wavemotion

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/ColecoDS V9.8: 23-Apr-2024 by wavemotion-dave Cleanup of MSX BIOS handling - we now support the Panasonic CF-2700 directly. See MSX BIOS section for details. MSX status line now shows RAM (based on machine chosen) on the status line (was previously showing ROM size which no other machine in ColecoDS did). MSX Caps Lock now has LED indicator on the virtual keyboard. Added ROM/CAS/DSK size and CRC32 on the main screen after choosing a game. Numerous fixes for Save/Load states especially for the MSX and Einstein. Improved memory handling to free up some DS resources for future expansion. There were a lot of changes "under the hood" on this one. Hopefully I didn't break anything

It's really just as simple as copying the .nds file on top of the existing one for each of my emulators. There are no other files needed - and they are all available at my github page. However, spending time upgrading the emulators on a device that you can't use feels like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic

Oh cool... not seen that cart before. Whatever you do, don't format the microSD unless you have a backup of the kernel files. It can sometimes be hard to find just the right kernel to boot the card. If (and I'm far from sure) it's close enough to an R4 card, you could just try putting one of my emulators in the root directory. For ColecoDS, go to my page: https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/ColecoDS and download the ColecoDS.nds file - that's the only file you need with all the emulation baked in. You will also need BIOS files - I don't supply them for obvious reasons. At a minimum, coleco.rom placed, preferably, in the directory: /roms/bios (all my emulators will look there first). And then put your games/programs wherever... though the 'cool kids' put them in /roms/coleco which is where the emulator will look first - otherwise you have to browse around. I'd be interested to know if it works on that cart... I could see the chances being 50/50. And sorry to hijack the thread a bit... you can contact me via PM if you have questions.

The DS-Lite is a great little handheld... I have one myself. Since it doesn't have the SD card slot of a DSi (or DSi XL/LL or 2DS/3DS) you would need a flash cart. They are super cheap these days... under $20 for sure. They are almost always knock-offs or clones of the venerable R4 card. And it's a bit of a scam these days as they are all labeled slightly differently and they make it seem like they have special abilities but really they are all exactly the same with a different knock-off sticker on the outside. This is the brand I got ... super cheap Chinese knock-off of the original R4. I have the white and another gold one (both of mine are from 2019 - they update the year as if you're getting something 'new' but that's not accurate). The DS-Lite (and original DS-Phat) are running at the original 67MHz with only 4MB of RAM. My emulators all run on such a unit but with some trade-offs. For ColecoDS, it will still run virtually everything for the Coleco, ADAM, MSX, SG-1000, SordM5, etc. with the main difference being that for Super Games I have to turn on a very light frameskip (showing 3 of 4 frames) that shouldn't really be noticiable. I also can't support more than 64K of expanded memory for the ADAM emulation (with the DSi and above I can give you 2MB of expanded RAM). Again... probably a non-issue for most people - nobody is using ColecoDS to do any serious development under T-DOS! For some of my other emulators, I cut back a bit on the sound quality to get the speed needed for the older DS units (vs the DSi and above). It's generally still an enjoyable experience - and many people prefer the feel of a DS-Lite vs DSi (I happen to like the DSi XL/LL for the larger size). All DS-Lite, Phat and DSi units use the same screen resolution of 256x192. This is 1:1 pixel-perfect to the TMS9918/28 VDP on the Coleco and Adam (and MSX1, etc) so it will look nice on any of the older handhelds. My favorite of the units is the DSi XL/LL (USA vs Japan model - no other differences). This is a larger physical screen (but same resolution) with an SD card slot so it's trivial to run something like Twilight Menu++ on an SD card with no modifications needed to the actual unit. The larger screen also has a slower refresh rate which more closely mimics the phosphor fad of a TV. It's a enjoyable portable experience for me - your mileage may vary!

Hey Tim - I know you're looking to unload your DSi - hopefully someone will take you up on it! I think if you showed your system playing a game or two in the Buy/Sell forums here, you would move it quickly enough. With just my emulators alone (covering 7 classic systems), the buyer would have access to about 10,000 classic games. A buyer might even be willing to reform old habits

I've heard the theory that they switched to make it more difficult for the player - but I'm not sold on that. Nintendo and Sega owned the market from 1985 on and their offerings for home consoles placed the directionals on the left. Sony had no choice but to follow a decade later or risk their offering going down in flames. By the time Microsoft came along, there was already a full generation of players who wouldn't know what to do with the joystick/joypad on the right. Games also became more complicated - with the advent of the JAMMA arcade standard and the rise of fighting games, there were often more buttons than directionals. I subscribe to the theory that it's easier to slide in a direction with the non-dominat hand and produce complex series of button pushes with the dominant hand. I couldn't imagine playing something like Street Fighter with the panel reversed. Whatever the cause - there was a shift around 1982 (though plenty of left-joystick control panels existed before this on very popular games). When I built my arcade controllers on my MAME setup, I do provide for two buttons to the left of a joystick and six to the right (Street Fighter!) so some of the simple arcade games from the early days can be played either way. I also place the 4-way joystick in the center (between the 8-way joysticks) so it's equally usable in whatever configuration a player wants.

