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PostPosted: September 1st, 2013, 11:59 am 
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A while ago I dumped the FM Towns version of Brandish. Unfortunately you need to create a user disk to play, but I don't own an actual FM Towns, and no FM Towns emulator is able to do the necessary low-level disk formatting (I tried Unz, MESS, and XE).

The procedure is very easy and won't take long. If you have a real FM Towns or Marty with at least 1 working floppy drive, help me make a user disk so we can play this game!

Game disks: http://www.sendspace.com/file/puwcxp

Procedure:
Insert Disk 1.
Image

Image

This screen appears.
If you have one drive, insert Disk 2 into the drive.
If you have 2 drives, insert a blank disk into Drive 0, and Disk 2 into Drive 1.
Image

(1 drive case only) Then insert a blank disk into Drive 0.
Image

The emulator stops here.


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PostPosted: September 2nd, 2013, 8:07 pm 
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Joined: April 12th, 2009, 9:04 am
Posts: 190
Location: Italy
Hi, I wrote the three images back to disks (previously formatted with a USB 3-mode FDD) using Diskexplorer and try them either on a FM-TOWNS II MX either on a Marty 2 console but I can't get the screen asking for disk exchange.


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PostPosted: September 2nd, 2013, 10:29 pm 
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caius wrote:
Hi, I wrote the three images back to disks (previously formatted with a USB 3-mode FDD) using Diskexplorer and try them either on a FM-TOWNS II MX either on a Marty 2 console but I can't get the screen asking for disk exchange.

The last screen only appears if you insert Disk 2 into Drive 0.

Does the game boot at all? Try plugging in a mouse into Port 2.


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PostPosted: September 3rd, 2013, 6:52 am 
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Posts: 190
Location: Italy
kobushi wrote:

The last screen only appears if you insert Disk 2 into Drive 0.

Does the game boot at all? Try plugging in a mouse into Port 2.


Yes, the game boots but , I can't get the screen asking for disk 2 either on a FM-TOWNS II MX either on a Marty 2.Yes, I have a mouse plugged in port 2 and when I press a button the game freezes.I also noticed that on FM-TOWNS II MX the graphics of the first screen (the purple castle) is reduced to some white stripes.Maybe I have wrote images on bad 3.5" floppies?I noticed that if I uncheck the "SKIP ERROR TRACK" option on Diskimage utility, then I'm not able to write back the images, it gives me an error once the process begins.I could try to restore images directly on FM-TOWNS, I know there are some utility to do this (FITL).


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PostPosted: September 3rd, 2013, 7:24 am 
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Diskimage isn't able to handle non-standard track/sector formats, so writing back on an FM Towns would be best.
I originally dumped the floppies on a PC-9801 with MAHALITO. I dumped them several times with no bad sectors, so I think it's a format issue, and not protection.

Thanks for you help.


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PostPosted: September 3rd, 2013, 7:36 am 
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Location: Italy
kobushi wrote:
Diskimage isn't able to handle non-standard track/sector formats, so writing back on an FM Towns would be best.
I originally dumped the floppies on a PC-9801 with MAHALITO. I dumped them several times with no bad sectors, so I think it's a format issue, and not protection.

Thanks for you help.


OK, I want to try to write back the images on a real FM-TOWNS but I need your help to understand the command line of FITL, sadly I'm not able to understand japanese..:)

These are the instructions to translate:

http://www.mediafire.com/?bgs7j4g6c8j741r


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PostPosted: September 3rd, 2013, 8:16 am 
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I've been looking at FITL, FITLX, and FDIMGL, and they all look one-way. They dump FDs to images, but don't write images back to FDs. :|

I think Marucopy might work in FM Towns MS-DOS. MARU_E.COM is in English.
//www.vector.co.jp/soft/dos/util/se010458.html


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PostPosted: September 3rd, 2013, 11:37 am 
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Location: Italy
kobushi wrote:
I've been looking at FITL, FITLX, and FDIMGL, and they all look one-way. They dump FDs to images, but don't write images back to FDs. :|

I think Marucopy might work in FM Towns MS-DOS. MARU_E.COM is in English.
//www.vector.co.jp/soft/dos/util/se010458.html



Well, from what I understood, FITL could be able also to restore images back to the disks.Are you sure?
I'll try marucopy,under UNZ it doesn't work so I'm going to try it on my FM-TOWNS II MX but the problem is : how can I transfer disk images to hard disk?Perhaps I have to split them in two parts...


