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Altirra 2.80 released


phaeron

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hmm ..
Add to System -> device
810 disk drive (full emulation).
happy 810 disk drive (full emulation).

Now happy 810 runs.
but there was another Problem.
constantly hear the sound of the drive motor, it does not stop.

Edited by serj
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Yes and I've also found that in the new beta if I choose to autoboot a new image while in Happy 810 full emulation that the drive does not seem to exist but you hear the drive spin noise but the only way to get it to boot is to go to drives in system and click enabled even when its ticked, the drive then fires up as normal..

 

Yep, while in Happy 810 full emu any change of disk seems to turn the drive off, even reset my settings to check it..

Edited by Mclaneinc
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Another little issue possibly, in the profiles I selected colour as one of the catergories, it says it holds the settings for artifacting etc but I for a test set the 800 to PAL PAL Artifacting High and then set the XL to NTSC with NTSC Artifacting high, it did save the video region but whatever was the last type of artifacting became global so I was getting an 800 in PAL with NTSC Artifacting...

 

All this could be me not fully understanding how the profiles work, if so I apologise...

 

Paul..

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Been playing with the profiles and have read the manual a few times, could there be a way to lock the profile from change?

 

I was playing around with the U1mb and changed profile to another machine type but when I went back to my XL profile it still had the U1mb. I've not tested if just changing the machine type in hardware bypasses this but my hope is to have a list of machine variations that are as is which if I want I can boot exactly the same way every time unless I unlock it and edit.

 

Could this be done at some point?

There is an option to run the current profile in temporary mode -- when this is enabled, an asterisk appears in the window caption and changes aren't saved back to the profile. Launching the emulator with /tempprofile will set this flag. Haven't thought much beyond that, except that it'd probably be useful to have the profile name in the window caption since I've accidentally loaded stuff in the wrong profile before.

 

I was just looking at the 4MB ram upgrade by Simulus here

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/249405-new-4mb-ram-expansion/?do=findComment&comment=3446340

 

Seems an interesting upgrade, I noticed there a banked 4MB memory config in Altirra but I don't think they work in the same fashion. Do you considering the Antonia upgrade as being a worthwhile emulation or simply just sort of get around it by switching in the 65C816 in CPU options and just use the U1mb emulation for the flashable multi slots part?

 

The profile thing is the only actual request here, the 4MB question is simply that, just interested in what you thought.

 

Axlon and high memory (linear memory) should work the same, with the exception that Altirra doesn't have a 3MB option. There isn't enough information to emulate the rest of the interface, and I'd say that yeah, it's not compelling enough.

 

I tried everything 4k roms, but none of them fit.

 

Use this one: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/257578-happy-810-resources/?p=3618244

 

Don't use the earlier 4K one; it's padded nonrealistically. As mclaneinc said, you may need to change the file type to All Files to see it. The automatic scan doesn't have an entry for it yet.

 

hmm ..

Add to System -> device

810 disk drive (full emulation).

happy 810 disk drive (full emulation).

 

Now happy 810 runs.

but there was another Problem.

constantly hear the sound of the drive motor, it does not stop.

 

This sounds like you are using the broken 4K ROM. Also, make sure you do not have both full disk drives in the list; that will not work.

 

Yes and I've also found that in the new beta if I choose to autoboot a new image while in Happy 810 full emulation that the drive does not seem to exist but you hear the drive spin noise but the only way to get it to boot is to go to drives in system and click enabled even when its ticked, the drive then fires up as normal..

 

Yep, while in Happy 810 full emu any change of disk seems to turn the drive off, even reset my settings to check it..

 

I haven't been able to reproduce this. I'd actually long forgotten about the System > Disk Drives > Enabled option... that actually needs to go, because it's broken in several ways! If that fixes your problem, it means that somehow you are getting both the standard and full drive emulation enabled at the same time for D1:. That shouldn't happen. How easy is it to reproduce this from a fresh /portable install?

 

Another little issue possibly, in the profiles I selected colour as one of the catergories, it says it holds the settings for artifacting etc but I for a test set the 800 to PAL PAL Artifacting High and then set the XL to NTSC with NTSC Artifacting high, it did save the video region but whatever was the last type of artifacting became global so I was getting an 800 in PAL with NTSC Artifacting...

 

All this could be me not fully understanding how the profiles work, if so I apologise...

 

The artifacting mode is under the view category, not under colors. I need to add a plain "High Artifacting" mode. Though, I think I've found maybe only two games that actually used PAL artifacting....

