TOD files on FG99

[blackbox]

My PC has failed (this posted on borrowed pc!) and with local lock down in place it is time to look at the TI99/4a tasks.

First up- running TOD from FG99 without disk or cassette. My son has been working hard coding for me, and we have it working in emulator (v9t9) but the real ironware is causing problems.

First job done- amended the TOD bin by adding an autoloader so that todg.bin would load todc.bin and move it into vdp - this uses the normal TI Files data files for Tunnels of Doom, no problem, even though my v9t9 required the todc.bin to be split into two smaller files (8k limit). The new autoloader has to do a bank switch- it loads the first 8k of data, switches banks and then loads the rest. This all works with emulator. (Two bank switching methods tried and both run with v9t9).

With real iron and fg99 I am getting what is apparently vdp screen corruption, ultimately crashing - unfortunately the way that TOD moves data around is very complex.

So- what differences could there be between emulator and fg99? Any pointers on what to look at? It is of course on fg99 that I need this to work- then we can have pairs of bin files for each adventure. The save to disk and tape is still available. I have run the fg99 memory tests and they are all ok.

Sample files for Pennies attached to have a look at.

s

PENNIESC.BIN PENNIESG.BIN

Edited August 16, 2020 by blackbox

[HOME AUTOMATION]

I got to the first dungeon on the FG99. Curiously, I had problems on Classic 99...

 

 

music never stops playing... 

...never stops digging floor.

 

I used "1" for all options.

[+jedimatt42]

If you are not doing so, you should bank switch before accessing the first bank. Physical hardware doesn't guarantee bank state on powerup.

[blackbox]

Thanks Jedimatt42. yes there is an explicit bank switch before the first access.   Here are some files to look at- my son has prepared a readme file which explains what we are doing and includes gpl code, plus a couple more files Quest of the King. the C and G files.  These are in the order that fg99 requires.

The menu item which fg99 uses to place the module name on screen has been moved slightly to allow easier renaming of each adventure pair, so that each can have a different menu entry- this requires a hex editor on the G file.  Take a look at the code and notes and see if we are doing something incorrectly.

It may be worth mentioning that we have tried with and without speech synth and with and without 32k ram. There is NO disk system attached. The fg99 OS menu is headed v1 (c)2017.

Have fun and please note the G bin files are amended and at present unstable!

s

 

 

README.TXT QUESTC.BIN QUESTG.BIN

Edited August 16, 2020 by blackbox