AladdinsMagicLamp_v1.0.lha

README
Short : HD Installer for Aladdin's Magic Lamp
Author: DJ Mike (djmike@crystalmike.com)
Version: 1.0
Type: game/patch
Requires: WHDLoad 18, 512k chip mem

This patch applies to "Aladdin's Magic Lamp" © 1989 New Line Software

REQUIREMENTS

- Original disk or compatible disk image
- Slave requires WHDLoad 18+
- Game requires 512k chip memory
  (+ approx 860k other memory for preload option)

FEATURES

- Game loads fully from HD
- Uses real files, which can be compressed with Propack, CrunchMania or FImp
- Quit game at any time (default key F10), including on 68000 machines
- Game can now be paused with P, or quit to titlescreen with ESC
- Stack pointer moved to fast mem if available
- Pointless protection track read removed
- Byte write to audXvol registers fixed
- Invalid blitter pointers fixed x7
- CPU-dependent (empty DBF) loops fixed x8
- Bplcon0 color bit settings fixed x18
- Missing copper list terminators fixed x2
- Title screen fixed to restore TDK logo
- Button wait on ending screen added
- Trainer options added - set CUSTOM1 with any of the following:
  + 1 for infinite lives
  + 2 for invulnerability
  + 4 to enable in-game keys (screen flashes blue for on, red for off):
    * HELP to skip level
    * L to toggle infinite lives
    * I to toggle invulnerability
    * 1-5 to change between power-ups
- Color/New/Rom Icons included
- Source code included

HISTORY

Version 1.0 (2024-08-11)
- Initial release

WORDS FROM THE AUTHOR

The game was pretty straightforward to fix. There are some quirky disk loads
that I decided to convert to using real files instead, so they can be packed
to save space.

The protection track the game used - if it can even be called that - is just
a track with a pointlessly different sync ($800). And when I say pointless,
I really mean it! The game wires the sync correctly in DSKSYNC, but once the
MFM data is in memory the game proceeds to search for the regular $4489 sync
word instead...

That sync word is 100% not in the protection track!

But! The game does eventually find it... after it has marched off beyond the
end of chip memory, wrapped back around (due to Amiga memory addressing) and
almost gotten stuck in an infinite loop. By complete fluke, the sync is
found... in data left behind by the bootblock loader!

So the game only starts at all because of a lucky error, and even if a DOS
track is substituted for the protection track it will still work just fine
(unsurprisingly, this is exactly what crackers did at the time). For this
install the track is just skipped.

Other interesting issues were some invalid blits that used the B src pointer
but sometimes set it to an invalid address in memory. Required a little care
but it was sufficient to skip the blit in those cases.

Along with the some trainers, I also added P to Pause and ESC to quit to the
title screen as the game was lacking in either.

Enjoy! :-)

Greetings and thanks to Pascal for testing, and to the WHDLoad team.

--- DJ Mike (11th August 2024)

         Bug report form, full WHDLoad package and other installs:
                          http://www.whdload.de