1985 · Novagen Software
Every byte of the C64's 64 KB, one pixel each, 512 to a row. Lit pixels are what this game is: its code, graphics, level data, sound, text, tables and variables, exactly where they sit in memory. Dim areas are screen and working memory; dark is unused.
| Tier | platinum (claimed) |
|---|---|
| Coverage | 100 % of the bytes the game uses have a description |
| Comments checked | Not measured. No sample of the listing’s comments has been checked. How listings are checked |
| Build analysed | MERCENAR.D64, program MERCENARY: a one-file crack packed with Compacker V2.0 (a run-length stage at $B98B, a copier at $5000, the start-up at $7200); against the contributor's original Novagen disk only the opening's first message, the CBM80 reset signature, one branch offset and filler differ (orientation.md) |
| Copy | human-edited |
| Tools | emulator: VICE 3.10 via vice-mcp: release v3.13.1, v3.13.1-linux-x86_64-gui.zip (Linux x86_64, run under Xvfb), disassembler: regenerator2000 0.9.20, python: 3.11.15, host: Linux 6.18 x86_64, Ubuntu 24.04 cloud container with four cores and no display, widget tests: node 22.22.2: every ported routine checked against the game's own code in a 6502 simulator on the snapshots, and against a 253-pass flight recording and captured frames from the emulator, browser check: Playwright 1.56.1 with Chromium 1194, subagents: one research agent, twelve annotation agents on disjoint address ranges and five widget agents; for the Play tab one research agent, nine porting agents on disjoint routine groups and one agent folding the findings into facts.md; all claude-opus-5-5, play tab: kit 0.0.29 and 0.0.30: the game's 294 routines ported to JavaScript, checked in lockstep against the game's own code in kit/c64/machine.js (11,240 passes from 38 moments of play, node 22.22.2), paced by a per-routine cycle model fitted on the same machine, fast cpu: the Play tab's Fast CPU (site/lib/fast-cpu.js): a loop each PAL video frame at the C64's pace by the page's cost model; test_fast.js in node 22.23.4, and the page tried in Chromium through Playwright |
| Model | claude-opus-5-5 |
| Kit version | 0.0.24 |
Every step that measured the Source tab’s comments or made them more accurate, in the order it happened, with the models that did it. Accuracy of the Source explains each step and what the row above makes of them.
| Step | By | What it found | Of the listing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research | claude-opus-5-5 | Looked the game up online (its manual, reviews or wiki pages) before reading its code. | |
| Annotation | claude-opus-5-5 | Wrote the listing’s comments. the lead and twelve agents on disjoint ranges | |
| Play tab | claude-opus-5-5 | Ported the whole game to JavaScript for the Play tab; how many comments it corrected was not recorded. nine agents ported the routines; 11,240 passes from 38 moments of play checked in lockstep, identical but two, both the game's own races | |
| Annotation | claude-opus-5-5[1m] | Wrote the listing’s comments. 100 % of the program is described, in 1,645 comments. the bytes no label reached described: rows 88-135 of the row high-byte table at $5598, checked in play against its formula, and the zero at $BE9F |
likely wrong the sample’s range corrected right, or likely right not yet measured
Read this before annotating code. What the game is documented to do, with verification status against the binary. Statuses: open (documented, not found yet), traced (in the code, could not be exercised; say what was tried), confirmed (in the code, consistent with the emulator), live (observed directly), differs (the code does something else). "Absent" is not a status.