 

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Hi Avery,

 

Looks like there's been a little confusion over which room dump to use, I talked to you in a thread about a 6K file where you said it ignore the duplicate bank so I tried that but I noticed you linked Serj to a 4K rom so I tried that and it all works although the sector counter performs oddly :)

 

Sorry about that, there's a slew of rom dumps in the resource thread, might be worth from you guys that know pointing out the good ones in a little list. I was using the dump 3 6K epr dumped with your dumper program. Never mind, at least we know one of the good ones.

 

As for the profiles, it needs a bit of house work at some point because between the numerous ways you can select the configuration of the hardware its very easy to get in a mess and over writing a profile, that's why I suggested a locked profile that you have to confirm changes to it. As it stands you can affect a profile via hardware, profile, firmware etc etc. Certainly its not overly important in the scheme of things but it does make for a bit of confusion......One for the to do list perhaps?

 

Thanks for the tip about the view category, appreciated, I didn't realise there were games that used the PAlL artifacting as NTSC does, do you remember what the PAL games were?

Edited by Mclaneinc
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Update:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test8.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test8-src.zip

  • Fixed a bug that caused the standard and full disk emulations to both go online when loading mounted images. Should fix some of the broken drives on startup issues you've been seeing.
  • Removed the broken toggle all drives command.
  • Several full drive emulation fixes, enough to get the Happy Diagnostic to pass. RIOT IRQs had to be fully implemented (including PA7 edge detection!), the RIOT timer now controls the fake index pulse seen by the FDC, and Write Track is now implemented. I still don't recommend formatting disks in full drive mode since weird things can happen if you format over a disk of a different size. You will have to toggle the write mode between VRW and R/O a couple of times for the disk change test to pass, since I don't have simulation in yet for the write protect sensor getting temporary obscured and unobscured when switching disks.
  • Write Track requires formatting to be enabled (VRW or R/W mode, not VRWSafe). I had to add this after I tried booting Dimension X and suddenly started hearing the drive start stepping tack, tack, tack, tack... "that sounds suspiciously like the disk being formatted"....
  • Some coprocessor debugger fixes -- breakpoints on the drive are now more precise. Note that stepping in the debugger during an SIO transfer still has a pretty high probability of screwing up the transfer, unfortunately.

Regarding the screwy sector number in Happy mode, that's because with full drive emulation the sector number display is determined by commands sent to the floppy drive controller (FDC) chip instead of the commands sent by the computer. The sequence and timing is strange because the Happy firmware is buffering tracks -- it reads the entire track in one revolution, then sends sectors to the computer from the buffer. That's why the sector readout shows a bunch of sectors being read out of order, then the indicator going idle while you hear the transfers to the computer. WIth a plain 810 being emulated, it's less strange because the sectors are read and transferred in order.

 

I didn't realise there were games that used the PAlL artifacting as NTSC does, do you remember what the PAL games were?

 

A little known BASIC game called Runaround II:

 

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-runaround-ii_4469.html

 

It's a game from the UK that explicitly asks you to calibrate the artifacted colors... or, I suppose in this case, colours. Looks totally broken with NTSC high artifacting, but the colors are right with PAL high artifacting. Saturation is probably not nearly as high as you would have on an actual TV.

 

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As always, thanks for looking Avery and answering some of my usual silly questions :)

 

Re Dimension X, I think there was at least another title that tried a format if it felt there was something amiss. Makes me think of the uproar on the CDRwin forums from genuine owners when CDRWIN used to fill the PC HD up with garbage if it thought it was a copy, I think at one point the author also had a HD format routine as part of the protection, needless to say he had to downgrade his protection tactics when real customers were getting stuffed :)

 

Protection I fully agree with but keep it in the real world and not some mad attack on a HD etc :)

 

Re the sector read out, I'd guessed it was to do with the buffering as you mentioned in a previous build about it but its always nice to get the full info. Speaking of sectors and protection, I remember a game on the Atari that had a hole in the disk, I've tried to remember its name many times but I had the 100% genuine disk in my hand and sure enough there was a hole there, a neat little round hole, my question to you or anyone is, would the way the Atari drive read this produce anything different from a bad sector read in protection terms, I'm trying to see if this was just a silly over the top red herring form of protection just to try and through the scent off or did it produce a different form of protection?

 

I'm betting it was just an elaborate type of hoax where a simply bad sector check would have defeated it?

