le ranmi be la zeldas

I have been working on translating The Legend of Zelda to Lojban. This page holds a copy of my notes while working on it.

See clinoi be la'e lu le ranmi be la zeldas li'u for a translation of the instruction manual.

General notes on the encoding. VRAM loading is done by a few routines, the main one is described below.

The routine is given an address and does the following:

1. If the byte at the address has the high-bit set, we're done. Return.

2. Otherwise, read two bytes from that address, this is the address (big-endian) in VRAM that the data should be written to.

3. Read the next byte. If high bit (bit 7) is set, set the Inc32 bit of $2000. If bit 6 is set, perform RLE. (Explained below.) The remaining six bits are the length.

4. If performing RLE, read the next byte, write it length times, then go to 1.

5. Otherwise, read the next byte.

6. Write this byte.

7. Decrement length.

8. If length is not zero, go to 5.

9. Go to 1.

RLE: Stands for Run-Length Encoding. With RLE, you'll have pairs of bytes. The first gives you a run-length, the second is the data itself. When uncompressing, you simply repeat the data byte run-length times.

I do my romhacking with hexpose. It's pretty simple, but it does the job. I also used a disassembler at some point to figure out some of the above, but I ended up just gleaning it from various sources and how the data itself works.

Title screen starts at $1A879

Due to the nature of the loading routine, I can translate such that things take up less space, but I can't make them take more. That is, unless I can find where the reference addresses are stored. Hopefully, this won't cause too many issues.

Cave text $405C-$45B1:

Cave text is distinct from the usual routines, in that it has no way to set the VRAM address, rather there seems to be a separate sub-routine that pulls data from the table of cave text. It also assigns functions to the two high bits, which would be impossible out side of text.

Cave text starts at a certain point, and has three lines. Text starts on the first line. Line termination is achieved by setting high-bits on the last character in the line.:

• Bit 7 (AND $80) moves to the second line.

• Bit 6 (AND $40) moves to the third line.

• Bits 6 and 7 (AND $C0), set together, terminate the text.

$405C 43 Bytes
-
  IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO
    ALONE! TAKE THIS.
-
   .O'I DO PO'O KLAMA
     I KO CPACU TI
-

$4087 42 Bytes
-
  MASTER USING IT AND
   YOU CAN HAVE THIS.
-
 DO KA'E PONSE TI GI'O
  CERTU LOZU'O PILNO
-

$40B1 25 Bytes
-
 TAKE ANY ROAD YOU WANT.
-
 KO KLAMA FO LE SELDJICA
-


$40C9 42 Bytes
-
 SECRET IS IN THE TREE
    AT THE DEAD-END.
-
 MIPRI NE'I LE TRICU
   BEVI LE SE PLUTA
-

$40F3 34 Bytes
-
   LET'S PLAY MONEY
   MAKING GAME.
-
  .E'U MI'O KELCI
 LEZU'O JDINI CPACU
-

$4115 41 Bytes
-
  PAY ME FOR THE DOOR
     REPAIR CHARGE.
-

    KO PLEJI FI MI
  LONU CIKRE LE VORME
-

$413D 36 Bytes
-
    SHOW THIS TO THE
      OLD WOMAN.
-
    KO JARCO TU'A TI
    LE TOLCI'O NINMU
-

$4162 39 Bytes
-
    MEET THE OLD MAN
      AT THE GRAVE.
-
 KO PENMI LE TOLCI'O NANMU
    LE MORSI STUZI
-

$4189 30 Bytes
-
  BUY MEDICINE BEFORE
  YOU GO.
-
KO TE VECNU LO VE MIKCE
PU LONU KLAMA
-

$41A7 23 Bytes
-
  PAY ME AND I'LL TALK.

-
 KO PLIJE MI POI TAVLA
-
(I really don't like the above, but it's space-restricted.)

