the damage occured. There is a possibility I would be able to resurect these disks once I have images made of them. I have collected a mass of floppy drives I use to salvage data from disks. I have developed a number of techniques that increase the chance of getting the data back. If you would rather obtain your own Catweasel, I would be more than happy to share the knowledge and expertise with regard to its use. > Are you involved in MESS or something similar? Yes. http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/Mess.html -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 18:12:11 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > It worries me that the disks are not working on your computer. My > Catweasel will still be able to read the disks. But if they are damaged > it will read garbage where the damage occured. Today, I fired up my CoCo 3 and wrote a simple BASIC program, using DSKI$, to attempt to read all the tracks and sectors in order on the floppy. I couldn't read anything (kept getting IO ERRORs) until track 17, everything after that would read OK without errors. Michael had sent me today a snippet of conversation you had with him on a newsgroup, where you talked about the weird format of those first 17 tracks - which leads me to believe that is why DSKI$ couldn't read them, giving the errors. Is there a way, or do you know of a way - for a CoCo drive to read those tracks? I am seriously thinking about dredging through all of my old back issues of Rainbow magazine to see if I can find anything regarding this. I also have an emulator box, which I mentioned - I am using Jeff Vavasour's CoCo 2 and 3 emulators on this box - I have a 5.25 floppy drive, I believe it is a 720K drive - I have set the bios manually to a different setting for this drive (per Jeff's instruction) to "fake out" the system and get it to recognize the CoCo floppies. I am wondering if there is a way to use this drive or a similar setup to read that weird data > There is a possibility I would be able to resurect these disks once I > have images made of them. I have collected a mass of floppy drives I use > to salvage data from disks. I have developed a number of techniques that > increase the chance of getting the data back. > > If you would rather obtain your own Catweasel, I would be more than > happy to share the knowledge and expertise with regard to its use. I am interested in the Catweasel - but where do you get one in the states? I found the site that makes/sells in (in Germany), but the online sites they list seem to be Amiga sites, and the catweasel isn't made for the amiga anymore (I have both a 2000 and a 1200, if I could find a catweasel for them) - I would be more interested in the PC ISA version. I want to try every possible way I can to get the data off these disks and working myself - last ditch effort would be to send them to you - where are you located, anyhow? I am in Phoenix, Arizona, USA - if I did send these disks to you, I would likely fedex them, and probably sandwitch the disks between a couple of pieces of sheet steel (to protect against any mag-flux possibility). As I have noted - I want to try everything I can on this end first - I would like to first know if those first 17 tracks actually do contain data (well, aside from track 0 which you noted contained something else). >>Are you involved in MESS or something similar? > > > Yes. > > http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/Mess.html Cool - I recognize the light gun interface page - I think I might have downloaded it and the information for my CoCo collection I have been building. Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:25:02 -0700 > Is there a way, or do you know of a way - for a CoCo drive to read those > tracks? DSKI$ can read the sectors on tracks 1 thru 16. Track 1 contains a single 1024 byte sector (id 10). Tracks 2 to 16 contain 2 1024 byte sectors (id 10, then 20) So the command: DSKI$ 0, 1, 10, A$, B$ will work. But DSKI$ only sets up a 256 bytes buffer for the I/O. So that means the remaining data has overflown it's buffer. The buffer DSKI$ uses starts at $600. A 1024 byte read will overwrite _all_ of Disk BASIC's variable and even creep into any stored BASIC programs. Not good, this would usually result in an immediate crash. On a CoCo3 (or a CoCo 1 or 2 put into all-ram mode) You can make these patches to basic (Color Disk BASIC 1.1 only): Address &HD540 Normally is 17. Change it to allow hight sector numbers in DSKI$ Address &hD590, &HD591 Normally it is $0600. Change it so DSKI$ will write to a buffer with enough room. Here is an example progrom to check this stuff out: 10 CLEAR 200, &H5FFF 20 A=PEEK(&HD540) 30 B=PEEK(&HD590) 40 C=PEEK(&HD591) 50 INPUT "WHICH TRACK NUMBER";D 60 INPUT "WHICH SECTOR NUMBER";E 70 POKE &HD540, &HFF : REM MAC SECTOR 256 80 POKE &HD590, &H60 : SET BUFFER TO $6000 90 POKE &HD591, &H00 100 DSKI$ 0, D, E, A$, B$ 110 POKE &HD540, A 120 POKE &HD590, B 130 POKE &HD591, C 140 REM BUFFER AT $6000 NOW CONTAINS THE ENTIRE SECTOR 150 END > I am seriously thinking about dredging through all of my old > back issues of Rainbow magazine to see if I can find anything regarding > this. > > I also have an emulator box, which I mentioned - I am using Jeff > Vavasour's CoCo 2 and 3 emulators on this box - I have a 5.25 floppy > drive, I believe it is a 720K drive - I have set the bios manually to a > different setting for this drive (per Jeff's instruction) to "fake out" > the system and get it to recognize the CoCo floppies. I am wondering if > there is a way to use this drive or a similar setup to read that weird data I know MS DOS can read 1024 byte sectors. Buecause it's own format uses sectors that large. But I don't know how to get it to work with CoCo floppies. > I am interested in the Catweasel - but where do you get one in the > states? I found the site that makes/sells in (in Germany), but the > online sites they list seem to be Amiga sites, and the catweasel isn't > made for the amiga anymore (I have both a 2000 and a 1200, if I could > find a catweasel for them) - I would be more interested in the PC ISA > version. The last time I checked everybody was sold out. Because they are moving to a PCI card soon. > I want to try every possible way I can to get the data off these disks > and working myself With enough patients you be able to get tracks 1-16. Track zero is another story. Track zero is read by the game loader and searched for a specific pattern. I need to dissasemble the load to see what it is looking for. The 'Read Track" command that the loader uses is part of the Floppy Disk Controller, not Disk BASIC. So to use it you have to program your own machine language program. I did that a while ago, but I can to the conclusion that the command was just broken enough to not allow you unlimited access to the data on sectors. I kept getting data corrution errors on known good disks. The catweasel is the only way to read track zero and have data that is good enough for the game loader. But I would suspect the track zeros I already have (for other game dumps I did) will prolly work with the loader on that game. > where are you located, anyhow? I am in Phoenix, Arizona, USA I am in the San Francisco, Bay area. The city of Martinez specifically. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 10:25:37 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > On a CoCo3 (or a CoCo 1 or 2 put into all-ram mode) You can make these > patches to basic (Color Disk BASIC 1.1 only): On a CoCo3, you don't have Color Disk BASIC 1.1 - you have 2.1 - does this matter? Please note that I am using a 512K CoCo 3 (I have a 64K CoCo 2 available, but I don't use it because I don't have a big enough TV to use as a monitor nearby). > Address &HD540 > Normally is 17. Change it to allow hight sector numbers in DSKI$ > > Address &hD590, &HD591 > Normally it is $0600. Change it so DSKI$ will write to a buffer with > enough room. I haven't been able to find a memory map for these locations - I assume this is where the floppy drive controller maps its memory on a CoCo 3 or CoCo 2 in all-ram mode? Do you have such a map? > Here is an example progrom to check this stuff out: > > 10 CLEAR 200, &H5FFF > 20 A=PEEK(&HD540) > 30 B=PEEK(&HD590) > 40 C=PEEK(&HD591) > 50 INPUT "WHICH TRACK NUMBER";D > 60 INPUT "WHICH SECTOR NUMBER";E > 70 POKE &HD540, &HFF : REM MAC SECTOR 256 > 80 POKE &HD590, &H60 : SET BUFFER TO $6000 > 90 POKE &HD591, &H00 > 100 DSKI$ 0, D, E, A$, B$ > 110 POKE &HD540, A > 120 POKE &HD590, B > 130 POKE &HD591, C > 140 REM BUFFER AT $6000 NOW CONTAINS THE ENTIRE SECTOR > 150 END I tried this code out (on my 512K CoCo 3) - when I run it, and enter "1" for the track number, and "0" for the sector number, I get an "?IO ERROR IN 100" after the disk spins for a while. This occurs regardless of whether I use a regular formatted floppy or the diecom floppy (does this matter?). I understand what the code is doing - however, looking at a memory map for the CoCo 3 (assumming this one is correct, or course): http://home.att.net/~robert.gault/Coco/FAQ/Memmap.htm It seems that addresses &HD540, &HD590, and &HD591 fall into the "Unused by BASIC" area of a 512K CoCo 3 - is this correct? If it is - can you send me information on how to change the code (ie, what the correct addresses should be?) - and if you have available memory maps, I would love to have a copy of those, if I can get them... > I know MS DOS can read 1024 byte sectors. Buecause it's own format uses > sectors that large. But I don't know how to get it to work with CoCo > floppies. OK. > The last time I checked everybody was sold out. Because they are moving > to a PCI card soon. Hmm - I will have to keep a lookout for this, then. > Track zero is read by the game loader and searched for a specific > pattern. I need to dissasemble the load to see what it is looking for. Is it real data, or were these "special" copy protection floppies where this "pattern" was created at the factory? Thus, it is unreadable by normal means? > The 'Read Track" command that the loader uses is part of the Floppy Disk > Controller, not Disk BASIC. So to use it you have to program your own Is this different from DSKCON, as referenced in the DISK programming guide? > machine language program. I did that a while ago, but I can to the > conclusion that the command was just broken enough to not allow you > unlimited access to the data on sectors. I kept getting data corrution > errors on known good disks. > > The catweasel is the only way to read track zero and have data that is > good enough for the game loader. > > But I would suspect the track zeros I already have (for other game dumps > I did) will prolly work with the loader on that game. Ok. > I am in the San Francisco, Bay area. The city of Martinez specifically. Well - that is fairly close, so it won't cost too much to ship, should it boil down to that. Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:37:44 -0700 > I tried this code out (on my 512K CoCo 3) - when I run it, and enter "1" > for the track number, and "0" for the sector number, I get an "?IO ERROR > IN 100" after the disk spins for a while. This occurs regardless of > whether I use a regular formatted floppy or the diecom floppy (does this > matter?). I've said over and over again, the sectors have id of 10 and 20. Track one has one sector (id 10). Tracks 2-16 have two sectors (id 10 and 20). This is why you have to modify Disk BASIC to accept sectors with an id greater than 17. > I understand what the code is doing - however, looking at a memory map > for the CoCo 3 (assumming this one is correct, or course): > > http://home.att.net/~robert.gault/Coco/FAQ/Memmap.htm > > It seems that addresses &HD540, &HD590, and &HD591 fall into the "Unused > by BASIC" area of a 512K CoCo 3 - is this correct? Thay fall into the Disk BASIC ROM from the floppy controller card. > If it is - can you send me information on how to change the code (ie, > what the correct addresses should be?) - and if you have available > memory maps, I would love to have a copy of those, if I can get them... Search Google for the CoCo Unravelled series. I got the addresses from studying the dissasemblies of the CoCo ROMs. > > Track zero is read by the game loader and searched for a specific > > pattern. I need to dissasemble the loader to see what it is looking for. > > Is it real data, or were these "special" copy protection floppies where > this "pattern" was created at the factory? Thus, it is unreadable by > normal means? The floppies are not special. It is real data, but it is not orginaized into proper sectors. > > The 'Read Track" command that the loader uses is part of the Floppy Disk > > Controller, not Disk BASIC. So to use it you have to program your own > > Is this different from DSKCON, as referenced in the DISK programming guide? Very different. DSKCON uses the wd1793 to read and write data to disks. The wd1793 has extra functionality not exposed by DSKCON. > > I am in the San Francisco, Bay area. The city of Martinez specifically. > > Well - that is fairly close, so it won't cost too much to ship, should > it boil down to that. Sounds good. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:46:21 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > I've said over and over again, the sectors have id of 10 and 20. Track > one has one sector (id 10). Tracks 2-16 have two sectors (id 10 and 20). > This is why you have to modify Disk BASIC to accept sectors with an id > greater than 17. I apollogize for not recognizing the importance. Trying the above code with the Gates of Delerium game disk, selecting track 1, sector 10 - gives me an ?IO ERROR (in line 100). If I try track 2, sector 10 or 20, I get the same error. I also tried track 16, sector 10 or 20 - same error. Either the above program isn't working for some reason, or my disk is truely hosed. At this point, I am thinking it is the latter. > Thay fall into the Disk BASIC ROM from the floppy controller card. Ok, so you are saying the floppy controller is always mapped to the area where these addresses are, regardless of memory expansion on the CoCo 3? > Search Google for the CoCo Unravelled series. I got the addresses from > studying the dissasemblies of the CoCo ROMs. I will check into them... > The floppies are not special. It is real data, but it is not orginaized > into proper sectors. So - something like the above code (using something akin to DSKO$) was used to alter regular floppies, track 0, to create the pattern? > Very different. DSKCON uses the wd1793 to read and write data to disks. > The wd1793 has extra functionality not exposed by DSKCON. So, via ML you access this extra functionality? > Sounds good. I am beginning to think that this might be the best route, to ship them to you and see if you can make heads/tails of it. I can't say right off hand when I would want to do this, or when I can - but fairly soon, within a couple weeks, I think. Can you send me your mailing address, and any additional info I might need? Thank you, Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:24:09 -0400 Hi Andrew, Sounds like Diecom went all out to safe guard their games ...pretty technical stuff My original thoughts of a serial port transfer of some sort obviously would not be possible. I am assuming that most of this Diecom track/sector structure info was 'unearthed' via the Catweasel? Mike. --- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:36:37 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > Sounds like Diecom went all out to safe guard their games ...pretty > technical stuff That it is. > My original thoughts of a serial port transfer of some sort obviously > would not be possible. Well, it would still be possible if you could figure out how to read the funky track data, which is what Tim was showing with the code. However, you wouldn't be able to likely get Track 0 - what I am unsure on is if the other stuff can be unearthed, why not hack the game to go around the Track 0 check? > I am assuming that most of this Diecom track/sector structure info was > 'unearthed' via the Catweasel? Most likely. That or some other tool that can disect the track layout on the disk. My fear right now is that the code Tim sent me couldn't read the disk on those other tracks - I am wondering if the disk is really hosed. Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:57:24 -0700 > Either the above program isn't working for some reason, or my disk is > truely hosed. At this point, I am thinking it is the latter. Hmm. ?IO ERROR? All the sectors? That says to me the disk was exposed to a large magnetic field that would distrupt many tracks. Or Your drive is out of alignment. > Ok, so you are saying the floppy controller is always mapped to the area > where these addresses are, regardless of memory expansion on the CoCo 3? The Disk BASIC ROM doesn't move around. It is always mapped to the same spot in the coco3. > So - something like the above code (using something akin to DSKO$) was > used to alter regular floppies, track 0, to create the pattern? No. The "Track Write" command of the wd1793 takes input of a whole tracks worth of data. All the sectors are built in the correct position ahead of time. I/O of sector data is different than I/O of whole tracks. They uses different commands of the wd179x. > So, via ML you access this extra functionality? Yes. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 21:28:59 -0400 > Most likely. That or some other tool that can disect the track layout on > the disk. My fear right now is that the code Tim sent me couldn't read the > disk on those other tracks - I am wondering if the disk is really hosed. It could still be just a slight hardware/compatibility glitch with the drive and this particular sector layout (perhaps the drive is over or under sensitive...just pondering). It seems odd that only these 'special' sectors were the ones that went bad.....probability would suggest that some of the 'normal' sectors (17 on) would have been damaged/unreadable in a similar fashion as well any thoughts? Mike :) --- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:15:57 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > Hmm. ?IO ERROR? All the sectors? That says to me the disk was exposed to > a large magnetic field that would distrupt many tracks. Or Your drive is > out of alignment. Well, I didn't try all of the tracks - just 1,2, and 16. See, this is odd thing - if it was a magnetic field issue, its odd (though not unlikely) that it would only hit those first 17 tracks, but leave the other 17 tracks (17-34) undamaged (or, at least they appear to not be damaged). I suppose it could be an alignment issue as well, but this same drive had no troubles reading nearly all of my other floppies I have from that period (15-20 years ago)... > The Disk BASIC ROM doesn't move around. It is always mapped to the same > spot in the coco3. Ok. >>I will check into them... I found and downloaded these - lots of pretty cool info in them... > No. The "Track Write" command of the wd1793 takes input of a whole > tracks worth of data. All the sectors are built in the correct position > ahead of time. > > I/O of sector data is different than I/O of whole tracks. They uses > different commands of the wd179x. Ok. Seeing the issues I outlined above (ie, can't seem to read anything below track 17, can read everything on tracks 17-34) - do you think I should send it to you? What I don't want to do is waste your time... Andrew --- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:17:59 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > It could still be just a slight hardware/compatibility glitch with the > drive and this particular sector layout (perhaps the drive is over or > under sensitive...just pondering). It seems odd that only these > 'special' sectors were the ones that went bad.....probability would > suggest that some of the 'normal' sectors (17 on) would have been > damaged/unreadable in a similar fashion as well > > any thoughts? My thoughts are the same as yours - I too find it highly odd that apparent "damage" only occurred on those tracks, but not on the others. I don't know about the idea of sensitivity - mainly because of the fact that the drive reads my other floppies... It is looking like I might send these things over to Tim, as I am not getting anywhere with them... Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:24:15 -0700 > Seeing the issues I outlined above (ie, can't seem to read anything > below track 17, can read everything on tracks 17-34) - do you think I > should send it to you? What I don't want to do is waste your time... I want to try the program I wrote on one of my Diecoms disks. I'll be able to try it on Saturday. If doesn't work, I'll prolly followup with you with a new (functional) program. If it does work then I'll prolly want to take a crack at your disks. btw, none of this is a waste of time in my eyes. I love this kind of stuff. :) -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 10:32:02 -0700 > btw, none of this is a waste of time in my eyes. I love this kind of > stuff. :) My program didn't work. I know why and I have a new program for you. Let me explain... Every sector on every track contains a small header describing itself. This header contains the track number, sector ID, and size of the sector it describes. These three values are defined by the programmer who wrote the formatting program. In the case of these Diecom game disks I strongly suspect Dave wrote his own special formatter. The sectors on the Diecom disk's tracks 1 to 16 all contain zero for the track number. This is a very tricky thing to do. DSKCON in Disk BASIC uses the generic SEEK command of the wd179x to find the proper track. So the chip gets very confused when the track number on the sector header doesn't match the physical track number. It is told to seek to a specific track, but when it gets there all the sectors say they belong on track zero. So the chip errors out thinking that the track requested doesn't exist. So the new program I wrote seeks to the proper track using a normally formatted floppy disk. Then you switch to the Diecom disk and it reads the requested sector. It doesn't need to do any seeking becuase DSKCON thinks it is already on the proper track. This program works for my Diecom disks. So if you still get any I/O errors it is prolly becuase of a bad sector. 