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

[prowler]

Today I received the Y-E Data YD-702D-6638D PC floppy drive I bought on eBay.

This evening, I tried reading Amiga floppies with it in a PC running Registered Disk2FDI.

It reads standard 880K formatted DD disks perfectly, but it will not read the 880K formatted HD disks, even with the HD sensing holes taped over.

Actually, there are only two 880K formatted HD disks in this collection. I stated above that there were three, whereas one is, in fact, a DD disk, but it's nonetheless unreadable for that.

The two unreadable HD disks are labelled "Code Backup" and "Disk 2: Code Backup 4/9/92. OK 9/9/92". The unreadable DD disk is not labelled. I just hope that if these are code backups, the originals or otherwise identical copies of any unrecoverable files on these disks are also included on other disks in the collection.

I also tried bLAZER's 880K formatted HD disk, and it will not read that either.

Then I tried one of hitm4n's seven 880K formatted HD disks which I'd previously had no trouble reading in an Amiga floppy drive and it reads the disk flawlessly with the sensing hole taped over, but reports one or more bad sectors on every track once the tape is removed.

In fact, this drive behaves no differently to a regular PC HD floppy drive in this situation, and I'm disappointed about that, but, to be fair, Antti's suggestion was, after all, only to try the drive in an Amiga 500 after converting it to operate as an Amiga floppy drive.

First, I will try installing it in my A500 via Stedy's PC floppy to Amiga adapter, because I suspect the 6638D drive will require a rather different modification to the one documented for the 6037D in Antti's link.

In the meantime, I've been transferring the disk images I have generated on my Amiga to my workhorse PC, the better to find duplicate files and repair the images with missing sectors under WinUAE emulation.

[Antti]

Originally Posted by prowler

Then I tried one of hitm4n's seven 880K formatted HD disks which I'd previously had no trouble reading in an Amiga floppy drive and it reads the disk flawlessly with the sensing hole taped over, but reports one or more bad sectors on every track once the tape is removed.

That's exactly how my drive is working. And it's great for normal dos formatted disks but has problems with some custom trackloaders

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Antti

That's exactly how my drive is working. And it's great for normal dos formatted disks but has problems with some custom trackloaders

Thanks for confirming that, Antti!

Hmm... then it seems that Glen's HD disks and that of bLAZER are different in some way. Glen's disks are branded, as are hitm4n's, but bLAZER's isn't - so it's nothing to do with that.

Still, I'm not giving up on them yet. I've got some more testing to do. What would KryoFlux make of them, I wonder?

[gggcumming]

Bit off-topic - but I was reading a thread which mentioned something called dosbox which I've not come across before - I downloaded it and I was able to run my one and only attempt at a PC game via it for the first time in 15 years - if anyone is interested its attached (unzip, then mount in dosbox and run test.exe - keys are x & c for rotate left/right, k to thrust, l to fire).

This only ever got to a demo stage - after I wrote this I turned my back on games programming forever.

It was written in 80386 assembler - I wrote the lot including all the sound mixing routines (not very well) - it ran at 60 frames per second with no tearing using double buffered screens on a standard 486-dx 100 - basically using all my amiga techniques - at the time most PC games ran like dogs in my opionion. It used a graphics most called mode-x which was a bit horrid as it was not 1-byte per pixel but allowed enough video memory for the double-buffer on a standard vga card.

[Peter]

@gggcumming - you were really into weren't you ? - If I get a chance to give this a go I will, just to see what it plays like - it must seem so weird checking out something you did all those years ago... You must live and breath a game while you write it... I think your getting the bug again you know... but this time it's back to the Amiga - where your heart is really - go on, make a new game for us on the Amiga... just for old times sake!!! :-)

[gggcumming]

Yes I did used to live and breath (trying) to write games - because I did find it so hard it was very detrimental to my day job - I only really managed to forge a proper career when I gave up programming at home - problem was game's programming was just so much more interesting that any of my 'proper' work.

If I had the time and money I would love to write an amiga game again - I would try and use the hardware properly this time around and I know a bit more nowadays - still got a rubbish imagination however and always struggled with getting graphics done.

