Concerto firmware thread

[+darryl1970]

14 hours ago, batari said:

Another firmware build.

 

This one has the following changes:

- Improvements to games with cartridge RAM: improved stability and better support for POKEY

- Improved automatic cartridge mapper type detection for 2600 and 7800

- Direct support for 64k games such as Tower Toppler, Realsports baseball, Waterski and Tank Command

- Improved A78 header support

- Stability improvements to Activision games Rampage and Double Dragon

 

hbios_concerto_0.96_build_30323_NTSC.bin 333 kB · 23 downloads

 

 

 

Thanks for the firmware update. I have been stuck on .95, because PentaGo and RatTrap work perfectly on that revision. The updates have broken my 144k homebrew games. PentaGo has static in the graphics on the title screen. I believe this is due to large amounts of sprite data being plotted in the title zone. (I am plotting a large blackout banner over top the regular banner. Maybe a DMA timing issue?) I've been told that RatTrap doesn't work at all.

 

Fred, I didn't mean this to hijack your thread. I figured it might be helpful to supply the two games that I know that I've been informed have issues.

 

RatTrap_Demo_3-4-2023.a78

 

PentaGo_Demo(12-5-2022).a78

 

** NOTE: PentaGo uses POKEY auto-detect, which I do not believe works on Concerto. (This is why it appeared that the POKEY sound wasn't working at PRGE!) The cartridge will default to TIA sound, but POKEY can be FORCE-SELECTED in the settings menu (Left-right on the number of players setting). The game will then access the POKEY chip on the Concerto cartridge. At least this is how it works in .95. I do not want to upgrade until I know the issue has been resolved.

Somebody please share if these games work on the latest .96 build!

[thursday83]

Hi.  I emailed Fred Quimby, not heard back.  I downloaded the latest 4_11 Trebors 7800 Pro Pack, and accidentally clicked on the txt. file upon inserting it into my 7800.  Concerto no longer works, just the flashing color splash screen.  I've tried erasing the disc and installing previous versions, to no avail.  Can anyone help on this - and my apologies if I am posting in the wrong thread or reply.  This had happened once before in the past, and I think either they solved it digitally via email or he sent me a replacement Concerto cartridge....but can't seem to remember.  But everything I've tried is resulting in the same issue.  
 

Thank you for your time.  

 

thursday83

[+x=usr(1536)]

7 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

Somebody please share if these games work on the latest .96 build!

They do not, at least on my machine.  RatTrap gives a solid yellow screen, and PentaGo gives the same but with an 11-byte hex dump in the top left of the screen.

[+batari]

50 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

Thanks for the firmware update. I have been stuck on .95, because PentaGo and RatTrap work perfectly on that revision. The updates have broken my 144k homebrew games. PentaGo has static in the graphics on the title screen. I believe this is due to large amounts of sprite data being plotted in the title zone. (I am plotting a large blackout banner over top the regular banner. Maybe a DMA timing issue?) I've been told that RatTrap doesn't work at all.

 

Fred, I didn't mean this to hijack your thread. I figured it might be helpful to supply the two games that I know that I've been informed have issues.

 

RatTrap_Demo_3-4-2023.a78 144.13 kB · 1 download

 

PentaGo_Demo(12-5-2022).a78 144.13 kB · 1 download

 

** NOTE: PentaGo uses POKEY auto-detect, which I do not believe works on Concerto. (This is why it appeared that the POKEY sound wasn't working at PRGE!) The cartridge will default to TIA sound, but POKEY can be FORCE-SELECTED in the settings menu (Left-right on the number of players setting). The game will then access the POKEY chip on the Concerto cartridge. At least this is how it works in .95. I do not want to upgrade until I know the issue has been resolved.

Somebody please share if these games work on the latest .96 build!

This update did not address 144k, but I plan to take a look at it shortly.

[+batari]

9 hours ago, thursday83 said:

Hi.  I emailed Fred Quimby, not heard back.  I downloaded the latest 4_11 Trebors 7800 Pro Pack, and accidentally clicked on the txt. file upon inserting it into my 7800.  Concerto no longer works, just the flashing color splash screen.  I've tried erasing the disc and installing previous versions, to no avail.  Can anyone help on this - and my apologies if I am posting in the wrong thread or reply.  This had happened once before in the past, and I think either they solved it digitally via email or he sent me a replacement Concerto cartridge....but can't seem to remember.  But everything I've tried is resulting in the same issue.  
 