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PostPosted: September 3rd, 2013, 12:51 pm 
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Try this:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/swu8f3

Write parts 1-4 to floppies using Disk Image normally.

Boot into MS-DOS on the FM Towns.

Copy all files on parts 1-3 to the hard drive. On part 4, copy LHA.EXE, LHE.COM, and BSS.LZH to the hard drive.

On the hard drive where you copied everything, type:
Code:
lhe e brand1
lhe e brand2
lhe e brand3
lhe e bss

Insert a blank disk into the FM Towns.
Type
Code:
format a:
press any key, then type Y
Type
Code:
bss /w brand1.bs

Then insert another disk, format it, and type
Code:
bss /w brand2.bs

Then insert another disk, format it, and type
Code:
bss /w brand3.bs

Insert the Brand1 disk into Drive 0 and reboot. Try to create the user disk.

If successful, boot into MS-DOS again, insert the user disk, and type
Code:
bss /r bruser.bs


Type
Code:
lha a bruser.lzh bruser.bs


Now copy bruser.lzh onto a floppy and transfer it back to your PC.


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PostPosted: September 3rd, 2013, 5:57 pm 
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OK, thanks.In the meanwhile I tried again Marucopy and it worked with the MS-DOS disc, I succesfully created an its image and restored back to a disk.Now, I must copy the Brandish disk images on HDD and restore them to disks.I could create an image of the SCSI HDD through a PC Adaptec SCSI PCI card, then copy the Brandish images with DiskExplorer and then restore the image.
Anyway I'll let you as soon as I'll finish.

Update:

Nothing to do, I followed your procedure and succesfully restored the three Brandish disks but when I load first disk I get the same corrupted graphics and if I press the mouse button the game freezes without asking for disk 2.IMHO there is some kind of protection against illegal copies.


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PostPosted: September 3rd, 2013, 10:41 pm 
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It's strange that the disks seem to work in the emulator.
Maybe someone can crack them if they're protected.


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PostPosted: September 3rd, 2013, 11:53 pm 
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Joined: January 9th, 2007, 9:57 pm
Posts: 529
Location: Russia
LOL friends!
You wrong create to user's disk. You mixed up the names of floppy disk.

To create a user disk, use the first disk drive (Drive 0)

Insert a Disk 1 into Drive 0, skip intro.

Image

Insert a Disk 3 into Drive 0, you will be prompted to create a floppy user disk

Image

Read data

Image

Insert a Blank Disk into Drive 0,

Image

Creating a diskette

Image
Image

Insert a Disk 2 into Drive 1, for play games

Image
Image

brandish user disk
http://yadi.sk/d/lEux4GOj8fs25


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PostPosted: September 4th, 2013, 12:19 am 
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Son of a bitch. :o

You just insert disk 3? This is why I'm collecting the fucking manuals.
Sorry for wasting everybody's time.

The reason I thought it was an emulation issue was because of another game (Gunship maybe?) where you have to make the user disk on a real FM Towns, because Unz can't do it. I thought Brandish was the same.
Also, in the PC-9801 version of Brandish, you create a user disk from Disk 2, not Disk 3.

Anway, thank you al32gabby! Another FM Towns game preserved!


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PostPosted: September 4th, 2013, 2:20 am 
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Location: 68000
omg :shock: it seems finally you make the game run, congratulations ;-)

_________________
富士通 - FM TOWNS II Fresh ・E(FMTWFE)- Marty II - Car Marty MVP-10


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PostPosted: September 4th, 2013, 2:41 am 
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caius wrote:
I followed your procedure and succesfully restored the three Brandish disks but when I load first disk I get the same corrupted graphics and if I press the mouse button the game freezes without asking for disk 2.IMHO there is some kind of protection against illegal copies.


I still don't know why this happens. In Unz, I mounted my original .bin dumps as floppies, redumped them in Unz with BSS, and then wrote them back to .bin with BSS. The hashes were exactly the same as the original .bin images, so I think they're good dumps. And with the user disk now, everything seems fine in Unz at least.

Anway, thanks for all your help.


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