Can't Remember the scroll option.
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Can't Remember the scroll option.
I used to live playing BT1 on my old Commodore many, many moons ago. Recently, I bought the Interplay Ultimate RPG package for the BT's. What a hoot and a trip into the past. But for the life of me, I can't remember how to increase and decrease the scroll speed of the text during battle. Most particularly when I'm in the Castle facing the 99 Beserkers, 99 Beserkers, etc. Anybody help me out??
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Brian the Fist
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Van Slaylin
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Cant for the life of me slow down or speed up the KEGS32 Apple iigs emulator? Tried all the diff keys during battle...the only thing i could do is turn the emulator to the 1MHZ instead of the 2.5MHZ but that sucks. I know its possible but I cant do it???
AHH success I found it!!! Its the cursor key arrow left to slow and right to speed up.
AHH success I found it!!! Its the cursor key arrow left to slow and right to speed up.
Is this so? There was a scroll speed facility in the C64 version of Bard's Tale? I never knew that! 
I had the C64 tape version, and must have logged hundreds of hours on it, completing it and then CONTINUING to defeat Mangar hundreds of times to get some seriously level'd up Paladins and Archmages.
I was not aware of any way to increase the scroll speed. It would have saved me a lot of time if I had known about it!
Indeed, after learning machine code and purchasing an Action Replay machine code monitor cartridge, I trawled through the code of Bards Tale and founD the dual nested increment/decrement BranchNotEqual (BNE) code that governed the scroll speed. By poking a much smaller constant than 255, I successfully increased the scroll speed. I'm afraid I didn't keep a record of the memory address.
I wish I could post a letter back to myself in the 80's and inform myself of these little tricks from the outset!
I had the C64 tape version, and must have logged hundreds of hours on it, completing it and then CONTINUING to defeat Mangar hundreds of times to get some seriously level'd up Paladins and Archmages.
I was not aware of any way to increase the scroll speed. It would have saved me a lot of time if I had known about it!
Indeed, after learning machine code and purchasing an Action Replay machine code monitor cartridge, I trawled through the code of Bards Tale and founD the dual nested increment/decrement BranchNotEqual (BNE) code that governed the scroll speed. By poking a much smaller constant than 255, I successfully increased the scroll speed. I'm afraid I didn't keep a record of the memory address.
I wish I could post a letter back to myself in the 80's and inform myself of these little tricks from the outset!
ROFL...
I was a BT1 user in 1985/1986, and if you bought and actually read the
booklet called manual that came with it, you would have learned about
the scroll option. It is clearly stated there, and it is mostly needed fighting
the 396 berzerks...
Quote from the booklet's "COMMAND SUMMARY". section "COMBAT COMMANDS":
...
In combat, press:
...
Left arrow and right arrow to speed up or slow down the combat message
scrolling rate.
On this website you even find the Apple command summary card, which actually
was the same for the C64. In my copy of the C64 original game the command
summary card was for both, Apple II and C64, with sections stating where
they were different.
I was a BT1 user in 1985/1986, and if you bought and actually read the
booklet called manual that came with it, you would have learned about
the scroll option. It is clearly stated there, and it is mostly needed fighting
the 396 berzerks...
Quote from the booklet's "COMMAND SUMMARY". section "COMBAT COMMANDS":
...
In combat, press:
...
Left arrow and right arrow to speed up or slow down the combat message
scrolling rate.
On this website you even find the Apple command summary card, which actually
was the same for the C64. In my copy of the C64 original game the command
summary card was for both, Apple II and C64, with sections stating where
they were different.
I'm still in shock.
I did have the manual, and even more signifcantly, reading and rereading and rereading the manual was my thing. Now that you have pointed it out, that line in the manual does ring a bell, and I now recall reading those instructions during my early playing, and trying to press the cursor keys to no avail. I also remember resorting to pressing every key during those early days, but again never saw the combat text speed up. I gave up trying and subsequently read over those combat speed instructions as a Bards Tale myth.
I had the tape version, which differed to the disk version in that graphics and music were trimmed down. On watching videos of the C64 disk version, I noticed that enemy groups 'advance', a feature I had never seen on the tape version so that must have been trimmed out to save on memory. Perhaps the scroll speed adjustment also got trimmed out....
I hope so anyway, otherwise I might be the only person in the world to have completed the game in real time!!
God I spent a lot of time deveoping those characters. I remember setting up the 4x99 berserkers round off and leaving the C64 on every dinnertime with the TV off so that my mum and dad didn't tell me to turn the computer off.
If this long desired feature was present on the tape version... well then... I'm sueing those darn instruction writers for 1 lost year...
I did have the manual, and even more signifcantly, reading and rereading and rereading the manual was my thing. Now that you have pointed it out, that line in the manual does ring a bell, and I now recall reading those instructions during my early playing, and trying to press the cursor keys to no avail. I also remember resorting to pressing every key during those early days, but again never saw the combat text speed up. I gave up trying and subsequently read over those combat speed instructions as a Bards Tale myth.
I had the tape version, which differed to the disk version in that graphics and music were trimmed down. On watching videos of the C64 disk version, I noticed that enemy groups 'advance', a feature I had never seen on the tape version so that must have been trimmed out to save on memory. Perhaps the scroll speed adjustment also got trimmed out....
I hope so anyway, otherwise I might be the only person in the world to have completed the game in real time!!
God I spent a lot of time deveoping those characters. I remember setting up the 4x99 berserkers round off and leaving the C64 on every dinnertime with the TV off so that my mum and dad didn't tell me to turn the computer off.
If this long desired feature was present on the tape version... well then... I'm sueing those darn instruction writers for 1 lost year...
Last edited by Flanimal on Sat Aug 14, 2010 5:59 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Yeah it did kinda suck... but I was hooked on BT1 so it didn't stop me completing it. I didn't make any note of the time but it probably took me 1 to 2 years to complete.
I ran a German tape image on the C64 emulator and was horrified to see that the scoll speed change function was present. Pressing the PC right and left arrows during combat resulted in <faster> and <slower>.
So this feature probably was in my English tape version.
It took me about 2 years to complete, and although I loved it, I steered well clear of BT2&3 as there was no way to import my tape saved characters and there's no way I wanted start with new characters again for more years of development.
I ran a German tape image on the C64 emulator and was horrified to see that the scoll speed change function was present. Pressing the PC right and left arrows during combat resulted in <faster> and <slower>.
So this feature probably was in my English tape version.
It took me about 2 years to complete, and although I loved it, I steered well clear of BT2&3 as there was no way to import my tape saved characters and there's no way I wanted start with new characters again for more years of development.
Re: Can't Remember the scroll option.
i am playing the c64 version with emulator ccs and had to press cursor-right (arrow right) key to increase the scrolling speed.
my first tries with this key failed, because you have to press the key very(!) long during a fight/active scrolling text. only pressing it short doesnt do anything.
press until you see the text "faster" on screen.
my first tries with this key failed, because you have to press the key very(!) long during a fight/active scrolling text. only pressing it short doesnt do anything.
press until you see the text "faster" on screen.