Fixing Death in the Caribbean
 GS WorldView, October 1999
 ref: Death_CaribbeanEmu.zip

Death in the Caribbean
 Hires picture-text adventure from MicroFun (1982, 1983)
 by Philip and Bob Hess
 illustrations by Barbara P. Lawrence


     Death in the Caribbean is a DOS 3.3 adventure which uses volume 
numbering to identify disks. This works fine for diskettes on an Apple II;
but, emulator users run into snags at various places, such as when it is 
time to move to parts of the adventure on Disk 2:

blsmith1 writes ...
> 
> I have been looking for disk two of this gave for years.  My Original was
> damaged years ago when i was about 8. I tried the azimov but but the disk 2
> isnt any good there.
 ....

     It turns out that Disk 2 is okay. The problem is in the game program
on Disk 1.

     DOS 3.3 volume information is embedded in the track/sector formatting.
Disk images preserve a diskette's data but not its format information. Special
volume numbering is lost; so, checking disks according to volume number does
not work properly.



A Workaround

     Did some experimenting and there is a workaround you can use when playing
on an emulator which allows hopping into the monitor during play. (AppleWin
lets you do this.):

When the program asks you to turn over the disk you can swap in Disk 2 as you
normally would. (Or, Disk 1 if you are going from Disk 2 to Disk 1.)

Before pressing SPACE to tell the program to continue, click on the magnifying
glass button (in AppleWin) to get to the Debugger/monitor.

Enter this -->  ME 702D FE  (press RETURN to finish the entry)

Click the magnifying glass button to get out of the Debugger and back to the
game.

Press SPACE to continue play.


     What the above does is tell the program that it needs to check for a disk
with volume number 254. Since 254 is the default, any disk image in the drive
will pass the test and you can continue the adventure.



A Hack

     A better fix is to change the game program so that the player does not
need to enter the monitor. I did a quickie hack to Disk 1 which seems to work
okay.

     Disk 2 and the new Disk 1 are in Death_CaribbeanEmu.zip along with a Save
Game disk (named "Save.dsk") and a Text info file with most of what you are
reading here. You can use WinZIP or an equivalent utility to uncompress
Death_CaribbeanEmu.zip.



A Few Notes about Playing "Death in the Caribbean" using Disk Images

I. Disk images do not let the game use volume numbers to identify disks.
Keeping things straight is up to the player. 

     When LOADing a Saved Game and at important places in the quest, the game
asks you to flip, replace, etc. the Adventure disk.  Be sure to insert the
correct Disk.

     For example, suppose you are restarting play and LOAD Saved Game #7 from
the Save disk. If #7 is for play on Disk 2, you need to remember to insert Disk
2 when the program asks you to "Replace" the Adventure Disk. (If the wrong disk
is inserted, the game will crash and you will need to boot Disk 1 and LOAD the
Saved Game again.)

     Keeping brief notes about your Saved Games helps. The notes for a Saved
Game should mention the Disk (1 or 2) the Save relates to.

     If you are killed, you will get to a screen which tells you to press SPACE
to restart. Disk 1 needs to be in the drive whenever you restart the game.


II. Evidently, you can use almost any DOS 3.3 disk image as the SaveGame disk.
A SaveGame disk (named "Save.dsk") is included in Death_CaribbeanEmu.zip.


III. It's a good idea to Write Protect Disk 1 and Disk 2 to avoid accidental
overwriting. You can do this for disk images in Windows. Right-click on the
file name, select Properties and checkmark "Read Only". (The adventure disk
images in Death_CaribbeanEmu.zip already have Read Only set.)


     Thanks to Asimov for supplying the disk images and to blsmith1 for
mentioning the problem on comp.emulators.apple2.


Rubywand, 1999