30th Anniversary BBC and Electron Collection

[billcarr2005]

Hi All,
Disc 018 has been re-posted in Section3 after amending the instructions for Night Shade.
The error was actually in the original tape loader which was incorporated into the instructions.
It will now correctly print the info at line 230 if not using OS1.2

Mick.

I thought the problem that i noticed, then mentioned here
viewtopic.php?f=51&t=24112

made it clear that it was an unnecessary line, probably more a warning that the game wouldn't load due to OS1.2 specific memory locations and/or timers used in the protection... removing the line (seemingly) allows BBC Master owners to load and play the game?

[Michael Brown]

Hi Bill,
Didn't realise the original code was stopping Night Shade working on a Master.
I have now REMed out line 230.
Disc018 re-posted.

Mick.

[lurkio]

Disc 015 ... Revs from Acornsoft Limited ...

Disc 063 ... Revs 4 Tracks from Acornsoft Limited

Those two copies of Revs contain the wrong version of the Revs game-engine. They currently contain the later Superior CAS (Computer-Assisted Steering) game-engine, when in fact they should both contain the earlier Acornsoft non-CAS game-engine.

More details in this thread:

viewtopic.php?p=349896#p349896

[dr.grim]

Re: Vertigo discs

Nice work Mick - thanks for keeping it alive.

I've got both versions building again from source via `beebasm` and dropped the code on https://github.com/dr-grim/vertigo; I'll keep going until its all up there. Its nearly tempting to do a version 1.1 with new levels - I have found the level designer!

[Michael Brown]

Hi All,
The errors with Revs has now been sorted.
Disc015 in Section 2 and Disc063 in Section 4 have now been re-posted.

The version on Disc015 is the original tape version of Revs with just the Silverstone track.
The version on Disc063 is the original Acornsoft Revs 4 Track Disc version from 1985.

The Superior/Acornsoft release of Revs Plus Revs 4 Track which includes all 5 tracks and the CAS is now on ALTD015 which will be posted once full.

Mick.

[mad]

sorry for posting off topic!.
but i want Michael to see this.

*i am a new beginer when it comes to bbc basic and code.

I have just copied all files from Youth Hostel Adventure (ADFS) to normal (DFS) disk.
hex edited the code to use and read 7 character filenames.
renamed the duplicate filenames from long folder names, into txt and gfx.
only to find the OS is limited to 30 files.

i think bbc dfs disks can have directories of 1 letter?
if possible, how do i make them.
tried the usual DOS commands *MD *MKDIR...

attached is the work so far.

[lurkio]

I have just copied all files from Youth Hostel Adventure (ADFS) to normal (DFS) disk. hex edited the code to use and read 7 character filenames. renamed the duplicate filenames from long folder names, into txt and gfx.

Great work!

only to find the OS is limited to 30 files. i think bbc dfs disks can have directories of 1 letter?

Even if you use different directories, you’ll still be limited to 31 files on one side of a DFS disc — or on a .SSD disc-image. If you use a DSD disc-image, you’ll double the limit, but then you’ll have to somehow swap sides — or “drives” — to access the files on drive 2, as and when the game requires: the commands are *DRIVE 0 and *DRIVE 2 — or you can refer to a drive within the filename, as in *LOAD :2.d.filname

You don't need to actually "create" a directory. But to use single-character directory-names, you can, say, just rename a file and prepend the directory-name. E.g. *RENAME file D.file

To switch to a directory, type *DIR d or whatever the directory-name is.

The default directory is $

[mad]

@lurkio
thanks for info.

still 10 text files missing due to dir limits.
all gfx fit on 1side drive0

it's going to be a 2 disker with cleaver merging of files over the disks.
is there a "simple" way to ask for a disk swap if file not found or auto look on drive1?
i mean second external dive in beebem (other disk).

[lurkio]

all gfx fit on 1side drive0 ... it's going to be a 2 disker with cleaver merging of files over the disks.

Are you going to use drives 0 and 1? Or drives 0 and 2?

Or do you mean you will need two double-sided discs (i.e. drives 0 and 2, and 1 and 3)?

is there a "simple" way to ask for a disk swap if file not found or auto look on drive1?

Not that I'm aware of. Not sure if something like this will help..?:

Code: Select all

10 ON ERROR GOTO 40
20 *LOAD :0.FILE
30 GOTO 50
40 ON ERROR OFF: *LOAD :2.FILE
50 REM rest of program...

[Michael Brown]

Hi,
Sorry I can't help much as I never had a Master and don't know much about ADFS.
Thanks for posting and I am sure others here will be able to help.

regards,
Mick.

