Forum:Akalabeth seems to have two Apple II versions
I recently watched streamer DukeDonuts play through Akalabeth on his Apple IIc. Video here: link
When he completed his level 10 quest, it was clear that there were differences between the version he had and the one I did. His version came from an archive of WOZ images, and mine was a DSK of it that had been cracked to remove the copy protection.
Not sure if it's appropriate to post the files publicly but these are the two filenames we had:
- Akalabeth (1980)(California Pacific Computer).dsk
- Akalabeth_1980California_Pacific_Computer48K.woz (seems to be the 2019-02-25 "wozaday")
So my version had standard files on it, and I could easily look at the BASIC program using CiderPress. The WOZ version sent me on a long journey, learning the file format and figuring out how it was formatted differently for copy protection, but eventually I was able to remove the copy protection and produce my own "cracked" DSK of it.
Now that I can compare the two BASIC files, I've noticed the following differences:
- WOZ version did not have the bug that fails when your wisdom is high when receiving a task from Lord British for the first time. Instead the task number is capped at 10, so you can use this former bug as a quick way to start the final quest (with an Amulet/Lizardman stat boost).
- WOZ version seems to cap all stats a 9999 continually, presumably to prevent display errors when they get too high?
- WOZ version respells "MIRACLE OF RESSURECTION" as "MIRACLE OF RESURRECTION".
- WOZ version removes the line to call California Pacific at the end of the final level 10 quest. Instead it just tells you to try the non-existent level 11.
I haven't looked at every file, but those were immediately apparent from a diff of the two main BASIC files.
Notes on the copy protection:
The WOZ is basically just a DOS 3.2 disk with some simple format modifications.
Track 17 contains a "fake" catalog sector, giving a list of files on the disk, but without information to actually locate them. These filenames just spell out a message that says "WELCOME TO AKALABETH! WORLD OF DOOM! COPYRIGHT 1980 CALIFORNIA PACIFIC COMPUTER COMPANY"
Track 0 contains ten 3.2 sectors for booting, and one extra DOS 3.3 formatted sector, used to boot from a 3.3 drive and prepare it to read 3.2 formatting to continue the boot. This just makes the disk run on both 3.2 and 3.3 systems.
All other tracks contain sectors that are almost 3.2 format, but sector address fields start with DE AA AD instead of D5 AA B5, and the data fields use DE AA B5 instead of D5 AA AD. Other than these two differences the data contained by these sectors appears to be plain 3.2 format data. 410 standard "5 and 3" nibbles per sector with a valid checksum.
Track 6 contains the real file catalog (in the modified sector format). The filenames look the same as in the fake catalog, but have the number 1 inserted in a few points, I think to distinguish some of the files which would have had identical names without it. The files have 0 in their size fields, but they do point to valid track/sector lists that terminate properly at the end of each file.
By simply extracting all the files using the nonstandard sector format, I was able to transfer them to a DOS 3.3 disk image, and this "cracked" DSK seems to play perfectly, as far as I've seen in some brief testing.
Anyway, that's something I've discovered recently. Wasn't sure who to share it with so I'd try here, since this wiki is a place I've been coming to for information about Ultima games for a while. If it's appropriate to share the files being discussed, let me know. (Probably easiest to reach me through twitter: link)
- Rainwarrior (talk) 09:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)