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DOS Game - Galactic Conquest v9.00 test (Announce)

posted by Arjay, 12.12.2009, 00:07
(edited by Arjay on 12.12.2009, 01:34)

> > It is not mine, and at the moment I cannot honestly remember where I got
> > it from.
> Perhaps the one @ pedt.demon.co.uk?
 Note all of the download links / many links on pedt.demon.co.uk are now dead.

I did wonder if the library might be Bob Ferguson's jrfpas06.zip (note link to his download page not zip) - however looking through his library (for the 1st time) I believe that is unlikely.

I have also wondered if it could also be a 3rd party commercial CRT.TPU however it doesn't look like it, as I dumped out all of the TEXT in your EXE into a file and then checked/read through that. I found/can see no copyright notices other than Borland's: "Portions Copyright (c) 1983,92 Borland".

If it was commercial e.g. Turbo Power's stuff then I would have expected an additional copyright statement. Thus I wondered at first if it was a free CRT library from someone rather than commercial as no additional copyright statements. If it is around "around" or slightly over 4200bytes then that will likely be a modified Borland CRT.TPU. [I don't the size of your CRT.TPU as you haven't shared that info (might be helpful to track it down if you do), so I'm looking at this from your resulting EXE which obviously contains part of the CRT.TPU you have. [note CRT.TPU "normally" lives inside TURBO.TPL along with SYSTEM.TPU, DOS.TPU, OVERLAY.TPU PRINTER.TPU unless they have been extracted out with the aid of a util in order to be patched/replaced etc].

I thus wondered if it was more likely that what you have is Borland's original CRT library but just patched by someone to firstly fix RTL200 and maybe add a few other little tweaks rather than a complete replacement of CRT written from scratch. Indeed looking at the CRT library in GALCON vs the original TP7 CRT.TPU that is exactly what it looks like [note: I'm still checking into this]. As the CRT you are using appears to have an additional move code inserted into Borland's standard code:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORIGINAL.CRT
0000:0000 BA 12 00 3B D3 73 1A F7-F3 8B D8 E4 61 A8 03 75
0000:0010 08 0C 03 E6 61 B0 B6 E6-43 8A C3 E6 42 8A C7 E6
GALCON.CRT
0000:0000 BA 12 00 B8 DD 34 3B D3-73 1A F7 F3 8B D8 E4 61
0000:0010 A8 03 75 08 0C 03 E6 61-B0 B6 E6 43 8A C3 E6 42
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORIGINAL.CRT
00000000: BA1200 mov dx,00012

00000003: 3BD3 cmp dx,bx
00000005: 731A jae 00000021
00000007: F7F3 div bx
00000009: 8BD8 mov bx,ax
0000000B: E461 in al,61
0000000D: A803 test al,003
0000000F: 7508 jne 00000019

GALCON.DAT
00000000: BA1200 mov dx,00012
00000003: B8DD34 mov ax,034DD
00000006: 3BD3 cmp dx,bx
00000008: 731A jae 00000024
0000000A: F7F3 div bx
0000000C: 8BD8 mov bx,ax
0000000E: E461 in al,61
00000010: A803 test al,003
00000012: 7508 jne 0000001C
Note: The inserted move instruction at the start is 3 bytes in length hence the jae / jne instructions which then come after it are 3 bytes further in !
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
etc
etc

So yes what I believe you are looking for is a "modified" Borland CRT library which might explain why you only have it as a TPU. Thus what we now need to determine is what patch / patch program has been applied to make that version.

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