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Richard
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 619 |
UWOL Loader system
I'm quite curious about the loading system used on the game Uwol (And also Not Even Human) and would like to try this program out myself on some of my old games. How was the loader / mastering made?
Some information and feedback about this tape system would be appreciated. :) |
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Twoflower
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 434 |
...or just let Enthusi keep his secrets to himself. It'd be much funnier to crack (or to see someone crack) a quality tapegame if the process/mastering is undocumented. Not Even Human even had an in-game copy-protection, so I have quite high hopes concerning Enthusi's mad tape-mastering skillz. Btw - as far as I understood it, Onslaughts version of UWOL wasn't done from the tapeversion?
With that said - if you intend to get more information from Enthusi in this case, take that discussion in private messages. :-) |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1627 |
@Twoflower: Then the cracker could perhaps just as well refrain from reading the info about the loader/protection? :) ...if the challenge is going to be artificial like that anyway, I mean. :) Perhaps he could try to do it blindfolded, with only one hand? To make it harder, I mean. :)
Sorry to act like a "smartass", but these were just the associations that came to mind when reading your posts. The intention was not really to bash down on anything. |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
There is absolutely no protection or particular code tricks in n2c loader anyway, seems just a modified turbotape and nothing that can't be understood by just dumping the tape buffer and disasming it. At least for someone that has a little experience with tape loaders I think.
$C1/C2 hold the start address and $C3/C4 hold the end address. Just trace it and dump. Not a biggie.
Tapclean does not recognize (yet) this loader but it's even possible to extract the prgs by using CompTAP (tmg format) after hammering a couple of 0 bytes where the CBM block finishes and the turbo one starts (yes, the taps with n2c loader aren't completely error free) |
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enthusi
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 674 |
Hey :)
@Richard, sorry for my late reply.
The so far used loaders (load of tap, not even human, uwol) are _roughly_ based on the same loader yet there is no simple-to-use master-system.
I use an own tool chain of several separate parts (generated autoboot CBM-tap file, then some turbo-tape-alike TAP file, then if required an IRQ-loader part etc) - those are written in plain C.
The loader itself in assembler is more or less specialised to the task at hand. For UWOL there was music, a scroller and a loading pic that is shown just till the game starts (the pic is in vic-bank 0) etc.
So, unfortunately you cannot 'just apply' it to your former/future games.
However, I'd gladly tweak one of the loading schemes to one of your games if you like. That's fun :)
I _am_ working on some generic loader-master-system but frankly with low priority since I prefer unique loaders anyway. As long as the files get spread as raw TAP there is also no need to dump the mastered versions for preservation.
Once my generic loader(s) is done, I will document it and happyly add it to tapclean of course.
Hopefully this clears up things?
btw, NEOload has nothing (not at all) to do with the above mentioned loads. Check the NEOload entry/download for detailed information on it.
Im glad you enjoy tape loaders after all =)
Cheers,
enthusi
PS: loaders intended to act as some sort of protection are OF COURSE worked on as well :)
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
Implementing loader scanners to tapclean is useful even to extract prgs from tap files, not only to clean tap files ;)
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Richard
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 619 |
@Enthusi,
Thank you for the information about your loader. :)
A shame there wasn't a master system for it. Although the loader using in UWOL was very cool :) |
