Spider

Over on Spectrum Computing...

Definitive Edition (Matthew Smith) : vote

Unsure if the typo was intentional to indicate development " Devfinitive "

It is pretty much a "two horse race"

We have recently moved the site to a new server/host

No problems were anticipated with this, hence there was no notification of this before.

It has now been completed , but should any issues*** be experienced please first of all:

> Try a hard refresh on the page that has an issue (typically CTRL+F5 or CTRL+R depending on browser)

> Log out and back in again

*** Typical issues may be broken/missing images , unexpected error messages or incomplete page loading such as an editor box not being fully formed, although I have examined the likely places where this would of occurred, and not noted any issues.

It should be noted there is an automated rebuild task running so the site may be quite slow for a few hours, this is normal and not a concern.

Should the concern persist, please feel free to message either myself or jetsetdanny or if you prefer , post into this topic.

Thank you! 🙂

7 hours ago, Hamish said:

I just posted the following at "Unusual Pokes", but just noticed this forum which might be a more appropriate place to ask.

Welcome. 🙂 I removed that post as its (as you say) better suited to this area.

7 hours ago, Hamish said:

The POKEs appeared to have at least three effects:

1. Remove copy protection
2. Infinite lives
3. Easter egg in-game music (replacing Hall of the Mountain King)
4. (...possibly also some of the official bugfixes?)

There's many 'unofficial' versions and two in-game tunes in the official versions. "If I was a rich man" and "In the hall of the mountain king"

For a long time I had assumed the latter was an earlier release then replaced with the former, however from what I do recall it may of been (the music) under copyright still at that point in time so the "in-game tune switched to Manic Miner" (one way of putting it)

Indeed my original 84 tape has "Rich Man" and one of the ones I aquired has "Mountain King" , the last official release on the "Sold A Million" tape has the keycode bypassed and the four official bug fixes applied and uses the "Mountain King" in-game tune. This version is very easy to identify as it uses Speedlock 1 to load in.

I'm not up on my music so others will be able to assist you better I'm sure. 🙂

14 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

Thanks for the explanation and the files, Andy! 🙂 

You're welcome. Sorry the topic was a bit "back to front"

To clarify a bit more, the game file code was just taken out of the editor file(s) , and its the same.

You can run the game from that too thus:

Load in either "Jet Set Willy - Editor (unknown).Tap" or its MS-DOS shortened name of "JSW_ED_1.TAP" (both are identical)

At the "NR ? " aka number of room to edit , (as I was too lazy to figure the commands out to use the editor) , Symbol Shift and A to enter 'STOP'

Then save "code" 32768 , 32768 (or run it with 33792)

Thanks Danny.

The game file is untouched , its the code you see inside "editor.zip" , I merely took a copy of it and created a simple Basic loader so the game could be ran "as it was" independent of the editor.

Note: I did create the .zip "editor.zip" to put the file in.

I do not know exactly where it came from because my "unsorted" archive contains files from the Craig Rothwell (sp?) "WOS" CD

as well as these CD's:

"Die Speccy 97"

Speccy 96

Speccy 97

Speccy 98v1

Speccy 98v2

Speccy 3000

In other words, I did not "create" a tape image as such of a snapshot. If you look at the tape file "editor.zip"  you'll see the game code and if you use Block Editor , make a note of the CRC for it then compare it to the "Game_File" (not the immunity one as that will be different) , you'll see its the same. As far as "my creation" goes, it is the Basic loader for the stand alone game file (not the game code) and the patched immunity version, nothing more.

Another look at the files, within , its not in one of those above it seems, however I do see a few variants in the same folder, see this picture:

Here is a zip of those shown above in file explorer:

Jet Set Willy - Editor (unknown).zip

The tzx appears to be the Paul Rhodes version.

The tap is the same as the one uploaded yesterday (a duplicate with a full name vs MS-DOS shortened names) , the sna and z80 are also the 'German' version. Only the .tzx is completely different and out of place.

Oh for what it is worth, in the file explorer pictures, the other two 'editors' you see on the left. The "Jet Set Editor" is by Spectrum Electronics and the "Editor MK2" is the Softricks variant.

It is possible due to duplicate folder names this ended up (the P.R version) in this folder but that seems unlikely.

