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repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 5:47 pm
by .mad.
Hello,
Here are a few games i managed to save or convert from bad tapes.

Ball Dozer - only works in this unknown CAS format.
if you convert to the normal CAS format with in Xroar it will not load.
other [h] version marked bad, works when loaded from DDOS on a D64.

Galactic Gus
cleaned wav and converted to CAS.

Free Parking (Active Software)
fixed using the loader from Hotel on Mayfair (same game).

Death Valley (Microdata Ltd)
fixed wav and converted to CAS.

Lunar Rescue (B&H)
salvaged BASIC from the bad wav.
The last few lines of BASIC are missing.
these are only an Enter your Name routine and restart the game.
the main game is working.
someone with more Dragon knowledge than me could finish the fix.

Re: repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 8:38 am
by admin
Thank you - I will put these into the archive

Re: repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 8:51 am
by robcfg
I can take a look at the damaged wav files if you share them.

Cheers,
Rob

Re: repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 12:48 pm
by .mad.
Hi robcfg,

I downloaded most of the corrupted wav's from this website (the only versions available). :)

i didn't keep any of the converted test wav's, as there were lots of different versions filling up my drive.
once i got a working copy converted to CAS and loading in MAME or Xroar, they all got deleted.

these two WAV files survived.
Ball Dozer
Galactic Gus

Re: repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 7:28 pm
by .mad.
2 more working CAS files for you.
Athletyx (Microdeal)
Space War (Colour version) fixed title screen

Re: repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 12:10 pm
by .mad.
incorrect file in archive folder (game missing).
Circus Adventure (Dragon Data)

has this file with a similar name by mistake
Adventure 07 - Circus (Channel 8)

Re: repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 5:04 pm
by admin
Thanks for catching Circus Adventure - that has been incorrect for at least 5 years (I looked in the backups) !!

I will schedule all these fixes to go into the next update and do them as a batch - so keep them coming !! :-)

Re: repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 9:14 pm
by .mad.
Computer Studies by Ampal Soft (tape1 side2).
only the 2nd part (input/output) worked.
1st part (CPU) must have been converted from a bad WAV as it contains corrupt code (see pic)
i don't know how to fix the checksum after correcting the BASIC code
so this is a deprotected version of both parts i found on a disk.
better than no version at all. :P


Underbeings of Croth (best CAS version available)
it has a similar loading problem as Ball Dozer.
it only works in this encrypted CAS format in Xroar.
the WAV version works in MAME and Xroar, but converted WAV-CAS doesn't work?.
possibly due to data load timings.

Re: repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 7:19 pm
by .mad.
BC Bill - tape loader was missing 7 bytes and had 1 incorrect byte.
this fixes loading pic being off centre, and now works in MAME.
other versions work in Xroar, but i think it's down to emulator trickery. :D

Re: repaired games from bad tapes

Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 11:15 am
by .mad.
Crazy Foota 2 (Computape)

This tape uses custom sector sizes in the loader as part of the protection.
when the WAV is converted to CAS, this puts the loading pic in the wrong position in Xroar.

fix.
put a gap before the loaing pic. still has the protection part intact.

hack.
converted the loader to a uniform sector size (256 bytes), should make it easier to transfer back to real hardware.