Saloon Cars Deluxe Extra Courses Vol. 1 (1992) (The Fourth Dimension)

[richw]

Ah, you are having all this fun with Jon's rather comprehensive instructions?
viewtopic.php?p=6012#p6012

The bit which puts me off is the malarky with a boot sequence, which is due to using the latest SparkFS. I wonder if it's making things a touch complicated? I've found that with the 'new' SparkPlug self-extractor, that will extract OK into an empty HostFS. You should then be able to use that to extract ADFFS. Jon's said further up that ADFFS is self-contained, so you shouldn't need a boot sequence in this case.

The gotcha I pointed out about the current filing system needing to be HostFS (rather than ADFS) when extracting SparkPlug also seems to apply to running SparkPlug itself. At no point have I inserted a virtual floppy into Arculator. If I try to run SparkPlug, then RISC OS locks up for a long while, then a 'trap in trap handler' error box appears. If I do "F12, HostFS, ENTER", then SparkPlug will load OK.

So... I've just done this on a fresh machine, and I saw the Saloon Cars Deluxe loading sequence:

In Windows/Linux/macOS:

• Download SparkPlug self-extractor from https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 29&t=20480
• Download ADFFS and whatever games you want (from this site)
• Place these items into Arculator's, 'HostFS' directory so they can be seen from within RISC OS

Then, in RISC OS:

• Press F12, type 'HostFS' and press ENTER a couple of times (this switches the current directory & FS to HostFS)
• Press F12, type 'Configure FileSystem HostFS' and press ENTER a couple of times (makes above survive reboot)
• Set the type of the self-extractor file to 'BASIC'
• Double-click the SparkPlug self-extractor, and it will create '!SparkPlug' (eventually!)
• Run SparkPlug from HostFS - it should appear on the icon bar
• Drag ADFFS287/zip to the SparkPlug icon on the icon bar to open it (and change it's type for future convenience)
• Copy the contents of the ADFFS287/zip archive to HostFS - next to SparkPlug, for example (this may take a while, and there is no feedback)
• Close the adffs287/zip archive window
• Double-click !ADFFS from your HostFS window, and you should see ADFFS load on the left-side of the icon bar
• Drag the game zip you downloaded to the SparkPlug icon on the icon bar to open it
• Copy the contents of the 'discs' directory to your HostFS folder.
• Set the type of each of the 'discs' files to &FCE
• Double-click the first disc, which ADFFS will open as a 'virtual disc'
• Press MENU over the ADFFS icon bar icon and click 'Boot floppy'

In RISC OS 3.1, you have some 'fun' with the Filer, because it doesn't display long filenames very well. The 'full info' view is better.

[VirtuaIceMan]

My first go and I got to the "please insert disc 2" then got stuck, so I went back to Jon's instructions to install the game, and got all the way through the steps. I then double-clicked !Saloon and... Arculator rebooted

So I'll try again in a bit, maybe I won't install it, though I'm not sure how to change to the courses disc if running off virtual discs.

Anyway more later. Very close now!

[VirtuaIceMan]

Okay I sorted it in a different way. I already have ADF files of the 3 Saloon Cars Deluxe disks (from stardot forum post somewhere), so I followed the guides to run ADFFS then imaged the Track Pack back as an adf. It doesn't have any protection on it, so now I can load it using the much more simple ADF approach

I don't need to install the game, though the instruction "Install the game to the root of hostfs" got me stuck, as I didn't know how to input the root path (the game tries to install to adfs).

Oulton Park and Donnington (typo, should be Donington) Park are both great though, with all the right corners and drops/climbs. Amazing for the era, this reminds me of Geoff Crammond's legendary Revs on the BBC Micro in some ways.

So I got there in the end, thanks all

[richw]

Pleased to hear it!

I only went as far as seeing the game start to load, so didn't get to the 'fun' of disk swapping (which I believe you can do with ADFFS) or trying to perform a hard disk install. Back in the day, most hard disk installs were awful in terms of compatibility, and still required the first disk to be presented for 'anti-piracy'. Ideally, you want a pre-packaged hard disk installed version of the game, which is what I think Jon has been setting up with PackMan. But that's probably not feasible on RISC OS 3.1 (Arculator).

I wonder if something strange like an odd-sized disk image could work? So for Saloon Cars Deluxe, you would have disk image which had all the content of the hard disk installed version? Probably stretching the definitions of 'floppy disk image' and 'preservation' somewhat.

Or another crazy idea would be if ADFFS could somehow transparently try the additional disk images. If you have a three disk set, then the game tries to open $.HighScores, or whatever, they it would try disk 1, if that was FileNotFound, then try disk 2 etc. Guess that's not going to cover those scenarios where games throw up a 'please insert disk 2' message... although a few were smart enough to look for the content first, so were more friendly towards hard disks or high density floppies.

[JonAbbott]

I then double-clicked !Saloon and... Arculator rebooted

You probably mean RISC OS rebooted - which would be the game's disc protection kicking in. You possibly missed the step to copy the disc 1 image into the game folder, or it wasn't named "F1031901".

The ADFFS script lets the game get past the protection check, removes its disc change prompts and automatically switches to the extra tracks floppy if it's in the folder (and is named "F1032201"), so provided the install instructions are followed...its a seamless experience. It also patches some illegal instructions that cause the game to crash on some CPU's - but that wouldn't affect Arculator.

Unless you know RISC OS, emulators can be a pain if they don't come with a pre-configured HD setup, so sorry for your bad experience.

Ideally, you want a pre-packaged hard disk installed version of the game, which is what I think Jon has been setting up with PackMan. But that's probably not feasible on RISC OS 3.1 (Arculator).

My last resort was to manually download the PackMan package and extract it using !SparkFS.

SparkFS is such a pain these days because of its dependencies, I really should spend some time to code up ZipFS. ADFFS has a built in ZIP extractor, it just needs a FileSystem on the front of it so you can open ZIP's as folders...then I just need to supply a minimal self-extractor for it.

[richw]

SparkFS is such a pain these days because of its dependencies, I really should spend some time to code up ZipFS. ADFFS has a built in ZIP extractor, it just needs a FileSystem on the front of it so you can open ZIP's as folders...then I just need to supply a minimal self-extractor for it.

To be fair, once I used the System-resources-less SparkPlug self-extractor, it was pretty painless. I agree that the modern RISC OS experience (on 3.1 or later) means you need a full ROOL disc image, which is a pain on an emulator.

It would be cute if Arculator came with SparkPlug already inside the HostFS folder. Or if it had a button to go and fetch it, and the likes of the ROOL disc image, and then you can just extract from within RISC OS.