BdR
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Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 21, 2012 16:11:19 GMT -5
members.home.nl/bas.de.reuver/files/mz700_pitman.zip <- file updated I did a final check on the code and there were some minor errors which are now fixed. Pressing 1..9 on the title screen now starts level 5..45 and erasing a level works. Also, the Sharpentiers version lacked a "data out/in" option which I've put back in. But most importantly, I think I've fixed a 27 year old bug. ;D I noticed that level 20 in szkktht's GBA version is the same as level 11 on MZ-700. On GBA you can solve it by pressing up as your first move to "jump". Then I started looking and found a subtle difference in the code, preventing the player from making this "jump" move in the Sharpentiers version. This is fixed now so level 11 is solvable again. Here is what happened: Original Oh!MZ code: 380 IF A$=" " OR A$="-" AND GB=1 THEN MY=MY-3:GOTO 730Which I can confirm from trying HU-BASIC v1.3 evaluates as: IF destination=empty OR (destination=ladder AND StandingOnLadder) THEN move up Sharpentiers code: 410 IFGB=1THENIF(A=0)+(A=120)THENMY=MY-3:GOTO770which evaluates as IF StandingOnLadder AND (destination=empty OR destination=ladder) THEN move up odd thing about this version: Skipping or repeating a stage will cost you a live, but once you clear just one stage properly, you're back to the full number of extra lives again. Yep, but it's the same in both the Oh!MZ and Sharpentiers versions. When advancing a level they both set M=5, in lines 960 and 1000 respectively.
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 20, 2012 7:53:21 GMT -5
Wow, nice find and well spotted. Maybe all of its music is "borrowed" from similar sources, at least the ending credits of Battle Garegga don't mention a composer, it only mentions "sound effect: santaruru" www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvGKPy5a-n8Makes you wonder how many cases like this go unaccounted for, just because they ripped off some obscure original work. I mean look at Nelly Furtado's hit "Do It" which turned out to be based on a SID from C64 demo scene.. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzFp3rovfY0
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 18, 2012 9:35:57 GMT -5
FIFA soccer
Actually playing soccer outside I can enjoy, but I don't really see the appeal of FIFA as a video game. Still they crank one out every year.
Games like Super Mario Strikers at least have power-ups to make the gameplay more interesting. FIFA is just a boring simulation.
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 18, 2012 9:04:25 GMT -5
For me it's "to own" vs "to have". Last couple of years I've noticed this when people talk online about the games or consoles they've collected. They don't simply "have" this or that game, no, they "own Mario World for the SNES". Like it's real estate or something. I don't know why exactly, but it bugs me.
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 17, 2012 16:08:36 GMT -5
Volley Fire - Gameboy a pretty avarage game but I always liked the background music of the first stage
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 17, 2012 15:31:10 GMT -5
Splatterhouse - Sento Nel Core (Ending credits), nice song though, I actually can play it on the piano Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - Folsense maybe not sad but more slow/nostalgic Monty on the run - game over/high score the Amiga version is better but I couldn't find that one
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 17, 2012 15:19:23 GMT -5
Actually, no. WildSnake is like Tetris but with snakes instead of blocks.
Snake Slider is more like the Rush Hour (aka Traffic Jam) puzzle game, but with snakes instead of blocks.
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 17, 2012 8:35:10 GMT -5
Though I seem to have missed the part of the conversation where we described level 11 as being impossible to finish. When was this ascertained? I mention it in the README.TXT in the mz700_pitman.zip. The program only checks gravity in the column the player is moving to or from, and level 11 makes use of this with floating boulders and gold, here is a screenshot. When you step left or right the boulders and gold in the center column start to fall down, the other stay in the air. I actually prefer the former cause I like to be covered in case links go down, BUT we'd of course include a link to your page as well, maybe with a notice to keep it checked in case of updates. Okay, mirroring it and include a link sounds good.
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 17, 2012 7:57:13 GMT -5
Shameless Self-Promotion eh? Can do.. Snake Slider is a puzzle game I've created in my spare time. Recently I did an update with 25 new levels. It's for iPhone/iPad and also Palm Pre/TouchPad. Snake Slider - (Palm Pre)Snake Slider (iPhone)cheers, Bas
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 16, 2012 20:33:34 GMT -5
AWESOME work! Really, this was a great job. Would you mind if we host the zip with a link in the article? Gotta check out stage 11 if I find the time to see if it's really unsolvable. Maybe it's worth comparing with the version in the Japanese listing... Thanks, and do you mean link to my zip file, or make a separate copy on HG101 (I'd rather the first, in case I do an update in the future) As for comparing the French and Japanese levels this could be a lot of work. However, fortunately the Japanese version has many checksums. It has checksums per row, column and per block of 128 bytes. This can make comparing more easy. I've created a VBScript that formats data strings as memory blocks, just like it was printed in the Oh!MZ magazine. Then I take the data which I already input in the PITMAN.BAS file (copy&paste with Notepad++) and run it through the script. I've checked all checksums per datablock at bottom right and my output is a perfect match with the original magazine scan. ;D You can see the result for yourself here: pitmancompare.zipSo I can confirm that all levels in the French Sharpentiers version are correct and exactly the same as the Japanese Oh!MZ version. (as for level 11, the layout is correct, but how to solve it? Maybe it was a mistake by Isokawa..?)
