Messages sent by Albert Schofield.
ISSUE 50
To: D7X and 999
From: K3H (ALBERT SCHOFIELD)
Subject: SNAPSHOT DISC UTILITY.
Hello Martin. Welcome to the club. I
read your article with great interest.
I too am an avid SNAPSHOTter. I
usually use it as a sort of half-way
house for getting a game to work on
disc unaided. The main reason that
SNAPHOT will not work on some programs
is because the *WAIT command uses the
6522 USER VIA TIMER. This unit is used
mainly to drive the printer and user
port. Unfotunately some games also use
this unit and this interferes with the
*WAIT command.
Sometimes SNAPSHOT will not shoot at
all. Sometimes it shoots repeatedly
and the solution is, as you say, to
press break at the right time.
Sometimes it shoots much too early and
the solution then is to use a much
higher number with the *WAIT command.
Sometimes as high as forty or fifty.
When SNAPSHOT does not shoot at all
this can sometimes be got round in
various ways. It is true that SNAPSHOT
will not normally work with ELITE but
if you can get SNAPSHOT to shoot
before ELITE uses the 6522 timer then
you will succeed.
When ELITE is first run, the usual
ACORNSOFT screen comes up with a
window in the middle containing the
title, in this case ELITE. This stays
on the screen for about five seconds.
During this time SNAPSHOT will work.
This calls for a bit of tricky timing
and several attempts may be necessary.
I usually use *WAIT 2, then wait for
about seventeen seconds and then enter
*ELITE2. The disc cannot be BOOTed as
pressing break disables SNAPSHOT but
*EXEC !BOOT may be used. I have the
superior software version of ELITE but
I should think that it is basically
the same as the original Acornsoft
version.
Also some games use the 6522 timer in
the instructions or the initial
screen. In this case just load the
game itself. Sometimes SNAPSHOT will
not shoot at the first attempt but
will succeed at the second attempt so
don't give up too easily. Finally if
you have problems transfering any
particular program I am always ready
to give help. More next month.
ISSUE 51
From: K3H (ALBERT SCHOFIELD)
Subject: TAPE TO DISC ON THE BBC'B'
Some cassette based games have very
short data streams inserted into them.
These are easily missed when
transferring to disc and of course the
game will not work without them.
One such game is CAVEMAN CAPERS.
This game is in six parts, CAVEMAN,
CAVEMA2, CAVE2, CAPERS2, TUNE where
the second half is a data stream and
the last part is START.
CAVE2 is the section that loads in
both parts of TUNE and in the disc
version is not required.
So to transfer CAVEMAN CAPERS to disc
proceed as follows. The first part
CAVEMAN is an ordinary basic program
so load this in and add the following
two lines:-
57*KEY0 *LOAD CAPERS2|M*LOAD TUNE|M
MODE7:*START|M
59*FX138,0,128
Then save it to disc as CAVEMAN.
Load in the second part CAVEMA2 using
*LOAD""1900. Then enter 60 to delete
line 60 and save to disc using
*SAVE CAVEMA2 1900+118D 8023.
The cassette should now be at the
start of CAVE2 so put the computer
into TAPE mode, type *RUN and load in
CAVE2, CAPERS2, TUNE including the
short data stream.
As soon as the screen clears and
'Searching' appears at the top right
hand side of the screen, press ESCAPE,
type *DISC and save the now complete
file TUNE to disc using
*SAVE TUNE 600+130.
Now rewind the cassette to the start
of the file CAPERS2 and load this in
using *LOAD""1900. Then save it to
disc using:-
*SAVE CAPERS2 1900+4000 164D 1600.
Load in the last file START from
cassette using *LOAD""1900. Save this
to disc using:-
*SAVE START 1900+500 164D 7B00.
Chaining CAVEMAN should now load and
run CAVEMAN CAPERS from disc. More
next month.
ISSUE 52
From: K3H (ALBERT SCHOFIELD.)
Subject: TAPE TO DISC ON THE BBC 'B'
Some cassette based games can only be
made to work on disc by loading part
of the game via Sideways Ram. COMBAT
LYNX is one such game.
This game is in three parts, COMBAT,
LYNX and LYNX1. Part one is a basic
program and *RUNs the second part. The
second part is the loader for the
third part. It is locked but works
just as well when unlocked. The third
part is also locked but will not work
when unlocked. It is also a very long
file (&7C00). The load address is
&400. It therefore needs downloading
but because of its length, I have found
this impossible to do. Therefore it
has to be loaded from Sideways Ram and
locked in the Rom Filing system.
COMBAT LYNX can of course be
transferred to disc using SNAPSHOT. But
this causes corruption at the bottom
of the screen and also the flashing
cursor is present. So for a perfect
load SWR loading must be used for the
last part.
So load in the first part. Delete
line 20 and add the following lines:-
20 *KEY10 CLS|M*LOAD LYNX|M*ROM|M
*OPT1,2|MCALL&2C00|M
30 ?&FF30=0:*LOAD LYNX3R 8000
40 ?&FF31=0:*LOAD LYNX2R 8000
50 ?&FF32=0:*LOAD LYNX1R 8000
60 CALL!-4
Save this to disc as COMBAT.
This file works with the Watford
Rom/Ram board. Otherwise you may have
to alter lines 30, 40 and 50 to suit
your SWR.
Load the second part from cassette
with an unlocking utility using
*LOAD""2C00 and save it to disc using
*SAVE LYNX 2C00+2C00.
The third part, due to its long
length, will have to be transferred to
disc using the one block at a time. The
method which I described in an earlier
article. Also because the file is
locked, the file that does the
transferring will have to be combined
with an unlocking utility.
The file can now be saved into three
ROM images and also locked.
To do this I use the excellent ROM
Image Generator by Mark Lock from the
november 1987 issue of BEEBUG
magazine. This allows you to lock the
files and also continue from one rom
image to another with long files.
Save the rom images as LYNX1R, LYNX2R
and LYNX3R and it is essential that
the long file itself is saved as
LYNX1. It is also essential that the
rom images are loaded in the correct
sequence. The first file (COMBAT) does
this.
Chaining COMBAT will now load the rom
images and *RUN the game. LYNX1 will
now load from the RFS in about twenty
seconds and give a perfect display.