geneve 9640 lotz-o-games .hd for Geneve

[+hloberg]

I'm putting together a set of .HD files for the Geneve with lots & lots of tested software & docs. One thing I'm doing in those set is TI99 GAMES, about 60+ all ready to go & tested. Here's a partial list of the cartridge games (no order) all working on the Geneve: 4Aflyer, ambulance, frogger, pacman, pole position, driving demon, protector II, adventure (& all disk games), all Infocom (except LGOP), anteater, blasto, burgertime, car-wars, card sharp, chisom trail, donkey kong, henpecked, jungle hunt, micro surgeon, moon mine, munchman 2, othello, parsec, popeye, princess & frog, return to pirate isle, roto raider, schnozola, the attack, ti invaders, tunnels of doom (& disks), tombstone city, topper, video chess, hunt the wumpus, buck rogers, centipede, congo bongo, dig dug, hopper, ms pacman, qbert, milton bradly 4 game+demo cart & the Tomy Tutor games.

 

WHAT I haven't got to work but I have found are: munch mobile, defender, video games 1, star trek & moon patrol. for one reason or another they all blow up on the Geneve (and work on the TI99 COD).

 

And the notable cart games that I haven't that haven't found a Geneve version are: munchman, alpiner, bigfoot, fathom, hen house, hustle, MASH, miner 2049er, moon sweeper, picnic paranoia, rabbit trail, robotron, treasure isle & tutankhan. NOTE: I found that MYGPL can run a lot of the PC99 .GRM files. So if you have the PC99 .grm cart versions they might work.

 

SO if you know how to get the not-working list to work or have one of the games on the not-found list that be great. just add it to this post.

 

I run all the working games using MYGPL or in XB in MYGPL from a batch file. With the action games I usually have to do a F4 in MYGPL to slow to 1 or the games are too fast. Sure would be nice to have a command line switch in MYGPL to do the F4=1 in the batch so would not have to start the batch, shft+shft+ctrl to the MYGPL menu, do a F4=1, then back to the game. Have the same problem with EXEC. it runs the games way too & but it has no way to slow them therefore, not useful for TI99 games.

 

 

[+InsaneMultitasker]

22 minutes ago, hloberg said:

I run all the working games using MYGPL or in XB in MYGPL from a batch file. With the action games I usually have to do a F4 in MYGPL to slow to 1 or the games are too fast. Sure would be nice to have a command line switch in MYGPL to do the F4=1 in the batch so would not have to start the batch, shft+shft+ctrl to the MYGPL menu, do a F4=1, then back to the game. Have the same problem with EXEC. it runs the games way too & but it has no way to slow them therefore, not useful for TI99 games.

If you would be so kind, please send me a PM in a few weeks regarding this as there is some preliminary code is in place for what you are requesting but I haven't had much of a push to pursue its completion. 

 

The test code is set up to load  "GPL <cartridgefile> /#R"  for optional speed 1-5 and Rompage.  I intended to first implement this in PLAYE, the stripped down GPL I released a year or so ago; you might want to track that down and see if it has value for your effort. 

 

Looks like a good collection so far! 

[+hloberg]

59 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

If you would be so kind, please send me a PM in a few weeks regarding this as there is some preliminary code is in place for what you are requesting but I haven't had much of a push to pursue its completion. 

 

The test code is set up to load  "GPL <cartridgefile> /#R"  for optional speed 1-5 and Rompage.  I intended to first implement this in PLAYE, the stripped down GPL I released a year or so ago; you might want to track that down and see if it has value for your effort. 

 

Looks like a good collection so far! 

I have a copy of GAMEGPL that starts the cart directly without a menu. is that the same as PLAYE? I'm currently using MYGPL in the batch because I wasn't sure of the linage of GAMEGPL.

PS:  i'll try to remember to PM you in a month about the code. I'm very interested in that new change. You don't do EXEC too so you?

Also concerning the ROMPAGE. in what do you use that switch? I didn't find anything it changed in the stuff  was doing.

Edited September 19, 2021 by hloberg

[+InsaneMultitasker]

58 minutes ago, hloberg said:

I have a copy of GAMEGPL that starts the cart directly without a menu. is that the same as PLAYE? I'm currently using MYGPL in the batch because I wasn't sure of the linage of GAMEGPL.

PS:  i'll try to remember to PM you in a month about the code. I'm very interested in that new change. You don't do EXEC too so you?

Also concerning the ROMPAGE. in what do you use that switch? I didn't find anything it changed in the stuff  was doing

GAMEGPL doesn't sound familiar to me, though I could have named PLAYE something different and forgot  

 

EXEC requests memory in a slightly different manner because it doesn't require TIMODE, also, its GPL support is limited as it is intended for EA option 5 program files.  Is there something specific you were looking for with EXEC?

