Warlord by Lothlorien

[robcfg]

The last one for today... Warlord by Lothlorien.

Nice scans and screenshots here.

I tested it on XRoar and my Dragon 64, and it turns out that work flawlessly on XRoar, but on my real 64, it crashes (sounds funny ) with the following message: "?FC ERROR IN 55000".

I think the problem is as Alastair describes in solutionarchive.org :

For compatibility purposes the 64 kiB Dragons start in Dragon 32 mode, even so, a very small number of programs written for the Dragon 32 will not work on the other computers. There are workarounds to this problem, if you are using a real (unmodified) Dragon you will have to edit the program, if you are using an emulator you can either emulate a Dragon 32 or you can use a modified Dragon 64 ROM image.

So I cannot test it on a Dragon 32, but I guess it could be fixed to work on a Dragon 64.

Anyway the program loads fine and for preservation purposes this (see below) is the right file. Anyone in for a Dragon 64 fix?

[zephyr]

The last one for today... Warlord by Lothlorien.

Nice scans and screenshots here.

I tested it on XRoar and my Dragon 64, and it turns out that work flawlessly on XRoar, but on my real 64, it crashes (sounds funny ) with the following message: "?FC ERROR IN 55000".

Fixed...

[sixxie]

zephyr: can you explain what caused that to fail on a real Dragon 64? It worries me: I generally want XRoar to fail if real hardware would (unless it's something the emulator can be made optionally tolerant to).

BTW, this game might take a while, but I've been transcribing instructions and adding to the pile here: http://www.6809.org.uk/tmp/da/instructions/ - I'm quite happy with the ones for "Laser Zone"...

How could these be fit into the Wiki structure? Probably doesn't make sense for long instruction manuals to share the main page for a program (e.g., Electronic Author).

[zephyr]

zephyr: can you explain what caused that to fail on a real Dragon 64? It worries me: I generally want XRoar to fail if real hardware would (unless it's something the emulator can be made optionally tolerant to).

Its not a problem with XROAR. The original BASIC program expects there to be the default four graphics pages cleared and that was not the case when when Rob tested it. My modified version checks for the presence of a DOS cart, clears the correct ammount of string space, and makes sure that four graphics pages are cleared before the game starts.

[robcfg]

Zephyr, thanks for the fix!

The thing is, why doesn't if fail on XRoar, which I think it's sixxies question.

As sixxie pointed out, if it fails on real hardware, it should fail on the emulator.

[zephyr]

Zephyr, thanks for the fix!

The thing is, why doesn't if fail on XRoar, which I think it's sixxies question.

As sixxie pointed out, if it fails on real hardware, it should fail on the emulator.

It won't fail on any real Dragon 32 or 64. For some reason you just didn't have the default four graphics pages cleared (PCLEAR 4) before running the game. Try entering PCLEAR 1 under XROAR D64 emulation before running the original game.

Did you use a DOS Detach program to disable DOS on your real Dragon 64?

[robcfg]

That's funny...

I just tried again and this time just worked fine. Maybe I just reset my computer from trying the Scanner 13 tape and this must have caused the later crash of Warlord.

Edit: And Zephyr was right again, if I type PCLEAR 1 on XRoar I get the same error.

[Alastair]

... I've been transcribing instructions and adding to the pile ... I'm quite happy with the ones for "Laser Zone"...

How could these be fit into the Wiki structure? Probably doesn't make sense for long instruction manuals to share the main page for a program (e.g., Electronic Author).

Couldn't you create a new page, such as

Code: Select all

http://archive.worldofdragon.org/index.php?title=Laser_Zone-Instructions

for the instructions for each title, then in the program's wiki page create a link to the instructions page?

[Sarah]

I seem to remember the released version of this game (at least the only one I came across back in the day) also has a bug that can occur once you've been playing it for awhile. Perhaps an OM, FC or SN ERROR? As far as I recall, it would always happen - eventually - every time I tried playing it.