Pettigrews Diary

[robcfg]

Hi folks!

Here you have Pettigrews Diary from Shards Software. Evrything works fine on XRoar and a real Dragon, with the exception of chapter 2, that loads on XRoar but doesn't load back ina real dragon. I've tried to make the dragon load the same wav I recorded from the tape, but it doesn't finish loading.

I created a page in the wiki for it.

I noticed that it can have problems loading on the real machine if the DragonDOS cartridge is attached, I don't know if this was common or not.

This is quite an original game, enjoy it!

[zephyr]

Thanks Rob!

All three chapters of this game are written in BASIC with a small machine code auto-run tagged on. I have attached a zip archive containing all three BASIC programs for anyone who has problems loading the game on a real Dragon. Just CLOAD, and RUN each chapter.

[robcfg]

Awesome! I'll try them tonight.

Thing is, it happens a lot these days with my Dragon. The wave file reaches its end but the computer doesn't react to it. The files are obviously ok as they load on XRoar, and I checked the CAS file against the WAV file and all seems in place.

Anyway, I think this is a fantastic game, quite original. I'll be playing it, heheheh

Before I forget, I linked the MOCAGH's Pettigrews Diary page because they have both sides of the manual. Mine came without the text on the back, so I could only scan half the manual

[zephyr]

Thing is, it happens a lot these days with my Dragon. The wave file reaches its end but the computer doesn't react to it. The files are obviously ok as they load on XRoar, and I checked the CAS file against the WAV file and all seems in place.

I doubt very much that your Dragon is at fault. Something similar to this was mentioned at the old Dragon forum when someone tried loading games from a MP3 'stick' player. I can't remember who it was or who replied, but I kept a copy of text from all three posts.

Question
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I've been experimenting with my MP3 'stick' player, seeing as it plays WAV files and I'm too lazy to mess about burning CDs... the Dragon will read and load quite happily from it, but when it comes to the end of the WAV file it usually gives an I/O error instead of running. I dunno whether this is something to do with the 'cut-off' or track-ending performance of the MP3 stick. I suppose it must be because the Dragon will load and run programs from a WAV file that has more than one program, such as the Microdeal Program Packs, which are subject to the breaks between programs of the original CAS file rather than the track separation of the MP3 stick. Any suggestions?

Answer 1
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Nixed,
have you tried listening to the end of a recording both from the end of an original tape and the same program on your stick player, and comparing the two? You should be able to tell if the stick player is cutting off the track.

If the stick player is cutting off the track then you could try adding extra sound to the end of the WAV file, perhaps by waiting a second then saying the name of the program into a microphone.


Answer 2
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Assuming your using windows, open notepad and type U 255 times...

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Then save as padding.txt

I would do the following..

FIXCAS original.cas fixed.cas
copy /b fixed.cas + padding.txt new.cas
DC new.cas

This should create a .WAV file with a tone at the end - you can play with the number of U's in padding.txt if you think it needs to be longer.

I have experienced the same problem after burning wave files to CD. After some experimentation and a recommendation by Alastair to use Audacity 1.2.6 to convert the wave files before burning I've had no problems ever since.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=353&p=2111

BTW, Its always a good idea to disable DragonDOS with DOS Detach before loading cassette based games.

[robcfg]

You were right, my wav files work with Audacity, thanks!

[Alastair]

Before I forget, I linked the MOCAGH's Pettigrews Diary page because they have both sides of the manual. Mine came without the text on the back, so I could only scan half the manual

We do have a copy of the manual in the downloads section, see http://archive.worldofdragon.org/archiv ... r=Manuals/ , I could also upload the original scans (jpeg images) if they are desired.

[robcfg]

I should have taken a look first at the downloads section...

Maybe the best thing to do would be to remove the link to the image and insert a link to the zipped manual, along with a link to the cas files once they are uploaded.