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Posted By

Hans
on 2013-01-04
13:46:43
 Bard's Tale

Raised this question months ago when the Arok attenders assembled themselves. No answer yet.....
So I'd like to ask again: is there any progress in making Bard's Tale suitable for the CBM 264?

Reg's,
Hans.

Posted By

Csabo
on 2013-01-04
14:54:54
 Re: Bard's Tale

Fair question! Let me try to write up all the known facts and the lay out where we stand.

- We're talking about Bard's Tale and Bard's Tale II. The 3rd one works.
- Those two games don't load past the beginning. The games ask for the Character Disk but they refuse to accept them.

Why don't they work? Possibilities:
a) It's a problem with emulation. I think this one can be eliminated because people have tried those disk images on the real iron and the same thing happened (please confirm).
b) The disk images we have are broken copies. This is likely.
c) The game never correctly worked. This is unlikely, but until someone can confirm playing them back in the day (anyone has a contact with Csory?), I wouldn't eliminate it.

So, assuming we have broken disk images, how can it be fixed?
1) Someone turns up a good copy and gives it to us. This would be nice.
2) If it's only the character disk, maybe it would work with the character disk from the C64 version. Worth a try.
3) Someone sits down and debugs the game. Once they know what the exact cause is, they will be able to tell us if it can be fixed, and what kind of effort it would require.

All we need is someone with the knowledge, free time and will to do 3). Realistically, the hopes of it happening are not high, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Did I miss anything?

Posted By

Gaia
on 2013-01-04
15:08:15
 Re: Bard's Tale

Fair summary, Csabo happy I recall we discussed this very thing almost exactly 10 years ago around May 2003? I think I did try the character disk of the C64 version but it did not work (I wouldn't swear though). Someone mentioned once that Csory applied weird copy protection schemes (?) that the D64 format could not handle (Luca can you confirm?) and that could be a cause for the failure. If memory serves the D64 images do have more than the usual 35 tracks dumped with additional sector error info which implies either 1) faulty image 2) copy protection.

Posted By

Csabo
on 2013-01-04
15:23:33
 Re: Bard's Tale

Yeah, we did talk about this before... apparently happy
forum/19833

I guess siz never found his copy. So the current best guess is copy protection issue, which could possibly be worked around. I think I'm good with debugging/reverse engineering games, but I suck when it comes to I/O (never really learned or looked into it). I'd love to see these games work as well, BTW.

Off topic: I just also saw Hans' note in the Arok 2012 topic (which seems to have been completely overlooked by everyone). You didn't come to the party, did you?

Posted By

Gaia
on 2013-01-04
15:33:23
 Re: Bard's Tale

Well spotted that Csabo! Totally forgot about it.I guess siz should visit Luca that is our only hope happy Seriously, I think Luca shouldn't have removed the error code information from the files. These copy protections (the simpler ones anyway) usually read a certain sector which is intentionally "bad" and expect an error or a bit pattern that is specific to a certain type of sector error.

Here's a lowdown on the various sector error types (scroll way down until 2/3rd of the document):
http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/formats/D64.TXT

Posted By

siz
on 2013-01-04
15:52:30
 Re: Bard's Tale

I've just checked my copy of Bard's Tale II: it's in plain D64 format (created by me with NilbTools using a ZoomFloppy and a parallel 1541-II).
It does accept my character disk and I was able to start a game. happy

About Bard's Tale 1: I did not found my copy. It should have been on the adjacent disk beside Bard's Tale II's disk but it was not there. Since then I looked through my disks several times but no signs of that game.
(Sadly I've deleted my IWIW.hu registration some weeks ago just to realize some days later that I had Csory in my contacts there)

update: I've looked at the Bard's Tale II zip: the disk images named bt2[a-d].d64 are the ones I've created.

Posted By

Csabo
on 2013-01-04
16:10:55
 Re: Bard's Tale

Oh cool, and you're right, BTII runs just fine now. One down, one to go!

Posted By

Hans
on 2013-01-06
10:35:36
 Re: Bard's Tale

If I understood the current state of BT correctly, we're here:

Part 1 (Tales Of The Unknown) = software available but still not working
Part 2 (The Destiny Knight) = working
Part 3 (The Thief Of Fate) = working
Dragon Wars (unofficial Part 4) = missing software.

