55 replies to this topic

[atariksi]

therealbountybob, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:38 PM, said:

There are several comments on Atarimania. No I didn't try the tape version! Also there's a German version but again it's an ATX file

Re if this was a copy protection feature, technically could the disk speed/sector read etc be checked and coded for to make the game unplayable And could it be that my drive is running on the edge of this speed and occasionally it passes the check ok

Some timing is definitely on the edge as even on the plain vanilla A800 I have to sometimes reboot to get it to work. Perhaps, he's timing how long it takes to read some sectors and according to the time calculated he makes some JMP that destroys/patches part of his code. So if the timing is correct, nothing is destroyed. I.e., the coder is playing Tail of Beta Lyrae with the code.

[ijor]

therealbountybob, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:38 PM, said:

Re if this was a copy protection feature, technically could the disk speed/sector read etc be checked and coded for to make the game unplayable

Probably not exactly the way you are wording. But it is very possible for a game to intentionally becoming unplayable if the protection check fails. Once again, I wouldn't be surprised to see this in the US version, but I wouldn't expect this in the Databyte release.

Quote

And could it be that my drive is running on the edge of this speed and occasionally it passes the check ok

It might. It might also fail (or succeed) occasionally because other reasons. I seem to remember that the Databyte release doesn't work on NTSC computers. If so, that would hint about possible timing issues.

[therealbountybob]

Ok I have a new theory
If you play the Homesoft version (disk153) there are no space gravity ball things on the first sector, these are on many other versions and my original disk which has been played lots. Maybe the game writes a 'use' counter to disk and uses this to add additional game features over time and it's one of these features that is causing the colour/screen washout problems (perhaps the homesoft was created from an unplayed disk )

Would be nice if this was something patchable, wonder if there are more 'features' hidden away

Just tried this easter egg from atarimania, type TRACE POWER (with the space) on the title screen (should hear keyboard buzzer sounds) and the game starts in the caves on Sector 5

[atariksi]

therealbountybob, on Thu Feb 18, 2010 8:09 AM, said:

Ok I have a new theory
If you play the Homesoft version (disk153) there are no space gravity ball things on the first sector, these are on many other versions and my original disk which has been played lots. Maybe the game writes a 'use' counter to disk and uses this to add additional game features over time and it's one of these features that is causing the colour/screen washout problems (perhaps the homesoft was created from an unplayed disk )

Would be nice if this was something patchable, wonder if there are more 'features' hidden away

Looks like there are many versions of this game out there. The ATR file I tried is different from the one posted earlier in this thread. The one I have never works on XL/XE and only on Atari 800 (plain vanilla a800 not one with strawberry-- 65c02). It does seem to write something to do the disk since I wrote one ATR to a real disk and it booted once (not completely) and afterwards never again.

[Shamus]

Didn't I mention this before? Philip Price said in an interview that the game would change over time and your finding would seem to confirm it. The only way to know for sure would to be to get an original copy that's never been played and see if it changes after playing it for (say) a month.

Perhaps that Homesoft version, if it's a full disk image, will start having gravity balls if you play it long enough.

[rdemming]

rdemming, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:38 PM, said:

Did you try the tape version? The tape version doesn't have the copy protection of the disk version. But the intro is gone too.
Attached the tape-to-disk conversion I did from the Datamost tape release.

Note that it doesn't work on machines with 128KB or more. The game has the possibility to use joystick 3&4 of an 400/800 but on the XE series, PORT B of the PIA is used for bank-switching instead of reading joysticks 3&4. This probably makes ToBL crash.

Robert

Ooops, I thought I attached the file. Here it is. BTW, it is the Databyte tape version (instead of the Datamost) I converted to a boot disk. Nothing else done with it than just replacing the tape load routine, with a disk sector load routine.

Robert

Attached Files

•  The Tail of Beta Lyrae.zip   36.59K   37 downloads

[therealbountybob]

rdemming, on Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:53 AM, said:

rdemming, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:38 PM, said:

Did you try the tape version? The tape version doesn't have the copy protection of the disk version. But the intro is gone too.
Attached the tape-to-disk conversion I did from the Datamost tape release.

