Concerto firmware thread

[Tempest]

53 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

There's at least one Synertek-made SALLY going free-range somewhere around here.  Can't get to it until the weekend, but I can try swapping it in and seeing what, if anything, changes.

Is the SALLY soldered in or socketed?

[+x=usr(1536)]

14 minutes ago, Tempest said:

Is the SALLY soldered in or socketed?

Soldered on the 7800, IIRC.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

20 minutes ago, Tempest said:

Is the SALLY soldered in or socketed?

Could be either. Most of them are soldered in though except on early AT84 units that have nearly everything in sockets. @Tempest according to my pics... yours is soldered and is a Rockwell CPU with a date stamp of 49th week of '82 interestingly enough. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Feinsveur]

19 hours ago, batari said:

Thanks, that may help pinpoint the problem. Initially I tried the game and it seemed to work, but now that you mention this, on my consoles, the alien finger comes out for a second then it just jumps to the title screen.

My 7800 doesn't have this issue, and the finger draws out the name without any stuttering.

 

What other titles are known to be problematic?

[+DrVenkman]

2 hours ago, Tempest said:

Is the SALLY soldered in or socketed?

In my AT84, it’s socketed (NCR, datecode 10th week of ‘84 ). In my A1, it’s soldered (also an NCR - datecode 6th week of ‘85).

[+batari]

21 hours ago, Tempest said:

That's what happens on mine too.

Those having problems on the alien finger screen: Can you try holding the joystick up once you start loading the game, and hold it up until the game starts? I am curious if this magically fixes the alien finger screen and goes to the title screen.

 

The reason for holding the joystick up is it seems to trick the console into thinking you have another controller installed (possibly a light gun or trackball, I am not sure) and it bypasses the joystick setup code, which I may have a problem.

[RevEng]

While we're on the controller investigation, can people with Alien Brigade problems also report what kind of stick you're using? i.e. single button 2600, or 2 button proline?

[edit - never mind. I see only proline is supported]

[Tempest]

2 hours ago, batari said:

Those having problems on the alien finger screen: Can you try holding the joystick up once you start loading the game, and hold it up until the game starts? I am curious if this magically fixes the alien finger screen and goes to the title screen.

 

The reason for holding the joystick up is it seems to trick the console into thinking you have another controller installed (possibly a light gun or trackball, I am not sure) and it bypasses the joystick setup code, which I may have a problem.

No that didn't work.  Once the finger got as far as starting to draw the A and I thought the problem was fixed, but that only happened once.

[+DrVenkman]

3 hours ago, batari said:

Those having problems on the alien finger screen: Can you try holding the joystick up once you start loading the game, and hold it up until the game starts? I am curious if this magically fixes the alien finger screen and goes to the title screen.

 

The reason for holding the joystick up is it seems to trick the console into thinking you have another controller installed (possibly a light gun or trackball, I am not sure) and it bypasses the joystick setup code, which I may have a problem.

 

1 hour ago, Tempest said:

No that didn't work.

I can confirm - no change on my system either. I tried both the Joystick and Lightgun versions as provided in Trebor's ProPack.

[Tempest]

1 hour ago, DrVenkman said:

 

I can confirm - no change on my system either. I tried both the Joystick and Lightgun versions as provided in Trebor's ProPack.

Those are the roms I'm using too.

[sushko]

Ok I just got the Concerto and it was loaded with 94a. It looks like 95 is the latest Firmware I would like to update. I tried to update by just adding file to the SD card and with Harmony cart software. Both not working. The file says not recognized and the software says firmware updated but its not updated. The one big problem I am having is on the 7800 menu the highlighted game is not the game that starts its the one below it. Kind of strange. Any help would be great.

[alex_79]

On 7/7/2022 at 10:45 PM, batari said:

The reason for holding the joystick up is it seems to trick the console into thinking you have another controller installed (possibly a light gun or trackball, I am not sure) and it bypasses the joystick setup code, which I may have a problem.

Are all the RIOT I/O registers (SWCHA,SWACNT,SWCHB,SWBCNT) ensured to be 0 before loading a 2600/7800 rom? Those are zeroed by the normal 6532 reset sequence (on a power cycle), but in case they're altered by the Concerto menu they could cause issues if a game rely on this and they're not restored to their initial state.

 

 

I ask because in the past I experienced issues on the 2600 Pluscart until such initialization was added to the firmware: the "emulation-exit" feature allows to exit a game and go back to the menu without power-cycling, and if a game altered the I/O registers, the Pluscart menu or the games loaded after that sometimes misbehaved until the console was powered off and on again.

