Rick Dangerous Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Okay, I admit I've had my skunkboard for a few months now and have been procrastinating on setting it up. Finally today I plugged it into my Dell running windows 7 and fired it up along side the setup PDF. After much finagling, I FINALLY got windows to install the drivers and all seemed to be going well. I got the green screen, was able to load the little tech demo's, etc, etc. Here are my issues: 1. JCP won't load. I double click on the .exe file and a little black window opens for a split second and then disappears again. Anyone have this issue and any ideas for a solution? 2. How do you actually load games on this thing? When I turn on the jag a little icon pops up giving you the ability to disconnect the hardware safely, but there is no file that pops up among your libraries like a USB storage device would, to click and drag roms to. Do I have to load files via commands on JCP? That seems like a real pain in the ass... Overall my impression is that this thing really is for programmers, as it seems to be several steps higher in difficulty to use than your average USB cart on the market. It's also pretty annoying that you can't reset via the controller or exit the tech demos once you started running them. What am I missing or doing wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voodoo Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Jcp.exe is a DOS executable, and needs to be run from the command line with parameters (essentially telling it what you want to copy to the jag). No drag and drop my friend - old school command line all the way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masematte Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 (edited) Or used this gui http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=skunkboard See the installer in the middle of the page Edited January 4, 2015 by masematte Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted January 4, 2015 Author Share Posted January 4, 2015 Jcp.exe is a DOS executable, and needs to be run from the command line with parameters (essentially telling it what you want to copy to the jag). No drag and drop my friend - old school command line all the way Well my computer won't let me open it on windows 7. When I try to troubleshoot the compatibility issue, it keeps trying to set the program to "Windows XP Service Pack 2" parameters. I've tried a number of settings and it just won't open. Or used this gui http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=skunkboard See the installer in the middle of the page Downloading this now and keeping my fingers crossed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ggn Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Jcp.exe is a DOS executable, and needs to be run from the command line with parameters (essentially telling it what you want to copy to the jag). No drag and drop my friend - old school command line all the way Actually it's not a pure DOS application or we'd need silly things like DOSbox - it's a Windows console application which can be run under the command prompt. But sure, it does take command line parameters. Also, JiFFI can be used to upload binaries to Skunkboard as bjl files and ROM (even with bank selection!). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted January 4, 2015 Author Share Posted January 4, 2015 Or used this gui http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=skunkboard See the installer in the middle of the page Downloaded the wrong thing, missed the whole "see the installer in the middle of the page" part. Trying again now.. Actually it's not a pure DOS application or we'd need silly things like DOSbox - it's a Windows console application which can be run under the command prompt. But sure, it does take command line parameters. Also, JiFFI can be used to upload binaries to Skunkboard as bjl files and ROM (even with bank selection!). I figured it wasn't. Any reason it would crash in Windows 7? Any you can think of to get it running? What's JiFFI? (this is the "for idiots" thread after all) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masematte Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 http://reboot.atari.org/new-reboot/jiffi.html 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted January 4, 2015 Author Share Posted January 4, 2015 Success!!! I was able to load Bubble Bobble to slot 1 via the SkunkGUI program! I'm feeling good! I tried to load Rick Dangerous, but no luck. Is there something different about the ABS file type that I need to know? It seemed to write to slot 2 but then I just got a blank screen... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masematte Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Used jiffi to create a rom 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jungsi Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Success!!! I was able to load Bubble Bobble to slot 1 via the SkunkGUI program! I'm feeling good! I tried to load Rick Dangerous, but no luck. Is there something different about the ABS file type that I need to know? It seemed to write to slot 2 but then I just got a blank screen... Hmmm....where did you find these two files? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted January 4, 2015 Author Share Posted January 4, 2015 Hmmm....where did you find these two files? There is a thread right neat the top right now "So I was playing around with some binaries..." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted January 4, 2015 Author Share Posted January 4, 2015 JiFFI works great. Playing Roms like a champ now!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masematte Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Perfect !