 

Rompage won't matter for most games; it is used to access the peripheral bus directly and is only useful for a handful of programs. For your collection, the speed option will be the one of use and the R can be ignored

[+hloberg]

51 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

 

EXEC requests memory in a slightly different manner because it doesn't require TIMODE, also, its GPL support is limited as it is intended for EA option 5 program files.  Is there something specific you were looking for with EXEC?

 

The problem with TI99 action games on the Geneve is that the Geneve is like 5 times faster. So playing a game that use EA5,  Buck Rogers for one & a few others, almost becomes unplayable from the start in EXEC. So a way to throttle EXEC would be needed to slow them down. I currently have a work around of running them in XB2.7 and using it's MLOAD command. XB2.7 can be throttled using MYGPL. Anyway, this is just a nice-to-have, a throttled EXEC, since I do have a work around but running the games straight from the MDOS would be more elegant.

[+InsaneMultitasker]

7 minutes ago, hloberg said:

The problem with TI99 action games on the Geneve is that the Geneve is like 5 times faster. So playing a game that use EA5,  Buck Rogers for one & a few others, almost becomes unplayable from the start in EXEC. So a way to throttle EXEC would be needed to slow them down. I currently have a work around of running them in XB2.7 and using it's MLOAD command. XB2.7 can be throttled using MYGPL. Anyway, this is just a nice-to-have, a throttled EXEC, since I do have a work around but running the games straight from the MDOS would be more elegant.

Ah, yes, now I understand.  Mention this as well in a month.  I will need to look more closely at EXEC before I can say if this is do-able, but it certainly is possible.

[+hloberg]

2 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

Ah, yes, now I understand.  Mention this as well in a month.  I will need to look more closely at EXEC before I can say if this is do-able, but it certainly is possible.

will do. also, i'm on the Heatwave BBS right now playing Troll's lair. ?

[+mizapf]

These cartridges are dumps of my own cartridges, and I am quite sure they work on the real iron (not tested right now, but I would not have kept them otherwise).

games.dsk

[+hloberg]

21 hours ago, mizapf said:

These cartridges are dumps of my own cartridges, and I am quite sure they work on the real iron (not tested right now, but I would not have kept them otherwise).

games.dsk 360 kB · 8 downloads

added except Defender. Not sure why but all versions of Defender I try just go in a loop of blowing up the main ship. I'm looking into it to see if it's something I have setup different.

FYI: you wouldn't happen to have Moon Patrol or Star Trek?

Edited September 21, 2021 by hloberg

[+hloberg]

here is a beta, no documentation, just some games, utilities and such. modify the .batch file to find the OS7 & FDRIVE .HD files. I'm still going to add more games that work and stuff.

 

geneve-beta.zip

[globeron]

@hloberg  Nice work on the .HD setup!

 

Below the disks are in nanopeb format (1400), use Fred Kaals, TIDIR to see content and copy to normal disk format like 720kb.

 

It looks like GRAM dsk are in the format for the Geneve (I have had no time to test it yet),  but GRAM-S1 has Star Trek on it.

and GRAM-M1 has Moon Patrol on it.   This is part of my disk collection of the '80s in digital format. I still have all the floppy disks. 

 

0064-Adventure-Cutthroats.dsk0063-Games-Workdisk-Titris.dsk0062-Waterworks.dsk0061-TI-Casino.dsk0060-TI-Pei.dsk0059-XBGAME-RAMSES.dsk0345-GRAM-S1.dsk0344-GRAM-R2.dsk0343-GRAM-R1.dsk0342-GRAM-P4-Q1.dsk0341-GRAM-P3.dsk0340-GRAM-P2.dsk0339-GRAM-P1.dsk0338-GRAM-NO1.dsk0337-GRAM-M3.dsk0336-GRAM-M2.dsk0335-GRAM-M1.dsk0334-GRAM-IJKL1.dsk0333-GRAM-H1.dsk0332-GRAM-G1.dsk0331-GRAM-F1.dsk0330-GRAM-E2.dsk0329-GRAM-E1.dsk0328-GRAM-D3.dsk0327-GRAM-D2.dsk0326-GRAM-D1.dsk0325-GRAM-C2.dsk0324-GRAM-C1.dsk0323-GRAM-B1.dsk0322-GRAM-A2.dsk0058-Pitfall.dsk0321-GRAM-A1.dsk0311-GramCardLoaders.dsk0310-GCARD-GramCardSystem.dsk0057-MicroSoft-Adventure.dskGC.dsk0357-GRAM-LIST.dsk0056-MRCHIN.dsk0356-GRAM-EAs.dsk0355-GRAM-XYZ1.dsk0055-LightYearGraphicDemoParsecLike.dsk0354-GRAM-W1.dsk0353-GRAM-V1.dsk0054-Adventure-LeatherGoddesses.dsk0352-GRAM-T4.dsk0351-GRAM-T3.dsk0053-TI-Keno.dsk0350-GRAM-T2.dsk0052-AdventuresManual.dsk0349-GRAM-T1.dsk0348-GRAM-S4.dsk0347-GRAM-S3.dsk0346-GRAM-S2.dsk

