Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Any chance that your son or someone else may have trashed the disk?
    
    Both Archon and Instant Music work fine on my 2.5 meg A1000, both
    under 1.2.
    
    Neither had to be fixhunked.
    
    

    Heartfelt apol0gies... I lied.  Archon will not run properly under
    1.2.  Instant Music runs fine though.
    
    I remember giving a demo of Archon recently, but I must have
    Kickstarted with 1.1, since I gave a Leader Board demo at the same
    time, and my version of Leader Board requires 1.1.  
    
    There is no way to fix the early EA programs, since they don't even
    have a valid disk format.  I understand that if you send the disk
    back, they'll send a Fixhunked version back to you.
    
    ArticFox runs fine under 1.2, with some flakey graphics during the
    loading sequence.
                                    
    I don't have Skyfox, (which suks anyway) but that is another problem
    game.
    
    Ed.
    

It is not likely that the disks have been trashed.  I keep the originals stashed
and only run from copies, except when trying to deal with problems like this.

If your Instant Music works, then either:
- you have a different version than I do
- there is something different about the 2000 that bothers it
- my machine is broken in some subtle way

I am baffled.  Does anyone with a 2000 have these things running?

	Paul

    
    
    	I don't have a A2000, but I have talked with a couple of software
    companies. If a program didn't follow the rules there are some
    compatability problems. I don't know what it is but some copy protect
    systems will not work on A500/A1000/A2000 systems.
    
    		Steve Peters
    

    A while back EA released an v1.2 upgrade to INSTANTMUSIC.  The upgrade
    was announced in the EA newsletter about 3-4 months ago.  I will
    check tonight for identifications on the old and new versions.
    

This InstantMusic problem is driving me bonkers!!!

I talked to EA on the phone tonight.  After being kept on hold practically
forever listening to California radio (on my dime) I talked to some clerk type
who suggested that it must be my machine because all of their stuff has been
checked out on 2000s.  She could not however explain why IM would fail but DP-II
works fine.  Her preferred solution was to have me try to run my disk on another
2000.  She was also so kind as to offer to connect me to the warrantee
department, who would be so kind as to sell me a replacement disk for $7.50. 

So I decided to experiment some more on my own first.  I came up with some
mystifying results.  What I have discovered is: (This is on a 1meg 2000 with one
internal drive (DF0:) and one external 1010 (DF2:)

- The original disk or a verbatim marauder copy will not work in either drive.
  It seems to fail during its stupid decoding process.  It puts up its title
  screen, does lots of i/o, then usually blanks the screen and lights the disk
  light but without any seeking noise.  This then lasts more or less forever.
  Other times it seems to just give up with the title screen still showing - no
  disk i/o at all.  In this case it is possible to get back to workbench using
  Amiga-N.  I haven't quite figured out the ptern of when it fails how, but it
  always fails.

- A Marauder Analytical copy, without use of the Decoder, seems to act the same
  as above, but I only tried it in DF0.

- A Marauder Analytical copy, WITH use of the Decoder, when run in DF0, acts as
  above, but doesn't show the title screen.  (I think the title screen is
  eliminated by use of the decoder.)

- When the decoded copy is run in DF2 it almost works!  Only obvious problem is
  that the pointer is trashed.  It usually is truncated to just the lower right
  corner of the normal arrow.  Since this looks kind of like a memory use
  problem, I tried it both with and without NoFastMem running.  I found no
  consistent differences this way.  I usually get the above garbaged pointer
  either way, but once (with all mem available) I got a large garbaged pointer
  and eventually guru'ed when I klicked it all the way in the corner of the
  screen.

This makes very little sense to me.  Apparently some of the disk i/o portions of
InstantMusic are having trouble with my internal disk, but even when that
problem is bypassed it is having some kind of trouble with the pointer.

I ran a Marauder speed check on both of my drives.  DF0 came up with a
consistent 6389, while DF2 varied between 6389 and 6390.  This is apparently
well within specs as well as being quite consistent.

My feeling is that this program is not properly dealing with normal variations
between systems, but I don't see how to verify that.  I guess trying my disk on
another 2000 would be interesting.  Is there anyone with a 2000 in the Marlboro
area?  Any other ideas?

	Paul

P.S. I also asked EA about Archon, and was told that a version compatible with
     1.2 would be coming in the spring.  (Probably shortly after 1.3 comes out.)

    Re: .6
    
    I'm not sure if this helps any, but I have the same problem on my
    500 (exactly the same results). However, it works fine when I take
    out my extended memory/clock module (physically removed). I'm looking
    for a copy of NoFastMem to see if it that will fix it! Judging from
    your results, I'm beginning to think it may not work. 
    
    				Good luck!

    i tried nofastmem, then fixhunk, then fixhunk+nofastmem with it
    last night.  Didn't work - just title screen and some disk access.
    -dave

    I'm going to be downloading a patch called 'Fixboot' that will allocate
    all fast memory on the boot blocks of the early EA disks like Archon,
    Skyfox, ArticFox, etc.
    
    These early EA games did not have a valid DOS structure.  In fact,
    they were written before AmigaDOS was even finished.  Fixboot may
    not help Instant Music (which I still swear runs fine under my 1.2
    w/ fast ram), but it may save the hassle of getting an upgraded
    disk from EA.
    
    Ed.