HOME AUTOMATION Posted April 19, 2022 Share Posted April 19, 2022 2 hours ago, speccery said: 3. Reinsert the cartridge (5 seconds) You need practice! ...I can switch carts fast enough that the console never resets ...I'd estimate <1/15th. sec. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted April 19, 2022 Author Share Posted April 19, 2022 59 minutes ago, HOME AUTOMATION said: You need practice! ...I can switch carts fast enough that the console never resets ...I'd estimate <1/15th. sec. Well that's plenty fast! In my defence I should not have called it a "cartridge" but rather a "circuit board" since I'm not using a case 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted April 20, 2022 Share Posted April 20, 2022 Most of my questions have been answered in the wiki, here: ? I can save to STRANGE.L - but consistently when I try to call run, I get one line down and a return to the command prompt. I thought I would be clever and use the strange cart in a widget, that didn't work out - the cart wasn't seen at all. The menu is seen reliably: call cart is sort of intermittent: FWIW - this console works well with a number of different final groms. The only cartridge I've had problems with intermittent issue on any of my consoles is Super Extended Basic (triton). The next step is to try this in another console. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted April 20, 2022 Author Share Posted April 20, 2022 (edited) 6 hours ago, dhe said: Most of my questions have been answered in the wiki, here: ? Thanks @dhe for taking the time to test the board. Sorry to see that there have been issues, but it's a prototype, so not surprising. The documentation you point to above would most likely not help with what you're seeing now. I hope we can work through the problems you're experiencing here. It's good that you posted the pictures here, because this helps me to see what might be wrong. It's very likely the source is bad connection to the cartridge port. Did you put the board into a cartridge case? The reason why I'm asking that is that I suspect the edge connector on the board might be about 1mm too short. It indeed might be strange to try the board without a case, but I've been doing that pretty much all the time due to debugging needs. If the connector is slightly too short, that may help to overcome that problem. It's good that SAVE STRANGE.L worked. That is implemented in GPL completely, no machine code. The reason why that's interesting is that boards only supporting GPL can be single sided, meaning all the required connections are on one side of the edge connector (I forget if its bottom or top part). Thus if that side has a solid connection, the aforementioned SAVE command would work. However, doing CALL RUN starts a whole lot of machinery, and everything needs a proper connection for that to work. It looks like your test program uses an INPUT statement. In addition to disk access commands, that's one of the very few things (fingers crossed) which is not wholly implemented. Sorry about that, I will implement it fully at some point. So please try without the INPUT statement. A good test is a FOR NEXT loop with a print of the index. What about other cartridge images, do they work? If after power up you push the next cartridge button six times and then reset TI with the leftmost button, can you get to to Parsec? The Parsec cartridge header would come from GROM, so you should see that. If you get to the main gameplay screen, then full ROM bus would also work. Edit: if you continue to have problems, we can also take a Zoom call to discuss. It will be a bit of a challenge to find a time slot which would work for both of us due to the time zone difference, but something to keep in mind. Edited April 20, 2022 by speccery 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted April 22, 2022 Author Share Posted April 22, 2022 It occurred to me that if this is a typical problem scenario, i.e. somehow seemingly bad connection (or something) but GPL software seems to work, I can actually write a selftest program in GPL to check that all address lines work. For GPL to work the data lines already have to work. This seems like low hanging fruit and not a lot of effort. I will also make another revision of the PCB to fix this for good, but it would be nice to first know for sure that the problem is the edge connector. Unfortunately I am traveling for the upcoming week so this has to wait for a bit. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted April 22, 2022 Share Posted April 22, 2022 I can actually write a selftest program in GPL to check that all address lines work. That's a great idea. The beauty of TIPI and StrangeCart is you actually have two devices you can ask - how much of that conversation did you see! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted April 22, 2022 Share Posted April 22, 2022 Another console tried, same random results, before use cleaned contacts with ipa. Good news is - mini mem still appears - appears to be rock solid, and this on a v2 console. I think I will wait for an updated image with some diags and try again. Q: - Can you send me a link to a display that should work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted April 23, 2022 Author Share Posted April 23, 2022 19 hours ago, dhe said: Another console tried, same random results, before use cleaned contacts with ipa. Good news is - mini mem still appears - appears to be rock solid, and this on a v2 console. I think I will wait for an updated image with some diags and try again. Q: - Can you send me a link to a display that should work? Thanks - when you say mini mem still appears you mean the behaviour is identical on your two systems? If you want to check a bit more to make sure that GPL only code works, cartridge image #7 is Car Wars, which is a GPL only cartridge. Have you tried to connect a serial terminal to the USB port? If get that going there would be more debug information available. As documented here on GitHub you can with a serial terminal issue dir to list cartridge images and load Car Wars with load 7. Once that's done, reset the TI and you should be able run Car Wars. You can also get there by pressing the next cartridge button 7 times, without using serial connection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted April 23, 2022 Share Posted April 23, 2022 Both consoles showed the same behavior - using only the circuit board, no case. Would a Cisco Console cable work with the Cisco Driver? https://community.cisco.com/t5/cisco-software-discussions/usb-console-cable/td-p/3952600 or will I need: 1) USB to RS232 cable. 2) Female to Female DB9 adapter. 