MLB Crack - Intro

[Hot Rod <hotrod.apple2@gmail.com>]

On Thursday, October 18, 2012 6:56:07 PM UTC-5, Hot Rod wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm going to be adding a series of posts here describing my most recent retro computing project - a crack of the Micro League Baseball Box Score/Stat Compiler disk.
> 
> 
> 
> ]HR



So my retro computing project for the last few weeks (off and on) has been converting the Micro League Baseball Box Score/Stat Compiler disk to a ‘normal’ 16-sector format (aka ‘cracking’ it).  After I’d imaged my disks and uploaded new additions to Asimov, I learned that I had the Micro League Baseball game disk, the General Manager/Owner disk, and Team disks for 1983 and 1984.  Magnusfalkirk posted that he also had this Box Score/Stat Compiler disk, and apparently it’s not been cracked.  He had working .nib images of it, the GM disk, and the regular MLB game disk, so it seemed possible to work on the Box Score disk from the .nib image to crack it.  Since they are .nib images though, they can’t be (easily) converted back to regular disks to run on a real Apple II.

Way back when, I had cracked a beta of MLB, and vaguely recalled it. I do still have a hardcopy printout of its disk routines (but without many notes).  I at least knew it was all 4+4 encoded, and a crack would require replacing the RWTS and wiring it in.  I had done the first one remotely (never saw the real disk), and I remember it didn’t take all that long, but beyond that, I don’t remember what all I did.  The other images I’d uploaded to Asimov were all cracks done by my buddy, The Cloak, and I figured I’d be better off using those for reference instead, since there were more of them, and they matched the .nib images.

My general idea was to convert the 4+4 encoded, 10-sector disk to regular 6+2 encoded, 16-sector format, and use the ‘shell’ from The Cloak’s GM disk crack to adapt and ‘run’ it.  At least that was the idea…

So before paying much attention to other cracks, I set off to first understand how the MLB Box Score disk worked, and at least get it converted to a regular format.

I kept a fair amount of notes during the process, so I’ll break this up into separate posts, due to the overall length.  Think ‘epic’.  :)

]HR