Note that it doesn't work on machines with 128KB or more. The game has the possibility to use joystick 3&4 of an 400/800 but on the XE series, PORT B of the PIA is used for bank-switching instead of reading joysticks 3&4. This probably makes ToBL crash.

Robert

Ooops, I thought I attached the file. Here it is. BTW, it is the Databyte tape version (instead of the Datamost) I converted to a boot disk. Nothing else done with it than just replacing the tape load routine, with a disk sector load routine.

Robert

Thanks This works ok (correct meaty shooting sounds and instant collisions) on the A800 but not 130XE (just tried on Atari800Win+ and works under 0S-B so will try again with translator on 130XE). Original disk runs on 130XE without translator so this is another strange one. Now just need a version with the 'gravity balls' enabled

[atariksi]

therealbountybob, on Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:40 PM, said:

rdemming, on Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:53 AM, said:

rdemming, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:38 PM, said:

Did you try the tape version? The tape version doesn't have the copy protection of the disk version. But the intro is gone too.
Attached the tape-to-disk conversion I did from the Datamost tape release.

Note that it doesn't work on machines with 128KB or more. The game has the possibility to use joystick 3&4 of an 400/800 but on the XE series, PORT B of the PIA is used for bank-switching instead of reading joysticks 3&4. This probably makes ToBL crash.

Robert

Ooops, I thought I attached the file. Here it is. BTW, it is the Databyte tape version (instead of the Datamost) I converted to a boot disk. Nothing else done with it than just replacing the tape load routine, with a disk sector load routine.

Robert

Thanks This works ok (correct meaty shooting sounds and instant collisions) on the A800 but not 130XE (just tried on Atari800Win+ and works under 0S-B so will try again with translator on 130XE). Original disk runs on 130XE without translator so this is another strange one. Now just need a version with the 'gravity balls' enabled

Yep, that's what I noticed-- both his versions (ATR and CAS) don't have those gravity pellets and makes round 1 much easier.

[mimo]

This game3 is very picky. I have an original Databyte disc which will obviously not work with my PAL 800XL or 1040XE. Thought I would try my 1200XL with 32-in-1, set it to 800 mode and disc wont load at all. Set in 1200XL mode it will load but crash/freeze on the title screen. Maybe the PAL ANTIC chip is confusing it?

[Divya16]

therealbountybob, on Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:40 PM, said:

rdemming, on Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:53 AM, said:

rdemming, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:38 PM, said:

Did you try the tape version? The tape version doesn't have the copy protection of the disk version. But the intro is gone too.
Attached the tape-to-disk conversion I did from the Datamost tape release.

Note that it doesn't work on machines with 128KB or more. The game has the possibility to use joystick 3&4 of an 400/800 but on the XE series, PORT B of the PIA is used for bank-switching instead of reading joysticks 3&4. This probably makes ToBL crash.

Robert

Ooops, I thought I attached the file. Here it is. BTW, it is the Databyte tape version (instead of the Datamost) I converted to a boot disk. Nothing else done with it than just replacing the tape load routine, with a disk sector load routine.

Robert

Thanks This works ok (correct meaty shooting sounds and instant collisions) on the A800 but not 130XE (just tried on Atari800Win+ and works under 0S-B so will try again with translator on 130XE). Original disk runs on 130XE without translator so this is another strange one. Now just need a version with the 'gravity balls' enabled

Collisions are still off on that one. Shots go through the antennae. But they do hit on the bigger objects more consistently.

[therealbountybob]

Divya16, on Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:39 PM, said:

therealbountybob, on Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:40 PM, said:

rdemming, on Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:53 AM, said:

rdemming, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:38 PM, said:

Did you try the tape version? The tape version doesn't have the copy protection of the disk version. But the intro is gone too.
Attached the tape-to-disk conversion I did from the Datamost tape release.

Note that it doesn't work on machines with 128KB or more. The game has the possibility to use joystick 3&4 of an 400/800 but on the XE series, PORT B of the PIA is used for bank-switching instead of reading joysticks 3&4. This probably makes ToBL crash.

Robert

Ooops, I thought I attached the file. Here it is. BTW, it is the Databyte tape version (instead of the Datamost) I converted to a boot disk. Nothing else done with it than just replacing the tape load routine, with a disk sector load routine.

