AlienBash I & II - Original Coder Contacted - Help Needed in Rescuing 68000 Source!!

[prowler]

Originally Posted by gggcumming

Hi Prowler,

Yes the previous address is still valid.

Yes it will be very interesting to see what source code is available - I'm not sure if I will even recognize it - looking through the stuff on the A590 was sort of like remembering parts of a dream - very vague.

Again thanks for all the hard work.

Glen

Hi Glen,

I'm going to have to change the plan in order not to keep you waiting even longer.

This is likely to become even more important with EAB and Lemon presently competing in Round 4 of the Super League 2012 playing Alien Bash 2!

The disks with the virus damage have checksum errors in the damaged data blocks which require reconstructed headers before the affected files can be copied off the disk into the folders I am providing to accompany each (A)DOS disk image containing the complete filesystem.

This will involve almost as much work as fixing the files, so what I would like to do is send you a CD-R shortly containing the 164 valid disk images with filesystems where appropriate, and provide all 190 later when I have either restored the remaining disks, or patched the damaged files so you can read everything - even on those disks which can't be fixed.

Obviously, I can't say for sure when the remainder are likely to have been fixed, but I can tell you that it will surely be done sooner knowing that you already have the other 164 disks and can get started.

I shall try to get the first CD off to you ASAP, but I always seem to be so busy at the moment.

[lifeschool]

Nothing like the Super League Compo to get things moving . Never played ABII before the compo and I have to say it's a superb PD game. No bugs and very playable. I'd love for Glen to get his code back and get a new ABII v2 or even ABIII in the works. I'm sure he'd be more than happy with just the files on a disc... but then... you are a perfectionist - and a very good one!

Note: I use to upload files larger than 20MB. It free to register and upload /download anything you like, only the download speeds are affected by registration (otherwise it's a little slower).

Good work, as always.

[gggcumming]

Hi Prowler,

Just a quick note to say I've moved offices so I'll need to give you a new address at some point.

Glen

[prowler]

Thanks, Glen. I won't send anything without getting your new address first.

[Higgy]

Hi all,

NEW UPDATE!

I am recently getting back into physical AMIGA's after I broke my 1200 back in around 1999 (MS and PC's ever since)

Anyhow. I recently got a vintage 80MB 2.5" Hard Drive. It would not boot on my new 1200, it spun up etc but did not sound too good. Maybe HD's back then were noisier, I can't remember. My 1200 'back in the day' had a 3.5" HD stuffed inside.

I plugged it into my PC via a couple of 2.5" adaptors, WinUAE would not detect it. Western Digital diag software knew something was connected but could not do much apart from a few tests.

I left the drive running/spining for a few hours just incase it needed some run time after being (probably) sat for years not run.

Last night I plugged it into my 1200 and it booted! Half the screen is a Shell titled 'Glens-Shell' and the HD was split into about 4 partitions, names such as CODE & SCRATCH. A big of digging around (muscle memory of what to do in Workbench slowly coming back after many years of MS Windows!) I found out that it seems to be Glen Cumming's development HD. A web search gave me this thread and I dropped PROWLER a PM last night.

I have backed up the HD onto CF via pcmcia. Around 30MB. On Windows I am having problems ZIP/RAR etc because I guess the AMIGA filenames does not conform to FAT/MicroSoft - such as 'Generator_Heads_32*34*2' - it is the * I guess. Also for some reason Workbench/Storage/DOSDrivers AUX & AUX.info will not compress. So the archiving progs crash/freeze. I have tried WinRAR & 7-ZIP.

I guess I can load WinUAE and mount the CF card, then LHA the directories within WinUAE. I will then have a LHA file of the HD that I cam email (it will be around 16MB). - could do it on the 1200, but I can crank up CPU on WinUAE for quicker archiving.

Cheers,

Sean.

[breech]

Nice work. It sounds like you may have hit the directory length limitation in windows. Archiving it in UAE should do the trick. Turn on turbo mode for a speed boost

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Higgy

I have backed up the HD onto CF via pcmcia. Around 30MB. On Windows I am having problems ZIP/RAR etc because I guess the AMIGA filenames does not conform to FAT/MicroSoft - such as 'Generator_Heads_32*34*2' - it is the * I guess. Also for some reason Workbench/Storage/DOSDrivers AUX & AUX.info will not compress. So the archiving progs crash/freeze. I have tried WinRAR & 7-ZIP.

I guess I can load WinUAE and mount the CF card, then LHA the directories within WinUAE. I will then have a LHA file of the HD that I cam email (it will be around 16MB). - could do it on the 1200, but I can crank up CPU on WinUAE for quicker archiving.

Cheers,

Sean.

Hi Sean,

Thankyou so much for your PM yesterday evening.