Sources, each read on 25 September 2026 (the tag in brackets is how the table cites it):
08-08 in the emulator, and every message the scripts can print, decoded from the image (screen, text).mercsol.htm (solutions, teleporter table, items; the page says most of it is based on the 16-bit versions), msurvkit.htm (Novagen's Targ Survival Kit; the scan of its Central City map, on 11 October 2026, for the hire tariff's craft names), m1box.htm, mversions.htm (site).| Feature | Status | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Opening sequence (Zzap 11): the ship sits in space before a starfield; Benson engages the Novadrive, a fault develops, even maximum reverse thrust cannot stop the crash on Targ; then full manual control | live | the opening's script at $7001: "NOVADRIVE COUNTDOWN" on the original disk ("ABC UNLIMITED" in the packed build, the cracker's edit: orientation.md), a countdown 3, 2, 1, O (the letter), "NOVADRIVE ENGAGED", "PRESTINIUM ON COURSE", "DESTINATION GAMMA FIVE", "DAMAGE CONTROL REPORT", "SOME CONFLICT DAMAGE", "CHECKING", "EMERGENCY", "GUIDANCE SYSTEM FAULT", "COLLISION COURSE", "DISENGAGING NOVADRIVE", "UNABLE TO CORRECT", "MAXIMUM REVERSE THRUST"; then script 0: "CRASH IMMINENT!", "RETURNING TO...", "MANUAL CONTROL" and one of canned messages 60-63 at random ("YOU CRASHED" in the logged run); the starfield $72FA-$74C9, the planet $74CA; about 75 s from $5000 to standing at 08-08 (all logged live from the message row) |
| First messages on the ground (Zzap 11): crash-landed near the airbase; a message to go to 9,6 | live (the first half), traced (the job offer) | script 0 at $086C: "CRASH LANDED ON TARG", "STATE OF WAR BETWEEN PALYARS AND MECHANOIDS", "LOCATION NEAR AIRBASE", "AIRCRAFT ON PAD", "TYPE - DOMINION DART", "CRAFT FOR SALE", "PRICE 5000 CREDITS"; script 1 at $0A3C, 15 s after the bought Dart is boarded, then with chance 81/256 every 15 s on the surface: "FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO THE BRIEFING ROOM IN COMPLEX AT LOC 09-06" |
| No title screen on the Novagen version (Electron Dance, on another machine); the Datasoft release has one (GB64) | live | this build starts the opening straight after unpacking |
| Control panel (leaflet, manual, Zzap 11): EL (elevation dial), LOC (grid position), ALT, SPEED, COMP (compass) and Benson's message window | live | text rows 17-24 of the matrix $5C00; labels in the small font (glyph = ASCII − $20), messages in the large one (ASCII + $80); readouts $B53D, dials $B67B-$B899 |
| Benson's messages scroll across the window (Wikipedia, Zzap 11) | live | $8DC3, from the panel interrupt: one character a frame into $5F78-$5F8E, with a tick on SID voice 3 per character |
LOC reads XX-YY, X growing eastwards and Y southwards; city 0-15 by 0-15, wasteland to −99..+99 shown in reverse figures, ** beyond (leaflet, manual, Survival Kit) | live (the city), traced (the rest) | $B64C: each coordinate's high byte; negatives in reversed figures (glyphs $80-$89), ** beyond ±99 from the $AA entries of $803A. Read live at 08-08, 08-07, 12-04, 13-04, 14-05 |
| Joystick in port 2 (manual, GB64) | live | $B2FE reads $DC00: directions to $80, fire to $81; every stick and fire test ran on port 2 |
| Walking: forward and back, turn left and right (leaflet) | live | $A18B, $A1ED: 80 units a pass, turning 16/1024 of a turn |
| Flying: forward dives, back climbs, left and right turn (leaflet, manual) | live | $9F17-$A13C; in the Dart, stick back took the pitch to $01DE and climbed, stick forward to $0206 and descended |
| Fire launches a missile when the craft is armed (leaflet, manual) | live | $886A: in a craft, on the surface, and not while a building hit counts down ($8875); object 8 along the view direction, 4096 units a pass, moving 15 times (the firing pass included) and removed on the 16th pass. "Armed" is any craft: no object is needed |
| B boards a vehicle or craft from its centre; L leaves it (leaflet, manual, Zzap 11) | live (B), traced (L) | B ($1C, $970E) boards one of objects 0-7 within 512 units, on foot ($985D); boarded the Dart live. L ($2A) at $B349 → $98C8, only when landed |
