Short : HD-Installer & fix for Archon
Type : game/patch
Author : Jean-François Fabre (jffabre@free.fr)
Install-Script & HD-loader © 2002 Jean-François Fabre
Archon © 1985 Electronic Arts
Features:
- Runs fully from HD using WHDLoad + KickEmu
- Game now works on any amiga. No need for a Kickstart 1.2 A500 anymore.
- Annoying blank screen delays removed
- Disk protection removed, in a clean way
- Fixed problem with graphics.library FreeSprite() call
- Convenient install script
- Quit key (default: F10, or configurable with QUITKEY)
- Instructions included
- Nice icon by Chris Vella
- Should support original version and cracked versions
Thanks go to:
- Ungi for testing and memory dumps
- PHR for their terrible Action Replay freeze "crack" I included, because
the program would not decrypt properly on any config I tried
- CAPS team for technical advice on the game execution
- Bert Jahn for WHDLoad and KickEmu
- Hidehiko Ogata for original disk image
- Chris Vella for nice icon
- LSD for documentation
Notes:
- This one was tough, and time consuming. I hope you'll appreciate it. I would grant
the "most incompatible game award" to that one okay: does not run on anything else
than A500 Kickstart 1.2 (and I did not even see it running on it). WinFellow/WinUAE
or any real amiga, including A500 KS1.3 cannot run the standalone, original version
or even the crack. Actually, the protection was hard to emulate without the
original disk, and did not even appear if the track supposed to contain it
was free of read errors (dos copy attempt) !
- I tested the program with kick 1.3 emulation, but it failed because of the
FreeSprite problem (the
game called FreeSprite with an illegal sprite number -> access fault), so I thought
that maybe the program would need kickstart 1.2 emulation, so I did it, adapting
it from Bert kickstart 1.3. I found the problem was still there on kickstart 1.2
so it was something else, and then I found the FreeSprite fault. It runs on
kickstart 1.3 now. Grrrr.
As you see, it was not a very straightforward fix.
- Don't ask me for other early EOA titles such as Skyfox I & II, 7COG,
... as I'm planning to fix them anyway.
- Tested on A1200/68060, plain A1200/68020.
If you've got trouble, try setting NOCACHE or/and NOMMU
History:
- v1.0: initial release
- v1.1: no need for the big .RNC file anymore. Now clean fix.
- v1.2 (29.02.2016): adapted to WHDLoad v16, runs with CD32Load
Requirements:
The game requires a installed A500 Kickstart 1.3 image.
The kickstart image must be located in the directory "Devs:Kickstarts" and
must be named "kick34005.A500". The image can be extracted from a A500 with
tools like 'GrabKick' or similar which can be found on aminet.
If the image is of wrong version or altered in any way WHDLoad will quit with
a appropriate requester.
Additionally the file "kick34005.A500.RTB" must be installed in the same
directory as the kickstart image. It can be found in the archive
"util/boot/skick346.lha" on aminet. |