Replacing "Castle of Riddles"

[Delorean]

Hi,

This is my first post on this forum so please excuse me if this question has been asked before or if I posted this question in the wrong forum.

I’m Dutch and at the beginning of the eighties I was an enthusiastic BBC B user. It was my first computer and it is probably the reason why I ended up in the IT. In the 90’s my trusty old Beeb was collecting dust and at one point I made the stupid decision to take the Beeb to the charity shop. I immediately regretted this decision and the next day I went back but the Beeb was already gone together with the cassette deck and disc drive.
I’ve regretted always this day and a couple of years ago I started to look again for a BBC B. This is not so difficult in the UK but not so easy in the Holland or Belgium. Buying stuff in the UK after Brexit is a nightmare so I concentrated my search on the second hand market in Holland. A couple of months I was lucky to find a nice example of a BBC B in good condition for a very reasonable price. After a lot of trouble I also managed to acquire a MMC Card reader from Steve Picton, who was very helpful in getting the card reader to me.

So now finally my question, I can still remember playing Castle of Riddles. So after putting the latest version of beeb.mmb on the memory card I tried to play Castle of Riddles. Sadly this didn’t work as I get the same message as in this thread viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16425.

I downloaded Castle of Riddles v2 which should work.
Is there a way to replace the version on the beeb.mmb with the new version?

Many thanks

[BigEd]

Welcome! There are several tools to work with MMB files and the SSD images inside them.

See perhaps this post and those nearby.

Personally I like the command line, so I use mmb_utils which can be found in the tools subdir of the MMFS project.

[tricky]

The various menu systems usually put multiple games on one disc, so you might need to replace only some files.

[Delorean]

Thanks for your comments very helpful. I installed MMBExplorer which works fine on my Mac.

Now how can I see which disc number is Castle of Riddles on the beeb.mmb?

[BigEd]

the latest version of beeb.mmb

Can you perhaps let us know which beeb.mmb file you started with? (Which is to say, where you downloaded it from.)

[lurkio]

Thanks for your comments very helpful. I installed MMBExplorer which works fine on my Mac.

Be careful and keep backup copies because MMBExplorer might cause file corruption!:

viewtopic.php?p=323247#p323247

[Delorean]

I am using Higgy's beeb.mmb v 1.2 from this forum.
Here is the link viewtopic.php?p=288472#p288472

[sweh]

Personally I like the command line, so I use mmb_utils which can be found in the tools subdir of the MMFS project.

FWIW, https://sweh.spuddy.org/Beeb/mmb_utils.html is the latest and greatest version (mainly new functionality; the old version BigEd uses is mostly bugfree, just one minor gotcha with symlinks!).

[BigEd]

Thanks!

Looks like Disc 44 might be the one which needs an update but note that, as tricky warns, it contains other games too, and it looks like the filenames for CASTLE have been modified.

I've no idea how the menu system works - replacing the old with the new might be difficult.

You could add the Castle of Riddles SSD in one of the unused slots, though, and ignore your menu system.

If you picked slot 444 then you'd need
*DBOOT 444
to start it. Probably.

Here's Disc 44

Code: Select all

Catalogue for Disk 44: AC3-r1-1 (L)
Disk title: AC3-r1-1 (3)  Disk size: &320 - 200K
Boot Option: 0 (None)   File count: 18

Filename:  Lck Lo.add Ex.add Length Sct
$.SPHINX       001900 001900 000500 30C
$.SPHINX1      FF1900 FF801F 00638C 2A8
$.Quondm2      001100 007A00 0069C8 23E
$.Quondam      FF1900 FF8023 0007EF 236
$.INIT         003D00 003D00 000900 22D
$.QUEST        001900 001900 0004C0 228
$.QUEST1       001100 001100 006400 1C4
$.Hamil2       000E00 007B00 006D7E 156
$.Hamil1       001900 001900 000200 154
$.MOVE         000900 000900 0000F0 153
$.HAMIL        001900 001900 00049C 14E
$.GATEWAY      FF1900 FF8023 000316 14A
$.GATE2        000900 000900 000400 146
$.KAROS        001100 007F50 006EFF 0D7
$.DOOM         002000 002000 006E00 069
$.LOADER       FF1900 FF8023 000084 068
$.CASTldr      000900 000900 000080 067
$.CASTLE       001200 00801F 006500 002

[Delorean]

Thanks for your comments very helpful. I installed MMBExplorer which works fine on my Mac.

Be careful and keep backup copies because MMBExplorer might cause file corruption!:

viewtopic.php?p=323247#p323247

Thanks, I'll always make backups

[Delorean]

Thanks!

Looks like Disc 44 might be the one which needs an update but note that, as tricky warns, it contains other games too, and it looks like the filenames for CASTLE have been modified.

I've no idea how the menu system works - replacing the old with the new might be difficult.

You could add the Castle of Riddles SSD in one of the unused slots, though, and ignore your menu system.

If you picked slot 444 then you'd need
*DBOOT 444
to start it. Probably.

