Andromeda Stardust Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Maybe many will fail? Stella 3.75 is on it, correct (it was in a link in some post back...).According to various reports, Pitfall II (dpc), Space Rocks (dpc+), and Scramble (dpc+) run only from sd card. So for dpc+ games to run, at least Stella 4.x? I imagine Pitfall II would not be difficult to dump from the cartridge port. It uses an odd sized ROM, 10kbytes. Presumably the game rom itself (graphics + logic) is 8kbytes, and the audio and microcode for the tia sound stuffing is the remaining 2kbytes. For the more advance Melody games, it gets more complex. While most games are 32kbytes or less, the arm driver needs to be dumped as well as the game code? I read some technical documents on the dpc+ and cdw. Apparently some banks contain 6507 code and are accessible through the cartridge port, some banks contain arm code and are accessible through the cartridge port, and some banks contain arm code which are reserved (not accessible through the cart port). Presumably the "reserved" banks are a security feature of some sort, or house the arm driver? Any game cartridge holding "reserved" banks would be a potential roadblock to dumping efforts. Short of gaining total bus control and injecting arm code directly to the arm processor, hijacking the arm cpu and making it read back the data from the missing banks by sending it across the cart bus, I don't see any way of recovering "reserved" banks. And doing so would require realtime bus access that only an fpga could provide, so why not run the game natively? Most of the other bankswitching schemes used by recent non-melody homebrew or original 3rd party games should be accessible through firmware updates to the cart dumper itself. Hueristic routines would also go a long way, but I would caution against the use of crc lookups to detect games (as the retron5 did for nes) since many homebrew games using otherwise standard mappers, or bitd games with revisions not in the database, would be needlessly excluded from running. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 (edited) Haven't there been revisions to DPC+? And those revisions would need a high 4.x..? What do you mean by running the game natively? Edited July 9, 2018 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Haven't there been revisions to DPC+? And those revisions would need a high 4.x..? What do you mean by running the game natively? Natively as in running the game directly from the cart bus as opposed to dumping it to a ram disk. Currently only FPGAs have the zero latency massively parallel logic required to pull this off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Well yes, if you want to stay in the physical hardware domain to do cartridges, then by all means an FPGA or other dedicated circuitry should be used. If you're using ROM images then you should do Software Emulation and work within the software/digital domain entirely. Cross mixing the types results in a sub-optimal experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Cross mixing the types results in a sub-optimal experience. I disagree. If done right, both approaches will work well. And if done wrong, both will fail. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Technically that can be true. Unfortunately I still can't help (rightly or wrongly) feeling that Stella was bastardized and pushed into duty it was not intended for. Not enough modifications were done to it to make it fit for the task. Let alone the right approach.. The way they're using it, the methodology, just feels wrong. Witness the compatibility thread here. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/280100-retron77-compatibility-list/page-3?do=findComment&comment=4065697 ..we shouldn't even need a compatibility thread, let alone a spreadsheet! Eeegads! Back in the day I never worried about what carts worked and what ones didn't. They all worked. I plugged them in. I played. Hate to rag on Hyperkin and all, but I am simply expressing how I feel about it. I believe that too many developers (of today's products) think it's alright to have to jump through hoops when making something work. Or constantly have to snake your way through something to make something work. That isn't for me. Sorry. But "because cartridges" it is selling. I guess that's all that matters. Maybe software revisions will change how things operate, 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coolcrab Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Had a good talk with Chris from Hyperkin and he linked to the websites of the homebrew games on this page. So that's very nice I would say! https://www.hyperkin.com/r77 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggmanfat120 Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Can the Retron 77 play PAL cartridges? Just wondering. I haven't been able to find any info about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyHairy Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 According to various reports, Pitfall II (dpc), Space Rocks (dpc+), and Scramble (dpc+) run only from sd card. So for dpc+ games to run, at least Stella 4.x? Nope; the R77 runs Stella 3.7.5 almost unmodified. There was dpc+ support in this version, that‘s why Space Rocks and Stay Frosty 2 run but, of course, none of the later changes and fixes are included. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Well yes, if you want to stay in the physical hardware domain to do cartridges, then by all means an FPGA or other dedicated circuitry should be used. If you're using ROM images then you should do Software Emulation and work within the software/digital domain entirely. Cross mixing the types results in a sub-optimal experience. So, you are opposed to flash carts running ROMs on real hardware, and emulators dumping physical carts? We can't emulate physical carts or run ROMs on hardware? What is the difference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 So, you are opposed to flash carts running ROMs on real hardware, and emulators dumping physical carts? We can't emulate physical carts or run ROMs on hardware? What is the difference? Flash carts running ROMs on real hardware makes a bunch of sense to me -- it's about as close as you'll get to the old experience, and storage is much more efficient. Emulators dumping physical cartridges is goofy. Why go through the "Rube Goldberg" exercise if you're just running a ROM in an emulator anyway? It's like coloring CDs green to make them sound better. It makes no difference in the end result, just sucks up time and energy and money. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 It's like coloring CDs green to make them sound better. Well, that was the second-most bonkers thing I've seen on the internet today. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coolcrab Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 To me it's the joy of playing my physical collection. Ofc I could sell it all and play roms but for some reason that doesn't work for me. I never touch steam or my flashback portable but I do enjoy looking through my cart collection and picking something to play. I have no idea why tbh. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+xucaen Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 [...] but I do enjoy looking through my cart collection and picking something to play. I do that, too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_convoy Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 (edited) Yeah; this comes up from time to time, and I get where the pro emulation contingent is coming from, but the fact is I like grabbing a game off of my shelf, or better yet, when the missus does so. She's about 10,000x more likely to go grab a game than she would be to scroll thru a list of roms. Some people forget that not everyone is a seasoned dork like us, and are only maybe MILDLY dorks. Case in point; I have an N8 Everdrive for my real Famicom where the CRT and PVM are set up, but it's kind of a pain to turn on the right channels, the right stereo thing, the right switch box, etc., which makes me sort of the gate keeper of that stuff/ I bought the missus a copy of Labyrinth for the Famicom so she could play it in the living room on the big TV on the Retron. I don't mind scanning thru 800 games, but she just wants to see little 8 bit David Bowie. Or play Lost Luggage. Or whatever. Edited July 9, 2018 by dj_convoy 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 So, you are opposed to flash carts running ROMs on real hardware, and emulators dumping physical carts? We can't emulate physical carts or run ROMs on hardware? What is the difference? Technically, by the engineering diagrams and stuff - a flash cart is a new circuit add-on that supports/adds in a (relatively) modern file system. That's fine. A flashcart adds more hardware and modifies how the user connects data to the machine. Nothing wrong there. I see the flashcart as becoming part of the VCS circuit. Adding a virtual disk drive of a sorts. If it's designed well, it should be trouble-free. I neither like nor dislike flash carts they are what they are and they work and that's good. My mini-beef with flash carts is generally the menu selection screen, most don't have a search function. I guess I got spoiled by the PC's filing system. That's an entirely different beast however and the sole domain of Software Emulation. If someone is playing around with the entire VCS collection, they'll have a better time navigating it on the PC than a flashcart's rudimentary menu selector. We can get into semantics but that gets tiring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Flash carts running ROMs on real hardware makes a bunch of sense to me -- it's about as close as you'll get to the old experience, and storage is much more efficient. Emulators dumping physical cartridges is goofy. Why go through the "Rube Goldberg" exercise if you're just running a ROM in an emulator anyway? It's like coloring CDs green to make them sound better. It makes no difference in the end result, just sucks up time and energy and money. Indeed. Hyperkin couldn't: 1- Write their own emulator. Writing emulators is difficult. Making them accurate even more so - and you really need good regression testing and even crowdtesting. And that takes time. Years even. 2- Design a good FPGA simulation. Much for the same reasons as above. 3- Design/fab original new-replacement chips. This would be costly especially for a niche product. And again you need a talent pool capable of doing it. So someone looking to cash in on "cartridges", and can't make original chips, can't develop FPGA simulations, can't write their own emulator.. is going to look at "assembling" existing and readily available pieces on the market already. --- Personally I'd rather see a low-cost CPLD implementation of the TIA coupled to new old stock 6507 and RIOT chips. That and the original discrete components like resistors, transistors, and capacitors. That would be a nice modern-day VCS replacement. Transistors and resistors are like pennies each. Theoretically everything would work if the cartridge ports and controller connectors were set up to behave exactly like the original. --- Or do a kit, like that Atari 8-bit computer. Where you get the parts and everything, and all the user needs to do is source the main ICs themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Emulators dumping physical cartridges is goofy. Why go through the "Rube Goldberg" exercise if you're just running a ROM in an emulator anyway? I was hoping to see a portion of the emulator re-written to access the cartridge realtime. This emu dumping carts thing is little different than running roms anyways. --- Am I right in understanding that SDL 1 vs 2 is the problem? And to go higher than Stella v3.75, SDL 2 needs to be re-written to be compatible with the AllWinner crap? