The Hobbit ported to the Dragon64k - DOS - ENDED!

[pser1]

Hello,
I have received the mensual Glenside newsletter and there is
an article about the port of the Hobbit.
A bit old (v16f4) when we are at v16f9 but complete anyway ...
http://www.glensideccc.com/data/library ... 36_2nl.pdf

By the way, Bill Pierce, from the FaceBook group has told me that
now it works fine on the CoCoFPGA too

cheers
pere

[sorchard]

Congratulations on your success Pere!

This conversion is truly brilliant!

[pser1]

Hi Steve,
thanks a lot for your kind words!
It has been amusing most of the time but the drivewire part drove me mad!

cheers
pere

[pser1]

Hi,
I have uploaded a new 'last version' to solve a problem that affects basically the CoCos
if used after changing the D.O.S.
You will find that version here:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5526

cheers
pere

[pser1]

Hello Tano-Dragon users,
I thought I had to share a trick I MUST do to be able to play the Hobbit with Dragon and CoCo-SDC virtual drives.

You should be aware that the DOSPus extender occupies about 15kb and so it collides with the Hobbit that needs
the RAM from $E000-$FEE3 for its data. So if you mount the disc and exec the binary, it simply hangs ...

To avoid the problem we need to start the SDC with a NOT extended DOS. I have burned in a number of banks of the SDC
some DOS: DOSPlus5.0, DDOS1.1C, DDOS1.3A, DDOS4.1 that way I can test the Hobbit with any one of these systems.

I start the Dragon with the CoCo-SDC and then I mount the disk:
- SDRIVE1,"HOBV16G3"
- BANK1,R that way I start the DOSPlus5.0 in MAP1 (not extended)
- RUN"H1.BIN" and time to play!

For maybe some people don't know how to burn a DOS into an SDC bank, I am attaching here an VDK file that contains the
DOSPlus5.0 and a Basic program that will to the task.
You can substitute the DOSplus for any other Disk Operating Sytem you'd prefer, but must NOT exceed the 8k limit!


cheers
pere

SDC-DP50 installer.zip

(19.34 KiB) Downloaded 212 times

[tjewell]

Hi Pere! Well, better late than never, I thought I must have a go at this wonderful conversion! But alas, I seem to be falling at the first hurdle.

I do the following:
SDRIVE 1,"HOBBIT.VDK"
BANK 0,R (because my Dosplus is in bank 0)
RUN "H1.BIN"

I get the splash screens, but it just seems to sit at loading forever. What have I missed?
Cheers, Tony

[Alastair]

Tony,
are you sure that it is sitting at the loading screen forever? Once the game has loaded, the screen changes but only slightly - the message in the bottom left corner of the screen changes from "LOADING ..." to "'G' FOR GREEN", at which point pressing any key will display the title screen and a further key press will start the game.

[pser1]

Hi Pere! Well, better late than never, I thought I must have a go at this wonderful conversion! But alas, I seem to be falling at the first hurdle.

I do the following:
SDRIVE 1,"HOBBIT.VDK"
BANK 0,R (because my Dosplus is in bank 0)
RUN "H1.BIN"

I get the splash screens, but it just seems to sit at loading forever. What have I missed?
Cheers, Tony

Hi Tony
The program runs right from the floppy *ONLY* if you are using a real floppy that
is managed by a DOS that just uses 8K
When you start the CoCo-SDC with the extended DosPlus5.0 you are loading a 16k DOS
and part of this (the upper 8k) are *NEEDED* for the Hobbit, so it will overwrite that
area and most probably disk operations will crash

I have the DOSPlus (not extended), the DOS1.1C and the DOS4.1 in different slots so that
I could test them when I was converting it.
Once you have an only 8k DOS burned on a bank, you just have to do this:
- start SDC with its extended DOS and SDC tools
- mount the VDK on drive1 (for instance)
- BANK n,R (being 'n' the bank where the small DOS resides)
- RUN"H1.BIN"

cheers
pere

[tjewell]

Doh! Oh now I feel a bit stupid, you'd explained all this just a few posts above. In my excitement to get it running I just skipped the instructions.

Ignore me everyone, off to the play The Hobbit now

[prime]

Just one question, How did you make the DOS calls?

If you correctly used the jump table at the beginning of the DOS ROM, then this should work on the DragonMMC's DOS emulation.

Cheers.

Phill.