Text messages in Boris and Sargon 2.5

bataais · Post by **bataais** » Fri Dec 21, 2018 5:12 pm

I always wanted to know what funny messages Applied Concepts' Boris and MGS Sargon 2.5 display, so I took the ROM file from the MAME archive of Boris, disassembled it and reverse engineered that text. The problem was, they used some kind of compression for the letters (4-bit for 1 letter)..

Here's what I found:

Boris

1. BORIS PLAYS BLACK
2. STALEMATE
3. CONGRATULATIONS
4. ILLEGAL MOVE

5. AHH RUTHLESS
6. ARE YOU RATED?
7. BUT OF COURSE
8. GOOD MOVE
9. HAVE YOU PLAYED BEFORE?
10. I EXPECTED THAT
11. I MISSED THAT
12. I NEED HELP
13. IS THIS A TRAP?
14. MAY I CHEAT?
15. REALLY?
16. SPOT ME A QUEEN
17. VERY INTERESTING
18. VERY TRICKY
19. WANT A DRAW?

Boris Master seems to have much more messages, there is enough empty space on the 2nd ROM. I haven't found that Boris Master ROM yet, but I believe the messages are the same as listed in the MGS Sargon 2.5 german manual, where about 80 messages are translated at the end.

For Sargon 2.5 it's noted, there are about 60 of these messages included.

I soldered a cartridge connector to a chip pinout, to dump my Sargon 2.5 cartridge without desoldering the mask roms.

Another disassembly and reverse engineering showed a somewhat different version of the text compression, but I finally found all the messages:

Sargon 2.5

1. BORIS AWAITS YOUR MOVE
2. SARGON AWAITS YOUR MOVE
3. STALEMATE
4. CONGRATULATIONS
5. CHECKMATE
6. MATE IN
7. ONE
8. TWO
9. THREE
10. FOUR
11. ILLEGAL MOVE

12. DAZZLING
13. I MISSED THAT
14. I MUST REMEMBER THAT
15. I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THAT
16. MATERIALIST
17. SUCH BRILLIANCE
18. VERY TRICKY
19. WOOPS

20. IS THIS A TRAP?
21. MOST UNUSUAL
22. SO SOON?
23. THIS NEEDS CARE
24. TOO BAD
25. WILL THAT WORK?
26. READY FOR THIS?
27. REALLY?

28. I NEED HELP
29. I NEED LESS NOISE
30. MAY I CHEAT?
31. SHOULD WE SWITCH SIDES?
32. SPOT ME A QUEEN
33. USUALLY I PLAY BETTER
34. WANT A DRAW?
35. WHERE DID I GO WRONG?

36. DO YOU HAVE A PLAN?
37. GOOD BUT NOT GREAT
38. GIVE ME MORE TIME
39. MAYBE SO
40. THAT MOVE WORKED BEFORE
41. TOO MUCH
42. YOU'VE BEEN PRACTICING
43. VERY INTERESTING

44. ARE THERE LADIES PRESENT?
45. ARE YOU ANOTHER COMPUTER?
46. ARE YOU RATED?
47. BUT CAN HUMANS COMPUTE?
(0)
48. MY TURN AGAIN?
(0)
49. DOES TALKING DISTURB YOU?

50. ARE YOU SURE?
51. BUT IS IT SOUND?
52. BUT OF COURSE
53. IS THAT ALL?
54. OVER AGGRESSIVE?
55. SUITING MY PLAN
56. WHY DID YOU DO THAT?
57. WHY NOT?

58. ALL PLAYED OUT?
59. HAVE YOU PLAYED BEFORE?
60. UNLEASHING THE ATTACK
61. I EXPECTED THAT
62. NOW FOR THE KILL
63. NOW THE DEFENSE CRUMBLES
64. NOW THE OUTCOME IS OBVIOUS
65. READY TO RESIGN?

mclane · Post by **mclane** » Fri Dec 21, 2018 6:46 pm

My dos chess program capa 4.2 also comments.

It’s written in power basic.

Runs on any 32 Bit dos capable device. Even on dosbox devices (e.g. it runs on android devices using magic dosbox).
Can be downloaded on my website
http://www.thorstenczub.de/capa.html

mychess · Post by **mychess** » Sat Dec 22, 2018 9:35 am

Hello,

The ROM contains "Boris" and "Sargon" names.
It is a hardware signal that select between "Boris awaits your move" and "Sargon awaits your move".

Cordialy.

Mychess

Post by **Fernando** » Sun Dec 23, 2018 3:13 pm

mclane wrote:My dos chess program capa 4.2 also comments.

It’s written in power basic.

Runs on any 32 Bit dos capable device. Even on dosbox devices (e.g. it runs on android devices using magic dosbox).
Can be downloaded on my website
http://www.thorstenczub.de/capa.html

A pity your program is not in English. I tried to use it with DFend but German language was too much for me...

Fern

mclane · Post by **mclane** » Sun Dec 23, 2018 5:26 pm

Yes the language of Einstein, Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and
Schopenhauer must be horrible for you.

Sorry that I was born in such a shameful society not capable to speak Esperanto or Spanish or whatever language.
If you need help with the German menues or texts, feel free to ask me.