Given the (just noted) difference in size of the tap (which is the one above) vs the tzx, I'm attaching all four of those in the following .zip file. The reason I did not before was likely as I have so many duplicates in the unsorted mess, this is the same as the shortened file name version which is what I uploaded, so the following picture is the actual one I uploaded yesterday, as found in my archives:

So there you have it. 🙂

While looking in my archive for something completely unrelated (is that not always the case) I found this file.

A 'Basic' editor for JSW

The game file is loaded in and is quite different in some respects, including the room mapping. The code does include an extra piece of code sat at 26400 which I have included into the tape files for the "Game" , the "Editor" zip is as found. I also took the liberty to extract each screen. The code is to display rooms for the editor, however I had added it to the game file expecting it to contain extra data needed to display accented characters perhaps. No matter.

The 'editor' itself as found (does have game file) :

Editor.zip

A 'standalone' game file , I merely took the code out of the editor tape and added a simple loader:

Game_File.zip

The same as the above 'standalone' but with some cheats (infinite lives / fall height / immunity to arrows + fire cells + guardians) for testing purposes :

Game_File - Immunity.zip

The room screens as individual png files of 256px x 128px including the last unused three. Interestingly room 47 aka " ] " contains a modified (to this version, never mind the original) Bathroom :

Rooms.zip

I do concur, especially the fact you've not made the first cavern hard , this can be offputting on some games if you cannot pass the first screen. There's little doubt about what is needed to be done, but a small twist with the crumblies means you need to "think twice" about it.

Talking of new business...

1 hour ago, Sendy The Endless said:

Would creating a fixed pause of a second or two be possible using a null loop? (I think that's what it's called, in Basic it would be an empty for...next loop)

Yes. 🙂

What you're thinking of (as described) is a bit like this:

FOR A=0 TO 200 : NEXT A

(Might have to have it at 250)

I would of in the past suggesting a loop with a HALT in it, but the problem is you need to enable interrupts for this to work (I thought that would be OK) however (thanks NS) it was pointed out the IX/IY might be corrupted so a better way of doing it without having to re-enable the interrupts is:

ld bc,2048
delay:
dec e
jr nz,delay

dec    bc
inc    b
djnz    delay

Will have to write it out in a different format.

2 hours ago, Sendy The Endless said:

I actually quite like the Softricks version of the JSW engine in which the screen flashes red and pauses for a moment. Perhaps that code could be ported into, for example, my next game, Strangel 2?

Without looking, from memory it simply uses two calls , a few bytes of original code are moved to the "new place" where the ST code lives as they are needed, and in the original code space the call to the new routine, those two calls are 1 to call the title screen code and 2 to setup a call (in a loop) to call the title screen sound, but within the routine itself, so it can then make a sound and vary the border colour.

To answer the question in another way

Yes + Yes + Yes , all possible. 🙂

Thank you for this. 🙂

On 10/7/2023 at 12:09 AM, Gyrominiac said:

(opening the executable in a text file didn't find anything by the way, i'm pretty sure it has to be completely dissassembled in order to find any sort of type-in cheat) 

Does make sense. I think I could not find anything sane in the Sam Coupe version that way. Several variants of that it seems. Do have them all now.

5 hours ago, IRF said:

It seems to be sorted now, cheers. 😊

No problems.

If you need to edit a descriptor (as I'm not convinced it always -does- update in a timely manner) let me know. Will look for temp solution ***

*** I do have a permanent one but I can't do it till next year.

21 hours ago, IRF said:

I presume you're talking about going over the roof to drop down into Emergency Gen? (Since the Dr Jones elephant can't be crossed from left to right.) 

That's a point. I need to recheck that, was over a year ago so my memory is a little hazy.

12 hours ago, DigitalDuck said:

I think the CPC versions (and JSW2 Spectrum) also allow you to jump from Emergency Generator to Priest's Hole, although I'm not in a position to check right now.

CPC version yes just tested it now, at a high speed for some reason!

The sound got out of sync when doing the avi to mp4 conversion (and the video as well it seems) sorry, but it was only a quickie to clarify... I did not see a need to get a 'better' one for this tiny test.

