Re: [stella] Swordquest EW hacking

[Joseph Thompson <jrt1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Slocum wrote:

> > et's see, you are a highly skilled VCS programmer who has made the 
> > system do things that would make Tod Frye drool . . . And have the 
> > benefits of emulation, full documentation, and many other things that 
> > nobody outside Atari really had in 1983. . . And you can't find it 
> > via hacking . . .
>
>
> I only spent about 10 minutes looking through the ROM to find what I 
> did.  If I spent more time I'm sure I could find the solution.  And 
> I've done stuff comparable to hacking SQ without docs on the 2600 
> (like hacking that dot matrix printer.)
>
> Even in 1983, it would be pretty easy to wire up the cartridge to the 
> cart port on a C64 or Atari 800 and run the ROM through a 6502 
> disassembler.


. . . If someone had a large knowledge of assembly, the architecture, 
etc . . . Surely not everyone who solved it did.  And I'm sure there are 
more red herrings like the one you found that they put in to catch 
people who did do it this way. 

> Plus, that was a valuable prize they were offering, so there was 
> decent motivation to spend time on it.


Eh, didn't Steve Bell melt it down and hock it? :)  Or was that the FW 
winner? 

Honestly, I think that the winners probably had some source of inside 
information as to the correct (non-red herring ) solution, or were the 
only people in the world to whom it really made sense.

I am going to try to figure out FW on hunch and the logic they probably 
used to design it, though, just to see if I can.

--Joseph


> -paul
>
>
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