Tap2dsk - advice please

Anything related to the tools Tap2Wav, Tap2CD, Tap2Dsk, Sedoric Disc Manager, Tape Header Creator, WriteDsk, and generaly speaking tools related to the management of Oric data files and devices.
stainlessstephen
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Tap2dsk - advice please

Post by stainlessstephen »

Folks

I've never used this before, so with the new Cumana Reborn, I took a Tap image of Hunchback, converted it to Dsk, and then to Hfe.

HXC recognised it as a valid Dsk file with 21 tracks.

When trying it on the CR, it got to the Ready prompt but nothing further

Have I misunderstood something / done something wrong?

Has anyone converted the entire Tap library to Dsk before? Any problems?

Thanks
Steve
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xahmol
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Re: Tap2dsk - advice please

Post by xahmol »

Not sure if it is the issue here, but please be aware that, like the Erebus by the way, so-called multiload .tap files are not supported. So if the .tap has a loader and a main program, it does not work.

Only way to solve that is patch the original game not to use a loader. Which has been done for many games.

Not sure about Hunchback though. Have to try when I am back behind my Atmos.

And no, I only converted things to .tap on a need to play basis.

DSKs that are original disk programs do work on your CR?
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xahmol
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Re: Tap2dsk - advice please

Post by xahmol »

And just checking because you only get a ready prompt: you did try to actually start the game from disk?

With the default options, Tap2dsk does not generate auto starting disks. It can do that with its option, but let’s first check if it works at all.

What did you type after selecting the disk, the Oric booting Sedoric and getting the ready prompt?
If nothing, try to type DIR as command first to show the disk contents. Then see what the files in the disk are.
Probably you see a file with a .com extenstion, you can execute that file by just typing the name of that file (.com not required) plus enter.
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xahmol
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Re: Tap2dsk - advice please

Post by xahmol »

Oh, and almost forgot: tap2dsk (alas) still converts to the old ORIC DSK format, the tool is not updated to the new.
So you also need to convert the resulting DSK to the new format first by using old2mfm.exe

So to detail:
<odsk bin path>\tap2dsk hunchbk.tap hunchbk.dsk
<odsk bin path>\old2mfm hunchbk.dsk
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Re: Tap2dsk - advice please

Post by stainlessstephen »

Thanks all

I will follow these suggestions and have a go at converting a few.
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xahmol
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Re: Tap2dsk - advice please

Post by xahmol »

I did a quick check myself with this Hunchback image:
https://www.oric.org/index.php?page=sof ... num_log=57

If I convert to DSK via the two step approach in my previous post, in Oricutron I see this if I type DIR:
Schermafbeelding 2022-06-30 111711.png
Schermafbeelding 2022-06-30 111711.png (10.19 KiB) Viewed 1840 times
So indeed, as I was afraid, this version of Hunchback is a multiload tap, with a loader file (HUNCHBACK.COM) loading the HIRES and HUNCH files.
Alas that does not work, as the loader tries to load them from tape, which is not present.
Actually running HUNCH.COM works, but it will miss graphics data so does not look right.

Only way to solve this alas is search if somebody already made a patched version working on Erebus, as that should work after tap2dsk as well.
Or try to patch yourselves, which in this case should not even be difficult if you see the BASIC listing of the HUNCHBACK.COM file:
Schermafbeelding 2022-06-30 112247.png
See the CLOAD on lines 110 and 120, that is where it goes wrong as it tries to load from tape.
I changed these CLOADs to LOADs and, voila, it works.

Attached the resulting DSK. That one should work. Did not make it autostart yet, so after inserting disk, type HUNCHBACK plus ENTER.
hunchbk.dsk
(131.5 KiB) Downloaded 87 times
Last edited by xahmol on Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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xahmol
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Re: Tap2dsk - advice please

Post by xahmol »

As making it autostart is easy, did that as well as I was going anyway:
hunchbk.dsk
(131.5 KiB) Downloaded 85 times
Did so by these commands before patching the HUNCHBACK.COM file as above:
<Path to OSDK>\Bin\tap2dsk -iCLS:HUNCHBACK -c20:3 -nHUNCHBACK hunchbk.tap hunchbk.dsk
<Path to OSDK>\Bin\old2mfm hunchbk.dsk
Last edited by xahmol on Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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xahmol
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Re: Tap2dsk - advice please

Post by xahmol »

And OK, converted it to HFE as well.
This forum does not allow to attach files with a .hfe extension, so ZIPped it, please unzip to the .hfe again.
hunchbk.zip
(47.89 KiB) Downloaded 94 times
Works on my real hardware plus Cumana Reborn:
Schermafbeelding 2022-06-30 114313.png
(by the way: now also remember why I never converted this one earlier. The Oric version of Hunchback is super annoying and slow compared to the C64 and Spectrum versions..... the Oric can do much better)
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Re: Tap2dsk - advice please

Post by Dbug »

HFE format has been added to the list of allowed extensions.
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