New MAME release

[+jedimatt42]

BTW, all that noise above is just geek speak for "Thank You"... Now I can happily work on filling that remaining 28K in the ROM such as implementing sector read support to TIPI. 

[+mizapf]

Also, defaults are no problem to change for a new release. I already did that in some places.

[globeron]

On 7/10/2022 at 9:55 PM, globeron said:

 

Thank you. I will try it  (it seems .zip files do not work in Batocera, because of the file structure setup), 

but I prefer the .rpk format for Batocera setup to keep it standardized.

 

these .rpk also do not work but they work in js99er.net 

  tetris.rpk 5.5 kB · 7 downloads

 

spad_xiii.rpk 10.88 kB · 5 downloads

 

 

compu-car.rpk 4.27 kB · 6 downloads

 

 

 

Finally managed to get it configured to work in .rpk  format  (except I'm Hiding, did not figure it out yet)

 

 

 

[+mizapf]

The "I'm hiding" ZIP cartridge in MAME requires the (not available) MBX console.

 

Its software list definition:

<software name="hiding"> 
               <description>I'm hiding</description> 
               <year>1983</year> 
               <publisher>Milton Bradley</publisher> 
               <info name="serial" value="PHM 3155"/> 
               <info name="usage" value="MBX console required" /> 
               <part name="cart" interface="ti99_cart"> 
                       <feature name="pcb" value="mbx" /> 
                       <dataarea name="grom" size="0x4000"> 
                               <rom name="phm3155g3.bin" size="0x1800" crc="69630602" sha1="2b73b098ca53de23f58eba2ac1d7992fc5ade9fb" offset="0x0000" /> 
                               <rom name="phm3155g4.bin" size="0x1800" crc="88c10ac4" sha1="58e9b8dfa8e58b2d1eb5e1aecfa5c415863bf419" offset="0x2000" /> 
                       </dataarea> 
                       <dataarea name="rom" size="0x4000"> 
                               <rom name="phm3155c.bin" size="0x4000" crc="c74fe335" sha1="4db4879cc505a82410d3c49aa9841ac6cdc5e367" offset="0x0000" /> 
                       </dataarea> 
                       <dataarea name="ram" size="1024"></dataarea> 
               </part> 
       </software>

[+9640News]

FYI,

 

Using the Geneve emulation, I was able to run the AFTERHOURS BBS program in MAME.  It should also run in TI-99/4A emulation mode if there is a module option that gives RAM at >6000 to >7FFF.  Not sure if such an option exists.

 

[+mizapf]

14 hours ago, 9640News said:

Using the Geneve emulation, I was able to run the AFTERHOURS BBS program in MAME.  It should also run in TI-99/4A emulation mode if there is a module option that gives RAM at >6000 to >7FFF.  Not sure if such an option exists.

The SuperSpace II cartridge should work. It has 4*8 KiB NVRAM space (selectable by CRU >0802,6,a,e)

[globeron]

17 hours ago, mizapf said:

The "I'm hiding" ZIP cartridge in MAME requires the (not available) MBX console.

 

Its software list definition:

 

<software name="hiding"> 
               <description>I'm hiding</description> 
               <year>1983</year> 
               <publisher>Milton Bradley</publisher> 
               <info name="serial" value="PHM 3155"/> 
               <info name="usage" value="MBX console required" /> 
               <part name="cart" interface="ti99_cart"> 
                       <feature name="pcb" value="mbx" /> 
                       <dataarea name="grom" size="0x4000"> 
                               <rom name="phm3155g3.bin" size="0x1800" crc="69630602" sha1="2b73b098ca53de23f58eba2ac1d7992fc5ade9fb" offset="0x0000" /> 
                               <rom name="phm3155g4.bin" size="0x1800" crc="88c10ac4" sha1="58e9b8dfa8e58b2d1eb5e1aecfa5c415863bf419" offset="0x2000" /> 
                       </dataarea> 
                       <dataarea name="rom" size="0x4000"> 
                               <rom name="phm3155c.bin" size="0x4000" crc="c74fe335" sha1="4db4879cc505a82410d3c49aa9841ac6cdc5e367" offset="0x0000" /> 
                       </dataarea> 
                       <dataarea name="ram" size="1024"></dataarea> 
               </part> 
       </software>

 

 

It is the only module which behaves different compared to the other MBX modules, it goes straight  to a blue screen and beeps all time (hangs)

it does not show the titlescreen "I'M Hiding" and then (or straight to) "please install your mbx console"  

 

others MBX modules show the menu options (like 2 for Terry Turtle) and then the MB Titlescreen and then indicates no MBX installed.

