SNAKMAN

[vicassembly]

I have the Snakman 1.1 tape and it appears the only way to run it is with the shift-runstop (auto load/run)

Has anyone ever tried to create a disk file of this? I tried to load the game and save it but it behaves strange. Is there some strange copy protection?

Any help/input would be appreciated.

Jonathan

[nbla000]

Post the tap file in some place and I will try to convert it for prg/d64.

[tlr]

I have the Snakman 1.1 tape and it appears the only way to run it is with the shift-runstop (auto load/run)

If you load from disk, try "POKE186,1:RUN".

[nbla000]

I tried to load the game and save it but it behaves strange. Is there some strange copy protection?

If you load from disk, try "POKE186,1:RUN".

I don't know this game but if this solves the question then it's a really strange protection

[tlr]

I found a tap on the arma site. It was indeed a little more complex.

If you have the file on disk, do this after loading:

Code: Select all

POKE7017,9:POKE7023,44:POKE7029,44
RUN

You probably only need $1001-$1DFF after doing this.

[vicassembly]

How do I create a tap file from a cassette? I have never attempted something like this.

Post the tap file in some place and I will try to convert it for prg/d64.

[Mayhem]

Assuming it's the Microdigital game, then a PRG and TAP for it already exist in GB20...

[nbla000]

How do I create a tap file from a cassette? I have never attempted something like this.

For best results you may use mtap:
http://markus.brenner.de/

It's a DOS tool and you need an adaptor but I'm able to create tap files on fly with it without too much troubles...

A modern alternative is the DC2N of Luigi Di Fraia, an Italian Denial member that lives in England.

[tlr]

How do I create a tap file from a cassette? I have never attempted something like this.

For fun I did a small program that transfers snakman 1.1 from tape to disk that you can try.
Here: snakman2disk.prg

[nbla000]

For fun I did a small program that transfers snakman 1.1 from tape to disk that you can try.

Interesting, it loads from the tape and save to the disk by applying a patch I guess, how it "technically" works ?

[Ravin' Ray]

Hey vicassembly, I had a tape of Snakman that loaded and ran normally. Though I can't test it now because my VIC isn't working. Did you discover the trick of eating extra ghosts?

[nbla000]

I had a tape of Snakman that loaded and ran normally.

The problem is that he wants to copy and run this game from a disk drive not from tape.

[tlr]

For fun I did a small program that transfers snakman 1.1 from tape to disk that you can try.

Interesting, it loads from the tape and save to the disk by applying a patch I guess, how it "technically" works ?

It does exactly that.
It loads the game from tape, adds the patches I listed in this thread and saves $1001-$1dff to disk.
The only "trick" is that it runs at $0110 to avoid having the code corrupted by the load from tape.

This game wasn't very well protected although effect against the casual copier.
1: it loads all the way up to $1fff making a subsequent save fail.
2: it checks the screen for exactly 9 occurances of any of the letters "READY.UN". (i.e READY. RUN anywher on the screen).

Were there any more complicated protections used on VIC-20 games?

[nbla000]

Normally I use VICE for these "dirty works"..., you know very well this program right ?

after the LOAD before the RUN, I start the monitor (ALT+M) and just save it:
save "program-name" 8 $1001 $1dff or $1fff in this case...

In this case I need to apply also the patch but the FILL monitor command is very useful for that

[nbla000]

Were there any more complicated protections used on VIC-20 games?

The most sophisticated that I've found was "Trout", a multi part game with autorun even if you load it with a simple LOAD, each part loads another part in a strange location ($0200, $02A1 and others).

I've already converted it in a single 3K program or in 2 part unexpanded program the works from disk too but it was a very big work.