To the best of my knowledge. BT and Dragon Wars were never released for the CBM 264 series officially.

So I assume the Plus/4 files were converted from the official C64 disks?

I'm not very experienced in converting, let alone in ML, but there certainly are members here who have been successful in conversion from the C64/128 platform to our system.

Who within our community does know more about this issue?

Posted By

Luca
on 2013-01-06
11:13:25
 Re: Bard's Tale

Hans converting (mostly) C64 games to Plus/4 is a distinctive one along the Plus/4 scene history, and sceners like Pigmy, Csory, TGMS had been real pillars of games' conversions. Even several demoparts have been straight converted (see some demos by Callisto or FYC).

Any info written here is correct, I can only add the copy tools specifically used by Csory in order to copy the disks of Bard's Tale I and II: Bard's Tale I Copy, Bard's Tale II Copy.

Posted By

Trypticon
on 2013-01-08
23:08:02
 Re: Bard's Tale

I think Centauri Alliance
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Centauri_Alliance
isort of fits into this as well - it was designed by the original developer with the obvious difference of a space theme. But, it's also supposed to allow import of BT characters (and even from other series - Ultima and Might & Magic) in the original C64 version.

Posted By

Degauss
on 2013-01-09
05:15:12
 Re: Bard's Tale

A bit off-topic maybe: I always wondered why no installment of the ultima series has been ported to +4. From the looks i guess the older parts are some mixture of Basic + ML and no sprites. So there are no "show-stoppers" for a conversion, but somehow nobody did one. Any idea why?

Posted By

Luca
on 2013-01-09
15:55:55
 Re: Bard's Tale

Mh, the same reasons you raised for Ultima could be simmetrically shifted over several strategic games, for example. I have always thought that conversions to Plus/4 were decided 50/50 by feasibility and interest the coder did put into that, probably neither Pigmy or TGMS loved the fantastic Ultima series.
Apropos, I would have suggested the IV chapter happy

Posted By

Pigmy
on 2013-01-09
16:36:43
 Re: Bard's Tale

Hello! Luca is right, I was looking at the Ultima series for a long time, collected the parts, and I cannot remember any reason not to convert them. Or I just do not remember well enough, but I think the only one was that the inspiration just did not come... happy

Posted By

Patrick
on 2013-01-10
08:08:18
 Re: Bard's Tale

wow, pigmy is here!! thanks for all the nice software you made for our machines!

Posted By

Luca
on 2013-01-10
10:13:37
 Re: Bard's Tale

Yes, having Pigmy on this forum is a honour happy

Posted By

Litwr
on 2013-01-10
11:32:41
 Re: Bard's Tale

Ultima is one of the greatest computer game forever. I want to find time to replay parts III and IV. PC versions are without music. I am going to use C64 version... It is a bit odd that this game was unpopular among C+4 users.

Posted By

Pigmy
on 2013-01-11
16:04:53
 Re: Bard's Tale

Patrick: you are welcome happy or what to say this time...? It was a hobby that I loved and it was and it is always good to see that others also loved it. Everyone is happy. happy

Posted By

siz
on 2015-08-15
06:32:08
 Re: Bard's Tale

Resurrecting this old thread: I checked Bard's Tale 1 again to see what can be the problem. It seems that the character disk image is damaged. I went to the official site at http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/1/files/ to download the C64 version and check it's character disk: it's also not accepted.
And I think we have a bigger problem: we don't have the 3rd disk, the Dungeon disk. So repairing the current version seems impossible. But I hope we will find it laying around on some disks.

Posted By

MMS
on 2015-08-15
15:01:42
 Re: Bard's Tale

Well, the Character and the Dungeon disc should contain purely raw data (gfx bitmap and layout, text) in the form Interplay planned to have it, why the guy who made the magic to converte the game should touch it?
(Except if the GFX have specific loading addresses the +4 version do not support. But as I saw the loading, it has it's own loader routine, just takes the raw data of the frames, loads it to the proper place)

So, if there is no such specific content the C64 discs should be OK.
A possible confirmation of this idea: if the properly working Bard's Tale 3 may accept the C64 versions discs, then from the same authors the Bard's Tale 1 should work in the same way.

If the Bard's Tale 3 works in this way, but Bard's Tale 1 and 2 does not, then most probably just the intro was converted, and the rest of the content remained untouched.

