Is the source of start.com already public domain ?

I need it to see how it works, because it doesn't work on a ide interface including the ide CF interface.

The only game that starts is puyo while sd snatcher shouldn't be a problem because it alse uses sectorbased access.

I need help with this

START.COM works perfectly with my Sunrise ATA IDE (combi RS232 and simple version).

Anyway, you can try to disassemble it, it doesn't look like a big program...

i got it so far that puyo starts, but when i hit the spacekey in the intro screen i get the insert diskette message

Didn't start.com have some kind of requirement that said the disk image files it uses can not be fragmented on the harddrive? I recall something like that...

i don't think that's it because START.COM uses filehandles and dos2 will take care of the reading of the sectors so it doesn't matter if the images is fragmented.

START.COM only emulates sector reading and uses the filehandle bdos functions &H48 and &H49 for reading and writing sectors

START.COM calculates where the filepointer has to be
(disk offset +sector offset) * 512
disk1 = disk offset 0
disk2 = disk offset 1440

Then uses function &H4A to place the filepointer at the right place

After that it reads (nr of sectors to read * 512) bytes from the file to the address which the game has set with function &H1A (set disk transfer address)

The problem is that my program (adapted START.COM) does read the bootsector which starts good when it's called.

The game puyo goes to the intro screen. When i hit the spacekey i get the "insert disk in drive" message (at least i think so, it's japanese)

This is the code for the sector based reading/writing

;===============================================================================
; My changed BDOS routines
;
Emu.PHYD:			ld	(DTA),hl          ; HL = disk transfer address
			ld	h,b      		; Nr of sectors
			ld	c,$30           	
			jr	c,Emu.BDOS       	; If C Set, we are writing to disk
			ld	c,$2F
Emu.BDOS:			ld	a,c			; Check if function is emulated
			cp	$2F
			jr	z,SectorIO
			cp	$30
			jr	z,SectorIO
			cp	$1A
			jr	nz,oldbdos
			ld	(DTA),de
			jr	oldbdos

; Our sector based emulated functions
SectorIO:			push	af
			push	hl    

			ld	hl,(filePointer)	; Diskimage offset (default 0) + Start sector to read/write
			add	hl,de
			add	hl,hl			; Diskimage offset (in sectors) * 2
			ld	d,0           	; * 256
			ld	e,h
			ld	h,l
			ld	l,0     		; DE:HL = position in file (in bytes)
			ld	a,(fileHandle)
			ld	b,a
			xor	a   			; Move pointer starting from beginning of file
			ld	c,fileSeek
			call	bdos2 
			pop	hl			; H = nr of sectors to read/write
			ld	l,0
			add	hl,hl            	; Nr of sectors * 512 = nr of bytes to read
			ld	de,(DTA)          ; Destination
			ld	a,(fileHandle)
			ld	b,a
			ld	c,readFile
			pop	af
			cp	$2F        		; Absolute Sector read ??
			jr	z,oldbdos
			ld	c,writeFile 	; No then write to file
oldbdos:			jp	$0000		; Original Bdos call will be set at init of the program

run mapit or map for you run sd-snatcher!! START.COM only works with sector based disk images and because it uses normal dos2 functions it doesn't matter which interface you use.

It's not only SD Snatcher what matters

MSD: start.com performs a LOT better when you put the eventual files that are on a disk in the directory where you put the disk image you want to run with START.

I think I did try that in the past, but with no results..Can you give some titles where this works

Nop ^_^ It's been a long time since I ran games that way. Now I mostly use HDDEMU, which creates a separate .HED file which contains information on strange tracks/sectors, making it possible to run virtually anything. Its only downside: turboR required.

Back on topic: SMD could there be other resons why it doesn't work. corrupted disk images? Resident programs e.d.

The disk image is ok bcause it works excelent from my scsi hdd. The resident programs are the same because i use both controllers at the same time.

The disk image on the IDE is a copy of the disk image i use on the scsi drive, so i don't think that it's corrupted.