Thank you for your time.  

 

thursday83

I'm responding to your email now.

 

This seems to be a bug. Apparently if you try to view a text file less than 128 bytes, this causes a 32-bit overflow that corrupts firmware. This will be fixed pretty quickly.

[+batari]

RevEng generously offered some space on his wiki so I was able to create a Concerto page there. This contains a guide to using Concerto as well as instructions for firmware updates, plus downloads.

 

http://7800.8bitdev.org/index.php/Concerto

 

 

 

[hatman72]

Hi, I see that the latest firmware is called hbios_concerto_0.96_build_30323_NTSC.bin - does that mean it will only work on an NTSC 7800?  If so will there be a separate PAL firmware?

 

Thanks

[+batari]

4 hours ago, hatman72 said:

Hi, I see that the latest firmware is called hbios_concerto_0.96_build_30323_NTSC.bin - does that mean it will only work on an NTSC 7800?  If so will there be a separate PAL firmware?

 

Thanks

Oh, sorry, that is an old nomenclature from the build environment. Firmware is compatible with both PAL and NTSC. I will remove that from now on.

[+batari]

On 3/5/2023 at 11:43 AM, darryl1970 said:

Thanks for the firmware update. I have been stuck on .95, because PentaGo and RatTrap work perfectly on that revision. The updates have broken my 144k homebrew games. PentaGo has static in the graphics on the title screen. I believe this is due to large amounts of sprite data being plotted in the title zone. (I am plotting a large blackout banner over top the regular banner. Maybe a DMA timing issue?) I've been told that RatTrap doesn't work at all.

 

Fred, I didn't mean this to hijack your thread. I figured it might be helpful to supply the two games that I know that I've been informed have issues.

 

RatTrap_Demo_3-4-2023.a78 144.13 kB · 7 downloads

 

PentaGo_Demo(12-5-2022).a78 144.13 kB · 7 downloads

 

** NOTE: PentaGo uses POKEY auto-detect, which I do not believe works on Concerto. (This is why it appeared that the POKEY sound wasn't working at PRGE!) The cartridge will default to TIA sound, but POKEY can be FORCE-SELECTED in the settings menu (Left-right on the number of players setting). The game will then access the POKEY chip on the Concerto cartridge. At least this is how it works in .95. I do not want to upgrade until I know the issue has been resolved.

Somebody please share if these games work on the latest .96 build!

I think I know the problem. 

 

144k games should not write to ROM at $4000-$7FFF. However, it appears that both RatTrap and PentaGo both inadvertently do, as they look try to detect a POKEY at $4000, and in doing so they write to the ROM area at $4000-$400F. The detection will always fail on any hardware for a 144k game because any reads of POKEY will just read ROM.

 

If this errant POKEY detection code is removed, most likely these games will both work again.

 

[+darryl1970]

9 minutes ago, batari said:

I think I know the problem. 

 

144k games should not write to ROM at $4000-$7FFF. However, it appears that both RatTrap and PentaGo both inadvertently do, as they look try to detect a POKEY at $4000, and in doing so they write to the ROM area at $4000-$400F. The detection will always fail on any hardware for a 144k game because any reads of POKEY will just read ROM.

 

If this errant POKEY detection code is removed, most likely these games will both work again.

 

Thanks Fred! I did not manually set POKEY to $450, since I am not using the built-in POKEY sound (except, I realize I am using detection). I added set pokeysupport $450 to both games. If this doesn't solve the issue, I would need to ask @RevEng, but this seems to make sense to me. I do see that I specified this in Popeye.

 

Fred, when PentaGo goes to cartridge, will POKEY detection work on the HOKEY cart, or do I need to just manually default to POKEY and keep track of that in the game itself? If detection doesn't work, I will need to make that update.

 

Can anybody with the latest firmware update let me know if these games work now?

 

If so, does PentaGo still have the graphic corruption on the title banner screen?

 

Thanks! 

 PentaGo_Demo(3-7-2023).a78   RatTrap_Demo(3-7-2023).a78

[Trebor]

1 hour ago, darryl1970 said:

Can anybody with the latest firmware update let me know if these games work now?

 

If so, does PentaGo still have the graphic corruption on the title banner screen?

 

Thanks! 

  PentaGo_Demo(3-7-2023).a78 144.13 kB · 1 download    RatTrap_Demo(3-7-2023).a78 144.13 kB · 1 download

Both game files posted above work with the latest firmware.

