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Bloodnose

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Posts posted by Bloodnose

  2. Posted

    I'm willing to chill a very long time for a quality product.

     

    Compare the quality differences between the Adam version of Super Donkey Kong with what Opcode has prototyped to see what the hardware is capable of, versus what was released under a high-pressure profit-minded development environment. I propose that the early CV titles, high quality as they are, could have supported even more interesting features to more closely align with their arcade counterparts had the developers had more time. What these early developers produced is super impressive -- I wish the recent Coleco book had found and talked to more of these early developers and had more information on that development environment.

     

    Right now it's the time of year when North American people are holed up inside and start thinking about these things, as well as the commencement of cabin-fever induced crankiness.

  3. Posted

    Does anyone know how difficult it is to make 3.5 floppies with Windows? With my current setup, believe it or not, that would be a cheaper/better solution. I have access to a horde of NOS floppies.

     

    That's impossible. The IIGS 3.5" floppy drive requires Double Density (DD) diskettes. High Density (HD) will not work.

     

    ADTPro is used to transfer disk images from a Windows machine. The Windows machine acts as a server through a serial connection. The IIGS has serial built-in, but requires a cable with specific characteristics (http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/connectionsserial.html#MiniDIN8). I have used a IIGS printer cable (also MiniDIN8) for this using a couple cable adapters on the PC side -- one being a null modem adapter.

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

     

    What kind of games would you like to see once we release Prometheus? Would you like me to keep focusing on regular SGM games, would you like me to focus on Prometheus' (and remember this isn't the final name) advanced features, would you like to see more original games, more arcade ports? If arcade ports, do you prefer golden age (80-83), later period, or 16-bit stuff. We can go all the way from simple 8-bit stuff to Genesis/SNES level of complexity. Please let me know. :)

     

     

    My only contribution is a tall order.

     

    A lot of my favorites are those with unique inputs and outputs -- not just the 4 or 8-way joysticks, two buttons, and not just output on the monitor and speaker(s).

    Also the ColecoVision's modular expandability was genius.

     

    Spy Hunter is a good example. Audio is stereophonic. The steering controller needs not revolve 360 degrees. There are two switches on each handlebar, plus the "horn" button in the middle to call the weapons van. Additionally, that button has a built-in lamp when the van is available.

     

    Gorf has external lamps based on your rank.

     

    Q-bert had that solenoid inside that clacked when Q-bert fell off the cubes and hit bottom.

     

    Sub-roc had a spinning shutter

     

    I wouldn't ask for such unique controllers, but the potential for expandability should definitely be considered.

    Enabling custom I/O devices that we could build ourselves would be cool. Maybe just a card edge connector like the SGM (and Atari module, and the Adam expansion) uses.

    Perhaps also support for other classic and contemporary controllers besides the Coleco versions.

  9. Posted

     

    If you're referring to the right-hand 40 pin DIP socket marked as "Original" then this is just a place to "store" your original 65816 whilst the ZipGSX is installed - it is not electrically connected in anyway AFAIK. So no chaining is possible.

     

    I was just being snarky on a Friday afternoon.

     

    But now looking at the manual for the ZIP GSX, it says, "You may park your original 65C816 in storage if you have the appropriate product."

    Pretty cool.

     

    http://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/files/ZipGSX/Manual/ZIPGSX_Manual.pdf

  10. Posted

    Glad to help someone so persistent.

     

    I was horrified to hear your confession about hot-plugging. For the love of God don't do that. Not even the ADB. Whenever I had to stop a hung process, with the drive light still lit, I'd power down, which lets everything ground out. I highly doubt this equipment was engineered to handle hot-plugging, and even a power outage risked damage.

     

    Can you trace those pins to an IC which can be replaced, though with quite a bit of solder work. It still makes you consider if it's worth replacing an IC from a working board. The possibility of getting new replacements with exactly the same characteristics is daunting.

  16. Posted

    joethezombie in this recent thread mentions some connection to the floppy with the VGC. He said he found some schematics to help trace problems.

    https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/27060-iigs-no-longer-seeing-35-drives-bad-vgc/

    The thread is otherwise uninteresting in developing as a bitch-fest, and joe's solution was to replace the board.

     

    But your issue is odd with the same behavior occurring between two boards.

     

    Take a step back and try to see the issue from a new perspective.

     

    Are your voltage readings stable, or do they wander? Are you testing with the connector attached to the board? Are you running any other computers powered-on (or anything with switching power supplies) on the same circuit? Old tech is very susceptible to feedback on the mains from cheap noisy switching power supplies.

  18. Posted

    The "second KB jack"? There's only one -- unless you some unique version of a GS.

