Subject: Need help WHT file broken

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:13:52 -0500

Hello all, this is a big request--- well, for me anyway.  :). There is  
a file on WHT that I have been trying to use and it appears to be  
broken. It's the Asgard ToD Editor software written by John Behnke.   
It is very important to me to get this program up and running--- and  
so far, I cannot get it to run properly.  It loads and starts, but  
once the user selects which type of editing will be done, it kicks out  
I/O errors and all kinds of mess.  It is saved to WHT as a V9T9 DSK  
file, and after extracting it, Classic99 did not recognize certain  
parts of the files.  I will attempt to run it again and grab the debug  
log for Tursi.  If someone could please DL it and give it a try, I  
would appreciate your input on it.  This is something that I have  
struggled with for a while...my old crappy 5.25 drive ate my editor  
diskette, and I woud rather emulate the process anyway.  PLEASE  
help!!!  :). Thanks in advance guys.

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:19:53 -0500

It's in the games file, the editor is called Tod-edit.  Thanks

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

On Feb 26, 2010, at 12:13 PM, Owen Brand <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hello all, this is a big request--- well, for me anyway.  :). There  
> is a file on WHT that I have been trying to use and it appears to be  
> once the user selects which type of editing will be done, it kicks  
> out I/O errors and all kinds of mess.  It is saved to WHT as a V9T9  
> DSK file, and after extracting it, Classic99 did not recognize  
> certain parts of the files.  I will attempt to run it again and grab  
> the debug log for Tursi.  If someone could please DL it and give it  
> a try, I would appreciate your input on it.  This is something that  
> I have struggled with for a while...my old crappy 5.25 drive ate my  
> editor diskette, and I woud rather emulate the process anyway.   
> PLEASE help!!!  :). Thanks in advance guys.
>
> Owen Brand
> Opry99er.com

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:21:53 -0500

Here's what's actually happening...  The screen freezes up and the  
error tone stays constant... There is no way to break out without  
shutting down Classic99.

I get an I/O error 1284 in 5710

Line 5710 reads

5710 CALL LINK("R",1,54,E$,T$)

Bob says this runs fine on his /4a....

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

On Feb 26, 2010, at 12:19 PM, Owen Brand <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> is a file on WHT that I have been trying to use and it appears to  
>> be broken. It's the Asgard ToD Editor software written by John  
>> Behnke.  It is very important to me to get this program up and  
>> running--- and so far, I cannot get it to run properly.  It loads  
>> and starts, but once the user selects which type of editing will be  
>> done, it kicks out I/O errors and all kinds of mess.  It is saved  
>> to WHT as a V9T9 DSK file, and after extracting it, Classic99 did  
>> not recognize certain parts of the files.  I will attempt to run it  
>> again and grab the debug log for Tursi.  If someone could please DL  
>> it and give it a try, I would appreciate your input on it.  This is  
>> something that I have struggled with for a while...my old crappy  
>> 5.25 drive ate my editor diskette, and I woud rather emulate the  
>> process anyway.  PLEASE help!!!  :). Thanks in advance guys.
>>
>> Owen Brand
>> Opry99er.com

---

From: tursi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:34:32 -0800 (PST)

What's the actual path? I went looking for this and only found the 
manuals.

> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:37:29 -0500

Games->Tod-editor.dsk

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

---

From: ti99_forever <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:44:13 -0800 (PST)

Easy!
The TOD editor assumes your TOD game is the first on a fresh disk.
It does DIRECT SECTOR reads on the disk (NOT ADIF/ADOF).
If you extracted the files, this isn't going to work - it has to be on a disk IMAGE.

--- On Fri, 2/26/10, tursi <[email-masked]> wrote:

> From: tursi <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: [TI994A] Re: Need help WHT file broken
> To: [email-masked]
> Date: Friday, February 26, 2010, 2:34 PM
>     [email-masked]
> 
> 
>

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500

Also, I put my own ToD game into a DISK file in Classic99, so that  
when it DID ask me to load my ToD game, I could change the name of the  
DISK file to DSK1.  Ben, I'm probably just misunderstanding your  
suggestion.  :)

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

---

From: mark wills <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:19:07 -0800 (PST)

Ben,

Just tried the disk image from WHT with MESS: it won't read it :-(

----- Original Message ----
> From: ti99_forever <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Fri, 26 February, 2010 19:44:13
> --- On Fri, 2/26/10, tursi wrote:
> 
> > From: tursi 
> > > On Feb 26, 2010, at 12:19 PM, Owen Brand 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >> On Feb 26, 2010, at 12:13 PM, Owen Brand 
> > >> wrote:
> > >>

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:06:48 -0500

Ok... But it asks you to load your dungeon diskette midway through  
setup... I can't even get that far before it crashes.  Mark, didn't  
you try it as a dsk image in win994a?

