I have a problem with this game, I've tried both the latest official version (0.74), and the latest SVN and is always the same problem, after the title screen, the game gives me the following error:
"Keyboard error. Please check your keyboard, Then load the game again"
PS: I could play it without problem with my (now dead) old 486 machine with DOS.
There's a patch on SourceForge, but I don't know much about the issue or the patch. (link)
Mmm..., that patch could be included in the SVN?
I wish I could play this game again.
It's indeed strange that the developers of the game felt the need to mess around with the keyboard hardware in unusual ways... never heard of any other DOS game that does this.
Anyway, here is a Win32 build of 0.74 with the patch applied. The game seems to work fine with it using default settings.
Great!, thanks a lot ripsaw for your help 😉
Any chance of having this patch added to the official SVN?
wrote:It's indeed strange that the developers of the game felt the need to mess around with the keyboard hardware in unusual ways... never heard of any other DOS game that does this.
One possible reason for it is that the mapping might result in a key cluster that is more convenient for certain regional keyboards.
It seems a shame to add so much code to DOSBox for just one game.
see below for a patch that lets the game run in 0.74.
wrote:There's a patch on SourceForge, but I don't know much about the issue or the patch. (link)
there's also a bug in it - the letter 'g' can't be typed for high score names.
"case KBD_g:ret=0x15;break;"
should be
"case KBD_g:ret=0x34;break;"
also, what is the effect of the IRQ7 fix?
Does this have any effect on the sound? I can't seem to get sound running, and I wasn't sure if this keyboard fix had anything to do with that. I ask due to the fact there is mention of IRQ7 here, which is what my SB settings are at.
no, the sound bug remains - it plays properly until you bump something, and then it stays silent. I never found the cause of that problem.
ah, in my case I get no sound at all.
If I remember correctly, with the build that did ripsaw, I could win this game without problems related with sounds or music.
EDIT: I just try this game (again) and as I had said, in the dobox compiled by ripsaw, music and sounds works perfectly, the problem is in the fix made by peterferrie.
the "fix" in the compiled DOSBox contains its own bugs, as I noted.
in particular, the sound fix isn't unsafe because it leaves IRQ 7 active forever, even if no SoundBlaster is present there, which might lead to all kinds of compatibility issues with other progams.
it's not that I introduced a bug, it's that I didn't try to fix one.
I hope you can fix the problem related with the sounds and music in this game, meanwhile, we will have to continue using the specially compiled dosbox to run this game (and use this build just for this game only)
The DOSBox build was intended for Fatman only, in case that wasn't clear, because no other game messes with the keyboard as it does. The SB "fix" is a bonus; but again, only for Fatman.
The game specifically masks the SB interrupt on the PIC, which wouldn't be a problem if it later unmasked at some point. Lacking an interrupt causes the sound effects to stop working, and it also causes the music to stop after the first block is finished. If something is preventing the game from unmasking, I'd be interested to know what that is.
wrote:ah, in my case I get no sound at all.
If you didn't use the installer, then you'll need the SB enabled at p220, i7, d1.
I think that I've finally figured out the problem with the sound (and fixed it, too). The game never explicitly enables the IRQ for the sound card, probably assuming that the sound driver would do that first.
If someone would like to play the game and see if it works, that would be nice. I've had enough of fighting with it, I don't want to try it myself. ;-)
I tried it and now works perfectly!
Thank you!
A plain Noob question : Making a web search I find this game and similar are AMIGA games designed to run on Amiga systems with their own Amiga OS. So the exe of the games that existed for Amiga OS ..were they DOS compatible too? Who makes the DOS exes and where to seek? I read an article about Amiga systems emulating PC by using a side car , but none emulating an Amiga on other environment except recently..
So obviously the ADF files that imaged AMIGA Disks, even if they are transfered to a floppy would not work under Windows. Is that right?
