Gilles_B Posted November 16, 2020 Share Posted November 16, 2020 1 hour ago, SpiceWare said: Space rocks is using the DPC+ coprocessor, which is an extension of Activision's DPC coprocessor used in Pitfall 2. You can read more about DPC+ in my blog post extra hardware! wow, thanks for taking the time to write this down! Very clear and understandable. Much appreciated. Plus, "buss stuffing" sounds hilarious to me 1 hour ago, SpiceWare said: DPC+ doesn't really exist, it's implemented by a driver that runs on the Harmony/Melody which contains a 32K ROM with 8K RAM. 4K of ROM and 4K of RAM are used by the driver, leaving 28K ROM and 4K RAM for the game. More recent projects use the newer CDFJ driver which runs on the same hardware. It's more efficient and only uses 2K of ROM and 2K of RAM, leaving more resources for the game. So in theory, using this new driver you'd have 2K more in which to put something like the high score routines. That doesn't sound like much. Would that be enough? 1 hour ago, SpiceWare said: CDFJ+ is currently in development. Still uses 2K of ROM and 2K of RAM, but supports a newer Melody board with configurations of: 64K ROM & 16K RAM 128K ROM & 16K RAM 256K ROM & 32K RAM 512K ROM & 32K RAM Wow. I can't begin to imagine what would be possible with these. Currently such games would be limited to emulators, no? Since the Harmony/Melody doesn't have the hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted November 16, 2020 Author Share Posted November 16, 2020 36 minutes ago, Gilles_B said: wow, thanks for taking the time to write this down! Very clear and understandable. Much appreciated. Plus, "buss stuffing" sounds hilarious to me You're welcome. Bus Stuffing was figured out by 3 former Commodore engineers back in the day for The Graduate computer upgrade to the 2600, can read about it in "Bus stuffing" like The Graduate. I posted a number of demos that run on real hardware using a Harmony Cart. The RPG demo also runs in Stella, but not the others because the Bus Driver had changed a lot. We stopped working on it because a number of the Juniors and 7800s don't handle Bus Stuffing correctly, likely due to board revisions. I suspect if The Graduate had been released then Atari would have made sure those systems supported it. 36 minutes ago, Gilles_B said: So in theory, using this new driver you'd have 2K more in which to put something like the high score routines. That doesn't sound like much. Would that be enough? Draconian's already using CDFJ. For Space Rocks that extra 2K would make the high score routines possible, but the programming for CDFJ is different from DPC+ meaning that Space Rocks would have to undergo a major rewrite. I'd rather spend my time on new projects than revisit old ones. 36 minutes ago, Gilles_B said: Wow. I can't begin to imagine what would be possible with these. Currently such games would be limited to emulators, no? Since the Harmony/Melody doesn't have the hardware. Prototypes of the new Melody board already exist. I do not know how close they are to finalizing the design. One issue I'm aware of is the Harmony Encore won't support CDFJ+ because the chips used in the new Melody are different. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilles_B Posted November 17, 2020 Share Posted November 17, 2020 14 hours ago, SpiceWare said: Bus Stuffing was figured out by 3 former Commodore engineers back in the day for The Graduate computer upgrade to the 2600, can read about it in "Bus stuffing" like The Graduate. I posted a number of demos that run on real hardware using a Harmony Cart. Impressive. Quote Draconian's already using CDFJ. For Space Rocks that extra 2K would make the high score routines possible, but the programming for CDFJ is different from DPC+ meaning that Space Rocks would have to undergo a major rewrite. I'd rather spend my time on new projects than revisit old ones. I completely understand. You've mentioned Draconian a few times. I'll check it out next. Quote Prototypes of the new Melody board already exist. I do not know how close they are to finalizing the design. One issue I'm aware of is the Harmony Encore won't support CDFJ+ because the chips used in the new Melody are different. Yes, it would be sad if the next generation of homebrews obsoletes our Harmony carts. But on the hand, can't wait to see how far you can push the envelope. So best of success! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted November 17, 2020 Author Share Posted November 17, 2020 On 11/17/2020 at 8:32 AM, Gilles_B said: You've mentioned Draconian a few times. I'll check it out next. It's my take on Bosconian. Link at the very top of the first post will take you to the final build. Alternatively, if you have signatures turned on, you can use the "try" links in my signature. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilles_B Posted November 19, 2020 Share Posted November 19, 2020 (edited) On 11/17/2020 at 7:51 PM, SpiceWare said: It's my take on Bosconian. Link at the very top of the first post will take you to the final build. Alternatively, if you have signatures turned on, you can use the "try" links in my signature. Thanks for the links. I was very impressed with the console detection (which worked on my PAL 2600, btw) in Draconian, and with your links I was able to understand how you did it. Very cool Edited November 19, 2020 by Gilles_B misspelled 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+McCallister Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 Has anyone else had trouble with loading up Space Rocks Tournament Edition on their Harmony Encore? I've tried loading it several times, using two different SD cards and it's always stuck on the spinning logo. I have the 1.06 Bios and all of the other games that I've tried with it have worked, including the regular edition of Space Rocks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted January 8, 2021 Author Share Posted January 8, 2021 13 hours ago, McCallister said: Has anyone else had trouble with loading up Space Rocks Tournament Edition on their Harmony Encore? Just tried and it worked on my Encore, so don't know what the issue could be. I did the quick bit of: dd skip=3 count=29 if=spacerocks_te_6.bin of=srte29K.bin bs=1024 cat DPC+20121020.arm srte29K.bin > spacerocks_te_6_encore.bin like I did in Reply 609 for the regular Space Rocks. It's in the Tournament Edition blog entry, hopefully that works for you. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+McCallister Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 2 hours ago, SpiceWare said: Just tried and it worked on my Encore, so don't know what the issue could be. I did the quick bit of: dd skip=3 count=29 if=spacerocks_te_6.bin of=srte29K.bin bs=1024 cat DPC+20121020.arm srte29K.bin > spacerocks_te_6_encore.bin like I did in Reply 609 for the regular Space Rocks. It's in the Tournament Edition blog entry, hopefully that works for you. Thank you for trying this out and confirming the game is working! For others who may have a similar problem, I got the Harmony working fully by refreshing the bios. Initially, I did not think to do that, as it was running the 1.06 and most other games were working, but then I read a post from sramirez2008, who was having a similar problem: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 On 11/16/2020 at 3:35 PM, SpiceWare said: Prototypes of the new Melody board already exist. I do not know how close they are to finalizing the design. One issue I'm aware of is the Harmony Encore won't support CDFJ+ because the chips used in the new Melody are different. Just saw this. The design has been finalized for over a year now and the first production run of enhanced Melody boards came in before the post above. These boards are ready to go should any homebrews need it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 On 11/17/2020 at 6:32 AM, Gilles_B said: Yes, it would be sad if the next generation of homebrews obsoletes our Harmony carts. But on the hand, can't wait to see how far you can push the envelope. So best of success! Existing Harmony and Harmony Encore can be upgraded to support the 64k and 128k CDFJ+. I haven't announced this because currently no homebrews are available that require this, and I don't expect any demand unless any such homebrews are released. However, there is one 64k game in development that I am aware of, possibly two, but nothing larger than 64k right now, and the timeline for these isn't clear. Further, it is possible that the 256k and 512k will never be used so upgrading a Harmony or Harmony Encore might be enough, should any such games be released. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilles_B Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 3 hours ago, batari said: Existing Harmony and Harmony Encore can be upgraded to support the 64k and 128k CDFJ+. I haven't announced this because currently no homebrews are available that require this, and I don't expect any demand unless any such homebrews are released. However, there is one 64k game in development that I am aware of, possibly two, but nothing larger than 64k right now, and the timeline for these isn't clear. Further, it is possible that the 256k and 512k will never be used so upgrading a Harmony or Harmony Encore might be enough, should any such games be released. This sounds great! Are we talking software or hardware upgrade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted May 19, 2022 Author Share Posted May 19, 2022 removed - patched versions did not work. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted May 19, 2022 Share Posted May 19, 2022 4 minutes ago, SpiceWare said: @Albert - FYI for some reason neither batari nor I were able to upload the BIN files without zipping, it caused a -200 error. Might be the firewall inspecting the binaries and flagging them for some reason, that's the only reason I could see such small binaries failing to upload. I can play around with those later and see if I run into the issue, and if so, look at the server logs to see if I can spot the reason why this is happening. ..Al 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilles_B Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 On 5/19/2022 at 8:32 PM, SpiceWare said: removed - patched versions did not work. Hi. You're linking to this post in the first post, for the release version. Obviously that's not correct any more. What's the correct link? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted March 1 Author Share Posted March 1 16 minutes ago, Gilles_B said: Hi. You're linking to this post in the first post, for the release version. Obviously that's not correct any more. What's the correct link? Thanks for the heads up! Looks like it should go to this post from June 24, 2017. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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