Altirra 2.80 released

[Mclaneinc]

If you search for Serj, he posted 90% of the needed roms and a guide in this thread, the rest have been posted by an assortment of us since then...

[phaeron]

Just ran the 1050 diagnostic disk obviously under full 1050 emulation and all passed bar the motor speed test which it says is too low.

 

Is this part of the truncated disk problem or something else...

This happens if you run the test with accurate disk timing off. 1050 drives don't have the index sensor hooked up and can only measure motor speed by repeatedly reading a sector. This causes the test to be thrown off if rotational delays are being skipped, which is what happens without the accurate disk timing option. The XF551 does have the index sensor hooked up and the Indus GT can even switch between disk-based and software-controlled index marks.

 

[Mclaneinc]

Ah, my bad....You did say about the need for accurate timing in previous recent posts..

 

Slipped my mind when I was checking...Apologies..

 

Love the Indus LED display, such a simple thing but just makes the emulation complete, never had one but feel like I do now

 

The usual excellent work by you, thank you.....

 

Paul

[flashjazzcat]

For the past couple of days in 2.90 Test15 I keep losing the virtual folder mounted on drive 2. I'll start the emulator, open the debugger, boot - say - DOS 2.5, and try to load something from D2: (which was previously mounted as a virtual DOS 2 disk) and get an error 138. I open the disk drives dialogue and see that the drive is marked "off", so I change it to "R/O" and close the dialogue. If I immediately re-open the disk drives dialogue, D2: is now blank and I have to re-mount the virtual folder again, which appears to fix it. But - apparently randomly - the same circumstances will occur (probably the next time I start the emulator).

 

EDIT: Just tried that again to be sure. Closed Altirra, launched again, and the virtual drive was marked "off".

Edited December 5, 2016 by flashjazzcat

[Mclaneinc]

Not sure if this is meant or not, latest beta loading bas files via drag and drop does not work if an fully emulated drive device is chosen as the drive is seen to be always on. Makes the loading of the bas files only done by being on an atr rather than the nice injected method.

 

As you cannot turn the drive off temporarily it won't boot it.

 

Meant side effect?

[mono]

Altirra 2.90test16
PAL

AUDCTL=78 (1.79 ch1, ch1+ch2)
AUDF1=d8
AUDF2=07

Audio monitor calculates wave frequency as 444.1 Hz (looks like using NTSC base instead of PAL).

f=1773447/(2*($7d8+7))=440.0613

The same is for SECAM. For NTSC all is ok.

Could you fix this?

[phaeron]

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test18.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test18-src.zip

 

• Fixes FDIV overflow checking regression and FASC incompatibility in internal math pack (1.0E-03 vs. 1E-04).
• Sped up FMUL and FDIV in internal math pack by about 15%.
• FP accelerator no longer accepts an exponent of zero in AFP.
• Fixed drives not getting turned on when mounting a virtual disk.
• Fixed another crash found in the pane docking code.

 

Not sure if this is meant or not, latest beta loading bas files via drag and drop does not work if an fully emulated drive device is chosen as the drive is seen to be always on. Makes the loading of the bas files only done by being on an atr rather than the nice injected method.

 

As you cannot turn the drive off temporarily it won't boot it.

 

Meant side effect?

 

Well... you need to remove the drive in this case. The drag-and-drop BAS boot only works if you can get to BASIC. Like on a real machine, you can't get to BASIC if D1: is turned on because the OS will instead try to boot from that drive. It'll work if you boot DOS at the same time, but otherwise there's no point to having that drive on anyway.

 

 

[Mclaneinc]

That told me

 

Thanks Avery, wasn't sure and thought to ask the boss.

[mono]

Thank you for fix.

What quartz are you assuming for SECAM computers - 1781500 Hz? I ask, because audio frequency is still calculated incorrectly only for SECAM.

[flashjazzcat]

Virtual drive still keeps disappearing with test18. Steps:

 

1. Start emulator.

2. Go to file->Disk drives->Mount folder as virtual SpartaDOS disk (entry appears - on D2: in tests - R/O). All good.

3. Close dialog.

4. Close emulator.

5. Start emulator

6. Open disk dialog again just check virtual drive is still there. It is, but it's marked "off".

7. Close emulator.

8. Start emulator and look again in the disk dialog. Virtual folder has now completely disappeared.

 

Using Windows 10 64-bit.

[fox]

First Time Setup is great! However there's a problem selecting PAL, here's my bug report:

Environment:

1. Altirra 2.81 or 2.90-test18.

2. Windows 10 64-bit.

Steps:

1. Using regedit, delete HKCU\SOFTWARE\virtualdub.org

2. Run Altirra.exe.

3. Next.

4. Scan folder for firmware images, select a directory with all the ROMs.

5. Next.

6. Next.

7. Next.

8. PAL, Next.

9. Next, Finish.

10. File/Boot image, Strip Poker.atr

11. Close "Altirra Error". System/Firmware/Internal BASIC. System/Cold Reset.

Expected:

1. No HKCU\SOFTWARE\virtualdub.org registry key.

2. First Time Setup opens.

3. ROM selection.

4. All ROMs "OK".

5. ROM setup complete.

6. System selection.

7. Video standard selection.

8. Experience selection.

9. Self Test.

10. System stopped. There could be an option to enable BASIC.

11. Game title screen. Music plays slowly as in PAL.

Actual:

10. System stopped. No option to enable BASIC.

11. Game title screen. Music plays fast as in NTSC. Selecting Video/PAL (although it's already selected) resolves the problem.