| E works an elevator from the centre of a three-sided cage; E again returns to the surface (leaflet, manual) | live | $B3FD: on the surface, on the ground ($7F) with $73 and $79 in $70-$73 (inside the cage $E9A7) on a square of $B4B6/$B4BE; underground, anywhere in the hangars; ridden down and up at 08-08. A craft on the ground rides along (in a 6502 simulator the Dart went down to room 8 and up to the Colony Craft's deck) |
| T takes an object, D drops it (leaflet, manual); Zzap 11 says P picks up | differs (for Zzap) | T is key $16 ($970A), within 256 units ($9800); nothing tests P ($29). D is key $12 ($B33F → $98FE), the last object taken first |
| Y answers yes when a message ends in "?"; anything else is no (leaflet, manual) | live | script op 11 with key $19 at $0AB6 (buying: live) and $10CF (launching) |
| Speed: 1-9 and 0 set forward power, 0 the fastest; SHIFT + digit reverse thrust; + and − fine adjustment; SPACE brakes or hovers (leaflet, manual) | live (0), traced (the rest) | $B47E through $BC50: digits 2^(n+4), 0 2^14 (live: full throttle in the Dart), SHIFT the sign, CTRL ignored (CTRL + digit sets it too); SPACE and ← give 2^−31, a stop; + and − multiply by 1.03 and 0.98 each pass while held ($B499), only with no modifier held ($B356, $B361) |
| CTRL + RETURN pauses (leaflet, manual) | traced | $B335: the reader loops until the next new key, which is then acted on. Only the main loop stops: the panel interrupt goes on, so Benson keeps printing and the seconds clock the scripts time by keeps counting (in a 6502 simulator, 1,200 paused frames ran no pass while $E3 went from 8 to 32) |
| CTRL + Q quits the situation: back to a Central City location, carried objects scattered; with nothing carried it gives a new ship (leaflet, manual, Zzap 13) | differs | $80E8: everything carried and the craft ridden (any mode below $80, so falling scatters object 9) are scattered at random over the city, and the player is always put in the Dart (object 1), on the surface at the same place within the square, the square folded into the city (X and Y high bytes AND $0F; from a room, 00-00); no test of what is carried |
| CTRL + S saves, CTRL + L loads, prompting for a number 0-9 and "PRESS RETURN WHEN READY" (leaflet, manual) | traced | $B382, $819E: "@0:MER" and the digit on device 8, 1904 bytes from the 14 blocks at $8260; the cassette motor is switched on ($B3B9) while the prompt waits |
| The Second City loads into the running game with CTRL + L and number 0 (the Second City leaflet) | open | not analysed: the disk's MERC 2ND CITY is a separately packed program. The mechanism is traced: after a load, JMP ($BFFD) ($8215) runs whatever address the loaded file put in the zero-page copy |
| Save files hold the world state (Edge) | traced | the blocks at $8260: every square ($2B00), every object's position, room and flags, the script variables and state, credits, the motion record and the whole zero page |
| Buying the Dominion Dart for 5000 credits, or stealing it (Zzap 11; 5000 and a 9000 start on another machine, Electron Dance) | live | "PRICE 5000 CREDITS", "YOU HAVE 9000 CREDITS" ($7700-$7703 00 00 90 00); $0AAB asks "DO YOU WANT TO BUY?" and waits 4 to 5 seconds for Y ($0AB6-$0ABA); refusals get "I THINK YOU SHOULD BUY", "IS THIS SENSIBLE", "YOU PLAN TO WALK", "YOU MUST BE CRAZY" (live); Y adds 99995000 ($0A29): "TRANSACTION COMPLETED", "YOU HAVE 4000 CREDITS" (live). Boarded unbought, script 1 prints "THIS CRAFT BELONGED TO THE PALYAR COMMANDER'S BROTHER-IN-LAW / HE IS NOT TOO PLEASED" and a Palyar ship attacks |
| Idle messages when the player does nothing after the crash (Zzap 13, site) | live | script 0: after the fourth unanswered offer and "YOU MUST BE CRAZY", with no input since the status report ($BEC0 bit 7, set by any input at $B31B), "IS ANYBODY THERE", "AM I TALKING TO MYSELF", "ARE YOU STILL ALIVE", "WHERE ARE YOU", 18 s apart; then, on input, "AH! YOU ARE BACK", "NOW YOU ARE HERE...", "I WILL START AGAIN" and the status report again ($08BC). Logged over five minutes with no input |
