TheMole

Keep in mind that windows RT is for ARM CPU's, so a standard windows binary will not work. I'd be surprised if MESS had any problems compiling for the target though. If you compile it yourself, MESS and ti99sim should work, and Classic99 might (not sure how many of the old win32 style APIs Classic99 uses are available on win RT). Js99er might work, if your device is fast enough, and you the version of IE that is installed on it supports the needed HTML/js stuff (which is not a given, as win RT comes with an older version of IE, if I remember correctly...)

Welcome to Atariage! I just wanted to say that it was your emulator that got me back into the TI a couple of years ago, and I even had some fun hacking support for the Sega Master System's "mode 4" into your VDP emulation code (before I knew about the F18A). So, thanks!

It has been said before, but I think a sticky thread in the main forum (not the development subforum) for all emulators (not one for each individual emulator), containing FAQ's and references to ninerpedia/harmlesslion/whatever... would be extremely helpful for newcomers. I agree that an entire new subforum dedicated to emulators might be a bit too much though.

Yeah, longer labels would make it a lot more readable. Especially if you're coming back to your code at a later point in time and you have to figure out what each label stood for. Something like this might make sense maybe? // MENU PRINT_MENU: CALL CLEAR :: CALL SCREEN(2) DISPLAY AT(1,4):"THIS IS A MENU TEST";" FOR BERYL REICHARDT"; DISPLAY AT(8,1):"PRESS 1 FOR WEAPONS";"PRESS 2 FOR STATS";"PRESS 3 TO EXIT"; SELECT_ITEM: CALL KEY(0,K,S):: .. IF S=0 THEN .. GOTO SELECT_ITEM IF K>51 THEN .. GOTO SELECT_ITEM .. ELSE .. IF K<49 THEN .. GOTO SELECT_ITEM ON K-48 GOTO PRINT_WEAPONS, STATS, EXIT_MENU PRINT_WEAPONS: CALL CLEAR :: .. PRINT "WEAPONS" :: .. PRINT "PRESS ENTER TO EXIT" SELECT_WEAPON: CALL KEY(0,K,S):: .. IF S=0 THEN .. GOTO SELECT_WEAPON IF K=13 THEN .. GOTO PRINT_MENU .. ELSE .. PRINT_WEAPONS PRINT_STATS: CALL CLEAR :: .. PRINT "STATS" :: .. PRINT "PRESS ENTER TO EXIT" SELECT_STAT: CALL KEY(0,K,S):: .. IF S=0 THEN .. GOTO SELECT_STAT IF K=13 THEN .. GOTO PRINT_MENU .. ELSE .. PRINT_STATS EXIT_MENU: CALL CLEAR :: .. GOTO 150

It doesn't look bad, but because of the two-tone keyboard you're using I think it would look heaps better if the strip was above the keys. You'd cover up your neat TI logo though .

I think the bitmap version still looks pretty good actually (especially if you ignore the sprites). However, you won't be able to scroll that map smoothly without heavy modifications, especially to the building sections. Also, that's Ghouls N Ghosts, not Ghosts N Goblins . smspower is a great site for these level graphics, and sadly I haven't found a NES alternative that has the same information. The NES version of Ghosts N Goblins would be an excellent place to start for an F18A port (given that the NES is, like the F18A, also limited to 3bpp instead of the 4bpp afforded by the SMS).

Meh... we should do a scrolling version... I'm sure my Alex Kidd engine should be able to pull this off, if only I had the time... :-/

I don't think they actually did all that... it seems mostly fake to me and I think House of Cards might be the only thing they have converted.

Awesome! This would be super cool as part of a racing game for the track selection screen!

I'm not sure about this, and I don't have my Linux PC handy to test, but I seem to remember that it depends on the naming convention you use when creating the carts with convert-ctg. The rom files you are converting need to be called <cartname>C.<extension> for ROM dumps and <cartname>G.<extension> for GROM dumps. So if you have a cart like parsec, to convert it you would need the files parsecC.bin and parsecG.bin in the same directory and from that directory you'd have to issue the command ./convert-ctg parsec.bin (not the lack of C or G in the actual command line). If I remember correctly, if you do this wrong it will create a cartridge file that will crash the emulator.

It is, it's broken video ram. They can be replaced, if you can source the chips. Another alternative (albeit more expensive) is installing an F18A video chip. This gives you the ability to connect your TI to a VGA monitor, has some nice added features (more colors, more video modes, less sprite limitations, smooth scrolling backgrounds, ...). *edit* Oh, and welcome to the community, I'm sure you'll like it here!

No, C is good enough for most things in the embedded wold. Unless you're doing UI's or extremely modular stuff, I see no reason to use C++

First question: no, not really. You will be able to put disk-based games on the nanoPEB (but you need an Extended basic and/or Editor/Assembler cartridge to run most disk based games), you will not be able to put carts on it. Fortunately, I think most cart games are also available on disk. If you consider only buying one more (new) cartridge, you should consider XB2.7, which contains extended basic, editor/assembler and a bunch of games and other utilities. You can buy them at arcadeshopper. Second question: yes!

