C64: Paradroid / ICU64: Custom Display

Full view of the deck with ICU64 for the Commodore 64 game 'Paradroid' (1985).

Screen resolution: 1600 x 512 pixels
Is your monitor big enough for an old C64 game?

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• c64
• icu64
• reverse engineering
• memory-map
• paradroid
• full
• deck
• retro
• game
• hack
• 8-bit

[Sabocalypse]

amazing, so can you play other games like this also?

[mathfigure]

@Sabocalypse - Consider anything on the screen of a C64 game as the DEFAULT visualization of some information that lies in its memory. Then you can change (e.g. enhance or complement) that visualization using any information that also lies in the C64 memory (or the PC memory, for extra resources). So, virtually, it is possible to change/transform/enhance any game (but so far is done only for "Boulder Dash" and "Paradroid").

[mathfigure]

Thanks for the information. I found the diary.

A note there says he wanted to "build" the space-ship to check its consistency. During hacking this game, I checked this and found two issues that make impossible to build the whole space-ship in 3D.

About your ask; I supposed, when you see the whole deck you also want to see all the droids. And actually, the custom display hacked to SHOW the droids. And yes, this makes it easier to play (as a benefit!).

[Chris0neilson]

hey I need help with memory map of gauntlet? how to do?

[mathfigure]

Currently, ICU64 can't build the memory map for you. This is a task (reverse engineering) that you should do manually. Just watch the default memory map and try to figure out what is going on. Then rearrange the addresses as you need to get a better view.

(this task took me one week for paradroid)

[C64endings]

Amazing stuff!

So how do we get to 'import the address space'?

[mathfigure]

To import a new address space (a memory map) press CTRL-I in memory view. The file must be a plain text of hex addresses separated by spaces, tabs, or new lines. Every address corresponds to a byte. It's pretty raw, there is no way to specify ranges. The Excel or a script language would be useful to generate the numbers.

---

RAM : 0000 - ffff

ROM : 1a000-1bfff and 1d000-1ffff

I/O : 2d000 - 2dfff

[kiyotewolf]

The scanning formulas, and the green tracers of the bad guys when you see it at 1:12 reminds me of TRON.

[rogerjowett]

3,388 vuzela

[pyrotas]

I can only imagine Montezuma's Revenge like that!

[Sabocalypse]

@mathfigure kool thanx for the info, I find this very interesting

[Retronaut1975]

Very interesting! I never saw paradroid like this.

Respect.

[KlaxonCow]

p.s. I also notice that you can see the lines between droids used to work out if they were visible or not, in the memory view from 1:30 onwards.

Could the custom display be hacked to hide the droids using this information?

It's kind of cheating to be able to see them all.