 

0051-Adventure-Suspended.dsk

0050-ASS-EDU-GAMES.dsk0049-TETRIS.dsk0048-TI-Runner.dsk0047-TP99-Othello.dsk0046-Titanium.dsk0045-Sports.dsk0044-Sabrewulf.dsk0043-FlappyBird.dsk0042-RoadHunter.dsk0041-TI-Scramble.dsk0040-TunnelsOfDoomEditor.dsk0039-TunnelsOfDoom01.dsk0038-TunnelsOfDoom.dsk0037-AdvZork02.dsk0036-AdvZork01-comment.dsk0036-AdvZork01.dsk0035-AdvEnchanted.dsk0034-AdventureDisks02.dsk0033-AdventureDisks01.dsk0032-AdventureModule.dsk0031-PirateAdventure2-comment.dsk0031-PirateAdventure2.dsk0030-Assembler20.dsk0029-Assembler19.dsk0028-Assembler18.dsk0027-Assembler17.dsk0026-Assembler16-comment.dsk0026-Assembler16.dsk0025-Assembler15-comment.dsk0025-Assembler15.dsk0024-Assembler14.dsk0023-Assembler13-comment.dsk0023-Assembler13.dsk0022-Assembler12.dsk0021-Assembler11-comment.dsk0021-Assembler11.dsk0020-Assembler10-comment.dsk0020-Assembler10.dsk0019-Assembler09-comment.dsk0019-Assembler09.dsk0018-Assembler08-comment.dsk0018-Assembler08.dsk0017-Assembler07-comment.dsk0017-Assembler07.dsk0016-Assembler06.dsk0015-Assembler05.dsk0014-Assembler04-comment.dsk0014-Assembler04.dsk0013-Assembler03.dsk0012-Assembler02.dsk0011-Assembler01-comment.dsk0011-Assembler01.dsk

[globeron]

13 hours ago, hloberg said:

added except Defender. Not sure why but all versions of Defender I try just go in a loop of blowing up the main ship. I'm looking into it to see if it's something I have setup different.

FYI: you wouldn't happen to have Moon Patrol or Star Trek?

 

Maybe also try with GPL 6.50   and GPL 7.3  and MyGPL   (and with &TIM and &TIM2 for TIMODE),  there might be differences.

(F5 w/Rompage, I always forget what it exactly does). 

 

Tested:

* Star Trek, stopped at Sector 1.2 (might have to do with my Rave99/Speech adapter)

* MoonPatrol -- Enter does not work, Joystick button works to start the game, but graphics of sprites are off and pressing fire

   back to MoonPatrol start screen ?

 

* (not sure if I have a gram file) - Defender tried to load it via EA option 5  does not work.

 

 

 

[+hloberg]

9 minutes ago, globeron said:

 

Maybe also try with GPL 6.50   and GPL 7.3  and MyGPL   (and with &TIM and &TIM2 for TIMODE),  there might be differences.

(F5 w/Rompage, I always forget what it exactly does). 

 

Tested:

* Star Trek, stopped at Sector 1.2 (might have to do with my Rave99/Speech adapter)

* MoonPatrol -- Enter does not work, Joystick button works to start the game, but graphics of sprites are off and pressing fire

   back to MoonPatrol start screen ?

 

* (not sure if I have a gram file) - Defender tried to load it via EA option 5  does not work.

 

 

 

I'll play more with Star Trek. but so far, so good.

I have messed with Moon Patrol multiple ways on the Geneve and it just won't work. Works fine on the TI-99. my guess is they used some illegal opcode that the real iron is fine with but the Geneve emulation doesn't know what to do with. I also have the same issues with Defender too. seems to be with the keyboard reads?  any thoughts @InsaneMultitasker or @9640News on what might be? 

anyway, so far only around 10% of the carts I tried won't run due to errors. not bad considering.

Oh, and thanks for all the games. I found some more missing games to check out like MASH .

Next big challenge is the disk games. a lot will only run off DSK1. so can't be installed on the .HD easily.

but my goal wasn't to get every piece of software from the TI99 to run on the Geneve. Just enough to make it a more useful.

 

[+Ksarul]

I seem to remember that there were published fixes for Defender, Moon Patrol, and Q-Bert when using 9938-based video chips.