I think most DS users are right-handed (including me) - if only because most people are right-handed I think you prefer the directional on your dominant hand - there were some players back in the early days of the arcade that would cross their hands so their right hand would control the joystick. Most arcade control panels were designed with the joystick to the left and buttons to the right (see Galaxian, 1979, below for a fairly typical layout) and a few games were kind enough to give buttons on either side of the joystick for player preference. Nintendo and Sega who owned the markets from 1985 onwards settled on the d-pad to the right and buttons to the left which is how the DS is laid out. Directions to the right is not for everybody, though it's been the trend for 40 years after the first generation of consoles. I think we all have a natural preference for which hands controls the directions. Interestingly enough, with a Colecovision, I do cradle the controller in my left hand and use my right for directions (mostly because that was the picture in the manual) - though I have become accustomed to using the NES, SNES and Genesis gamepads over the years. I guess I'm a switch-hitter :D

Oh wow! I live on the border of Mansfield and could have probably walked to the last one As the developer of ColecoDS and the resident emulator guy... I feel like I'd be the odd-man out here (carrying around my Coleco and ADAM in my pocket with a few thousand games) - but maybe I'll pop in if only to remind myself what real hardware looks like

Thanks @johnnywc - totally make sense! I've uploaded StellaDS version 7.2a (https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/StellaDS) with tweaks to improve the Tutankham Arcade experience. It will set the proper screen position and size, select the Genesis controller (with SaveKey in the right port) by default and swap in the optimized CDFJ+ driver (which can only be used for games that have no more than two banks of 6502 code - such that it can be placed in the DS 'fast memory' core). While the game will run fine on the stock StellaDS 7.2, the new version will optimize the experience for players without having to customize the settings.

Okay... so StellaDS screenshot handling doesn't work well as some of the spites must be on alternate frames so you don't see the Treasure here but it's just to the right of the little green circle-explosion (I got hit as I took the screenshot). There was no vertical wall there that I could see - and I tried to move right into the treasure but couldn't so I assumed it was because I was holding a key. I did not try to approach it from the top as it sure looked like there was nothing standing in my way here.

Super fun with the Genesis controller - of course I played for an hour without reading the instructions so didn't even know Flash Bomb was a thing! I was surprised I couldn't drop an item - even if it zapped back to its starting location. Wanted to drop a key to pick up a treasure. Checked the arcade version and turns out that's accurate. Well... maybe something if you're looking for a 'Champ Games' exclusive extra I think I'm going to have to add a Joy2B+ option to StellaDS!

No... it means that when I coded the mirrors for the colecovision emulation I got it wrong. For emulation purposes, I write to all mirror locations so that the readback (which is generally more frequent) is fast - and I goofed one of the mirrors. So Boulderdash occasionally writes and reads from the 0x6C00 block - which would work fine on an ADAM provided whatever it wanted there was likewise written to 0x6C00. But in my emulation, I had this bug: So when the game wrote to memory, I wrote it to all mirror locations EXCEPT 0x6C00 (I wrote 0x6800 twice). This was the only game that I had trouble with for years until I discovered my mistake with mirror handling. With my bug, the game would run but would occasionally (but not always) hang later in the first stage. Interestingly enough, other games that utilize RAM mirrors worked fine - probably because they were not specifically affected by the one broken mirror (7 years of bad luck). Dave

As an aside... the view from your shoulders is quite nice.

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/ColecoDS V9.7: 16-Apr-2024 by wavemotion-dave Fixed Colecovision RAM mirrors such that Boulderdash runs properly. The Heist now forces RAM to clear (all zeros) as it is known to be picky about contents of RAM on power up. Fix EEPROM sequential reads so Activision PCB games like Jewel Panic work correctly. Added the Wildcard and Print buttons on the virtual ADAM keyboard. All ADAM virtual keys should now be present. Added new configuration options to select the Colecovision mode to run in - you can force ADAM emulation, force PCB types, and set EEPROM sizes, etc. New global option to auto-patch for 'Fast BIOS' to force the 15 second wait down to 3 seconds. Minor cleanup and optimizations to the Adam core. ColecoDS is asymptotically approaching 100% compatibility. No emulator quite reaches that state of perfection but for classic and homebrew Colecovision carts (with and without SGM), I'd put ColecoDS at the arbitrarily precise 98.3% level. I have no scientific proof for this number - it's just a wet finger in the air guess. Some users were operating with non-original BIOS to cut down on the 15 seconds of COLECOVISION banner time... and some of these BIOS files were a bit too drastic in their modifications and caused some compatibility problems. I strongly recommend you use the original Colecovision BIOS with a CRC32 of 3aa93ef3 - to that end, I've added a global option that will patch a single byte (in memory - leaving your original BIOS pristine) to drive the 15 seconds of banner display down to about 3 seconds. Slow enough that you get the nostalgic feels of the game "loading" but fast enough that you get on with your gameplay quickly. Lastly - someone asked me recently what am I going to do when I get to the release after 9.9... of course I'll simply go to 10.0 - because, as it turns out, there are lots of numbers in the universe.

