Denial disks using ABC
Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 7:55 am
I remember VIC 20 as the friendly computer; but sometimes I forget how unfriendly it can be, real hardware and emulator alike, for anyone else that wants to trial it. Different memory configurations, resetting the VIC (and IEC drive), the LOAD/RUN sequence, stuff like that can get clumsy to operate even to a veteran.
PRG Starter is cool and helps a lot in the emulator "quick launch" scene. And there are more than a few disk menu utilities to run a program, sometimes with fast loaders, etc.
But sometimes I just want to take out my real VIC or emulator and have it run like a kiosk for my non-VIC peeps -- the kind that have a short attention span for some of these little games, but want to see it boot up and maybe try it for a while. Any of this sound familiar?
This got me thinking about exploring the game cartridge space some more. At first, I was thinking of making just a dedicated autoboot cart for a single game that could use an expansive VIC graphic API in the ROM... but more to follow up on that later. First, I needed a working autoboot cartridge.
I am labeling it "ABC". It's an ALPHA release, so it is primitive. It does work its way quickly down the IEC drive chain from #11 - #8, because I want it to use my uIEC drive (defaults as #10) first when possible. I expect to be improving it over time, but I want to move on next to adding "modules" to it, such as that expansive VIC graphic API that alleviates a standalone PRG from having to embed it as part of its binary. I want to think of that as the Super Expander for VIC arcade games.
FWIIW, I took the liberty of gathering the standalone PRG files from each release year since 2011 through today, plus I made a separate one for the Denial Archive (although its Zombie Yard looks to me as corrupted?). There are more than a few broken links, complex utilities, and D64 images that would not fit the bill, so my apologies upfront if something is missing. This is my early attempt to test ABC, while perhaps making a convenient disk image for peeps to use.
You can download the vic20-denial-* disk images from here. Note that the archive disk is in d71 format. The same download directory has a copy of abc in both prg and a0 format.
I launch it thus:
$ xvic -memory all -8 vic20-denial-2014.d64 -cartA abc.a0
The RESTORE key (PgUp key on VICE) will mostly work if the PRG did not remap it for its own needs. The emulator's Alt-F9 or real hardware RESET switch will warm boot and go back to the ABC cart program.
PRG Starter is cool and helps a lot in the emulator "quick launch" scene. And there are more than a few disk menu utilities to run a program, sometimes with fast loaders, etc.
But sometimes I just want to take out my real VIC or emulator and have it run like a kiosk for my non-VIC peeps -- the kind that have a short attention span for some of these little games, but want to see it boot up and maybe try it for a while. Any of this sound familiar?
This got me thinking about exploring the game cartridge space some more. At first, I was thinking of making just a dedicated autoboot cart for a single game that could use an expansive VIC graphic API in the ROM... but more to follow up on that later. First, I needed a working autoboot cartridge.
I am labeling it "ABC". It's an ALPHA release, so it is primitive. It does work its way quickly down the IEC drive chain from #11 - #8, because I want it to use my uIEC drive (defaults as #10) first when possible. I expect to be improving it over time, but I want to move on next to adding "modules" to it, such as that expansive VIC graphic API that alleviates a standalone PRG from having to embed it as part of its binary. I want to think of that as the Super Expander for VIC arcade games.
FWIIW, I took the liberty of gathering the standalone PRG files from each release year since 2011 through today, plus I made a separate one for the Denial Archive (although its Zombie Yard looks to me as corrupted?). There are more than a few broken links, complex utilities, and D64 images that would not fit the bill, so my apologies upfront if something is missing. This is my early attempt to test ABC, while perhaps making a convenient disk image for peeps to use.
You can download the vic20-denial-* disk images from here. Note that the archive disk is in d71 format. The same download directory has a copy of abc in both prg and a0 format.
I launch it thus:
$ xvic -memory all -8 vic20-denial-2014.d64 -cartA abc.a0
The RESTORE key (PgUp key on VICE) will mostly work if the PRG did not remap it for its own needs. The emulator's Alt-F9 or real hardware RESET switch will warm boot and go back to the ABC cart program.