[Coco] running RSDOS games from hard drive?

[Robert Gault]

Frederick D Provoncha wrote:
><snip>
> 
> 
> Strange. I double-checked to make sure, and Tutankam definitely is not
> working for me when I load it off the hard drive. It works fine when I
> load it off a floppy. Here is what I did & what happened:
> 
> Tutankam resides on Drive 36 on my hard drive. Here are the commands I
> issued:
> DRIVE 36
> LOADM"TUTANKAM.BIN"
> EXEC
> The title screen successfully comes up. But then when I press 'R' to
> start a game, the computer crashes quite spectacularly, with lots of
> pretty colors on the screen. I then turn off the Coco, turn it back on
> again, and then at the OK prompt I issue the following commands:
> DRIVE 36
> DRIVE OFF
> I then insert a blank 5 1/4" floppy into Drive 0
> DSKINI0
> BACKUP 36 TO 0
> When the computer finishes copying Drive 36 onto the floppy, I then issue
> the following commands:
> DRIVE 0
> LOADM"TUTANKAM.BIN"
> EXEC
> The title screen comes up, I press 'R', and the game runs fine!
> 
> So the game works fine when loaded and run directly from a floppy (even
> if the floppy was copied from the hard drive!). But if loaded and run
> directly from the hard drive, it crashes the computer. Go figure.
> 
> Fred Provoncha
> 

Strange indeed. This game works on my Coco3 and in MESS, both from hard 
drives. It is clear that your copy of the game is OK so that must mean 
there is a problem with your hardware/OS. I'm assuming a Coco3 and that 
you are in WIDTH32 before starting the game.

Keep in mind that this game does not do any disk I/O. That means once 
the game is loaded, there is no way the game can tell whether it came 
from a floppy or a hard drive.

What happens if you load the game from the hard drive, do a DIR of a 
floppy, and then EXEC the game?