Unpublished games from Italian VIC users, circa 1982-83?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Thu Jan 10, 2013 11:07 am

Probably. After GB20 v0.3 is out, someone who is Italian might be useful to go through there and produce something for all the games that aren't in the database.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Thu Jan 10, 2013 1:26 pm

OK thanks - I'll contribute

.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Tue Feb 12, 2013 6:59 am

Browsing my old tapes coming from Italian newsstand magazines of the early 80s, I found more games and put them into another D64 image. So now we have two of them - again, maybe most of them are pirated copies of commercial games, but who knows if there's something unpublished?

Compilation One
(Input VIC #1, 3, 4, 8, 9 - SuperVIC20, Tutto VIC20 #4, Linguaggio Macchina VIC20, LOAD)

Compilation Two
(Input VIC #2, 5, 10 - Commodore Computer Club #2)

More to come from Ebay auctions..

Have fun

.

pallas · Post by **pallas** » Tue Feb 12, 2013 7:45 am

Hello I'm from Italy too!
I have about 50 italian tapes for the vic.
About ten of them are issues of the "program" magazine. Others are "input vic-20" which are already in the two compilation files, jackson's computer lessons and other less interesting game tapes.
I'm reviewing them and found mostly pirated games, but some are not: "briscola" is one of them, there is also "sette e mezzo", "elicotteri" (which might be a copy of something I haven't played yet), "il sommergibile" (a very nice uboat simulation), etc.

What to do? For basic games, saving them to the sd2iec should work, but what about assembly ones? What about multi-stage loaders?

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:28 am

Hello fellow Italian, and welcome

.
Yep converting from tape to disk, including the avoidance of copy protections and the conversion of multi-load programs, is an old issue. IIRC the member called "nbla000" (who is also Italian

) is an expert in those conversions. As for me, my work was limited to loading single (not multi-load) programs from real tapes or TAP files (in VICE), and saving them into a new, blank D64 image (again, in the emulator or the SD2IEC). Of course, I did this only when the games were not copy-protected.
My suggestion is to begin with tapes which I did not try either because I don't have them, or were not present in the Edicola64 website (other guys here have more knowledge than me).

pallas · Post by **pallas** » Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:35 am

Well it looks like the "program" issues are all unavailable on that (pretty interesting) site, so I could try some.
But, now that you make me think about it, I fear most of the games are copy-protected.
While the first issues are pretty simple, newer ones have weird loading mechanisms and, when you try to list or do other things than just run, weird things happen...

EDIT: hmmm sorry they are all available as .tap files, let me check this evening at home to see if there is some tape missing from that list.

pallas · Post by **pallas** » Wed Feb 13, 2013 3:53 am

OK here is the list of tapes which I can't find on the edicola64 site:

- input vic-20: 6, 7
- commodore club: 1 (it's kind of a test release)
- computing: 4
- load'n'run: 4
- super vic-20 e c64: ? (maybe first unnumbered release)
- idea computer (music lessons + some games): 1, 2
- il mio cumputer "awari games"
- commodore vic-20 video basic (programming lessons): 1 -> 20 (maybe all?)

Do you think it's worth starting to dump some?
I think I need a good casette player with line out.

highinfidelity · Post by **highinfidelity** » Wed Feb 13, 2013 3:59 am

Hello Pallas. Perhaps I also had that cassette back then. Is Elicotteri a shooter with parachutists where you command a fixed central cannon? If so, it's a clone of another very common shooter whose name I don't remember right now.

But most of all: is there on the same tape a game named "Zombies"? That was a very nice space shooter (or at least that's how I recall it...) and I'm really looking for it!

pallas · Post by **pallas** » Wed Feb 13, 2013 4:05 am

highinfidelity wrote:Hello Pallas. Perhaps I also had that cassette back then. Is Elicotteri a shooter with parachutists where you command a fixed central cannon? If so, it's a clone of another very common shooter whose name I don't remember right now.

But most of all: is there on the same tape a game named "Zombies"? That was a very nice space shooter (or at least that's how I recall it...) and I'm really looking for it!

Yes, that one! I've got it. It's already dumped here:

http://www.edicolac64.com/public/dettag ... &editore=4

even though they say "elicotteri" isn't working (mine is).

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Wed Feb 13, 2013 7:13 am

pallas wrote:Do you think it's worth starting to dump some?
I think I need a good casette player with line out.

Well, there are two different approaches to digital preservation of those games. You can either dump the whole cassette, and in this case I won't be of any help (never tried it); or simply create a blank D64, load from tape, and save to disk the unprotected, single-file programs only. The latter method is way simpler, and produces something immediately usable on the real VIC with a SD2IEC device; but it's limited to a subgroup of games.
(Although I found that most of the copy-protected ones are pirated from commercial games paradoxically

).

pallas · Post by **pallas** » Wed Feb 13, 2013 7:19 am

orion70 wrote:Well, there are two different approaches to digital preservation of those games. You can either dump the whole cassette, and in this case I won't be of any help (never tried it); or simply create a blank D64, load from tape, and save to disk the unprotected, single-file programs only. The latter method is way simpler, and produces something immediately usable on the real VIC with a SD2IEC device; but it's limited to a subgroup of games.
(Although I found that most of the copy-protected ones are pirated from commercial games paradoxically ).

I will try the much simplier approach you are suggesting as soon as I have time to do some soldering: 5V of the sd2iec is currently barring me from connecting the datasette and the sd at the same time. See my other post:

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... highlight=

highinfidelity · Post by **highinfidelity** » Thu Feb 14, 2013 8:45 am

pallas wrote:Yes, that one! I've got it. It's already dumped here:

http://www.edicolac64.com/public/dettag ... &editore=4

even though they say "elicotteri" isn't working (mine is).

WHOHA!!! Right in the bull's eye!!! Now that's what I call having memories!!! I can remember all of these games now that I've read the titles once again!

Frankly speaking Elicotteri is not worth much trouble: it's an obvious clone of Paratroopers. Having played both, although at some 30 years of distance, I can't tell any difference among the two. I say: dump it if it's easy, skip it if it's a tough one to hack.

I'm instead very curious to try again Zombi. It will probably be much less good than I remember, for obvious reasons.

I also wonder if, in turn, it is a clone of some other game.

However, the link goes to a C64 website. Are those .tap files for the VIC, instead?

pallas · Post by **pallas** » Thu Feb 14, 2013 8:58 am

Yes they are .tap files for the vic-20.
I've successfully run them with VICE.
So now you can have a run at zombi

And yes it's a good game, very fast and full of multicolour sprites!

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Thu Feb 14, 2013 1:55 pm

Well, not properly sprites but yes, it's a fun game

highinfidelity · Post by **highinfidelity** » Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:38 am

PFFFT!!! <<Can be played ONLY with the Joystick>>...

Okay, no VICE.

I don't remember: is there any way to load a .tap file on the FE3? I need real hardware.

By the way, there is a working dump of Elicotteri in the "fixed" subfolder of the same .rar file. That one works.