Para - Could you clear something up please? I set up the Exile tribute site at exile.acornarcade.com and noticed you claim to have written the Exile cheat in the Micro User. Which program did you write as all are credited to James Bonfield as far as I know and he even said personally that he wrote the editor.

thanks

Andrew

Hi - I forget now what happened exactly but I think my cheat was published on the tape edition of the mag but not in the magazine itself and the two didn't match. Or they just didn't put mine in despite acceptance I did get a cheque for £150 though! I seem also to remember something about them delaying publishing the cheat until Superior's competition was over - I wish I'd kept that correspondence now... I seem to have hoarded everything else!!!

Not to take anything away from James's cheat though - I remember trying it out and it was great!

The cheat I wrote is actually on one of the discs that Dave imaged from me too because I found it while rooting around for the complete R4 level set. That was some pretty tough protection on the game - I remember it being hard work to crack it.

EDIT: just found some letters I wrote to a Mr.Davidson @ The Micro User with my cheat on 29/5/89, and also I did an Elk tape version too sent to a Mr.Waddilove @ Electron User on the same day (for publishing in the 'Arcade Corner' section). Both had articles to accompany the cheats... I'm sure DaveM can get you a copy of the relevant files [REP4 disc that he has an image of]!

Paras

EDIT2: Listed the code out to a text file on BeebEm - have sent you private messages on here with them in there... Sorry - won't let me upload .txt files...

Para thanks for the Elk and BBC "upgrade". Hopefully I can somehow get this to work with the tape version of BBC Exile on an emulator. Now you mention it ISTR a tape version of the cheat being mentioned but for some reason didn't try it. I'll have to have a look through the back issues of 1989 I've still got. Which issue did you say it was - May or June? Are you sure there was an article? the MU articles I remember are:

Map and runes decoded
Mapper, editor and cheat (c.1990)
Then just before Acorn Computing began, they started a solution in HacMan2.

No probs Andre. [Pls note the name is 'Paras' with an 's' and not 'Para' ]

Feel free to put them up on the Exile website you mentioned before.

Not without work; it was written for the disc version. Don't think I did a Beeb tape vers. but if you're lucky the tape binaries might look the same unless they've got some of Mr.Edwards's evilness on them that you need to get past first! Again if you put them up (please preserve the copyright), then someone might be able to suggest how to make it work for tape versions...

You've misunderstood and need to read my posts properly.

In a nutshell: May '89 was when I sent cheats with accompanying articles and letters TMU and EU, they didn't get printed, they may or may not have been on coverdiscs or tapes (if they were, I have no idea what issue), and I got paid for my work.

Nothing more to be said from me on this, if you want me to be honest, as the above is about all I can remember from 19 years ago!

I thought you said "I think my cheat was published on the tape edition of the mag but not in the magazine itself and the two didn't match". This made me think it was for the tape version although it does say in the PM that it was for disk (for the BBC at least) - sorry about that.

Why would they put it on the subscription tape I wonder? Intriguing as I can't remember this cheat, if I can find the issue I'll mention it.

What I meant about getting it to work was getting it to work with the disk image. How would you do this? Presumably load in the program, swap the disc image then load the relevant file in the disc so that the computer isn't reset by shift-break.

I wasn't too clear I guess. I seem to remember it being on a magazine tape but not actually being printed. But the Beeb cheat was for the disc version as I'm quite sure I never had the tape version of Exile; though I did for the Elk. What you say should do the trick... but I've just created a disc with all the relevant files and instructions... but I can't upload it here!

Cheers - have fun

Paras just sent me his disc image, which I've uploaded here:
http://www.stairwaytohell.com/temporary ... ile-PS.zip

Spooky, Dave - not only am I a little freaked out that Andrew knew I'd written some Exile cheats, but the file you have just uploaded is from the future! (timestamped 2nd Aug 08)... I conclude that Retro is obiously the future.

You told everyone 7 years ago!:
http://www.nelsonit.net/~jon/BBCMicro/2 ... 11516.html


Oops - date was wrong on the PC I'm using ... now fixed.

Gosh... that is a long time ago. I knew I'd posted about Repton 4 somewhere but didn't realise I'd mentioned Exile cheats then too. I thought that you and Andrew must have had a conversation after you managed to track me down and get some images... fantastic detective work by Sherlock Moore and Dr.Andrew Watson!

Now I am intrigued about what did or didn't get published regarding the cheats, when, and where... maybe it's just that they accepted it but when six months later the thing got published it wasn't mine at all. Still irritates me that what they said and what they did were different things. They did apologise though.

Does anyone know of complete scans (or at least the news pages) from Acorn User 1986/87 where I was interviewed for Parasoft Logo & Sprites by Dave Fuchter (I think)? Would love to get my hands on that...

Thanks. It's asking for a filename of a saved game. I loaded the "BBCUPGR" file and ran it.
Then changed to the Exile ssd with a saved game, then entered the filename and "no such variable".


Have you got it working?

For the Exile cheat, I think you're going to need to get hold of the specific disk version it was written for - there were at least four different versions of the Exile disk, and I remember The Micro User had to publish an update to their cheat listing, when it was discovered there were more than the two they originally knew about - and their cheat wouldn't work with the other versions, without a modification. Not sure where you're gonna get all four different versions, tho - it might help to track down the update issue of The Micro User, though, as I think I remember them describing the differences between the different Exile disks.

Sam.

yeah - looks to be version related

saved it as "UPGRADE" on the Exile.ssd from STH and doesn't work - just hangs at the last step when it loads in the game off the disc

...the cheat tries to *LOAD !BOOT but !BOOT runs a Basic program; that wasn't the case on my disc, so I changed line 240 to *LOAD EXILEL and it still doesn't work (code bombs out; so it's not working the same way)

I dug out The Micro User Vol. 8 No. 10 Dec. 1990 and the update in Vol. 9 No. 2 Apr. 1991. The latter says that there are basically two different disc protection methods and two different main Exile menu programs - giving four 5.25" disc versions in all. The Dec. 1990 cheat and mapper programs only worked with one of those versions, and not at all if used on a Master. Apparently, the EXILEL file on the various discs is used to help detect the version. That's not even including the Electron, Compact and cassette versions. I suspect you'll need to identify the specific 5.25" disc version Paras wrote his cheat against, before you get much use out of it. The code in the Apr. 1991 listing might help distinguish them. You can get disc images of both issues' cover discs from STH:

The Micro User Vol. 8 No. 10 Dec. 1990 disc image
The Micro User Vol. 9 No. 2 Apr. 1991 disc image

Sam.

I seem to remember buying Exile pretty much when it came out - so expect it to be first release. Looks like EXILEL might only have been on later versions... as my code doesn't reference that file anywhere.

Why were there two protection and menu systems? AFAIK the 5.25" disc was for the BBC B and Master (as was the tape). Was it because of release of different batches?

compatibility with specific DFSs is what i have a vague memory of here...

Continued here:

Moderator EDIT: No, it isn't. Let's keep things in here. It's going to be off-topic, wherever it is so this is as good a place as any.

Sam - those are the Bonfield cheats. Paras's cheats were 1989 AIUI.

Sam means distinguishing between versions of Exile; follows from the previous sentence!!! We're pretty clear on those coverdiscs containing James's cheats.

If you want my cheats to work, you'll have to get your hands on the same version of BBC Disc Exile or Electron Tape Exile that I developed them against... or modify them to work against the versions you do have access to.

Really, I don't think there's much more that can be said on this - unless someone (a) gets them working, of course, or (b) posts to tell me what AIUI means!!!