 

PentaGo does not have graphic corruption that I noticed.  The background melody in-game has some playback issues though.  The issue appears to be very similar to what was mentioned regarding the AtariAge jingle melody that plays at the beginning of some homebrews like Keystone Koppers and Popeye.  There are some garbled and/or off-key sounds.

 

RatTrap seems perfect as far as I can tell.

[RevEng]

4 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

Fred, when PentaGo goes to cartridge, will POKEY detection work on the HOKEY cart, or do I need to just manually default to POKEY and keep track of that in the game itself?

The recommended way forward for pokey support in 7800basic is to use hard-coded pokey addresses. It's also mentioned in the manual. The upcoming RMT functionality will only work with hard-coded pokey, and I'll likely put a compile warning in 7800basic if pokey autodetection is chosen. In the case of a game being put on specific hardware that is guaranteed to contain hokey/pokey, enabling autodetection doesn't get you anything, and it's just one more thing that can go wrong.

 

The 7800basic autodetection was developed at a time when XM was on the horizon and the only flash cart used bins without a78 headers, so a game needing to search for a pokey made sense. Our modern context is that every emulator and flash cart that can provide a pokey is reading and respecting a78 headers, and write-only pokey is a thing too; it just makes more sense now to tell the device where to put the pokey, rather than let devices put pokey somewhere and to try to search for it.

[+x=usr(1536)]

4 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

Can anybody with the latest firmware update let me know if these games work now?

Both are working for me 

4 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

If so, does PentaGo still have the graphic corruption on the title banner screen?

Nope, that appears to be gone, and I'm not hearing the in-game audio weirdness that @RevEng mentioned.  RatTrap only has TIA audio, but I'm uncertain if that's how it should be or not.

 

One thing I did notice in PentaGo is that the game seems to have a new predilection for putting unhatched Sno-Bees inside ice blocks immediately surrounding the player at the start of a level.  I'm not saying that Pengo would be completely surrounded by them, but rather that there was a high chance of at least one immediately next to the player containing an unhatched Sno-Bee.  The most I saw it generate at one time like this was three.

[+darryl1970]

I have an appointment tonight, but it looks like I'll have to test the new Firmware later and update PentaGo (since it uses POKEY detect). Thanks everybody.

 

Playsoft mentioned some sound issues, as if POKEY wasn't initializing on his machine. I will take out the auto detect routines and make sure all is right.

 

@RevEng Does "Hardcode" mean to set pokeysupport to $450 instead of just "on"?

 

I will update PentaGo on its respective forum, since it will no longer be relevant to the firmware (unless a different issue pops up.)

 

Thanks again!

[RevEng]

58 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

@RevEng Does "Hardcode" mean to set pokeysupport to $450 instead of just "on"?

Yep, correct.

[thursday83]

On 3/6/2023 at 12:05 AM, batari said:

I'm responding to your email now.

 

This seems to be a bug. Apparently if you try to view a text file less than 128 bytes, this causes a 32-bit overflow that corrupts firmware. This will be fixed pretty quickly.

Sorry Fred - instructions were over my head, I gave it a shot and still just flashing.  I unfortunately need someone to talk me through this.  chrismfriday@gmail.com 

 

Many thanks and apologies.....

 

thursday83

[+darryl1970]

I updated to .96. I have a real POKEY chip, and the two games above do not play correctly on my unit.

 

On load, the AtariToday music should play, followed by the title music. There is noise in the background, but no notes, as if POKEY isn't resetting.

 

After trying about 3 times, the main background tune seemed close to right.

Both games play flawlessly on .95.

 

I think there might be some confusion, because PentaGo uses a lot of TIA music for intros, dying sequences, and sound effects. The Atari Today music is TIA music in PentaGo.

The only POKEY sound in PentaGo is the main theme background music, and that is not playing properly, if at all. (Sometimes it plays, and other times it's just droning noise.)

 

RatTrap uses the TIA for sound effects. I have droning noise when the Atari Today and intro theme should be playing. I tried using POKEY Reset routines that were given to me by @RevEng and @playsoft. Neither seem to be helping.

 

    rem **** Take Pokey out of RESET ****

    dim paudctl=$458

    dim pskctl=$45F

    paudctl=0:pskctl=0

    dim preset = $45f

    preset = 3

 

    pokeybase[[PAUDC0]] = 160

    pokeybase[[PAUDC1]] = 160

    pokeybase[[PAUDC2]] = 160

    pokeybase[[PAUDC3]] = 160

 

Again, both games work fine in .95. I would be interested to know if those of you that experience it working didn't realize some sound and music were TIA, or are you using HOKEY? Maybe HOKEY works, but my POKEY doesn't?