[+hloberg]

1 hour ago, Ksarul said:

I seem to remember that there were published fixes for Defender, Moon Patrol, and Q-Bert when using 9938-based video chips.

really? q-bert seems to be working but not defender & moon patrol. I'll look over the old 9640 News stuff see if something was mentioned there.

[+mizapf]

Defender is working for me, on both real iron and MAME.

 

However, I have to play with Joysticks, not with the keyboard. When you press some key, you teleport away to a different location, and it may happen that you jump right into an alien ship. Maybe Defender uses direct CRU keyboard scan, not the keyscan routine. Note that games using direct CRU access for the keyboard won't work.

[+hloberg]

18 minutes ago, mizapf said:

Defender is working for me, on both real iron and MAME.

 

However, I have to play with Joysticks, not with the keyboard. When you press some key, you teleport away to a different location, and it may happen that you jump right into an alien ship. Maybe Defender uses direct CRU keyboard scan, not the keyscan routine. Note that games using direct CRU access for the keyboard won't work.

willing to bet moon patrol uses the same keyboard scan technique as defender. both were Atarisoft. from what I understand the games also crash on a real Geneve too?

speaking of keyboards/joysticks & Atarisoft, Ms Pacman uses Joystick 2 as default (and I think Frogger too). I just mapped both joysticks in MAME to the same keys and that seems to solve that problem.

Edited September 22, 2021 by hloberg

[+mizapf]

If you suspect invalid opcodes, you can run MAME with -oslog or -log, logging messages to the console or to error.log, respectively. Bad opcodes are always reported, no need to recompile.

[+hloberg]

2 hours ago, mizapf said:

If you suspect invalid opcodes, you can run MAME with -oslog or -log, logging messages to the console or to error.log, respectively. Bad opcodes are always reported, no need to recompile.

i'll try that. thx.

[+mizapf]

3 hours ago, hloberg said:

willing to bet moon patrol uses the same keyboard scan technique as defender. both were Atarisoft. from what I understand the games also crash on a real Geneve too?

Defender is running on both emulation and real Geneve.

 

As for Moon Patrol, I don't get past the "PRESS ENTER" screen, but this is obviously due to direct CRU scanning. In that sense, Moon Patrol does not crash either, but it gets stuck in the entry screen.

 

6A98:     SETO R1
6A9A:     LI   R0,>0003
6A9E:     LI   R12,>0024
6AA2:     CLR  R2
6AA4:     MOVB *R11+,R2
6AA6:     CI   R2,>0600
6AAA:     JNE  >6ABC
6AAC:     SWPB R2
6AAE:     MOVB @>830C,R2
6AB2:     CI   R2,>0200
6AB6:     JLT  >6ABA
6AB8:     INC  R2
6ABA:     SWPB R2
6ABC:     LDCR R2,3
6ABE:     MOVB *R11+,R12
6AC0:     SRL  R12,8
6AC2:     JEQ  >6AD0
6AC4:     CLR  R2
6AC6:     STCR R2,1
6AC8:     JNE  >6ACC
6ACA:     CLR  R1
6ACC:     DEC  R0
6ACE:     JNE  >6A9E
6AD0:     MOV  R1,R1
6AD2:     RT  

 

0024 is the address for setting the keyboard row. The three bits of the row are set in 6abc, the column is checked in 6ac6 and 6ac8. The Geneve executes this portion of code repeatedly; it will certainly fail its purpose because the keyboard is not connected to the 9901.

 

If you are interested, launch MAME with -debug to see what happens.

[+hloberg]

39 minutes ago, mizapf said:

Defender is running on both emulation and real Geneve.

 

not sure what you mean by that? are you saying you got Defender to run correctly without blowing up?

[+mizapf]

I think I'm not able to formulate it less ambiguously. ?

 

[+hloberg]

drop me that Defender file. i want to try it so I can have a known working benchmark & maybe I can figure out what I'm doing different.

[+mizapf]

On the disk image that I posted above.

 

Let me guess: You defined the Joystick as keys on the keyboard (like 8_PAD for "P1 up") but you did not disable the setting for the key "KP 8". In this case, every time you press keypad 8 for up, you will also send the key to the emulated keyboard, and this makes you teleport somewhere else.

 

I was using a real joystick with a joystick-USB adapter, as I already mentioned above.

[+mizapf]

13 hours ago, hloberg said:

Next big challenge is the disk games. a lot will only run off DSK1. so can't be installed on the .HD easily.

If you use the HFDC (real or on the MAME Geneve emulation), you can put the files in the E:\DSK1 directory (or whatever drive letter you use). File searches on DSK1. will start in E:\DSK1 before falling back to the drive DSK1.