Questions about developing on C64.

[JohnnyRockets]

I was looking at this one. Thoughts???

 

http://store.go4retro.com/products/uIEC_SD.html

[Mirage]

I was looking at this one. Thoughts???

 

http://store.go4retr...ts/uIEC_SD.html

 

Yes. I would get the deluxe.

[Rybags]

RS232 isn't so straightforward, I'm fairly sure the C64 user port doesn't do voltage level conversion so you'd need external hardware.

Also, you have that chicken/egg situation whereby the software you'd need for transfer has to be put onto floppy or tape.

 

But to that end, there are utilities around that can generate audio files for C64 tapes.

 

Realistically, if you're serious about using the machine you really need either a real disk drive + X?-1541 interface and/or one of the modern day 1541 emulation devices.

[TMR]

Ok, but let's say I want to develop on the original machine. Then do I need a ML monitor?

 

Yes, if you end up developing native you'll need a machine code monitor at some point - usually just after your code crashes and burns in an unexpected way and you need to pick through the object code to see what has clobbered what.

 

Before freezer cartridges or even the built in monitor included with VICE came along and gave us the ability to halt executing programs and disassemble them on a whim before resuming where they left off, progams like DisMon (which was a magazine type-in) or SMon were common amongst programmers and at least one demo coder still uses a monitor for everything today. The major advantage of the cartridge monitors is that they have close to no memory footprint.

 

Edit: another point about coding native; make sure you save often because you'll be keeping the source code, assembler, possibly a monitor, the target data and target code in memory at the same time; if something runs wild in the latter it could clobber the tools or break part of the source code so saving becomes an issue or the changes since the last save are lost completely.

 

The waiting lists for the Chameleon aren't particularly long (they've had some problems with wrong connectors arriving and so on according to the mailing list) and, whilst it's quite a bit more expensive than Brain's solution[1] and still technically in beta, the Chameleon already supports most of the more arcane disk fastloaders out there and can emulate a Retro Replay or Action Replay cartridge (it ships with RR installed as default in slot 1).

 

[1] But not as expensive as it seems; if you were to buy a uIEC, an Easyflash cartridge and an Action Replay from ePay you're probably not looking at much less in total than the Chameleon and, along with more accurate drive emulation, it does a lot more than those three combined.

Edited June 8, 2012 by TMR

[JohnnyRockets]

Ok, but let's say I want to develop on the original machine. Then do I need a ML monitor?

 

Yes, if you end up developing native you'll need a machine code monitor at some point - usually just after your code crashes and burns in an unexpected way and you need to pick through the object code to see what has clobbered what.

 

Before freezer cartridges or even the built in monitor included with VICE came along and gave us the ability to halt executing programs and disassemble them on a whim before resuming where they left off, progams like DisMon (which was a magazine type-in) or SMon were common amongst programmers and at least one demo coder still uses a monitor for everything today. The major advantage of the cartridge monitors is that they have close to no memory footprint.

 

Edit: another point about coding native; make sure you save often because you'll be keeping the source code, assembler, possibly a monitor, the target data and target code in memory at the same time; if something runs wild in the latter it could clobber the tools or break part of the source code so saving becomes an issue or the changes since the last save are lost completely.

 

The waiting lists for the Chameleon aren't particularly long (they've had some problems with wrong connectors arriving and so on according to the mailing list) and, whilst it's quite a bit more expensive than Brain's solution[1] and still technically in beta, the Chameleon already supports most of the more arcane disk fastloaders out there and can emulate a Retro Replay or Action Replay cartridge (it ships with RR installed as default in slot 1).

 

[1] But not as expensive as it seems; if you were to buy a uIEC, an Easyflash cartridge and an Action Replay from ePay you're probably not looking at much less in total than the Chameleon and, along with more accurate drive emulation, it does a lot more than those three combined.

 

Okay, nothing but questions here.

 

1) VICE does have a built in MLM? How do you invoke it?

 

2) What is a freezer cartridge?

 

3) Can you give me a name of a cartridge monitor that would work for the VIC-20 and C64?

 

4) Could you tell me in simple terms what the uIEC does for me, the EasyFlash does for me and what an Action Replay does. I guess I don't understand how they all all work together.

 

 

Thanks a ton!

 

 

 

JR

[TMR]

Okay, nothing but questions here.

 

1) VICE does have a built in MLM? How do you invoke it?

 

It does and Alt/M in that order with X and enter in the monitor closing it and restarting the emulation.

 

2) What is a freezer cartridge?

 

Most of them are multi-purpose utility cartridges with the ability to freeze a program whilst it's running, make a note of everything needed to restart the program at the point it halted, compress the entire RAM and dump it out to disk or tape to be reloaded later on. Mostly they were used as fastload cartridges and to pirate games but they're also excellent for programming since code can be disassembled when the machine has been frozen or, if a crash was too nasty and has bottled the entire machine out, the busted code can be picked through after a reset.

 

3) Can you give me a name of a cartridge monitor that would work for the VIC-20 and C64?