10 CLEAR 300, &H5FFF 20 INPUT "WHICH DRIVE";D 30 INPUT "WHICH TRACK";E 40 PRINT "PLACE A NORMAL DISK IN DRIVE";D;"AND PRESS ENTER" 50 INPUT A$ 60 DSKI$ D, E, 10, A$, B$ 70 POKE &HD540, &HFF 80 POKE &HD590, &H60 90 POKE &HD591, &H00 100 FOR X = &HD839 TO &HD839+2 110 READ A$:G=VAL("&H"+A$):POKE X, G 120 NEXT X 130 FOR X = &HDF59 TO &HDF59+9 140 READ A$:G=VAL("&H"+A$):POKE X,G 150 NEXT X 160 INPUT "WHICH SECTOR";F 170 PRINT "PLACE A DIECOM DISK IN DRIVE";D;"AND PRESS ENTER" 180 INPUT A$ 190 DSKI$ D, E, F, A$, B$ 200 PRINT "SECTOR COPIED TO ADDRESS $6000" 210 PRINT "WARNING, DO NO DISK ACCESS UNTIL RESTART" 215 PRINT "WARNING, DO NOT RERUN THIS PROGRAM. YOU MUST RESTART" 220 END 230 DATA 7E, DF, 59 240 DATA 4F, B7, FF, 49, B6, FF, 48, 7E, D8, 3C So use this program to verify all of the 1024 bytes sectors on track 1 to 16. **** This will be a pain because you must to a cold restart of your coco eachtime you run this program. **** Remember the eiasest way to do a cold restart on a coco3 is to press reset while holding down the ALT and CTRL keys, then press restart again with no keys help down. If the sectors are all good, I'll send you a modified program that will send the sector data to your PC. Thru a serial port, or a disk file. What ever is eiasest for me to write and you to use. Then all we'll need to do it worry about track zero. :) -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 12:00:52 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > If the sectors are all good, I'll send you a modified program that will > send the sector data to your PC. Thru a serial port, or a disk file. > What ever is eiasest for me to write and you to use. Write it both ways if you can - my emulator box should (in theory) support both - I know I wired a null modem line to it between my CoCo and the serial port on the emu box, and testing it seemed OK (I just don't remember if I have telex on the emu box still or not - but that is easily corrected). Plus, on the emu box I have a 5.25 floppy drive - which I used to read/transfer my other floppys from my CoCo - though I am not sure how well the emulator box would handle the funky things you are doing in the above program, I think it would be fun to try it out. > Then all we'll need to do it worry about track zero. :) Interesting program, and it was fun to type in (haven't did that in a while - the POKEs and the DATA statements made me flash back on a time of entering in loooong sets of such things from Rainbow magazine, then having it fail - biggest one I ever did was for this program that allowed you to get user changeable fonts on the hires graphics screens - on a CoCo 2! - ugh)... Ok - here are the results (OK means no errors occurred - hopefully all of them will say OK): Track Sector Result ----- ------ -------------------------------------------- 1 10 OK 2 10 OK 20 OK 3 10 OK 20 OK 4 10 OK 20 OK 5 10 OK 20 OK 6 10 OK 20 OK 7 10 OK 20 OK 8 10 OK 20 OK 9 10 OK 20 OK 10 10 OK 20 OK 11 10 OK 20 OK 12 10 OK 20 OK 13 10 OK 20 OK 14 10 OK 20 OK 15 10 OK 20 OK 16 10 OK 20 OK --- I take it, this is a good sign? Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 17:05:14 -0400 Looks like your getting close!! Mike :) --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 14:18:32 -0700 > I take it, this is a good sign? Yes, that's a very good sign. I guess I have some coding to do. Do you have a CoCo with two drives? Here is what I am thinking. I'll write a program that reads the 1024 bytes sectors from drive 1 and writes them to a file on drive zero. Then you would just need to image that disk on your emu PC. BTW: What is your goal here? To have a playable disk image for the emulator? To create a working backup of your game? If I remember correctly, the game wont load on your CoCo. But we just verified all of the sectors have no corruption. There still could be a corruption somewhere on tracks 17-35? Did you DSKI$ all of thoes sectors? If they are all good, and the game still wont load. Then it seems that track zero might have a corruption. And since track zero has no error detection (all proper sectors [even 1024 byte sectors] contain error detection codes) then we have to hope that Diecom used the same track zero on all of their games. I would then just substitute another track zero from a different game. If that still doesn't work, I would have to dissasemble the game loader and figure out what it is looking for on track zero. This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time. Mike: Are you OK with being CCed on all of this stuff? I supose you would have piped up by now if we were annoying you. :) -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "tim lindner" Cc: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 17:55:45 -0400 > Mike: Are you OK with being CCed on all of this stuff? I supose you > would have piped up by now if we were annoying you. :) Definitely OK! (its awesome stuff) I am just sitting in the stands watching you guys do your magic :) Keep up the great work! Mike. --- Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 17:44:48 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > Yes, that's a very good sign. I want to appologize for the longer delay in responding - I went to see the new "Ghost in the Shell: Innocence" anime movie. Anyhow, it is good to hear this is a good sign. > I guess I have some coding to do. Do you have a CoCo with two drives? Unfortunately, I do not - however, my CoCo 3 does have 512K, and I have Cer-Comp's RAM drive software... > Here is what I am thinking. I'll write a program that reads the 1024 > bytes sectors from drive 1 and writes them to a file on drive zero. Hmm - If we could go to the RAM drive, then back to a floppy, that could work. Or, if you build some kind of disk swapping into the software... > Then you would just need to image that disk on your emu PC. BTW - if I didn't mention it before, my emu box is a PC which runs DOS (6.1 or 6.2, I think), and I use Jeff Vavasour's emulators - not MESS. If I need to use MESS under Windows or Linux, I can probably set that up, but not immediately (I would likely have to upgrade the box if it is the Windows version - I am only running a P166 on the emu). > BTW: What is your goal here? To have a playable disk image for the > emulator? To create a working backup of your game? Well - ideally I would like to see the following (I guess this would be a "yes" to both of the options above): 1. I would like to have a physical 5.25 backup of the game and player disks. I have old "new stock" floppies I can use for this. 2. I would like to have this game in a DSK or other virtual format for either Jeff's emulator or MESS - something that I can burn to a CD-R or something for safekeeping. > If I remember correctly, the game wont load on your CoCo. But we just > verified all of the sectors have no corruption. There still could be a > corruption somewhere on tracks 17-35? Did you DSKI$ all of thoes > sectors? Yes, I did - they all turned out fine, no errors (and interesting data on them about the game - various strings and such that I found). > If they are all good, and the game still wont load. Then it seems that > track zero might have a corruption. And since track zero has no error > detection (all proper sectors [even 1024 byte sectors] contain error > detection codes) then we have to hope that Diecom used the same track > zero on all of their games. I would then just substitute another track > zero from a different game. For the physical copy, I would like to copy the original floppy onto a new floppy (using whatever software you will write), then create a track 0 on that new floppy. Ideally, make a few physical copies like this, then somehow get it to the emulator and create a virtual image there for it. > If that still doesn't work, I would have to dissasemble the game loader > and figure out what it is looking for on track zero. This is something > I've been meaning to do for a long time. If you can go this far, couldn't you just bypass the track 0 check, or does it contain information needed to allow the game to run? You seem to be leaning towards creating software so I can create a new image of the program on a new floppy and/or a virtual image - something I can send you, if the track 0 can't be created on the floppy right, correct (I know I phrased that in a convoluted manner - my apollogies)? Or, do you want to try to create a virtual image without track 0 that I can send you, and you can play with the track 0 stuff there? BTW - how would track 0 be applied/built? Is it something that can be done on the CoCo (one would think so)? I find all of this very fascinating and interesting to watch - after all, that is what it seems like I am doing - without your help, this would never have come this far. Let's hope it all works out well in the end. Thank you, Andrew --- Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 17:48:12 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford CC: tim lindner Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > Definitely OK! (its awesome stuff) I am just sitting in the stands > watching you guys do your magic :) > Keep up the great work! Let's give credit where credit is due: I am not sitting in the stands watching - but I am far from playing the game. Tim is getting me very interested in the Color Computer's internals. Tim - regardless of how this turns out, I have some other floppies that work great (CER-COMP stuff), but don't work in my emulator - I would love to either get them working in my emu box, or under MESS. BTW - have you guys heard/read about the possible 256 color mode on the CoCo 3? Maybe we should take a crack at it... Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 09:38:38 -0700 > I want to appologize for the longer delay in responding - I went to see > the new "Ghost in the Shell: Innocence" anime movie. Not a problem. > Hmm - If we could go to the RAM drive, then back to a floppy, that could > work. Or, if you build some kind of disk swapping into the software... Does this ram drive show up as drive 1 or something? Can you backup the ram drive to a real disk pretty eiasily? If so, then using the RAM drive is doable. > BTW - if I didn't mention it before, my emu box is a PC which runs DOS > (6.1 or 6.2, I think), and I use Jeff Vavasour's emulators - not MESS. > If I need to use MESS under Windows or Linux, I can probably set that > up, but not immediately (I would likely have to upgrade the box if it is > the Windows version - I am only running a P166 on the emu). For dumping the disk to an image, Vavasour's retreive utility will work just fine. But Diecom games require a DMK disk image. Vavasour's emulators do not support DMK disk images. Your only options (for emulation) is David Keils excellent emulators or MESS. If Gates of Delerium is a CoCo 3 game you need to request a copy of David Keils CoCo 3 emulator from John A Podraza . > Well - ideally I would like to see the following (I guess this would be > a "yes" to both of the options above): > > 1. I would like to have a physical 5.25 backup of the game and player > disks. I have old "new stock" floppies I can use for this. > > 2. I would like to have this game in a DSK or other virtual format for > either Jeff's emulator or MESS - something that I can burn to a CD-R or > something for safekeeping. OK. > For the physical copy, I would like to copy the original floppy onto a > new floppy (using whatever software you will write), then create a track > 0 on that new floppy. Ideally, make a few physical copies like this, > then somehow get it to the emulator and create a virtual image there for it. No. We'll be doing this the other way around. You'll be running programs I create to extract data from the disk. Then I'll peice a DMK disk image together that I will test in MESS and David Keils emulator. Then I'll use my Catweasel to transfer that DMK disk image back to a real disk. I'll then send that disk to you. Of course, all that only happens if everything goes smoothly. :) > If you can go this far, couldn't you just bypass the track 0 check, or > does it contain information needed to allow the game to run? If I do disassemble the program loader, then yes. I will know how to crack the software. And I may even do that to verfy the sector data integrity. But it is not the goal. Under emulation the goal is to have game play _exactly_ as it does on real hardware. On real hardware the goal is to play the exact same game with no modification. I can understand why the above seems silly, but it is how I feel. > You seem to be leaning towards creating software so I can create a new > image of the program on a new floppy and/or a virtual image - something > I can send you, if the track 0 can't be created on the floppy right, > correct (I know I phrased that in a convoluted manner - my apollogies)? > > Or, do you want to try to create a virtual image without track 0 that I > can send you, and you can play with the track 0 stuff there? I believe I answered this above. > BTW - how would track 0 be applied/built? Is it something that can be > done on the CoCo (one would think so)? Yes, I think it would be possible to write a Diecom track zero using a CoCo. But writing that software when I have a Catweasel avaiable to me seems unnecessary. How? Well I would write a program to patch the BASIC DSKINI command to: 1. Only format track zero. 2. Use my suppilied data instead of creating a proper track with proper sectors. > I find all of this very fascinating and interesting to watch - after > all, that is what it seems like I am doing - without your help, this > would never have come this far. Let's hope it all works out well in the end. Oh it will. :) You've just verified all of the sectors. That 90% of this effort. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 12:42:46 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > If so, then using the RAM drive is doable. I haven't played with it much, but from the docs I have, the answer is "yes" - you can assign it to any drive 0-3 (two are created on a 512K CoCo 3), and all commands work with it (to BASIC each RAM drive simply appears as another floppy drive). > But Diecom games require a DMK disk image. Vavasour's emulators do not > support DMK disk images. Your only options (for emulation) is David > Keils excellent emulators or MESS. Ok - what are the differences between a DMK image and a DSK image? If you want to point me to a link (rather than give a lengthy explanation if that is required), please do so. > If Gates of Delerium is a CoCo 3 game you need to request a copy of > David Keils CoCo 3 emulator from John A Podraza . No - GofD is a CoCo 2 game - still, I might look into getting Keils emulators. If I need them or MESS to play in emulation mode (which in the end is the ultimate goal - I wanted a PC that could "be" my CoCo instead of having to subject the real hardware from my youth to unnecessary wear), then I will use them. I am just hoping to stay away from Windows if I have a choice (but if I don't, the emulation comes first). > Of course, all that only happens if everything goes smoothly. :) If it does, can you make me a couple of copies so this process will never (hah!) have to be repeated in the future? Would you want a couple of blank floppies in return (or, do you need them)? I know DSDD floppies are tough to come by (btw, have you ever come across a DSHD floppy to DSDD floppy hardware converter - something that low-level reformats the floppy tracking info?)... > I can understand why the above seems silly, but it is how I feel. I understand the sentiment and the reasoning. I suppose if we (well, you actually) can get it emulated, in the end it won't matter. It will be running, it will be in a "modern" format running on "modern" hardware. > I believe I answered this above. Yes. > Yes, I think it would be possible to write a Diecom track zero using a > CoCo. But writing that software when I have a Catweasel avaiable to me > seems unnecessary. > > How? Well I would write a program to patch the BASIC DSKINI command to: > 1. Only format track zero. > 2. Use my suppilied data instead of creating a proper track with > proper sectors. Which is why, above, I am asking for more than one copy of the disk - and why I asked about the above. In other words, in some ways I want to continue to be able to use the real hardware for playing it - but I don't want to see the disk wear out again - since I don't have a catweasel (and not sure yet if I will get one, either - but the need might come up again in the future, and I will have to check the price for the PCI version), I would like a way to recreate the track info... Though I suppose once a virtual image is available, there will always be some way to get it back - moot point... Also - I am fascinated by this copy protection scheme that Diecom used, it has intrigued me for a very long time, and what you have begun to show me about it makes me want to know the whole enchilada, exactly how it works. Would you be willing to tell me more (or point me to sources) once this ordeal is over? > Oh it will. :) You've just verified all of the sectors. That 90% of this > effort. It sounds promising - light can be seen at the end of the tunnel (but we both know that story, too - choo, choooo!!!)... :) Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 16:16:53 -0700 > I haven't played with it much, but from the docs I have, the answer is > "yes" - you can assign it to any drive 0-3 (two are created on a 512K > CoCo 3), and all commands work with it (to BASIC each RAM drive simply > appears as another floppy drive). Well it turned out to be a moot point. Since I have to use a standard floppy to seek (the seeking information is munged on the Diecom disk), I decided to use that standard floppy to hold the data. It worked out pretty nice. You'll find the BASIC program listing at the end of this message. You also find a uuencoded zip file containing a disk image with the program on it, you will be able to use Vavasour's DSKINI to write this disk image to a real disk. Now you wont have to type it in. :) So I want you to use my program to transfer the data on the Diecom disk to a newly formatted blank floppy. Then use Vavasours RETREIVE program to create a disk image of the "formally" blank floppy. Then email me that disk image. Then I will write a tool that will transform that image to a DMK image. > Ok - what are the differences between a DMK image and a DSK image? If > you want to point me to a link (rather than give a lengthy explanation > if that is required), please do so. On a JCV image (as I call them) all the sectors have to be the same size, and same number per track. DMK image do not have this limitation. http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/JVC.html http://discover-net.net/~dmkeil/coco/cocotech.htm#Technical-DMK-disks > No - GofD is a CoCo 2 game - still, I might look into getting Keils > emulators. If I need them or MESS to play in emulation mode (which in > the end is the ultimate goal - I wanted a PC that could "be" my CoCo > instead of having to subject the real hardware from my youth to > unnecessary wear), then I will use them. I am just hoping to stay away > from Windows if I have a choice (but if I don't, the emulation comes first). Keils emulators will run nicly on you machine. My PC is a Pentium 90 and they run fine. I haven't tried his CoCo 3 emu, but I suspect it to run acceptably on your machine. There is a DOS version of MESS, but it will run _very_ slow on your machine. > If it does, can you make me a couple of copies so this process will > never (hah!) have to be repeated in the future? Absolutly > Would you want a couple of blank floppies in return (or, do you need > them)? No I have a nice suppily of floppies. > Also - I am fascinated by this copy protection scheme that Diecom used, > it has intrigued me for a very long time, and what you have begun to > show me about it makes me want to know the whole enchilada, exactly how > it works. It works by using a non standard format. Disk utilities (and Disk BASIC) expect a cetrian orginazation and will fail pretty quickly if that format is deviated from. > Would you be willing to tell me more (or point me to sources) once this > ordeal is over? I believe everything is avaiable in our thread. There is really not much more to it. 10 CLEAR 5000, &H5FFF 20 ATTR 3,2:WIDTH80 30 DIM A$(18), B$(18) 40 POKE &HD540, &HFF : REM ADJUST DSKI$/DSKO$ TO ACCEPT SECTOR IDS GREATER THAN 18 50 REM COPY PATCH TO UNUSED RAM 60 FOR X=&HDF59 TO &HDF59+9 70 READ A$: POKE X, VAL("&H"+A$) 80 NEXT X 90 DATA 4F, B7, FF, 49, B6, FF, 48, 7E, D8, 3C 100 PRINT "THIS PROGRAM WILL COPY THE NON STANDARD SECTORS ON DIECOM DISKS (TRACKS 1-16) AND THE STANDARD SECTORS (TRACKS 17-34) TO A NEW DISK." 110 PRINT "THE NEW DISK WILL BE A STANDARD RSDOS FLOPPY, AND WILL NOT BE A PLAYABLE DISK" 120 PRINT "MORE PROCESSING WILL BE NEEDED TO TURN THE DISK INTO A PLAYABLE DISK" 130 PRINT : PRINT "BEFORE RUNNING THIS PROGRAM HAVE TWO DISKS READY: THE DIECOM DISK AND A NEWLY FORMATTED BLANK FLOPPY" 140 PRINT : PRINT "THIS PROGRAM REQUIRES 34 DISK SWAPS. PLEASE BE GENTIAL WHEN OPENING AND CLOSING THE FLOPPY DRIVE DOOR. IF THE HEAD MOVES FROM TRACK TO TRACK BETWEEN A DISK SWAP WE'LL NEVER KNOW" 150 INPUT "INSERT THE BLANK FLOPPY AND PRESS ENTER"; A$ 160 FOR X = 1 TO 16 170 PRINT "POSITION HEAD ON TRACK";X 180 DSKI$ 0, X, 10, A$, B$ 190 Y=10 200 D=1 210 INPUT "PLACE DIECOM DISK IN DRIVE 0";A$ 220 PRINT "TRACK";X;"READ SECTOR";Y 230 GOSUB 620 : REM INSTALL DSKI$ PATCHES 240 DSKI$ 0, X, Y, A$, B$ 250 IF X=1 THEN 290 : REM SKIP SECTOR ID 20 ON TRACK 1 260 POKE &HD590, &H64 : REM ADVANCE BUFFER POINTER 270 PRINT "TRACK";X;"READ SECTOR";Y+10 280 DSKI$ 0, X, Y+10, A$, B$ 290 GOSUB 680 : REM REMOVE DSKI$ PATCHES 300 INPUT "INSERT BLANK DISK IN DRIVE ZERO";A$ 310 FOR D = 0 TO 1 320 IF X=1 AND D=1 THEN 400 330 FOR C = 0 TO 3 340 Z=&H6000+(&H100*((D*4)+C)) 350 A$="":FOR A = Z TO Z+127: A$=A$+CHR$(PEEK(A)): NEXT A 360 B$="":FOR B = Z+128 TO Z+255: B$=B$+CHR$(PEEK(B)):NEXT B 370 PRINT "WRITING TRACK";X;"SECTOR";Y+(D*10);"PART";C+1;"TO BLANK DISK SECTOR";(D*4)+C+1;"FROM ADDRESS ";HEX$(Z) 380 DSKO$ 0, X, (D*4)+C+1, A$, B$ 390 NEXT C 400 NEXT D 410 NEXT X 420 REM ALL DONE WITH TRACKS 1-16 430 FOR X = 17 TO 34 440 INPUT "INSERT DIECOM DISK";A$ 450 PRINT "READING ALL SECTORS ON TRACK";X 460 FOR Y = 1 TO 18 470 DSKI$ 0, X, Y, A$(Y), B$(Y) 480 PRINT Y; 490 NEXT Y 500 PRINT 510 INPUT "INSERT BLANK DISK";C$ 520 PRINT "WRITING ALL SECTORS ON TRACK";X 530 FOR Y = 1 TO 18 540 DSKO$ 0, X, Y, A$(Y), B$(Y) 550 PRINT Y; 560 NEXT Y 570 PRINT 580 NEXT X 590 PRINT "BLANK DISK IS NO LONGER BLANK" 600 PRINT "ALL DONE" 610 END 620 REM INSTALL PATCHES 630 POKE &HD590, &H60 640 POKE &HD839, &H7E 650 POKE &HD83A, &HDF 660 POKE &HD83B, &H59 670 RETURN 680 REM REMOVE PATCHES 690 POKE &HD590, &H06 700 POKE &HD839, &HB6 710 POKE &HD83A, &HFF 720 POKE &HD83B, &H48 730 RETURN -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 08:13:56 -0700 Andrew: Did you get that last email? I sent it on Sunday. If you are busy, I understand. It is just we had that really quick turnaround time on our messages. I thought something might be up. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 09:00:50 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > Did you get that last email? I sent it on Sunday. If you are busy, I > understand. It is just we had that really quick turnaround time on our > messages. I thought something might be up. Yes, I did, but I wasn't able to get to it on Sunday, nor Monday. I hope to be able to get to it today, but it might have to wait until later in the week. Work and chores are getting in the way... I will let you know when it is ready. Andrew --- Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:42:15 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium > Then email me that disk image. Alright - attached is the images. I took good care to be gentle with the drive door on all tracks, to ensure that the head didn't move. In regards to this ZIP file - it contains two disk images (in DSK or JCV format): gofdgame.dsk (Game Disk - without track 0) gofdplyr.dsk (Player Disk - complete) The game disk, as noted, is a copy of the disk we are concerned with, transferred via your BASIC transfer code, then copied to a virtual disk image using RETRIEVE. I verified the image could be read (a DIR done) in Jeff's emulator - it even loads up the first screen, then freezes (presumably either because it can't handle the funky tracks or because track 0 is missing, or both). The player disk will be required (and needs its own DMK image) to play the game. If you test it out, make a copy of the image - because the game overwrites the data on the player disk as you play. Something interesting I noted as I ran the transfer program was how on the non-standard tracks (1-16) the reads of the two sectors (10,20) were fast, but the writes to the blank floppy were a lot slower. On the standard tracks, though (17-34), the reads of the sectors were slower than the writes. Is this because of the "strange" interleave pattern between logical and physical sectors on the disk that Tandy chose for the disk system? Or is it something else? > Then I will write a tool that will transform that image to a DMK image. OK. > On a JCV image (as I call them) all the sectors have to be the same > size, and same number per track. DMK image do not have this limitation. > > http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/JVC.html > http://discover-net.net/~dmkeil/coco/cocotech.htm#Technical-DMK-disks Thank you for these links - they are very informative. > Keils emulators will run nicly on you machine. My PC is a Pentium 90 and > they run fine. I haven't tried his CoCo 3 emu, but I suspect it to run > acceptably on your machine. I have emailed John regarding the emulator, he is mailing me a copy - from your above link, though, I noticed that there is a CoCo 2 emulator available for download, but no mention of a CoCo 3 emulator. What is interesting is that John is mailing me the emulator instead of emailing it, for whatever reason. Did he "hack" the emulator in some fashion to add CoCo 3 capability? BTW - I noticed on my emulator box that I already had a copy of Keils CoCo 2 emulator - but I am missing the DISK BASIC ROM image (I have the Standard and Extended BASIC ROMs) - how (or what is the best way) do I get a copy of my Disk Controller's ROM? Do I simply write some code to PEEK the values in the area (8 or 16K?) the ROM resides in on the CoCo 3 (or CoCo 2 in all-ram mode), then dump them through the serial port or via the disk? > There is a DOS version of MESS, but it will run _very_ slow on your > machine. What is the minimum requirements for the DOS version (or would it be best to stick with a Windows or Linux version)? > Absolutly Thank you. > No I have a nice suppily of floppies. Ok. > It works by using a non standard format. Disk utilities (and Disk BASIC) > expect a cetrian orginazation and will fail pretty quickly if that > format is deviated from. Well - I am beginning to recognize that, but what I really mean is how they tricked RSDOS into working - you LOADM the game, it starts - I assume it starts some kind of loader, that makes similar changes in the way the disk system works to read track 0, then 1-16 - then switches back to read the rest? > I believe everything is avaiable in our thread. There is really not much > more to it. Well - there was no discussion on how the loader is executed, how it reads track 0, etc - overall, it is all there at both a high and low level. Thank you - and let me know what you find out, etc. I have my emulator box set up now, so I will leave it that way as we progress... Andrew --- Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:51:36 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Tim, I just noticed that the DISK BASIC ROM (I think) is on David Keils site... Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:20:52 -0700 I am at work right now, so I haven't processed this files you sent me, but I will soon. > The game disk, as noted, is a copy of the disk we are concerned with, > transferred via your BASIC transfer code, then copied to a virtual disk > image using RETRIEVE. I verified the image could be read (a DIR done) in > Jeff's emulator - it even loads up the first screen, then freezes > (presumably either because it can't handle the funky tracks or because > track 0 is missing, or both). I have not disasembled the loader code, but I presume it is failing on not finding all the data in the large sectors on the first few tracks. > The player disk will be required (and needs its own DMK image) to play > the game. If you test it out, make a copy of the image - because the > game overwrites the data on the player disk as you play. > > Something interesting I noted as I ran the transfer program was how on > the non-standard tracks (1-16) the reads of the two sectors (10,20) were > fast, but the writes to the blank floppy were a lot slower. On the > standard tracks, though (17-34), the reads of the sectors were slower > than the writes. > > Is this because of the "strange" interleave pattern between logical and > physical sectors on the disk that Tandy chose for the disk system? Or is > it something else? Reads are faster than writes. I don't know why. That would be a good question for the CoCo list. > I have emailed John regarding the emulator, he is mailing me a copy - > from your above link, though, I noticed that there is a CoCo 2 emulator > available for download, but no mention of a CoCo 3 emulator. David Keil never updated his web site. > What is interesting is that John is mailing me the emulator instead of > emailing it, for whatever reason. Did he "hack" the emulator in some > fashion to add CoCo 3 capability? No, David Kiel extended his own emulator. John is distributing it as a promotional effort to get people to join the Glennside Color Computer Club. John is doing this with the permission of David. > BTW - I noticed on my emulator box that I already had a copy of Keils > CoCo 2 emulator - but I am missing the DISK BASIC ROM image (I have the > Standard and Extended BASIC ROMs) - how (or what is the best way) do I > get a copy of my Disk Controller's ROM? Do I simply write some code to > PEEK the values in the area (8 or 16K?) the ROM resides in on the CoCo 3 > (or CoCo 2 in all-ram mode), then dump them through the serial port or > via the disk? There should be instruction on how to obtain the ROM in David's documentation. If not I can send you the file. > What is the minimum requirements for the DOS version (or would it be > best to stick with a Windows or Linux version)? I don't know but it runs like shit on my Pentium 90. :) > Well - I am beginning to recognize that, but what I really mean is how > they tricked RSDOS into working - you LOADM the game, it starts - I > assume it starts some kind of loader, that makes similar changes in the > way the disk system works to read track 0, then 1-16 - then switches > back to read the rest? The file that is listed in the directory is a normal RS-DOS binary file. Binary files have a header on them that tells Disk BASIC where to place them in memory. Binary files can contain multiple segments that can load in noncontigious areas of memory. The first segment in the "GATES/BIN" file is loaded at address $400 and is 512 bytes large. The address $400 is where the 32x16 column screen is located, so this has the effect of clearing the screan and loading the initial graphic. The second segment is a small operating system. It gets loaded somewhere in RAM, I am not sure exactly where. The third segment is tiny, just a few bytes. It gets loaded on top of some BASIC internal variables. These vairables usually tell BASIC to display the flashing color cursor after the LOADM is done. But instead BASIC will now jump to the newly loaded "mini-OS" in RAM (that was loaded from segment 2). Now Diecom code is running and it takes over the whole CoCo. Clearing BASIC from memory and installing is own disk I/O routines and continues loading the game. I don't know if it checks track zero before or after it loads the data from the 1024 bytes sectors. I would suspect after. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "tim lindner" Cc: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:34:12 -0400 As far as MESS goes, I have only ever got Diecom games with their Disk protection scheme to work under version 0.61b, all versions after seem to be broken somehow? Not sure, but I think Tim mentioned this too me a while back.... http://www.retrogames.com/mess/mess061b.zip Coco 3 roms http://www.distantsystems.com/personal/jeff/coco3.zip Mike --- To: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Cc: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 19:45:12 -0700 > As far as MESS goes, I have only ever got Diecom games with their Disk > protection scheme to work under version 0.61b, all versions after seem to be > broken somehow? Not sure, but I think Tim mentioned this too me a while > back.... > > http://www.retrogames.com/mess/mess061b.zip Yes, "read track" support is currently broken in MESS. It'll be one more thing for me to fix when I get the DMK disk image ready for testing. :) -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "tim lindner" Cc: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 23:34:15 -0400 I gave the Gates image ('as-is') a shot under MESS 0.61b just to see what would happen at my end . The Gates text screen came up (wow...what a flash back ..(c)1987, I was getting chills :) then after a short period, the screen went green and then hung, but no error messages came up. Hopefully Tim, you can complete the ressurection from here! Great work Andrew in getting the images made :) Mike (its sooooo close now ...............) --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 21:55:15 -0700 > Alright - attached is the images. OK I have attached a zip file containing many DMK disk images of the program disk. Each disk contains the data you sent me. I took the nine Diecom games I have and extracted track zero from each and placed them on these nine GoD program disks. There is a good chance one of these might work. I haven't tested them becuase I don't have a MESS that is DMK bug free. And my PC (with David Keils emulator) is in sotrage. So I want you to try each of these. David Keils emulator might require you to change the three letter extension to .DMK, but I am not sure. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 09:38:15 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Tim, I want to try these out, badly - however, after uudecoding the disk rom image (strangely, all of your prior attachments have come up as real attachments in my browser/email client - I am using Mozilla 1.7 - this one came up as a uuencoded text attachment to the message, inline with the message), the zip file (disk11.zip) is corrupt when I try to unzip it. My steps - I save the message out as a text file, then I uudecode it (I even tried using a text editor to strip the top and bottom off leaving only the uuencoded piece - same result, same filesize for the ZIP). This gives me a zip file: disk11.zip - 7174 bytes long (is this correct?) However, when I go to unzip it, I get the following message: andrewa@discordia5:~/data/downloads/coco/dkemu/temp$ unzip disk11.zip Archive: disk11.zip error [disk11.zip]: start of central directory not found; zipfile corrupt. (please check that you have transferred or created the zipfile in the appropriate BINARY mode and that you have compiled UnZip properly) As you can see, I am doing all of this on my Linux box (I usually unzip, then drop to a floppy, then "sneakernet" it over to the emu box - still haven't gotten DOS to talk to the network yet). Ideas, suggestions? Andrew --- Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 09:39:20 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium BTW - the zipfile you sent with the images of the floppies of GofD - those came as an actual attachment, not as an inline uuencoded file. Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "tim lindner" Cc: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:21:21 -0400 Hi Guys, I tried all 9 images....none worked , but there was some different reactions under emulation (MESS 0.61), image A: hung on load up screen image B: went from loader screen back to dos cursor image C: hung on load up screen, but strangely the number 5 character appears on the top left of the loader screen image D: hung on load up screen image E: hung on load up screen image F: hung on load up screen image G: hung on load up screen, but alternating set of 5 Ascii chars are rotating (looks like a counter of some sort) in top left of the loader screen image H: hung on load up screen, but alternating set of 5 Ascii chars are rotating (looks like a counter of some sort) in top left of the loader screen image I: hung on load up screen Looks like there must be a unique signature Track 0 for each game?....(or at least Gates of Delerium) This version of MESS works fine with the Gantelet II image Tim sent me a while ago. May need to go a disassembly route? Thanks Mike. --- Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 13:21:39 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Ok, I am at another impasse... Following the instructions here: http://discover-net.net/~dmkeil/coco/cocodoc.htm#Operation-floppy I put the files (A-I) into a directory (C:\TEST\) - then attempted to select them - DK's emulator defaults to names of ".DSK" - in the instructions it says it can auto-detect native (DMK?) and JV1 formats, and by pressing "3", you can load JV3 format (I assume JV1 and JV3 are Jeff's formats for .DSK?). Anyhow, I tried all ways - none worked. I would load the disk, switch to the emulator, do a "DIR" - and get ?IO ERROR. I even tried to create a disk with the emulator (Option "C" in the disk selection screen) - I selected a SSDD image - back at the emulator, ?IO ERROR. I tried to DSKINI it, still got an error. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong? Andrew --- Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 13:35:19 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford CC: tim lindner Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Interesting... Something I have noted under the DK emulator - when I go to create a disk image (option "C"), selecting the default options (DSDD) - I get the file (in my case, TEST.DSK), which if I try to do any disk operation on I get ?IO ERROR (it seems that the DRIVE command is the only disk operation that works without an error?) - at the command line, this file is only 16 bytes long - is this correct? I can't figure out why this isn't working... Andrew --- Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 13:42:31 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford CC: tim lindner Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Ok - I think I have it figured out now: I selected the cartridge and "enabled" the floppy controller ("F" in the multipak area F4) - then I was able to read the disks. I am testing out the images... Andrew --- Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 14:19:57 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Guys - here are the results I received with the DK emulator - my procedure on this was to: Select the disk image (F9) Power-on Reset (Shift-F4 in the emulator) Switch back to emulator. DIR (track switched to 017, drive "light" on emu stays "lit") See directory listing "GATES.BIN" LOADM "GATES At this point, on each of the images, the emulator switched to track 018, and the first screen appears (this was common for each of the images). Then, for each of the images, here is what I observed: Image A: Switches to track 002, pauses, then switches to track 000, and a count up on the tracks as follows: 003 004 005 006 Then switches to drive 1, track 000 and "hangs" until reset. --- Image B: Switches to track 002, pauses, then switches to track 000, and a count up on the tracks like Image A, up to track 014. Does not switch to drive 1, but instead resets to Disk Basic - the banner overlays the bottom half or so of the main GofD screen. --- Image C: Switches to track 002, pauses, then switches to track 000, and a count up on the tracks like Image A, up to track 009. Does not switch to drive 1. At this point on the screen, at position "1", an inverse "5" is seen on the screen (as in PRINT @1,"5"). Hangs until reset. --- Image D: Switches to track 002, pauses, then switches to track 000, and a count up on the tracks like Image A, up to track 015. Does not switch to drive 1. At this point on the screen, at position "0", a black box is printed. Hangs until reset. --- Image E: Switches to track 002, pauses, then switches to track 000, and a count up on the tracks like Image A, up to track 005. Does not switch to drive 1. At this point on the screen, at position "0", an inverse "V" is printed. Hangs until reset. --- Image F: Switches to track 002, pauses, then switches to track 000, and a count up on the tracks like Image A, up to track 015, then immediately switches to track 000. Does not switch to drive 1. At this point on the screen, at position "0", the string "L8L8L" and a "box" (see note below) is printed (6 character string). Also, the string "L8" is printed about halfway down the screen, with the "L" appearing on the right-hand side, and the "8" appearing in the next character position (or address, if you will) on the left hand side, one line down after the "L" character (or byte). (NOTE: the box is a "black" box with what I believe to be a magenta "dot" in the upper right corner - not sure which CHR$ that is) Then, the Disk BASIC banner overlays the bottom half of the screen (doesn't hang, instead it resets). --- Image G: Same events as in Image F. --- Image H: Switches to track 002, pauses, then switches to track 000, and a count up on the tracks like Image A, up to track 011. Does not switch to drive 1. At this point on the screen, at position "3", a black box is printed. Hangs until reset. --- Image I: Switches to track 002, pauses, then switches to track 000, and a count up on the tracks like Image A, up to track 015. Does not switch to drive 1. Hangs until reset. No visibily apparent changes to the screen. --- I hope this helps - let me know if you need any more info or testing. Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Cc: "tim lindner" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:40:03 -0400 cool....maybe you will have better luck with your emulation scenario :) Mike --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Cc: "tim lindner" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:53:30 -0400 If anything, looks like we have consistent results with our testing. Its also good that we are testing using two different emulators (The DK emulator seems to provide greater detail in whats actually going on with track info, than does MESS). Maybe Tim can use this info to find a work around....... Last night I took Andrew's original dsk image and ran it through a hex editor to see what I could find.....What was really cool is I found the location where the characters you meet in the game are stored...the ones that join your party throughout the quest....Rantor was the first guy, and I remember actually playing the game way back, and this was the first guy that joined my party..it was too cool. I wont give away the others, just in case we get this game back to life :) (....we have to somehow now!! :) Mike --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:59:58 -0700 > Guys - here are the results I received with the DK emulator - my > procedure on this was to: All nine of thoes track zeros were different. This leads me to beilve that Dave used different track zeros on all of his games. I was hoping one of the nine would work. But no luck. The next step it to write a program to dump track zero on Andrew's disk. But I am leary of this. If track zero was good, then Andrews game should run. But it does not. But I still want to see the track zero that is on his disk. I'll get back to you in a few days with the new program. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 12:58:46 -0700 > The next step is to write a program to dump track zero on Andrew's disk. OK I have this track zero dumping program done: 10 CLEAR 500, &H5FFF 20 DV=PEEK(&HC006)*256+PEEK(&HC007) 30 DC=PEEK(&HC004)*256+PEEK(&HC005) 40 PRINT "THIS PROGRAM MODIFIES COLOR DISK BASIC TO ISSUE A READ TRACK COMMAND ON TRACK ZERO OF DRIVE ZERO" 50 PRINT "IT THEN WRITES THAT TRACK TO A BLANK DISK ACROSS TWO TRACKS WORTH OF SECTORS" 60 PRINT "IT DOES THIS FOUR TIMES. FILLING THE FIRST EIGHT TRACKS OF THE BLANK DISK WITH FOUR COPIES OF THE TRACK DATA FROM THE DIECOM DISK" 70 PRINT 80 FOR A = 0 TO 7 STEP 2 90 INPUT "INSERT DIECOM PROGRAM DISK";A$ 100 POKE DV,0 : REM SET COMMAND TO RESTORE TO TRACK ZERO 110 POKE DV+1,0 : REM SET DRIVE TO DRIVE ZERO 120 POKE DV+2, 0 : REM SET TRACK TO ZERO 130 EXEC DC : REM GO DO COMMAND 140 PRINT "HEAD POSITIONED ON TRACK ZERO" 150 POKE DV, 2 : REM SET COMMAND TO READ SECTOR 160 POKE DV+4,&H60 170 POKE DV+5,&H00 : REM SET BUFFER TO &H6000 180 POKE &HD7F9, &HE0 : REM CHANGE READ SECTOR COMMAND TO READ TRACK COMMAND 190 POKE &HD856, &HE0 200 POKE &HD762, 1 : REM SET RETRY COUNT TO ONE 210 EXEC DC : REM GO DO COMMAND 220 POKE &HD7F9, &H80 : REM CHANGE READ SECTOR COMMAND BACK TO READ SECTOR 230 POKE &HD856, &H80 240 POKE &HD762, 5 : REM SET RETRY COUNT BACK TO 5 250 INPUT "INSERT BLANK DISK";A$ 260 X=&H6000 270 A$=" ":B$=" " 280 FOR C = 0 TO 1 290 FOR B = 1 TO 18 300 PRINT "WRITING ADDRESS ";HEX$(X);" TO TRACK";A+C;"SECTOR";B 310 D=VARPTR(A$):POKE D,128:POKE D+2, X/256:POKE D+3,(&H8000-X) AND &H00FF:X=X+128 320 D=VARPTR(B$):POKE D,128:POKE D+2, X/256:POKE D+3,(&H8000-X) AND &H00FF:X=X+128 330 DSKO$ 0, A+C, B, A$, B$ 340 NEXT B 350 NEXT C 360 NEXT A You'll notice a couple of things: a) I read the track four times and record each one on this disk. The track read command is a bit dicy. It'll only sync up on certian bytes and sometimes it'll miss something b) You'll see I fill A$ and B$ (for the DSKO$ command) a bit differently. It is _much_ faster than building the string by copying a byte at a time. I also attached a disk image with the program so you don't have to type it in. The program is called TRACK0/BAS on that disk. So If you could run this program. Have it copy the data to a blank disk. Image that blank disk. And send me a copy of imaged disk. Maybe we'll have have a working track zero! BTW: I fixed MESS with regard to copyprotected DMK disk images. I don't know when I will get a chance to commit these fixes to CVS, and I have no idea when Nathan will release a new MESS. But I thought you both would like to know. :) -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "tim lindner" Cc: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:31:26 -0400 Hi Tim, Great programming! cool :) Just curious, are the first 16 sectors (1-16 that is), the same on all Diecom disks?.....are they just reserved for the proprietary Diecom DOS, or is it a mix of game data + the mini OS? I am asking because if Track 0 turns out to be OK, and say tracks 1-8 for example are messed up data wise (even though they can be read properly), could they be transplanted from another working set of tracks 1-8, from another Diecom game?...this again is assumig that tracks 1-16 (or at least 1-8) are the same for all Diecom games, and that their mini-os is also identically layed out across these sectors. Kinda like copying MS-DOS command.com over top of a corrupt one. I did some image snooping last night with my hex editor and noticed the filenames GATES.BIN (visable under DIR in emulator) ...the one we luach to start the game GATES1.BIN (not visable) GATES2.BIN (not visable) the last two are probably accessed under the Diecom mini-OS An interesting tidbit....I dug up a hidden text graphic on the game disk with what appears to be a key, and a lock beneath it ....its really big, contructed out of ASCII characters. Not sure what it means. If Track 0 turns out to be bad/not readable in what ever way, could this simply be a quirky issue where Andrews drive might not be able to understand the Diecom scheme?