Rev Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 What is this thread about again, I forgot....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JasonlikesINTV Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 I think it's a milestone on the path to a Rocketeer release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted May 24, 2014 Author Share Posted May 24, 2014 What is this thread about again, I forgot....... Its bacon light..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted May 24, 2014 Author Share Posted May 24, 2014 I think it's a milestone on the path to a Rocketeer release. And also Mars Minis and anything else I want to put out into the world this year*. It also means that I don't have to worry about taking my CC3 to retro shows and events. I have had a demo game cart stolen in the past but that hasn't stopped me going to them or sending other games to Albert for the shows he goes to. Its always fun to see peoples reactions to homebrew games and talk "shop" about the old gals (and I don't mean the Golden Girls, Rev!!! ). * At some point I'll be moving over to Rev2s for my own releases. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 And also Mars Minis and anything else I want to put out into the world this year*. It also means that I don't have to worry about taking my CC3 to retro shows and events. I have had a demo game cart stolen in the past but that hasn't stopped me going to them or sending other games to Albert for the shows he goes to. Its always fun to see peoples reactions to homebrew games and talk "shop" about the old gals (and I don't mean the Golden Girls, Rev!!! ). * At some point I'll be moving over to Rev2s for my own releases. Cool! I'm looking forward to these releases. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 Don't you mean Bee2's? :-) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted May 24, 2014 Author Share Posted May 24, 2014 Don't you mean Bee2's? Nope! I haven't chosen a name for that line of carts yet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted May 26, 2014 Author Share Posted May 26, 2014 I'll add functionality to the Bee3 BIOS so that it writes some magic values to its on-chip RAM. Apologies for quoting myself, but this has been implemented. Games can now detect if they are running on a Bee3 cart and behave accordingly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JasonlikesINTV Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 Games can now detect if they are running on a Bee3 cart and bee-have accordingly. FTFY 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted May 26, 2014 Author Share Posted May 26, 2014 Games can now detect if they are running on a Bee3 cart and bee-hive accordingly. Fixed that for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 Apologies for touching myself, but this KY has been implemented. Games can now detect if they are rubbing on a Bee3 cart and misbehave accordingly. Fixed that for ya 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted May 26, 2014 Author Share Posted May 26, 2014 :rolling: :rolling: Nutter!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lathe26 Posted May 30, 2014 Share Posted May 30, 2014 I've been thinking about this and I'll add functionality to the Bee3 BIOS so that it writes some magic values to its on-chip RAM. That way the Inty "API" can check if the values exist in RAM and if they do it can make Bee3 "BIOS calls" to handle EEPROM data read/write. However, if they don't exist then those same routines can just return an fake "error" of some kind. That way the game will still work on CC3, jzintv etc. Been meaning to ask a couple questions about the terms above: By "Bee3 BIOS", do you mean the firmware that runs on the Bee3's own CPU (i.e. firmware that is not executed by the Intellivision's CPU)? By "Inty API", are you referring to registers the Bee3 exposes to code that runs on the Intellivision CPU? Alternatively, does the Bee3 board present a ROM segment that contains Intellivision CPU code (ex: helper code for other developers to utilize the Bee3 board)? Or as a 3rd alternative, is the "Inty API" some source code for the Intellivision CPU that other developers can compile into their own games? Thanks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted May 31, 2014 Author Share Posted May 31, 2014 By "Bee3 BIOS", do you mean the firmware that runs on the Bee3's own CPU (i.e. firmware that is not executed by the Intellivision's CPU)? Correct! The only code executed by the Inty CPU is that of the game the Bee3 is hosting. The Bee3 "BIOS" boots up quite a while before the Inty and waits for things to do after it has initialised itself. By "Inty API", are you referring to registers the Bee3 exposes to code that runs on the Intellivision CPU? Alternatively, does the Bee3 board present a ROM segment that contains Intellivision CPU code (ex: helper code for other developers to utilize the Bee3 board)? Or as a 3rd alternative, is the "Inty API" some source code for the Intellivision CPU that other developers can compile into their own games? The Bee3 maps in extra I/O registers, along with the ROM (and any RAM needed). There is no extra BIOS/EXEC API ROM that games need to make calls into. That allows a game to have any memory map layout it wants. I'll be providing example source code and documentation at some point in the future. Developers will be free to adapt and integrate that code into their games. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted August 3, 2014 Author Share Posted August 3, 2014 Bee3 hardware validation and testing is coming along slowly :- The photo shows each flash memory page/segment in a 42K word ROM executing instructions that generate all the Inty CPU bus cycles and validating the results. It happily runs for 4+ hours (performing 61,000+ test loops) without any problems in PAL. It also pattern tests the Bee3's on-board cart RAM too. I'm planning to add a checksum to each page/segment and also add tests to check that the cart's EEPROM is working as expected too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmart604 Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 Not even sure if you're speaking English but it sounds super cool. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmart604 Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 Oh yah, what about the box? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted August 3, 2014 Author Share Posted August 3, 2014 Oh yah, what about the box? Its in the picture but its transparent . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmart604 Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 Its in the picture but its transparent . Sweet! Will it have transparent overlays as well? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted August 3, 2014 Author Share Posted August 3, 2014 Sweet! Will it have transparent overlays as well? Yep! You missed them, they are tucked away inside the transparent box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmart604 Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 Yep! You missed them, they are tucked away inside the transparent box. Of course! I think Nonner has really improved on the programmer art yet again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted August 3, 2014 Author Share Posted August 3, 2014 Of course! I think Nonner has really improved on the programmer art yet again. He da man! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmart604 Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 All joking aside, since I don't know what the hell your last update posts really means, does this mean the boards are getting close to being ready for production? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted August 3, 2014 Author Share Posted August 3, 2014 All joking aside, since I don't know what the hell your last update posts really means, does this mean the boards are getting close to being ready for production? There is still a whole heap of testing to be done. Unfortunately, doing the amount of testing that I want to do takes time, because I really don't want any issues after my games have shipped. But yeah, its getting ever closer to a production run . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBuff Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 Looking forward to this as well. Thanks for progress update Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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