Pinball Prelude WHDLoad Pack

README

 THIS PACKAGE COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR
 IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO USE, RESULTS AND
 PERFORMANCE OF THE PACKAGE IS ASSUMED BY YOU AND IF THE PACKAGE SHOULD PROVE
 TO BE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
 REPAIR OR OTHER REMEDIATION.
 UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, CAN THE AUTHOR BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE
 CAUSED IN ANY USUAL, SPECIAL, OR ACCIDENTAL WAY, ALSO IF THE OWNER OR A THIRD
 PARTY HAS BEEN POINTED AT SUCH POSSIBILITIES OF DAMAGE.

 This install applies to "Pinball Prelude" © 1995 Effigy.

 Requirements:
 -------------
 This install requires WHDLoad and RawDIC to be in the path.
 These programs can be found in the WHDLoad package.
 To install from a different drive than DF0: select installation mode Expert.

 The installed game requires:
 OCS version: 1.0 MB ChipMem and 0.5 MB OtherMem (+3.9 MB for preload)
 installed Kickstart 1.3 ROM

 AGA version: 2.0 MB ChipMem (+4.2 MB for preload)
 installed Kickstart 1.3 ROM (not a typo, 1.3 ROM is OK for AGA version!) 

 The game can be quit by pressing Del (key can be changed with Tooltype "QuitKey=").


 Features:
 ---------
 - Full load from HD (real files!)
 - Protection removed (MFM, encryption)
 - System friendly RawDIC imager
 - Supports OCS and 2 AGA versions
 - Access fault in sample init fixed
 - Enhanced high score support, separate high scores for each difficulty level
   (Custom3 tooltype, see below)
 - Custom1 can be used to select the tables (see below)
 - Quit with left mouse button can be enabled with Custom2
 - Manual included
 - Source code included as usual
 - 3 NewIcons, RomIcons and OS 3.5 color icons (one for each table,
   Newicons created by me, all other icons created by Irek)
 - Quit option that works on 68000 machines (default key is 'Del')

 And here's the completely new patch for Pinball Prelude.
 A patch for the AGA version version was made by JOTD in 2006
 but it had several flaws. It only supported the AGA version
 and, instead of a RawDIC imager,  used the original game installer
 which was hacked to disable the file encryption. 
 That's one way to do it but certainly not the best, I have no idea
 why it was done like this in the first place.
 High scores weren't saved either if quit key was used, you had to
 use the "Quit to DOS" option in the disk menu of the game for
 the high scores to be saved.

 When I read the guestbook on the WHDLoad site a few days ago
 I noticed a request for an updated Pinball Prelude patch with
 support for the OCS version.
 Out of curiosity I had a look at the game and this patch is the result.
 Doing it was a lot of fun, while coding this patch I spent a lot of
 time playing the game. :)

 Most interesting part was doing the RawDIC imager which was the
 first thing I did. The loader used a rather uncommon and slow
 "addx" MFM decoder. Furthermore the SYNC was never checked after
 reading a track, instead a ridiculously high retry count was used.
 Other than that the loader was quite OK but rather slow because
 it decrunched data in 1k blocks while loading. 
 Worth mentioning too is that 4 different SYNCS were used.
 Creating the first version of the imager which saved disk images
 was done quite quickly. Then I had some more fun coding the file
 ripper and integrating the decruncher into the RawDIC imager.
 For that I had to code a routine which decrunched and converted
 the executable correctly and also handled crunched data files.
 Took a little while to do but was fun.

 Once that was done I noticed some random decrunching errors. This had to
 do with the way the decrunch routine read data from the bitstream, it read
 2 additional bytes which weren't added to the crunched file size. That kept
 me busy for a little longer but after deeply looking into the decruncher
 code I eventually found and fixed this problem too.

 What followed next was business as usual. Since the game code is
 very clean not much had to be patched. I first patched all 3
 executables but noticed that this isn't necessary because the
 only difference was the directory path. So I just patched the executable
 of the "Past" table to work with the 2 other tables too.
 
 Since the game has 3 different difficulty levels but originally
 only saved 1 high score table regardless of the choosen difficulty
 I patched that too!

 You can enable the enhanced high score support with Custom3=1.
 If enabled a separate high score table for each difficulty will
 be used. If you change the difficulty during the game the corresponding
 high score table will be loaded.
 If Custom3 is not used, the original high score table ("tablename.hsc")
 will be used. Otherwise 3 different high score tables ("tablename.eas/med/hrd")
 are used.

 To select the table you want to play you can use the Custom1 tooltype:
 Custom1=0: "Prehistoric" table
 Custom1=1: "Present" table
 Custom1=2: "Future" table

 The installer will install 3 different icons with these tooltypes already
 set so you won't have to care about that.

 Another tooltype you can use is Custom2=1, this will enable the "Quit with
 left mouse button" feature. You can quit the game at any time with left
 mouse then, the quit key will still work too of course.



 I guess that's all for today. Have a nice summer everyone and enjoy
 the game from HD how. I definitely do! :)

 Sting, 04-Aug-2012



 Greetings to all in Scarab and Scoopex, the WHDLoad team, PMC,
 Musashi5150, Skan, Slummy, Loaderror, Frequent, Wayne Kerr, Mr.Spiv
 and all the other usual suspects. :)

 Thanks to Irek for the OS3.5 and RomIcons.

 Special greetings to all Golf MK1 fans worldwide except those
 lowlifes who "borrowed" my MK1 for a joyride!

 Extra greetings to the usual suspects on #amigascne, see you all at
 Revision 2013! :)


 History:
 --------
 version 1.2 (04.08.12) done by StingRay:
 - supports another AGA version
 - Access fault in sample init fixed, thanks to Irek for the report
 - RomIcons and OS3.5+ color icons by Irek added

 version 1.1 (23.07.12) done by StingRay:
 - initial release
 - redone from scratch
 - supports OCS and AGA version (SPS 2114/ SPS 2327)
 - source code included


 version 1.0 done by JOTD in 2006.


 Contact:
 --------
 If you have problems with this installation please try and get a newer
 version of this package from the WHDLoad WWW-Page. If that doesn't help try
 some Tooltypes like NOCACHE, NOAUTOVEC, EXPCHIP, NOMMU, PAL or NTSC. If
 that also fails, please inform the author via the Bug-Report-Form which
 can be accessed on the WHDLoad WWW-Page.

 For the full WHDLoad package, other installs and updates refer to:
	http://www.whdload.de/
 or	aminet:dev/misc/whdload#?
 and	aminet:game/patch/