FlashFloppy v1.0 and AutoSwap

[kaffer]

I'm pleased to announce the release of FlashFloppy v1.0!

The major feature in this point release, apart from finally branching a stable release series from major-feature development, is support for automatic disk swapping in suitably-patched multi-disk software titles.

So far I have patched five games for Amiga to eliminate all manual disk swapping:

• Beneath a Steel Sky
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• The Secret of Monkey Island
• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
• Mortal Kombat

The game patches are freely available in source form, and of course I have pre-built binaries for general users:
Source: https://github.com/keirf/FF_AutoSwap.git
Binary: https://github.com/keirf/FF_AutoSwap/wiki/Downloads

Thanks are due to JOTD (WHDLoad project) for his game cracks and fixes, which I cribbed or outright stole. Also to ross (EAB of course) for his addchip bootblock which allowed me to support BASS on 512+512k Amigas.

FlashFloppy v1.0 full feature list:

• Game/demo AutoSwap-disks feature
• FF.CFG: New OLED display-type sib-option "-narrower"
• PC98: Direct support for HDM image files
• HxC Compat: Small fixes to Amiga file selector

[Daedalus]

Ooh, that's an awesome feature to have. Well done, and thanks for all your work on Flash Floppy!

[kaffer]

I would like some requests for swap-heavy arcade titles if any. Non-AmigaDOS titles to use as proof of concept for any other interested hackers.

All the titles so far are super easy, using AmigaDOS hook(s): I will add more of those titles in due course (Flight Of The Amazon Queen? Legend of Kyrandia? Cruise for a Corpse?). But of course they tend to be adventure genre.

[Neil79]

[Higgy]

Thanks for this & the prepatched files

swap-heavy arcade titles - Street Fighter 2

[Superman]

The Fairlight Mortal Kombat crack seems to have lots of disk swaps before you even get to play the game.

[DamienD]

Rise Of The Robots would also be a good candidate.

[kaffer]

Originally Posted by Superman

The Fairlight Mortal Kombat crack seems to have lots of disk swaps before you even get to play the game.

Yeah that's an interesting example, as cracks of extra-capacity formats like PDOS often overflow onto an extra disk and depending how well that's done can make a bunch of extra disk swaps. So examples like that are very helpful!

[bni]

I tried this last night. Awesome work kaffer!

On my Amiga 500 I dont have a HD, and thus can't use WHDLoad stuff, nor do I really want to. So this is perfect for my use case. BASS is very playable now.

Looking forward to try more patched games in the future. Even classics on fewer disks like Cannon Fodder could benefit I think.

On of my favourite games is Pinball Fantasies. But since disk switching are used to select tables, it might not be possible to patch a game like that. Unless a way could be figured out to be able to select from all four tables in some way.

[kaffer]

Originally Posted by bni

I tried this last night. Awesome work kaffer!

On my Amiga 500 I dont have a HD, and thus can't use WHDLoad stuff, nor do I really want to. So this is perfect for my use case. BASS is very playable now.

Thanks, that's exactly the motivation for AutoSwap. I'm glad the niche does really exist!

Looking forward to try more patched games in the future. Even classics on fewer disks like Cannon Fodder could benefit I think.

I'm currently working on Fairlight's crack of Mortal Kombat, as first example of doing an arcade title. It is attractive because it's well known, the crack is horrible to use with only a single drive, and for various technical reasons it is looking quite easy to do.

On of my favourite games is Pinball Fantasies. But since disk switching are used to select tables, it might not be possible to patch a game like that. Unless a way could be figured out to be able to select from all four tables in some way.

Could add a keypress to swap between disks, but then it's not really properly autoswap any more.

[kaffer]

An update to say that Mortal Kombat is done.

Based on the original Fairlight crack, the AutoSwap version has the following features:

• Automatically swaps disks (of course!)
• Boots from any drive (Kickstart 2+ required)
• Approx 2x faster loading
• Bugs fixed (eg. original crashed with 512/512 memory and Kickstart 2)

There is now a ~1kB assembly version of the AutoSwap patch, suitable for dropping into other arcade titles (where disk/memory constraints permit!). I will shortly write a Wiki article explaining the patching process, though it is a pretty straightforward job for a cracker to plumb in my routines.