| The city: a 16 by 16 grid of locations, one structure at the centre of each, about eighty constructions (Zzap 5 preview, Electron Dance) | live | $2600/$2700: one model per square, 91 different structures and 7 road pieces in use; only the player's own square's building is loaded and drawn (live: reference/one-building-*.png); 00-00 never shows its own |
| Named landmarks: Coach & Horses 15-02, Moorby Arch 10-01, Science Museum 03-01, Bosher Stadium 08-07, Walton Monument 06-00, St. Stallards 06-03, Vector Henge 02-04; the Encounter billboard 02-03 (manual's map, Eurogamer); Benson names a building when it is destroyed (Electron Dance) | traced; live (Bosher Stadium seen at 08-07) | every name on the manual's map stands on its square ($2600/$2700) and $2B00 bits 0-4 give each its script, 36-48 (facts.md, "Named squares"); the Science Museum has no name of its own (script 35) |
| The author's advert (the Encounter billboard): destroying it makes things tougher, and the game will not let you leave until it is repaired (Zzap 11, Zzap 13) | traced | script 37 at $0B41: "THE AUTHOR'S ADVERT / THINGS ARE GOING TO BE TOUGH FROM NOW ON", an attack, and $BEC0 bit 3, which nothing reads: the only lasting effect is script 7's refusal ("THE AUTHOR WON'T LET YOU LEAVE UNTIL YOU FIX HIS ADVERT", $2B00+$32 bit 7). The Anti Time Bomb repairs it ($8816) |
| Commodore and Atari signs: shooting one earns congratulation, the other "traitor" (Zzap 11) | live | the Commodore logo ($C82E) at 13-04, 03-13, 09-13, 04-15, 09-15, script 49 "TRAITOR!"; the Atari logo ($C7B2) at 14-05, 14-08, 12-11, 06-15, 11-15, script 50 "GOOD SHOW!". Seen live, and 13-04's sign shot: "TRAITOR!" |
| Novabill the pirate: shooting him gives "WELL DONE" (Zzap 13, Edge) | traced | 03-08 ($E88D, a giant head), script 36 at $0B28: "NOVABILL - WELL DONE!", with no reprisal |
| Destroying buildings by firing at their base (manual) | live | $871B: a missile below height 2048 within 4096 units of the square's centre; the collapse, the count and the script follow only while the player is in that square ($87A4) before the 16-pass countdown ends, and six buildings taller than 16 are never counted (facts.md, "Weapons and attacks") |
Elevators and hangars: hangar complexes at 03-00, 03-15 (pass needed), 09-05, 09-06, 11-13, 81-35 and one at **-** (Zzap 13, site, Survival Kit) | live (08-08), traced (the rest) | $B4B6/$B4BE: 09-06, 09-05, 03-00, 11-13, 03-15 (the Pass, $B430), 81-35, 136-136 (**-**), 08-08 (the Colony Craft: live, from the ground too) |
| Underground: corridors, doors at each end, eight door types; shaped doors need a key of the same shape; "LOCKED" (Zzap 11, manual) | traced | 174 room records $3000-$3B16; door outlines $928A: plain, triangle, up arrow, down arrow, cross, diagonal and seven key shapes; a keyed door needs object 8 + type ($9493), else LOCKED ($9430) |
| Transporter doors, marked by a diagonal or a cross; one reverses east and west (Zzap 13, Zzap 18, site's table) | traced | booths $72-$87: cross two-way (door 0 relinked on entry, $9119), diagonal one-way (each of the ten names one room in both links, and entered from that room neither relinks, flashes nor chimes: all ten checked in a 6502 simulator), $72 random among eight, $7F toggles $F1, entered from room $90 only (both its links name $56): the stick's left and right swap and the view mirrors |
| Dark rooms need the Photon Emitter (Zzap 13, Survival Kit) | traced | 20 rooms whose door list ends in $80; dark ("ITS VERY DARK IN HERE") unless object 16 is carried ($941A) or in the room ($9425) |
| Rooms that earn money: named rooms buy objects; Benson names the room on entry (manual) | traced | scripts 3-6, 9, 14-25 name the rooms (ENGINE ROOM ... MECHANOID LABORATORY) and pay through room_payment ($1010), which also says PLEASE LEAVE; script 11 is the PRISON |
| Briefings: the Palyars reward deliveries to rooms in the Colony Craft, a big fee for a captured Mechanoid, and "very special gratitude" for destroying all Mechanoid-occupied locations; the Mechanoids pay for Palyar requirements delivered to their control and for destroying selected Palyar installations (manual, Zzap 11) | traced | script 28 at $0CE2 (room $29) and script 13 at $0D9D (room $66); each paragraph only while the player stays in the room |
