[Coco] "Downland" Mystery on the CoCo3

[Aaron Wolfe]

The best site I know of for info on CoCo games is Curtis Boyle's.

http://nitros9.lcurtisboyle.com/downland.html

Here it is indicated that the Downland rom pak will not work on a CoCo
3.  Sockmaster suggests a (scary) workaround.
There is also a .BIN that can be downloaded which has been patched to
ron off disk and works with CoCo 3.

On another page, in an email from the author of Downland, the author
explains why it won't work on a CoCo 3 (i am assuming he confused Coco
2 and CoCo 3.. but could be wrong):
http://nitros9.lcurtisboyle.com/approvals/michael_aichlmayr_approval.txt
He does say that he sent Tandy a version that would work on CoCo 3 and
even used a new graphics mode, but that Tandy never released it.

Todd Wallace has a pak that works fine in his Coco 3, I have two paks
that do not work in any of my coco 3s (but they both work fine in a
Dragon 64).  Although the part number on Todd's pak exactly matches
the number on mine, I think they must be different.  Perhap supporting
this, Todd found a version 1.0 and a version 1.1 rompak image online.

So apparently, unless someone knows more, Tandy just changed the
contents of the rompak at some point?

-Aaron


On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 4:12 PM, RJLCyberPunk <cyberpunk at prtc.net> wrote:
> Hmm I had that game and never experienced that problem either...
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Todd Wallace" <dragonbytes at cox.net>
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 3:47 PM
> Subject: [Coco] "Downland" Mystery on the CoCo3
>
>
>> Hey All,
>>
>> Was recently chatting with Aaron about the rompak Downland on Freenode.
>> Apparently, most people cannot get the game to run on a CoCo3 without using
>> a MPI or some sort of other code patching.  The mystery is that I have been
>> playing Downland on my CoCo3 ever since I was a kid!  Never modified it or
>> did any such code patching.  It just worked.  From some forums, I read that
>> the problem with Downland on a CoCo3 might be that its copy protection would
>> conflict with the GIME and make the game unplayable. But why does it work
>> fine on my machine?  Aaron suggested when I take apart my CoCo3 soon to do
>> the 512k upgrade, I should take some pictures of the insides and post them
>> here to see if we can figure out why mine plays the cart fine.  Aaron has
>> tried multiple Downland cartridges on multiple CoCo3's all with the same
>> unplayable result.  But before I go photographing everything, can anyone
>> solve this mystery?
>>
>> - Todd
>>
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>
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