Posted By

.mad.
on 2025-01-01
15:53:15
 Re: Bard's Tale

Even though the disk is corrupted.
i have managed to to get the character disk accepted in Bards Tale 1 to show the next menu.

it is checking for the disk name and ID.
CHARACTER         IP 2A

IP means it's the InterPlay version, not EA version of the char disk it's looking for.

*maybe the char editor could be used to create a working player?

Posted By

Luca
on 2025-01-02
05:00:51
 Re: Bard's Tale

@.mad. the disk doesn't work because it's a direct copy of a protected disk. Most probably, Csory applied a disk protection, then he had modified a standard Disc Copy 1551 tool to obtain a Bard's Tale I Copy utility which was the only capable to copy those disks in a clean way.

The best we can do is to receive one day the originals from the author himself.

Months ago, I've contacted Csory via Discord because he first posted some juicy pictures on the Hungarian FB group. In the end, he decided to transfer all his softography on D64 format, and to perform this he asked to @Pigmy for help. I wrote to him again few weeks ago, and he said that they faced some problems with the transfering.

Posted By

.mad.
on 2025-01-02
05:28:36
 Re: Bard's Tale

Thanks for info Luca.
i could get my hands on the original C64 version (G64 / NIB).
...But if Csory has added his own protection, it would be usless. sad

good luck with the hunt!

Posted By

SukkoPera
on 2025-01-02
05:35:29
 Re: Bard's Tale

I'm sure a ZoomFloppy + a 1571 drive or a 1541 with a parallel cable could make a perfect disk image and/or disk copies through nibtools, including any protection mechanisms.

I can help with dumps, I can make them myself or provide the HW (my own ZoomFloppy clone), just ask.

Posted By

Chronos
on 2025-01-02
12:46:07
 Re: Bard's Tale

1., I got a version on disk from Attila Bancsics that he said worked (but then it didn't work on normal iron either), I tried it first with xu1541 to dump, then with a c64, from disk to sd2iec. Neither works, but there is a strange pattern on the disk, then I try to put it in, I get errors when reading it. it doesn't look like a damaged disk, it's more like a copy protection I think.

2., I've tried it earlier that i've generated a "virgin" character disk on the c64 version. It doesn't work with Csory's stuff, maybe the copy protection (and it seems he used other loader than the original) he developed it prevents to load it. I agree with Luca, we need to wait til Csory's backup of the original disk.

Posted By

SukkoPera
on 2025-01-02
15:32:21
 Re: Bard's Tale

Keep in mind that a D64 image made with the XU1541 + d64copy is NOT the same as a G64 image image made with the XUM1541 + a 1571 drive (or a 1541 + parallel cable) + nibtools. The former is basically a sector-by-sector copy and contains the data only, while the latter stores metadata about the disk, including read errors, etc. That's why it can copy any disk and defy most copy protections.

Posted By

ytm
on 2025-01-02
17:56:51
 Re: Bard's Tale

I played with that this evening. It seems a true GCR dump (G64) is the only way.

It was already mentioned that the character disk needs to have disk ID set to 'IP' ($49, $50).

The copy protection seems to be based on introducing errors into sector headers for every odd sector on tracks 3-30 (except directory track 18).

The drivecode has a special path for calculating GCR-encoded sector header in $04E8


. 04CD A5 1A LDA $1A ; track
. 04CF C9 12 CMP #$12 ; directory track?
. 04D1 F0 0E BEQ $04E1
. 04D3 C9 03 CMP #$03 ; track 3?
. 04D5 90 0A BCC $04E1
. 04D7 C9 1E CMP #$1E ; track 30?
. 04D9 B0 06 BCS $04E1
. 04DB A5 1B LDA $1B ; sector
. 04DD 29 01 AND #$01 ; even?
. 04DF D0 07 BNE $04E8
. 04E1 20 BB F3 JSR $F3BB ; ROM routine to encode header ($18/$19/$1A/$1B+checksum in $1C) into GCR
. 04E4 A9 08 LDA #$08
. 04E6 D0 2B BNE $0513
; code between $04E8 and $0513 does almost the same thing as ROM routine from $F3BB


Protection could be disabled by putting two NOPs into $04DF/$04E0 but it looks like the sector data itself right now is not correct as the game won't start anyway with that change.



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