Piracy On The High Seas WHDLoad Pack

README
Short: HD Installer for Piracy On The High Seas
Author: DJ Mike (djmike@crystalmike.com)
Version: 1.0
Type: game/patch
Requires: WHDLoad 20, RawDIC 5, 512k chip mem, 512k any mem

This patch applies to "Piracy On The High Seas" © 1992 ICE.

Supports the original release, or the fixed release with corrected file.

During installation, you will also be able to install an existing save disk
if you have one.

REQUIREMENTS

- Original disk or compatible disk image
- Slave requires WHDLoad 20+
- RawDIC 5 for the imager
- Game requires 512k chip memory, plus 512k any memory
  (+ approx 2.04MB other memory for preload option)

FEATURES

- Game loads fully from HD
- Uses real files, which can be compressed with Propack/CrunchMania/FImp/XPK
- Quit game at any time (default key F10), including on 68000 machines
- Broken data on disk 1 repaired - game can now be completed!
- Fixed to support 32-bit fast memory
- Opening logos can be skipped with fire/left mouse button
- Saved games support multiple slots - set with CUSTOM2=0-9
- Stack moved to fast memory if available
- Access fault in dungeon levels fixed (bad jump table offset)
- Bad writes to cop2lc fixed (anti-Action Replay protection)
- Null address writes to cop1lc fixed
- Bad blit during cannon fight fixed
- Cache clear added for self-generated code to fix crash on caching CPUs
- Missing color bit settings in copperlists added
- CPU-dependent loops (empty DBF) replaced
- Trainers added - set CUSTOM1 with any of the following:
  + 1 for infinite health (all dungeons and encounters)
- Set starting money with CUSTOM3=200..32767
- Combined Color/New/Rom Icon included
- Source code included

HISTORY

Version 1.0 (2026-01-04)
- Initial release

WORDS FROM THE AUTHOR

As announced on the EAB forums, this game can finally be completed after I
was able to repair some damage to one of the files on disk 1. I've already
written about this in detail there, so I won't add that lengthy text here.
But in a nutshell, the corruption affected some compressed data which meant
a lengthy, deep dive into the decruncher to understand what was going wrong
and to try to work out how to fix the data. By complete luck, there was some
identical, unaffected data in another file that I could reference to repair
the damage. I've included the necessary fix in the imager, so if you install
an original, the data is repaired automatically.

Besides that, the disk loader was quite a lot of work to patch, because it
has some rather complicated code making use of lots of data structures and
interrupts to execute everything. There are lots of separate executables for
each section of the game too which meant having to repeat the same fixes in
many places! These also caused some thorny caching problems due to their
re-use of memory, as well as dynamic code generation for the interrupts.

The game only supported 24-bit expansion memory, due to using the top byte
for flags when committing addresses to its internal data structures. Luckily
these are only used in the loader to cache unpacked files, so it was not too
difficult to make these support 32-bit.

Since the game normally requires one disk per save, I have added multiple
slots that you can pick at the splash screen, should you want to have more
than one save.

Lastly you can now skip the opening logos. Those were getting quite tedious
to watch through every time I tested the game!

Enjoy! :-)

--- DJ Mike (4th January 2026)

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

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.