Catrap (AKA Pitman)

[acidonia]

This game is Also on the European 3DS Virtual Console under the name Catrap for £2.70 do not think thats mensioned in the article.

[lanceboyle94]

It's also on the American and Japanese 3DS Virtual Console too.

[Deleted]

Mar 17, 2012 9:27:06 GMT -5 @mp83 said:

Sketcz thought I should mention this here, so here we go: Did you know that there's practically 103 rounds in the game instead of 100? The three bonus rounds are accessible with passwords that you need to input in the Edit mode. The passwords were included in the Japanese manual, at least.

Anyone here with the English manual? Does it also feature these passwords?

[mrcrispy83]

The passwords in the english manual are wrong.

The correct ones were printed in Nintendo Power.

[Deleted]

Really? Ouch! So the cover art isn't the only thing that was butchered in the North American release.

[BdR]

Aug 18, 2011 16:22:37 GMT -5 BdR said:

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.zip

So now you can play the original (okay, adapted) BASIC version of MZ-700 Pitman let me know what you think.

[derboo]

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...

[BdR]

Jul 16, 2012 17:29:40 GMT -5 derboo said:

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.zip

So 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..?)}

[Sketcz-1000]

Amazing work! With all this data it could be easy for someone to make a rather nice remake too.

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?

[derboo]

Jul 16, 2012 20:33:34 GMT -5 BdR said:

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)

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.

Jul 17, 2012 2:33:33 GMT -5 Sketcz-1000 said:

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?

It's a new assumption for the original version, which still has to be tested.

[BdR]

Jul 17, 2012 2:33:33 GMT -5 Sketcz-1000 said:

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.

Jul 17, 2012 4:01:21 GMT -5 derboo said:

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.

[derboo]

The article is now updated with the link. I also want to make a blog post about it tomorrow, just wanna keep my last post on the top spot for a few more hours...

I couldn't find a solution for stage 11 so far... 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.

[BdR]

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 730
Which 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:GOTO770
which evaluates as
IF StandingOnLadder AND (destination=empty OR destination=ladder) THEN move up

Jul 18, 2012 16:01:48 GMT -5 derboo said:

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.

[BdR]

This is pretty cool. "Minor Miner" is yet another implementation of Pitman for use with the PetitComputer. PetitComputer is a sort of virtual machine for the Nintendo DSi which is available on Nintendo DSiWare.

It was created in april 2012 by a guy who I assume is called "Eida Hatena" and it's the same as the MZ-700 version. He apparently used the listing scans from the hardcoregaming101 article, as he mentions hardcoregaming101 at the bottom. ;D

See Japanese page here (or English translation here)

[Sketcz-1000]

Thanks for the info!

I always feel a tremendous sense of validation and triumph when Japanese gamers (or indeed Korean) comment on our articles, with the implication they were a significant or worthwile source for seeing/finding/reading something. Excellent news.