Computer Ambush for lr-atari800 "illegal disk!" error?

jamrom2

RPi3b+
Retropie 4.7.1 build
Retroarch 1.8.8
lr-Atari800 (3.1.0 dba73d2) build info under 'Help' menu option.

exact message always displayed is

"cannot boot --> illegal disk!"

This is the only game in my Atari library that's giving me this for every rom version of it I've tried.

What does it mean and how is it corrected...

A little more info is that I have Atari 800XL (64 KB) selected in the F1 menu of lr-atari800. I have tried 130XE (128), still gives me the same message.

The same rom works in the standard PC version of Hatari. Boots right up as normally would and plays as it should. Is there something else I can set, or do I have something set wrong? This was an old favorite that I do have the C64 version for, but there were some differences, and I had this one as a kid.

I looked around and don't see anything out there about this message and what it means.

Thanks!

JR

jamrom2

I kinda figured this would be one to slip down the line... it's a strange issue. And not a well-known game at that.

But for the record.... I was doing a ton of testing and came to the conclusion that it's coming from the emulator. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to fix it because I don't know what's causing it. All that I've been able to read about Atari800/600 boot errors seems to point to having to press the "options" key to by-pass Basic during load. Doing so via the options menu of lr-Atari800 has no effect.

In a W10 environment, I tested the same rom on Atari800Win PLus 4.1 and Altirra/x64 2.40.

Atari800Win - same result. "cannot boot --> illegal disk!" message displayed as lr-atari800 does. Selecting "press Option key" via the menu has no effect.
Altirra/x64 - worked flawlessly without touching any settings.

So whatever base options/settings that are built into Altirra/x64 to make this particular game work, don't appear to be available in either lr-Atari800 or Atari800win on a side-by-side comparison.

Sadly, from what I can tell, I don't think this is fixable in the Retropie environment which is a loss as it's one of those game that is highly rated in the Squad level "WWII/Strategy-Tactics" genres. Before the Close Combat games came out for Windows 95, Computer Ambush was the game to play for WWII German vs American 10 on 10 Squad level close combat. A fun game to play single or two-player.

It is available on the Commodore 64 and works great in the lr-vice64 emulator.

jamrom2

Got it working. This required a visit to Atari Age to understand what was going on.

There are some protections in A800 disks that lr-Atari800 can't get around but Altarri can. This was one of them, hence the odd error message. The emulator reads the disk, but it's not jumping over the sector of copy protection.

I was graciously given a "newer" version of CA that had the protections removed.