Elite: load commander?

[joo2]

First post. I came across B2 emulator. And got Elite (Master 128) running on the MacBook. So cool, with the craters and much smoother than the Amiga port. Played a while, got a laser upgrade and shot my way to Average. B2 doesn't save state between sessions, so I started again from Lave. Set up a DFS image for save games. Saved a few games and they show up on the drive. But now I can't load them.

I've tried loading JOO7 from drive 1, E.JOO7 from drive 1. I keep getting back to Jameson. What am I missing about BBC files, it's been so long since I saw any. Thanks.

[tricky]

I can't help with Ellie, but most of them emulators allow save states

[MarkMoxon]

I've tried loading JOO7 from drive 1, E.JOO7 from drive 1. I keep getting back to Jameson. What am I missing about BBC files, it's been so long since I saw any. Thanks.

It sounds like you are doing things correctly, so I’m not sure what to suggest! You should just be able to choose Load Commander from the menu, type in the filename (without the E part, so JOO7 is correct), press Return, then press 1 for the drive number, and it should work.

I assume it isn’t flashing up an error when you enter the drive number?

Feel free to upload your disc image with your Commander files on, and I can have a go at loading them.

Mark

[joo2]

I think I switched emulator types, from Master to Master Turbo. Now I have a new error now I'm back to Master:

I think I'm going to be going back to Lave! Argh.

cdr2a.dsd

(200 KiB) Downloaded 6 times

[billcarr2005]

No idea why it says "ELITE II" but all of the files on the disk contain E5, ie the byte from a formatted sector, so no valid data.

Only the first 2 sectors, the catalogue, have been written to

Also, the file extension is DSD, but the file length is only 200KB, that of an 80 track SSD

If using B2 have you been using Direct disc image or remembering to Save afterwards?

[MarkMoxon]

No idea why it says "ELITE II" but all of the files on the disk contain E5, ie the byte from a formatted sector, so no valid data.

If bit 7 of the first byte in the file is set, then the game shows this error. As there never was an Elite II and none of the 6502 versions set bit 7 of the first byte, it's a strange error to report - rather optimistic, really, given that thie error was included in the original 1984 release.

Relevant code here: https://www.bbcelite.com/disc/docked/su ... e/lod.html

Mark

[SteveF]

I think I'm going to be going back to Lave! Argh

You could "cheat" to recreate your lost commander, using something like one of the commander editors. Setting your current star system is not trivial, but can probably be done, and you could at least regain your lost equipment, money and kills.

[joo2]

Thanks for all this, set up a new DFS drive, went back to Lave. Am now Mostly Harmless, but at least it saves.

[joo2]

More strangeness saving. Disk 1 will list all the files on it, but won't save. I tried deleting some old files, nope. Then I created a new disk, also no. What next?

[tom_seddon]

Which release of b2 are you using, and which version of Elite?

I wasn't able to reproduce any of these issues using the version of Elite I've got. Actions I took:

1. Select Master 128 with Hardware > Master 128 (MOS 3.20)
2. Load Elite disk: File > Drive 0 > Disc image... - load Elite disk
3. Create Elite saves disk: File > Drive 1 > New disc image > DFS 80T SSD - supply file name for it
4. Shift+Break to load Elite, and start game
5. In Lave, press F3 to equip ship and buy a missile (remaining credits now 70)
6. Save game: JOO2A, drive 1
7. File > Hard reset [this step is actually redundant, but I did it out of habit]
8. File > Drive 1 > Save
9. Restart b2
10. Reload Elite disk: File > Drive 0 > Recent disc image - select Elite disk from menu (it should hopefully be there!)
11. Reload Elite saves disk: File > Drive 1 > Recent disc image > select Elite saves disk from menu (it should hopefully be there!)
12. Shift+Break to load Elite, and answer Y to Load New Commander
13. Load commander - JOO2A, drive 1
14. Start game

The credits in my case came up as 70, indicating the commander file did get loaded.

I was also able to save JOO2A to drive 1 again.

If you post the disk image files for your Elite disk and current problematic saves disk I'll try them and see what I get.

--Tom

[joo2]

Thanks Tom. I'm running B2 20230710. t's great. I think my problem was running out of space on disk when saving. I made a new disk, restarted, and tings saved as normal.