So as the developer of ColecoDS, I decided to support all 'cousin' systems to the Colecovision in the one emulation package due to how similar it all is. The differences come down mainly to memory/IO maps, the amount of memory, the SN vs AY sound chips and possibly the use of a CTC chip for more sophisticated handling of timing/interrupts (vs the CV just tying VDP to the non-maskable interrupt... some developers curse this) ColecoDS currently supports these very similar systems: Colecovision with 1K of mirrored RAM and optional Super Game Module for an additional 32K of memory (similar to the lower-half of the ADAM memory map) and the AY sound chip for easier MSX ports. The upper 32K is used for carts and bigger carts can use various banking techniques to page in more ROM as needed (the venerable MegaCart being the most popular which allows for a 16K fixed bank and a 16K variable bank... the more sophisticated Super Game Cart allows for 8K banking that makes it a bit easier to port MSX1 games that use an 8K mapper). Coleco ADAM with 64K base memory (and no RAM mirrors) and up to 16MB of Expanded Memory (though I think above about 1 or possibly 2MB it kinda gets pointless). Things are generally memory mapped in 32K chunks (upper and lower memory). Can run in Colecovision mode with the standard CV bios (though the RAM is not mirrored and that will cause compatibility issues with a very small number of games). Super games in DDP (tape) could be up to 256K in size and standard disks were 160K (though most hobbyists would modify or upgrade to a 320K disk or larger) - with the clever AdamNet handling allowing for DMA transfers of data without a heavy load on the Z80 so new stages for games could load while you play. Sega SG-1000 and SC-3000 are hugely similar to the CV with just some changes to the IO and memory map. The SC-3000 adds more memory and a keyboard to provide some entry level computer support. Some 3rd party expanders map RAM in various places for bootleg MSX ports to the SG-1000. Many of the early homebrews for the CV came from the SG-1000 game pool. Sord M5 is likewise similar to our CV but adds a CTC (counter-timer-chip) used for cassette and sound timing. Most software was supplied on carts. Apploon and Up Up Balloon are both great original games that would be right at home on the Colecovision but most developers don't look to the Sord for inspiration (and maybe the CTC handling is not easy to untangle for the Colecovision which lacks it). MSX1 is more versatile than the CV with memory mapping in 16K chunks (vs 32K of the CV/ADAM) and even that can be further chunked into 8K segments by various MSX cart mappers. Of all the cousin systems, this one is the most widely supported by the hobby community with tons of new homebrews coming every year... many of the new CV games are ports of MSX classics. Uses the AY sound chip which is very similar to the venerable SN chip with wider dynamic range and uses simple waveform envelopes to produce some great effects - this AY chip is provided on the CV by the Super Game Module. Some of the best MSX1 games utilize an off-board sound processor known as the Konami SCC which is hard to replicate exactly (though Opcode comes close) on the CV even with the Super Game Module. Most games come on carts but there is also tons of cassette and disk based software for the MSX1. Standard disks are 720K. Spectravideo SVI is very close to MSX1 (vs the Colecovision) and was the basis for the MSX1 standard - but retains the 32K memory map of the CV. Cassette based loader (only a half-dozen or so carts are known to exist). Sadly most everything on the SVI was either a back-port from MSX or the games got released on MSX compatible systems so this system just doesn't have the exclusives to make it stand out. Casio PV-2000 is very similar to the Colecovision but uses memory mapped VDP access vs IO Mapping and also has interrupt driven keyboard handling. Hanimex Pencil II is mostly a gaming console with a chicklet keyboard tacked-on for various flavors of BASIC carts. Only a few carts are dumped though a few dozen others are known to exist. Tatung Einstein has a faster (4MHz) processor and ample use of CTC timer handling. Disk based system and uses the same SN chip as the Colecovision. This was the system of choice for many Z80 developers back in the mid-80s to write and test games as it was really well built and came with 64K standard memory and a reliable 3" disk drive (200K formatted) and had virtually the entire CPU bus accessible on the back (via something they called the "Tatung Pipe"). Memotech MTX also uses the CTC timer and is a cassette based system. Uses the same SN chip as the Colecovision. Creativision uses the same VDP and sound chip but is built around the 6502 CPU vs the Z80 in all the systems above. It's like the Atari and Colecovision had an illegitimate child that neither wants to claim on their taxes. It's got a unique set of controllers that remind me of the Intellivision and when you hook them up side-by-side, it makes for a makeshift A-Z keyboard.