| Sale prices per object and buyer (Zzap 13; site's table, mostly 16-bit) | traced | the scripts' figures (facts.md, "Money and trade"): 40,000 to 250,000, the Mechanoids paying more for five objects |
| Carry up to ten objects; the last taken is the first dropped (leaflet, manual, Zzap 11) | traced | $9827 (at most ten), list $BEB1, count $EB; D drops from the top ($990D) |
| Objects (Zzap 13, site): Antenna, Antigrav, Anti-Time Bomb, Photon Emitter, Sights, Metal Detector, Poweramp, Novadrive, Kitchen Sink, Cobweb, Cheese, Pass, keys, Coffin, Gold, Medical Supplies, Catering Provisions, Large Box, Useful Armament, Energy Crystal, Neutron Fuel, Winchester, Databank, Essential 12939 Supply, the Mechanoid leader | traced | 64 objects; names are canned messages ($151F on); 55 models at $1700-$2098 and $3B25-$3FFE; each object's use is in facts.md, "Objects" |
| Metal Detector colours the panel by a building's owner: red nobody, green Palyar, blue Mechanoid (Zzap 13) | traced | $B542: with object 26 carried, on the surface and low, the message window is blue for $2B00 bit 6, red for bit 5, green otherwise |
| Kitchen Sink lets you take almost anything, and with the Cobweb opens any door (Zzap 13, site) | traced | the Sink (47) skips the fixed and heavy checks ($980B); object 48, drawn as a cobweb, opens every lock ($948E) on its own, but taking it needs the Sink |
| Vehicles: two ground vehicles and four flight craft, plus the interstellar one; speeds per craft (leaflet, manual; Zzap 13's C64 table: Dart 1650/4950, Palyar Diamond 1650/1650, Jet 825/7400, Cheese 3300/9900, Land Dart 3837, Car 825; the Survival Kit's Central City map, hire tariff: Hovercar 825, Sprintcar 3775, Hexapod 1637, Dominion Dart 4950, Concord 111 7400, and a Casper-Hanley Eagle 8SE "available soon", whose initials spell CHEESE) | confirmed | eleven motion records at $9DAD: craft 2 and 5 on the ground only, 0, 1, 3, 4 and 6 flying, 7 interstellar; a port of the flying step that matches a 253-pass recording of the Dart gives every top speed in Zzap 13's table to the digit (facts.md, "Moving") |
| Take-off needs speed; landing too hard crashes (leaflet, Zzap 11) | live (take-off), traced (landing) | the craft stays down below speed 128 ($A024); a touchdown crashes when the pass's height step is 256 or more, or the nose is more than 45° down ($A0AF); forward speed is not tested. Reverse thrust takes off with the nose level (live: SHIFT + 0, 9 units a pass) |
| The Brother-in-law's New Ship shuttles between 00-00 and 00-15 at altitude 500 and speed 100 (Zzap 13) | traced (the altitude and the speed), differs (the course) | object 0 ($85C5) flies one way, south along column 00 (X $006F41), 256 units (1/256 square) each surface pass, wrapping from row 15 to row 0: a lap of 4,096 passes, 8.8 to 13.7 minutes. Its height, 32,769, reads ALT 00500 on the panel, and 256 units a pass is what SPEED shows as 0100 ($B5A8: the high byte as two figures). From 08-08 it is a dot above the horizon (reference/npc-brother-in-law-ship-from-0808.png, drawn by the game's code in a 6502 simulator); shooting it runs script 27 |
| Attacks: ships attack after you destroy a side's buildings; a homing missile (manual, Zzap 13) | differs (the missile) | $BEF8, set by the squares' scripts and script 27: the attack ship (object 15) re-aims every 46 passes at 1/32 of the distance a pass, overshooting, and fires only when it hovers within 12,288 units, so it never catches a craft holding a straight course faster than about 383 units a pass; its missile (object 14) is aimed once at launch, at 1/16 of the distance a pass, and not steered (facts.md, "Weapons and attacks") |
| You are never killed: hit, you lose your ship; crashes cost nothing (leaflet, manual, Survival Kit) | traced | a hit ($8970) flashes white, prints SHIP DESTROYED only in a craft and only when Benson is not printing, and sets mode 9, a fall; the craft is not put back, though CTRL + Q returns the Dart (in a 6502 simulator from in-dart, the Dart was gone and the player on foot); a crash throws the player out ($98C8) |
