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Earlier builds left in unused RAM

A project log for Bruce Lee 1984 — Development Archaeology

A C64 RE Tools case study: rebuilding Bruce Lee uncovered source fragments, old symbols and traces of its 1984 development tools.

henrik-olssonHenrik Olsson • 14 hours ago•0 Comments

Unused regions hold older routines, room characters, sprites, sound effects and an attract-mode input recording. Overwriting the identified regions and comparing the game at defined checkpoints left the documented behavior unchanged, supporting their classification as leftovers.

Address shifts align old code with the final program. An earlier fighting routine lacks a fall-attack check added later. Old graphics differ by a few pixels, while the attract recording shares an opening with the final stream before diverging.

Atari-specific digit-key tables remain near the C64 tables. They support an Atari-derived port, although they do not identify which machine hosted the development tools.

These fragments are incomplete snapshots, but together they show routines growing, data moving and art and sound being revised.

Address-level comparisons: https://github.com/henols/c64_games/blob/main/bruce_lee/docs/development.md

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