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Added DiskDump option to create mountable albeit unbootable disks: --forceBPB

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This commit is contained in:
Jeff Parsons 2017-06-26 00:10:47 -07:00 • committed by Jeff Parsons
commit 74617db812
3 changed files with 94 additions and 6 deletions
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16
apps/pcx86/1983/adventmath/README.md
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@ -100,13 +100,25 @@ Another unexpected file was **BASICA.EXE** (54277 bytes) from 1999. It seems un
*any* BASIC binary with this game, because DOS was a prerequisite, and at the time, all versions of DOS included BASIC.
IBM's PC-DOS shipped with **BASICA.COM** and OEM versions of DOS shipped with either **GWBASIC.EXE** or **BASIC.EXE**.
The closest matching binary I'd seen up to this point was **BASICA.EXE** from [COMPAQ DOS 1.12](/disks/pcx86/dos/compaq/1.12/)
(54304 bytes). And sure enough, dumping the strings inside this **BASICA.EXE** revealed that it was a close relative:
Curiously, the **BASICA.EXE** from [COMPAQ DOS 1.11](/disks/pcx86/dos/compaq/1.11/) is exactly 5 bytes smaller, and both
files contain the following strings:
The COMPAQ Personal Computer BASIC
Version 1.13
(C) Copyright COMPAQ Computer Corp. 1983
In fact, the only differences are in first few and last few bytes:
1c1
< 00000000 4d 5a 05 00 6b 00 00 00 20 00 7a 03 ff ff 00 00 |MZ..k... .z.....|
---
> 00000000 4d 5a 20 01 6a 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 ff ff 00 00 |MZ .j... .......|
3196,3197c3196
< 0000d400 4d 73 44 6f 73 |MsDos|
< 0000d405
---
> 0000d400
It's safe to say that IBM would not have distributed a COMPAQ binary; if IBM had distributed any BASIC binary at all,
it would have been their own **BASICA.COM**. Of course, the problem with IBM's **BASICA.COM** is that it also requires
an IBM PC with ROM BASIC installed, which is why some people would have preferred the COMPAQ binary: it had no ROM