MULE dumps

[Kroah]

Hi all,

On the website from Ralf (ExtremeMULEing: http://mule.eichberger.net/index.php, there's some stats that don't match my source code of MULE.

Ralf have confirmed with his friend (the green packer) that some events can occur 4 times a game. But on my version, no event can occur more than 3 times. And he says me that this fact is correct for the C64 and Atari version. Unfortunately, he hasn't any dump because he plays on real system, so i can't check the source code to understand.

Some others version have random generated map or have 4 joysticks support, etc...

So, i need some help to gather these dumps of MULE that we know they are different from the one in the AMO Package. I haven't any dump tool, nor the SIO cable.

I have all the versions from the TOSEC Dat (8 AFAIK) but haven't actually checked them and don't know either how to check them out without decompile a lot of code.

If you know you have a different dump, post it here, i'll thank you

Kroah

[xot]

I have an SIO cable and an original copy of MULE from 1983. I've never dumped it but I'll give it a try in the next few days. I've got tools that can find the differences in between two images. The disk image I'm working from is slightly different than the AMO version but identical in terms of actual gameplay code.

From what I've seen in the code there is no way an event can happen more that 2 or 3 times (depending on the event) -- although the table controlling it could be easily hacked. Seems unlikely but who knows.

[Kroah]

I have an SIO cable and an original copy of MULE from 1983. I've never dumped it but I'll give it a try in the next few days. I've got tools that can find the differences in between two images. The disk image I'm working from is slightly different than the AMO version but identical in terms of actual gameplay code.

wow, cool ! Can you tell me if this is easy to dump a floppy disk with the tools and the cable ?. On eBay, there's some SIO cable for sale, do you now better way to have one than eBay ? Or maybe it's easy to build one DIY ?

From what I've seen in the code there is no way an event can happen more that 2 or 3 times (depending on the event) -- although the table controlling it could be easily hacked. Seems unlikely but who knows.

Yeah, i've seen the same thing. Easy to hack, but without hacking, it's max 2 or 3 times... And i don't think Ralf is mistaken. For sure, there's some different versions floating around us

Kroah

[xot]

Back when the first Atari 800 emulator came out (Xformer for the Atari ST by Derek Mihoka) I made an SIO cable for it. That's the setup I used to get the (cracked, XL-patched) disk image I'm currently working with. Unfortunately, the subtle differences between the ST and PC parallel ports makes the cable incompatible with PCs. So a couple of years ago I bought the Sunmark sio2pc board (purchase on eBay from Sunmark) and made a new cable with it. It was very easy to set up and works well. So far I've only used it to recover my personal Atari software. I'm not sure how well it works with copy protected disks.

I've also got the Sunmark MegaCart version of M.U.L.E. (19 of 50), but I'm not sure how to dump it. It's possible it uses the disk image in this tutorial about making your own MULE cartridge. That dump is almost certainly the same as this cartidge from AtariMax.

Somebody hacked together an Atari 5200 version of MULE recently. Looks like they are sold out. Man, I wish I'd known, I'd love to have one.


More info about the 5200 cart here.

[Atari Frog]

Hi,

You may want to try the version on our site which is a 1:1 copy of the original, meaning it has 100% intact code and copy protection: http://www.atarimania.com/vapi.php?MENU=8&RUB=VAPI

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

[xot]

Is there someplace that this ATX format is explained or documented?

[Kroah]

Is there someplace that this ATX format is explained or documented?

Do you mean ATR format ?
You can look here: http://www.tcainternet.com/wa5bdu/readme.txt

Code: Select all

STRUCTURE OF AN SIO2PC ATARI DISK IMAGE:

It's extremely simple. There is first a 16 byte header with the following
information:

WORD = special code* indicating this is an Atari disk file
WORD = size of this disk image, in paragraphs (size/16)
WORD = sector size. (128 or 256) bytes/sector
WORD = high part of size, in paragraphs (added by REV 3.00)
BYTE = disk flags such as copy protection and write protect; see copy
protection chapter.
WORD=1st (or typical) bad sector; see copy protection chapter.
SPARES 5 unused (spare) header bytes (contain zeroes)

After the header comes the disk image. This is just a continuous string of
bytes, with the first 128 bytes being the contents of disk sector 1, the
second being sector 2, etc.

* The "code" is the 16 bit sum of the individual ASCII values of the
string of bytes: "NICKATARI". If you try to load a file without this first
WORD, you get a "THIS FILE IS NOT AN ATARI DISK FILE" error
message. Try it.


Another source:

Code: Select all

The 'standard' ATR file format is: (first byte listed as 1, not 0)
01: NICKATARI Signature
02: "
03: Paragraphs, low
04: Paragraphs, high
05: Sector Size, low
06: Sector Size, high
07: Extended paragraphs
08..16: Unused
Remainder of image contains Atari data.


Kroah

[xot]

Thanks for that but I do mean ATX. That is the format of the dump Atari Frog mentions. ATX supports copy protected disks so it must have some extra disk data embedded in there. I couldn't find any documentation. Apparently ATX files can only be used with a DLL or patched version of Atari800Win.

[Kroah]

Thanks for that but I do mean ATX. That is the format of the dump Atari Frog mentions.

Ho, sorry, i haven't already checked the link from Atari Frog.

There's no information available on Ijor's website about the ATX format. I've posted a message on AtariAge forum, let's wait now...

Kroah

[Kroah]

Is there someplace that this ATX format is explained or documented?

Atari Frog answers me on the AtariAge forum. I paste here his message:

Semi-public for the moment. You can run ATX images either with a special version of Atari800Win PLus or with VAPI2SIO if you are using the SIO2PC cable but the imaging tool is still in beta.

Here is the main page for the project: http://vapi.fxatari.com

The format isn't made public for now i suppose, the link don't provide any information about it. I'm too curious

Kroah

[xot]

Thanks for the info and the link. I guess we will have to wait. I'm going to hack around in the ATX version of MULE for a little while to see if I can figure anything out.