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Bomber Word discovered!

Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 9:51 am
by Mayhem
Yes, another Tymac cartridge has been unearthed! Sadly I didn't find it, but I know the person who has, so I've asked to borrow it for dumping...

Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 11:03 am
by nbla000
WOW, it's incredible, after about 30 years !

Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 11:31 am
by orion70
Treasure hunt! I like when someone discovers these gems after such a long time :D .

Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 1:10 am
by Jeff-20
I'm not sure I would have recognized that as a VIC cart!

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:27 am
by Mayhem
Sadly it appears the cartridge is dead... and I'm not allowed to hack it open to get at the chip. Still, I'll give it another few shots but I'm not holding out hope...

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 11:40 am
by Vic20-Ian
A cart that is rare and dead is worth less than a cart opened and repaired.

Are you sure it just isn't oxide on the pins?

Scotch brite / green scourer the cart pins and try again otherwise I would use a craft knife on what looks like injection moulded polyethylene case to split it repair and super glue it together.

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 11:25 am
by TNT
It may be possible that the ROM can be salvaged (at least partially) without opening the cartridge. If VIC-20 boots to normal startup screen then you can write a BASIC program to check if the cartrige shows up in memory. If VIC-20 hangs then the cartrifge definitely does that but ROM contents are bad. In that case you need to prevent autostart and then dump the memory.

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 4:08 pm
by Mayhem
Preventing autostart and dumping the memory is what I do currently. If you've got other suggestions, I'm all ears... such as this program

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 3:45 pm
by TNT
The program below attempts to determine which memory pages have something mapped into them. Reading unconnected memory is not reliable - on my VIC-20 this program reports BLK5 (values 160 - 191) even when there's nothing in there. All other unconnected memory return the high byte of address, and that's what this program tests.

Code: Select all

0 form=828to846:reada:pokem,a:next
1 print:forp=4to15:gosub7:next
2 print:forp=32to127:gosub7:next
3 print:forp=160to191:gosub7:next
6 end
7 poke252,p:sys828:ifpeek(252)<>pthenprintp;
8 return
9 data 160,0,132,251,165,252,209,251,208,4,200,208,249,44,73,255,133,252,96
4-15 = 3K RAM area
32-63 = BLK1
64-95 = BLK2
96-127 = BLK3
160-191 = BLK5

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 6:16 pm
by Mayhem
Cheers, I'll give it a try. However I think it's a BLK5 only cartridge; Key Quest certainly is.

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 12:06 pm
by Mayhem
Raising this one from the dead... I finally got around to connecting my Vic20 up, plugging in the Bomber Word cartridge, and typing out TNT's listing.

I'm near the end of the listing, and I make a typo. I reach for DEL but accidentally hit Restore instead. And the game boots up.

WTF?! :shock: :lol: :twisted:

So I've played the game, seems to work fine. As the name suggests, it's a Hangman clone. At least it has the foresight to not only have its own store of words, but allows you to create your own set and save to tape.

First of all, just what in the name of whoever has a game needing to be started by hitting Restore?! Or is this a symptom of a little damage to the cartridge itself (no autoboot), that is rectified when I hit Restore? Either way, the cartridge is not dead!

Secondly, will Mike's dumping program work? If so, I'll give it a whirl and then let someone do the tedious fiddling to make the game autoboot instead.

Either way... game on! 8)

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:12 am
by Mayhem
Hello? Anyone?!

Would like some advice and assistance here please ;)

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:33 pm
by Kananga
Since Mike did not reply I will give it a try.
Mayhem wrote: I'm near the end of the listing, and I make a typo. I reach for DEL but accidentally hit Restore instead. And the game boots up.

WTF?! :shock: :lol: :twisted:
Not unusual for a BLK5 cartridge. In BLK5 with autostart signature you hook into reset & NMI. Quite useful for the firmware of full memory expansions like FE3 or MegaCart. :)
Mayhem wrote: First of all, just what in the name of whoever has a game needing to be started by hitting Restore?! Or is this a symptom of a little damage to the cartridge itself (no autoboot), that is rectified when I hit Restore? Either way, the cartridge is not dead!
Here you got me baffled too. Perhaps the cartridge isn't ready immediatly after reset?
Mayhem wrote: Secondly, will Mike's dumping program work? If so, I'll give it a whirl and then let someone do the tedious fiddling to make the game autoboot instead.
Just use it and publish the dump ;-)

Happy gaming...

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 8:11 pm
by Mayhem
Yeah, I'll give Mike's program a whirl and see what comes of it. No harm in not trying it...

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 11:15 am
by Mayhem
BOMBER WORD!!!

Attach in Vice to $A0 and then tap Pg Up (which maps to Restore) to boot the game. Can someone fiddle with the code so that it auto starts and doesn't need Restore to be hit? ;)