 Description | The person who converted the game to Plus/4 is not known. We have scoured the game's code, but there's no tag or name added anywhere. The release of this game isn't announced in any contemporary diskmags. We also haven't found references to it in other products (e.g. sometimes people who converted games would list their other games, like Pigmy did in Revs: "Look out for my other converted programs...").
There is some leftover source code in the game, eventually relocated $8F00, which contains labels like "EXIT" "SETUP" "GMINIT" "NXTPLY", but this is also present in to original C64 version, therefore it cannot be attributed to the person who did the conversion.
The original C64 game is surprisingly small, the entire code is around 16KB, including all the levels. It does not use any sprites, therefore, converting this game was relatively simple.
The Plus/4 version left in many C=64 specific register writes (which are harmless). Most of the TED register conversions are done by manually added routines, placed to $4F00. These are spaced out to even 16 bytes ($4F00, $4F10, $4F20, etc), which points to the author working in the built in MONITOR by hand.
The later, possibly level edited versions (e.g. Boulder Dash 5) are tagged with "ADAPTED BY KOCKA". Kocka means cube in Hungarian, this is likely a nickname. We're unable to discern if the later versions are simply level edits of this conversion, or perhaps Kocka was the person who did the original conversion, and he only later figured out how to add his name. (Due how the 2x1 characters are stored in the game, this is not a trivial task.) Kocka also converted one other game, Soko-ban.
If you have any information about Kocka, or the original converter of this game, please let us know! |
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