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tep392

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Posts posted by tep392

  2. Posted

    It's been a long, long time, but I think that the only success that I had with Syncalc was with a Happy PDB file. I do remember that I had nearly no success with the original CSS Bitwriter. Never tried the replica with anything.

     

    -Larry

    I was able to make a copy with my 810 Happy that works, but I really want to get this bitwriter to work since this is one of the programs it was intended to copy. I think the long tracks are ok because it get through them all. When I tried copying them without the bitwriter, it would move the head to read tracks that it shouldn't have. I re-read the SA manual and I think the problem might be track 4 with the fuzzy sector. It looks like fuzzy support might not be enabled by default. I'll try again tonight and make sure the P(hantom) sector option is enabled.

  3. Posted

    Perhaps you also have a 1050, and ordered a Super Archiver + Bitwriter board? That will copy lots more stuff than an original Archiver. With a Happy 1050, you can load the Happy Archiver, then load the Super Archiver disk. Works well -- my personal favorite.

     

    Larry

    Have you copied Syncalc with the SA+bitwriter before? I'm attempting to do it with my new Bitwriter Replica, but haven't got it to work yet. I copy the normal length tracks and fuzzy track 4 with 3.02 Super Archiver program. Then I copy all the long 21 sector tracks with the Bitwriter program. It seems to read all the correct tracks in the same order as the original disk, but after the loading is finished, it does a reset and re-boots.

  5. Posted

     

    First: Sorry to read that. Although I test every device carefully, not all faults can be excluded. Could you sent me a picture from the installed version, specially the ribbon cable? When I shipping out the first big batch in 2016, two user sent me similar reports - in both cases the ribbon cable was the source of trouble.

     

    One wasn´t correct crimped, the other one... was crimped the wrong way (180 degrees turned). This won´t damage anything, but the read and write signals are routed over the ribbon cable, so the basic functions - read and write data - won´t be successful.

     

    Jurgen

    Thanks for the suggestions. I just got it working. :) I decided to re-seat the RIOT and FDC to wipe off any corrosion and that seemed to do the trick. All the speeds are about 5 rpm too high so I need to do some adjusting. I'm guessing that bringing the main rpm down will bring the others down with it, right? I also noticed when I took a closer look at the main board that L6 is burned and the case is cracked. It must not be open circuit, since the motor still turns, but I should probably replace it to be safe. Maybe that's why the speed is off?

    • Like 2

  7. Posted

    I just installed the bitwriter replica in my 1050 and it's not working. Here's what I know

     

    - I tested the drive before install and all worked well. Format, write and read all worked. Tested 90K and 180K (had a US doubler)

    - when removing the US doubler, I put original RAM chip back in. left eprom slot empty.

    - It spins up and head moves at power up. Seems normal.

    - I rechecked all wires against the install instructions and can't find any errors. Solder joints are clean. No bridges. I triple checked IC pin numbers. This is the A version. It's plugged into the factory CPU socket.

    - I photographed all connections from the drive mech before disassembly and know they are all installed correctly.

    - When I attempt to boot a disk, I get a single beep while it reads track 0, it moves the head back and forth and tries a second time, then it boots SDX from the U1MB installed in my 800XL

    - When I try a directory, it spins and attemps to read track 0, makes a splat noise and gives me error 139 NAK .

     

    Any suggestions? Are there any self tests I can use to check basic functionality?

  13. Posted

    Today I bought my first classic computer, and you can almost smell the minty freshness! :DpbgHpev.jpggD5X0Ot.jpgjlY12CQ.jpgYo0pkKl.jpgRAuRRLu.jpg

    Now I just need a power supply for it... and a 1050 disk drive to save and load programs with... and some game cartridges... and a 48K memory upgrade so it can play the games. Geez, retro computing is really expensive! :o

    Congrats! I love the 400, my first computer. Missile Command, Defender and Donkey Kong are must have carts.

  14. Posted

    So.... are you saying it was just yours or are Xboards not early 84' 7800 compatible? So far all I've been testing on is early 84 and early 86 7800 modules with expansion ports on them.

