Is the source available anywhere, including the auto-start loader, I'd like to try and work out why the CAS version is not working with DragonMMC's MTAPERUN?
Cheers.
Phill.
Flagon Bird
Re: Flagon Bird
I did the loader and I don't think the CAS version does anything particularly special: it's basically just the output from bin2cas.pl. The autorun works by overwriting the next BASIC token pointer.prime wrote:Is the source available anywhere, including the auto-start loader, I'd like to try and work out why the CAS version is not working with DragonMMC's MTAPERUN?
Code: Select all
bin2cas.pl --autorun -o flagon.cas -n FLAGON --eof-data --dzip --fast \
-B -l 0x0e00 screen.bin \
--vdg 8 --sam-v 4 --sam-f 7 \
-C --flasher main.bin
The WAV's a bit trickier and speeds up the loading by playing with pulse width counters (though I notice the version on the archive page is just a conversion of the CAS file, so doesn't include that fanciness).
Edit: how involved does DragonMMC get in the loading? One other slight deviation from normal is that the EOF block is allowed to contain data...
Re: Flagon Bird
I've seen that deviation in many games, so I assumed it's a legal practice.
Re: Flagon Bird
Yeah perfectly acceptable to the normal load routines, just the ROM save calls don't make use of it. Well, probably not that then...
Re: Flagon Bird
Right I'll take a look at it, any idea why the loader it produces has it's exec address set outside the address range of the loader. Flagon seems to have a small normal file followed by a couple of headerless files.sixxie wrote:I did the loader and I don't think the CAS version does anything particularly special: it's basically just the output from bin2cas.pl. The autorun works by overwriting the next BASIC token pointer.prime wrote:Is the source available anywhere, including the auto-start loader, I'd like to try and work out why the CAS version is not working with DragonMMC's MTAPERUN?
You can look at the Perl script to see what code is included for various options, but as you'll see, even though the content is zipped, the actual IO is all just calls to [BLKIN] as usual.
The board has a 32K ram on it, into which it copies itself and the basic ROM and then patches the basic ROM at certain parts to read bytes from the mmc rather than from the tape. So most of the code is the normal Dragon (or CoCo) code I've just re-directedd things like byte in and byte out.The WAV's a bit trickier and speeds up the loading by playing with pulse width counters (though I notice the version on the archive page is just a conversion of the CAS file, so doesn't include that fanciness).
Edit: how involved does DragonMMC get in the loading? One other slight deviation from normal is that the EOF block is allowed to contain data...
The odd things is I have four commands that are related to this :
MCAS which does the copying to RAM & patching
MMOUNTR "filename.cas" which sets the file to input from
the CLOAD / CLOADM to load the actual file.
Doing the load with MCAS:MMOUTR"flagon.cas":CLOADM works as if from tape and the game starts.
MTAPERUN "flagon.cas" tries to do all three, it does also however also check the tape file type so that it can run a basic program and exec a machine code, after reseting the basic stack and clearing to 200 bytes of strings space as this is the environment a lot of the comercial games expect.
Cheers.
Phill.
Re: Flagon Bird
The autorun code is just another variation on the old themes. All the loader code is in the header block, the data block for the first part patches the BASIC "next token" sequence to a) point BASIC at a ':' character so that BASIC does another token fetch, and then b) JMP to the loader code (instead of actually do the token fetch).prime wrote: Right I'll take a look at it, any idea why the loader it produces has it's exec address set outside the address range of the loader. Flagon seems to have a small normal file followed by a couple of headerless files.
As such the EXEC address isn't used by BASIC, and I actually just use that field to keep the ':' character.
Re: Flagon Bird
Hi Prime.
I've sent you a PM.
I've sent you a PM.
-
- Posts: 32
- Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2014 8:55 pm
Re: Flagon Bird
Hello,
Can you release a cassette to purchase with Microdeal / Dragon Data style inlay card (like Dunjunz) for this game, thanks.
Are there any other new release Dragon games with cassette & inlay card like Dunjunz? Thanks again.
Can you release a cassette to purchase with Microdeal / Dragon Data style inlay card (like Dunjunz) for this game, thanks.
Are there any other new release Dragon games with cassette & inlay card like Dunjunz? Thanks again.
Re: Flagon Bird
Hi Shock Trooper.
Thanks for the suggestion. I managed to bag myself a Dunjunz cassette last Cambridge meet-up from Sixxie himself.
I have to say Sixxie did a great job and it did make me think about producing a limited run of my games on cassette and cartridge.
I'm planning to update Flagon Bird so a cassette release might be more appropriate once that's done.
With regard to other recent Dragon titles on cassette I don't know of any. I have an original game currently in the works targeting John Linville's GMC cartridge but that's a little way off yet. I imagine at some point it'll make it over to cassette albeit minus enhanced audio. https://youtu.be/s1MAAD5dtqo
Sorchard also has a game in development, but I couldn't comment on it's status. Here's a link to his blog though. http://returnofthebeast.blogspot.com/20 ... otabb.html
Thanks for the suggestion. I managed to bag myself a Dunjunz cassette last Cambridge meet-up from Sixxie himself.
I have to say Sixxie did a great job and it did make me think about producing a limited run of my games on cassette and cartridge.
I'm planning to update Flagon Bird so a cassette release might be more appropriate once that's done.
With regard to other recent Dragon titles on cassette I don't know of any. I have an original game currently in the works targeting John Linville's GMC cartridge but that's a little way off yet. I imagine at some point it'll make it over to cassette albeit minus enhanced audio. https://youtu.be/s1MAAD5dtqo
Sorchard also has a game in development, but I couldn't comment on it's status. Here's a link to his blog though. http://returnofthebeast.blogspot.com/20 ... otabb.html
Re: Flagon Bird
Whilst it is not exactly new as it was released in 2007 (I can't believe it was that long ago) Cronosoft still has some copies of James McKay's Glove available.Shock Trooper wrote:Are there any other new release Dragon games with cassette & inlay card like Dunjunz? Thanks again.