Someone sent me a link to this video, which is apparently a Game Doctor disk (for the FDS) of Family BASIC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxk9m8xbXiU
Please don't e-mail him! I sent a letter to the uploader of the video, and I don't want to flood his mailbox with questions about this to scare him away. I will directly report what happens, but in the meanwhile, I'm wondering if anybody else has ever seen this.
I'm curious if the Game Doctor disk will allow saving BASIC programmes to disk or if it is identical to the cart.
Beyond that, it is an interesting curiosity to find out how the GD port maps the normal FDS RAM to the Family BASIC v3 expansion RAM and how the code of the conversion looks when compared to the ROM from the FB cartridge.
This could all prove very interesting in making both disk or cartridge versions of Family BASIC programmes and turning cart games into FDS disk games or even Doctor Disk games.
yes, I know that some of you think this is all pointless, but it is important: It would make it easy to write simple games and distribute them, as well as create interesting hacks or improvements of FDS titles, and possibly provide further insight into the FDS and mapper conversion.
I could name a score of reasons that stuff like this is important, beyond my strange FDS fetish. It would also be neat to write Family BASIC programmes and save them to disk, as that alone would make it an easy-peasy step towards creating a compiler to convert the code into ROM format.
The FB v3 cart is also battery-backed, and I wonder if the Doctor Disk port makes use of the FDS writing feature to auto-save the address range used for programmes. of course, it could simply be a direct ROM conversion and do naught more than the normal release, but it is worth investigating.
As I said, just using it to learn how the Doctor Disk mapper conversions work would be a blessing.
-Xious
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxk9m8xbXiU
Please don't e-mail him! I sent a letter to the uploader of the video, and I don't want to flood his mailbox with questions about this to scare him away. I will directly report what happens, but in the meanwhile, I'm wondering if anybody else has ever seen this.
I'm curious if the Game Doctor disk will allow saving BASIC programmes to disk or if it is identical to the cart.
Beyond that, it is an interesting curiosity to find out how the GD port maps the normal FDS RAM to the Family BASIC v3 expansion RAM and how the code of the conversion looks when compared to the ROM from the FB cartridge.
This could all prove very interesting in making both disk or cartridge versions of Family BASIC programmes and turning cart games into FDS disk games or even Doctor Disk games.
yes, I know that some of you think this is all pointless, but it is important: It would make it easy to write simple games and distribute them, as well as create interesting hacks or improvements of FDS titles, and possibly provide further insight into the FDS and mapper conversion.
I could name a score of reasons that stuff like this is important, beyond my strange FDS fetish. It would also be neat to write Family BASIC programmes and save them to disk, as that alone would make it an easy-peasy step towards creating a compiler to convert the code into ROM format.
The FB v3 cart is also battery-backed, and I wonder if the Doctor Disk port makes use of the FDS writing feature to auto-save the address range used for programmes. of course, it could simply be a direct ROM conversion and do naught more than the normal release, but it is worth investigating.
As I said, just using it to learn how the Doctor Disk mapper conversions work would be a blessing.
-Xious