Hi fellows! I finally managed to bring my long-ago-deep-fried Oric1 back to life! To be honest I didn't expect it to resurrect, but these Orics are very die-hard pieces of ancient electronic technology, so you can expect anything from them... My question for our hardcore oricians: I managed to play pretty many of the .TAP games that can be found around, also loaded a couple of interesting demos, converted to .WAV with the nice tap2cd utility... Almost all the titles loaded fine, but the one that stubbornly refuses to load is The Hellion... It loads the nice screen, displays the flashing "Veuillez Patienter" message and stays there for ever. No matter what I tried, no success so far... Am I missing something here? What I tried: Normal speed conversion (with tap2wav), starts loading and then crashes, before the loading screen. Turbo speed with tap2cd, loads the screen and then stays in loading state permanently. I used 2 different .TAP versions of the game as sources, no luck with either... The volume level seems OK, as at least 90% of all the other softs load fine. I tried further volume adjustments especially for The Hellion, nothing changed... Do I need to press any special key combinations as soon as loading finishes? I tried to press each and every one key on the keyboard alone, still nothing... Last but not least, I have to mention that my original 1.0 ROM was fried, so I replaced it with a 1.22 on EPROM. Does it have to do something with the ROM version? I remember trying this game in the past also with a couple of Atmoses, the same disaster was taking place... Can anybody assist me to successfully load this game on my machine? Also, does anyone already have a converted .WAV/.MP3 of The Hellion that is known to properly load on a real machine? Thanks!!
The archives show it as Atmos compatible so it should work. Have you tried using Novalight to compress the tape and play it through Audacity or to not use tap2cd and use tap2wav to make a standard 1100 baud wav file or change the baud rate on tap2wav to 8000 instead for a slower wav.
I have tried all of your suggestions, nothing so far... I also remember struggling to load this one on an Atmos with 1.1 original ROM some years ago, no success, either... And I have downloaded the .TAP (in 2 different versions) from several sources, just to be sure that it wasn't due to a bad .TAP... This thing drives me mad, all other games load perfectly with exactly the same setup... Thank you, anyway...
I tried my Oric-1 and Amos running V1.0 and V1.1 BASIC and I have the same problem with both and on various wav files. The loading screen corrupts in the bottom fifth where the author’s name will be and from thereon it hangs and doesn’t load. So might need to speak to the guys over on Defence Force This is taken off the Oric.org site... Special protected routines - converted 100% to TAP file. No Manual. Nothing on inlay_b. Dominique P. found what happened with the loading routines: parts 4 and 5 have a program start byte at $3C value instead of the standard $24 (and bytes are coded with an EOR $94). That means the TAP file could be done if all the parts are converted in a row from a big WAV file. If it had been done part by part, the parts 4 and 5 would not be considered as standard, hence not converted
Yeah, and I was starting to think that I'm crazy... At least now it's two of us, hahaha!! Well, exactly the same faults here... So I suppose that anyone who claims to have played this game has either the original tape and loads it on real hardware or just plays the .TAP with an emulator...
need to find a copy of the original tape and try it with my signal conditioner... or play the wav through the signal conditioner. A job for tomorrow...
Chaps, just seen this thread and as you know I've been tied up this end for weeks/months with the back end of our house in bits so retro hobby has had to take a helluva back seat. Dimitris/Rich, I'll check this end too and report back. I might even have a SPARE tape copy of The Hellion - would that be of interest, Mr D? Enjoy those cassette challenges, Oricians!!
The tap file on Oric.org doesn’t convert to a working.wav file. It only converts the first part of the .wav so the only one I have is from the TOSEC archive. So it would be good if you have a working copy Andy.
Haha, you both guys are real oric-nuts, I love you!!! P.S. Andy, please don't bother searching for the spare copy, especially now that you're in a mess with the house, I just want to see this damn thing loading correctly from WAV, that's all...
Hi, guys - yep, utter and total self-confessed ORIC NUT here at your service, Mr K! Right - Rich, I do see a glitch in the loading screen when I run my Atmos in Oric 1 (ROM 1.0) mode - but it still loads fine and auto-runs. On the Atmos version no such glitch appears and again, it auto-runs fine. A couple of pics and a short vid entitled HELL WITH HELLION (basically, the bugger would only CLOAD with Klyde's tape conditioner switched on as all I got beforehand were ERRORS FOUND messages: The Baz Cave is now looking empty...a new staircase will be going in shortly, guys, so time to pack it all up. . HELL with HELLION - unless you switch one of these on. Hellion destructions...just in case you need to consult the blurb. This game is definitely CHALLENGING! Reminiscent of Arcadia on the C-64,Vic-20 and Speccy. MANY different attack waves (I hear over 75!) are sent to seal your....DOOM! I will do what I can to get . tap file created and then uploaded to the site when I get a mo - alas, it won't be today as I'm needed to help finish a paint job under the stairs...oh the joys of home DIY cover yourself in shades of blue...
