 Previous Messages |
Posted By
MIK
on 2002-12-14
 |  yeah win98 rulez
Time to format my HD (not). grrrrrrr.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2002-12-14
| I'm using Win 98
I don't know why it works for me and not for you, it's just another of the mysteries of the PC.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-12-13
| Nice one.
odd why ur yape can make taps, what version of win are you using?
Novaload is around 4 time quicker at a guess, most like Bigmac didn't take long to load, say 30 on the number counter. Anything that didn't have a turbo 16k would take over 100 on the number counter.
And the world record is ACE +4 (side B - no turbo) which takes 1/2 hour to load 64k!
I've never messed with turbos, something I need to look into. Attila might be able to point you in the right direction.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2002-12-12
| attempt at prg to TAP
I've tried it, and astonishingly, it bloody well works! I can do it! And with YAPE 0.41 as well. Ta for that Lando.
I never realised just how long these loading times were - 6 or 7 minutes. How would NOVALOAD affect that, anyone?
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Posted By
Spector
on 2002-12-10
| Once again, thanks
That is excellent and comprehensive help, Lando. I'll be trying that out soon. If you have read the email concerning my X1531 problems then you will see that my C16 project isn't going smoothly, but I'm confident that it will work out all right in time for Christmas and I can play all those games the way I did back in Christmas 1984. You and Csabo are doing a very good job keeping this often overlooked machine alive with this site. You are making a difference by helping people like myself rediscover it all over again, so well done.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-12-09
| Saving ML PRG's to TAP
You said about Commando.prg which is one cool game that only works on a 64k machine  Try to get hold of a Plus4 if you can. Also as you have a C16, before making any TAP's from PRG's run Yape in C16 mode (16k). This way if the game does write beyond $3FFF you will get a CPU jam with yape and not waste time creating tapes and finding out it won't work once on your C16. Some original games on tape also loaded into screen memory, these would of been like the multi loading NovaLoad games (robin to the resuce is like this). So the cracker would of had to move this slice of code normally below $3FFF and later return it back to it normal memory location and because of this reason the cracked version of Paper Boy C16 will not run on a C16 now
So you know how 2, I'll run through the saving of Commando_16.prg
Fire up Yape and as above create a TAP.
From the top menu select "File" and "LOAD PRG" Commando_16.prg (do not run the game!)
From the top menu select "Save as PRG". When the lister opens up look at the very bottom of this window and you will see "from address $ 1001 to $ 3B10". This is a simple guide that tells you where a PRG is held in memory, this game its between $1001 to $3B10. Make a note of the two adresses. And now click on "Cancel".
From the BASIC screen type MONITOR and press RETRUN. As you may know this is the built-in machine code monitor. From here we will save the game but telling the C16 what memory location to save from and too. To do this we use the "S" command which mean save and it goes like this, type:
S"COMMANDO",1,1001,3B10
The ",1" means it will save to tape, if this was ",8" then it would save to disk and as you can see, the two memory loacations you made a note of.
It will now say "PRESS PLAY & RECORD ON TAPE", go upto the "TAPE" menu and select "Record". And thats it.
To load this game in from basic use the following:
LOAD"",1,1
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Posted By
Spector
on 2002-12-08
| thanks again...
the help is much appreciated Lando - the reason why I'm asking all these questions is that I've just got a C16 off of Ebay and am waiting for the X1531 cable to come through in the next few days. I can see how your method would work with a listing I would type in myself, but how would it work with a machine code game, for example, a"commando.prg" file? There would not be any way to type in save "commando" after the game has loaded. I know the answer is probably obvious, but I'm still inexperienced here. If I understood that, and I got it to work, then the champagne would flow marvellously.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-12-08
| Making tapes with yape
Sorry for the delay in my reply. I've been pulling my hair out trying to make a tap with Yape 0.41 running on XP home. There must be a bug or my system won't do it ???? This is odd, everything done in the right order works, Yape even does and runs through the save prosses but it doesnt recored/save to the tap file its self ?
Anyways........
I booted up my old PC running win98 and fired up one of my older verions of Yape 0.36 (picked at random) and recording tap's works!
Here what you would do:
Go to the "TAPE" menu at the top and click on "Create TAP". Enter any file name you like. For now wirte something simple in basic (saves on waiting time).
10 PRINT"PLUS4"
20 GOTO 10
Now as you would on Plus4 type SAVE"FILE NAME" and hit return.
When it says "PRESS PLAY AND RECORD ON TAPE" go back up to the "TAPE" menu and select "Record" and that it.
If you goto the "Screen" menu and select "Quickdebugger" you have an on screen tape counter so you can see its working.
I hope TAP recording works for you, if not I can upload an older version of Yape that does (although i have not tested it on XP because its on the other machine).
Fingers crossed.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2002-12-07
| That clears it up
So it was a misprint! That's the misunderstanding solved. As for using NOVALOAD, I admit to being a rookie with this sort of program. I've loaded the TAP file up on YAPE, and after a load of garbled stuff comes up on screen it says "press play and record on tape." and "ready" underneath as usual. How would I go from this position to saving a PRG into TAP format? I can hear all the readers groaning at this question, but you've got to start somewhere.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-12-07
| .
Paper Boy was added to this new verion of the site when Csabo was working like crazy behind closed doors to get the basics up and running. Everything I had done he had to redo by hand sorry about that mistake.