$41BE 34 Bytes
-
 THIS AIN'T ENOUGH
        TO TALK.
-
 KO ZMADU PLIJE
-

$41E2
-
       GO UP,UP,
   THE MOUNTAIN AHEAD.
-

$4208
-
  GO NORTH,WEST,SOUTH,
  WEST TO THE FOREST
    OF MAZE.
-

$423C
-
    BOY, YOU'RE RICH!
-
    .UE DO RICFU
-
$4151
-
 BUY SOMETHIN' WILL YA!
-

$4268
-
     BOY, THIS IS
   REAL EXPENSIVE!
-

$428D
-
 TAKE ANY ONE YOU WANT.
-

$42A4
-
     IT'S A SECRET
     TO EVERYBODY.
-

$42C8
-
   GRUMBLE, GRUMBLE...
-

$42DD
-
  EASTMOST PENNINSULA
     IS THE SECRET.
-

$4305
-
 DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE.
-

$431D
-
 DID YOU GET THE SWORD
 FROM THE OLD MAN ON
 TOP OF THE WATERFALL?
-

$435D
-
     WALK INTO THE
       WATERFALL.
-

$4380
-
  SECRET POWER IS SAID
   TO BE IN THE ARROW.
-

$43AC
-
    DIGDOGGER HATES
 CERTAIN KIND OF SOUND.
-

$43D6
-
    I BET YOU'D LIKE
   TO HAVE MORE BOMBS.
-

$4400
-
    IF YOU GO IN THE
 DIRECTION OF THE ARROW.
-

$442C
-
    LEAVE YOUR LIFE
       OR MONEY.
-

$444F
-
 THERE ARE SECRETS WHERE
   FAIRIES DON'T LIVE.
-

All of Treasures $91AB-$94BC:

These actually are in the ROM out of order from when they appear on screen.

These also seem to have their own sub-routine for display. This one starts with a byte indicating how far over to start the line. Lines are terminated with $FF. Some times you get two lines for descriptions, sometimes only one. The positioning of the lines seems to be decided somewhere that I haven't found.

Main menu is around 9D58

"ZELDA" appears at 9EFB for some reason

A969:
-
THANKS LINK,YOU'RE
?THE HERO OF HYRULE*
-

AB17 has some more endgame stuff

Credits at AC6F

AD45:
ANOTHER QUEST WILL START(AB)FROM HERE PRESS THE START BUTTON
YOU ARE GREAT
YOU HVE AN AMAZING WISDOM AND POWER
END OF "THE LEGEND OF ZELDA"

More main menu at 1A15C

1A2CB has death menu stuff

1A329 looks to have the pause menu stuff

Visible story screen runs from 1A454 to 1A827

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
LE LISRI PE LA ZELDAS

MANY  YEARS  AGO  PRINCE
DARKNESS   GANNON  STOLE
ONE OF THE TRIFORCE WITH
POWER     PRINCESS ZELDA
HAD  ONE OF THE TRIFORCE
WITH WISDOM  SHE DIVIDED
IT INTO  8 UNITS TO HIDE
IT FROM   GANNON  BEFORE
SHE WAS CAPTURED

GO FIND THE  8 UNITS
LINK TO SAVE HER
-----------|
LE  PALCI  PO'U LA GANYN
PUKI ZERLE'A LE CIBMAKFA
PE LOKA TSALI I LE NOBLI
PO'U LA ZELDAS  PONSE LE
CIBMAKFA  PE  LOKA PRIJE
I ZY  FENDI  FI BI SPISA
TEZU'E  LENU MIPRI FI GY
KEI PU  LENU ZY SELKAVBU

   DOI LINK KO CPACU
      LE BI SPISA
  TEZU'E LONU NURGAU ZY

2109 " CMENE "

2112 " NI KANRO "

22A7 "CFARI TADJI"

22E7 "VIMCU TADJI"

REGISTER YOUR NAME
CUXNA LE DO CMENE
ELIMINATION MODE
  VIMCU TADJI
  -LIFE-
NI KANRO

USE B BUTTON
FOR THIS
KO PILNO BY