loading games from VDK files in XRoar?

[samplefiend]

hi everyone,

forgive another of my newbie questions but can someone please explain step by step how to load a game in XRoar that is stored on a vdk file please? also is it possible to extract a game and convert it to a cas file? i'd like to get Pogo Jo from the vdk file attached ... any advice greatfully received!

cheers again

craig xxx

[rolfmichelsen]

You need xroar with a DragonDos (or similar) rom image. You know you are set up correctly if xroar greets you with a DragonDos welcome message during startup. The necessary rom images can be found in the downloads section.

Then, press Control+1 and select the VDK-file. This mounts the virtual disk image in drive 1. Then type RUN "POGO-JO.BIN", and have some fun!

-- Rolf

[rolfmichelsen]

Also, here's a CAS file extracted from the VDK disk image that you provided.

-- Rolf

[samplefiend]

hi rolf,

thanks so much for letting me know what to do to and for uploading the cas file too. looking forward to playing Pogo-Jo tonight for a while, i used to love that game back in the day.

hope you don't mind but can you let me know how you found out the filename and how to extract the bin from the vdk please? i've been trying to do it using the PCD tools zip from this website but i must be doing everything wrong ... i can't get any info on the disk contents and can't get any file to extract either.

thanks again for all your help mate,

craig xxx

[sixxie]

i've been trying to do it using the PCD tools zip from this website

PCD tools? Not "DragonDOS disk reading tools" from this page, I hope (those zips start with "pcd")? That's old, old software that pulled data directly off floppy disks. The tools didn't work with any sort of disk image file (and I'd be surprised if they ran at all these days).

Really must tidy that page up significantly, at least so it's more obvious what's there just as an archive of old tat and what's supposed to be properly useful.

[samplefiend]

hi there Sixxie,

yep that's what i was using. d'oh!

at least i know it's not my stupidity that was getting me nowhere this time ...

cheers again mate,

craig xxx

[rolfmichelsen]

hope you don't mind but can you let me know how you found out the filename and how to extract the bin from the vdk please?

After mounting the diskette with Control+1, you can get a file listing by typing DIR. If you are unfamiliar with DragonDos, I strongly suggest skimming the DragonDos manual. You can get it from the downloads section, here.

I've been playing around with some code to read and write all the common file formats supported by the various Dragon emulators, and I used that to extract the disk file to CAS format. This is somewhat experimental yet, but I'll make it available once I find the time to tie up all the loose ends and tidy it up a bit. Maybe (hopefully) later this summer.

-- Rolf

[samplefiend]

hi rolf,

thanks for letting me know mate. i look forward to your using your code at some point soon. i found some vdk files online that have some cool games including Zaxxon in green colour, Katerpillar II and a Paperboy clone.

have a great weekend

craig xxx

[admin]

There may be a more manual method.... but I can't remember the details, but will outline the concept:

1. Load XROAR with -TapeMangle and the load the VDK
2. Load the game (using LOAD)
3. CTRL+W to open a tape for writing
4. CSAVEM "Name", start, end , exec

What I can't remember is how to work out the start,end and exec values...

[rolfmichelsen]

What I can't remember is how to work out the start,end and exec values...

After loading a machine code file from a DragonDos diskette:

start = PEEK(&H652)*256 + PEEK(&H653)
end = PEEK(&H654)*256 + PEEK(&H655) + start
exec = PEEK(&H656)*256 + PEEK(&H657)

-- Rolf