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Al_Nafuur

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7 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said:

wo?

?

 

Red error messages would be soooooo cooool :party:

 

? but only the three pixel font wizards can do this.

 

Personally I think red (on blue) would be hard to read.

perhaps using the background highlight would be way more effective in highlighting an error. Red background/white text, for example.

... or, better yet... just change the BG to red instead of blue. That's gonna get your attention!

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11 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

New public version v2.3.1 in PlusStore

 

  • Support for new ACE bankswitching provided by @MarcoJ 
  • New firmware updater that supports files greater than 112 KiB

 

 

Hi All,

 

Some "Hello world" test roms are provided below for testing out ACE. In the coming days I'll write a tutorial on how to develop for ACE. ACE is "ARM Custom Executable". It's a way to be able to program custom compiled C routines(boiled down into ARM code) to use with the Pluscart's STM32 ARM chip as a coprocessor. It has been developed for the UnoCart - this is a modified version to work with Pluscart. Developers embed ARM code into their rom, and the processor executes it in a loop. It is compatible with Pluscart's menu system - it is possible to run the rom and then exit back into the menu with the "right + reset" method.

 

The test ROMS can either be used in Offline roms or in "My roms". Note, there is about a minute download time. When in Offline mode, they will run instantly once download.

 

Cheers
Marco

 

Note - These ROMs are not compatible with UNOcart ACE. 

 

PLUSCART_TEST_NTSC.ACE PLUSCART_TEST_PAL.ACE

Edited by MarcoJ
update roms
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57 minutes ago, MarcoJ said:

Hi All,

 

Some "Hello world" test roms are provided below for testing out ACE. In the coming days I'll write a tutorial on how to develop for ACE. ACE is "ARM Custom Executable". It's a way to be able to program custom compiled C routines(boiled down into ARM code) to use with the Pluscart's STM32 ARM chip as a coprocessor. It has been developed for the UnoCart - this is a modified version to work with Pluscart. Developers embed ARM code into their rom, and the processor executes it in a loop. It is compatible with Pluscart's menu system - it is possible to run the rom and then exit back into the menu with the "right + reset" method.

 

The test ROMS can either be used in Offline roms or in "My roms". Note, there is about a minute download time. When in Offline mode, they will run instantly once download.

 

Cheers
Marco

 

Note - These ROMs are not compatible with UNOcart ACE. 

 

PLUSCART_TEST_NTSC.ACE 256 kB · 1 download PLUSCART_TEST_PAL.ACE 256 kB · 1 download

I have uploaded the ROMs to the Public Area of the PlusStore, so PlusCart users can find them now in the folder:

"Public ROMs/PlusCart Exclusives/ACE Test/"

 

 

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While I tested some these (not working well, rolling massively), I noticed that the loading takes very long 48 seconds for 256K (= ~44kBit/s). Some people might even think the PlusCart is stuck or crashed.

 

Can this be accelerated? If not, some kind of progress bar display would be nice.

Edited by Thomas Jentzsch
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Hi. Tested both the PAL and NTSC ace versions on both of my 7800s. Unfortunately both just crash after loading. My 7800s between them run most stuff, as they are different revisions. One 7800 gives vertical stripes the other is unable to sync then the screen goes black with a repetitive sound playing in the background. 

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Thanks for your testing @Ouzy and @Thomas Jentzsch.

 

@ouzy. I have also experienced a complete crash when running with an Atari 7800. Currently it can run only on Atari 2600 consoles. I'm yet to discover what the reason is, but I suspect it might be my use of Undocumented 6502 opcodes for the Rom side code. 

 

@Thomas Jentzsch, thanks for the feedback. Although the roms are running stably on my 2 NTSC and 2 PAL consoles, they have shown to be unstable on some other members NTSC and PAL consoles. I am in the process of tuning up the code to be more efficient and attempting to strictly follow TV standards to prevent rolling.  

 

 

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  • 10 months later...
On 1/6/2023 at 12:26 PM, Capellão said:

Hello, Is the new version expected to be released?

