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How to run Microsoft Adventure on IBM 5150

Luckily, all of the infocom games have been successfully converted into real DOS applications now instead of requiring them to be written to bootable diskettes. According to my games collection, there are only ~50 games (out of over 3000) released from 1981-1989 that need to be written to a bootable disk to be played.
 
Seems odd someone having so much trouble, I have a 360K and 1.44M bootable diskette copies of this game made using a program called img2dsk accessable here

http://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/retrograde/programs.htm

I had it on the original 160K that I'd play on my Tandy 1000 SX back in the day all the time. When I started configing my more recent machines to use 1.4M bootable floppies, I experimented with using img2dsk to make a diskette of Adventure using 1.44M diskettes - it works perfectly, I can still run off the diskette on my current Dual Core box (LOL). So IMG2DSK is the program I recommend, and you can even run it on that IBM if you want to, it should work, I do most of the IMG2DSK work on my Tandy 1000A these days.
 
Awesome. I reflashed to XTIDE BIOS version v1.1.5 and it does allow booter games to load. Hargle, is 300h still the best address for the XTIDE? I thought I read in one of the threads that there is a better option. I might have a conflict with my multifunction card.
 
All is well now. I'll sum up what I learned.
1. Know how to recognize a booter game. It will be an image file of a size that exactly matches the formatted capacity of specific media (listed at bottom).
2. Find the correct media and format it to the size of the image file. In my case the command was "format a: /f:180"
3. Use a utility like img2dsk or dskimage to extract the file to the media. The file directory structure will look like garbage and can't be used to verify a correct image burn. Boot the computer from disk to see if it works.
4. If you have an XTIDE card, you must use BIOS v1.1.5. Earlier versions will not permit the booter to boot.
5. Unrelated to the game, I had a problem with my XTIDE card failing to correctly recognize my drive. This required an easy hardware mod http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?19591-XTIDE-tech-support-thread/page30

Thanks to all,
Twodogs

Size Format Tracks Heads/Sides Sectors
5.25" 160KB 40 1 8 Very old format
5.25" 180KB 40 1 9 Very old format
5.25" 320KB 40 2 8 Very old format
5.25" 360KB 40 2 9 Standard PC/XT/Jr format
5.25" 1200KB 80 2 15 PC AT
3.5" 720KB 80 2 9 First generation 3.5" drives
3.5" 1440KB 80 2 18 Modern 3.5" drive format
 
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That's covered in post #25 above. I think your question probably has more to do with the general process of getting software from a new computer to an old one. I have a Windows 98 computer with a 3.5 floppy drive on it. I copied the image file to the disk along with the dskimage (or img2dsk) program. I also have a Backpack drive - this is a 3.5 external disk drive that connects to the parallel port of my IBM 5150. From the backpack drive, the command is something like "dskimage filename.img a: /f" This command formats the 5.25 disk on the IBM while at the same time burning the image.
An alternate method would be to have a more modern computer with a 5.25 floppy drive installed. Then just burn the disks on that machine and good to go. I tried this and failed because I purchased a newer TEAC 720K 80 track drive. The old drives were 360K 40 track so I had compatibility problems. Perhaps with some fiddling I can get it to work, but I wish I had bought a 360K drive.
 
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I understand the process of taking the image and putting it on a disk (img2dsk) but how do I get an image from my disk? Is there a dsk2img utility?
 
Yes, but what kind of disk are you trying to image? Is it a plain DOS-formatted disk? Is it a commercial game? Knowing what you are trying to make an image file of will help us recommend the correct utility for you.
 
It is Microsoft Adventure - the disk is formatted for 180k and it is copy protected (see previous posts in this thread).
 
tmatuc said:
It is Microsoft Adventure - the disk is formatted for 180k and it is copy protected (see previous posts in this thread).
Click to expand...

If you want to make a true copy, then you will need some way to bypass the conventional floppy disk controller. The best way to do this is to use a hardware interface that directly accessed the floppy disk drive on the absolute lowest level. Several such solutions exists, like several versions of the Central Point's CopyIIPC Option Board (Internal ISA, a slow CPU requiered), the Catweasel (Internal ISA/PCI) or the Kyroflux (External USB) devices.

These devices will make images of the exact magnetical properties of the disk. However, these can't be used right away by emulators due to the low-level nature of the image data (basically, the data in the image is encoded just like on the disk, and emulators only understand decoded images. This is also the reasons why these devices work with most copy protected disks, as most floppy disk copyprotection scheemes fools around with the decoding hardware of the conventional floppy disk controller. Taking the decoding out of the picrue renders these protection scheemes useless).
 
Image files can be made with tools either designed to copy odd/interesting disk formats (ImageDisk, Teledisk) or tools specifically targeted for duplicating copy-protected game titles (CopyIIPC+Snatchit). ImageDisk and shareware versions of Teledisk can be found at http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm .

I would try to duplicate your disk first with ImageDisk, then if that doesn't work, go searching for other tools. ImageDisk is great software, and free too.
 
Trixter said:
Image files can be made with tools either designed to copy odd/interesting disk formats (ImageDisk, Teledisk) or tools specifically targeted for duplicating copy-protected game titles (CopyIIPC+Snatchit). ImageDisk and shareware versions of Teledisk can be found at http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm .

I would try to duplicate your disk first with ImageDisk, then if that doesn't work, go searching for other tools. ImageDisk is great software, and free too.
Click to expand...

I read somewhere that CopyIIPC and Teledisk attempts to actually patch the disk to remove the copyprotection... I have not verified if this is the case or not, but I just want to mention it in case you would find this as an issue.
 
CopyIIPC would patch a few mechanisms, yes. Usually only the most common ones like Everlock or Sierra or Electronic Arts games. Otherwise it would try to duplicate the disk verbatim. CopyWrite did the same thing but with a lot more patching and a lot less copying.

I don't believe Teledisk attempted any sort of patching at all; it was a straight disk imaging utility. If it definitely did not, Chuck may pipe in. If it definitely did, Chuck will most likely not pipe in ;-)
 
Could someone explain the CopyIIPC + SnatchIt! method of copying disks? I've seen mention of this several times over the years, but nowhere have I seen or been able to find more than a single cursory explanation of it - basically, I've only seen that this method can be used to capture disk images, but nothing of the "how-to" so far as actually putting this method to use!
 
Tmatuc,

You might be able to get better advice if you'd tell us exactly what type of computer and software you are trying to run, along with the symptoms. If your floppy is corrupted, then making an image will only replicate the error.
 
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