| The Colony Craft: a dot in the sky above the city at about 65000 m; land on its pad and press E; a key is needed; three floors (manual, Survival Kit) | live | object 63 at height $40FCC0 over 08-08, drawn as a dot; landing on its deck ($40FF3F, ALT 64997) has no crash test; reached live by the lift at 08-08 from the ground; three floors, three doors keyed to object 23 |
| Escape 1, hire a ship: with the Antenna the Communications Room's radio works, and Hertz rents a ship if you have the credits (Zzap 11, Zzap 13) | traced | script 2 at $0E04 (room $10): 999,999 credits, tested as at least 1,000,000 ($0E6F); object 7 appears at height $7F0000 over 08-08 the pass after the hire and lands 779 passes later, 780 from the hire: in a 6502 simulator 2 min 38 s standing at 08-08, 1 min 29 s in room 8, against the message's 2 MINS |
| Escape 2, the Interstellar Ship at 03-15, which needs the Novadrive (Zzap 13, site) | traced | object 7 in room 5, the hangar under 03-15 behind the Pass; script 7 at $107F: "NOVADRIVE REQUIRED", "PRESS Y TO LAUNCH", unless 02-03 is destroyed |
| Escape 3? Destroying every Mechanoid site: 500,000 credits (Zzap 13), the Pass (site), or a reward in the red hangar (Electron Dance); whether it is an escape of its own is unclear | traced | a reward, not an escape: when the Mechanoid count leads by 105 ($87EE), script 10 moves the Pass into room 1, the red hangar, or pays 500,000 if the Pass has already left its room $50 |
| The ending: a congratulation, "save the status for Mercenary II", then "GAME OVER" shown for ever; the game goes on (Zzap 13, leaflet) | traced | script 7 and the starfield $AA62, which never returns; $BEC0 bit 6 is never cleared, so GAME OVER repeats for ever, a 15-second wait and a 3-second line apart |
| Score is credits (Zzap 12, Zzap 18: 1,909,000 the most the city pays) | traced | figure 8 at $7700, BCD; the scripts' prices add up to Zzap 18's 1,909,000 |
| Floating objects: carrying only the Kitchen Sink, take the Pyramid (75,39 or 79-39), and anything dropped stays in the air (Zzap 18, Zzap 11) | traced | carrying object 56, a pyramid, lets D work in the air and leaves the object at the player's height ($98FE) |
| A crash over 1,000,000 credits, and one when hiring without the funds (a reader, Zzap 15) | open | not reproduced: with credits poked to 1,509,000, buying the Dart printed "YOU HAVE 1504000 CREDITS" and play went on (live, work/live-tests.md); credits are eight BCD digits ($7700-$7703) printed through $8E74, and no code treats seven digits differently. The hiring path with too little money ($0E6F → "INSUFFICIENT FUNDS") was not run |
Found in the code, not in the manual.
reference/one-building-a-0808-facing-north.png, -b-…).$70-$73), about 14 seconds' walk north-west of the landing point, rides down into the Colony Craft's hangar, and E again comes up on its deck. The E test never reads the height, and the deck lift's square is 08-08. Hangar 8's doors need key 23, so nothing else opens; walking off the deck's pad falls safely back to 08-08 (live: reference/lift-0808-*.png).reference/blind-shot-*.png; the late entry in a 6502 simulator).CBM80 at $8004, a loop at $2170); the crack returns to BASIC (live: reference/reset-*.png).**000.$200000 a fixed 13-road picture replaces them.$E424): square number 0 means "outside the city".$0800-$0865, run on a byte-code interpreter at $8AB2: 35 operations through the handler table $8D5E (facts.md, "The event scripts").$5800/$5900.$5024 reads the KERNAL's PAL flag $02A6 and, on an NTSC machine, jumps back to $5000, whose copy loop then runs over zero page and itself until the machine crashes (live: reference/ntsc-machine-crash.png).$8009 is a bare RTI (live: one hit on $8009, play went on).$E2 counts frames to 50, $E3-$E4 seconds.$BC90-$BCFF, in the Atari's screen code; four names at $7606, "KBCODE(", "MYONO (", "POWER (", "ALLFLG(", read by nothing.$8000-$803F: a save made with the original disk restores its CBM80 signature in any copy that loads it.MERC 2ND CITY has not been unpacked or read.$BEBD was for: only the unused script operations 22 and 23 touch it.The symbol map for this game is symbols.json; the listing behind the Source tab is listing.json. Write-ups, facts and symbol maps are CC BY-SA 4.0. The game itself is not hosted here.