Gee, that's an amazing video, this game is FAST!!! Oric rules!!! Thanks for your time doing this test Andy, I know you don't have much lately and I appreciate! I'm afraid that the caveat is some kind of copy protection/fancy loading routine which prevents the .TAP of being created properly... But this may not be the case, it could just be a bad source file which entered the internet archives long ago and nobody noticed then... I'd love to have this in a properly-loading WAV or MP3, even in normal loading speed, if it can't be sped up with tap2cd! But now, first of all I wish you good luck and lots of patience with your house painting duties, I know a little about them and I really hope you don't end up being all blue, like a smurf! Cheers, mate!!
The tap file from my TOSEC file loads on Oricutron under Atmos V1.1 even with the corrupted screen. The file on Oric.org only works under Oric-1 V1.0 emulation and the loading screen is not corrupted. I have never played it so is it worth tracking down a physical copy?
Good call, Rich. Doing my best to try and make a tap file from my original but what with my bad back, too much bending and lots of errors generated by wavclean trying to convert the game's original wav file, I'm beginning to lose the will to live! If you've got it running, Rich, then that'll do for me! Good luck, Mr K. If I find a "spare" copy, fellas, and you want one sending then I'll have a rummage around when I'm feeling a tad better. Currently feel like someone's replaced my lower vertebrae with a rusty hinge...soaked in red hot needles.
As can be seen from Andy's video above, it's really worth it, must be one of the best oric arcades ever... Andy, take care of yourself, health is the only thing that matters... 8bitters come second, anything else comes third and so on!
LOL! Here's a frenchman doing exactly the same as we've been trying... but in reverse!! More fun with Hellion, Oricians...
Hey, what the frenchman is doing here is what exactly I'm trying to do... If he loads the converted WAV recorded from tape, I don't see the reason why it refuses to load from my laptop played directly... And I can see that it's the same "corrupted-bottom-of-the-screen" version... So I suppose that it must be a matter of sound volume, I will try even lower and higher volumes than I already did and see the results!! I will also try to download this specific .tap version from nitroroms, even though I'm pretty sure that it's exactly the same with the one I already have... Stay tuned!!!
Well, fellows, the news are rather frustrating... First of all the Nitroroms site is down, so I found the same file that the frenchman uses on the video (exactly same name, suppose exactly same data) in Planetemu, the one with the corrupted bottom of the loading screen... I have tried every possible conversion (tap2wav both for DOS and Windoze, in any bitrate available for normal speed loading, tap2cd and even Novalight for turbo), attempted to load with any volume setup from my laptop (which happily loads any other proggy)... Novalight freezes just before displaying the loading screen and with all other versions the results are always the same: Hangs on loading screen and the "Veuillez patienter" message... As for players, no luck with any of them... I have tried Windoze media player, then VLC, then Audacity and then Winamp (like the frenchman does)... My last hope is to try contacting him and ask for his own WAV/MP3 file and also ask if he has done any other trick that is not explained in the video... I just hope that this is not a problem with my 1.22 ROM, as I don't have a 1.0 or 1.1 here...
It's all very strange, Mr K, and it sounds like you've tried every trick in the book but as you point out - if his Hellion file doesn't work for you then it MUST be something to do with that ROM you have as I get loaded fine on V1.0 and V1.1 and it seems to load OK for Richie and for the frenchman so by a process of elimination... you may need one of the other ROMS. I might have a spare...somewhere! Again, good luck, buddy.
I think Andy is right, you need to try a EPROM of the V1.0 Oric-1 ROM, there is a site selling a copy of Hellion here in the U.K. but they want £25 plus shipping.
If I find either a spare tape copy of Hellion, or a spare Oric ROM, then I'll let you know, Mr K. Good luck.
Thank you both for your support, guys!! The bad thing is that, as I wrote above, some 4-5 years ago or so, I had tried loading the very same game to a proper 1.1 ROM equipped Atmos, with the very same results... We'll see...
