URGENT / IMPORTANT: BANDERSNATCH (MIA)

[vanpeebles]

On wikipedia, it is stated "Bandersnatch was originally intended for release on the 8-bit ZX Spectrum home computer, and would have set a new price point for computer games (£39.95 vs. the standard rates of the time of between £5.95 and £11.95). It was intended that the game would have required a cartridge or dongle to support the demands of the game.

However, before any of the Megagames had been completed, Imagine Software went bankrupt owing to financial mismanagement, with the spectacular demise being shown in a BBC documentary named 'Commercial Breaks'.[4]

A new company called Finchspeed (formed from the remnants of Imagine) acquired the Bandersnatch rights and sold an option on the game to Sinclair Research Ltd.[4] Finchspeed itself folded, but a complete working version was developed for the Sinclair QL. The directors Dave Lawson and Ian Heatherington then formed Psygnosis and the now-complete game (renamed Brataccas) was released on the Atari ST, Amiga and Macintosh.[5]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brataccas#History

[vanpeebles]

I've also read online in a few places including an old Crash news page that some Finchspeed staff travelled to the US to try and raise funds. Which might account for how the microdrive cartridges were for sale in the US.

[vanpeebles]

I have a feeling the other colour version is a port of the speccy version.

[RWAP]

I have a feeling the other colour version is a port of the speccy version.

It could be - maybe someone would like to try and get that version working!

[Outsoft]

So someone have made our dump to work? Wow!!!

Or is a MIXED of dumped versions? Great Job!!!

It is the dump from the start of this thread. Of the two sectors I found to have bad checksums.

One was full of zero's with 5 or 6 odd bytes in the middle. The two logical sectors either side were full of zero's. So I patched the 5 or 6 odd bytes to zeros. But I am not too happy with that, as the sectors checksum does not suggest that it was full of zero's.

On the second sector, from about halfway through it is full of zero's. but the zero's do not continue into the next logical sector. So I just patched the checksum so that it matched the actual checksum.

The upload from QLObi is just the files, and not a Qemulator dump, so I cannot look at the checksums. But a quick look in the files around the two problem areas looks the same.

Did these files come from the same dump?

If there are other Microdrive cartridges about, then mdump files of them would be a great help.

If you need I can extract the files on the MDV image via Q-emuLator but I think the result is the same of the extracted files here.

Thanks for the explanation

[Outsoft]

I have a feeling the other colour version is a port of the speccy version.

It could be - maybe someone would like to try and get that version working!

It will be great to take the ST version, disassembled and make it works with the QL and a Gold Card

I think the code is a direct porting of the QL version that, for me, was not totally developed

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I have diassembled the Loader program and am looking at the game.

I do not see how the Atari ST disassembly vould run on a QL. All the Trap calls are different and the screen handling is different.

It might be easier to disassemble the Spectrum version and convert the Z80 opcodes to M68K

But maybe worth a look.

[vanpeebles]

The spectrum version is what I call the coloured low res QL version. (This was the first version to be found) I don't think the original speccy one exists

[QLObi]

How's the speed? The sprites seem big enough to keep poor 68008 pretty busy.

Tobias

Hi Tobias,
the speed is quite good.

Detlef

[Outsoft]

How's the speed? The sprites seem big enough to keep poor 68008 pretty busy.

Tobias

Hi Tobias,
the speed is quite good.

Detlef

For me too: on Q-emuLator is always slowest that on a real QL (MGI/ MG DEU)