Pre-history: With strong energy of godness BabaJeanmel-sama (may Sun shine his steps), I start to be obsessed with PC-88/98 gaming.
Decided to play games (at least rpg and adventures) in release date order. Dragon and Princess (KOEI, 1983) was smoothly completed (thank to all, who was participated in ENG translation of this treasury).
Next choice was second KOEI's RPG - Ken no Mahou (1983), but I failed to even run this game at M88 or ePC8801MA.
Tried different .d88 files from TOSEC and NEO KOBE and run M88 with emu Japanese applocale but result was same: Syntax error.
My steps was: insert N88 BASIC - RESET - change disk to KEN NO MAHOU.d88 - FILES - LOAD "START" - RUN
Line 40 gives syntax error 40 OPTION"S&M"
Ok. I did: LIST - GO TO 40. Tried to 40 KILL - (delete line, did not fix the game of course).
There are two files in .88 file: START and S&M - and in second file there is basic code for whole game, so I changed Line 40 in START file to 40 LOAD "S&M".
Ok it gave me nothing, except that RUN goes to file S&M and gave me syntax error at Line 5 in "S&M" file.
Since I doesn't understand Basic, I don't understand, that program do with this line and why error located here:
5 I=VAL (RIGHT$(VARPTR,2)):FOR J=0 BEEP I:A=RND(1):NEXT
I tried goes through other lines with GO TO 10 or GO TO 40 and some lines give syntax error too.
I think, that problem located in "I=" (maybe it disk name, which not exist and that's why game cannot proceed?).
At least all lines, which "I=" was, syntax error was happens.
I have hope, that someone, who understand basic or had such experience with syntax error in PC88 gaming and solved it, could will shed light on it.
Huge thanks if any could help with that.
_______________________________________________
But still wants to share other things, that I found out with this clumsy files checking:
Early PC88 games (1982+) can be easily modified or even translated to English with N88 Basic.88 + EDIT (#line) command, with just replacing "kaji text" to "ENG text".
There is not much lines code even in such complicated rpg as Ken no Macho - LIST gives ~370 lines.
BUT more important, what with unlocking Basic full game code with LIST, there is very simple method to create full Japanese script from possibly any early PC88 game with help of Textractor too.
Early games can't be hooked by Textractor (as 90+ years games) but there will be simple method in which all we need is to open Textractor hook for main window of PC8801MA, upload N88 Basic, change to needed game, find file with game code and put LIST, which write all ines at screen, which Textractor hook will catch.
All rest deals is to delete ENG codes with any simple macross in text editor and left all kanji words. I not tested this method yet, but in theory it could work for 100%.
And with LIST there is also method to modify any early PC88 game (for JRPG at example), to add easily any helpful numbers in basic code. At example, at start of game when statistics generated to characters: with EDIT #line we can change generating numbers from 1:10 to 99:99, which create strong character from start and will help to win game more easily (I tried already some early PC88 RPG and they are super hard).
UPD: Theory failed dramatically, I tried to translate something simple, like Donkey Gollira (1983)(Tsukumo Denki) - which have few lines of codes and only one screen in Japanese with text but failed with FILES with gives me BAD ALLOCATION TABLE.
Tried also on Panorama Tou (1983)(Nihon Falcom) = failed to, FILES give me:
DUNGE N
Bad allocation tables in which
LOAD "DUNGE N" not work, seems there is kanji between E and N, which are not shown. So next way is to find to win "BAD ALLOCATION TABLE" and understand how to correctly shown kanji in filenames. Hard!
UPD2. Ok, learn more about bad allocation table - it's protection in which programmer defend code with add some elements to top of file structure, so BASIC just stuck on them.
Ok. I just dumb. Super dumb. Whole past above have no sense (except possibility to mode game with edit lines).
Ken to Mahou (1983)(Koei) - game for PC8001 and not for PC88, that's why it was not booted in 88v2 mode.
