Upcoming Jaguar Game Drive Cartridge

[SainT]

How come people don't use the GCC suite including linker for the Jag? I'm not sure why RLN is needed when we have LD (and yes, I have added the RISC word swap relocation to LD), but RMAC is essential of course. Is there something I'm missing?

[Stage_1_Boss]

Features?

[SainT]

How come people don't use the GCC suite including linker for the Jag? I'm not sure why RLN is needed when we have LD (and yes, I have added the RISC word swap relocation to LD), but RMAC is essential of course. Is there something I'm missing?

 

The only issue I can see, which is irritating, is that the a.out versions of GCC using the BSD object format don't have the ability to specify an alignment for a segment. This largely doesn't matter as any specific variables which need phrase alignment etc... are likely to be handled by assembler code anyway. But its still irritating. If you have any q/d/phrase alignment in a source file it should be respected by the segment.

 

As RMAC supports ELF it would probably be better to switch to the ELF build of GCC... I think I'll give that a try soon. Although, I do have a working GCC toolchain! So that's a start.

[Zerosquare]

I'm not sure why RLN is needed when we have LD

RLN is lightweight, simple, and backwards compatible with ALN (which has been used since the very beginning of Jaguar homebrew development, 20 years ago). Unless you're using the GCC compiler, what would be the point of switching to ld?

 

As for using GCC itself - some people do/did, but it never got much traction. One reason is that it can't generate code for the GPU and the DSP. The other reason is that older developers didn't mind having to use assembler that much, and now those who prefer easier tools can use rB+.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Zerosquare

[SainT]

Ok, I'm happy now. I have m68k-unknown-elf built with an added R_68K_JAG_RISC relocation for the word swap. I've modified RMAC to output R_68K_JAG_RISC for the specific RISC relocations and LD picks this up correctly. RMAC has also been modified to record the largest alignment during compilation for each section and output this correctly in the ELF section header, which is how it should be done. This results in a nice stable toolchain which always aligns correctly -- I had lots of weird crashes initially due to misaligned data, which took me a while to realise.

 

To be fair, I'm not sure if this is any better than GCC / RMAC / VLINK, however I know if I want to use libraries or anything else the GCC bintools can offer, it's all there.

 

Well that was a fun aside while waiting for the new PCB's to arrive, I've been meaning to do that for ages.

[+Saturn]

You rock. Just know I'm setting aside stupid amounts of money for when this is released

[+atari2600land]

I want one. I can't wait to see what my game looks like on a real Jaguar.

[LianneJaguar64]

In just to play Battlesphere XD

[Krip316]

Don't start people! There is no list as clearly stated in the first post, "There are no pre-order lists or anything like that, and I will ask for posts relating to this to be removed as it's just way too early. However if anyone wants to ask any questions, or if I have any progress updates, this thread is a good place for them."

 

Some of us get notifications and don't need you blowing up our phones/computers because you failed to read the first post.

[+atari2600land]

I know, sorry. I guess my last post could have been taken as though I'd like to buy one, but I know it's not ready yet.

[Krip316]

I know, sorry. I guess my last post could have been taken as though I'd like to buy one, but I know it's not ready yet.

It's all good. It's just once somebody posts that, then there's a billion followers who frankly don't care. I just wanted to stop it before it got outta hand.

[moggsie]

All good stuff SainT. Take your time though. I need to raise money for this and the NeoGeo SD cart.

 

This hobby isn't for the light of wallet.

[SainT]

Hurrah, new PCB's received and have built one up enough to boot from the flash again. Yay, I'm back to where I was, but this time with no bodge wires!

 

Now though hopefully I'll be able to get much further. More updates soon.

[falconsfan79]

Hurrah, new PCB's received and have built one up enough to boot from the flash again. Yay, I'm back to where I was, but this time with no bodge wires!

 

Now though hopefully I'll be able to get much further. More updates soon.

Nice to hear Saint... looking forward to hearing more. Keep up the great work.

[Glen's Retro Show]

Awesome Saint

[XC-3730C]

I'm looking forward to this. My Jaguar + JagCD needs some love!

[Hastor]

I'm looking forward to this. My Jaguar + JagCD needs some love!

 

If I understand what this cart will likely be able to do, your JagCD itself may never see love again (which means it will stay in working condition for much longer).

I never had a JagCD, so I'm hoping this will open that world up to me as well.

[ccordial]

There is a project to make JagCD's run off cartridge memory, its not 100% but something like this will give it a place to shine.

Also +1 for interest. Great work Saint

[Bratwurst]

Will the circuitboard design be conducive to installing it inside of an injection molded Jaguar cartridge shell, or will it be exclusively made for / sold with a 3D printed case? With the cartridge shells available now, especially the clear ones and potentially other colors, I know what I'd prefer, even if I had to cut out a slot for the SD card.

 

Also will it use SRAM or flash?

[JagChris]

Will the circuitboard design be conducive to installing it inside of an injection molded Jaguar cartridge shell, or will it be exclusively made for / sold with a 3D printed case? With the cartridge shells available now, especially the clear ones and potentially other colors, I know what I'd prefer, even if I had to cut out a slot for the SD card.

 

Also will it use SRAM or flash?

These questions answered earlier.

[Bratwurst]

These questions answered earlier.

 

Where? If you know the answers, why not reiterate them instead of expecting someone to wade through 28 pages of me-too posts?

Edited September 2, 2017 by Bratwurst

[The Yar]

 

Where? If you know the answers, why not reiterate them instead of expecting someone to wade through 28 pages of me-too posts?

My guess is because he/she had greater interest in this post/project than the person who can't be bothered to "wade through" previous posts. If you were as pumped about it as they were, you wouldn't complain about reading up on it. As it is, it is bothersome to get notifications of new posts only to find they are questions on things that have already been answered.

[grimm]

 

Where? If you know the answers, why not reiterate them instead of expecting someone to wade through 28 pages of me-too posts?

Sadly thats not how this subforum works.

[+CyranoJ]

Sadly thats not how this subforum works.

 

Because google. And search. And sorry for making this thread update again.

[Bratwurst]

My guess is because he/she had greater interest in this post/project than the person who can't be bothered to "wade through" previous posts. If you were as pumped about it as they were, you wouldn't complain about reading up on it. As it is, it is bothersome to get notifications of new posts only to find they are questions on things that have already been answered.

 

Amusing that you'd take umbrage with me asking a question that'd dredge latent info back to the surface, and not the monotony of people posting their enthusiasm without really contributing anything. If you're subbed to this thread that's the majority of the notifications you're getting bothered with. Not that I'm gonna discourage folk because it's an exciting product, just if I know something pertinent and someone asks, I'm generally not going to keep them in the dark.