Underbeings of Croth - Loading Problems

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Alastair
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Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:33 pm

Underbeings of Croth - Loading Problems

Post by Alastair »

I am having a problem loading this site's .cas copy of "Underbeings of Croth" into XRoar. It loads in XRoar-0.12pre2-windows32 (which is the last version of XRoar to speed load) but not in later versions, thus I suspect that there is not enough silent space between the various programs and files on the cassette image. By producing two .cas files (see the attachment) I can get around the problem in later versions of Xroar, but for some reason when I try to recombine the two .cas files (having added extra space - which does not appear on the two files I have attached) modern versions of XRoar again fail to load the game. Could someone please produce a single .cas file that works in the latest versions of XRoar?

About the attachment. UoC-1 contains four programs (two M/C, two BASIC), UoC-2 contains a data file and two M/C programs. When using XRoar load UoC-1 first, you then have to guess when UoC-1 has finished before loading UoC-2.
Attachments
UoC.zip
(13.99 KiB) Downloaded 321 times
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robcfg
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Re: Underbeings of Croth - Loading Problems

Post by robcfg »

Have you tried the fixcas utility on your file?
admin
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Re: Underbeings of Croth - Loading Problems

Post by admin »

Use fixcas to get the sync bytes correct for the block start and inter block gap..... if that isn't enough, then you could use fixcas and tell it to use a high number of sync blocks to artificially create a gap.
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Alastair
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Re: Underbeings of Croth - Loading Problems

Post by Alastair »

I've tried fixcas on the site's copy and this is what I got:

Code: Select all

Fixing underb~1.cas to uoc-fix.cas with 512 byte leader, 8 byte block gap
Block 001: Type 33 Length 062
Block 001: Fails checksum
Block 002: Type 33 Length 062
Block 002: Fails checksum
Block 003: Type c8 Length 000
Block 003: Fails checksum
Block 004: Type 6c Length 001
Block 004: Fails checksum
Block 005: Type cc Length 001
Block 005: Fails checksum
Block 006: Type 02 Length 121
Block 006: Fails checksum
Block 007: Type 00 Length 098
Block 007: Fails checksum
        Filename: "£ûØêet
Ø"
        Filetype: UNKNOWN
        Ascii flag: 67
        Gap flag  : 66
        Start Addr: 9200
        Load Addr : 9800
Block 008: Type 00 Length 104
Block 008: Fails checksum
        Filename: "ªûctéHûE"
        Filetype: UNKNOWN
        Ascii flag: 74
        Gap flag  : a8
        Start Addr: 4800
        Load Addr : 4500
Block 009: Type 0d Length 089
Block 009: Fails checksum
Block 010: Type ea Length 246
Block 010: Fails checksum
Block 011: Type eb Length 182
Block 011: Fails checksum
Needless to say, the result did not load.

I also tried fixcas twice on the above UoC-1.cas and UoC-2.cas files, one attempt before and the other attempt after combining the files. Plus, before creating the two separate .cas files I created a single .cas file containing all of the programs and files, that did not work so I tried fixcas on that. In all cases I had no success.
sixxie
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Re: Underbeings of Croth - Loading Problems

Post by sixxie »

I think it must leave the motor on for ages after "side one" before trying to load the next part. If you insert 1024 fake leader bytes ("U" characters) between the parts, it loads ok from one file.
Alastair
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Re: Underbeings of Croth - Loading Problems

Post by Alastair »

Thanks Sixxie, I'll try that.
Alastair
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Re: Underbeings of Croth - Loading Problems

Post by Alastair »

Here's a copy of the game that I've modified according to Sixxie's suggestion (though I've inserted 1280 fake leader bytes as I could not get 1024 to work).
Attachments
Underbeings_of_Croth_(1985)(Maridian)(Fixed).zip
(14.07 KiB) Downloaded 323 times
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