Booted in N mode and game works like a charm.
Decided to play games (at least rpg and adventures) in release date order. Dragon and Princess (KOEI, 1983) was smoothly completed (thank to all, who was participated in ENG translation of this treasury).
Next choice was second KOEI's RPG - Ken no Mahou (1983), but I failed to even run this game at M88 or ePC8801MA.
Tried different .d88 files from TOSEC and NEO KOBE and run M88 with emu Japanese applocale but result was same: Syntax error.
My steps was: insert N88 BASIC - RESET - change disk to KEN NO MAHOU.d88 - FILES - LOAD "START" - RUN
Line 40 gives syntax error 40 OPTION"S&M"
Ok. I did: LIST - GO TO 40. Tried to 40 KILL - (delete line, did not fix the game of course).
There are two files in .88 file: START and S&M - and in second file there is basic code for whole game, so I changed Line 40 in START file to 40 LOAD "S&M".
Ok it gave me nothing, except that RUN goes to file S&M and gave me syntax error at Line 5 in "S&M" file.
Since I doesn't understand Basic, I don't understand, that program do with this line and why error located here:
5 I=VAL (RIGHT$(VARPTR,2)):FOR J=0 BEEP I:A=RND(1):NEXT
I tried goes through other lines with GO TO 10 or GO TO 40 and some lines give syntax error too.
I think, that problem located in "I=" (maybe it disk name, which not exist and that's why game cannot proceed?).
At least all lines, which "I=" was, syntax error was happens.
I have hope, that someone, who understand basic or had such experience with syntax error in PC88 gaming and solved it, could will shed light on it.
Huge thanks if any could help with that.
_______________________________________________
But still wants to share other things, that I found out with this clumsy files checking:
Early PC88 games (1982+) can be easily modified or even translated to English with N88 Basic.88 + EDIT (#line) command, with just replacing "kaji text" to "ENG text".
There is not much lines code even in such complicated rpg as Ken no Macho - LIST gives ~370 lines.
BUT more important, what with unlocking Basic full game code with LIST, there is very simple method to create full Japanese script from possibly any early PC88 game with help of Textractor too.
Early games can't be hooked by Textractor (as 90+ years games) but there will be simple method in which all we need is to open Textractor hook for main window of PC8801MA, upload N88 Basic, change to needed game, find file with game code and put LIST, which write all ines at screen, which Textractor hook will catch.
All rest deals is to delete ENG codes with any simple macross in text editor and left all kanji words. I not tested this method yet, but in theory it could work for 100%.
And with LIST there is also method to modify any early PC88 game (for JRPG at example), to add easily any helpful numbers in basic code. At example, at start of game when statistics generated to characters: with EDIT #line we can change generating numbers from 1:10 to 99:99, which create strong character from start and will help to win game more easily (I tried already some early PC88 RPG and they are super hard).
UPD: Theory failed dramatically, I tried to translate something simple, like Donkey Gollira (1983)(Tsukumo Denki) - which have few lines of codes and only one screen in Japanese with text but failed with FILES with gives me BAD ALLOCATION TABLE.
Tried also on Panorama Tou (1983)(Nihon Falcom) = failed to, FILES give me:
DUNGE N
Bad allocation tables in which
LOAD "DUNGE N" not work, seems there is kanji between E and N, which are not shown. So next way is to find to win "BAD ALLOCATION TABLE" and understand how to correctly shown kanji in filenames. Hard!
UPD2. Ok, learn more about bad allocation table - it's protection in which programmer defend code with add some elements to top of file structure, so BASIC just stuck on them.
Post automatically merged:
Ok. I just dumb. Super dumb. Whole past above have no sense (except possibility to mode game with edit lines).
Ken to Mahou (1983)(Koei) - game for PC8001 and not for PC88, that's why it was not booted in 88v2 mode.
Booted in N mode and game works like a charm.
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Last edited by Derden,
