Re: How do I ..?-- Save for SSI strategy games

[fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden)]

In article <387342BD.77457117@swbell.net>,
Rubywand  <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:
>     M.M. McFadden's info on RDOS (ref: Computist #52 and rdos11.shk from ACN
>Tarnover) helped in finding a way around the problem. You copy the game disk
>and wipe the CATALOG sectors except for a copy of the first entry which
>identifies the disk as a Save disk-- easy to do on an Apple II+ using Disk
>Muncher and Copy II+.

The ProDOS conversion utilities, including the updated version from issue
#85, are available on http://www.fadden.com/ in the Apple II downloads
area.

Little piece of history: I wrote the utilities originally as a curiosity.
I'd bought a book that showed how to disassemble 6502 code with a simple
methodology involving highlighter pens, and wanted something to work on.
So I disassembled the RDOS code, and built a ProDOS version from scratch.

It mostly worked, but it turns out that it wasn't perfect, and some games
that I didn't have didn't work right.  Evin Mulron sent me a letter
through COMPUTIST, asking for help because he wanted a way to trade
saved games that didn't require snail-mailing an RDOS-formatted disk
around.  If the games ran on ProDOS, it would be easy to just send the
saved game files through a BBS (this is pre-WWW).

Issue #85 has detailed instructions for converting about two dozen SSI
games from RDOS to ProDOS, mostly developed by Evin (who had darn near
every SSI game there was).  From my own collection, I managed to get
Operation Market Garden, Computer Ambush, Phantasie, and Ringside Seat all
on one 800K floppy, which is kinda neat since two of those games occupy
more than one 5.25" disk.  Not only are the game files and save files
accessible from ProDOS, the disk swapping is gone.

A similar technique, for which programs are also present on www.fadden.com,
can convert some of the old SSG games to ProDOS.  I have the original
Reach for the Stars and the "1985" wargames on one disk.

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