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Why are you all converting these .ABS files to .ROM and flashing them, wasting flash cycles? Just use JCP <name>.abs and send them to RAM. Don't waste flash cycles! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted January 5, 2015 Author Share Posted January 5, 2015 Why are you all converting these .ABS files to .ROM and flashing them, wasting flash cycles? Just use JCP <name>.abs and send them to RAM. Don't waste flash cycles! I'll come clean, its because i don't know what the hell i'm doing I can't get JCP working on my Windows 7 dell. The command prompt screen flashes for a second and then it disappears. Not attempts at troubleshoot have been fruitful so far. I've been using SkunkGUI to flash the roms to the slots on the skunk. I didn't know this was bad? Are there a limited amount of times I can flash? And whats that third 6mb slot about? Is that RAM? Any way I can do this properly with SkunkGUI until I can get JCP working? Here is the interface I see: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 I can't get JCP working on my Windows 7 dell. The command prompt screen flashes for a second and then it disappears. Not attempts at troubleshoot have been fruitful so far. It's a w32 command line app. It's supposed to do that. Open a command prompt in the folder you have JCP, and type JCP and it'll tell you what you've done wrong 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted January 5, 2015 Author Share Posted January 5, 2015 It's a w32 command line app. It's supposed to do that. Open a command prompt in the folder you have JCP, and type JCP and it'll tell you what you've done wrong It does the same thing when I open a command prompt in that folder and then try to run JCP.exe. It opens for a second and then disappears... Oh well.. Did you take a look at that GUI, could I save .ABS files to ram in the 6MB slot? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted January 5, 2015 Author Share Posted January 5, 2015 (edited) Finally got the Rick Dangerous ABS file to load to the 6mb slot on my skunk and play without flashing it. Mission success. But roms don't seem to want to go to ram for some reason, I have to flash them? Enlighten me as to what file types I don't have to flash and can send right to RAM; or have I got things wrong? Edited January 5, 2015 by travistouchdown Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ovalbugmann Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Yeah had the same problem with installing on Windows 7 - I dragged the skunk .dll file to the system32 folder and the syswow folder and made sure I'm using the command prompt correctly pointing from JCP to the jag file i wanted to load to the skunk, and walla! it worked! I also use the Skunk GUI as well sometimes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 ROMs don't go to RAM. ROMs need to be flashed. ABS/BIN/BJL/COF files can be loaded directly to RAM. There is no '6mb RAM slot' - that's a special mode for flashing 6mb ROM files split over both 4mb banks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Moss Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 It does the same thing when I open a command prompt in that folder and then try to run JCP.exe. It opens for a second and then disappears... Oh well.. Did you take a look at that GUI, could I save .ABS files to ram in the 6MB slot? Not sure if this will help but I placed my copy of JCP in the root directory of my D: partition (easy to remember) although I am sure you could put it on C: just as easily and have a shortcut to the Command window in my taskbar. It has been a while but as I recall when I want to flash a ROM to my skunk I open the Command window and type c:\ jcp -f Drive:\folder\filename.rom, hit return and it all happens, use -2f (or is it -f2) to flash to the second bank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isgoed Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Why are you all converting these .ABS files to .ROM and flashing them, wasting flash cycles? Just use JCP <name>.abs and send them to RAM. Don't waste flash cycles! I am probably asking a stupid question here, but can a device like the Skunkboard run out of cycles? It's easy for me to have the game/rom on the Skunk without having to start up my pc to transfer and play the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 I am probably asking a stupid question here, but can a device like the Skunkboard run out of cycles? All flash devices can run out of cycles. Ask the forgetful Mars Rover, Opportunity. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilly Willy Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 While flash roms should take 100,000 to 1,000,000 write cycles, remember that such figures are MTBF (mean time between failures). You could be one of the lucky few were it goes bad in 100 cycles! Aren't you the lucky one! If you don't plan to run the rom very often, run it from ram instead of flashing it to conserve write cycles. It PROBABLY won't be a problem, but better safe than sorry. Write to flash if you need to, or if you plan to run the rom a lot, but otherwise just load it BJL style! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 ROMs don't go to RAM. ROMs need to be flashed. ABS/BIN/BJL/COF files can be loaded directly to RAM. There is no '6mb RAM slot' - that's a special mode for flashing 6mb ROM files split over both 4mb banks. Okay this may be a dumb question (perfect thread for this then.) If you have to waste flash cycles with roms, why make anything a rom file at all, like was done recently with Rick Dangerous? Is this because ROM's can also be played on emulators such as virtual jaguar? Just flashed the finished Rick Dangerous to my skunk slot 2, as Jiffi wouldn't let me convert it back to any file I could send to RAM... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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