0xC0DE

Yeah, same, though my Electron project folders are reasonably structured (and mirrored to github)

While coding Electroniq (Acorn Electron emulator) I got into the habit of writing down ideas, research, tech info, etc etc in a simple notes.txt file. This is now a 4300+ lines document and I'm very happy with it, considering my degrading memory and sparse comments in my source code 🤣

Hidden sectors. The encrypted bootstrap code is in !BOOT and is laced with the usual stuff: overwriting the vector table, *FX200,3, kicking out all ROMs, etc.

After getting rid of decryption and other shenanigans, we discover the secret:
.read_sectors ;read 7 sectors to &1d00
lda #$72
ldx #$8a
ldy #$2f ;YX = OSWORD control block
jsr $fff1 ;OSWORD &72 ADFS read blocks
lda osword_block ;get error code
bne read_sectors ;retry on error
rts ;i.e. jmp &1d00
2/2

From tape protection rabbithole to disk protection rabbithole. This Acornsoft "Plus 3 Games" disc (stairwaytohell.com/electron/adf...) appears to contain only 2 small files, but upon boot you can still play 3 different games! The code in the !BOOT file is no match for modern emulators though 1/2

Testing is fine, just don't move over to the dark side permanently 😆

Rocket science is child's play in comparison!

😂

Always nice to see it on the actual machine you're making it for 😎 MMB is not the most user friendly format. You can always load from tape again 😄

I'm hopeless when it comes to hardware 🤣 Luckily the dirt cheap usb audio device does the trick for me, so I can focus on writing software again 😎

Yes, that is possible, or even switch the whole colour palette off for a certain part of the screen

I was starting to wonder whether it doesn't work because Windows 11 simply can't see anything plugged into the jacks. It's not a modern speaker or microphone that I'm plugging in after all

That is definitely not the layout of the Electron screen 😅

My laptop has those jacks too but I can't get them to work with the Electron no matter what I try

Nice compression ratio! 🗜️

My custom tape loaders now confirmed working on a real Acorn Electron, including some lost bytes due to crippled MODE 1 🤣 I had trouble connecting my laptop (playuef, audacity) to my Electron, until I bought a cheap usb audio device aka "external soundcard". Loading/saving data works perfectly 😎

I can't remember exactly, but I think I managed to save most of my childhood programs/experiments that I made in BASIC/asm

I checked some of my old tapes a few years ago, until to my horror the tape player was 'eating' my tapes!

That's great, thank you!

Thanks Dave!

That would be great, thank you, but please don't worry if it is too much hassle! FYI, I may be getting XOR from someone else as well (but you never know with old tapes and old tape decks)

I am basically looking for exact digital copies of original Acorn Electron tapes, in a suitable format like HQ UEF (not UEF), WAV or something like that. Standard UEF/SSD/ROM files usually don't contain tape protection code and custom tape loaders anymore

3D Pool, Bed Bugs, Birdstrike, Boulderdash, Bug Eyes 2, Fantasia Diamond, Galaforce 1 + 2, Impossible Mission, Indoor Sports, Jet Set Willy 1 + 2, Mikie, Summer Olympiad, Superman, Ultron, Wizzy's Mansion, XOR, Yie Ar Kung Fu

Anyone who has (or can make!) *original format* tape images (HQ UEF, WAV, etc) of Acorn Electron games that have tape protection and/or custom tape loaders, please get in touch 😎
Examples of games I am looking for in next post...

Quick tip: you can remove "cpx #255" altogether 😎

Very handy! I frequently use C/JS/Python/etc to create mockups and PoCs

It's pretty straightforward but interesting at the same time!

I was curious how game devs made custom tape loaders back in the day. Here is my disassembly (+comments) of the tape loader of Way of the Exploding Fist (Acorn Electron). It loads "encrypted" continuous streams, which are still made up of blocks so you can rewind & retry github.com/0xC0DE6502/c...

Have fun at ABUG! Not much programming will get done over there 😄

Haha, you're totally right, on to the next bit!