Expanding on my thoughts here. On Tue, 23 Oct 2012, Steve Nickolas wrote:
When disk access code comes into play my brain melts. :( If I knew how it worked, I could prolly replace the code.
When I wrote Gameware a couple years ago I worked by "call XXXX with Y inputs and Z happens". This is easy enough, I wrote a replacement for the monitor rom (lacking debugger) that was fairly reliable.
If I don't know what XXXX and Y are...But if I did know, I could probably come up with a mechanism for using aux RAM in place of the disk, and I don't think a 128K single-load Arkanoid, or a 128K single-load Karateka, or whatever it may take for Lode Runner and Donkey Kong, would be that hard to code.
What may it be for Arkanoid and Lode Runner, it may even lead to special level editors specifically for the file versions xD?
Also, I'd be interested in trying to do this with some 64K multiload MECC games, if they are small enough to turn into 128K single-load multistage. I'm mainly thinking that it might be possible with Odell Lake, Number Munchers and Word Munchers.
-uso.