[+batari]

1 hour ago, alex_79 said:

Are all the RIOT I/O registers (SWCHA,SWACNT,SWCHB,SWBCNT) ensured to be 0 before loading a 2600/7800 rom? Those are zeroed by the normal 6532 reset sequence (on a power cycle), but in case they're altered by the Concerto menu they could cause issues if a game rely on this and they're not restored to their initial state.

 

 

I ask because in the past I experienced issues on the 2600 Pluscart until such initialization was added to the firmware: the "emulation-exit" feature allows to exit a game and go back to the menu without power-cycling, and if a game altered the I/O registers, the Pluscart menu or the games loaded after that sometimes misbehaved until the console was powered off and on again.

They are all zeroed. I am not sure if this has an immediate clearing effect, though, as the INPT0-3 lines are normally used for paddles and have a resistor and capacitor on them, so switching to input mode on port B may not have entirely predictable results with some hardware combinations. I would have to look at what exactly happens when clearing the registers.

[+batari]

I cannot replicate the jittering alien finger problems, and now I am thinking the startup issue I experience is unrelated to this. I rewrote the 144k driver from scratch to see if this helps. I will post the daily build here so you can tell me if there is any difference Alien Brigade.

 

In this driver:

• Minor bug fixes:
  • Fix question mark in place of 9 when number of pages ends in 9
  • Text file viewer fixed
• Rewrite of 144k driver
• Support for controller in left or right port
• Game loading speed improvements
• Driving controllers, mouse, and trackballs no longer interfere with menu
• Select+Reset navigation
• Fixed pixel shift and graphics glitches on some 2600 games

WARNING!!!!!!

This is merely a daily build, far from a final version, and it has not been heavily scrutinized. Please only install this for testing the above features. More features and fixes are coming soon, of course.

hbios_concerto_build_7822.bin

[Feinsveur]

5 hours ago, batari said:

I cannot replicate the jittering alien finger problems, and now I am thinking the startup issue I experience is unrelated to this. I rewrote the 144k driver from scratch to see if this helps. I will post the daily build here so you can tell me if there is any difference Alien Brigade.

 

In this driver:

• Minor bug fixes:
  • Fix question mark in place of 9 when number of pages ends in 9
  • Text file viewer fixed
• Rewrite of 144k driver
• Support for controller in left or right port
• Game loading speed improvements
• Driving controllers, mouse, and trackballs no longer interfere with menu
• Select+Reset navigation
• Fixed pixel shift and graphics glitches on some 2600 games

WARNING!!!!!!

This is merely a daily build, far from a final version, and it has not been heavily scrutinized. Please only install this for testing the above features. More features and fixes are coming soon, of course.

hbios_concerto_build_7822.bin 333 kB · 1 download

Thanks for the update! Now with right controller support and Select+Reset navigation, Alien Brigade is recognizing the gun in the left port each boot. Before, it seemed like it didn't always work swapping the controllers.

 

Though this is a daily build I'll still go over some findings I noticed in case the info is helpful.

 - There's some new minor graphical glitches in the flashing text on the title screen that I don't believe were present before.

 - This may or may not be new, but engaging the radio in the top left goes to the mission briefing screen and then quickly resets to the title after a second or so. Seems to be the same behavior as the alien finger intro screen others are experiencing.

 

Other than that I played up to stage 3 and everything else seems to be in order.

[Tempest]

How do you update the firmware?  It's been a long time since I've done that.

[Trebor]

1 hour ago, Tempest said:

How do you update the firmware?  It's been a long time since I've done that.

Use the Harmony programming software:

 

-Linux 64-bit: https://github.com/sa666666/harmonycart/releases/download/release-1.3/harmonycart_1.3-1_amd64.deb
-OSX: https://github.com/sa666666/harmonycart/releases/download/release-1.3/HarmonyCart-1.3-macosx.dmg
-Windows: https://github.com/sa666666/harmonycart/releases/download/release-1.3/HarmonyCart-1.3-win32.exe

 

Plug in the Concerto with your micro-USB cable, then start the software. Generally, your OS will automatically find and install drivers.  If the OS does not automatically install the drivers when the Concerto is plugged in with a micro-USB cable, leverage the following links:

 

-Green PCB (newer) Concertos use CH341 drivers  (Downloads are also posted here by batari).

-Purple PCB (older) Concertos use the FTDI drivers.

 

If you are having issues, there is a newer version (2.0 beta 2) of the Harmony programming software, located here:

 

-Linux

-Mac OS X

-Windows 64-bit

 

After installing the Harmony programming software, a reboot may be necessary for the cart to be recognized.

 

Depending on when you bought your cart, you may need to remove the POKEY chip so the software can properly communicate.

 

In the Harmony programming software, go to the EEPROM loader section and select the included eeloader_NTSC.bin (or similar) file, and click "download EEPROM".  Make sure the download goes to 100%, and fully completes (text on the bottom of the window should indicate a successful download).  Retry if it does not fully complete.