 

If anyone remembers the name of the game I'd love to be told, i'ved racked my brain for years, for once its not my tired brain miss remembering, just like when Adam Michael Billyard (Elektraglide/ Chop Suey, Belum etc) was on here a few years back and I'd reminded him of when he used to come in to Maplin and show me stuff like Belum before it was out and remembered a snooker physics game he started work on via the 8bit but eventually was released on the ST, he had totally forgotten about it and looked at his files and there was the start of the 8bit code file....This old grey stuff still works :)

Edited by Mclaneinc
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Speaking of sectors and protection, I remember a game on the Atari that had a hole in the disk, I've tried to remember its name many times but I had the 100% genuine disk in my hand and sure enough there was a hole there, a neat little round hole,

I never heard about an 8-bit disk with a physical alteration of the surface. Laser burnt holes, the most sophisticated protection was used sometimes in other platforms, mostly on the PC, but not on games. It was too expensive to produce for just a game.

 

Are you talking about something smaller than the index hole?

 

my question to you or anyone is, would the way the Atari drive read this produce anything different from a bad sector read in protection terms ... I'm betting it was just an elaborate type of hoax where a simply bad sector check would have defeated it?

A physical alteration sometimes produces a sector with weak bits, not just a bad sector. But for testing reliably, the protection has to write to the disk on the relevant area. Just by reading is very difficult to distinguish from the same effect caused by magnetic (and not physic) behavior.

 

That's another reason for the protection not being very popular. It requires writing to the copy protected disk, which is risky.

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Hmmm,

 

programs that used PAL artifacting ? Not many, afaik - take a look here:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/96946-artifacting-on-pal-ataris/?hl=pal+artifacting&do=findComment&comment=2903044

or here:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/215962-pal-artifacting-in-altirra/?hl=pal+artifacting&do=findComment&comment=2820128

(e.g. "Das U-Boot" in post #10...)

 

Nice to see that "Runaround" finally is available online somewhere (as Runaround II).

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Are you talking about something smaller than the index hole?

 

 

About the same size but right in the middle of the data area on a disk....

 

Only ever saw it on one program and as said it was an original disk, slightly doubting if it was a game or utility?

 

Was 100% an Atari 8bit item, its the reason I remember it so well (except the title), I'd never seen the like before and being that we were an Atari dealer i got to see lots of real software in my time. Was hoping someone could put me out of my misery (with the use of a large club).

 

Perhaps we were shipped a faulty disk but I seem to remember it being booted up by me and was either an pretty awful game or some sort of Utility, possibly a databasing tool, I just remember seeing it and never seeing it again. I've mentioned it on here and on the comp.sys atari newsgroup over the years hoping to get a name.

 

Thanks for the reply ijor, seems like a mystery...And an unsolved one for my part...

 

Paul..

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There was a recent podcast interview (I forget by whom) where he talked about using the hole punch method for copy protection. However in his case it was mechanically punched, and not done by a laser. IIRC this led to problems later on where the hole started to reform as the deformity caused by the punch pushing the material away from the opening, started to fall back in on itself, thus causing the disk boot to fail. Rather funny when you think about all of the folks with legal copies that suddenly found themselves dead in the water due this mistake (I'm pretty sure that they didn't see the humor in it ;) ).

 

- Michael

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Re RunAround 1, I typed in a bunch of magazine listings from Home Computing Weekly recently, one of which was the first RunAround. There was also an article and test listings on US and UK artefacting which are typed up as well - see towards the bottom, DOTS1/2/3.BAS. They've not been added to the AtariMania DB yet, but you can download it directly. See here: http://www.atarimania.com/atari_forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18619

 

Cheers,

Wes

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Update:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test9.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test9-src.zip

 

Adds support for emulating 1050, Happy 1050, Speedy 1050, Super Archiver, and TOMS 1050. Caveats:

  • 1050 emulation will use more CPU time, since its controller runs at 1MHz instead of 500KHz.
  • Formatting enhanced or double density will not work yet. Reading ED/DD will work on the drives that support it, though.
  • Happy 1050 warp speed has some timing problems.
  • Super Archiver does not support the write gate or Bit Writer.
  • Drive sound is a little off since I can't tell from the emulator side whether the firmware has finished the seek or not (the regular disk emulator uses a different sample for full track steps).

As a side note, TOMS 1050 serial timing is way off. I haven't seen firmware send bytes more slowly than that particular one, and the stock 1050 firmware was already on the slow side.

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Is this like the 810 and needing rom images or is it internal?

 

Thanks Avery...