(Championship Baseball goes straight to a blue screen and "please install your mbx console", but in the video of pixelpedant it also has a titlescreen)

 

Like I do not see this screen 

(courtesy of @pixelpedant 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+mizapf]

With the hiding.zip cartridge, I see the title screen (your first screenshot), and the "Please install your MBX console."

 

Try it with "-cart hiding".

hiding.zip

[+9640News]

1 hour ago, mizapf said:

The SuperSpace II cartridge should work. It has 4*8 KiB NVRAM space (selectable by CRU >0802,6,a,e)

Thanks for that information!!!

[globeron]

On 7/19/2022 at 9:53 PM, mizapf said:

With the hiding.zip cartridge, I see the title screen (your first screenshot), and the "Please install your MBX console."

 

Try it with "-cart hiding".

hiding.zip 21.44 kB · 10 downloads

in Mame got it to work   (I was entering the directory "c:\mame\carts\hiding.zip"  behind -cart   and  also used .zip, so got errors to load it).  

 

this worked:

mame64.exe ti99_4a -cart hiding -ioport peb -ioport:peb:slot2 32kmem -ioport:peb:slot3 speech -ioport:peb:slot8 hfdc %*

 

in .rpk with mame,  Batocera and js99er.net it goes directly to a blank blue screen somehow.  Not that important, I do not have an MBX system   but I do have an MSX  Philips VG8020 ? 

[+mizapf]

There are lots of cartridge dumps around with modifications, e.g. deactivation of the autostart with Scott, Foresman cartridges. This may be true for the MBX cartridges as well.

 

I tried hard to find the authentic versions for the ZIP cartridges, which was mostly only feasible when I found a checksum at the end of the ROM dump.

[Asmusr]

3 hours ago, globeron said:

Batocera and js99er.net it goes directly to a blank blue screen somehow.

JS99er doesn't emulate the MBX.

[+mizapf]

0.246 has been released. The only one - but important - change is the fix of the websocket communication between MAME and the TIPI. If you used the recent nightly build, you already got it.

 

You can again find the stripped-down releases on https://ftp.whtech.com/emulators/MAME/ti99/. The macOS builds (arm and x86) are in the "full" subtree (https://ftp.whtech.com/emulators/MAME/full/macos/).

 

BTW, I tested Eric's Bad Apple demo on MAME running on my Raspi4 at 100% (not surprising, as the processing inside MAME usually has no impact on the host performance).

[+mizapf]

I got some new hardware, so I tried to do some benchmarking.

 

mame ti99_4a -bench 20:                 Average speed 1432.13%

mame geneve -bench 20:                  Average speed 754.92%

mame ti99_8 -bench 20:                  Average speed 548.12%

mame ti99_8 -hexbus hx5102 -bench 20:   Average speed 373.82%

mame ti99_232 -bench 20:                Average speed 2933.17%

mame ti99_232 -hexbus hx5102 -bench 20: Average speed 373.82%

 

This was a Core i5 12600KF on a H670 chipset mainboard.

 

Building the TI-only part of MAME takes 214 secs.

[+dhe]

What is the command line flag to enable / disable speech?

[+mizapf]

16 hours ago, dhe said:

What is the command line flag to enable / disable speech?

 

"-(ioport:)peb:slotX speech" to insert the speech synthesizer in the PEB. Choose a value 2-8 for X.

[+dhe]

I tried this..

 

D:\mame>mame -debug -window genmod -bios 1.00 -peb:slot2 speech -peb:slot3 horizon -peb:slot5 tirs232 -peb:slot6 tipi -conn rpi.192.168.2.2  -peb:slot8 hfdc -peb:slot8:hfdc:h1 generic -peb:slot8:hfdc:h2 generic -peb:slot8:hfdc:h3 generic -peb:slot8:hfdc:f3 525dd -peb:slot8:hfdc:f4 525dd -hard1 genos7boot.HD -hard2 Bootdisk2.HD -hard3 Bootdisk3.HD -flop1 DSDD1.dsk -flop2 DSDD2.hfe -flop3 DSDD3.dsk -flop4 DSDD4.dsk -serl1 socket.localhost:10000

 

It "locks" up on Loading MDOS....

 

Control-C results in the output below.

