User blog:RottenBlock/Mamanyonyo Update

Good News
I've managed to get AINDecompiler to open the Mamanyonyo AIN file and output it into ASM (JAM files), whatever that means (System 4 is still relatively new to me). I'm still working on getting it to output to code / JAF files. In addition, I've worked out that the text in SLBLs are filenames, so their text won't ever have to be localized. Hypothetically, someone could begin localizing the game's text, even though I can't currently get it back into the game. That's because...

Bad News
Mamanyonyo will not even start without SLBLs, so I'll have to get them working exactly as intended. I've skimmed the System 4 manual (in fact, a really early manual from 2004), but I still haven't found any sign of what these might be. I'm probably going to have to check out the code in context and work out what it's trying to do... once I get things running at that level. Thankfully, the fact that SLBLs are literally nothing but a file name and what I now believe to be a memory address limits the number of things they could possibly do.

(My leading guess is that they're just instructions to jump to the start of the file in question, something System 3 did all the time. The memory address is probably just saying where the file starts. Not only do I like this theory on its own, but it makes sense as something they'd get rid of, because it's an very old school way to program - GOTO statements and labels and that - and System 4 was moving in a different direction.)

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to edit a lot more code to get them working properly, and will probably have to understand AIN Decompiler backwards to work out how to properly set the SLDLs. I might not have any updates for a while, especially since I've got other things to do. If we're lucky, I'll just straight-up be mistaken. Best we can hope for.

Weird News
In my last blog post, I said Mamanyonyo was probably using the earliest AIN version, version 1. But I've since discovered code in AIN Decompiler that specifically addresses version 0! But if SomeLoliCatgirl already accounted for even older shit, why did they never come across SLBLs, and how didn't they know that Version 1 causes AIN Decompiler to crash? Is Mamanyonyo doing something wrong, somehow?