hey all

I saw a lot of blurb about a lemmings clone for the Beeb from cronosoft, visited their website and no word of it was there - yet people seemed to act like it existed. I also found a password list on a cheat website.

what is going on?

where can i buy a copy? or is it PD?

I have a copy here on cassette, which i bought when it originally came out (2003?)
I could never get too far into playing it, but the passwords are easy enough to decrypt
The tape wasn't protected, so it was easy enough to transfer to disc, and then over to PC for emulation purposes. If you have no luck in finding it for sale online (which I couldn't!) I'm happy to email it to you.

that would be fantastic - my email is aferenbach@hotmail.com

how odd... they seem to have removed any mention of the BBC from their pages. they did previously offer Weenies as either a cassette or emulator image, there were plans for Egghead in Space which got scrapped and i believe there was a text adventure(?) called Dominion which was vaguely slated for future release

guess they'll all have to be added to the Lost & Found page sometime then

Dominion and Egghead In Space won't be going on L&F 'cause they're not lost (well, not to me anyhow! )

Furthermore, both of them may be getting re-released soon too ...

I suppose Christopher might also want to re-release Weenies, so I'd be careful WRT spreading email copies etc.

ooooh!

i really liked the look of Egghead and still hope to give it a go someday.

Any progress on that Dave?

I bought a Weenies tape on ebay but can't get it to load into the Electron... at best I get something like ?D?D?ESN?? 00 a few times. I also tried briefly to use makeuef but had absolutely no idea what to do! I couldn't type anything - is that right?!

Anyway - does anyone have a working wav or uef or could someone have a look at my wav and see if they can get it to work... It sounds like it should be OK - it's a bit loud but doesn't seem to be distorted. I tried recording it at a more usual level but still nothing.


Cronosoft still aren't selling this (maybe they got into trouble from the Lemmings people?!) or the beeb versions of Reaxion or Egghead In Space although there is a note blaming duplication:



There doesn't seem to be a link for the download either though - just a screenshot!

could upload a .ssd version, if thats any good 2u

Col, as Junkie owns a legit copy, I think it'd be fair enough to provide him with a functional version.

But please don't make the download link "public" unless you have the Christopher's permission!

Thanks!

^ yeah Dave, thats exactly what i thought

no leechers!! (or twits on eBay selling your stuff! !)

PM only

I take it that works in ElectrEm? (I only use uef normally). That would be good to actually get to play it, thanks!

I'd still like a version I could send back to tape as well if anyone has a wav or uef. Has anyone played it on an actual Electron rather than emulation?

Once you get your .ssd, you could extract the files to INF using BBC Explorer*, convert to UEF using INF2UEF*, then use FREEUEF* to record back to cassette.

* = links on the Essentials page

I'm out of my depth again here! How do you save INF files? I tried extract and it creates 2 files neither has .inf and you couldn't choose 'type of file' from the drop down box... would you need to transfer each file one by one then play the uefs in order?

What is INF2UEF? I downloaded the Python things but they won't run without installing python (and their website wasn't any less confusing!). What would I need to do? I do already use FREEUEF to send audio directly to the Electron but I can't get that far!

^^ load up Jons/Sorvads DFS Disc Explorer, load in the .ssd disc. Then use extract, which will save all the files as xyz.inf (with xyz.txt file to get it back onto disc (load/exec/length notes)).

Then will have to use INF2UEF (i can't find either ).

& then FreeUEF, save from PC line out (sound card) to tape deck (yes in order (do *INFO *.* on disc in emulator, to get order))(as it was originally from tape)

hope thats a weee bit better

PS Defo need a link to INF2UEF
PPS have u tried another tape player /clean heads???
PPPS complain to Crono, and get another tape sent out

I've tried 3 tape players at various volume / tone levels but nothing. The ebay seller reckons it worked fine on a beeb.

Crono don't have any copies left so there isn't much chance of a replacement (nevermind the fact I didn't buy it from them!).


As for converting it, I must already have the inf files then (but my computer doesn't know what they are) so I'll wait for a link to INF2UEF...

I have quickly played it in ElectrEm though and it's pretty impressive... if a little fast to complete anything first try!

Who wrote the BBC version of Reaxion and when was it converted?

James Watson was converting it for Cronosoft and this screenshot dates it at 2004

http://bbccomputersite.freewebspace.com/images/reaxion.gif

It may be unfinished...


