Arcade / Arcade - Collect'em! · 1983

Magneto Bugs

Published by Gentry Software · Developed by [n/a]

atarimania.com — atari-400-800-xl-xe-games-magneto-bugs-3116

Information

Genre: Arcade - Collect'em!
Language: Machine Language
Controls: Joystick, Keyboard
Players: 1, Demo
Programmer(s): Riley, Mark
Graphic Artist(s): [n/a]
Sound: [n/a]
Cover Artist(s): Ross, Scott
Year: 1983
Publisher: Gentry Software
Developer: [n/a]
Country: USA
License: Commercial
Medium: Disk
Rarity: 8
Serial: 1-214

Votes / Statistics

Rating: 7.7/10 · Votes: 6 · Downloads: 1,983 · Hits: 7,245

Additional Comments

Re-release of Tumble Bugs.

Two files included.

"A" is the unmodified / original disk and does not load through. Actually, either due to a bug or an error during the duplication process, it appears no working original ever surfaced! For preservation purposes, we are keeping this VAPI image in the archive.

"B" is a fully functional, fixed version by Fandal with just a single byte to the code changed. Presumably, the original should have looked like this.

Below is Fandal's explanation...

"If your ATX image is a copy of an original disk, there never was any chance it could boot. There is a bug in the code.

I'm attaching a fixed version of ATX image. I changed just one byte as I noticed that there is a lot of bad sectors on original ATX starting at sector $265. Please note that loader checks sector $16D using this construction in the code:
18BE LDA #$6D ; LO byte of sector
18C0 STA $030A ;DAUX1 -> SIO table
18C3 LDA #$01 ; HI byte of sector
18C5 STA $030B ;DAUX2 -> SIO table
18C8 JSR $E453 ;DSKINV -> read sector
18CB LDA $0303 ;DSTATS -> read error flag

So I said to myself: may be it should check sector $26D instead of $16D? I changed LDA #$01 to LDA #$02 and voila! It works now.

I'm not sure if it is a programming bug or the master disk of Magneto Bugs
was damaged somehow but I would say that this mystery is solved".

Screenshots (4)

Cover Art (3)

Comments (3)

ijor — 24 Jun 2017
Seems that it was just a bad mastered disk. There are original disks working correctly. The correct working disks has the track 20 unformatted. The non working one has track 34 unformatted instead.
rave.N — 24 Feb 2016
Name of the game tells it like it is, or was : Magneto Bugs, bugs in magnetic media ... nevermind.
Adam Archambault — 16 Jun 2009
we owned this one but all got ruined in the shed. Please someone find this