Robert

Thanks This works ok (correct meaty shooting sounds and instant collisions) on the A800 but not 130XE (just tried on Atari800Win+ and works under 0S-B so will try again with translator on 130XE). Original disk runs on 130XE without translator so this is another strange one. Now just need a version with the 'gravity balls' enabled

Collisions are still off on that one. Shots go through the antennae. But they do hit on the bigger objects more consistently.

Nah! The bullets are meant to skip positions (for speed). I meant when you crashed into something on the other versions your ship continued for a second before destructing

[atariksi]

therealbountybob, on Sat Feb 20, 2010 4:44 AM, said:

Divya16, on Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:39 PM, said:

therealbountybob, on Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:40 PM, said:

rdemming, on Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:53 AM, said:

rdemming, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:38 PM, said:

Did you try the tape version? The tape version doesn't have the copy protection of the disk version. But the intro is gone too.
Attached the tape-to-disk conversion I did from the Datamost tape release.

Note that it doesn't work on machines with 128KB or more. The game has the possibility to use joystick 3&4 of an 400/800 but on the XE series, PORT B of the PIA is used for bank-switching instead of reading joysticks 3&4. This probably makes ToBL crash.

Robert

Ooops, I thought I attached the file. Here it is. BTW, it is the Databyte tape version (instead of the Datamost) I converted to a boot disk. Nothing else done with it than just replacing the tape load routine, with a disk sector load routine.

Robert

Thanks This works ok (correct meaty shooting sounds and instant collisions) on the A800 but not 130XE (just tried on Atari800Win+ and works under 0S-B so will try again with translator on 130XE). Original disk runs on 130XE without translator so this is another strange one. Now just need a version with the 'gravity balls' enabled

Collisions are still off on that one. Shots go through the antennae. But they do hit on the bigger objects more consistently.

Nah! The bullets are meant to skip positions (for speed). I meant when you crashed into something on the other versions your ship continued for a second before destructing

They could have dealt with the bullets like they deal with those lasers in the city level-- every pixel is covered. I think they can make a good excuse for blowing up with a delayed effect with some objects-- your ship catches fire and later blows up. However, when it crashes into a mountain and blows up after the mountain passes-- that would be impossible.

[atariksi]

Shamus, on Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:14 AM, said:

Didn't I mention this before? Philip Price said in an interview that the game would change over time and your finding would seem to confirm it. The only way to know for sure would to be to get an original copy that's never been played and see if it changes after playing it for (say) a month.

Perhaps that Homesoft version, if it's a full disk image, will start having gravity balls if you play it long enough.

The one you posted worked the best so far. It had the gravity balls and loads consistently on A800 and XL.

[rdemming]

Divya16, on Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:39 PM, said:

Collisions are still off on that one. Shots go through the antennae. But they do hit on the bigger objects more consistently.

I played this game a lot as kid. I always thought that shooting through an antenna was a feature of the game. You can only destroy the antennas if you hit them at the top or the bottom.

Quote

Thanks This works ok (correct meaty shooting sounds and instant collisions) on the A800 but not 130XE (just tried on Atari800Win+ and works under 0S-B so will try again with translator on 130XE). Original disk runs on 130XE without translator so this is another strange one. Now just need a version with the 'gravity balls' enabled

What are the gravity balls? If you mean those indestructible "alien barricades" (see manual), I see some of them right in the first zone. Maybe you should try keys 1..6 to set the difficulty level.

Robert

Attached Thumbnails

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[poobah]

atariksi, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:48 PM, said:

It may be looking for a "c" in the processor and preventing functioning based on that. Atari 800 doesn't have a "c" in it's processor name.

None of the 6502 variants have any sort of CPU id string function. You can only tell them apart by testing various undocumented instructions and the behaviors that result. You certainly wouldn't be looking for a "c".

[ijor]

Shamus, on Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:14 AM, said:

Didn't I mention this before? Philip Price said in an interview that the game would change over time and your finding would seem to confirm it. The only way to know for sure would to be to get an original copy that's never been played and see if it changes after playing it for (say) a month.

Are you sure he said that about TOBL? I remember reading about that myself, but as I recall it was about the protection in Alternate Reality.

