Question about DIET compressed executables->

Posted on 2025-05-11, 10:08

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by Peter Swinkels

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Curious about an old MS-DOS game (Another World) I tried viewing it using the MS-DOS editor (which came with Windows 95 and up) , but unfortunately it turns out to be compressed. There's a "DIET" label in the header and no other legible text. Unp.exe can't decompress it and the Diet utiliy I found …

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Re: PCOPY subsitute for QBasic->

Posted on 2025-01-27, 06:09

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by Peter Swinkels

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You're welcome, did you actually find a use for this?

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PCOPY subsitute for QBasic->

Posted on 2025-01-26, 16:29

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by Peter Swinkels

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QBasic's PCOPY doesn't work properly with text 50 lines in text-mode. I fixed that: Assembly: ; 50 lines text mode PCOPY substitute for QBasic. push bp ; Save previous bp. mov bp,sp ; Set new bp. push ds ; Save ds. push es ; Save es. push di ; Save di. push si ; Save si. mov cx,0xb800 ; Set bx to …

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Re: Interrupt call function for QBasic (specifically int 33h)->

Posted on 2025-01-26, 11:59

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by Peter Swinkels

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Okay, here is a fully working program demonstrating how to use the mouse in QBasic: https://github.com/PeterSwinkels/QBDraw/ As to updating my other projects to work with QBasic, I was a bit too optimistic about what was possible and am not going through with that.

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Re: Interrupt call function for QBasic (specifically int 33h)->

Posted on 2025-01-24, 15:52

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by Peter Swinkels

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Okay, I tested it with VBDOS, to make it work with there VARSEG needs to be changed to SSEG. Furthermore, the code works fine in the example I provided but it refuses to cooperate in when I try to integrate into my other programs. As near as I can tell the interrupt caller fails to read the …

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Interrupt call function for QBasic (specifically int 33h)->

Posted on 2025-01-23, 14:22

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by Peter Swinkels

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A mouse interrupt caller for QBasic: ; Mouse interrupt call procedure for QBasic. push bp ; Save previous bp. mov bp,sp ; Set new bp. push si ; Save si. mov si,[bp+6] ; Load registers structure offset. mov ax,[si] ; Load values into CPU registers. mov cx,[si+2] ; mov dx,[si+4] ; mov bx,[si+6] ; int …

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Re: An animated sprite demo written in QBasic! :-)

Posted on 2025-01-13, 16:10

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by Peter Swinkels

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And a final note for now: While I am mostly talking about QBasic specifically, most of this code could probably be made to work in other MS-DOS based BASIC dialects with little to no effort. 😀

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Re: An animated sprite demo written in QBasic! :-)

Posted on 2025-01-13, 16:09

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by Peter Swinkels

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Here's an excerpt from a graphics intense QuickBASIC (but should also work in QBasic) program demonstrating how to achieve a side ways scrolling image effect: SUB DisplayWorldMap DIM Map1(&H0 TO &H6400) DIM Map2(&H0 TO &H1D0) DisplayImage 95, 60, "World.map", "", 0, 0 DO GET (95, 60)-STEP(445, 225), …

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Re: An animated sprite demo written in QBasic! :-)

Posted on 2025-01-13, 16:03

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by Peter Swinkels

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And since the primary goal of this thread was to share sprite related QBasic stuff: DEFINT A-Z CONST CHARACTERSIZE = 34 CONST STEPX = 8 CONST STEPY = 16 DECLARE SUB DisplayText (Text AS STRING, x AS INTEGER, y AS INTEGER, Verb AS STRING) DECLARE SUB Initialize () DECLARE SUB LoadFontData () DECLARE …

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Re: An animated sprite demo written in QBasic! :-)

Posted on 2025-01-13, 15:58

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by Peter Swinkels

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Allow me to clarify, this thread's primary purpose is to just share a sprite demo written in QBasic for the sake of a bit of nostalgia and for anyone who's interested in learning about the topic of sprite programming in QBasic. As to calculating array sizes for graphics in QBasic, here's another way …

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Re: An animated sprite demo written in QBasic! :-)

Posted on 2025-01-11, 14:30

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by Peter Swinkels

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Due to the overwhelming lack of response this got, I doubt there is any point in starting yet another thread, so I am just going to recycle the one I made not too long ago. :-) Some more QBasic stuff: https://github.com/PeterSwinkels/QBasic-font-demos Make whatever you wil of thisl, if this thread …

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Re: An animated sprite demo written in QBasic! :-)

Posted on 2024-12-20, 09:54

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by Peter Swinkels

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http://www.antonis.de/qbebooks/gwbasman/getg.html - suggests a method for calculating the array size.

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An animated sprite demo written in QBasic! :-)

Posted on 2024-12-19, 20:37

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by Peter Swinkels

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https://github.com/PeterSwinkels/Bird Although nothing particularly special, I felt like writing and showing this. :-) I am probably not going to make this into much more than it already is, however any feedback is welcome! :-) Also, any advice on calculating the proper array size to store graphical …

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Re: Anyone like to help decode Inherit the Earth Quest for the Orb's image resource files? ->

Posted on 2024-11-10, 21:16

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by Peter Swinkels

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I have uploaded to GitHub and consider it to be done for now: https://github.com/PeterSwinkels/Saga-Image-R … ource-Extractor Any comments, suggestion or feedback are still welcome, and a huge thank you to everyone who replied here! 😀

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Re: Anyone like to help decode Inherit the Earth Quest for the Orb's image resource files? ->

Posted on 2024-11-09, 10:46

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by Peter Swinkels

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There is one final issue I noticed that might need to be investigated before this project is really done. The program successfully extracted dozens of images: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14kX08nv9lubQJ2GQqnIAtzeE5kMO5MFl?usp=drive_link - However there are some scrambled images. Most of …

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Re: Anyone like to help decode Inherit the Earth Quest for the Orb's image resource files? ->

Posted on 2024-11-08, 19:46

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by Peter Swinkels

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Attached to this post is the complete SAGA Image Resource Converter which works fairly well thanks to the help of everyone in this thread, especially kmeaw and Plasma over at phatcode.net! :-) I think the program is almost ready to be published on GitHub for any who want to investigate games such as …

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Re: Anyone like to help decode Inherit the Earth Quest for the Orb's image resource files? ->

Posted on 2024-11-08, 18:59

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by Peter Swinkels

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@kmeaw: Thank you! You solution works. Also, thanks to another kind user over at phatcode.net I found I didn't to substract one from the bracktracking values. :-) 'https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=SAGA/Datafiles/Background_%26_Interface_Image 'https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=SAGA/ …

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Re: Anyone like to help decode Inherit the Earth Quest for the Orb's image resource files? ->

Posted on 2024-11-08, 09:53

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by Peter Swinkels

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It nearly works - EDIT: there is still some distortion in the output images. I will have a closer look ASAP. Probably yet another basic mistake on my part... 'https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=SAGA/Datafiles/Background_%26_Interface_Image 'https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=SAGA/ …

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Re: Anyone like to help decode Inherit the Earth Quest for the Orb's image resource files? ->

Posted on 2024-11-07, 10:25

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by Peter Swinkels

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@kmeaw: Your Ruby decoder works! You're a life safer! And I haven't forgotten about fixing my own code. My decoder is making the wrong assumptions about the way the pixels are arranged, correct?

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Re: Anyone like to help decode Inherit the Earth Quest for the Orb's image resource files? ->

Posted on 2024-11-05, 19:18

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by Peter Swinkels

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@kmeaw: you are a real life safer. 😀 I will look at my decoder and your and update it asap. 😀

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