 

If the eeloader_NTSC.bin file is missing, obtain it from this post or directly here. 

 

Copy the latest firmware posted file, hbios_concerto_build_7822.bin, to the root directory of your SD card.  Make sure there are no other files starting with "hbios" on the card, or it may load that one instead.

 

Insert the card into Concerto and boot.  It will boot into Harmony mode and update the firmware, and when it completes, it will show a success screen and ask you to press a button to continue.  Instead of pressing a button, you should reboot the 7800. 

 

Now your new BIOS is installed, and the top of the screen will read: Concerto firmware 0.96 daily build 7822.

[Tempest]

Ah thank you.  I have so many flash carts that I forget which ones have to be programmed and which ones are just 'drop in'.

[Tempest]

This latest build fixed the Alien Brigade problem for me.  No resets on the title screen or during gameplay.  There are some 'speckles' during gameplay but I'm not sure if those are a glitches or happen with a real cart.  By speckles I mean little dashes that appear and disappear on the main gameplay area. 

 

The only other problem I remember seeing when playing some games was there are little dots in the HUD of Commando, but those don't hinder the gameplay any.

[Trebor]

Unfortunately, now I have a problem with Alien Brigade, in which I did not have any issue previously on the same console. 

 

The hand draws the entire title screen, which that portion looks perfect.   I can next see the game options/copyright text, moving across the bottom of the screen from left to right, though that text flashes between appearing corrupt/garbled at times and looking perfect.

 

Whether I press a button before it finishes, or allow the screen to complete drawing and the text at the bottom to fully center, the game resets, starts to redraw the title screen again, but all the graphics are corrupt and it shortly thereafter completely freezes and locks-up.

 

*EDIT:  To flush this out a bit more...  The console that was flawless with Alien Brigade and most other titles, now has the crashing issue mentioned above.

 

Another console, which never even made it to the title screen of Alien Brigade (Diagonal white lines on a black background instead), works just like Tempest mentioned with little dashes/speckles throughout the main play area though fully playable. @Tempest those glitches do not happen with an original retail cart.

 

The additional silver lining for me, is I did a quick spot check on several games under the aforementioned another console link, and they all seem to be working well now, granted 64K games for both mentioned consoles are still hosed up, but the overdump hacks for them take care of that.

 

Out of time for anymore testing today.

[+batari]

7 hours ago, Tempest said:

This latest build fixed the Alien Brigade problem for me.  No resets on the title screen or during gameplay.  There are some 'speckles' during gameplay but I'm not sure if those are a glitches or happen with a real cart.  By speckles I mean little dashes that appear and disappear on the main gameplay area. 

 

The only other problem I remember seeing when playing some games was there are little dots in the HUD of Commando, but those don't hinder the gameplay any.

Good to hear. This means I basically know the source of the problem now. I don't think it will be much of an issue to fix the glitches you and others have experienced.

[+DrVenkman]

9 hours ago, Tempest said:

This latest build fixed the Alien Brigade problem for me.  No resets on the title screen or during gameplay.  There are some 'speckles' during gameplay but I'm not sure if those are a glitches or happen with a real cart.  By speckles I mean little dashes that appear and disappear on the main gameplay area. 

 

The only other problem I remember seeing when playing some games was there are little dots in the HUD of Commando, but those don't hinder the gameplay any.

Ditto to all the above. Great progress that ALIEN BRIGADE is basically working now. 

 

Unfortunately, I still can't load either TANK COMMAND or WATER SKI on my Concerto, and Choplifter still gives garbled/corrupted graphics along the top of the screen. 

[RevEng]

14 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

Ditto to all the above. Great progress that ALIEN BRIGADE is basically working now. 

 

Unfortunately, I still can't load either TANK COMMAND or WATER SKI on my Concerto, and Choplifter still gives garbled/corrupted graphics along the top of the screen. 

The Choplifter garble happens on some consoles with a real cart.

[+DrVenkman]

11 minutes ago, RevEng said:

The Choplifter garble happens on some consoles with a real cart.

Yep, I remember that. With a real CHOPLIFTER cart, I have some of those "tooth mark" bars at the top of the screen. From my Concerto cart on the same system, however, the corruption is garbage stuff that flickers in the title display. 

[Trebor]

11 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

Unfortunately, I still can't load either TANK COMMAND or WATER SKI on my Concerto

For now, to play 64K ROM retail games, the overdumps can be utilized.

They are included in the PROPack in the 'Hacks' folder.  Look for the ROMs named '(Overdump 78SG Hack)'.

RealSports Baseball along with Tower Toppler are included with Tank Command and Water Ski as impacted games.