 

Thanks,

 

Darryl

 

[+batari]

3 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

I updated to .96. I have a real POKEY chip, and the two games above do not play correctly on my unit.

 

On load, the AtariToday music should play, followed by the title music. There is noise in the background, but no notes, as if POKEY isn't resetting.

 

After trying about 3 times, the main background tune seemed close to right.

Both games play flawlessly on .95.

 

I think there might be some confusion, because PentaGo uses a lot of TIA music for intros, dying sequences, and sound effects. The Atari Today music is TIA music in PentaGo.

The only POKEY sound in PentaGo is the main theme background music, and that is not playing properly, if at all. (Sometimes it plays, and other times it's just droning noise.)

 

RatTrap uses the TIA for sound effects. I have droning noise when the Atari Today and intro theme should be playing. I tried using POKEY Reset routines that were given to me by @RevEng and @playsoft. Neither seem to be helping.

 

    rem **** Take Pokey out of RESET ****

    dim paudctl=$458

    dim pskctl=$45F

    paudctl=0:pskctl=0

    dim preset = $45f

    preset = 3

 

    pokeybase[[PAUDC0]] = 160

    pokeybase[[PAUDC1]] = 160

    pokeybase[[PAUDC2]] = 160

    pokeybase[[PAUDC3]] = 160

 

Again, both games work fine in .95. I would be interested to know if those of you that experience it working didn't realize some sound and music were TIA, or are you using HOKEY? Maybe HOKEY works, but my POKEY doesn't?

 

Thanks,

 

Darryl

 

Indeed, the changes in 0.96 for 144k included improved HOKEY support. But what's good for HOKEY is not necessarily good for POKEY. Some reported extra notes being played on their POKEY, etc.

 

This version rolls back most the changes that helped HOKEY compatibility but hurt POKEY compatibility. I expect that Alien Brigade and other games that had problems under 0.95 will still work (but please tell me if they don't.) HOKEY support may be affected, but I am looking into other ways to solve that.

 

Although I am hoping to have one routine that works with HOKEY and POKEY, if that isn't possible, Concerto will load the routine that best works with whatever sound chip you use.

 

Also in this version, a QR code for the Concerto wiki (in the settings menu under online help.)

 

 

hbios_concerto_0.96_build_30723.bin

[+x=usr(1536)]

42 minutes ago, batari said:

This version rolls back most the changes that helped HOKEY compatibility but hurt POKEY compatibility. I expect that Alien Brigade and other games that had problems under 0.95 will still work (but please tell me if they don't.) HOKEY support may be affected, but I am looking into other ways to solve that.

PentaGo's music is now fixed.

 

RatTrap still generates the not-quite-music tones at startup, but the AA splash screen and in-game music seem correct.

 

Atarivox / Savekey is working in both, including RatTrap's credits.

 

Commando & Ballblazer appear to play as normal and with correct sound.

 

Alien Brigade appears to be working, but I've only looked at the joystick version as my lightgun is currently inaccessible.

 

Tower Toppler and Millie & Molly both play fine using the non-overdump versions.  Millie & Molly is still displaying the Horizontal Yars effect on the title screen, however.

42 minutes ago, batari said:

Also in this version, a QR code for the Concerto wiki (in the settings menu under online help.) 

One thing I noticed about the QR code: if you pull it up then go back to the main menu, it leaves one line of itself across the top of the main menu.

 

Thank you for updating and improving the firmware.  It may not always seem like it, but it is genuinely appreciated.

[+darryl1970]

15 hours ago, batari said:

Indeed, the changes in 0.96 for 144k included improved HOKEY support. But what's good for HOKEY is not necessarily good for POKEY. Some reported extra notes being played on their POKEY, etc.

 

This version rolls back most the changes that helped HOKEY compatibility but hurt POKEY compatibility. I expect that Alien Brigade and other games that had problems under 0.95 will still work (but please tell me if they don't.) HOKEY support may be affected, but I am looking into other ways to solve that.

Thanks!  I am torn about what to do. I thought about just purchasing a HOKEY chip (if possible), or is it valuable to have somebody testing with an actual POKEY chip?

