Getting started

This repository does not ship the game. It ships the commented disassembly of Mopi Ranger (Konami, 1985, RC-728) and the tools that reproduce it.

What you need

The cartridge, exactly 16,384 bytes, in the root and named mopiranger.rom. Its sha256 is 89ae5bdd1541c38c2593a91d36bdacf36634c0c8b85977ff2fff046bae4dadbf.
pasmo and z80dasm on the PATH.
Python 3.
make.

The check that decides

make comprueba      # that the dump is the same one
make                # trace, build the listing, reassemble and check

make ends with this, and it is the only line that matters:

OK: reproducible byte a byte

It means that the listing in src/mopiranger.asm, assembled, gives back the same 16,384 bytes as the cartridge. If that fails, nothing else counts.

What each target does

target	what it does
`make trace`	follows the flow from the entry points in `src/mopiranger.entries`
`make listado`	writes `src/mopiranger.asm` from the trace and the notes
`make verify`	assembles and compares the sha256 with the original
`make sanity`	what reassembly does NOT cover (see below)
`make test`	the tests
`make densidad`	how much of the listing is commented
`make mapas`	draws the zones by unpacking them
`make web`	builds these pages

Why `verify` is not enough

A listing can reproduce the ROM byte for byte and still be telling lies: bytes do not change because you read them wrong. What catches that is make sanity:

that no data comes out as code: if the tracer walks into a table it disassembles it as instructions, and coverage goes up with nothing failing.
that no entry point falls inside a data range, which is how a listing ends up contradicting itself.
that not one byte is left unexplained. Here it is 16,384 out of 16,384, 100%.

The files

src/mopiranger.entries   the entry points, each with its reason
src/mopiranger.nocode    the ranges that are NOT code
src/mopiranger.notes     what is understood: data blocks and comments
src/mopiranger.asm       the listing, generated
tools/                   the tracer, the generator and the drawing tools