SPEEDTRANS PLUS
Speedtrans Plus is the most sophisticated Tape-to-Disc transfer utility for SPEEDLOCK protected programs ever published. It will definitely transfer more games than any other dedicated Speedlock transfer program on the market and with much greater ease. Other transfer programs require you to know how long the game code is so that you may run an alternative program for the long games which does not save the loading screen. This is done because they do not make use of the extra memory available on the CPC 6128 or from the use of an extra RAMPACK. This program is highly intelligent in that it first reads the loader from the tape and establishes which type of protection is in use from 6 alternatives. At the end of the load it then finds out how long the code is and if it is too long to be saved to 1 file it will move the excess code into the banked memory and save the game in 2 parts and write the appropriate loader program. The screen will also be moved into a bank and compressed before saving. This can mean screen files as small as 4K (BASKET MASTER) depending on mode and content. It is remotely possible that the screen code cannot be compressed and in such a case the code is saved normally as a 17K file. We have to date only found 1 game where this applies (Phantom Club) but there may well be others in the future. All this means that a lot less disc space is used than with other transfer programs also you will nearly always get the loading screen saved. The exception to this is when there is no loading screen (as in SCRABBLE) or when the screen is blanked out and more code is loaded into the screen memory, as in BMX SIMULATOR,PHANTOM CLUB and MADBALLS. With all except the very latest games the disc saving name will be displayed on the screen at the start of the load. To run the transferred game just RUN this name. In all cases the disc saving name is displayed while the save is carried out. Another intelligent feature of SPEEDTRANS PLUS is that the very first thing it does is to find out which drive it is in. This means that if you have a two drive system you may run the program from drive B by typing RUN "B:DISC" or —B:RUN"DISC. The saving will ALWAYS be to drive A so with a single drive you must change the disc when prompted on screen. Although the banked memory is used for the transfer it is not used for running the game from disc so all transferred games will work in a standard CPC 464 or CPC 664. |