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Something for the weekend ?
http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=75		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  JonW [ Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Something for the weekend ?
As promised, I have just about done with the ARM BASIC version of the interpreter and you can download a disc image here.

As the program is written in ARM BASIC, you need to use the ARM Co-Pro option in BeebEm to use it.

The image is a bootable DFS double sided image with Zork1 and THHGTTG on there.

To select which game to play, you will need to manually edit line 50 of the program and change accordingly.

It is still a bit slow in places but just about playable.

There may still be a few bugs in there so let me know if it crashes.

I'll start with the 6502 conversion soon.

Enjoy !

Jon.
Author:  Samwise [ Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Something for the weekend ?
Woooh!

How have you managed this in less than a week?!?! :lol:

OK, I can run both Zork and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Haven't spent a lot of time on Zork, but I've just played through the first part of HHGTTG. I got 25/400 points, and it seems to be working perfectly!

Then I got a bit greedy. :) I tried Stationfall which is one of the largest v3 Infocom games. That produced an exception. Then, I remembered you said you *might* limit it to v3 machines later, but that it should actually support later versions atm. Most of the IF Archive Inform games are released as version 5 z-machines, so I copied across three v5 games - each bigger than the last, until I eventually tried Last Days of Doom, which I was surprised to discover fit on a disk! All of them crashed out too - exceptions included below.

Finally, I tried to run CZECH: Comprehensive Z-machine Emulation CHecker 0.8 against it to see how many tests it would pass. Unfortunately, that crashed out with:

Code:
ERR_CALL_NON_RTN at PC = 7E2


Soo ... should any v5 games work? Is it the size of the files I've tried that's the likely culprit? Or is it just that we'll have to beta-test each game individually?

Feedback so far ... it looks frickin' cool!

Apart from listing potential new features, which I won't do here - the only things I can think of to comment on this demo:

1) Speed is obviously a bit of an issue. Though it's definitely playable and certainly no slower than some beeb adventures - e.g. Melbourne House ones.

2) The text splits at the end of the line, instead of at the end of a word. I think you've already mentioned this, tho.

Other than that and the compatibility with other games - it's looking *really* cool!!! 8-)

Sam.

Stationfall [stationf.z3]
Code:
Please wait ...
Address exception at 00074A8
Register dump (stored at &E40) is:
R0  = 5E5E5E5E R1  = 5E5E5E5E R2  = 0000DA21 R3  = 0000006E
R4  = 0000DA23 R5  = 5E5E5E5E R6  = 0000006E R7  = 0000CB97
R8  = 0000C300 R9  = 00000005 R10 = 00000065 R11 = 0000DA26
R12 = 0000DA21 R13 = 003FAFB0 R14 = 200090B0 R15 = 000074A8
Mode USR flags set: nzcvif

Finished after 14.85 sec.
<symbol> *



Adventure [Advent.z5]
Code:
Please wait ...
Address exception at 800074A8
Register dump (stored at &E40) is:
R0  = 8603512F R1  = 8603512F R2  = 0000DA20 R3  = 0000006E
R4  = 0000DA22 R5  = 780E5019 R6  = 0000006E R7  = 0000CB96
R8  = 0000C300 R9  = 00000005 R10 = 00000065 R11 = 0000DA25
R12 = 0000DA20 R13 = 003FAFB0 R14 = 200090B0 R15 = 000074A8
Mode USR flags set: Nzcvif

Finished after 13.62 sec.
<symbol> *



ZDungeon [zdungeon.z5]
Code:
Please wait ...
Address exception at 00074A8
Register dump (stored at &E40) is:
R0  = B40C3863 R1  = B40C3863 R2  = 0000DA21 R3  = 0000006E
R4  = 0000DA23 R5  = 1D3823EA R6  = 0000006E R7  = 0000CB97
R8  = 0000C300 R9  = 00000005 R10 = 00000065 R11 = 0000DA26
R12 = 0000DA21 R13 = 003FAFB0 R14 = 200090B0 R15 = 000074A8
Mode USR flags set: Nzcvif

Finished after 17.68 sec.
<symbol> *



Last Days of Doom [LDoDoom.z5]
Code:
Please wait ...
Address exception at 00074A8
Register dump (stored at &E40) is:
R0  = 0E5C6A2B R1  = 0E5C6A2B R2  = 0000DA21 R3  = 0000006E
R4  = 0000DA23 R5  = 6415600E R6  = 0000006E R7  = 0000CB97
R8  = 0000C300 R9  = 00000005 R10 = 00000065 R11 = 0000DA26
R12 = 0000DA21 R13 = 003FAFB0 R14 = 200090B0 R15 = 000074A8
Mode USR flags set: nzcvif

Finished after 2 min, 12.31 sec.
<symbol> *
Author:  JonW [ Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Something for the weekend ?
Thanks for the comprehensive testing and reports.

At the moment, I am only supporting version 3 so I didn't expect version 5 game files to work.

There is no reason why I can't add support upto version 8 but I guess I was a little lazy and didn't bother to code the bits which said IF VERSION <= 3 DO THIS ELSE DO THE OTHER. I'll take a look and see if I can add more compatibility with later versions.

I'll also take a look at the other points you raised and get back when I have something to report.

Do you have a download link for Station Fall ?

You didn't mention the status bar - like it ?

Jon.
Author:  TomW [ Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Something for the weekend ?
Just to let you know, this seems to work fine on B-em as well.
Author:  Samwise [ Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Something for the weekend ?
Absolutely. It's the least I can do! :)

Well, v3 file support alone is fine, if that's all the beeb can handle. It just means that the majority of the games available from the IF Archive won't work. Those that include source code could be recompiled to v3, but many of them are just the .z5 files so they would probably remain unplayable. If it's possible to run those v5 games, great. If not, no worries. Keep me up to date on which ones you expect to work, tho, and that'll save me trying out ones which definitely won't work. (Support for v6 - v8 is probably unnecessary).

I didn't mention the status bar ... mainly because it's perfect. :)

It looks just like the original.

Sam.
Author:  TimM [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 6:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Something for the weekend ?
I've only got BeebEm 3.3 - i don't think this has Arm co-pro support does it?
Author:  Samwise [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 6:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Something for the weekend ?
Depends. What platform are you running it on? Mac BeebEm got support in version 3.2, whilst Jon contributed the ARM second processor support to the Windows version in version 3.7. BeebEm for UNIX doesn't support the ARM second processor at all (yet).

If you're on Windows, can't you just upgrade your copy of BeebEm?

Sam.
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