cataloguing tapes

Everything related to BASIC version 1.x (Oric 1 and Atmos) or HYPERBASIC (Telestrat).
Don't hesitate to give your small program samples, technical insights, or questions...
User avatar
mikeb
Flight Lieutenant
Posts: 282
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2018 8:03 pm
Location: West Midlands, UK
Contact:

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by mikeb »

iss wrote: Sat Sep 14, 2019 11:15 am

Code: Select all

30 DOKE #2F5,#9700:!" "
Nicely done iss. I left out the DOKE-to-activate line bit (this allows "!" to become a user defined command pointing at the new machine code).

The line quoted sets up a pointer to the just-loaded machine code, and then immediately executes it. As per the above posts, one wrong byte and you've potentially lost it all.

So definitely CSAVE your loader before running it, otherwise much frustration.
I notice that for 9700, the corresponding value is A59C, so I guess they go in pairs?
It's a shortcut for assembler/disassembler listings that the address (on the left, #9700) refers to the first byte on that line, and it's assumed that all subsequent bytes on the line are placed one address higher. As mentioned, 6502 opcodes can be 1,2 or 3 bytes, but you'll sometimes see data tables that take it further (8 or 16 at a time) :-

Code: Select all

#9900: 00 05 08 AA BE FD DE 4A
#9908: AA 55 06 3E 2F 00 42 E3
#9910: etc...
Yes, sometimes there are bits skipped out, where someone's left space to start a routine or data table on a "nice round number" :)

But they are a little bit harder to POKE in from BASIC, as you have to then make some arrangement to deal with all the jumping around, e.g. knowing all data is #00-#FF, but addresses are probably going to be #0400+, you could do icky things like this to pick up the starting addresses of each block from the data stream ...

Code: Select all

10 A = #0
20 READ D
25 IF D = #FFFF THEN END : REM End marker, not address, not data!
30 IF D > #FF THEN A = D : GOTO 20 : REM An address, not data!
35 POKE A, D
40 A = A + 1
50 GOTO 20

100 DATA #9700, #A9, #4C, #DE, #AD (etc.)
...
210 REM CHANGING ADDRESS
220 DATA #8000, #AA, #55 (etc.)
....
430 REM ALL DONE
440 DATA #FFFF

User avatar
Steve M
Squad Leader
Posts: 787
Joined: Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:33 am
Location: Cumbria, UK
Contact:

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by Steve M »

Sausages !
I wonder if that's the text adventure program we've been trying to get working?
Please have a look at that and see what it is!
User avatar
kaydav
Officer Cadet
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:20 am

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by kaydav »

Steve M wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2019 12:03 pm Sausages !
I wonder if that's the text adventure program we've been trying to get working?
Please have a look at that and see what it is!
Unfortunately it's not a text adventure, it seems to be something along the lines of Snake, or maybe Frogger. I think it might well be a type-in game from a book or magazine. Attaching it for you anyway :)
Attachments
sausages atmos oric1.zip
(924 Bytes) Downloaded 386 times
User avatar
Steve M
Squad Leader
Posts: 787
Joined: Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:33 am
Location: Cumbria, UK
Contact:

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by Steve M »

Thanks.
Yes, it may be from a book, but I'm not sure which one.
User avatar
Symoon
Archivist
Posts: 2307
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2006 12:44 am
Location: Paris, France

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by Symoon »

Steve M wrote: Sun Sep 22, 2019 2:34 pm Thanks.
Yes, it may be from a book, but I'm not sure which one.
I think I spotted it in "Games for your Oric" by Peter Shaw.
http://www.defence-force.org/computing/ ... /index.htm

That was when I was looking for "M4" game, which is also on the tape listed above. So some (all?) of these programs come from this book!
User avatar
kaydav
Officer Cadet
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:20 am

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by kaydav »

Symoon wrote: Sun Sep 22, 2019 6:41 pm
Steve M wrote: Sun Sep 22, 2019 2:34 pm Thanks.
Yes, it may be from a book, but I'm not sure which one.
I think I spotted it in "Games for your Oric" by Peter Shaw.
http://www.defence-force.org/computing/ ... /index.htm

That was when I was looking for "M4" game, which is also on the tape listed above. So some (all?) of these programs come from this book!
Yep it's "Save the Sausages!" from Peter Shaw's book. Others on the tape and from the same book are "3D Driver", "Riddle of the Black Chateau", "Bomb Run", "Pac-Muncher", "M4" and "Box Bounce". "Dwarven" is "Stronghold of the Dwarven Lords" from Tim Hartnell's Giant Book of Computer Games, and the rest are probably also type-ins from somewhere. I'm not sure how far the typing-in and debugging process got with any of them. I still have the books and may scan/OCR them at some point.
User avatar
Steve M
Squad Leader
Posts: 787
Joined: Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:33 am
Location: Cumbria, UK
Contact:

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by Steve M »

OCR can help but it can get very confused by computer listings with the 0 with a line through it getting turned into an 8 and it can get hash signs completely wrong.
The better and clearer the print, the better chance you have.
User avatar
mikeb
Flight Lieutenant
Posts: 282
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2018 8:03 pm
Location: West Midlands, UK
Contact:

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by mikeb »

.. and pray it's not one of those listings that was knocked out on an unsuitable printer (some of the Oric Owner listings were like that, some goofball, er, golfball printer that was obsessed with inserting 1/2 and 3/4 signs and other non-ASCII characters in place of < > ... and with a typeface that left you having to work out from context what was 0 and what was O ...

This was way beyond the "£ should be #" thing ... Oric Owner No 4, D. Peat's Word-1 suffered from this, others too.

... And hope that they tur~ed off inter~upts too, which was not a given :(

Or, for MCP40 owners, tur[X]ed off inter[X]upts ...
User avatar
waskol
Flight Lieutenant
Posts: 414
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:20 pm
Location: FRANCE, Paris

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by waskol »

If you want you can catalog your tape files with my taptap utility (for windows , and sources for Linux)
https://github.com/DJChloe/taptap

you can even extract each program from one tap and split it in different .tap files.

example :

Code: Select all

taptap cat c:\yourfolder\mytape.tap
if you want to save it in a text file

Code: Select all

taptap cat mytape.tap >catalog.txt
User avatar
kaydav
Officer Cadet
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:20 am

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by kaydav »

waskol wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:28 pm If you want you can catalog your tape files with my taptap utility (for windows , and sources for Linux)
https://github.com/DJChloe/taptap

you can even extract each program from one tap and split it in different .tap files.

example :

Code: Select all

taptap cat c:\yourfolder\mytape.tap
if you want to save it in a text file

Code: Select all

taptap cat mytape.tap >catalog.txt
Ooh thank you! I'll give this a try.
User avatar
damien
2nd Star Corporal
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Feb 23, 2020 10:01 am
Location: France
Contact:

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by damien »

Hi,

On Windows, Oric Explorer does this very well... It can display the details of .tap and .dsk but also export it to a text file.

In addition it also allows them to be launched directly in the emulator (Oricutron).

Have a look at the topic "Oric Explorer v2.0 is up for adoption!!!" from the "General discussion" forum.

Regards,

damien. flag_fr
Presentation and download of personal software on dipisoft.com
hlabrande
1st Star Corporal
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri May 15, 2020 4:48 am

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by hlabrande »

Hi everyone, sorry for the necroposting...

I'm interested in the "Games for Basic" book, and especially in the complete adventure game it features. From the name only, i'd guess it's "Riddle of the black chateau"?
Does anyone have more information on the code? (A file with the source code, or the comments accompanying the source code in the book.)
I'd like to know more about its structure; there was a few books or magazines at the time that featured what were essentially frameworks to code adventure games, and I'm wondering if the one in this book is one of these... (and if so, which framework)

Thanks in advance!
User avatar
iss
Wing Commander
Posts: 1641
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2010 5:43 pm
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by iss »

hlabrande wrote: Fri May 15, 2020 9:23 pmI'm interested in the "Games for Basic" book, and especially in the complete adventure game it features. From the name only, i'd guess it's "Riddle of the black chateau"?
Basic info at oric.org (no downloads).
Thanks to @dave3622's Oric JGamebase, attached ZIP contains TAP-file, BASIC soure and two screenshots:

The_Riddle_of_the_Black_Chateau.png
The_Riddle_of_the_Black_Chateau.png (3.91 KiB) Viewed 10183 times
Attachments
The_Riddle_of_the_Black_Chateau.zip
(20.22 KiB) Downloaded 275 times
hlabrande
1st Star Corporal
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri May 15, 2020 4:48 am

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by hlabrande »

Odd, I thought I had turned on "follow this thread"... A belated thanks, iss :)
User avatar
Steve M
Squad Leader
Posts: 787
Joined: Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:33 am
Location: Cumbria, UK
Contact:

Re: cataloguing tapes

Post by Steve M »

Those Usborne books can now be downloaded from their website.
https://usborne.com/browse-books/featur ... ing-books/

Oh - wrong book! But there's some more adventures here to explore.
Post Reply