Altirra 2.60 released

[flashjazzcat]

Is there a difference between a bump and a "wee" bump? Just wondering.

 

Yes: it reflects on how hard the punch was.

[Mclaneinc]

Is there a difference between a bump and a "wee" bump? Just wondering.

 

As wee over here means pee / piss then that's a big yes

 

I consider it s a tiny bump for a busy man...

[fujidude]

To me, in the context of "bumping" a thread, a bump is pretty much a bump, and is already meant to imply a minor mention. Else, instead of being a bump, it would be a re-posting, or something like that. It was just an impulse question based on period of boredom. This could start to get distracting from the post topic. So, I'll drop this line of inquiry here.

[Mclaneinc]

 

Was that really necessary after only 7 hours? Your post and bump went up at 3AM and 10AM in my local time zone, BTW.

 

The cartridge works fine for me. It will work with either the MegaCart (2) or MaxFlash mappers as it uses both address and data when changing banks.

 

This particular cartridge menu program (KOMA Megacart) is badly written and will crash on most OS ROMs other than the XL/XE OS -- it hardcodes several addresses and also temporarily reuses the international character set region ($CC00-CFFF).

 

Sorry Avery, it was one of those days where I blundered through everything, stress at home..

 

I don't normally do that sort of thing..

 

Paul.

[Mclaneinc]

And just to make it worse I found out that my version 2 XL OS was either hacked or corrupt, swapping it with a different one made the games work as Phaeron said it would.

 

Yesterday was a bad day at the office, called Martin pretty, bumped a thread that was hours old and blundered through the whole day on the internet and in the real world. Not one of my better days, sorry to all those involved..

 

Where's my meds

[JD6502]

Compressed keyboards that map things like screen brightness and volume controls to the function keys should have an "fn" key somewhere. Mine is in the lower left between ctrl and "windows". It acts like a shift key, hold it down and press the f-key you want. My HP also maps the pause key to rt shift, which Altirra uses as the break key and caused me some head scratching before I figured it out.

[Madi]

I wonder if there is a way to keep Altirra window active when it loses focus. By default, Altirra just pauses and only continues action when it become on top.

It would be nice if there is an option (not ware of ) to let Altirra run music for example while the user is working on files or browsing the net.

 

madi

[flashjazzcat]

I wonder if there is a way to keep Altirra window active when it loses focus. By default, Altirra just pauses and only continues action when it become on top.

It would be nice if there is an option (not ware of ) to let Altirra run music for example while the user is working on files or browsing the net.

 

madi

Uncheck System->Pause when inactive.

[Madi]

Uncheck System->Pause when inactive.

Never unchecked it before.. Thanks

 

madi

[StefanD]

Some more small issues in Altirra 2.60:

* Debugger: Line assembler doesn't recognize opcode "txa"

* Firmware-Dialog: When adding an OS with the marked checkbox "OPTION Key inverted" (e.g. QMEG-OS) this works as expected. But when clicking on "Settings" for the added OS, the checkbox is no longer checked.

* Lightgun: I tried to emulate a Lightgun with a mouse using an Input Mapping, but it doesn't work - the LPENH/V registers don't change when moving the crosshairs with the mouse. How can I emulate a lightgun with the mouse?

* Debugger: Sometimes numbers are interpreted decimal, sometimes hex, sometimes an error is displayed. Examples in the line assembler:

asl 1b = error

asl b1 = hex

asl 55 = decimal

Other examples:

db 100 = hex

db (100) = decimal

db 55 = hex

? 55 = decimal

Is there a reason for this different number interpretation?

 

Altirra-Basic 1.46:

* After entering e.g line 110 and pressing Break, "Stopped at line 110" is displayed (Atari-Basic doesn't).

* Sometimes some commands display Error 15 after manually renumbering lines, i.e. type over listed line numbers (so the lines exists twice with different line numbers) and deleting the old lines. I got this behaviour twice, but was unable to reproduce it. When this occurs, at least the commands LIST and GRAPHICS don't work, but PRINT does work. After 4 or 5 Errors 15, this problem has gone - LIST works normally again. I used the xex version of Altirra-Basic.