Yes.


I have moved the code to the new repository and I am ready to build a new release. I'm just waiting for a few more changes that might be included. 

 

@MarcoJ are your changes for E7 ready to be released?

 

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2 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

Yes.


I have moved the code to the new repository and I am ready to build a new release. I'm just waiting for a few more changes that might be included. 

 

@MarcoJ are your changes for E7 ready to be released?

 

@Al_Nafuur, push complete. Branch is called E7_Plusrom_Support

  

- Plusrom support added for E7 bankswitching.

- 8K E7 games (eg Bump 'n' Jump) loading fixed.

 

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46 minutes ago, MarcoJ said:

Awesome. Should be actioned now.

I would like to make some changes to pull request:

 

 

@Thomas Jentzsch, or @stephena do you have some example ROMs with 12K for E7?

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That’s odd. I was running the 16k plus store Public Rom version last night. The 12k version i’m sure won’t work, would need to shift the rom by 4k in buffer to work. I left that out the code since the 16k version worked ok. I was running the ntsc version though…guessing you ran PAL?

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5 minutes ago, MarcoJ said:

That’s odd. I was running the 16k plus store Public Rom version last night.

I tested 16K with:

/Public ROMs/Classic Roms/NTSC/BY COMPANY/M Network - Mattel Electronics/BurgerTime.bin

 

5 minutes ago, MarcoJ said:

The 12k version i’m sure won’t work, would need to shift the rom by 4k in buffer to work.

I tested the 12K version with my local changes to the 12K detection and shifting the ROM..

 

5 minutes ago, MarcoJ said:

 

I left that out the code since the 16k version worked ok. I was running the ntsc version though…guessing you ran PAL?

No NTSC, but despite the colors (or B/W) it should work on m PAL setup (I guess)

 

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11 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said:

I tested 16K with:

/Public ROMs/Classic Roms/NTSC/BY COMPANY/M Network - Mattel Electronics/BurgerTime.bin

Same here. It had worked on older firmware versions for me too.

 

11 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said:

I tested the 12K version with my local changes to the 12K detection and shifting the ROM..

That’s good. I wrote firmware code for it but didn’t get to test it, most of the rom repositories seem to stock the 16k version. Good the Stella team has the 12k version. I tried hacking the 16k rom to be 12k but it didn’t seem to have any obvious blank portions sizable to 4k.

 

11 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said:

No NTSC, but despite the colors (or B/W) it should work on m PAL setup (I guess)

Very odd that its not working at all on your console, even with old firmware. Yes it should work but with quirky colours.

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12 hours ago, MarcoJ said:

I tested the 12K version with my local changes to the 12K detection and shifting the ROM..

I tried this out with the 12K ROM and shifting the image right by 4k. Didn't work as expected.

 

I noticed in Stella that the mapping of banks to the 12k ROM is non-linear. There appears to be a gap, so likely doctoring the image would require a splice and shift right. I did try this , but alas didn't work yet. 

memmove(buffer+0x2000,buffer+0x1000,0x2000);

 

image.png.3d34b8f711ac4a644dfe32da3e96d63e.png

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13 minutes ago, MarcoJ said:

I tried this out with the 12K ROM and shifting the image right by 4k. Didn't work as expected.

 

I noticed in Stella that the mapping of banks to the 12k ROM is non-linear. There appears to be a gap, so likely doctoring the image would require a splice and shift right. I did try this , but alas didn't work yet. 

memmove(buffer+0x2000,buffer+0x1000,0x2000);

 

image.png.3d34b8f711ac4a644dfe32da3e96d63e.png

 

This should produce the same ROM than the 16K ROM :

memmove(buffer+0x1000,buffer,0x3000);

unfortunately both not working on my system..

 

 

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4 minutes ago, MarcoJ said:

Do you have a harmony cart to try it? This could help isolate if its game or cart related against your console.

No, but I have multiple consoles (2600 and 7800) to test on. I will try tonight,..

 

Did you tried the 12K version with my memmove on your system? Did it worked there?

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