 

For the C64, just about any freezer cartridge'll do as long as it's a later version but y'can't go wrong with an Action Replay 5 or 6 and if you can find one the Retro Replay is better still.

 

For the VIC i'm not aware of any freezers being developed (the VIC's commercial lifespan ended before they started cropping up on the C64) so it's either a matter of using Commodore's own Machine Language Monitor Cartridge (product VIC-1213, i've got one in front of me) or something in software for an expanded machine.

 

4) Could you tell me in simple terms what the uIEC does for me

 

It pretends to be a floppy drive so programs can be loaded from an SD card.

 

the EasyFlash does for me

 

Runs specially formatted cartridge images; there's more being released all the time and the recent C64 version of Prince of Persia requires an Easyflash to run.

 

and what an Action Replay does.

 

As above. =-)

[JohnnyRockets]

Thanks to all!

 

TMR, as usual you ROCK and your knowledge is beyond compare! Thanks so much!

 

 

JR

[JohnnyRockets]

Okay, nothing but questions here.

 

1) VICE does have a built in MLM? How do you invoke it?

 

It does and Alt/M in that order with X and enter in the monitor closing it and restarting the emulation.

 

2) What is a freezer cartridge?

 

Most of them are multi-purpose utility cartridges with the ability to freeze a program whilst it's running, make a note of everything needed to restart the program at the point it halted, compress the entire RAM and dump it out to disk or tape to be reloaded later on. Mostly they were used as fastload cartridges and to pirate games but they're also excellent for programming since code can be disassembled when the machine has been frozen or, if a crash was too nasty and has bottled the entire machine out, the busted code can be picked through after a reset.

 

3) Can you give me a name of a cartridge monitor that would work for the VIC-20 and C64?

 

For the C64, just about any freezer cartridge'll do as long as it's a later version but y'can't go wrong with an Action Replay 5 or 6 and if you can find one the Retro Replay is better still.

 

For the VIC i'm not aware of any freezers being developed (the VIC's commercial lifespan ended before they started cropping up on the C64) so it's either a matter of using Commodore's own Machine Language Monitor Cartridge (product VIC-1213, i've got one in front of me) or something in software for an expanded machine.

 

4) Could you tell me in simple terms what the uIEC does for me

 

It pretends to be a floppy drive so programs can be loaded from an SD card.

 

the EasyFlash does for me

 

Runs specially formatted cartridge images; there's more being released all the time and the recent C64 version of Prince of Persia requires an Easyflash to run.

 

and what an Action Replay does.

 

As above. =-)

 

Is VICE's built in MLM a good one, or would you recommend a different one?

[Rybags]

An emulator's Monitor will almost always be "better" than one running inside the machine due to zero footprint and ability to halt the action any time.

 

There's also an ICU64 plugin for Vice, not as powerful as the one for Frodo but it lets you view graphics/sprite/character data while the emulation is running

[TMR]

Is VICE's built in MLM a good one, or would you recommend a different one?

 

The pros are the lack of memory footprint Rybags mentions, the ability to disassemble illegal opcodes and that it's a perfect freeze (some demo code just can't be frozen into with a cartridge without it not being able to restart and there are protections against freezing on some commercial games) but i personally don't find it particularly comfortable to actually use so if i need a debugging tool i'll mount an Action Replay 6 image in the emulator.

[JohnnyRockets]

OK, cool, well I'll just use VICE's until I run up against some hard limitation with it.

 

Thanks guys!

[JohnnyRockets]

Just scored a C64! Woo-hoo!

 

With a disk drive. But I might sell the DD and go for the uIEC solution.

 

The DD seems like a pain in the rear.

[Hatta]

Keep the disk drive just in case. The uIEC is a fairly high level drive emulation, and you may find software that won't run from it. Mostly copy protected games, but who knows what you might run in to. Always best to test your programs on real hardware too. You won't get much money for a 1541 anyway.

[JohnnyRockets]

Okay, good point Hatta. I'll hold onto it and see if it doesn't come in handy at some point.

 

JR

[TMR]

The uIEC is a fairly high level drive emulation, and you may find software that won't run from it. Mostly copy protected games, but who knows what you might run in to.

 

uIEC is based on the SD2IEC firmware so, essentially, if VICE doesn't load it with True Drive Emulation disabled you can be fairly sure it'll cough on an SD2IEC-based solution. The problem is that it doesn't emulate the drive CPU or RAM so any fastloader taking advantage of those features (which is a significant number of demos and trackmos and quite a few cracked games for one reason or another) is going to be borked. Running an uncracked image isn't viable because the firmware doesn't support the G64 format which is used to preserve the protection.

 

T'be honest, i'm relatively sure that even the Action Replay fastloader doesn't work with an SD2IEC so an OFF command'll be needed after each reset to disable it (that's what's needed to access the PC's file system if True Drive is off in WinVICE). Since the commands to navigate between directories and so forth can be issued more quickly with the Action Replay's DOS wedge it's worth having one present even if the loader has to be killed.

Edited June 12, 2012 by TMR