"Graal Quest" (... a reverse request!)

Looking for a Dragon or CoCo game not already in the archive - Then request it here and hopefully it will either be uploaded to the archive or another member can upload it to this forum.
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snarkhunter
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"Graal Quest" (... a reverse request!)

Post by snarkhunter »

Hello all,

Before getting my disk drive from a former Dragon32 owner (must have been back in 1986), I once got to see what he had, part of which has long been offered through the software archive.

But I remember getting to see a French, disk-based, role-playing game named "Graal Quest". At the moment, I cannot remember how many disks it has (might be just one, actually). This is part of the disks I had converted to ".vdk" files when I switched to PC emulation, several years ago.

Because I do believe this would be little use to most of you here (... i.e. being all in French!), I might try to translate it into English during my vacation (starting from mid-August). I'm not sure this will be very easy to achieve (I remember the game as having a lot of text), and I don't even know how good/lame it may be (because of never actually playing it myself).

Moreover, could anyone please remind me of an easy way to transfer Dragon Basic programs to - and back from - a PC as an ASCII file for an easier translation? If I am going to have to do this under the "XRoar" emulation, then it will most probably take forever, so I assume that being able to work from a PC text editor would be much, much easier...

In the meantime, I may offer to upload the ".vdk" I have, but be warned that it's most likely a "game in progress" disk rather than the standard brand new game image. Not sure this would be such a big deal, though, if the "game in progress" disk only has player status files as extra data - we'll have to try and check to find out!

Not sure either what was the software house behind this game. I suspect it could have been released by "Goal Computer", which was the official Dragon importer/dealer in Francer at the time: it was a small shop located in Paris, and they also released a PMode4 tennis game (that one should already be available in the archive).

Kind regards,
Lionel
sixxie
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Re: "Graal Quest" (... a reverse request!)

Post by sixxie »

The easiest way to dump ASCII BASIC to file, is to run with "-lp-file filename" and type "LLIST" after loading.

Easiest way to then load it in is to dump the text into a ".asc" file and CLOAD that.

..ciaran
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snarkhunter
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Re: "Graal Quest" (... a reverse request!)

Post by snarkhunter »

sixxie wrote:The easiest way to dump ASCII BASIC to file, is to run with "-lp-file filename" and type "LLIST" after loading.

Easiest way to then load it in is to dump the text into a ".asc" file and CLOAD that.

..ciaran
Ok. Just to make sure I got it right, did you actually mean:

1/ start the emulator as "XRoar.exe -lp file pseudo_printout_name"
2/ type in LLIST

What is "file" above? Is it the concerned ".vdk" for the game? If so, how should the full path be provided?

If I'm right there, then I do believe I should be able to achieve such a "feat"! :D

Kind regards,
Lionel
sixxie
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Re: "Graal Quest" (... a reverse request!)

Post by sixxie »

It's "-lp-file printer-output-filename". You'll attach the vdk as usual, load the BASIC program, then type LLIST - which lists to printer, and XRoar will dump that printer output into the file you specify.
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snarkhunter
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Re: "Graal Quest" (... a reverse request!)

Post by snarkhunter »

That's a great trick - thank you!
Just tried it on one Basic program from the 1st disk (the game seems to be packaged as 2 double-sided disks) and it worked.

Yet... how does one revert back from a translated text file to a ".vdk"?!

I checked the instruction manual and I understood the following: after printing any Basic program to a text file using LLIST, then translating the text, I should rename my ".txt" file to ".bas" and load it back into "XRoar" with CLOAD, then re-save it to disk.

... Am I right there?

There's quite a number of ".BAS" files, so this work should take quite some time.
But here are the original ".vdk" files already (zipped), just in case anyone here would like to see what the game looks like.

Please note that there are actually two games (i.e. 2 double-sided disks), the first one being "Graal Quest" (run "G-QUEST.BAS" to launch), and the second one "Creator Quest" (sequel to the former ; run "C-QUEST.BAS" to launch).
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Graal Quest_Creator Quest (FR).zip
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Last edited by snarkhunter on Mon Jul 04, 2011 8:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
sixxie
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Re: "Graal Quest" (... a reverse request!)

Post by sixxie »

snarkhunter wrote: I checked the instruction manual and I understood the following: after printing any Basic program to a text file using LLIST, then translating the text, I should rename my ".txt" file to ".bas" and load it back into "XRoar" with CLOAD, then re-save it to disk.

... Am I right there?
Yep, XRoar will translate ASCII text in .bas files (or .asc) to gapped-format ASCII BASIC program files on the fly.
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snarkhunter
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Re: "Graal Quest" (... a reverse request!)

Post by snarkhunter »

This is great news, then.
I will only have to "dump" all Basic programs from my ".vdk" files to such text files first, then go on with the FR > GB translation process. I assume memory must be quite tight with this game, so I will have to pay much attention to the length of translated text, though an English text is generally somewhat shorter than its French equivalent.


Kind regards,
Lionel
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