Games on Floppy

[pgs49sullit]

Hi - I have a box full of video games with different titles. They all however, have just one file on them, and it's only small. The files are named RUN.BA#  I'm imagining that the file is used to load whatever game it refers to after the machine boots. Does anyone have any idea what program might call such a file?

[Thenasty]

that's supposed to be RUN.BAT

you can see what inside by typing on the prompt (first rename it to run.bat)

type run.bat

or

edit run.bat


it probably runs nothing because you said the disk only contains that file (unless it's hidden)

only way to find out... read what's inside run.bat

[pgs49sullit]

Hi Thenasty and thanks for your response. I have already changed a copy of the file to a .bat suffix and edited it. It shows a line or two of Japanese characters which, when translated, don't make any sense in English except the word HINASHI, if memory serves. I'll have to have another look. The two words in English are Utsu and Hisashi - don't know if that means anything to you at all?

[yotsuya]

Use the floppies as drink coasters and MAME that sucker.

[Thenasty]

why not execute it

it probably give you file not found.

see if the disk contain other files (hidden). do a dir /s /ah  to see if there are other files.

[pgs49sullit]

Hi Thenasty, thanks again for your input. Just did as you suggested and it seems that there definitely is only one file on the floppy. And it was written on the 16th of December 2003! that's a long time to spend written to a floppy ne'cest pas?

When I convert the file to a .bat and open it, here's what's there:

⨪‪桔獩映汩⁥獩攠据祲瑰摥甠楳杮䔠䍎奒呐嘠⸲⁸佄丠呏䴠䑏䙉⁙⨪പ܊ܚ啒⹎䅂⹔䅂剔㬂ᥠ㗗᳉絇㜣央嶨뵑姍鸷㇄ꦷ㽤悌逼閬缒쒊⽢팄ⷸ֐켘௲ᐰ⋒㭨׻俠㠡鏆阕鶴ꎶ쌠⁄㡸鳳ꭊꩬ紓

It doesn't make any sense to me, it's Japanese/Chinese/Oriental of some description. What do you make of it?

[PL1]

What do you make of it?

"This? Why, I can make a hat or a brooch or a pterodactyl... "

Sorry, had to do it.   


Scott

[Thenasty]

"What do you make of it? "

Garbage, throw it out.

[pgs49sullit]

OK, I hear ya. I've decided to ditch it all and MAME the machine - I'm gonna need lots of help. Firstly hardware, I'm going to use a flat screen lcd monitor - because it's the right size and available. I can fit a motherboard with all the gubbins, a 40Gb hard disk and 256mb of RAM. The coffee table console is in good nick with a good JAMMA harness fitted too. I need to know what type of JAMMA card I need to obtain and, once I've got it, how to configure it. The JPAC that I've got is old school and connects to a RGB monitor but either the JPAC or the monitor (maybe both) are knackered - helps to make the decision to change to Flat screen above.

All help gratefully received guys!

[pgs49sullit]

Now then. I've changed me mind about Mame. I've now decided to purchase a PCB with 60 games on it to connect directly into my JAMMA harness and hopefully, since I spent lots of time ensuring that the screen 'flips' on Player 2 and that the orientation is correct, that should be that. A relatively inexpensive purchase (£43) seems to have solved the issue for me.

However, I have been trying all week to get the RGB monitor to display a Windows XP home screen. It won't have it. The thing is that the JPAC card and the graphics card and the motherboard are all originals and did work not so long ago. It's only the HD that went tits-up - or so we think. The Soft-15khz programme was downloaded and it found that the graphics card was not capable of issuing a 15khz signal. The monitor is RGB and is also 15khz. So how could this graphics card talk to the monitor as it used to?

As you know, we don't know what OS used to run the MB, could Linux have been the answer. Is there a solution now to getting the ATI Rage 2D to issue a 15khz signal, either in Win, DOS or Linux - what do you think?

Thanks.

[pbj]

Post some pics of this stuff.  It sounds weird.

