Screenshots can be taken using WHDLoad without extra needed hardware or software. Unfortunately, when you use WHDLoad to take a screenshot, WHDLoad has to terminate which does not make it a very good option.

You will need two packages:

• WHDLoad (WHDLoad_user.lha)
• WHDLoad Development Package (WHDLoad_dev.lha)

Assuming that you have WHDLoad installed, you will need to extract the development package (WHDLoad_dev.lha) to RAM: for example. Then change directory to where you unpackaged WHDLoad_dev.lha and from inside the folder copy C/SP to C:.

In order to take a screenshot, WHDLoad needs to first create dump files, after which we will be using the SP tool to extract the screenshot. We need to configure WHDLoad and add some extra options. In order to do that, edit S:WHDLoad.prefs and add or uncomment the lines:

Expert
Snoop
DebugKey=$5b
CoreDumpPath=T:

where:

• Expert enables the advanced options,
• Snoop will be used for register snooping,
• DebugKey=$5b will set the key to closing bracket ) on the number pad,
• CoreDumpPath=T: instructs WHDLoad to place the file-dumps in T:

You can of course alter the debug key by changing the $5b value to some other raw key code.

WHDLoad.prefs can now be saved and closed.

Start a game and when you want to take a screenshot, press the debug key (by default it is the closing bracket ) on the number pad) that you have configured in the previous section. If everything worked as expected, the game should quit you back to Workbench.

Next, navigate to the core dump path using a CLI. Assuming it is configured as above in T::

cd T:

and issue the command:

dir

You should see the following newly created files:

.whdl_dump
.whdl_register
.whdl_expmem
.whdl_memory

Now to create the final output file, issue the command:

SP T:screenshot.iff

where T:screenshot.iff is the path to where the screenshot will be saved.

• WHDLoad has to terminate the game in order to dump the files - perhaps this should be changed in future releases?
• It should be possible to set all the options (Snoop, Expert, etc…) as tool-types for all individual game icons however WHDLoad seems to sometimes ignore the tool-types so it is best to set them in S:WHDLoad.prefs globally.