Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-05
10:19:44
|  Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
A year or two ago, I tried to make a turboload version of Commando using YAPE and a Turbo program (called Novaload 12). It didn't work though, so I never did play Commando. I know you can use emulators, but I want to use the original hardware, so can anyone recommend a turboload program that is reliable? In fact has anyone tried turboloading Commando?
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2004-10-06
12:12:20
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Try using Novaload, that is a very relieable (albeit a bit slow) turbo loader. If you save it in full wave MTAP format you can use an X(E)1541 cable along with a C64 to transfer it to a real tape. Novaload among other (mostly half-wave) turbos is downloadable from my site.
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2004-10-06
13:06:06
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Commando +4 doesn't work with Novaload, it doesn't run when it's loaded.
It does work with Turbo 16m though, however it's a halfwave turbo.
An aditional question, are there any other wholewave turboloaders available apart from Novaload?
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Posted By
TLC
on 2004-10-06
14:25:30
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
AFAIK mine... 
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-06
17:29:31
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Thanks for that Ulysses777. I've got an X1541 cable so I can try this out. I take it that halfwave turboloaders take twice as long to load as wholewave ones?
Of course, I'll need to try TLC's turboload too. It might just be a problem with Novaload I'm having.
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2004-10-06
17:36:04
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Halfwave does not take twice as long as wholewave. The name only indicates that in the TAP file one byte represents a full squarewave pulse or just one half phase of it. That is a wholewave and a halfwave - ceteris paribus - take exactly equal time to load but a wholewave is only half the size of the halfwave (as one pulse takes 2 bytes to be stored instead of one). Actually, the native C= plus/4 format should be the halfwave as that is what the hardware actually able to do... but for historical reasons we do have wholewaves as that can cope with C64 tools better.
Anyway, you can as well search the forum, there had been quite some discussions about tape/TAP formats in the past, Lando has written a few nice essays for example, too
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-07
02:57:17
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
I'll need to look into the TAP files regarding Commodore a bit more. I just thought that halfwave was longer because C16 tapes take so long to load compared to Commodore 64 ones. When you consider that it's 12K, you wonder why the original version of Commando takes more than 7 minutes to load.
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2004-10-07
08:13:36
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
The original C16 Commando takes so long to load because, like almost all of Elite's C16 games, it uses the kernal loader instead of a turboloader. If the average C64 game used the C64 kernal loader, it would take about half an hour to load, which is why turboloaders are used much more on the C64.
Because most C16/Plus4 games use 12K, I guess some publishers decided that turboloaders wern't a priority.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-13
11:36:24
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
I've just realised that turbo16m isn't available as a download here. So Ulysses777, how do you know it works with Commando? Where did you get it from?
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2004-10-13
13:56:15
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
You can get Turbo16m from here, but I've now tested it with TLC's MegaCopy V1.1 and it works on that too.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-15
17:36:53
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Yep, I tried Commando with Turbo16m and it works on yape when I play the tap file back. Whether this tap file will load on a plus 4 when converted to a loading sound via the ptap application is another story, but it'll be interesting to find out.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-17
05:07:05
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Well, I tried Markus Brenner's ptap program with the TAP files I made using the Turbo16m application, and it didn't work. It's the same message everytime - "Ptap does not yet recognise this form of TAP file - sorry!" or something along those lines. In other words, the TAP files you use with YAPE aren't recognised by Ptap. And that's a shame, because you still can't make your own tap files and play them back yet. I know there is the wav file option, but that is much trickier, and less likely to load.
So that's something else on my emulation wish list - a version of YAPE that can create TAP files compatible with ptap. To play the souped up plus4 Commando on the original hardware would be great. If only...
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2004-10-17
08:26:26
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
The reason that it doesn't work is because Turbo16m uses a halfwave turbo. And at present, halfwave TAP's arn't supported by Ptap.
However, you can use Megacopy V1.1, which is a wholewave turbo, and works with Commando +4.