Edited October 28, 2015 by StefanD

[fujidude]

StefanD, the current version of Altirra is 2.7 test 33 (at least). Avery (the developer) has issued 2.60 final and has closed out development of 2.60. Try the latest version in test and see if you have the issue there. If so, be sure to mention that it is an issue in the latest build.

 

Yes, this thread topic states it is about 2.60. The thing is though it isn't; not exactly anyway. It's about the next version after 2.60. That's how Avery does it. When he finalizes a version he creates a new thread stating so, and then uses the thread for discussing issues that need to get addressed in the version that comes next.

 

So give it a shot in 2.70t33 and see what you get.

[flashjazzcat]

asl 1b = error

asl b1 = hex

asl 55 = decimal

Other examples:

db 100 = hex

db (100) = decimal

db 55 = hex

? 55 = decimal

Is there a reason for this different number interpretation?

Just a guess, but presumably the parser assumes the number is decimal if its first digit is 0-9. If the first digit is followed by a non-decimal character (A-F), then an error is produced. If the value begins with A-F, hex may be safely assumed. It's easy enough to force hex with "$" to remove any ambiguity.

 

I couldn't get your "db" examples to work at all, meanwhile.

[StefanD]

As I expected, all issues are also in Altirra 2.70-test-33 (I used the /portable switch to preserve my 2.60 settings). For the Light gun I used the following lightpen mapping:

Axis 1 -> Mouse Pos X (Lightpen)

Axis 2 -> Mouse Pos Y (Lightpen)

I tried also some other mappings but nothing works.

 

"db 100 = hex" means, that 100 is interpreted in hex, i.e. memory at $100 is displayed. But "db (100)" displays memory at $64, so 100 is interpreted decimal here. Of course I can use the prefixes $ and #, but I wanted to report this - maybe it's not intentional.

[flashjazzcat]

Can't seem to permanently disable SDX on the emulated IDE Plus 2.0 (test33). Should the "Enable Cart SDX" console switch not be available for this device (it's greyed out)?

[kenjennings]

Several moons (and Altirra versions) ago I had used the emulated printer and it worked just fine and dandy. I recently tried it in current Altirra and it doesn't work. I can open the printer output window, but that's it. The emulated Atari just blows raspberries for any attempt at printer I/O. The printer selection on Altirra's menu has a check mark next to it, but the line on the menu is also ghosted out for some reason. Any idea what I need to fix?

[Roydea6]

Can't seem to permanently disable SDX on the emulated IDE Plus 2.0 (test33). Should the "Enable Cart SDX" console switch not be available for this device (it's greyed out)?

Have you after pressing START+F5 and setting SDX [x=off/on] and returning to the Emulator ALT+F and save the main ROM.. I have not tried this but it should work..

[flashjazzcat]

Have you after pressing START+F5 and setting SDX [x=off/on] and returning to the Emulator ALT+F and save the main ROM.. I have not tried this but it should work..

Firmware has already been assigned, updated and saved. NVRAM settings are usually stored in the registry or the INI file.

[fujidude]

Start with a fresh .ini file and rebuild your options. A pain I know, but give it a whirl.

[flashjazzcat]

To clarify - if I understand the actual hardware correctly - the setup menu setting temporarily overrides the IDE Plus's physical SDX on/off switch until the next power cycle. Therefore, persistently disabling SDX with this device would require use of the "Console switches" sub-menu.

Edited October 31, 2015 by flashjazzcat

[serj]

strange behavior (light pen) in the program "Atari Graphics".

If you press the "space" and change input control, you can get to enter in the menu.

This menu does not wish to appear correctly, an error occurs.

see this video:

to view it is desirable to go on "Youtube" for better video quality.

 

 

I spread my configuration file and a set of programs to work with "light pen" and "light gun".

http://depositfiles.com/files/c9ym9zi6j

Edited October 31, 2015 by serj

[phaeron]

Update:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.70-test34.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.70-test34-src.zip

 

Besides issues noted below, contains a few minor fixes and additions to the debugger. The debugger now has psuedovariables for the frame counter (@frame), clock cycle counter (@clk), and CPU clock cycle counter (@cclk). This means that you can now measure the frame and cycle counts of your main loop as follows:

bp -n main "r @t2 @frame-@t0; r @t3 @clk-@t1; r @t0 @frame; r @t1 @clk"
wx @t2
wx @t3

Also fixed a bug where the 'r' command was causing unnecessary refreshes, and another in the profiler's new page crossings counter where abs,X and abs,Y were being handled incorrectly.