[mad]

YHA work so far...

uses 3 SSD.
all gfx files have their paired txt file on same disk.

tried using DSD but got an error loading gfx.
probably my basic load error.

still needs a prompt for 2nd and 3rd disk.
but it needs playing through to know were to edit txt.

[billcarr2005]

I gave it a go tonight
Copied the files onto a Watford DFS double sided disk, 62 files per side. Text (T directory) on drive 0, graphics (G directory) on drive 2
I've fudged the font "explosion" (YHA2) in BeebEM using "BBC Model B", so it seems to have broken "BBC Master 128" compatibility, but hopefully it might be helpful / could even work entirely

[lurkio]

Copied the files onto a Watford DFS double sided disk, 62 files per side. Text (T directory) on drive 0, graphics (G directory) on drive 2 ... I've fudged the font "explosion" (YHA2) in BeebEM using "BBC Model B", so it seems to have broken "BBC Master 128" compatibility, but hopefully it might be helpful / could even work entirely

Nice! Here it is in JSBeeb:

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/jsbeeb/play.php?p ... oot&noseek

[mad]

Copied the files onto a Watford DFS double sided disk, 62 files per side. Text (T directory) on drive 0, graphics (G directory) on drive 2
I've fudged the font "explosion" (YHA2) in BeebEM using "BBC Model B", so it seems to have broken "BBC Master 128" compatibility, but hopefully it might be helpful / could even work entirely

yes, that more than helps!

can i ask what tools (ADFS - Watford) you used?
if they are emulator friendly, can you please upload!
thanks.

[billcarr2005]

yes, that more than helps!

can i ask what tools (ADFS - Watford) you used?
if they are emulator friendly, can you please upload!
thanks.

I ran my disk CRC tool to get the offset of the files within the ADL and then used a hex editor to extract the YHA files and load them directly from BeebEM's debugger followed by saving them to a DSD image.
Once i'd fixed the font issue & figured out which files were needed / where they were, i then used Gerald Holdworth's Disk Image Manager to extract the rest of the graphics and text files, before adding them to the DSD, again via the excellent Disk Image Manager.
However, I noticed that it only allows 31 files to be copied (unless I missed a setting somewhere) so I copied the remainder onto another SSD which then got copied over to the DSD
FHA4 needed minor modifications to shorten the length of filenames and FHA3 to point to the correct drives/directories

[Michael Brown]

Hi All,
Just re-posted Disc052 in Section 4 as I have now been able to add instructions to Bobby Charlton Soccer from its inlay.
regards,
Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Hi All,
Just re-posted Disc110 in Section 9 as I have now been able to add the correct version of Ransom from Audiogenic's Graphic Adventure Creator tape which includes a MODE7 splash.
I have also been able to add the COMMANDS for the game from the inlay.
It still has the BeebEm detection routine in my loader.
The old copy with the unofficial loading screen has been moved to ALTD015 and will be posted when full.
regards,
Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Hi All,
Just re-posted Disc108 in Section 9 as I have now been able to add most of the inlay/booklet instructions to Yes Prime Minister.

regards,
Mick.

PS This is the last of 3 updates to instructions for now.

[Michael Brown]

Hi All,
Just re-posted Disc002 in Section 1 as I have added the 2nd and latest fix for the scoring bug to Spectipede thanks to Forum members.
Also, the cursor is now back on during the questions. I have done this to keep a tab on which version of the game we now have.

regards,
Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Hi All,
Just re-posted Disc001 in Section 1 as I have corrected a mistake with the instructions to Demon Decorator.
For some reason line 770 was missing which left out a line of text on the 2nd page of the instructions.
Not sure why or when this happened, but its back.

regards,
Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Hi All,
Just re-posted Disc160 in Section 26 as the author of Grid Runner has created a V2 with better sound and fonts.
regards,
Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Hi All,
Just re-posted Disc029 in Section 3.
This is because of a spelling mistake in Hyperdrive's instructions. It was not there in the original tape release, but caused by me when I changed the text from "PRESS STOP BUTTON ON YOUR RECORDER" to "INSTRUCTIONS HAVE LOADED" but mispelt INSTRUCTIONS as INTRUCTIONS. This is now sorted.

Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Hi all,
Just re-posted D050 in Section 4 and Disc090 in Section 6.

I have been checking some of my instructions I created for any mistakes.

1) I found is that I not included the (R) after Scrabble in my instructions on D050 but had included it on all the other Leisure Genius games's instructions, so I have amended it to match.

2) I had not included a *FX200,3 in Backgammon's instructions on D090 which could result in an error if you pressed ESCAPE whilst loading the main game. This too has been sorted.

Again, these are not faults with the games, but rather with my loaders I have added.