Regardless, I doubt very much he meant that the code on the actual disk is being modified. I think he meant that the code uses adaptive techinques, and it is modified while it is being played. But that only the in-memory loaded code is being modified, not on disk.

And once again, I also doubt that Philip Price implemented the protection on the Uk-Databyte release.

[therealbountybob]

rdemming, on Sat Feb 20, 2010 8:56 AM, said:

Divya16, on Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:39 PM, said:

Collisions are still off on that one. Shots go through the antennae. But they do hit on the bigger objects more consistently.

I played this game a lot as kid. I always thought that shooting through an antenna was a feature of the game. You can only destroy the antennas if you hit them at the top or the bottom.

Quote

Thanks This works ok (correct meaty shooting sounds and instant collisions) on the A800 but not 130XE (just tried on Atari800Win+ and works under 0S-B so will try again with translator on 130XE). Original disk runs on 130XE without translator so this is another strange one. Now just need a version with the 'gravity balls' enabled

What are the gravity balls? If you mean those indestructible "alien barricades" (see manual), I see some of them right in the first zone. Maybe you should try keys 1..6 to set the difficulty level.

Robert

They aren't listed so must be unknown alien installations! They pull the player's ship towards them (and usually into an accompanying rock or gun sight): especially fun when there are several of them in a row! They appear all difficulty levels here's one just left of the exploded ship

[atariksi]

poobah, on Sat Feb 20, 2010 8:57 AM, said:

atariksi, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:48 PM, said:

It may be looking for a "c" in the processor and preventing functioning based on that. Atari 800 doesn't have a "c" in it's processor name.

None of the 6502 variants have any sort of CPU id string function. You can only tell them apart by testing various undocumented instructions and the behaviors that result. You certainly wouldn't be looking for a "c".

Yeah, I was joking. 65c02 didn't exist when that game was written. Perhaps, some "opto-coupler" device to scan the name physically from the processor and OCR it followed by artificial intelligence to determine that the "c" is actual being used within as a processor name.

[poobah]

atariksi, on Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:33 PM, said:

poobah, on Sat Feb 20, 2010 8:57 AM, said:

atariksi, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:48 PM, said:

It may be looking for a "c" in the processor and preventing functioning based on that. Atari 800 doesn't have a "c" in it's processor name.

None of the 6502 variants have any sort of CPU id string function. You can only tell them apart by testing various undocumented instructions and the behaviors that result. You certainly wouldn't be looking for a "c".

Yeah, I was joking. 65c02 didn't exist when that game was written. Perhaps, some "opto-coupler" device to scan the name physically from the processor and OCR it followed by artificial intelligence to determine that the "c" is actual being used within as a processor name.

Ahh, I miss the days whens CPUs didn't require a heatsink. =D

(The WDC 65c02 and Tail of Beta Lyrae both came out in 1983)

[rdemming]

therealbountybob, on Sat Feb 20, 2010 10:29 AM, said:

They aren't listed so must be unknown alien installations! They pull the player's ship towards them (and usually into an accompanying rock or gun sight): especially fun when there are several of them in a row! They appear all difficulty levels here's one just left of the exploded ship
TTOBL.png

Thank you for the picture. I never saw those in my version. And I played all sectors (Cadet mission). Maybe the tape version doesn't have this.

Robert

[Shamus]

ijor, on Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:26 AM, said:

Are you sure he said that about TOBL? I remember reading about that myself, but as I recall it was about the protection in Alternate Reality.

Regardless, I doubt very much he meant that the code on the actual disk is being modified. I think he meant that the code uses adaptive techinques, and it is modified while it is being played. But that only the in-memory loaded code is being modified, not on disk.

I linked the interview in my first post in this thread, but here's the relevant part (linky):

Quote

How did "The Tail of Beta Lyrae" develop?

Since I only had 32K of memory and no floppy drive, the first game I wrote had to be an action game. I enjoyed side-scrolling arcade games the most, so I had decided to try creating one. Since I enjoy playing as well as writing, I used an infinite scrolling field and a probability engine to generate terrain and objects. I wanted the game to last; I hated playing a game where all I had to do was remember where all of the items were. I liked the future to be unpredictable, but with a degree of order. I also enjoyed surprises, so I made the game change after you had owned it for a while.