 

removing speech and all works again.

 

Can someone else running a geneve config try inserting speech and let me know what their result is?

-----------------------------------------------------
Exception at EIP=0000000000806450 (deco_mlc_state::avengrgs_map(address_map&)+0x0450): ACCESS VIOLATION
While attempting to read memory at 0000000010b3c370
-----------------------------------------------------
RAX=0000000000806450 RBX=0000000010ad41a0 RCX=0000000010b3be70 RDX=0000000010be1d10
RSI=0000000003d0a1d8 RDI=0000000010be1d10 RBP=0000000003d09cc8 RSP=0000000003d09c98
 R8=0000000010ad4180  R9=000000000002e410 R10=0000000000026e64 R11=0000000010c5f040
R12=0000000000000000 R13=0000000003d09db0 R14=0000000003d09f70 R15=0000000003d0a060
-----------------------------------------------------
Stack crawl:
  0000000003d09c90: 0000000000806450 (deco_mlc_state::avengrgs_map(address_map&)+0x0450)
  0000000003d09cf0: 00000000008fc131 (ddenlovr_state::quizchq(machine_config&)+0x01f1)
  0000000003d09d30: 000000000084ebe3 (kingofb_state::kingofb(machine_config&)+0x07e3)
  0000000003d09d70: 00000000008fa955 (ddenlovr_state::sryudens(machine_config&)+0x0d15)
  0000000003d09ed0: 000000000090448a (hanakanz_state::daimyojn(machine_config&)+0x115a)
  0000000003d0f350: 0000000000de6f4e (cobra_state::cobra(machine_config&)+0x0a6e)
Caught Ctrl+C, exiting
Terminate batch job (Y/N)?

[+mizapf]

40 minutes ago, dhe said:

I tried this..

 

D:\mame>mame -debug [...]

Are you still doing debugging work, or just keep the debugger for fun? The debugger is a performance drain and also a potential stability issue. I keep telling this because I know how the debugger works and I always have to write special debugger methods for read and write access.

 

I usually have the speech synthesizer in my Geneve configuration and never had any issues with it. However, I use a fraction of your config for common usage.

 

My suggestion would be that you drop all options from your config except for the boot drive and the speech synthesizer. Then you add the components step-by-step until you get your config line.

 

[code]

mame -window genmod -bios 1.00 -peb:slot2 speech -peb:slot3 horizon -peb:slot8 hfdc -peb:slot8:hfdc:h1 generic -hard1 genos7boot.HD

[/code]

 

Does this work?

[+dhe]

I'm sorry to report:

mame -window genmod -bios 1.00 -peb:slot2 speech -peb:slot3 horizon -peb:slot8 hfdc -peb:slot8:hfdc:h1 generic -hard1 genos7boot.HD

 

Did not worked and stopped at "Loading MDOS.." also.

 

@InsaneMultitasker  - if your reading this, could you add some number of dots so we could tell where we are in the load process?

[+9640News]

29 minutes ago, dhe said:

I'm sorry to report:

mame -window genmod -bios 1.00 -peb:slot2 speech -peb:slot3 horizon -peb:slot8 hfdc -peb:slot8:hfdc:h1 generic -hard1 genos7boot.HD

 

Did not worked and stopped at "Loading MDOS.." also.

 

@InsaneMultitasker  - if your reading this, could you add some number of dots so we could tell where we are in the load process?

Try it with the 2.00 eprom version.

 

I do not know how MAME handles the speech card to know if it is fully decoded in its configuration nor do I recall whether the 1.00 eprom has an issue with physical page >3C during its memory test on bootup.

 

 

[+mizapf]

Wait, I see "genmod" - I thought you ran the geneve.

 

Where is your memex card? It is automounted in slot 2 by default, so you better not plug anything else into it.

[+mizapf]

By the way, you can check the plugged cards when you run mame with -log or -oslog. The PEB contents are output right at the start.

 

Of course, you can also use the OSD menu and look for "Slot devices".

[+dhe]

I 'fixed' my problem with remembering that slot 2 is automatically taken by the memex memory card when genmod is used by commenting it in the first line of the batch file.