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 Stella can actually go to 3.9.3 and still use SDL1; I have no idea why they stopped at 3.7.5 (if you're restricted to an old version, at least go to the newest 'old' version). SDL2 has preliminary support for Allwinner (more specifically, Mali400 GPU). But it is in a fork, not in the main SDL codebase. So someone would need to test that, and get it working on this hardware. That may possibly require more parts of the 'image' file to be updated to newer versions too. There's nothing really stopping anyone from doing that, other than the time to test and debug it. Once SDL2 is working on this device, Stella 5.x comes with it for free. And from my POV, this is the desired path to take. I personally don't want to be backporting stuff to Stella 3.x, when we have, in Stella 5.x, a codebase that has in many ways been almost completely re-written. DirtyHairy is going to post about all this soon. Perhaps some interested individuals will want to give it a try. EDIT: To be clear, the best path would be to make this hardware completely compatible with the latest versions of Stella, and have it include as little platform-specific code as possible. That way, when a new version of Stella is released, it auto-magically works on this device too. IOW, this device would essentially become another port (Linux, OSX, Windows and R77). 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 THE RETRON 77 HAS ARRIVED IN MY HANDS! :-) Join us LIVE TONIGHT (Monday) on the ZeroPage Homebrew Video Gaming Twitch livestream at 8PM PT/11PM ET for the UNBOXING and PLAYTHROUGH of all the HOMEBREW games contained within the Retron 77! We'll also be checking out the brand new game Quantum Tunnel! LIVE: Monday July 9th, 2018 @ 8PM PT/11PM ET (TONIGHT!) Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/ Homebrew Games on the Retron 77: Muncher by Rick Skrbina (aka Wickeycolumbus)Baby by Robert Holmes (aka Robsome)Nexion 3D by Brock Keaghey (aka TheMajorHavoc)Astronomer by Alex Pietrow (aka Coolcrab) See you all then!! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted July 10, 2018 Share Posted July 10, 2018 Flash carts running ROMs on real hardware makes a bunch of sense to me -- it's about as close as you'll get to the old experience, and storage is much more efficient. Emulators dumping physical cartridges is goofy. Why go through the "Rube Goldberg" exercise if you're just running a ROM in an emulator anyway? It's like coloring CDs green to make them sound better. It makes no difference in the end result, just sucks up time and energy and money. That is snake oil if I ever seen one. Perhaps the green marker will enhance the readability of damages cds in certain cases. But it will not enhance the clarity of factory pressed cds encoded at 44100 hz 16-bit stereo samples. Unless you have a completely shitty dac, no enhancements to the disc medium itself will inprove fidelity beyond the raw signal encoded to the cd. Anything else is snake oil. Just like how a 16awg hookup cable embedded with technology to make et wanna phone home is somehow better that el cheapo 14awg lamp cord. It isn't. Bigger guage is better, regardless of price. Silver is the best electrical conductor known to man, but it is only 5% more effiecient than copper which is an order of magnitude cheaper per ounce. So go ahead and buy cheap bulk cabling compared to the exotic stuff. Lower resistance = superior sound. Stray inductancd or capacitance are so small as to be meaningless in dealing with speaker level outputs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted July 10, 2018 Share Posted July 10, 2018 Just like how a 16awg hookup cable embedded with technology to make et wanna phone home is somehow better that el cheapo 14awg lamp cord. It isn't. Bigger guage is better, regardless of price. Silver is the best electrical conductor known to man, but it is only 5% more effiecient than copper which is an order of magnitude cheaper per ounce. So go ahead and buy cheap bulk cabling compared to the exotic stuff. Lower resistance = superior sound. Stray inductance or capacitance are so small as to be meaningless in dealing with speaker level outputs. Fiver percent! Well to my golden ears, every percentage point counts. Special offer! Just for you, a thousand-dollar ethernet cable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted July 10, 2018 Share Posted July 10, 2018 I just got Stella 3.9.3 working on this, and with it Kool-Aid Man is fixed. So the potential is there to upgrade ... 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+GoldLeader Posted July 10, 2018 Share Posted July 10, 2018 I just ordered myself a RetroN 77!!! OK I just wanted to tell someone...Why not here? Cheers! 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NISMOPC Posted July 10, 2018 Share Posted July 10, 2018 I just got Stella 3.9.3 working on this, and with it Kool-Aid Man is fixed. So the potential is there to upgrade ... Any difficulties getting it loaded? Some possible pointers for those getting their hands on these? (Mine arrives tomorrow) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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