Mick.

[AndyGarton]

I wonder if anybody has installed the contents of these discs on a Beeb hard drive somehow, and if so would be willing to share how they did it? I fumbled around a bit with ADFS and DFS Explorer, copying the contents of each disk image to a hard drive folder basically, but hit an immediate problem in that there are too many files on two sides of a disc to fit into a single directory. And even if that had worked, I'm guessing the menu loading wouldn't have worked anyway, because it would be expecting files on two sides of a disc, rather than all in one folder.

[sweh]

I wrote some code that splits the DSD images into separate SSDs, one per game. It only works because Michael is nicely consistent in his menu format. You could extract each game into a separate directory. Obviously there's no pretty menu...

https://github.com/sweharris/split_md_dsd

In that repo is also some utilities to build an MMB file (with a very simple Menu) based off the DSDs.

[Michael Brown]

Hi all,
Just re-posted D108 in Section 9 to include the latest version of Frogger from Tricky. Only the main game has been copied back over as it fixes an issue with the key control if burnt to ROM as per thread on the forum.

Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Hi all,
Just re-posted D043 in Section 4 due to adding the original instructions for Chuckie Egg to the loader for Chuckie Egg 4.

Sadly, there was no filename space left on D002 to include them as a separate filename and I did not want to alter the original loader file. So Egg number 4 was the first (and only) one where these original instructions could be added without altering someone else's code.

Mick.

EDIT: Made a mistake with using "of" instead "have" in the instructions, so re-posted D043 again with correct wording.

[Michael Brown]

Hi all,
Just re-posted D004 in Section 1 due to amending the instructions for Cosmic Fighter.

I have now changed the design of these instructions to match the same layout as those I did for Galactic Firebird and Bomber Scramble.

Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Hi all,
Just re-posted D006 in Section 1 due to amending the instructions for Laser Reflex as they were from an unknown source.

I have now included the instructions from the BBC tape inlay.
Also pressing BREAK will return you to the start of the game (as per inlay instructions - ideal for quitting the demo mode or changing the keys).
You now need to press CTRL and BREAK to exit the game as per the original tape release.

Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Created in July 2022... here is Games Disc 162.

Disc162.zip

(136.39 KiB) Downloaded 817 times

The disc is called Disc162.dsd so it can be loaded into a Datacentre on a real BBC without having to rename it.

The 18 games on this disc include...

Hangman from Popular Computing Weekly (2.14).
The Force (Cassette 50) from Cascade Games Ltd.
On Yer Bike (2P) from The Home Computer Advanced Course (Issue 33).
Yes Chancellor (Disc Version) (STD) from Chalksoft Ltd.
Gymkhana from Kesparsoft.
Dodge from Popular Computing Weekly (1.18).
Tudoroll by A. Gray.
Snail Race (Unreleased) by Mike Goldberg.
Galaxy Conflict (2P) (STD) from Martech.
Letter Puzzle by Cliff Davies.
Parachute (AKA Parachute Jump) from Acorn Programs (Vol.5).
Taktiks (2P) (E) from The Electron User (6.06).
Ski Funday by electron.greg
3D-Aggressor (Dynamic Games For Your Electron) (E) from Interface Publications.
Space Arena from OZARK Software.
Flat Out from Mushroom Software.
Python (V0.2A) by 0XC0DE.
Go from The Home Computer Advanced Course (Issue 69).

NOTE: Galaxy Conflict allows you to save your score/position to disc.
Also, Taktiks and 3D-Aggressor are Electron titles that seem to work OK on a BBC Micro.

DISC VERSIONS: Yes Chancellor from Chalksoft is the disc version and you can save your score to disc.

COMPILATIONS: The Force from Cascade was released as part of their "Cassette 50" compilation.

INSTRUCTIONS: The instructions for Yes Chancellor and Galaxy Conflict were not part of their original releases and were created from their inlays.

SPECIALLY CREATED INSTRUCTIONS: The instructions for On Yer Bike and Go were created specially from their magazines/books.
Also, the instructions for Python were created specially from sources off the internet.

MAGAZINE TYPE-IN GAMES: Hangman, On Yer Bike, Dodge, Parachute, 3D-Aggressor and Go were only available as a type-in from their magazines/books.

EASTER EGGS: If you press ESCAPE during some of the loaders and instructions, then you can skip to loading the game... This works on Yes Chancellor and Galaxy Conflict.

All original filenames have been kept where possible, but some have been changed where they conflict with the limitations of the Disc Filing System. Copy protection routines have been removed.
This disc has also been checked for *KEY related issues and is OK.

Enjoy!
Happy summer holidays
Mick.

Disc 163 will be out next month!