Symmetry of TNG #1 Posted October 18, 2003 Would rely appreciate some hints/tips regarding a mysterious Alpine board a friend of mine bought some time ago. It's a 2Mb alpine, with a 24MHz clock. At first glance it appears to be ok, but when trying to run some of the CD included roms none of the will run. The one rom I had been looking forward to see, PhazeZero also does not run, though it appears to do so, menu and all runs, but after “enter mission”, when the “drawn ship” appears (red flashing stuff) there is a adress error. Always at the exact same place. SuperCross3D runs, but there is always corupted grafix on the bike (at some angles). Thats about it. So, what have i been trying already: Long & short // cable, no change! (short=0.5m) Pprot=-1,0,10 and everything inbetween. Uploaded raw rip to 800000 Stripped header and upl to 802000 Tried adding the univ.rom to the above at 800000 Made a 2Mb “longword counder file” on my falcon and a simple $4000 test program that reads from rom and compares to a 68k counter. Remember it to pass ok, but test yesterday proved me wrong, there are errors! At rom locations (manually changing them seems to work, makes me suspect upload problem!) Adapted and ran Glenns memTst program, and it says OK !!!!!!!! Uploading of native & SlamRacer works ok! !! …(???) Yesterday I got an idea to upl the files via my own BJL cable (via BJL debugger) but still the exact same errors! Now Im out of ideas, and since there is no schematics around, fixing it will be extremely difficult (I already spent weeks bug surching it (now Im out of time=money :o/ Anyone got any ideas of what the problem is? I would rely appreciate it. To me it makes no sense, if memory was bad, Glenns tst program should not report ok. If upl was bad native and slamR would not work!...? The only thing that is not like other alpines i have seen is the 24MHz clock, newer ones have 32MHz, but that should not create this problem should it? Thanx in advance /Symmetry Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stone #2 Posted October 18, 2003 The 32MHz clock upgrade was one of the mods to enable connectivity with the MIDI board. That shouldn't be it... Sounds to me like you have bad roms of the things you're trying to upload. The version of Phase Zero that was released by Mark 'Stingray' Santora had a blank header (uploaded to $800000) and runs from $804000 iirc (it didn't meet Atari spec in that regard). I seem to remember Glenn telling me univ.bin would need to be modified to enable it to be used with PZ. This would explain why Glenn's memtest works and Native/SlamR do too, anyway Stone Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Symmetry of TNG #3 Posted October 18, 2003 Hi Stone! Well not only does the ones I have made myself not work, but allso all the roms included in the "developer CD" that came with his board. And from what i have heard noone else has problems with those roms. bad roms... the "counder rom" i made is good, on the computer side, but not after upload to rom... ?! yet native/slam works...? Its like the files get corrupted only if they upl to sram space directly not if they upl to dram... ! ? This makes no sence at all in my ears... but thanx for trying =) /Sym Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LinkoVitch #4 Posted October 18, 2003 have you tried changing the mode of your parellel port? change it from EPP SPP Normal etc.. try each one see if you get any better results. I know for BJL the worng setting means it doesn't work properly Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Symmetry of TNG #5 Posted October 19, 2003 Hi! Actually I use my Falcon to develope & upl programs to the alpine. and then pprot is the only varuiable i know of. Tried it on my old PC once and at first it complained that there was no pp port... that was when it was set as ECP+EPP in bios. Had to change it to... "old style".. was it epp 1.7 ? or something to get a "stub ok" message in WDB. But when the exact same error at the exact same place appered I returned to my falcon and never tried it since.. (f.ex. Club drive runns pritty ok... though 1 level is broken. Its like if the program has code in low region and gfx in high region it will run but the gfx will be corrupted. If it has code in high regions, like most games, it will crash or be semi runnable... But thanx for ideas! Will trye once more (before I give up) on an old p166 with slowest/oldest mode on //port and see if that helps (doubt it). Thanx anyway! /Sym (..only 5days left to connexion ;o) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jaysmith2000 #6 Posted October 20, 2003 Hi!Actually I use my Falcon to develope & upl programs to the alpine. and then pprot is the only varuiable i know of. Tried it on my old PC once and at first it complained that there was no pp port... that was when it was set as ECP+EPP in bios. Had to change it to... "old style".. was it epp 1.7 ? or something to get a "stub ok" message in WDB. But when the exact same error at the exact same place appered I returned to my falcon and never tried it since.. (f.ex. Club drive runns pritty ok... though 1 level is broken. Its like if the program has code in low region and gfx in high region it will run but the gfx will be corrupted. If it has code in high regions, like most games, it will crash or be semi runnable... But thanx for ideas! Will trye once more (before I give up) on an old p166 with slowest/oldest mode on //port and see if that helps (doubt it). Thanx anyway! /Sym (..only 5days left to connexion ;o) Hey Sym, Are you using a shell to load or the tos version of rdbjag? I've had trouble at times using my Falcon with a shell. If you've tried it on the PC though and had the same issue, I guess it must be something with the Alpine. Jason Jason Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Symmetry of TNG #7 Posted October 21, 2003 Hi! No i have tried wdb & rdb for the falcon and wdb for the pc. same thing... There must be a problem with the alpine... the problem is to understand where! since there is no schematics and some things run ok...!? Guess he has to return it and get another one (hope there is one!). BTW: anyone know if the 68K cpu has anything to do with an upload, or is it just that CHIPS chip? Ie does the data go via the stub & the 68K or does that chip automatically put the data at the specified upl adress? Since there isnt that meny things on an alpine not that many things can be broken... suspecting GALs or CHIPS now.. but.. Thanx anyway for replying! /Sym Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LinkoVitch #8 Posted October 21, 2003 Just a thought.. but are you using the same cable for all the machines? or have you tried different cables? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Symmetry of TNG #9 Posted October 23, 2003 used 3 different cables for the pport way (2 3m cables and one specially hand made 50cm one) Ahh well... after yesterdays extensive debugging I/we are declaring it a gonner anyhow so. But thanx Everyone that replyed!! Glad to see that some people realy whant to help. Thanx! /Sym Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
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