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Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:09 pm
by Stig
Hey all,

Does anyone have a .VDK version of Weetabix Vs The Titchies ?

I have found the .wav and .cas files in the archive but haven't had any luck converting it to .vdk with duplidisk

Thanks

John

Re: Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2016 11:29 pm
by Bosco
Question for anyone.

Is it possible to create a Dragon Dos binary from a CAS file?

Re: Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 5:57 pm
by tormod
It depends on the CAS file, in some cases it is straight-forward, in other almost impossible without manual analysis. If the CAS file contains just one segment of contiguous (in memory) data blocks, you might be able to use e.g. my cas2decb and then decb2ddb (https://gitlab.com/m6809-computer-tools/conv-tools). If it has several segments, cas2decb might succeed, but Dragon DOS binaries cannot have multiple segments. An improved conversion tool could maybe fill up holes and join everything into one segment.

I was successful at batch converting many games from the TOSEC collection to DECB binaries that I can use with DWLOAD, using cas2decb.

If the CAS file contains its own tape loading routines, copy protection schemes, or special load addresses (overwriting BASIC vectors, DOS buffer locations etc) it will be harder to convert it. Then a snapshot technique can work. The snapshot loader might have to cache things in upper memory until it is finished, and then trash DOS/BASIC memory.

Re: Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 9:22 pm
by Bosco
Cool. Thanks for the info Tormod. :)

Do you have Win exes for cas2decb and decb2ddb? I'm way out of my depth when it comes to github and source files. :oops:

Re: Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 10:24 pm
by tormod
Thanks to Zephyr, yes: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4637&start=10#p10192

And oops, rereading that thread reminds me that the cas2decb -> decb2ddb combination might not work, since cas2decb generates multi-segment DECB binaries, even if blocks are consecutive in memory... It would need some serious rework to combine segments. Sorry for giving false hopes :(

Re: Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 11:20 pm
by Bosco
Yeah, I gave it a try on the weetabix cas but it failed for the reason you suggested.

Sorry John, not sure how to copy this game to VDK. :(

Re: Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 11:21 pm
by tormod
Can this work?
Usage: cas2ddb.exe < file.cas > file.bin

Re: Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 11:35 pm
by Bosco
Gave cas2ddb a quick try but the resulting bin crashes Xroar.

Re: Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 2:09 am
by Stig
Thanks a million for giving this a go for me Bosco. This stuff is way over my head lol

If anyone has any luck then please post it as I am still looking.

Thanks

Re: Disk version (VDK) Weetabix Vs The Titchies

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 11:25 am
by sixxie
The loader for this is a bit mad, and doesn't switch the motor off when it's done so my usual recourse of "-snap-motoroff weetabix.sna" doesn't help. Manually snapshotting and extracting the binary will probably do the job.