    I'm just saying that it didn't work well with my A1 s/n with expansion interface sample. The games ran, but some of the games would crash after a few minutes. It works perfectly in my A3 model.

  15. Posted

    I don't have an Xboard but when the time comes I will see about either obtaining one or if Mitch or someone else has one installed I would like to see how they get another with one another.

    I installed an Xboard last year. :) It actually didn't work in one of my 7800's, an early expansion port model.

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    Hi *,

     

    I could need some help with a MADS macro.

     

    Similar to macros like "mva" and "mwa" I would like to have a macro for "double words" (32bit). For instance 

     $org 2000

.macro mdwa src,dst
 lda <:src
 sta :dst
 lda >:src
 sta :dst+1
 lda <(:src/65355)
 sta :dst+2
 lda >(:src/65535)
 sta :dst+3
.endm

.struct values
 longvalue .dword
.ends

m values

 mdwa #$12345678,m.longvalue

    Unfortunately my attempt does not "compile" . MADS tells me something like "Extra character on line".

    It's probably pretty obvious but I'm giving up for now :)

     

     

    I figured out the cause of the "Extra character on line" error and thought I would post it here for future reference. I was getting the same error, even when I used the example macros from the MADS documentation. The problem was that I was using an older version of MADS, before support was added for argument labels. Older versions only supported numeric arguments.

  20. Posted

    2. It also makes me wonder if 5200 / A8 Pac-Man Arcade has the coin op patterns?

    It uses the same movement logic for the ghosts/monsters, so strategy should be the same as you would use on the arcade version, but the patterns don't work because the maze geometry doesn't match the arcade version. It's shorter and has few dots. It should be possible to develop new patterns for it.

    • Like 2

  23. Posted

     

    Luckily, tep392 swooped in and made the 5200 conversion himself. He did a straight conversion version as well as one that fixes a few bugs that were present in the original 5200 release. I am attaching his conversions to this post.

    My memory is really getting bad. I totally forgot about that conversion.

    • Like 2

  24. Posted

    I used this disassembly as a reference almost the entire way.

    This disassembly has been extremely useful to me. The disassembly originated with Don Hodges, though it looks like it's been updated a bit. Don gave me his disassembly back in 2012 when I was working on Donkey Kong XM for the 7800. I also found a few errors and a fair amount of missing details. I use my personal copy for reference now. D2K has a lot of additional code with the extra 4 screens, but it's built off the original, so has a lot in common.

     

    http://donhodges.com/Controlling_the_barrels_in_Donkey_Kong.htm

  25. Posted

    Doing this port really opened my eyes to how effecient the 6502 can be at certain things compared to other processors. I didn't really do a lot of optimization, as I wanted to make sure the original logic was kept completely intact, but a lot of iterating through 16 bit addresses was done much more effeciently on the 6502 than the original Z80 code, despite the latter's 16 bit registers. In general most instructions also simply only use half as many cycles as the Z80 equivalents. That said, the original arcade code isn't particularly nice in the first place, and it is very obvious it was created by at least three different programmers (a lot of redundancy, and wildly different ways of doing the same things), not counting the leftover code from Radarscope.

     

    I'm very interested in your work. I'm working on a D2K port for the Atari 7800 right now, horizontal display, so I'm pretty deep into the arcade code. I'm going to finish up the graphics code before getting into the Z80 conversion. I'm pretty much keeping the arcades RAM layout as is, with my graphics code building the 7800 display from the 4 byte sprite data in RAM. I'm a little concerned I'll have enough time left to do all the game logic so I'll be optimizing as much a possible as I convert the Z80 to 6502. I have a lot of ROM space at my disposal so my graphics code is making heavy use of tables for things like coordinate conversions, and other optimizations to make it as fast as possible. For example, stationary animated objects, like oil can fire, Kong and the girl can be written to the display very quickly with their own optimized code vs. moving objects that take more processing. I'm trying to keep the 60hz frame rate, but can always fall back to 30hz for screen updates, while the main code runs at 60.

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