 

Just looked in Firmware...

 

Any pointers where to look for said images?

 

Think I found them on Atarionline but a scan does not find them, are they included in the scan data as yet?

 

Just tried the Happy 1050 and it seems to work....Job done...Think utils pack on online PL people....

 

As always, brilliant work Avery....

Edited by Mclaneinc
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Deffo needs a roms scan data update at some point, I've just found the mega speedy roms and there A LOT of them with so far no real clue as what is what (from what little I've read) or what is the right version.

 

See what you mean about the timing, tried the Happy 1050 hi speed test and it failed after making loads of weird noises :)

 

Still its getting there thanks to great work all around, Altirra just keeps on giving and getting better, I really don't know how you fit the time in...

 

Thank you..

 

Paul...

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A big problem with adding ROM images to the scan list is that sometimes the images are available but I have no idea what they are -- what version or whether they've been patched. The first Happy 1050 image I found, for instance, fails the ROM check diagnostic. I like to have some descriptive label and verification that an image is not patched before adding it to the list.

 

810 archiver / The Chip: this thread (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/256683-altirra-280-released/?p=3618222). The number in the filename is important: it is the unlock code you need to enter when using the Archiver software.

 

Super Archiver: https://sites.google.com/site/ataripal/superarchiver

 

Plain 1050: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/156462-1050-roms/?p=3580891

 

Speedy 1050: The images from the Mega Speedy archive will work, but you want the 16K images or an 8K image; 512K images for the Mega Speedy will not work. 32K images for a Mini Speedy will not work either. The emulator always emulates a 16K ROM and just doubles up an 8K one to fit.

 

Happy 1050: http://www.dereatari.republika.pl/schematy.htm. You want happywar.zip; warpguus.zip will fail ROM check diagnostic.

 

TOMS 1050: http://www.dereatari.republika.pl/schematy.htm

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Thanks for the clarification Avery, its a mine field of roms out there, any direct choices are much appreciated :)

 

But saying that, I suppose none of us Altirra users should be in that much of a rush to get the roms as there's still work at your end before they are 100% operative and their may be changes in what roms are used in between..

 

In other words, sorry I sort of tried to rush an answer...Everything comes to those who wait....(normally)

 

Thanks..

 

Paul...

Edited by Mclaneinc
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Update:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test10.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test10-src.zip

 

Adds Tiger 1050 support. Mostly just taking the standard 1050 drive and adding 2K of RAM at $0800-0FFF, but I did have to fix a bug with the FDC not updating the track number on Step In/Out commands which was causing it to fail POST. I don't know why the startup routine for the Tiger 1050 bothers to test it, since neither the 810 nor the 1050 use the FDC for stepping the head. There is also some weirdness with the high-speed mode. It works with some DOSes, but one of the commands that SpartaDOS X 4.48 uses to probe high-speed mode causes it to go nuts.

 

Also adds .EPR to the list of default firmware extensions, and firmware entries for the 1050 and Happy 1050. It turns out that the version of the Happy 1050 ROM in happywar.zip is revision 2, as indicated by the diagnostics software. According to the Happy v7 manual, the diagnostic reports "PASS" for rev.1 and "Pass" for rev.2. (Not sure why they didn't just make the program say rev.1 and rev.2.) As it turns out, revision 1 has already been dumped as well from an unexpected place -- from a "Smirk 1050":

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/128791-atari-1050-smirk-happy-clone/?p=3322954

 

Passes ROM diagnostic checksum test with "PASS", so I've added a detection entry for it.

 

This is Altirra's current firmware autodetection list, by the way. First entry is CRC32, second is size, third is type, fourth is readable name, fifth is specific firmware used by compatibility engine. I'm waiting to see if we can get a full 8K dump of the Happy 810 v7 firmware ROM before adding an entry for it.

