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

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

MDRipley37 writes ...
> 
> You will need to visit the SSI-DHA Project site at:
> 
> http://www.brickandivy.com/ssi/links.html
> 
> they have a section that shows you how to create an SSI save game disk for
> use on apple emulators, I have tried it myself and it does work. It will
> take a little effort but it is the only way I have found to create a save
> disk for use
> on an emulator.

     Thanks for a great lead! Ended up at Apple Emulator's Wargame Pages (
http://home.earthlink.net/~evin1/a2war/help.htm ) which has the information you
mention plus commands for the RDOS used by SSI.

     The trick suggested for getting a Save game disk is pretty clever. (You
copy the game .dsk, rename the copy, and delete most of the files.) The
resulting .dsk seems to work like a real Save disk except that things hang
after the save.

     Another problem with deleting files to make space is that RDOS saves files
and allocates 'blocks' in sequence, like Pascal. Deleting a file does not
change space allocation-- i.e. you get a bunch of variously sized "unused"
slots.

     Most of the marked out "unused" slots are too small for the 25k part of a
game save; so, following the method suggested on AEWP seems to be good for only
one Saved game.

     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+.

     Since the disk has nearly no allocated space, RDOS can create correctly
sized slots as games are saved.

     The resulting blank Save diskette was converted to a .dsk and moved to PC.
On the AppleWin emu playing North Atlantic 86 it seems to work just like the
original using diskettes on the Apple II+. (So, I guess it's okay.)

     When playing around with RDOS files on an emu, it's convenient to have a
dsk which boots RDOS and leaves you in BASIC able to use RDOS commands. A copy
of the North Atlantic 86 game dsk was diddled to allow this.

     The blank SSI wargame Save dsk and the RDOS boot dsk plus an info file
including RDOS commands have been placed in a .zip file and uploaded to the GS
WorldView January 2000 issue as RDOSstuff.zip at ...

http://www.grin.net/~cturley/gsezine/GS.WorldView/Jan2000/Special.Archives/ .




Rubywand