Just remember to tick the 'Record wholewave TAP' box in the Create TAP window in Yape, and you should produce a TAP which works with Ptap
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-17
09:52:31
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
It's all coming back to me now. I should have remembered that one. A year or two ago I was trying this, but at the time I remember it being said that YAPE TAP files were incompatible with ptap. Now I think I remember the author saying he had fixed that particular "bug" but I haven't tried it yet. It might still not work because of this, unless someone out there has used ptap and YAPE created TAPs. I'll soon know one way or the other when I try it myself.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-17
10:00:05
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
I've just looked at the instructions on this site, but it doesn't make clear what button you press to initialise the turbo. And do you write SAVE "gamename" to save it, or do you need to do what you do with Novaload which is write S"gamename",7,1001,3fff (or whatever)?
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Posted By
TLC
on 2004-10-17
11:26:59
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Spector:
1.) Load the turbo
2.) Load the program to be copied
(2.5) -- Emulator-related note... Don't forget to detach tap files, create new tap (remember unchecking the halfwave tap checkbox), etc...
3.) Press F7 (will clear all autostart settings; remember, the copy was autostarted when it loaded... =) Saving Commando with keeping MegaCopy's own autostart address would probably not be what you wanted)
4.) Press HELP. As you see, the first command of the KEY sequence is a SYS; _this_ is what activates the turbo routine. After that, you can save the stuff as you prefer -- just remember using 7 as devicenumber. (Basic will know the real start- and end addresses of the loaded file at this point, so I'd probably prefer ' save"whatever",7 ' in plain old Basic... =) )
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-18
10:35:39
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work at all. The same thing happens every time - the tap file appears to be loading, but at the end, it just says BREAK and some machine code letters and numbers. Every time it's the same thing.
This is what I did:
I loaded up Megacopy turboload
I load up commando.prg
I create a tap file called "commturb.tap" and check the wholewave tap box
I press F7- an autostart dialog box appears. I then press cancel to get rid of it.
I press F4, which brings up the SYS prompt.
It says on the screen - sA"
I delete the sA" and write save"commturb",7
It then says press play and record on tape, so I select record in the YAPE options, and it starts recording.
At about 200K it stops. I detach the TAP.
I make a hard reset of the plus4 and try to load it in again. It fails at the end of the tape by saying "BREAK" and underneath some machine code registers are printed.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Anything obvious in my description?
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2004-10-18
11:48:00
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Hmm... TLC has made a small typo in his description: you should actually tick 'Record wholewave TAP' in the 'Create TAP' dialog window (and not the other way around). Following the rest of the instructions I could indeed make a working wholewave TAP of Commando +4 with Yape 0.59. If you're still stuck I can send mine to you.
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Posted By
TLC
on 2004-10-18
12:00:25
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Whops... I think I've found the "problem": you probably pressed F7 in the emulator, resulting in a file-window in Yape ...whilst I was referring to F7 in the _Plus/4's point of view_, which is, in this case, Shift+HELP, thus, Shift+F4 in Yape =)))).
sA is actually a shortcut for the 'save' command in Basic... I actually had pretty few memory, thus I had to use shortcuts in the KEY sequences (sA for save, sY for sys, etc...).
Hope this helps...
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-19
09:15:36
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
You were right TLC - I was mistakenly pressing F7 on the keyboard rather than F4 and shift. I tried it and I made a TAP file that loaded into YAPE. I tried the file on ptap, it played the file back and I loaded this into my plus4. It worked first time! This means that I can play any game on this website on my plus4, not just the TAP files. Not only that, they load in so quickly it's unreall! This is a joyous day. Finally the plus4 archive is mine to pick and choose from!
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Posted By
TLC
on 2004-10-19
13:50:11
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
Nice to hear that!
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Posted By
Spector
on 2004-10-20
08:34:40
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
One more thing - is there a similar turboloader that works with the Commodore 64?
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Posted By
TLC
on 2004-10-21
09:44:39
| Re: Turboloaders that work with Commando Plus4
AFAIK there are utils for this task (C64 prg files (binary) to TAP in some C64 turbo format, in one step). See http://wav-prg.sourceforge.net/alternatives.html, for example... As most popular C64 turbos were saved separately, you'll probably also need to copy a C64 turbo to a tape first. (The typical C64 turbo worked like "load turbo, run, change cassette, load turbosaved recording, etc... ", though, there were exceptions that worked like usual Plus/4 turbos (where the recording starts with a standard header, containing both the filename and the turbo loader stub)).
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