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jotd · 01 September 2023, 15:08

Note that it's not really magic.

- disassemble the original game (Z80)
- reverse-engineer most of the game using static analysis & debug on MAME
- recode line by line in 68000
- patch the sound, input & display routines

Sounds hard? It is. But at least you inherit from the game designers logic & architecture and you "only" have local bugs, not general conception bugs.

I improved the tedious process by

- not RE'ing 100% of the game but starting transcode when I think it's possible and do the rest along the way on both codebases
- writing a Z80 to 68000 transcode tool which saves hours and hours of tedious & error prone work (a bit like ChatGPT would do), even it you have to carefully review the code & fix issues.

Then test & optimize to death until it works 100%.

01 September 2023, 15:08	#141
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,360	Note that it's not really magic. - disassemble the original game (Z80) - reverse-engineer most of the game using static analysis & debug on MAME - recode line by line in 68000 - patch the sound, input & display routines Sounds hard? It is. But at least you inherit from the game designers logic & architecture and you "only" have local bugs, not general conception bugs. I improved the tedious process by - not RE'ing 100% of the game but starting transcode when I think it's possible and do the rest along the way on both codebases - writing a Z80 to 68000 transcode tool which saves hours and hours of tedious & error prone work (a bit like ChatGPT would do), even it you have to carefully review the code & fix issues. Then test & optimize to death until it works 100%.