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Knight Rider
Registered: Mar 2005
Posts: 116 |
If it were 1987 again....
I was watching Robin's video https://youtu.be/yVtKKb3wkYc regarding cracking from an original cassette. And it stirred a little interest in me again. To be honest I can't even remember how now but I cracked Wizball from original cassette using a Trilogic Expert (2nd version with botched ESM daughter board) and very likely V2.9 of the monitor software.
I did this again now on real hardware (as I wasn't having much luck with WinVICE 3.7), just for laughs and to try to stir up memories of way back then. Defeating Freeload now was much easier for me than back then.
I used the following packers:
MCC Compressor
then
Card Cruncher V4 (no idea who lent me this cartridge, but probably Tork&Torky)
(usual one was Matcham Time Cruncher V3.1 or a hacked version which ended up becoming Time Cruncher V3.1)
I ended up with 182 blocks incl. intro in Wizball
So it leads me to the next question, back in the day (for me) the best cracks had the smallest disk block size.
What packers did you use then on a real C64 in 1987, and what would you use now on real hardware (a. released upto 1987 and then anytime). What block size can you achieve ?
Exomizer V3.02 gives 144 blocks when no additional parameters are given.
TRIAD Wizball + is 166 with intro
Krejzi Packer $005E-$FFFF + Matcham Time Cruncher V3.1 gives 161 blocks
MCC Compressor + Matcham Time Cruncher V3.1 gives 165 blocks
Beast-Link/64k + Byte Boiler 256k V1.0 gives 148 blocks
Byte-Buster V4.1 + Byte Boiler 256k V1.0 gives 148 blocks |
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Knight Rider
Registered: Mar 2005
Posts: 116 |
The Mr. Z one is the disk version and not the tape. |
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1727 |
Quote: The Mr. Z one is the disk version and not the tape.
What's different between the versions? I just assumed they are the same. |
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Martin Piper
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 646 |
Quote: What's different between the versions? I just assumed they are the same.
If you have a look at my video it notes some of the differences. Code and data changes resulting in different memory address offsets while opcodes are mostly the same.
What looks like different code builds. Some duplicate memory. |
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ws
Registered: Apr 2012
Posts: 230 |
Who carez, but i wanted to try. This is quite interesting.
I depacked the wizball FCG crack (?id=103990), did some shallow cleaning of some obvious freezer garbage in the e400+ area, and wrote a quick and dirty 0400-0800 restore and then tested the cruncher i liked back in the day, wich is not super, despite the name -
datel supercrunch: 187 blocks, 47.327 bytes - wow thats bad (but it is fast and easy to use).
then i just wanted to check what the exomizer does with my cleaned wiz:
exomizer: 140 blocks, 35.491 bytes
if i hadn't blindly ignored knight rider's nice cleanup tips, and my restore was - as usual - less superoldschoolsloppy,... maybemaybemaybe, but well...
nice crunchcompo. ;-)
@knight rider - that cracking from cassette video is superb. thank you! |
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Knight Rider
Registered: Mar 2005
Posts: 116 |
After wathcing Bacchus video, I tried Fungus tool for FREELOAD to see Fungus Tape Transfers Disk
...of course it produces the same memory ($0400-$ffef) as a freezer crack, which I already knew. |
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1727 |
Quote: After wathcing Bacchus video, I tried Fungus tool for FREELOAD to see Fungus Tape Transfers Disk
...of course it produces the same memory ($0400-$ffef) as a freezer crack, which I already knew.
I guess that depends on what you mean by "freezer crack".
A "freeze" was typically a (bad) crack produced by pressing the freeze button right after the game started and letting the cart save a runnable result.
A "reset crack" was typically another (bad) crack produced by resetting the game into a monitor right after the game started. Then manually searching for where the relevant chunks of code/data is and a jmp address, then saving.
Both of these have the problem of a lot of initialization have already been done, clobbering memory, and that there may be a lot things that cannot be reinitialized correctly, resulting in a non-working game. |
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Knight Rider
Registered: Mar 2005
Posts: 116 |
I meant doing this, then entering Expert via restore and then saving all memory.
Quoting Knight Rider
* = $1000
jsr $f72c ;Read program header off tape
ldx #<TREX1
ldy #>TREX1
stx $03ee+1 ;.C:03ee A9 00 LDA #<$0800
sty $03f3+1 ;.C:03f3 A9 08 LDA #>$0800
jmp $F56C ;Read rest of program off tape
TREX1
lda #$00
sta $09a0 ;.C:09a0 20 48 45 JSR $4548
- lda $09a0 ;.C:09a0 20 48 45 JSR $4548
beq -
lda #$18 ;ie CLC
ldx #$90 ;ie BNE -2
ldy #$fd ;ie BNE -2
sta $099d ;.C:099d 4C 89 63 JMP $6389
stx $099e ;.C:099d 4C 89 63 JMP $6389
sty $099f ;.C:099d 4C 89 63 JMP $6389
jmp $0800
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1727 |
Quote: I meant doing this, then entering Expert via restore and then saving all memory.
Quoting Knight Rider
* = $1000
jsr $f72c ;Read program header off tape
ldx #<TREX1
ldy #>TREX1
stx $03ee+1 ;.C:03ee A9 00 LDA #<$0800
sty $03f3+1 ;.C:03f3 A9 08 LDA #>$0800
jmp $F56C ;Read rest of program off tape
TREX1
lda #$00
sta $09a0 ;.C:09a0 20 48 45 JSR $4548
- lda $09a0 ;.C:09a0 20 48 45 JSR $4548
beq -
lda #$18 ;ie CLC
ldx #$90 ;ie BNE -2
ldy #$fd ;ie BNE -2
sta $099d ;.C:099d 4C 89 63 JMP $6389
stx $099e ;.C:099d 4C 89 63 JMP $6389
sty $099f ;.C:099d 4C 89 63 JMP $6389
jmp $0800
without analysing the details of it, that is the strategy of a "clean" crack, i.e only loaded into memory, not started.
There could of course be crumbs you fail to capture this way but not sure if those were common together with freeload. |
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Mason
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 459 |
Quote: After wathcing Bacchus video, I tried Fungus tool for FREELOAD to see Fungus Tape Transfers Disk
...of course it produces the same memory ($0400-$ffef) as a freezer crack, which I already knew.
It's the Hitsquad release that uses Freeload. THe original Ocean release uses Ocean/Imagine loader
It might give a different picture |
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1727 |
Quote: It's the Hitsquad release that uses Freeload. THe original Ocean release uses Ocean/Imagine loader
It might give a different picture
Hmm, is that really true? I found a Hitsquad release and that used hitload. Several Ocean dumps seem to use freeload. |
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