Now to me, it would seem that "after you had owned it for a while" would imply that he was changing the code on disk somehow. Or perhaps writing a counter as someone else mentioned. But I don't know, as I don't have a copy of the original.

[therealbountybob]

Shamus, on Mon Feb 22, 2010 9:55 PM, said:

ijor, on Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:26 AM, said:

Are you sure he said that about TOBL? I remember reading about that myself, but as I recall it was about the protection in Alternate Reality.

Regardless, I doubt very much he meant that the code on the actual disk is being modified. I think he meant that the code uses adaptive techinques, and it is modified while it is being played. But that only the in-memory loaded code is being modified, not on disk.

I linked the interview in my first post in this thread, but here's the relevant part (linky):

Quote

How did "The Tail of Beta Lyrae" develop?

Since I only had 32K of memory and no floppy drive, the first game I wrote had to be an action game. I enjoyed side-scrolling arcade games the most, so I had decided to try creating one. Since I enjoy playing as well as writing, I used an infinite scrolling field and a probability engine to generate terrain and objects. I wanted the game to last; I hated playing a game where all I had to do was remember where all of the items were. I liked the future to be unpredictable, but with a degree of order. I also enjoyed surprises, so I made the game change after you had owned it for a while.

Now to me, it would seem that "after you had owned it for a while" would imply that he was changing the code on disk somehow. Or perhaps writing a counter as someone else mentioned. But I don't know, as I don't have a copy of the original.

Very interesting and back to my last thought: it may be a bug in one of these added features that causes the washouts and not the copy protection per se

[ijor]

Shamus, on Mon Feb 22, 2010 9:55 PM, said:

I linked the interview in my first post in this thread, but here's the relevant part (linky):

Quote

How did "The Tail of Beta Lyrae" develop?

...I also enjoyed surprises, so I made the game change after you had owned it for a while.

Now to me, it would seem that "after you had owned it for a while" would imply that he was changing the code on disk somehow. Or perhaps writing a counter as someone else mentioned. But I don't know, as I don't have a copy of the original.

That is interesting, I didn't know, and I really would like to check it.

But please note that he is not talking at all about copy protection here! He did, AFAIR, mentioned using adaptive techniques for the Alternate Reality copy protection. Also, as you are saying, this could implemented without changing the code on the disk. Possibly a counter at the saved high score.

Anyway, thanks for the link to the interview.

[phaeron]

I took a look at this game again under the debugger, and it does indeed track the number of times you've played -- or more precisely, the number of times you have loaded it. As soon as the high score screen appears, it reads and then rewrites sector 365 on the disk with a counter at $2D00. This counter increments once each time and does something to the game once it reaches 14, 21, and 35. After that it stops counting and writing to the disk. I don't know how many of the glitches are attributable to this, but it does appear to do something. At least with the VAPI version, you can experiment with this by setting a breakpoint on sector 365 and changing $2D00 immediately after the disk read call.

This may also explain why some of the ATR rips self-destruct after the first play -- the disk image doesn't have the counter sector reserved.

(Don Lancaster used to list writing to the distribution disk in your program on his list of stupid ideas... I wish more people had followed his advice.)

[Divya16]

rdemming, on Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:53 AM, said:

rdemming, on Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:38 PM, said:

Did you try the tape version? The tape version doesn't have the copy protection of the disk version. But the intro is gone too.
Attached the tape-to-disk conversion I did from the Datamost tape release.

Note that it doesn't work on machines with 128KB or more. The game has the possibility to use joystick 3&4 of an 400/800 but on the XE series, PORT B of the PIA is used for bank-switching instead of reading joysticks 3&4. This probably makes ToBL crash.

Robert

Ooops, I thought I attached the file. Here it is. BTW, it is the Databyte tape version (instead of the Datamost) I converted to a boot disk. Nothing else done with it than just replacing the tape load routine, with a disk sector load routine.

Robert

That version you posted is easier. I just remembered where I heard that word "Datamost". I have this book called:

"Atari Roots: A guide to Atari Assembly Language" and it's by Datamost. Never read it, but anyone know which bit # is which flag in the processor register. Just playing around with assembly and thought about setting the overflow flag by doing some LDA #xx then PHA and then PLP.