Manic Miner

Want to talks about games you like, would like to see developed on the Oric, it's here.
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Symoon
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Manic Miner

Post by Symoon »

Hi all,

So I got an original of Manic Mainer thanks to Dbug... And discovered for the 1st time the amazing loading method! (block by block with error checking).

I noticed something strange: the game is by Matthew Smith, the Oric version is by Steven Green, and the inlay states: "Author: Chris Larkin". Does anyone know why?
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Chema
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Re: Manic Miner

Post by Chema »

Nice! I could only try the cracked version, which had some corrupted graphics. Not sure if the image in oric.org is the cracked one, but if it is, I wonder if you could upload the original version (with the colour code card, that is).
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mikeb
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Re: Manic Miner

Post by mikeb »

Symoon wrote: Sat Sep 21, 2019 7:50 pm the amazing loading method! (block by block with error checking).
As I recall, there was a distinctly non-Oric sounding "pure whistle" between each block. It also resisted the normal Oric copying software, e.g. ORICOPY, because that didn't know how to deal with the funny format :) (For backup purposes only, I did actually buy the original!)

Didn't it also make a funny noise, if a block was wrong? "Bungg!"

What also struck me was the clever use of attributes to flash the MANIC vs MINER while loading -- it's not code writing/rewriting the screen, just attributes carefully selected to show/hide (or hide/show, on the other side of the coin) the blocks, combining INVERSE and FLASHING attributes with colour scheme (CYAN, RED) so you had the option of background (CYAN PAPER), foreground (one cell of RED PAPER!) both static, then flashing positive (FLASH, RED PAPER), or flashing negative (FLASH, INVERSE, CYAN PAPER).

I think that's right :)

As to a cracked version, I know it used to force-cold-reset Oric if you did an NMI, and wiped itself. But there was a way to stop the Autorun on load, leaving it unprotected, something like POKE #400,123 (yes, decimal) before CLOADing the game. The loader (or game) looked for this value and if found, skipped over the autorun.
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Symoon
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Re: Manic Miner

Post by Symoon »

Here's Manic Miner loading OK on Euphoric. Not sure the WAV works with Oricutron - and a 44kHz one is probably a bit big for a forum post (8MB zipped).
manic_miner_wav_ok_4.8kHz.zip
(84.06 KiB) Downloaded 252 times
PS: didn't manage to make a working TAP file.
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Chema
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Re: Manic Miner

Post by Chema »

I could not make it work on Oricutron yet. It keeps searching for the first block with the turbo-tape disabled (enabled it does not load anything).

Did not try with the latest version though.

Strange you could not produce a working tap file... makes me curious..
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