Atari800MacX XEP-80 emulation

[flashjazzcat]

I want to experiment with the XEP-80 device as emulated in Atari800MacX but I can't get the SpartaDOS X cart driver to recognize the emulated device. Are there any known problems or am I likely doing something wrong? I have "DEVICE XEP80" in CONFIG.SYS and it reports no XEP-80 in Joystick Port 2.

[+Allan]

I want to experiment with the XEP-80 device as emulated in Atari800MacX but I can't get the SpartaDOS X cart driver to recognize the emulated device. Are there any known problems or am I likely doing something wrong? I have "DEVICE XEP80" in CONFIG.SYS and it reports no XEP-80 in Joystick Port 2.

You might want to contact Atarimac, the author of AtariMacX, to see if he could help. He posts on here occasionally and there is an email on his site.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showuser=2872

 

http://www.atarimac.com/

 

Allan

[flashjazzcat]

Will do, thanks.

[drac030]

What version of SpartaDOS X is that? If it is 4.20 or 4.22, then the XEP80 driver has a bug and only works in NTSC.

[flashjazzcat]

What version of SpartaDOS X is that? If it is 4.20 or 4.22, then the XEP80 driver has a bug and only works in NTSC.

 

That's probably it; I tried version 4.22 and 4.42. Neither worked in PAL. I'll give it a go.

[drac030]

I tried version 4.22 and 4.42. Neither worked in PAL.

 

Are you sure? 4.42 should work in PAL.

[flashjazzcat]

I tried version 4.22 and 4.42. Neither worked in PAL.

 

Are you sure? 4.42 should work in PAL.

Just tried 4.42 in NTSC and it still doesn't work. I can't coldstart the emulator with XEP80 switched on, either. There were a few characters on the 80 column screen, but no output when I hit any keys.

[drac030]

Just tried 4.42 in NTSC and it still doesn't work. I can't coldstart the emulator with XEP80 switched on, either. There were a few characters on the 80 column screen, but no output when I hit any keys.

 

Aha, but you didn't try on real machine? Then there must be something wrong with the emulator, I think.

[flashjazzcat]

Just tried 4.42 in NTSC and it still doesn't work. I can't coldstart the emulator with XEP80 switched on, either. There were a few characters on the 80 column screen, but no output when I hit any keys.

 

Aha, but you didn't try on real machine? Then there must be something wrong with the emulator, I think.

Absolutely - I didn't mean to suggest this is down to a bug in SDX 4.42. Sadly I don't have real XEP-80 or SDX 4.42 hardware, so I rely on emulation prior to releasing betas which people can test on actual machines!

[spookt]

Well I have it almost working.

 

I have the emulator running an NTSC 130 XE using the SDX 4.42 cart image. If I turn on the XEP80 and then type XEP80.SYS I get a display in the XEP80 window:

 

 

However I can't do anything useful with it as when I hit return the cursor scrolls forever.

 

I'll try making a config.sys file later to see if it makes any difference.

 

BTW - by default Atari800MacX connects the XEP80 to Joystick port 1. You can change it to 2 in the Preferences.

[trub]

Everything works ok with the real hardware (SDX 4.42 and XEP-80).

I've just checked this, just to make sure that nothing has been screwed up.

BTW - by default Atari800MacX connects the XEP80 to Joystick port 1. You can change it to 2 in the Preferences.

You can pass some parameters to the XEP driver in SDX 4.42, for example "XEP80.SYS 1 /N" uses port 1 (default is 2) and forces NTSC mode (otherwise PAL or NTSC will be auto-detected).

[flashjazzcat]

Well I have it almost working.

 

I have the emulator running an NTSC 130 XE using the SDX 4.42 cart image. If I turn on the XEP80 and then type XEP80.SYS I get a display in the XEP80 window:

 

 

However I can't do anything useful with it as when I hit return the cursor scrolls forever.

 

I'll try making a config.sys file later to see if it makes any difference.

 

BTW - by default Atari800MacX connects the XEP80 to Joystick port 1. You can change it to 2 in the Preferences.

That's more or less the best I can get; just some fragmented text but no cohesive output.

[spookt]

It's interesting as I'm sure I tried the XEP80 utils disk someone posted a while back and it worked.

 

 

Yup Guess the emulation is just not 100%

Edited January 6, 2009 by spookt

[dwhyte]

I too am having problems getting the XEP80.SYS driver working under emulation. However I'm not using Atari800MacX, which is in my opinion the best Atari emulator available today, I'm using the CVS'ed sources from atari800. Not to sure if they're using the same code base...

[atarimac]

All,

I'm the author of Atari800MacX, and you are correct, it looks like the Sparta Cart XEP80 driver isn't working with the emulator, most likely the emulator's fault. I had tested most of the demo disks and XEP80 programs I could find (including AtariWriter80). However, I never tried Sparta Cart with it, most likely because I never had one back in the day (and still don't ).

To answer the question about Atari800, as far as I know, they are using the same code base that I am. I think one of the guys from the core team added it to the standard SDL version.

There seems to be two problems with the emulation. You are seeing the "not found on joystick port 2" if you ever do a coldstart. It works the first time you start the emulator, insert a boot disk and the cartridge, but then a coldstart causes the above message. I tried making a coldstart reset the XEP80 emulation state variables, but that doesn't do it, so I'm not sure what exactly is causing this.

And when I say "works" above, I'm being generous . I get the same garbage that you guys see on the emulated XEP80 screen. If you do a warmstart however, you will get a little added garbage, so it's not totally dead. If I had to guess, it looks like some sort of problem with the cursor/location control commands, perhaps something that Sparta is doing that none of the other programs I tested with did.

I will look at it more as I get time, however, my day job has me pretty swamped right now. Stay tuned.......

 

Thanks,

Mark

[dwhyte]

Ahhh, I see... so that explains the extra characters I get on the screen with the xep80 function library I made with cc65... It all makes sense now... I guess I better track down a real one...

[atarimac]

All,

 

I've found the problem. It had to do with the way the emulator was simulating the XEP80 input. The old version had no timing in it, and was simply depending on the number of times the port was read. However, the SpartaDOS driver sometimes reads twice in the same bit period, which was causing it to fail. There were several other logic errors in the XEP80 emulator, which I fixed as well.

If you would like a Beta version to help me test it, I will be putting one together in the next couple of days. Message me and I will let you know where to get it. Right now it works with the original driver and the SpartaDOS driver from the new cart. It seems to have issues with the original SpartaX cart image I have, but I'd prefer it work with the new version.

Also, when we determine it is solved for sure, I'll make sure the Atari800 CVS gets updated as well.

 

Thanks,

mark

[spookt]

PM Sent

[atarimac]

All,

Not sure if everyone noticed (posts were in emulation forum), but version 3.9.1 of Atari800MacX has been released that fixes this (available from www.atarimac.com). I also checked the changes into the atari800 CVS, so that version of the emulator for other platforms should be fixed as well (I tested the Linux version).

 

Thanks,

Mark