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Jul 16, 2012 15:55:42 GMT -5
As for getting Pitman listing to run, the way I see it there are two options: 1) Find the exact same BASIC version that can handle all the commands in the listing 2) Use a different BASIC version and adapt certain commands (CURSOR instead of LOCATE etc.) It's been a while, but recently I've been looking into this Pitman listing again. It turns out this option 2 is exactly what Sylvain Bizoirre has done back in 1985 already He adapted the HU-BASIC listing to work in the much more common S-BASIC which was probably the whole reason behind the Sharpentiers re-publishing of Pitman. I couldn't find a downloadable file of it online, so I've typed in the entire listing from the Sharpentiers magazine scan. I must say I have a lot of respect for people who could get magazine listings to actually work back in the day. Anyway, the resulting PITMAN.BAS file works in an emulator, you can download it here: members.home.nl/bas.de.reuver/files/mz700_pitman.zipSo now you can play the original (okay, adapted) BASIC version of MZ-700 Pitman let me know what you think.
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Aug 19, 2011 6:37:05 GMT -5
One more thing. Isokawa did not use an array to hold the current level layout but instead he uses the CHARACTER$ command to look at specific characters on screen to determine if there is a ladder or wall etc. which is quite clever. However, I can't get CHARACTER$ to work in HU-BASIC v1.3 and there doesn't seem to be an equivalent in the SHARP-BASIC commands, I've also checked this user manual. I'm not sure but maybe there is some sort of PEEK command that can read the active characters on screen..?
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Aug 19, 2011 6:34:04 GMT -5
Here's how I load and save files, first type some lines and save it
10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD" 20 PRINT "TEST 123" SAVE "TEST123.BAS"
Then press the REC button in the MZxEmu window, it will write a file to your harddisk. To load it just type LOAD without parameters and press enter. It will prompt you with "PLAY", now press Play button in the MZxEmu window and select TEST123.BAS and it will load. This works in both HU-BASIC and SHARP-BASIC.
The .BAS extension is not necessary in SHARP-BASIC because it will always add .BAS by itself. And of course, a listing saved with HU-BASIC can't be loaded by SHARP-BASIC and vice versa (so much for compatibility).
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Aug 18, 2011 16:22:37 GMT -5
derboo: Which Hu-BASIC version do you use? I've tried HU-BASIC V1.3_K.mzf (which says "HU-BASIC V1.3 COPYRIGHT(C) 1980,81 BY HUDSONSOFT.") in the MZ-700 emulator by Michael Franzen. Many commands in the listing either don't exists in HU-BASIC V1.3 or work differently. For example COLOR 7,0 gives syntax error, CONSOLE gives missing operand, MUSIC"EDCR" gives syntax error. I also tried 1Z-013B.mzf which loads and displays "BASIC INTERPRETER 1Z-013B v1.0A COPYRIGHT (C) 1983 BY SHARP CORP.". Most commands work here but sometimes a little differently. For example instead of COLOR 7,0 you have to use COLOR,,7,0 and instead of LOCATE you have to use CURSOR. Seriously, how did they do this back in 1985? They either had to have the exact same BASIC version or "translate" it to the version they were working with. But that would require knowledge of both BASIC versions. I think it's a miracle people could get these kinds of listings to work at all. One thing you can extract from this listing relatively easy are the 50 original levels. Each row of bytes at the end is a column of the level, where 0=empty 1=ladder 2=gold 3=dirt 4=boulder 5=wall 6=pitman (see line 1610 and 2410). As for getting Pitman listing to run, the way I see it there are two options: 1) Find the exact same BASIC version that can handle all the commands in the listing 2) Use a different BASIC version and adapt certain commands (CURSOR instead of LOCATE etc.)
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BdR
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by BdR on Aug 14, 2011 15:09:31 GMT -5
Excellent job on the research and scanning of the listing. I've taken a look at the listing and it seems the program reads the levels from memory between adresses HE000-HF300 (see line 200), and on page 105 it mentions a line SAVEM"PIT", &HE000, &HF300 which, I assume, saves a memory block to file. You'd think the separate listing (that starts with "check sum hubasic") would be a helper program to input the leveldata into memory. But from what I can figure it seems to be just a memory viewer program, which sole purpose was to print the memory formatted in a way they could print it in the magazine. Only after the levels have been input, the output will look like the pages 109 through 111. So the question remains, how was the avarage user supposed to input these large datablocks into memory back in 1985? Enter each value individually with a POKE command? There must have been an easier way.. Would be cool if there were someone with proper MZ-700 knowledge to shine a light on this. Also, can someone who can read Japanese translate the loading intructions on page 105? Edit: btw I saw that the main PITMAN listing also has a part called "data out/in" through which a user can enter data. But this seems to work with separate password-like codes of 46 characters, which are different from the datablocks after the listing.
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