EDIT: Changed the image to a link because it was too big and messing up the screen.

don't think that would work, as it will not know the load/exec address

so i had a brain wave

loadup BeebEm35, load disc, then save to UEF using the Tape Control
to save out as UEF, then FreeUef to save to tape

How do you mean? I loaded the disc, pressed break and used OLD, LIST, *TAPE, SAVE... but the list it comes up with is only 32 lines long so is obviously just a little bit of the full program (if you run it it just goes to searching)... how can you save it all to tape?

^^ its only basic prgs can be used like that.

*DISC
*OPT 1,2
*L. "FIRST" 2000

'FIRST" LENGTH LOAD EXEC

*TAPE
*SAVE "FIRST" 2000+LENGTH EXEC LOAD

repeat till done.

I would do a little proggy first, and save to tape control till u get
hang of it, then do above

if still stuck, may do 2night 4u, if got time

That looks a little complicated for me (I never had a beeb - just an unexpanded electron and only downloaded BeebEm a few minutes ago!)., I'll give it a go later though.

The little uef I did save does load into the Electron fine using FreeUEF so as long as what you just posted saves the whole program, it will work.

Er, yes it would!

OK, I probably got this wrong but as an example,

*L."INTRO" 2000

gives

$.INTRO FF1900 FF8023 000701 003


From what you posted above, I was guessing LENGTH=FF1900, LOAD=FF8023, EXEC=000701 ...which then left the 003! Anyway, I typed

*SAVE"INTRO" 2000+FF1900 000701 FF8023

ie 2000+LENGTH EXEC LOAD

but this just goes on forever... at least it got to FF, startead again and got to FF again before I stopped... what was wrong? (I assume somethig WAS wrong because the whole thing only takes 7 mins on the original tape!)

The numbers are in this order

Load address Execution Address Length Disk address

So LOAD=1900 LENGTH=701 EXEC=8023

Also Note I've missed off the first two FF's. You don't need them in a basic Beeb/ELK. It was forward thinking by Acorn to allow for second processor address spaces that were bigger than 64K. So your line could be

*SAVE "INTRO" 2000+701 8023 1900

This saves the area of memory starting at 2000 for 701 bytes and sets a execution address of 8023 and load address of 1900.

Note all values are in Hexadecimal so 701 bytes is actually 1793 bytes decimal.

I think the above is all correct but Col knows more about all this game hacking than me, he'll point out if I'm wrong

^^ yeah, this it matey!

so retro_junkie, did u get it onto tape??

i had a quick go last night, & it worked

so if u want an upload of the .uef file, leave a message or PM & will upload


PS when i loaded into BeebEm35, it stopped after INTRO, then i went Tape Control, and it continued loading
PPS tried in ElecEm, but said 'BAD ROM'

Hi, no I hadn't seen sorvad's reply before now... I could probably do it now but since you already have could you upload the uef?

Is it possible that while the orginal would load on both machines, once loaded into the Beeb, it is not compatible with the Elk anymore... as in each machine takes what it wants from the code..? I got the 'bad rom' thing in ElectrEm when loading the WDATA file but assumed they all needed to load in order...

^^ will PM when got a mo

loading a 'tape'/'disc' wont change it to a diff machine, its the same version on both sied of the tape, ie not a=beeb b=elec

Actually there's only one version on one side... the other side is blank (although not for long when I get this to work!).

OK, in the real Electron it gets further than ElectrEm... INTRO and WDATA load fine and it plays the intro with the marching weenies then goes back to Searching. However, it now can't 'listen' to tapes properly... when there is data played into it, the screen messes up (it goes back to normal in between blocks) and it can't recognise what is being played (eg it will display ? FF FF80 over and over). I'm sure you will know better than me but is this because it has been loaded into the part of the memory that normally is needed to load tapes?!

btw the section it is supposed to be loading (WEENIES) does load on its own but comes up with BAD PROGRAM when it's finished (because it needs the others loading first). I had kind of assumed WEENIES would be te first file (so you could type CHAIN "WEENIES") but clearly not!

should be : intro, wdata, weenies, zone00, zone01 :as per uef tape u recvd.

ive done FreeUEF into a .wav file, changed to a .csw and also a .uef (using MakeUEFam) and no bad blocks (faster than loading into an actual machine!)

could also change into an MP3 so can play off a player (be handy with the pause button!), or onto a audio CDr and play from that
No hissing and pooing from a old tape & tape heads

PS i noticed when loading Zone00 the 'screen in box' will show it doing
00
01
02
etc which is ok for tapes, as discs dont show that