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

---

From: "ti99_forever" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:26:36 -0000

Are you putting the file in the DSK1 directory?
Or are you using a disk image? Like PC99 or V9T9 images, where you have one big file that is a "disk image" containing your files?

Tursi *may* emulate relative sector access for files, but he cannot emulate disk sector access for files that are not in a disk image.

Always thought TOD Editor deserved a rewrite using the ADIF/ADOF routines instead of the sector read/write routines...

--- In [email-masked], Owen Brand <owenbrand@...> wrote:
> On Feb 26, 2010, at 2:44 PM, ti99_forever <ti99_forever@...>  
> wrote:
> 
> > Easy!
> > --- On Fri, 2/26/10, tursi <yahoogroup@...> wrote:
> >
> > > From: tursi <yahoogroup@...>
> > > > On Feb 26, 2010, at 12:19 PM, Owen Brand <owenbrand@...>
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> On Feb 26, 2010, at 12:13 PM, Owen Brand <owenbrand@...>
> > > >> wrote:
> > > >>

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:48:48 -0500

Howard Kistler would be the person for this job... He knows the ToD  
data structures better than anyone I know... He broke it down to the  
bare bones and reverse engineered the entire TOD file structure...  
Even created a JAVA toolkit to convert old ToD games into his ToDR  
format.  Even imports graphics and attributes.  Pretty amazing work

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

On Feb 26, 2010, at 3:26 PM, "ti99_forever" <[email-masked]>  
wrote:

> Or are you using a disk image? Like PC99 or V9T9 images, where you  
> have one big file that is a "disk image" containing your files?
>
> Tursi *may* emulate relative sector access for files, but he cannot  
> emulate disk sector access for files that are not in a disk image.
>
> Always thought TOD Editor deserved a rewrite using the ADIF/ADOF  
> routines instead of the sector read/write routines...
>
> > > If you extracted the files, this isn't going to work - it has to  
> be
> > > on a disk IMAGE.
> > >

---

From: tursi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:22:11 -0800 (PST)

> Also, I put my own ToD game into a DISK file in Classic99, so that when 
> it DID ask me to load my ToD game, I could change the name of the DISK 
> file to DSK1.  Ben, I'm probably just misunderstanding your suggestion. 
>  :) 

Ben's explanation matches the symptoms. There's no way to make it work 
with Classic99 till I add support for disk image files. You'll have to try 
another emulator.

---

From: tursi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:25:15 -0800 (PST)

> Are you putting the file in the DSK1 directory? Or are you using a disk 
> image? Like PC99 or V9T9 images, where you have one big file that is a 
> "disk image" containing your files? Tursi *may* emulate relative sector 
> access for files, but he cannot emulate disk sector access for files 
> that are not in a disk image. Always thought TOD Editor deserved a 
> rewrite using the ADIF/ADOF routines instead of the sector read/write 
> routines...

Yeah... Classic99's emulated disk supports sector access to sectors 0 and 
1, as well as each directory sector. It also supports the relative sector 
reads per file (ie: reading a file one sector at a time). Although in 
theory I could invent a scheme to allow direct sector accesses to also 
find files, I chose not to introduce that (large!) complexity, and you'll 
get the 'not emulated sector' error.

So TOD emulator will count as "not compatible" till I add the disk image 
support.

---

From: ti99_forever <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:23:48 -0800 (PST)

Do you support file-relative sector addressing currently?
Might be time for a TOD-editor rewrite...

--- On Fri, 2/26/10, tursi <[email-masked]> wrote:

> To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
> Date: Friday, February 26, 2010, 4:22 PM

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:44:17 -0500

Ben, I'm putting the game "TODBER" into DSK1, it is the only file in  
the DSK.  But i understand the disk sector access deal... Waiting to  
hear from Tursi on Classic99s specs.  Mark hasnt had any success with  
win994a or Mess... So I'm out of ideas... I'd love to see a rewrite on  
this--- even a PC specific version that Kicks out a TIFILES file.  :)

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

---

From: tursi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:43:00 -0800 (PST)

> Might be time for a TOD-editor rewrite...