If you look on the Yape homepage under Archives you will find a number of Turbo Loaders for saving files to tape. NOVALOAD is there  Sure by all means add turbos but in general keep these files away from original tap's found online as a rule. Cheers.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2002-12-07
| That's good news
It's good to hear that the TAP file on this site is the 16K one, but it's easy to be misled - underneath the file it says "1986 English 64K". Other files say "16K", so it does give the impression of being plus4. This number is not a reference to the unzipped file size. I asked on a previous topic if that number at the end signified whether it was a plus4 or a C16 game, and I was told "yes", so that's why I'm confused. The thing that really surprises me is that you can make TAP files from .prg files using YAPE. I'm definitely going to be trying this - I never thought that was possible.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-12-06
| Spector..
The Paper Boy Tap uses a 1/2 wav turbo loader, this is also why the unzipped file is say twice the size of Bigmac unzipped becaue that uses a standard turbo.
I have never tried recording any of my TAPs back onto tap and I don't really know if 1/2 wav turbo games can put back onto tape because of the nature in the way they have been recorded.
Also, trying to recorded 1/2 wav turbo games can be a nitemare, some where mtap has a bug in the so called 1/2 wav side of recording, its to do with the pause timings (blank spaces i think). I lost my Terra Nova tape to the 1531, tried and tried until it chewed up I even lost a copy of Winter Events in the same way, but luckly I had 3.
There seems to be problems with some games using 1/2 wav and if its a multi loader, like Terra Nova, International Karate and so on.
You can also save PRGs into TAP format from yape which may help in getting paper boy onto your Plus4.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2002-12-06
| Not quite
You misunderstood something here. The TAP file on this site IS the original C=16, 16K version. If you load it up, the loading screen does state this, and after loading you can check the memory; it stops at $3FFF (which is the 'end' of the RAM on a C=16). (It would be kind of pointless to make a TAP file of the modified, 64K version.)
The file itself is 89K zipped (325K unzipped), which of course is bigger than 64K. But this file is for the PC, and an emulator loads ~16K tape data out of it.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2002-12-06
| The problem is...
The problem is that the TAP file on this site is 64K. There is no 16K version of the TAP file, and that's the only format I can use to load games in with the ptap utility and X1531 cable. I know the other version exists, it's just not on this site.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-12-06
| .
Paper Boy.tap (tape) is the original version as released by Elite.
Paper Boy.prg is a crack of the original tape version.
Paper Boy_+.prg will not run on a 16k machine (because of the added picture and cruncher used). As Csabo said it is a crack of the original tape version.
If we were to do things correct only the TAP version would be available, but as in many cases the cracks have helped in a big way and took emultion to the point were we could use the originals. With out them we would'nt be here today 
It can be hard to draw the line in what to do. Paper Boy_+.prg is unique in its own way because it does indeed show us how many games where cut by the b*ll*x being limited to 16k and many of us had 60k to play with back then. And un-like most C64 cracks no one has tried to clam the fame for doing what they did to some one elses work.
It's a shame many of the games did'nt have neat loading screens because 16k did'nt take long to load did it... But I guess where the C64 could play some cool loading music the effort for adding a loading screen was justified (maybe).
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2002-12-05
| --> Spector
If I understand things correctly, there are two versions of the game. The original (which does exist and should be playable the way you described) and a modified one, which only differs in having an opening screen, but the game is otherwise the same. Right? If so, I don't see what the problem is... We have to live with the fact that there are tons of software that have different versions. Back in the day it was normal for people to hack other people's stuff and release it (e.g. Terrorists). Or another program that pops to mind: "Elvarazsolt Kastely". I've seen at least four cracks of this game (including one that I suspect only I have because it was done by a close friend of mine), but all of them are *missing* the nice loading screen that the original game's tape version had. This was a Plus/4 game though.
So anyway, if you want to play this with the X1531, use the original version.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2002-12-05
| What a pity
That's a shame, because if whoever it was that did that had left it alone, it would mean that people could play the game on their C16 using ptap and the X1531 cable, but now that smart-ass has made that impossible.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-12-05
| Attila..
Ok, let me reword that.
The original work of art written by Jörg Dierks was spoiled by some one tampering with it 
Truth is this shows you how easy it may of been to add a simple loading screen back in the golden days.....
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2002-12-05
| Points
That nifty picture was converted from C=64 (as most of the time was the case) I guess (have not checked )
James: as most of the 16 KB games, Paperboy also uses multicolor character mode. This way you can spare a lot of memory (2 kb of character memory compared to 12 kb graphic memory). If you use the screen in a split mode that can vary of course. There are just a handful of 16 KB programs with real bitmap graphics. To name a few: Arena 3000, Pottit.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2002-12-05
| Paper Boy_+.prg
If this is the game your thinking of then its the same with just a fancy picture added
by some crackster
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2002-12-04
| Paperboy +4
will be more graphic intensive. While not as great as the original Atari version it is close. I had problems controlling my Paperboy with a joystick though. I would expect the C16 version to be less graphic intensive due to the graphic screen being taken out of the 12k available program memory, leaving only 2k for game code.
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Posted By
Spector
on 2002-12-04
| Paperboy C16
What's the difference between the two versions, the C16 one and the 64K one on this site for the plus 4?
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