[Coco] Re: Re: Anyone have "In Quest of the Star Lord"?

[John Riddle]

On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 08:23:52 -0400
  "Charlie" <chazbeenhad at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Only disk 1 of Those Darn Marbles is copy protected. The 
>problem I had was
>when the game loads you get a nice intro screen. The 
>graphics on this screen
>were garbled. Otherwise the game ran fine. Using a 
>Spit-n-image copy of disk
>1 the intro graphics look how they should. So however 
>spit-n-image reads the
>disk or maybe error corrects or something, it fixed my 
>copy of the game.

Disk 1 of Those Darn Marbles has at least one extra track 
beyond track 34 with data on it.  I think it was part of 
the intro graphic screen.  Spit-N-Image automatically 
checks track 35- to see if there's anything on them.  

>Spit-N-image has only been able to copy a few copy 
>protected games for me.
>Barbarian Quest, Overlord, and Darn Marbles are about it 
>actualy.....

You should be able to copy White Fire of Eternity with it, 
as well as the other Sundog games using the older 
protection scheme.  IIRC the older scheme just had a 
couple of sectors on track 16 with different numbers, the 
newer one has a track with no sectors on track 0.

>I don't know how to make dsk or other images of copy 
>protected game to get
>them to run in MESS, so this is on my real coco.
>
>Also, while on the subject, Anadisk on the PC made me a 
>good copy of Sundogs
>White Fire of Eternity.
>
>I always throw this out there hoping someone will hook me 
>up with a method
>to copy, or cracked versions of:
>
>Sundog: Sinistaar disk 1 side 1, Warrior King side 1 and 
>2, Quest for Thelda
>disk 1 side 1, Contras disk1 side1.

Coco 3 sundog games with the exception of the ones that 
Glen Dalhgren wrote himself are easy to get up any running 
on a backup copy that does not include the wacky track 0. 
 All you need to do is patch the routine that checks track 
0 - all it does is do a READ TRACK on it and check through 
the image for a few bytes.  

I wrote a simply program a while back to help out people 
wanting to back them up.  Here it is.  Let me know if you 
have any problems.  

I want to eventually find a way to back up track 0 without 
having to use a cat weasel or Copy II PC option board, but 
I'm not sure if the coco's floppy controller can write 
this track.  Glen might have used a PC to write track 0 on 
these disks.  Someone else might know more.  

1 'SUNFIX V1.0 - UTILITY TO PATCH BACKUPS OF SOME SUNDOG 
GAMES TO MAKE THEM FUNCTIONAL
2 'BY JOHN RIDDLE MAY 22, 1997
3 'FIRST BACKUP SUNDOG DISK EXCLUDING TRACK 0
4 'THEN RUN THIS PATCH ON THE BACKUP
5 'METHODS: #1,2,3 & 4 - JSR KILL, #5 - EXEC ADDRESS 
CHANGE
10 F=0:CLS:WIDTH32
20 PRINT at 9,"SUNCRACK V1.0"
30 PRINT:PRINT"INSERT APPROPRIATE GAME DISK    AND SELECT 
WHICH GAME TO PATCH"
40 PRINT:PRINT"1) SINISTAR","2) THE CONTRAS"
50 PRINT:PRINT"3) PHOTON","4) QUEST/THELDA"
60 PRINT:PRINT"5) PALADIN'S LEGACY"
70 
A$=INKEY$:IFA$=""THEN70ELSEIFA$="1"THEN100ELSEIFA$="2"THEN200ELSEIFA$="3"THEN300ELSEIFA$="4"THEN400ELSEIFA$="5"THEN500ELSE70
100 T=30:S=12:O=&H76:GOSUB1000:GOTO2000
200 T=3:S=11:O=&H4B:GOSUB1000:GOTO2000
300 T=34:S=6:O=&H84:GOSUB1000:GOTO2000
400 T=2:S=15:O=&H7E:GOSUB1000:GOTO2000
500 T=1:S=5:O=&HC8:F=1:GOSUB1000:GOTO2000
1000 A=PEEK(&HC006)*256+PEEK(&HC007)
1010 POKE 
A,2:POKEA+1,0:POKEA+2,T:POKEA+3,S:POKEA+4,4:POKEA+5,0:EXEC55135
1020 IF F=0 THEN POKE 1024+O,&H12:POKE 1024+O+1,&H12:POKE 
1024+O+2,&H12
1025 IF F=1 THEN POKE 1024+O,&H32:POKE 1024+O+1,&H51
1030 POKE 
A,3:POKEA+1,0:POKEA+2,T:POKEA+3,S:POKEA+4,4:POKEA+5,0:EXEC55135
2000 PRINT"THE GAME IS NOW PATCHED."
2010 PRINT"AND READY TO RUN OFF YOUR BACKUP."


>Diecom: Marble  Madness.
>Misc: Martys Nightmare.
>
>It will be a sad day for me, should any of these game 
>disks stop working for
>me.

The ones Glen wrote himself, he embedded game data in 
track 0, so you can't just "ignore" it.  

Take care,
John