My one catch is wondering if it will ever be able to update my unit's firmware without pulling the POKEY chip. I almost broker a pin the last time I inserted it back into the cart. I hate to take such a chance with such a rare beast.

15 hours ago, batari said:

Although I am hoping to have one routine that works with HOKEY and POKEY, if that isn't possible, Concerto will load the routine that best works with whatever sound chip you use.

Very cool!

15 hours ago, batari said:

Also in this version, a QR code for the Concerto wiki (in the settings menu under online help.)

Also very cool!

[+mksmith]

On 3/8/2023 at 5:56 AM, darryl1970 said:

Does "Hardcode" mean to set pokeysupport to $450 instead of just "on"?

I've done some further compilation and testing for Millie and Molly and Concerto. 

 

I can confirm compiling with 'set pokeysupport $450' in 7800basic now allows the pokey to be initialised on Concerto. Previously there has been a requirement to either make changes to the code or the binary (or use the flag available in the pokeysound library) as noted above by Darryl.  Playback issues still exist as the 128k+16kram format is not yet fully supported but we have some progress!!

[+Nathan Strum]

7 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

My one catch is wondering if it will ever be able to update my unit's firmware without pulling the POKEY chip. I almost broker a pin the last time I inserted it back into the cart. I hate to take such a chance with such a rare beast.

In a worst-case scenario, they can be repaired. But it would be far better to not have to remove/reinstall the chip with each firmware update. I'm not inclined to update mine again, until I'm certain I don't have to do that, and as of the last time I tried it, the latest beta of the Harmony software (which is supposed to address that) was still crashing on my M1 Mac.

[+x=usr(1536)]

3 minutes ago, Nathan Strum said:

But it would be far better to not have to remove/reinstall the chip with each firmware update. I'm not inclined to update mine again, until I'm certain I don't have to do that, and as of the last time I tried it, the latest beta of the Harmony software (which is supposed to address that) was still crashing on my M1 Mac.

So, here's what I can say about that from both the Mac and I-don't-want-to-remove-POKEY end of things:

 

With the Concerto BIOS Updater and a firmware image on the Concerto's SD card, I've been able to do firmware updates from within Concerto's menu for about the last four or five releases.  I can't remember how many releases in total there have been that were able to be flashed this way, but four or five sounds about right.  The tool has worked reliably with each release.

 

As for the Mac side: I had the same problems with the most recent Harmony software beta also crashing on me.  However, installing Qt6 from (specifically) Homebrew seemed to fix that problem, even though Qt was bundled into the latest build.  The catch: I'm still running on Intel hardware, and don't have any Apple silicon to test on. In other words, I have no idea if that would work for you or not.

 

Going the Homebrew route for the flasher may be worth a shot, provided it won't totally screw up your environment.  Figure that once you get to the point where that's working, you're really only one POKEY removal away from never having to go through that again.

[+darryl1970]

10 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Going the Homebrew route for the flasher may be worth a shot, provided it won't totally screw up your environment.  Figure that once you get to the point where that's working, you're really only one POKEY removal away from never having to go through that again.

Am I missing something by the "homebrew" route? Is this something that I could bounce back to .95 whenever, without removing POKEY? Or, is this not until the range is .96 and up?

[Trebor]

On 3/7/2023 at 9:07 PM, batari said:

Indeed, the changes in 0.96 for 144k included improved HOKEY support. But what's good for HOKEY is not necessarily good for POKEY. Some reported extra notes being played on their POKEY, etc.

 

This version rolls back most the changes that helped HOKEY compatibility but hurt POKEY compatibility. I expect that Alien Brigade and other games that had problems under 0.95 will still work (but please tell me if they don't.) HOKEY support may be affected, but I am looking into other ways to solve that.

 

Although I am hoping to have one routine that works with HOKEY and POKEY, if that isn't possible, Concerto will load the routine that best works with whatever sound chip you use.

 

Also in this version, a QR code for the Concerto wiki (in the settings menu under online help.)

hbios_concerto_0.96_build_30723.bin 333 kB · 13 downloads

The above build fixed both the POKEY sound issues with homebrews (Including the AA jingle melody), and the TIA off/key notes sounds under Alien Brigade when utilizing Concerto with an original POKEY installed.

 

Tower Toppler (64k with RAM) still freezing when starting a game. 

 

7800 8k ROMS (I.E. Color Bars Selector Demo (1984).a78), "Unrecognized file type" message still displays when trying to select and load accordingly.