[Haze]

Hi - I have a box full of video games with different titles. They all however, have just one file on them, and it's only small. The files are named RUN.BA#  I'm imagining that the file is used to load whatever game it refers to after the machine boots. Does anyone have any idea what program might call such a file?

I seem to remember some old DOS compression programming renaming files like that, for archival purposes rather than actually running the software (they'd be renamed again when copying them back to the HDD)

can't for the life of me remember what software it was tho, but it would explain why they don't look like valid files.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah it's still done that way with many installer programs.  Usually there was an exe or com object that extracted them.  It sounds like the data is no longer there though.... it might just be the remains of a program. 

[SavannahLion]

Go get HxD to look at the file or even the entire disk itself.

you never mentioned where these disks came from or what they are. IIVRC, Mac formated floppies are "blind" to Windows PC without special utilities. Worse if it's one of those oddball sizes. Late model Atari's had a ---fouled up beyond all recognition--- up hardware or Windows ganked their drivers, depends on who you ask. So not only is the formatting usually screwed up, they liked using those weird disk sizes.

Of course, they could be completely different floppies entirely. I honestly can't remember if modern floppy drives can read anything other than 1.44MiB disks. There was 720K and 400-somethingK disks. Wait... Are we even assuming they're the 3.5" disks?

Then there's those Floptical disks no one ever wanted to use and I think they were physically the same size as standard floppies. I doubt it's what you had, but then again, I did run into a guy once in 2000 that was excited to get his hands on a floptical drive. I think he killed himself when he upgraded to the ZIP drives after everyone else got rid of them.

Those disks are probably corrupted by now. Believe it not, those ---smurfy--- little disk boxes actually had a use for something. Most of the disks I stored in cardboard or just stacked on my bookshelf are toast now. The ones stored in those stupid boxes survived. That's not very much porn to lose but it's still annoying. I think I was able to read part of the first file and that was it. Could be the same thing here.

Write them off as a loss and go find an archive to get workable copies if they're that interesting.

[Phreakwars]

If it's called "run.ba#", then more then likely it is part of an install for several floppies. When it is installed on the computer, the installer will uncompress and rename it into "run.bat" in the appropriate folder/directory. Just renaming it won't tell you what's REALLY inside.

This is not an uncommon practice. Microsoft also did this on it's install CD's for windows 98 .dll files and such. Although, if memory serves me correct, they used an underscore and not the pound symbol.

They typically did this as a compressed file so that you couldn't just copy and paste say a .dll

What I would do, is run 7zip or winRAR or something on it and see if perhaps it is a compressed file. I suspect though, that it is a batch file ".bat" and will only contain DOS command line text.

EDIT: Just an FYI. That is Japanese Unicode.

[Phreakwars]

As a side note, you JUST MIGHT be able to find replacements for those games from this list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_video_games_released_as_freeware

[Robbbert]

The game could be one that requires you to boot from it. Did you try that?

[JDFan]

The game could be one that requires you to boot from it. Did you try that?

Think it might actually be the backup set of disks in case the HDD dies like it has -- Thing is with the age of Floppies and them losing the magnetic coating of the disks it is likely that the entire set of them might not be functional any longer as well (esp. if the entire set of disks is one compressed archive spread amongst the disks chances are at least one if not many of them will be corrupt by now )

Probably would take more time to figure out what they are and how to use them than the effort is worth at this point since the HDD seems to have failed and who knows if the set of disks is useable or not so trying to recover is probably going to be more of a hassle than it is worth trying. (esp. since it is a new aquisition and he is not sure what it was to begin with so where to start is not known !)

[pgs49sullit]

Gentlemen, I completed the task today. I ditched the PII motherboard and associated J-Pac board and replaced them with the 60 in 1 iCade board. Setting it up was a doddle. My old monitor worked perfectly with it as did the on-board ATX power supply and sound system. The whole thing is now boxed off and functioning 100%. Thanks for all your help guys, it's been real.