[tschak909]

why would you want to use PAL, anyway? *DUCKS*

 

-Thom

[Mclaneinc]

My guess is that you had it set to 800B as a system...In that system it never had BASIC as an internal so Phaeron set it up as it would be in the real world, you attached a special cart in the File menu and chose BASIC. Only XL and above allow BASIC to be toggled in the System Firmware menu. Secondly, if you run Altirra from a command line and use the /portable switch it will use an ini file instead of the registry, if however just delete the registry key and there's no ini file in the main folder with Altirra then it will just regenerate the registry key, also in the later betas there's no need to go near the registry, just go to Tools / Settings and it allows a full reset of the settings.

 

Not sure why the first time wizard didn't come up, it should have unless there was an ini in there, maybe its a Win 10 issue, many folks have stayed clear of 10, I'm happy on 7 X64, no problems that the bugged beta of the ongoing 10 saga

 

Again, no idea why PAL isn't sticking, Altirra under normal operation saves the last settings used unless you start using the profiles which will boot up as to what they had been set to (but sometimes not which Phaeron did explain a while back, but I digress)

Edited December 17, 2016 by Mclaneinc

[Mclaneinc]

why would you want to use PAL, anyway? *DUCKS*

 

-Thom

 

I think PAL TRUMPS it

[phaeron]

Of all the repro cases, a 4-color strip poker game written in BASIC? Seriously?

 

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test19.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test19-src.zip

 

• Fixed setup wizard not updating UI when switching to PAL; the simulator was running PAL but not the speed regulator or display sizer.
• Implemented SECAM master clock rate. (Didn't even realize this was different; just about everyone documents it as the same as PAL.)
• Fixed another issue with restoring virtual drives on load.
• Implemented Indus GT audio -- you will now hear the beep when pressing buttons or hitting disk errors.

 

As for why BASIC isn't in the first time setup, I didn't want to put too many options in it and BASIC isn't required for most games. That's why one of the more common hacks to the XL OS ROM is to flip the Option key behavior -- because everyone was tired of holding it down all the time....

 

[Mclaneinc]

Of all the repro cases, a 4-color strip poker game written in BASIC? Seriously?

 

 

Not enough colours for you Avery

 

Careful you don't use your super fast BASIC, you could break your wrist!

 

On that note, I'm off

[mono]

Thank you very much.

This document describes timing details for SECAM: http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/nir_dary_cds/Tech%20Info/FGTIA.PDF (page 50 "Dynamic operating characteristics" and page 22 "Color phase locked loop").

Simius and Sikor have an Atari 130XE SECAM and Atari 800XL SECAM, and they agree these models have another quartz on board.

Edited December 19, 2016 by mono

[Keatah]

Has anyone ever done a "full-size" Altirra mascot, or logo, or branded banner? Something like what WinUAE and MAME have.

 

[phaeron]

Don't look at me, I'm artistically challenged.

 

Minor update:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test20.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test20-src.zip

 

Virtual DOS 2 disk mounts now work with track buffered drives. This was a lot more of a pain to fix than I was expecting, and it's pretty awful how badly the disk gets fragmented in short order, but it works.

 

Added a fix for Misja + Fred tape not loading with SIO acceleration. Stupid tape loader trick of the day: execute CMP SERIN after JSR SIOV....

 

[Mclaneinc]

Might ask my daughter re the banner, she does art at college and if I may say so, she's pretty good.

 

I know she's behind on some course work so I may get kicked

Edited December 21, 2016 by Mclaneinc

[flashjazzcat]

 

• Fixed another issue with restoring virtual drives on load.

 

Thank you Avery. Virtual drives appear to be surviving restarts just fine now.

[fujidude]

Might ask my daughter re the banner, she does art at college and if I may say so, she's pretty good.

 

I know she's behind on some course work so I may get kicked

 

Coursework first.

[Mclaneinc]

Yes indeed, she was up on my PC all night working away (and playing Sims I think), her work is all over the floor, as messy as her dad!

 

Just had to kick the cat off of it..

 

But I think she would like the challenge when she has time and is a WHIZZ with Photoshop and I bet she would slip something anime based in to it as she a mega fan of all that.

[phaeron]

Update:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test21.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.90-test21-src.zip

 

Adds the ability for the compatibility engine to supply cartridge types and adds a bunch of 5200 cartridges to the internal list. This is to address the annoying issue of trying to decide whether a headerless 5200 cart image is 16K one chip or 16K two chip, for which autodetection isn't good enough and the user can only guess. This also allows the emulator to auto-switch to the 5200 profile without having to confirm that the cartridge is a 5200 cart first. This can be expanded to computer carts as well -- this is a test flight. If there is an issue, the internal compatibility list can be turned off in Options.

 

The compatibility editor has also gotten some usability improvements. It is now modeless, there are keyboard shortcuts for save/compile, compiling automatically saves, and the external compatibility DB is auto-reloaded. The procedure is still a bit clumsy, but the process is: add title, add alias (select cart/disk checksum), then add tag for compatibility action. Build > Compile to save the source file and build the engine file. Afterward, the file can be set up as the external DB in Options, and the editor will reload it on subsequent compiles. I think I'm going to stick with the current FNV checksum after all; if there does turn out to be a problem that requires switching to another algorithm, I'll add a scan command that can automatically convert the checksums as long as you still have the matching images.

 

The disk explorer will now allow write access to a disk that has only minor VTOC/bitmap errors, i.e. free blocks marked as allocated. This is fairly common and was getting in the way of some testing. As some point I should add a fix VTOC option. It will still block write access to a filesystem that has more serious errors like cross-linked files or allocated blocks marked as free.

 

Added a delay to the modem emulation between ATA and reporting CONNECT to try to fix an issue with Carina II missing the latter when it tries to quickly close and reopen R:.

 

[Mclaneinc]

You spoil us as always...

 

Thank you...