( with track 0 that is, 1-16 'appear' to have passed through OK with your previous program) And furthermore, if track 0 is just plain dead, is that the end of the line? Mike --- To: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Cc: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 16:40:52 -0700 > Just curious, are the first 16 sectors (1-16 that is), the same on all > Diecom disks? Nope. Just a tiny "game loader" portion is the same between Diecom games. > .....are they just reserved for the proprietary Diecom DOS, or > is it a mix of game data + the mini OS? A mix of game data, game code and game loader. > I am asking because if Track 0 turns out to be OK, and say tracks 1-8 for > example are messed up data wise (even though they can be read properly), > could they be transplanted from another working set of tracks 1-8, from > another Diecom game? Very unlikley! > An interesting tidbit....I dug up a hidden text graphic on the game disk > with what appears to be a key, and a lock beneath it ....its really big, > contructed out of ASCII characters. Not sure what it means. What's the image file offset? > If Track 0 turns out to be bad/not readable in what ever way, could this > simply be a quirky issue where Andrews drive might not be able to understand > the Diecom scheme?( with track 0 that is, 1-16 'appear' to have passed > through OK with your previous program) It could be his drive. Track zero is rarley used in "normal" CoCoing. > And furthermore, if track 0 is just plain dead, is that the end of the > line? Nope, I then just dissasemble the track zero checking routine and create a track zero it is expecting. Simple! :) -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "tim lindner" Cc: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 20:30:50 -0400 Hi Tim, > Nope, I then just dissasemble the track zero checking routine and create > a track zero it is expecting. Simple! :) You rock! > What's the image file offset? it starts at 91,328 (164C0 hex) bytes in (starting from 0 of course) and ends at 94975 (172FF hex) and is 32 bytes wide and is therefore 114 chars high I used Andrews orignal image he sent us, so your modified ones may have a different offset. I discovered this by loadeing into a hex editor, turning down the font size really low so the letters appear to be graphic like. By expanding and shrinking the editor window, i was able to find this. This is a technique I use for reverse engineering older games to find maps etc. I will eventually decode this games' entire graphics library and maps (I found the main map for Gates but I have to figure out its dimensions, Ultima 3 which is very similar is 4096 chars wide)....takes a bit of effort at first. A Diecom crop circle? :) Thanks Mike --- Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:51:58 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Tim, Attached is the ZIPed track 0 dump disk image (from RETRIEVE - JCV format). I agree with Michael that it could be my drive (not being able to properly read track 0). My original drive seems "dead", and I don't know how (or if) it can be fixed (know of any tools, howto's, or books?). It spins up, moves the head around, but errors out on everything. Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 18:22:54 -0700 Andrew wrote: > Attached is the ZIPed track 0 dump disk image (from RETRIEVE - JCV format). > > I agree with Michael that it could be my drive (not being able to > properly read track 0). My original drive seems "dead", and I don't know > how (or if) it can be fixed (know of any tools, howto's, or books?). It > spins up, moves the head around, but errors out on everything. Of the nine track zeros I have they all seems to have a pattern. They start off with "Data Address Mark". This is odd because there is there is no "ID Address Mark" prefacing it to describe the data. They prolly do this is allow he FDC to sync to the data stream without having to create a real sector. After the "Data Address Mark" there are usually several hundred or so bytes of randomly alternating 0x00 and 0xf7. The track zero Andrew just sent me matches this pattern. But after the 0x00 and 0xf7 pattern, ther is a gap of about 100 or so bytes (all 0x00), then a malformed ID address mark followed by four more bytes. These bytes change from disk to disk. I believe they are the key that the game loader uses to determine if the disk is an original or not. Andrews disk devieates from this. I see: F7 00 00 F7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 F7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 14 00 00 00 Instead of the "key" bytes i was expecting. Can someone send me one of the DMK disk images I created previously? I am at work now and don't have access to it. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 18:49:44 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Here is all 9... Andrew --- Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:58:07 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com To: Andrew , Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium OK, Here is a new DMK disk image with the track Andrew just sent me. I have high hopes! I call this one: 'J'! :) -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: Cc: "Andrew" Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:43:31 -0400 Tim, It didnt work but you are getting close! The game loader reported an actual error message: "Record Not Found" ....over top of the main loader screen, Sounds like its comming from the Diecom mini-OS.... I think at least it is a big stride over the other 9 images :) Mike P.S. - I included one of your images you requested. --- Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 19:45:30 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford CC: tlindner@ix.netcom.com Subject: Re: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium Tim, Michael: Under DK's emulator, what I saw was this (using same nomenclature as before on the other 9 images): Image J: Switches to track 002, pauses, then switches to track 000, and a count up on the tracks like Image A, up to track 011. Does not switch to drive 1. Then it rapidly switches to track 000, then 017, then 019, then seems to "glitch" but looking carefully it looks like it switched to track 018, then rapidly back to 019 - then the message: DRIVE NOT READY. under the "COPYRIGHT (C) 1987 BY" appears, and it sits there... This looks identical to what it is doing on my real CoCo 3 (however, I don't know if the track switching, etc is the same)... Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Success! (was: Coco, Diecom games, Gates of Delerium) From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:21:11 -0700 Attached is a working Gates of Delerium program disk! Well, it boots up, I didn't play the game. I'll leave that to you two! The problem was not with track zero. The problem was with my conversion from JVC to DMK. I left off the last sector (id 8) from tracks 17-34. That was the record that was not found! Anyway test this out: -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 00:05:38 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Success! > Attached is a working Gates of Delerium program disk! > > Well, it boots up, I didn't play the game. I'll leave that to you two! > > The problem was not with track zero. The problem was with my conversion > from JVC to DMK. I left off the last sector (id 8) from tracks 17-34. > That was the record that was not found! It appears that it works 100% OK in DK's emulator!!! With a player disk I was able to generate a player, venture to the town of Casa (first town), and beat up on a theif or something in the town (bad move, because then I was...)... Is it at all possible to write this image to a floppy from the emulator, so I can try it on my CoCo? Or do you need to make me floppies? Man, I so want to play this on my real system... At any rate, I think you have done it! You are the cleric! Andrew --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew) Cc: mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Success! From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 00:09:17 -0700 > Is it at all possible to write this image to a floppy from the emulator, > so I can try it on my CoCo? That should be impossible. > Or do you need to make me floppies? I will make some tomarrow. I'll have to pull out my PC and fire up my Catweasel. > Man, I so want to play this on my real system... > > At any rate, I think you have done it! You are the cleric! I hope that's a complement! :) BTW: Also tomarrow, I'll be wiritng a web page about dumping Diecom disks with these tools. Posting the source and everything. Maybe we'll get other people to try to dump their games! -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 00:25:18 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Success! Michael - do you realise that it has been 2 months since this was started? Michael and I started talking after he emailed me through my website asking about my luck with Gates of Delerium. I responded back to him saying that I thought the resurection of GofD was "lost to the mists of time", explaining my lack of success. But from that small beginning grew a conversation, which ultimately led us to this point in time. I later wrote to him (on 9/16/04) the following line, after he told me about your conversation with him on this issue: "I will get in contact with him - let him know what I found out - maybe between the three of us we can resurrect GofD? Boy, that would be fitting in a manner - CLERIC, RESURRECTION SPELL, QUICK!!!" So, rather than calling you "wizard" - you are "cleric" - your resurrection spell looks like it worked! Bravo! Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Cc: "tim lindner" Subject: Re: Success! Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 11:22:10 -0400 Oh my God! I woke up and got these e-mails today! I frantically fired up MESS............IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guys are the best :) Thanks Tim for your technical wisdom and time in creating these awesome conversion programs. Thanks Andrew for your time and technical magic, and for hang'n in and putting up with my rambling e-mails of HOPE early on in the process :) I knew deep down inside that it would work, my GUT feeling as a I described it to Andrew early on, is usually pretty good. I feel a part of my childhood has been given back. Too cool. This all has been an amazing experience, one I will never forget. Thank you both. Tim wrote >BTW: Also tomarrow, I'll be wiritng a web page about dumping Diecom >disks with these tools. Posting the source and everything. Maybe we'll >get other people to try to dump their games! Definitely.....I am sure there are many that would want this software..I am still in awe how you pulled this off, and without using the Catweasel direclty!!......... Andrew wrote: >Michael - do you realise that it has been 2 months since this was started? >Michael and I started talking after he emailed me through my website asking >about my luck with Gates of Delerium. I responded back to him saying that I >thought the resurection of GofD was "lost to the mists of time", explaining >my lack of success. >But from that small beginning grew a conversation, which ultimately led us >to this point in time. Andrew....thanks man...I had been hunting around for this game probably about 6-8 months before I stumbled across your Slashdot post from a Google search. I wasnt even sure if I would get a response, but you did replay, and from there.................... :) I think this whole process would be an interesting read for users. Maybe we should eventually summarize the events that led to this ressurrection as a kinda README.TXT file or something to go along with the programs or something. just awesome Thanks Mike PS - we definitely all have to keep in touch, this was a blast. --- Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 12:04:25 -0700 From: Andrew To: Michael Crawford CC: tim lindner Subject: Re: Success! What I ultimately want to do is a writeup of all of this, combine the emails as a "historical" chronicle lead-up - add in the DSK images, the scans of the manual and map, etc - make a ZIP file and give it back to the emulation community. But - *first* - I want to get *written* permission from the surviving authors, or at the least, Dave Dies. Michael, since you are near the area, can you handle this in person (maybe we can include a scan of the signed document, too)? I just don't want this effort to blow up in our faces if we do a general distribution - this is abandonware, I know I was personally told on the phone by Dave Dies that if it was ever recovered he didn't care what happened to it, and he didn't think the surviving author did either. But... I know that he at one time (or still is?) was running or worked at a company that made small games for palm pilots and cell phones - and, we are seeing a resurgence in such small games. So - now that it is running, could it be seen as a "money maker"? I don't know - I want to give it back to the world, but I know it technically isn't mine to give back. I don't think this could have happenned without any one of us - I had the "last -somewhat- surviving copy" (it feels that way, anyhow), Michael gave the initial impetuous to me to start this again, and he made contact with you, Tim - who had the technical expertise and drive to help pull it all together. We all did testing and such... Tim - the question I now have - what was wrong with my copy? Is there anything you can pinpoint as to why my original copy was failing? We have gone through a ton of iterations and testing, and I am still in the dark as to what was wrong with my (original Diecom) disk? I played last night some more, and explored the castle that was north of Casa - got lost for a long while in a "mountain maze" on the grounds of the castle - not sure if there is anything in that maze or not... This is so great!!! Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Cc: "tim lindner" Subject: Re: Success! Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:09:15 -0400 Hi Andrew, No problem, I will see what I can do.......I was actually talking to Dave a while back because I was interested in perhaps buying up any of his old stock of games etc. As you had also experienced, he really didn't seem that interested in spending the time to do so. I guess from his point of view, the past is the past, and is complete attention is required for his current ventures. On the same token, if it were me, and I had the chance, I would at least want to preserve my previous work, and transfer my old stuff digital to CD or whatever. I do remember him saying to me that he doesnt mine people using/trading Diecom games for emulation as long as no money changes hands. He is well aware that many of his titles are floating out there on the net. You are right though...we need to seek written permission to be legal about it. I have no doubt he wouldn't mind the idea.. It would be trying to get him to spend say 15 mins of his time to write the letter that may be an issue. Hopefully not :) Mike :) --- To: keeper63@cox.net (Andrew), mrmikecrawford@rogers.com (Michael Crawford) Subject: Re: Success! From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 13:19:46 -0700 > What I ultimately want to do is a writeup of all of this, combine the > emails as a "historical" chronicle lead-up - add in the DSK images, the > scans of the manual and map, etc - make a ZIP file and give it back to > the emulation community. Sounds cool. The site I am woking on doesn't mention any Diecom games by name. So it should completmemnt yours. You should contact Curtis Boyle and he could post you information to his CoCo games site. http://nitros9.stg.net/coco_game_list.html It's nice to have all that information in one place. > But - *first* - I want to get *written* permission from the surviving > authors, or at the least, Dave Dies. Michael, since you are near the > area, can you handle this in person (maybe we can include a scan of the > signed document, too)? Very important, but written permission in this day and age is overkill, a quick email will suffice. > Tim - the question I now have - what was wrong with my copy? That is a very good question. > Is there anything you can pinpoint as to why my original copy was failing? You should send it to me so that I can take a closer look at it. And also I'll try to write the game back to it. That way you'll have an orginal *working* disk again. That would be nice. > This is so great!!! I am so glad this turned out successful. -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- To: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Subject: Dumping Diecom program disks From: tlindner@ix.netcom.com (tim lindner) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 15:46:32 -0700 Hello all, I am sending this to a few of my most knowledgable friends. I've recently developed at way to dump Diecom disk images using normal hardware. I wanted you guys to take a look at the web page I created for it before I unleash it upon the masses. http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/CDC.html Let me know what you think! -- tim lindner tlindner@ix.netcom.com Bright --- Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:44:51 -0700 From: Andrew To: tim lindner CC: Michael Crawford Subject: Re: Success! Tim, Michael: I have a couple of other titles that I have had problems with. I would like to know if either of you would be interested in helping preserve them? They aren't games, but rather coding utilities that were released by Cer-Comp Software in Las Vegas: Window Master - Windowing/GUI software and BASIC programming for same under the CoCo 3 CBASIC III - BASIC Compiler for the CoCo 3 These are two awesome pieces of software for development. Sadly, they didn't gain too much of a following for some reason. I own both - I still have the manuals, and my original floppies are still good. I tried creating DSK images for Jeff's emulator, but either they didn't convert right, or the emulator didn't like them. I don't have DK's CoCo 3 emulator (yet), so I don't know if it is the emulator or what. Anyhow - would either of you be interested? I am thinking about pursuing this later (after everything is finalized with GofD - one thing at a time here). The disks are OK, and I have backups (backups could be easily made with the "BACKUP" command - so it isn't a copy protection issue)... I also have a few other pieces of software that I had trouble with (not sure why off hand) when I was transferring my data around to the emulator and such - I need to go back through them, check them out. Maybe there is another "gem" in there somewhere... tim lindner wrote: > Andrew wrote: > > >>What I ultimately want to do is a writeup of all of this, combine the >>emails as a "historical" chronicle lead-up - add in the DSK images, the >>scans of the manual and map, etc - make a ZIP file and give it back to >>the emulation community. > > > Sounds cool. The site I am woking on doesn't mention any Diecom games by > name. So it should completmemnt yours. > > You should contact Curtis Boyle and he could > post you information to his CoCo games site. > > http://nitros9.stg.net/coco_game_list.html > > It's nice to have all that information in one place. I will get this together, maybe tommorow night, or later in the week - and get in contact with him. >>But - *first* - I want to get *written* permission from the surviving >>authors, or at the least, Dave Dies. Michael, since you are near the >>area, can you handle this in person (maybe we can include a scan of the >>signed document, too)? > > > Very important, but written permission in this day and age is overkill, > a quick email will suffice. Well - I would at least like to get that at minimum, before posting anything for general use. >>Tim - the question I now have - what was wrong with my copy? > > > That is a very good question. > > >>Is there anything you can pinpoint as to why my original copy was failing? > > > You should send it to me so that I can take a closer look at it. And > also I'll try to write the game back to it. That way you'll have an > orginal *working* disk again. That would be nice. Yes, that would be nice - if my original disk is any good, of course (it is an old disk). Can you give me your address, and I will work on getting it out to you next week? Do you want to send me copies of the game now, or do you want me to send you the floppy, then you can play with it, make a new copy plus a couple of others, and send them back (save on shipping)? > > >>This is so great!!! > > > I am so glad this turned out successful. I am still amazed - I have been thinking about this all day. Andrew --- From: "Michael Crawford" To: "Andrew" Cc: "tim lindner" Subject: Fw: Diecom games Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 17:58:02 -0400 Hi Guys, I just received an e-mail from Dave Dies! Great news for the Coco community....... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave CGW" To: "Michael Crawford" Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 5:34 PM Subject: Re: Diecom games > Mike: > > I have no problem with the images being posted to the web. I know many > exist > and have no issues with people playing the games in emulation or even on > dusted off Coco's. > > Regards, > > Dave Dies > Cosmic Infinity Inc. > 905-847-5916 > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Michael Crawford > To: Dave@cosmicinfinity.com > Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 5:09 PM > Subject: Diecom games > > > Hi Dave, > > I currently own a few Diecom games for the Coco computer system (That I > purchased from you back in day) and I am seeking permission from you on > behalf of myself and the existing Coco community, to post the disk images > to > the web for downloading by the public, strictly for preservation and > emulation purposes. If you do approve, I will make your approval response > available for downloading/viewing, along with any of the game images that > I > or the public may want to share. > > Thanks for the great Coco games you have made, and the great memories that > go with them :) > > Mike Crawford ---[ End of Thread ]---