 

D:\mame>type gmrun.bat
:: LDOM 08.17.2022 - gemmod auto inserts memex card in slot 2

mame -window genmod -bios 1.00 -peb:slot3 horizon -peb:slot4 speech -peb:slot5 tirs232 -peb:slot6 tipi -conn rpi.192.168.2.2  -peb:slot8 hfdc -peb:slot8:hfdc:h1 generic -peb:slot8:hfdc:h2 generic -peb:slot8:hfdc:h3 generic -peb:slot8:hfdc:f3 525dd -peb:slot8:hfdc:f4 525dd -hard1 genos7boot.HD -hard2 Bootdisk2.HD -hard3 Bootdisk3.HD -flop1 DSDD1.dsk -flop2 DSDD2.hfe -flop3 DSDD3.dsk -flop4 DSDD4.dsk -serl1 socket.localhost:10000

 

Moving "speech" to slot4 worked GeneveOS loads. Starting ABASIC results in random errors. Sometimes ABASIC will just return to the command line, other times it will start, but with a lot of sqawking noise. When it does start - CALL SAY("HELLO") will work.

 

I enabled -oslog and when ABASIC starts, I get the errors below.

 

Removing speech from the batch also removes the generation of the errors.

 

The errors:

 

[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 004a at logical address 330c, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00a0 at logical address 3310, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00fe at logical address 3312, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0000 at logical address 3314, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0006 at logical address 3316, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00a0 at logical address 3318, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0000 at logical address 331c, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0002 at logical address 331e, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00a0 at logical address 3320, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 003e at logical address 3322, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00c8 at logical address 3324, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0007 at logical address 3326, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00c0 at logical address 3328, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00fa at logical address 332a, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 005b at logical address 332c, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00e0 at logical address 332e, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0068 at logical address 3330, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00c3 at logical address 3332, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00e0 at logical address 3334, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0066 at logical address 3336, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 00c3 at logical address 3338, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0013 at logical address 333a, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0001 at logical address 333c, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0020 at logical address 333e, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0068 at logical address 3340, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0020 at logical address 3342, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0066 at logical address 3344, will trigger MID
[:maincpu] Undefined opcode 0040 at logical address 3346, will trigger MID

[+9640News]

15 minutes ago, dhe said:

I 'fixed' my problem with remembering that slot 2 is automatically taken by the memex memory card when genmod is used by commenting it in the first line of the batch file.

 

D:\mame>type gmrun.bat
:: LDOM 08.17.2022 - gemmod auto inserts memex card in slot 2

mame -window genmod -bios 1.00 -peb:slot3 horizon -peb:slot4 speech -peb:slot5 tirs232 -peb:slot6 tipi -conn rpi.192.168.2.2  -peb:slot8 hfdc -peb:slot8:hfdc:h1 generic -peb:slot8:hfdc:h2 generic -peb:slot8:hfdc:h3 generic -peb:slot8:hfdc:f3 525dd -peb:slot8:hfdc:f4 525dd -hard1 genos7boot.HD -hard2 Bootdisk2.HD -hard3 Bootdisk3.HD -flop1 DSDD1.dsk -flop2 DSDD2.hfe -flop3 DSDD3.dsk -flop4 DSDD4.dsk -serl1 socket.localhost:10000

 

Moving "speech" to slot4 worked GeneveOS loads. Starting ABASIC results in random errors. Sometimes ABASIC will just return to the command line, other times it will start, but with a lot of sqawking noise. When it does start - CALL SAY("HELLO") will work.

 

 

Dan,

 

If you can run MEMTEST V2.xx that I released a while back, check to see if page >3C, >7C, and >BC are showing they are accessible memory and potentially testing for errors.

I would have to go back and look at the Memex docs, but it sounds like the speech card is configured in its original TI-99/4A state and is not behaving as though it is fully decoded for a Genmod configuration.  If you see errors on >3C and >7C, this will confirm it.  Page >BC should be marked flagged as a page not available to be mapped for Geneve use when all the pages are numbered.

 

Beery

[+9640News]

I am pretty sure Michael is aware of this, but the Rave speech card responded on the Geneve at pages >3C, >7C, and page >BC on a non-modified card.  This is not to be confused with the pages >3A, >7A, and >BA for other DSR I/O cards that were not fully decoded.

 

I do not think the Memex card itself had a switch to block the >3C, >7C, and >BC pages.  MDOS itself blocks memory page >BC from being useable by a task if ram is found during MDOS initialization of the XOP's.  I do not recall if >3C and >7C are blocked if page >BC is blocked.

 

There was one other board, the development board where one could add a clock, A/D converter, and something else that would have been wired to respond at page >BC.  That board is not emulated under MAME.

 

Beery