The program asks for your name and for the side you wish to use. Then you can enter "level". On a modern pc 5 should be tournament mode.
Komm_entar = comment
Wbrt = change board output
The moves are entered algebraic.
When in permanent brain you press space and return if you play the permanent brain move. Otherwise space and your different move and return.

ESC forces move if you don't wanna wait for capas computation

Your name is used for the game score capa automatically generates if you leave the program.
When I remember it right the game score can be imported in shredder or Fritz.

Post by **Fernando** » Sun Dec 23, 2018 9:10 pm

mclane wrote:Yes the language of Einstein, Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and
Schopenhauer must be horrible for you.

Sorry that I was born in such a shameful society not capable to speak Esperanto or Spanish or whatever language.
If you need help with the German menues or texts, feel free to ask me.

The program asks for your name and for the side you wish to use. Then you can enter "level". On a modern pc 5 should be tournament mode.
Komm_entar = comment
Wbrt = change board output
The moves are entered algebraic.
When in permanent brain you press space and return if you play the permanent brain move. Otherwise space and your different move and return.

ESC forces move if you don't wanna wait for capas computation

Your name is used for the game score capa automatically generates if you leave the program.
When I remember it right the game score can be imported in shredder or Fritz.

"....Yes the language of Einstein, Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and
Schopenhauer must be horrible for you.

Sorry that I was born in such a shameful society not capable to speak Esperanto or Spanish or whatever language...."

All this part of your post is unnecessary. Did I say something against German
language? No. I just said is too much for me. BTW, Schopenhauer is my favorite philosopher! I really do not understand the spirit animating your words.

I would love to learn German and I even tried, but it is so much different in its structure of the languages I command -Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, Italian- , almost all of them Latin derivatives, that it became too hard and besides, of dubious usefulness. All those German writers I can read and I have done in English or any other idiom.

Ok, have a nice Xmas

Fern

Berger · Post by **Berger** » Sun Dec 23, 2018 10:14 pm

Wow!

This is a good example of how a nice topic (initiated by bataais about the funny messages in Boris) becomes an Offtopic and also turns into something unpleasant.
By the way, I don't see any offense against the German language by Fernando either.

Best regards,
Berger

Post by **Steve B** » Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:00 am

Berger wrote:Wow!

This is a good example of how a nice topic (initiated by bataais about the funny messages in Boris) becomes an Offtopic and also turns into something unpleasant.
By the way, I don't see any offense against the German language by Fernando either.

Best regards,
Berger

i can echo Fernando's frustration at not being fluent in German
as a recent example..
the newly Released Millennium Lasker Limited Edition dedicated chess computer comes with a beautiful 68 page magazine discussing Lasker and i guess other chess subjects and i cant read a word of it!
i am forced to look at the pictures like a 2 yr old baby

That's On Me Regards
Steve

donkeylane · Post by **donkeylane** » Mon Dec 24, 2018 7:24 am

Nothing against German here either, as a matter of fact, one of the most fascinating people I find to read about is Einstein, I particularly loved a way he describes the illusory nature of time.This is it 'When I say that the train leaves the station at 7 o clock, what I mean is the train leaves the station when the big hand is on the 12, and the little hand is on the 7'No wonder he made so many scientific breakthroughs.
Regards Steve C.

hap · Post by **hap** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:57 am

Getting back to Boris, here are annotated dissasemblies by Sean Riddle. The 2nd revision was recently dumped by him. You can see it has a lot more messages.

http://www.seanriddle.com/boris.asm
http://www.seanriddle.com/borisrev01.asm

bataais · Post by **bataais** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 9:06 am

Nice! Thanks!
I like this one:

0956:DON'T SHOW DAVID LEVY
4C B0 DA 5E 2C 09 54 30 87 45 86 08 0B 0

It's an interesting text compression, the one in Sargon 2.5 is even a little more efficient. If you need the ROM dump, let me know.

hap · Post by **hap** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 9:14 am

Sure, you can send me the link via PM =)

Does the "Great Game Machine" have any rom chips itself? If not, it will be possible to emulate this Boris with just the GGM Boris ROM. And if you have any other GGM cartridge roms, even better.

bataais · Post by **bataais** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 9:42 am

hap,

I don't think there are any more roms inside the GGM, but I haven't checked. The hardware is certainly somewhat different than the original Boris, e.g., 6502 cpu instead of F8, 2KB RAM, 14-segment displays instead of 16-segments..

I will PM you a link with a package containing the ROM dump(s) and a slightly commented disassembly soon.

GGM Regards,
Michael

fdimeglio · Post by **fdimeglio** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 6:46 pm

@Steve and @Fenando,

For "understanding" German, you can use:

- Google Translate: https://translate.google.com

- open your Google Camera App on your phone and it will translate any text in live ...

Works only on Android phones so far.

You Have Some Solutions Regards,

Fabrice

Berger · Post by **Berger** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 7:24 am

hap wrote:Does the "Great Game Machine" have any rom chips itself? If not, it will be possible to emulate this Boris with just the GGM Boris ROM. And if you have any other GGM cartridge roms, even better.

No, it doesn't have ROM. I have some photos of the PCB. I'll send them to you in a little while...

Regards,
Berger