     

    The keyboard jack (Apple Desktop Bus [ADB]) jack is on the back-left of the motherboard, and has an image of a chain above it.

    The other two round ports are on the back-right and are for printer and serial.

     

     

     

    Sorry, I misunderstood.

     

    It's a lot of work removing multi-pin components using an iron and gizmos like solder suckers and copper absorption braid. There's no solder on the other side. If it's already destroyed I'd just cut off what's left and desolder the remaining bits.

    A rework station is a nice thing to have for removing solder.

  19. Posted

    The "second KB jack"? There's only one -- unless you some unique version of a GS.

     

    The keyboard jack (Apple Desktop Bus [ADB]) jack is on the back-left of the motherboard, and has an image of a chain above it.

    The other two round ports are on the back-right and are for printer and serial.

     

     

    Ok, so I set out to finally fix this *#)#@%$* thing the other day and hit another impasse.

     

    First, yes, a connector had broken off in the second motherboard KB jack.

  20. Posted

    Your thesis states they are not operating systems, but your conclusion admits they are operating systems -- for disks.

    I think the intention of your question comes in the middle with, "They don't do the things a modern OS would do"

     

    People (like me) like analogies.

    DOS and ProDOS (and Pascal, God bless it for trying) are to Apple II what MS-DOS is to IBM. Anything above disk operations, like printers, sound, video, etc. require drivers/software.

     

    What does a modern OS have in comparison?

    A mouse cursor on a graphical desktop -- like DOS/ProDOS vs. Apple II Desktop or GS/OS; and MS-DOS vs. Windows.

    Devices still require specific drivers and APIs for programming them.

    Most contemporary systems are still based on mass storage.

    Fewer minimal systems have no non-volatile storage -- running from ROM with working RAM.

    I submit AppleSoft Basic and the Apple Monitor (the disassembler/memory hex editor -- an unfortunate ambiguous name) are operating systems without disk operation -- but which can still be accessed primitively through I/O port manipulation.

  21. Posted

    You're going to want a drive cable sooner rather later. Bootstrapping from ADTPro is cool, but you have to keep doing it with each image.
    I really like IEC for their Apple II products -- http://www.iec-usa.com/cgi-bin/iec/L1569

     

    In the meantime, playing with audio transfers with ADTPro is a pretty cool exercise. Then you'll be cooking when you get your serial card.

     

    Super Serial cards are very common on eBay -- just make sure you get one with the cable that you mount to the backplate. A lot of offerings are missing the cable.

    • Like 1

  22. Posted

    I wonder how hard would it be to mix in the regular Apple II beep channel. It'd have to be intercepted off the board with a clip probe or soldered wire or two I guess.

     

    Alex of ByteBoosters asked me to announce that they are currently working on Rev B of the DarkSound board which will mix the "8-bit" sound -- which naturally includes the system bell. There is currently no estimated completion date, but I will be sure to post any updates here, and pass on any discussion that might follow.

    • Like 2

  24. Posted

    I am in contact with Alex at ByteBoosters, and we would like to offer a collective order for the DarkSound http://a2central.com/7471/darksound-by-byteboosters/ and 8 MB DarkRAM http://a2central.com/7132/ch-systems-releases-byteboosters-darkram-8mb-for-apple-iigs/

     

    Cost for each is expected to be what they had been offered for on eBay.
    $49.99 plus $9.99 shipping for the DarkSound.

    $63.33 with shipping included in the price for the 8 MB DarkRAM expansion.

     

    Reply here with "Count me in", or PM me -- and I will contact you in-turn.

  25. Posted

    I meant to ask if it mutes the audio output from the internal speaker when you plug an audio cable into the audio out connector on the card.

     

    I suspect the motherboard connector could be reversed, but if it is it must have been wired the wrong way around on mine - I have mine plugged in in the proper orientation. Can anyone post a photo of how it's plugged in on their working setup?

     

    If mine is plugged in right and I reverse it, I'm terrified of screwing up my motherboard.

     

    No, the onboard speaker will continue to work when you connect the 3.5mm plug to the Stereo Out on the Darksound board.

     

    The "orientation" of your J25 connector is probably correct. Be sure that the pins line up, 1 through 7. It's easy to be off by one pin. It is not easy to plug this in wrong orientation, because the cable would be twisted around and hard to route back to the card -- just as it is natural to plug in the Darksound board in the "right" orientation -- if it were wrong, that extension cable wouldn't even reach J25.

     

    Make sure you're testing with a game or music program. The system beep does NOT get produced through the Darksound board (or any stereo card from any manufacturer). Zany Golf is weird, it plays it's introduction music through one channel only, but the gameplay generates stereo sound.

    • Like 1
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