tools for translation?

I'm working (slowly) in Randar 3 translation since 1999. I've used a compiling system that creates a table pointing to the new texts (generally longer than the old ones). The game uses that table to know where is stored every phrase. The compiler tool always tries to make room when the new text is shorter, so there is more free space to allocate the new words (possibly longer).

I also edited some graphical elements such as text fonts, main title, etc. I had to code a compressor tool since original graphics are rle-compressed.

Anyway, when you attempt to translate a MSX game, you usually have to code your own tools, unless you decided to use the poor HEX editor method.

P.S. I remember that, when disassembling Randar 3, I discovered a nice trick: set the word SOUND when entering your name and you will access the BGM/SFX menu.

Thanks - I'll keep it all in mind. I'll start with hex-editing and see what I can do with that... but the problem I keep thinking about is: how will I identify the strings. If they were english, I assume it'd be ASCII, which makes it quite easy to find just at a glance, and recognize from the game. But the hex-editor certainly won't show me japanese characters So what ASCII codes correspond to what japanese codes? Do they do some strange mapping for only the characters they need? Arbitrarily decide ASCII value 230 should be such-and-such a character? Or will they use something like Unicode, where a two-byte code represents a character?

Assembly I'm not too familiar with, unfortunately. I mostly learned emulated MIPS stuff... I know enough to know that data, such as strings, will probably be found somewhere near the end of an executable, but I'm also wondering about the DSK image format - it will contain several files, correct? How will I know where one file starts and another begins when I open the DSK file with a hex editor?

So many questions! But thanks for any help.

The DSK format is a full image of sectors contained in the original diskette.
So, if the game had a FAT system, you may edit the files inside the DSK by using a tool like DSKTOOL, DSX, WINIMAGE, etc.

But, there are many MSX games that use their own file system, or simply they read sectors in a raw mode. In these cases you have to edit the DSK file directly.

About identifying text strings .... japanese characters are usually stored by using the extended ASCII table (80h or upper). Though, the space character still remains the same (20h). Strings are null-terminated, so each string ends with 00 or FFh.

So, you have to search something that looks like this: E5 E3 D9 E0 20 E1 DF E0 DB DA 20 DA DB E4 FF.

Another key to identify japanese text is to look for the English words. Sometimes, though game was in Japanese, there are some words in English (for example, LIFE, START, GAME OVER, etc.) If you see these words in the HEX editor, japanese words are near ....

Finally, if you use a Japanese character set, you may identify the katakanas and hiraganas directly in the character grid on the HEX editor.

And what about kanjis? Well ... they use something similar to Unicodes for 2-bytes characters, so always are the same .... if you got a Kanji table with their respective codes, you can indentify them in the HEX editor quickly.

If you use the real MSX for editing, try the SHEM editor. It is perfect for translations since it allows you to see the graphics patterns for each byte or word or dword.

If you use the real MSX for editing, try the SHEM editor. It is perfect for translations since it allows you to see the graphics patterns for each byte or word or dword.

If you use real MSX I would suggest you to use SUPER-X

It has kanji reader, monitor, assembler, disassember, character editor, calculator, ASCII editor, HEX editor, sector editor, file editor etc. all in one package.

~NYYRIKKI

I have had some amount of luck finding the strings. I've been able to find english strings, as you said, and realize nearby japanese strings, and then by editing them and seeing what I changed, I can look at the original and find the value being used for a given character, which I can identify in the game, etc, etc...

I'm quickly realizing, however, the limitations of directly editing the file - I can't change the length of strings. I found a disassembler, however I cannot seem to get the files out of the DSK image. I assume the filenames are also in Japanese, as I get garbage-looking names with DskExplorer, DSKTool, and the like. They both seem to have trouble extracting the files, giving various error messages, or simply locking up Is there a way to perhaps disassemble the program while it's loaded in memory? Or is there a clever way I can lengthen or shorten strings in the file directly? I know that the strings are referred to by address, so if I lengthen a string, I would have to alter references to addresses for all the strings afterwards throughout the code - whee. That's not feasible. I almost wonder if it is feasible to shorten a string to give more length to the directly following string, then I might only have to change references to that following string... but even if I know the address, I imagine there could be lots of other values that just happen to match the value of the address. Wow, what a mess!

BiFi mentioned something about dictionaries and things that didn't entirely make sense to me. Is this something I can do when only hex editing is available to me? If so - what is it?