3) RS232 to MicroUSB driver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted April 23, 2022 Author Share Posted April 23, 2022 @dhe you only need the micro USB cable. The StrangeCart itself has serial port support over USB (CDC class device). On Windows you may need an INF file, which I would need to find or create. I have used the USB CDC connection on Mac and Linux, which do not need any drivers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted April 23, 2022 Share Posted April 23, 2022 Is this the kind of thing, I'm looking at: https://www.xmos.ai/download/AN00124:-USB-CDC-Class-as-Virtual-Serial-Port(2.0.2rc1).pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted April 23, 2022 Author Share Posted April 23, 2022 3 minutes ago, dhe said: Is this the kind of thing, I'm looking at: https://www.xmos.ai/download/AN00124:-USB-CDC-Class-as-Virtual-Serial-Port(2.0.2rc1).pdf Yes similar. In fact the LPC54114 MCU has a boot ROM (in addition to the Flash ROM) and the ROM has drivers for certain things, including CDC class. With macOS or Linux, if you just plug-in a USB cable, the StrangeCart shows up as a serial port and any terminal program should work with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted April 23, 2022 Share Posted April 23, 2022 Thanks, I'll get a cable on order. Sorry for being the slow learner here, up until I read that documented, I didn't know about serial support (emulation) over USB. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMole Posted April 23, 2022 Share Posted April 23, 2022 Just to be clear, you can use any old USB-A to micro-USB cable that you probably already have laying around from an old Android phone or some other usb-powered device. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted April 24, 2022 Author Share Posted April 24, 2022 @dhe and everyone else interested, I added a new piece of documentation to the wiki to guide how the firmware is updated. 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted May 1, 2022 Author Share Posted May 1, 2022 (edited) I uploaded three new versions of the firmware and explained what do with them here. That's in the wiki at github. Hopefully this is useful and enables @dhe to get something running or at least produces new results to work with. Please let me know how it goes. A necessary prerequisite is to flash the firmware, so please check that area of the Wiki as well. For me the A and C versions work well. The A version runs at 96MHz while C at 150MHz. The new startup menu enables some features to run some diagnostics as well directly load Parsec without pushing any of the buttons on the board. Edited May 1, 2022 by speccery 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted May 1, 2022 Share Posted May 1, 2022 My cable came in yesterday. Next weekend I'll try to get it setup so I can upload, and post my adventure. ? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted May 1, 2022 Share Posted May 1, 2022 Hum... Stopper. The wiki says: "a cable with micro USB connector" I didn't know that there are two micro USB spec.... {la. sigh} The more common micro USB B cable - and the very much more rare, micro USB A cable - So far, the only place I've been able to google up with the micro USB A cable is spark fun. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11604 If anyone knows how to get amazon to produce a real micro USB A cable, please let me know here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted May 2, 2022 Author Share Posted May 2, 2022 3 hours ago, dhe said: Hum... Stopper. The wiki says: "a cable with micro USB connector" I didn't know that there are two micro USB spec.... {la. sigh} The more common micro USB B cable - and the very much more rare, micro USB A cable - So far, the only place I've been able to google up with the micro USB A cable is spark fun. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11604 If anyone knows how to get amazon to produce a real micro USB A cable, please let me know here. The common cable type is the one to use. the one you have pictured micro USB B cable looks like my cables. I don’t think I have ever seen the rare type you mention. I have used at least a dozen different cables. Basically any micro USB cable I have had for other devices has worked fine (except some cables for power banks which do not have the data lines as they’re intended for charging only). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted May 2, 2022 Author Share Posted May 2, 2022 @dhe here are pictures of two cables I have used just now to test. Literally your garden variety USB cable with micro USB at the other end should work fine. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted May 3, 2022 Author Share Posted May 3, 2022 I tested firmware update from Windows using my old Windows 10 laptop. It was very straightforward and simple, just boot into firmware update mode, delete firmware.bin from the drive which appeared, and then drag and drop the new firmware file into the drive. Finally eject the drive, and its all done. I also tested the virtual COM port access from Windows, at least on my PC this worked immediately, the StrangeCart appeared as COM3 and I was able to use TeraTerm to communicate with the firmware. I don't remember if I have installed a .INF file sometime in the past, as I have not used this PC for a few years... 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted May 3, 2022 Share Posted May 3, 2022 I found a cable I had, like the top (black plug) - it took more force then I was comfortable apply, but got it in. I also ordered what I think should be a perfect fit (red sparkfun). This weekend - I will use one or the other and try to get a windows machine connected. I also received today a beautiful case for the strangecart in the mail! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted May 4, 2022 Share Posted May 4, 2022 If I missed it in the wiki, my apologies... Can the strangecart be programmed with just the usb cable connected, or does it need to be plugged in to the TI and powered on while programmed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted May 4, 2022 Author Share Posted May 4, 2022 6 hours ago, dhe said: If I missed it in the wiki, my apologies... Can the strangecart be programmed with just the usb cable connected, or does it need to be plugged in to the TI and powered on while programmed? No worries, it is described here in the wiki like this: The board can be powered by the TI-99/4A computer or by the USB connector. It's ok to be powered by both sources simultaneously, the board has diodes which support this. Note that if the board is inserted into the computer it will still get power through the USB cable even when power is turned off. This is fine. So you can program it just with the cable, no need to plug it in. I today modified a cartridge case and installed the StrangeCart in there, still need to drill holes for buttons and LEDs. The board did work even in the case. I tested with firmware version C. But it seems a bit sensitive to the connection, I had to insert it a few times. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted May 4, 2022 Author Share Posted May 4, 2022 I modded a standard cartridge case for the StrangeCart. A quick and dirty job for sure. I can't believe how dusty my computer looks like in this picture, please try to ignore that fact... Running firmware C, i.e. the 150MHz version, the version I released at GitHub doc project. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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