Here's Disc 44

Code: Select all

Catalogue for Disk 44: AC3-r1-1 (L)
Disk title: AC3-r1-1 (3)  Disk size: &320 - 200K
Boot Option: 0 (None)   File count: 18

Filename:  Lck Lo.add Ex.add Length Sct
$.SPHINX       001900 001900 000500 30C
$.SPHINX1      FF1900 FF801F 00638C 2A8
$.Quondm2      001100 007A00 0069C8 23E
$.Quondam      FF1900 FF8023 0007EF 236
$.INIT         003D00 003D00 000900 22D
$.QUEST        001900 001900 0004C0 228
$.QUEST1       001100 001100 006400 1C4
$.Hamil2       000E00 007B00 006D7E 156
$.Hamil1       001900 001900 000200 154
$.MOVE         000900 000900 0000F0 153
$.HAMIL        001900 001900 00049C 14E
$.GATEWAY      FF1900 FF8023 000316 14A
$.GATE2        000900 000900 000400 146
$.KAROS        001100 007F50 006EFF 0D7
$.DOOM         002000 002000 006E00 069
$.LOADER       FF1900 FF8023 000084 068
$.CASTldr      000900 000900 000080 067
$.CASTLE       001200 00801F 006500 002

Thanks for the info. Is there an easy way to find this out or do you have to go through every disc?

[BigEd]

There might be an easy way but I did it with brute force and ignorance! (At the command line, using the mmb_utils, so not quite as pedestrian as it could have been.)

[Delorean]

Thanks for your comments very helpful. I installed MMBExplorer which works fine on my Mac.

Be careful and keep backup copies because MMBExplorer might cause file corruption!:

viewtopic.php?p=323247#p323247

I replaced the Castle file from disc 44 with the v2 version and......
beeb.mmb wouldn't start anymore. Couldn't find any files anymore. Had to format the card again and put on the original beeb.mmb. Tried and it is working again, pffff.

Think I will leave it for the moment.

[Delorean]

Or... maybe someone can show me where I can find a version of beeb.mmb with a working Castle of Riddles.

[BigEd]

Yes, it would be good, if there's a fixed version, for the keeper of one of the favourite beeb.mmb collections to update the collection with the fix.

[duikkie]

is there still a problem ?

i am not a player , my beeb.mmb is version 1 on *din 44 , and it works ??

if there is still a problem or put an other version on your beeb.mmb

ga hier gillen misschien lees ik het

[Delorean]

Thanks duikkie. I haven't tried it since my last post.
Maybe I should try an older beeb.mmb version.

[lurkio]

I replaced the Castle file from disc 44 with the v2 version and......
beeb.mmb wouldn't start anymore. Couldn't find any files anymore.

Were you using MMBExplorer? Were you accessing the BEEB.MMB file directly on the SD card, or did you copy it to your desktop first?

Can you describe what you did exactly so that I can try to replicate it and maybe send a bug report to the developer of MMBExplorer?

[duikkie]

oke a quick look and i can fix this

the qeustion is the space on din 44
(it is allmost full)

so maybe the instuctions and story has to go ???

in version 2 this is castle file
the !boot en loader file are bad programming

so loader and !boot can be */castldr
and castle file must be caslte2 (*rename )

needed fix ??

[duikkie]

quick fix :

get castle of riddles version 2 in empty din ( like 299)

then

*din 299
*load castle2 1200
*din 44
*save castle 1200 +6500 801f

no instuctions because the instruc file on din 299 is &26fc big and you have only &f00 on din 44 free

[Delorean]

Thanks duikkie, I'm gonna give it a try.

[lurkio]

I replaced the Castle file from disc 44 with the v2 version and......
beeb.mmb wouldn't start anymore. Couldn't find any files anymore.

Were you using MMBExplorer? Were you accessing the BEEB.MMB file directly on the SD card, or did you copy it to your desktop first?

Can you describe what you did exactly so that I can try to replicate it and maybe send a bug report to the developer of MMBExplorer?

[Delorean]

I replaced the Castle file from disc 44 with the v2 version and......
beeb.mmb wouldn't start anymore. Couldn't find any files anymore.

Were you using MMBExplorer? Were you accessing the BEEB.MMB file directly on the SD card, or did you copy it to your desktop first?

Can you describe what you did exactly so that I can try to replicate it and maybe send a bug report to the developer of MMBExplorer?

Yes, I was using MMBExplorer. I was accessing BEEB.MMB on my harddisk and copied it later to the SD card.
I replaced the castle file on the disc 44 with the castle file from version 2.

What I think went wrong is that somehow the boot sector on the SD card got corrupted. I haven't tried it since so I can't send you a bug report.

[Canalboy]

There is a bug in the .ssd file downloadable from the Complete BBC Micro Games archive. Playing via the latest version of BeebEm, attempting to move north into the Castle Courtyard when in the dinghy and during the flood elicits a stream of garbage including parts of various room descriptions.

I suspect this may have been there from Peter Killworth's original code but the game is so difficult that not many people have encountered it, notwithstanding its high sales as a competition game. It isn't game breaking without wishing to be spoilerish.

Canalboy

[leenew]

Hi canalboy,
I will look into this.
At this stage I will just do a binary diff of the original game against the one on bbcmicro.co.uk, but if my memory serves me correctly, I would already have done that anyway.

I will report back later.....


Lee.

[Canalboy]

It is rare to find any bugs in the Phoenix /Acornsoft /Topologika versions of the old Cambridge games. I remember sending one to Adam Atkinson that I found in Parc relating to the freezing of an object. This was the Inform version. Hezarin crashes in certain places if you use one word verb parsing, i.e. jump from the air duct or throw the sword from the flying carpet. It also has a few incongruities in room descriptions wherein you can turn an invisible cloak over in your hands and examine it but, given the size of the game and the fact that this is a DOS version (the mainframe game being lost) I am being rather nit-picking. Apart from the odd typo in the other games they are bug-free.

Canalboy