Yeah, I do. I think it's broken for writing at the moment (it doesn't run 
through my nice buffered IO system, although now that I think about it, it 
could... ;) ). It tries but I seem to remember logging a couple of bugs 
on it. But it's supported and reading works, anyway.

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:43:44 -0500

Ben... There were many shortcomings of the original ToD editor... Are  
you talking about starting from scratch, or "converting" the existing  
one?  If you are talking about a TOTAL rewrite, I have a few  
suggestions.  :)

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:38:45 -0500

Thank you Tursi.  I appreciate this explanation.  BTW, if I WANTED to  
emulate this, what emulator (other than  PC99) would you suggest?   
Willsy said he couldn't get it to work in either Win99/4a or MESS....  
I have obtained a digital copy of this program with copy protects  
turned off.  Don't know if that matters....

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:53:00 -0500

The ToD editor utilizes both read and write.  It essentially parses  
out the code and allows you to change stuff.  I wish you could start  
from scratch, as no matter how much you edit, there's still a bit of  
"carry over" from other games.  This became evident to me when I spent  
a week working on the "Legend of Beryl Reichardt" ToD adventure a  
while back.... Still couldn't change certain things I really wanted to  
change.  This was going to be one of my suggestions if a re-write is  
to be in the works.  I'd love to assist in the development, if my  
services would in any way be useful.  Of course Ben is a far more  
experienced programmer than I.

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

---

From: ti99_forever <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:06:08 -0800 (PST)

Well, it would need to support writing as well...

You know the TOD Editor could have stayed away from sector reading altogether if they could trust people to modify the FDR to change a program file to DF128 and back again. That is how I used to do similar stuff in XB...

Would've saved him memory for more assembly routines...

--- On Fri, 2/26/10, tursi <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Date: Friday, February 26, 2010, 4:43 PM

---

From: tursi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:19:32 -0800 (PST)

When I look at http://ftp.whtech.com, open "Games", there's no 
Tod-editor.dsk. That's why I asked for the path. :)

I have checked on the FTP side to be sure, and it shows up there. I guess 
a bug in the 'FileNice' thing...? (I'm not real fond of that..)

Okay, so I grabbed the disk and the latest ti99dir. I can reproduce the 
problem you see. At the failure, it's just reading through VDP memory.

The sector read happens at line 5710 in the XB program EDITOR. I can see 
it reading sectors 54 and 55 (as Mark saw in the log). It does some strip 
manipulation with the results,does a bunch more with sectors 56 through 
58, and passes the results into more assembly code.

The IO Error warnings are caused by the non-emulated sectors. The lockup 
is hard to be sure, I would lean towards copy protection too. As such it 
will probably work dumped to a real disk.

> Games->Tod-editor.dsk
> 
> Owen Brandhref="http://Opry99er.com">Opry99er.com
> 
> On Feb 26, 2010, at 2:34 PM, tursi <href="mailto:[email-masked]">[email-masked]> wrote:

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:26:36 -0500

Tursi, I have a version from which the copy protect has been removed.   
I would gladly send it your way.

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

---

From: ti99_forever <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:36:42 -0800 (PST)

It is "tod-edit.dsk"

--- On Fri, 2/26/10, tursi <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Date: Friday, February 26, 2010, 4:19 PM
> >       What's the actual path?
> I went looking for this and only found the
> >       manuals.
> 
>

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:41:09 -0500

Yep... Sorry

Owen Brand
Opry99er.com

On Feb 26, 2010, at 5:36 PM, ti99_forever <[email-masked]>  
wrote:

> > > On Feb 26, 2010, at 2:34 PM, tursi <href="mailto:[email-masked] 
> ">[email-masked]>
> > wrote:
> > >       What's the actual path?

---

From: tursi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:46:03 -0800 (PST)

> Well, it would need to support writing as well...

Yeah, but I think writing to an already-existing file works. ;)

I'll put on my list to fix that, now that I've thought of a way to run 
sector access through the file IO layer. ;)