 

Some more small issues in Altirra 2.60:
* Debugger: Line assembler doesn't recognize opcode "txa"
* Firmware-Dialog: When adding an OS with the marked checkbox "OPTION Key inverted" (e.g. QMEG-OS) this works as expected. But when clicking on "Settings" for the added OS, the checkbox is no longer checked.
* Lightgun: I tried to emulate a Lightgun with a mouse using an Input Mapping, but it doesn't work - the LPENH/V registers don't change when moving the crosshairs with the mouse. How can I emulate a lightgun with the mouse?
* Debugger: Sometimes numbers are interpreted decimal, sometimes hex, sometimes an error is displayed. Examples in the line assembler:
asl 1b = error
asl b1 = hex
asl 55 = decimal
Other examples:
db 100 = hex
db (100) = decimal
db 55 = hex
? 55 = decimal
Is there a reason for this different number interpretation?

Altirra-Basic 1.46:
* After entering e.g line 110 and pressing Break, "Stopped at line 110" is displayed (Atari-Basic doesn't).
* Sometimes some commands display Error 15 after manually renumbering lines, i.e. type over listed line numbers (so the lines exists twice with different line numbers) and deleting the old lines. I got this behaviour twice, but was unable to reproduce it. When this occurs, at least the commands LIST and GRAPHICS don't work, but PRINT does work. After 4 or 5 Errors 15, this problem has gone - LIST works normally again. I used the xex version of Altirra-Basic.

 

TXA assembler bug is now fixed.

 

Firmware options refreshing bug is now fixed.

 

Light pen/gun requires an additional digital input to be bound to indicate whether the gun/pen is aimed or pressed against the screen. When you have the mouse bound, the cursor will change depending on the state. The input is the third digital one, labeled "On Screen." One way to bind it is to Mouse RMB in Toggle mode, so that clicking the right mouse button toggles the state.

 

The debugger defaults to mixed base, where a bare hex number is accepted without prefix, but anything else is interpreted as an expression that defaults to decimal for unprefixed numbers. The .base command changes the mode and can be put into the startup.atdbg file. The assembler was also doing this, but I've changed it to force decimal for unprefixed numbers as the mixed case mode is unconventional for assembly.

 

ATBasic does indeed print out a stopped message when you hit Break during line entry. Wasn't significant enough to fix.

 

The error 15 issue is more annoying. It happens when you have a GOSUB or FOR statement on the runtime stack and then delete the target; the error 15 comes from when the interpreter tries to reconvert the runtime stack back to addresses prior to execution. I'll probably need to tweak this to insert 0 into the stack instead and defer the error, but that'll have to wait until I can find time to free up the bytes to do it.

 

Can't seem to permanently disable SDX on the emulated IDE Plus 2.0 (test33). Should the "Enable Cart SDX" console switch not be available for this device (it's greyed out)?

 

That option is only for cartridges that have an SDX switch (SIDE); I didn't know that IDE Plus 2 also had one. Will have to dig up exactly what it does.

 

[Heaven/TQA]

Thx. Much appreciated the new debug options can not wait to use them in my projects

[lemiel]

That option is only for cartridges that have an SDX switch (SIDE); I didn't know that IDE Plus 2 also had one. Will have to dig up exactly what it does.

 

It has it: http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/Grafika:Ideplus_switches.jpg

[StefanD]

Thanks for the explanations, phaeron. After using "on-screen", the lightgun emulation works now - I didn't know the lightpen has an internal switch that activates it. I tested also the bugfixes, the new sa and si debugger functions and all works now fine.

 

Altirra is an awesome piece of work - I'm very impressed.

[Heaven/TQA]

just had a go with the latest test version and the new debugger features... I love the realtime meassurement features for code. Rocks!