	{ 0x4248d3e3,  2048, kATFirmwareType_Kernel5200, L"Atari 5200 OS (4-port)" },
	{ 0xc2ba2613,  2048, kATFirmwareType_Kernel5200, L"Atari 5200 OS (2-port)" },
	{ 0x4bec4de2,  8192, kATFirmwareType_Basic, L"Atari BASIC rev. A", kATSpecificFirmwareType_BASICRevA },
	{ 0xf0202fb3,  8192, kATFirmwareType_Basic, L"Atari BASIC rev. B", kATSpecificFirmwareType_BASICRevB },
	{ 0x7d684184,  8192, kATFirmwareType_Basic, L"Atari BASIC rev. C", kATSpecificFirmwareType_BASICRevC },
	{ 0xc1b3bb02, 10240, kATFirmwareType_Kernel800_OSA, L"Atari 400/800 OS-A NTSC", kATSpecificFirmwareType_OSA },
	{ 0x72b3fed4, 10240, kATFirmwareType_Kernel800_OSA, L"Atari 400/800 OS-A PAL" },
	{ 0x0e86d61d, 10240, kATFirmwareType_Kernel800_OSB, L"Atari 400/800 OS-B NTSC", kATSpecificFirmwareType_OSB },
	{ 0x3e28a1fe, 10240, kATFirmwareType_Kernel800_OSB, L"Atari 400/800 OS-B NTSC (patched)", kATSpecificFirmwareType_OSB },
	{ 0x0c913dfc, 10240, kATFirmwareType_Kernel800_OSB, L"Atari 400/800 OS-B PAL" },
	{ 0xc5c11546, 16384, kATFirmwareType_Kernel1200XL, L"Atari 1200XL OS" },
	{ 0x643bcc98, 16384, kATFirmwareType_KernelXL, L"Atari XL/XE OS ver.1" },
	{ 0x1f9cd270, 16384, kATFirmwareType_KernelXL, L"Atari XL/XE OS ver.2", kATSpecificFirmwareType_XLOSr2 },
	{ 0x29f133f7, 16384, kATFirmwareType_KernelXL, L"Atari XL/XE OS ver.3" },
	{ 0x1eaf4002, 16384, kATFirmwareType_KernelXEGS, L"Atari XL/XE/XEGS OS ver.4", kATSpecificFirmwareType_XLOSr4 },
	{ 0xbdca01fb,  8192, kATFirmwareType_Game, L"Atari XEGS Missile Command" },
	{ 0xa8953874, 16384, kATFirmwareType_BlackBox, L"Black Box ver. 1.34" },
	{ 0x91175314, 16384, kATFirmwareType_BlackBox, L"Black Box ver. 1.41" },
	{ 0x7cafd9a8, 65536, kATFirmwareType_BlackBox, L"Black Box ver. 2.16" },
	{ 0xa6a9e3d6,  8192, kATFirmwareType_MIO, L"MIO ver. 1.41 (64Kbit)" },
	{ 0x1d400131, 16384, kATFirmwareType_MIO, L"MIO ver. 1.41 (128Kbit)" },
	{ 0xe2f4b3a8, 32768, kATFirmwareType_MIO, L"MIO ver. 1.41 (256Kbit)" },
	{ 0x0896f03d,  2048, kATFirmwareType_810, L"Atari 810 firmware rev. C" },
	{ 0xaad220f4,  2048, kATFirmwareType_810, L"Atari 810 firmware rev. E" },
	{ 0x91ba303d,  4096, kATFirmwareType_1050, L"Atari 1050 firmware rev. J" },
	{ 0x3abe7ef4,  4096, kATFirmwareType_1050, L"Atari 1050 firmware rev. K" },
	{ 0xfb4b8757,  4096, kATFirmwareType_1050, L"Atari 1050 firmware rev. L" },
	{ 0x942ec3d5,  4096, kATFirmwareType_Happy810, L"Happy 810 firmware (pre-v7)" },
	{ 0x19b6bfe5,  8192, kATFirmwareType_Happy1050, L"Happy 1050 firmware rev. 1" },
	{ 0xf76eae16,  8192, kATFirmwareType_Happy1050, L"Happy 1050 firmware rev. 2" },
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Yet again, thank you Avery,

 

Never knew there were so many Happy / Archiver clones, perhaps someone will dump The Lazer roms although I really can't see the point of it as its merely a Happy with small changes. I'm more interested in seeing the standard drive firmware emulation running 100% to eek out any last compatibility issues should they exist. I know you don't like patches or workarounds.

 

Thanks to you and all working on this....We do appreciate your time and effort..

 

Paul..

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Adds Tiger 1050 support.

If you are adding those, you probably want to add the Duplicator, and of course the USD. Below is a link to a page with all the Duplicator stuff, but basically is a Happy style enhancement, 8K RAM and 8K ROM (not banked).

 

http://www.realdos.net/1050%20Duplicator.html

 

Happy 1050 ROM ... As it turns out, revision 1 has already been dumped as well from an unexpected place -- from a "Smirk 1050":

Wow. Many thanks for the pointer. I was looking for that ROM for quite some time.

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