It doesn't come with its own set of ROMs like Classic99 does. Did you try the procedure I outlined in my (way too long) post above, with the MESS ROM package?

Indeed, Alex Kidd will not work without the 32k expansion (actually, Alex Kidd will likely be disk based only, although I have been thinking about loading levels from GROM which can be put in carts as well to eliminate the need for a disk system). I also think all of Rasmus' games need the 32k to be present as well. The tricky thing is that sidecar 32k expansions are not very common I think, so you're probably best off with a (expensive and heavy) PEB system, or a nanoPEB/CF7 (the latter can be bought new for roughly $50 US, and is relatively easily available).

Looks very cool, thank you for making a native Mac client! (TIImageTool is nice, but the java theming breaks a few things, and the file dialogs are very unreliable for me, often just hanging the app). However, is there a reason why anything larger than 180kb disk sizes are grayed out?

For me personally, it is not about using "free" software (as in speech; nor as in beer) but about supporting platform diversity, which protects us from monopolies and stagnation of technological innovation as we've seen with Windows in the Windows XP years. If my provider does not support freedom of choice, I stop using their product and tell them why. It usually doesn't yield results in the short term, but I think we've seen more openness and broader platform support become more prevalent over the course of the past decade or so, and I do believe this is at least in part due to the pressure from Open Source advocates, and superior open source products (Firefox, Chrome, Linux on servers, Android, ...).

I think those that say Linux is too hard to use for them, or for the average user, are probably looking at it with a certain level of expectation bias. Most modern Linux distributions are much more simple to use than Windows, and are in my opinion at least on par or even better in terms of user experience than OS X. However, since there's this perception that Linux has to be hard, people who have been using Windows for a long time are much less willing to invest the time to understand the differences between the new platform and their tried-and-true Windows environment to even get to the point where they can start appreciating the simplicity of the system. The fact that it seems hard at first takes away any incentive to learn. Contrast that with people switching to OS X, where the mantra is that no one knows how to make a better user experience than Apple, and all of the sudden they accept the fact that it is different and the initial learning curve is just something that they have to get through. It might seem hard at first, but instead of calling it 'hard', we call it 'different' and we stick with it because this is meant to be easier, so the incentive to spend more effort is larger. Having said that, the one thing that is in my opinion a fair point against Linux is that it can't seem to remain consistent enough over time. Where Ubuntu was absolutely magical in the pre-Unity days, they fucked it up since then and now most people point to Mint for the easiest to use distribution, which I'm sure they will mess up as well and another group will stand up and carry that banner. And each time you'll need to learn the (admittedly very small) differences.

Nope, only js99er really supports the F18A.

Yes, you need to configure a disk controller. On the command line, you can add switches to add emulated cards to your emulated system's emulated PEB. They follow the format -peb:slot<x> <cardname>, with the <x> being any number from 2 to 8 (1 is automatically fitted with the emulated firehose interface card), and <cardname> is uhm... the name of the card you want to add in that slot . A list of available cards (not sure if this is complete though) is here: http://www.ninerpedia.org/index.php/MESS_TI_emulation_usage#Peripheral_Box Note that for each card that you wish to emulate, you will need the DSR rom, if applicable. Also, there's no point in adding the 32k expansion card, since by default MESS emulates a console with 16-bit 32k mod (not sure why Michael opted for this though, to me it seems a bit random to choose a modded console as the base system for emulation. But I love MESS, it's the most accurate emulator out there, so I'm not complaining ). I use something like this: ./mess64 ti99_4a -peb:slot3 tirs232 -peb:slot8 hfdc -skip_gameinfo -window -nomaximize -natural -cart carts/mycart.rpk -flop1 disks/mydisk.dsk

Looks very good. The delay looks fine for me, I kind off like the agitated impression that the alien gives off at this animation speed. The explosion is cool as well, at first I thought it might look better when played back a little bit slower but I think it's fine as-is. Just don't speed it up though .

Cool, what is the last mode supposed to emulate? True 16 color bitmap mode with 9918a palette?

Are these available somewhere? Even just finding screenshots seems to be an impossible task...

I'm just curious, were there ever any games published that made use of the Geneve's added features (the VDP, memory, speed, ...)? Were any of them good? Technically, the system should've been able to outpace the MSX2, which has seen some great games, but I haven't seen any of them anywhere.

Maybe more relevant in Europe though, since we actually use the metric system and like our units to follow at least some sort of logic . Also, the French do tend to use their own versions of these units as well (like "Mo" for "Mega Octect"). I follow the JEDEC standard myself: kb is 1000 bits, kB is 1000 bytes, Kb is 1024 bits and KB is 1024 bytes.