Life going to get even busier however - baby due next Jan so probably no free time ever again!

[prowler]

Originally Posted by prowler

From one of the remaining disks with one bad sector, using a combination of DiskSalv and DiskmonTools, I have this evening rescued a file which ended in that sector! The checksum error was caused by corruption after the EOF. This will allow me to remove the corruption and restore the disk image! This is a technique which might work on some of the other disks with a bit of luck!

Following a series of distractions, I finally got around to fixing this disk image.

178 down, 13 to go...

I plan to spend a lot more time on this now in an effort to get the last few disks to give up their data.

I have had no luck at all with the two high density floppies, so I'm looking for volunteers who have better experience of reading HD disks formatted to 880K to try these in their machines for me.

One or two members have mentioned in the forums that they have had no trouble reading such disks, so please let me know if you would like to help.

[Antti]

Originally Posted by prowler

One or two members have mentioned in the forums that they have had no trouble reading such disks, so please let me know if you would like to help.

I guess I could give them a try if needed

[prowler]

Thanks for your offer, Antti!

While not wishing to refuse any offer of help, I will wait to see if there is interest from a UK member first, as there is a possibility that the disks may suffer x-ray damage if I send them abroad.

A couple of disks I received from bLAZER in Sweden I could not read properly when they arrived, and that may have been caused by x-rays.

I'll certainly bear you in mind, though.

[prowler]

I've been making steady progress on this today. Using a combination of DiskMonTools, TrackEd and DiskSalv, I've got another three disks almost to the point where they are 100% recovered.

[prowler]

Continuing with this today, I have brought another disk almost to the point of full recovery. It will be necessary to switch to emulation to complete these four disks, as I have now transferred all the disk images relating to this project over to my PC to take advantage of its better binary file manipulation tools.

The other disks will be more difficult to recover, as the bad blocks appear to contain completely different data each time they are read! The only way to recover these is probably to search for data matching the adjacent blocks on one or more of the other disks, and this is another reason why I have already transferred the images to my PC.

[prowler]

One more disk image in the bag this evening!

179 down, 12 to go...

And, in the meantime, I've had another idea for reading those 880K HD floppies!

[Peter]

Don't know if maybe I missed a post but was there ever any sign of that "Enigma" game Prowler?

[prowler]

I haven't looked for it, TBH. I'll do a quick command-line search of all the disk images when I resume work on this tomorrow evening and let you know then.

[prowler]

Fixed another disk image today!

180 down, 11 to go...

@Peter: Sad to say, but there is no build of the Enigma game on these disks. The only reference to it is the string "Phemomina [sic] music on enigma demo" on two of the disks which contain AlienBash code.

[seuden]

I admire your persistence prowler.

[prowler]

These disks contain the only remaining copies of some of this code, so it is worth using all techniques at my disposal to rescue it from oblivion.

I realize that it might appear futile to continue with this in the face of diminishing returns, but the alarming fact is that the difficult disks remaining actually contain some very important stuff!

Edit: Sadly, I don't think it will be possible to save everything, but I'll have a damned good try!

[seuden]

Originally Posted by prowler

These disks contain the only remaining copies of some of this code, so it is worth using all techniques at my disposal to rescue it from oblivion.

I realize that it might appear futile to continue with this in the face of diminishing returns, but the alarming fact is that the difficult disks remaining actually contain some very important stuff!

Edit: Sadly, I don't think it will be possible to save everything, but I'll have a damned good try!

I'm here for some morale support prowler, you keep it up. Believe it or not, I'd do the same.

[Peter]

Quote - @Peter: Sad to say, but there is no build of the Enigma game on these disks. The only reference to it is the string "Phemomina [sic] music on enigma demo" on two of the disks which contain AlienBash code.

Thanks for checking Prowler!

Keep going mate - your nearly there! - It's like we said earlier today - this sort of thing does offer some therapeutic distraction!!

[PaulyQ]

Fantastic read this thread, keep on keeping on!!