Andreas' TOSEC disk fixing project

[IFW]

Isn't Mad TV the same concept? never played it, but I am sure there was a game about this kind of thing.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by IFW
Isn't Mad TV the same concept? never played it, but I am sure there was a game about this kind of thing.

I believe it is the same concept, but at the time I got Prime Time, which was late 80's/early 90's, it was the only game in town. In fact, it was only in the last year that I ever found an English version of Mad TV. I've yet to delve into that game to see how it fits into my tastebuds, but it's on the list with a few others.

[andreas]

Mini-fix:

boot-fixed version of Mad Locs v1.0 from 1998, German puzzle game with VERY good graphics:
http://hol.abime.net/?id=4656

Disk was 99% O.K, but someone has zeroed the bootblock, so that the disk couldn't make it to startup-sequence (which was already there!).
Fixed.

NOTE for A500 users: Should be played with at least 1 MB Chip RAM. *Might* work with new Agnus that can address 1 MB Chip RAM, too, using the "slow" RAM from the standard expansion.
Works with only 512K Chip RAM (press BACKSPACE as soon as game complains), but will result in reduced sound effects.

[andreas]

Pinball Brain Damage boot disk had no bootblock (!), therefore disk with bootblock is now in the zone.
Would be such a pity about all that functioning libraries, the startup-sequence in s: etc

[andreas]

InterState, (c) 1991 American Dream Software.
All work done by Louis K. Allen.

There are two versions in TOSEC: and both are not worth keeping because of the Disaster Master 2 virus. With one of the versions, I found the disk structure already fairly "well" destroyed, so I checked out the second one, which was fixable. DiskSalv either has not encountered any errors in disk structure or the like. I used 'erase' from Aminet to permanently eliminate all remains of the 'cls' virus file.

In the zone.

[andreas]

SmoothTalker, (c) 1987 First Byte. On Twist's MIA list.

Now that was an odd pile of stuff!
SmoothTalker has obviously been "constructed" originating from an original Workbench 1.2 rev 33.56 disk, with all (relevant) blocks still containing the same data as on the original!
(And with a shitload of files that the app will never need, e. g. all those keymaps ...)

This made it very easy to fix, by "copy-paste"

R/W error of TOSEC version caused by broken font :fonts/frby/12, now where could I get one of this sort? Again, FUNET came to my rescue with a working copy!

Block 66 of 'Preferences' contained a LAMER!!, so I could simply copy over block 66 of 'Preferences' of my original WB 1.2 33.56!
More faulty files: (Block numbers in parentheses)

:libs/info.library (1551)
:libs/mathieeedoubbas.library (1536)
:libs/mathtrans.library (1601)
:Preferences (1757)

After that, the disk looked again like it should.
In the zone.

[andreas]

ARGH...VITEX strike again! (i. e. the ones formerly known as Parala...eh -noimia)
What a pile of lamers!
Sorry, but this had to be. They previously "cracked" an AmigaBasic game, and to hide the 'BASIC' header above, they shifted the screen vertically by about 30-40 pixels in upward direction.
But now they had the guts to leave the same devs:system-configuration in for *this* game -

Taran im Abenteuerland!!

This means, there's no title bar anymore showing your score!!!!
The digitized title pic either doesn't show the correct way, because the writing can't be read!

I've now fixed this by readjusting the screen - now this game is finally playable again!

HOL too has been updated now.

[andreas]

Lovely. The uber-great SKID ROW had released a widespread version of COVERT ACTION with a copy command unsuitable for KS 1.3! The command worked without problems on KS 2.04 , but the game didn't!
No wonder that many people gave up with this crack because it usually quit after the briefing with an error.
It's *so* simple, though! When the game asks for Disk 2, it loads a Disk.pix which it expects to be available in RAM:
(The .pix file is copied to RAM: on bootup, in the startup-sequence.)

But 1.3 shows a very odd behavior with an unsuitable copy command:
no error or failure message will be shown, instead: nothing will get copied! RAM: is always EMPTY, hence no wonder the game cannot find its required files in RAM:!

The ILS hack of the SKID ROW crack (TOSEC too) does it a very lame way: it uses a *correct* copy command, but a heavily crunched TYPE command which needs so much mem to decrunch that it is doomed to fail on any Amigas below 1 MB Chip RAM + 1 MB Fast RAM, otherwise:
=> Error code 103.
No surprise that it got a [ b ] in TOSEC ... apart from that, however, the version is OK.

I've now tried to take "the best of both worlds", by copying the 'copy' command from the ILS hack over to the SKID ROW crack (non-[ b ] version).
WORKED! And also on an expanded Amiga 500. (512 / 512)

Thanks Belgarath for (indirectly) pushing me to investigate and fix this.

[andreas]

Funny too is this case here:
Back to the Grave (19xx)[ b] from Demos dat.
The disk contents were 100% OK! Merely the disk was in wrong format: true FFS! You should NOT use FFS on disks without thinking! Under KS 1.3, you can only use the disk if you modify it, but I did not want that; again, it can be used under KS 2.0 if and only if the programs and data contained on the disk will work correctly with OS 2.0.
Virtually none of them did.

I copied the disk to OFS, installed an OFS bootblock on it and now it works. Case closed.
This one goes into Demos - Slideshows.

[edit]
Even more:
Drill Instructor (19xx)(Baron)[ b][KS2.0]
'assign' was missing completely (disk was modified anyway btw), and disk was in FFS format again, inhibiting use on KS 1.3 A500. Stupid! Copied to new disk, OFS bootblock applied, works.
This one goes into Demos - Music.

Encore un Eclat de Rear (19xx)(Rear)(Fr)[ b]
As long there are stupid people in this world who HARDCODE volume names, you must not change a volume name without thinking. Renaming back to 'ER' caused the French comic-strip to work just nicely. (but not on A500s again!)
Demos - Slideshows

[andreas]

Runner, The (19xx)(-)[cr CAWAQ][ b]
(PD dat)

Same nonsense as #6 (Prime Time [ESI]). Probably a virus. Block 2 was set to 00000000 instead of 00000008 again, orig. checksum was OK, though.
I've also upped the ACU import version, which is "surprisingly" widely similar to the CAWAQ version.

[andreas]

OK, after a DECENT while, a very important fix:

Bermuda Project GERMAN!
Yes! It *is* in TOSEC, but overdumped, and will not boot in WinUAE, nor can it be transferred to real disk.

Simple removal of the superfluous second header on the beginning left me with an image < 880K at first! I was lucky that track 79 is unformatted (no data), so I just copied a series of DOS.DOS.DOS ... somewhere beyond offset $DBE00. 880K disk image saved to HD - done.
Voilà, now the disk works again! => in the zone

(The THRUST intro is almost worth booting the game alone )

[mai]

Originally Posted by andreas

[3] 100% fixed version of Blowing Brain Demo AGA by Ozone Free, 1995.

"Fix" was simple. I just had to change the line BlowingBrain in startup-sequence to execute BlowingBrain.
You CANNOT execute a batch file without the command 'execute', unless you're inside CLI/Shell, have NEWCON: mounted and have the 's' (script) bit set for the batch file you want to execute.

Old thread, but just stumbled over this,
The real original distributed disk has s protection bit set, so it works, no need to modify startup-sequence.