The humble 2½-inch 80MB hard drive you have acquired may provide the key to completing this job, which effectively ground to a halt after I found virus damage on many of the disks, and my emulation workstation is still out of commission after a PSU failure killed the hard drives.

I shall spend a while reviewing the email exchanges between Glen and myself and summarize the salient points here so that you can understand why you hard drive may be so impoortant.

To capture all the useful data from your hard drive (including loose blocks and deleted files), THIS IS VITAL: please use Thomas Rapp's TSGUI utility to write disk image hardfiles of each partition on the drive to your CF card.

Those hardfiles (which should compress nicely for emailing) will then contain the only data known to exist which can possibly help complete this job!

Thanks again,

We'll speak again soon.

[Higgy]

Ok. I used TSGUI. I thought I was creating seperate Images for each partition.
But when I load up one of the .rdf in WinUAE it seems to have all the partitions.

I have used 7-Zip to compress the 83mb to 30mb and have put it on Dropbox.
Prowler - PM me your email address and I can share the link to the image.
Off to bed now!

[prowler]

PM sent, and thanks.

Edit:

Originally Posted by gggcumming

- I think I must have continued coding it on the 1200.

So not a lot really that's of great use.

This was in the Last but one email Glen sent me after he had studied the hard drive images I dumped from his A590.

That A1200 must have contained the hard drive you have now dumped. He subsequently tried to contact the person to whom he sold his A1200 with a view to retrieving the hard drive content, but either failed to do so or else received a reply which put an end to that quest.

I had thought that the data had gone for ever!

[Higgy]

I have sent a link to Shared Dropbox folder. Fingers crossed!

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Higgy

I have sent a link to Shared Dropbox folder. Fingers crossed!

I have just downloaded the archive and everything appears to be fine, so you can rest assured that the contents of Glen's hard drive are now preserved, provided that you witnessed no read errors during the imaging process!

I have no knowledge of whether Glen is still subscribed to this thread after all this time or whether he has given up hope of ever resurrecting his code, but I will now try to contact him on his last known email address to share the good news with him.

In the meantime, I'll see what I can do with this hardfile...

[prowler]

Originally Posted by prowler

I have no knowledge of whether Glen is still subscribed to this thread after all this time or whether he has given up hope of ever resurrecting his code, but I will now try to contact him on his last known email address to share the good news with him.

Done!

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by prowler

Done!

Yada yada yada... We dont care about this half as much as about this:

Originally Posted by prowler

In the meantime, I'll see what I can do with this hardfile...

Well? We want status reports. Detailed. Don't be bashful ;- )

[Higgy]

I will wait a bit longer before formatting the HD then!



Only joking.

[ptyerman]

WOW.
This is amazing news.

[prowler]

I have received an email reply from Glen Cumming.

He's still very much interested in this project and more than a little surprised that his hard drive has been found at last.

I'm hoping that he will eventually rejoin the thread if I find that his code is still on there. It seems to me that there's a very good chance of this after what Higgy reported when he booted his A1200 from that hard drive.

I now have all the parts I require to rebuild my emulation station after I finally managed to get hold of a much more powerful PSU for it, and I'm hoping to get that completed over the weekend.

[seuden]

Awesome story so far!

[prowler]

I have hit a few snags while rebuilding my emulation station, but the job is progressing smoothly when I get a chance to work on it and should be completed soon.

In the meantime, I have been looking at Higgy's image of Glen's hard drive with a binary file editor and I have found five ADOS partitions labelled Workbench, Tools, Code, Games and Scratch. All appear to be intact and, most importantly, no disk blocks have been obliterated by the Lamer Exterminator virus (unlike many of the floppy disks whose contents I have already preserved, but on which the virus damage may still not be recoverable).

This development is the best news in this thread since the discovery of the virus damage to the floppies, and I'm looking forward to getting this project going again.

[Higgy]

Nice one!

[prowler]

Hi All,

Yesterday I completed rebuilding and restoring my emulation station, and so today I succeeded in mounting in emulation the Workbench, Tools, Code, Games and Scratch partitions of Glen's hard drive image dumped by Higgy.

I have dumped the directory listings to text files (attached) and verified that all files copy out of the disk image without errors.

Next, I will share with Glen the fruits of this endeavour on a CD-R and give him the chance to veto the distribution of any files which he may not wish to share. This is one of the conditions I agreed to when I took on the job of preserving the contents of his original A590 hard drive and floppy disk collection.

I am hopeful that now I have the files on Glen's A1200 hard drive, I will have the means to repair the remainder of the virus damage afflicting a small proportion of the floppy disk collection.

Finally, a huge thankyou to Higgy for keeping a cool head when it first appeared that the hard drive had not survived!

Great job, mate! You've made a significant contribution to the Amiga community in giving us back what we had thought was gone for good.