2 hours ago, IRF said:

Aarrgghh!! This time the table in the topic has reverted back to the old version, even though my update to the download section is still in place!

Maybe everything will be okay after the next automatic update? (How often does that happen?)

Don't worry about the topic, if the download data/descriptor is OK that is all that matters. 🙂 The 'copy' is one way only from download data to topic, it cannot go the other way. 🙂

Theoretically every 24 hours , the older version used to update immediately, this one is a fit finicky (quirky? 😄 )

I'll force a manual update now. At a cursory glance after the 'update' I do not see any immediate changes ?

Ignore the fact it says that I edited it 10 hours (at the time of writing) ago, that may of been your edit.

On 10/2/2023 at 11:14 PM, DigitalDuck said:

 

I like the look of that. 🙂

Meteor Storm , (BBC) that was a royal pain to play on the actual machine, very difficult imo, at least Skylabs was fair! 🙂

On 10/2/2023 at 9:36 PM, Gyrominiac said:

jet-set willy pc (the windows re-release)

Ah, I was mistaken 🙂 My previous cheats were for the DOS version not the Windows one, further back in this very topic here

Thank you. I was aware of this (or very similar) it might exist on the forum somewhere by myself , as to why it did not make it into the topic I'm not sure, so its appreciated. I do recall the code only worked on the PC version not the MS-Dos variant. You're likely correct a bit of hunting should hopefully find something.

On 9/4/2023 at 3:43 PM, IRF said:

Furthermore, I have updated the first post in the Manic Miner High Score Challenge thread, to take account of DigitalDuck's achievement in beating the algorithm!:

Spider has fallen off the bottom of the league table (sorry Andy!)

crem's algorithm no longer occupies the top slot for every single cavern!

Its possible those changes -might- of been removed by the automated updates where it will copy the download descriptor into the topic. I mention this as MJSWv3 was updated yesterday (the topic content now reflects the download) , I'm not 100% sure in this case on this file MM-HSC as I don't recall exactly what was there before. 😞 🙂

On 9/29/2023 at 10:37 PM, jetsetdanny said:

I look forward to it, too 🙂 .

I'll be interested to see how to choose to do this, as there are four "modes" of play. I am not sure if you plan on doing each as separate .rzx's or something else is planned.

Thank you. 🙂

I suppose we could have the file here if needed too but I suspect its in a safe place for now.

Bumping ah yes, its a bit of a two-edged sword really as its useful to place something in a topic but on the other hand if the topic is ancient a few things might of changed or it might be missed.

My own (personal) view: I don't really mind the bump if its relevant. 🙂 Having said that I'd not want to merge this new post into it (thereby removing the new topic) , I'd only do things like that if we had say 3 or 4 topics about the exact same file/resource etc.

3 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

It seems that something has been modified in relation to this file today - or perhaps only its description, as the download ZIP seems to be the same. What has changed exactly???

Unless I am mistaken (and hopefully will be corrected) the CRC for the zip is identical hence unchanged.

The one change I do see is the use of highlighted text indicating that should Willy's cash expire its game over for him. 🙂

2 hours ago, Gyrominiac said:

oh, wow. what's that "something else", if you don't mind me asking?

I cannot honestly remember 😞 I re-read the topic too.

It will come back to me I'm sure.

Thank you as always for the updates. 🙂

On a slightly different note, I'm not sure how well the wayback-machine would work with the old Yahoo group, it might of indexed some of it, but I suspect better results would be obtained perhaps with the direct URL (of the group page of interest) rather than the index pages.

I was never a member of this and only saw a few "public" pages occasionally.

13 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

Thanks for your input, Gyrominiac, and welcome to the forum!

Thank you from me too. 🙂

12 hours ago, Gyrominiac said:

oh, and this link to a forum post of some sort which may be of use if anybody can figure out how to get past the error somehow:

Unfortunately, that could be difficult as the topic is within a 'member only' or other such group, its is unlikely that archive or a search engine indexed it, unless someone purposely tweaked the robots file (if its still used these days much, or taken any notice of by searches) to masquerade as a group member not a "bot" , but that is usually punished when discovered by search engines, aka showing the "bot" something a guest cannot see.  Best option is to just search all links containing the forum URL only to see if the content is elsewhere, especially as Zeta is no more.