The F18a DIY alternative with HDMI :)

[RickyDean]

11 hours ago, 9640News said:

Version 2 of the eprom does not give you a menu selection of devices to boot from. It gives the swan and then starts looking for the OS on detected devices until it finds one to load. 

In Mame with the following line being run in a .bat file, when I run the batch file, it comes up with the Swan and hangs there, just like my Geneve with a tang. Only the tang has the garbled video. When I change the bios to v1.00 instead of 2.00 in the line it boots from the emulated HFDC hard drive.

mame.exe geneve -window -bios 2.00 -peb:slot4 memex -peb:slot5 speech -peb:slot6 tipi -conn rpi.tipi -peb:slot8 hfdc -peb:slot8:hfdc:h1 generic -hard1 disks\genhd01.hd -flop1 C:\Emulators\TI99-Geneve\Disks\Geneve\Bootdisk.dsk %*

[RickyDean]

 

As a side note maybe the Tang is set to start at a different address than the V9938 in the Geneve is? maybe that's why it doesn't catch the swan or the initial selection page when the spacebar is held. Maybe a MSX starts at a different address?

[+9640News]

15 hours ago, RickyDean said:

 

As a side note maybe the Tang is set to start at a different address than the V9938 in the Geneve is? maybe that's why it doesn't catch the swan or the initial selection page when the spacebar is held. Maybe a MSX starts at a different address?

 

The video port addresses are managed by CRU call with MDOS or GPL modes. The Geneve source code for the V2 eprom is at BeeryMiller/Boot-Eprom at Version-2.00 (github.com)  

 

The only thing that comes to mind is maybe there is a video register setting on the 9958 not consistent with the 9938. The 9938 does have settings for the type of VRAM and maybe things are setup differently for what you are using????

 

One thing you might try after booting to the MDOS prompt is to type MODE 60.  This puts the VDP into Graphics mode 6. There is also MODE 40 which places the Geneve in Text mode 1 and MODE 80 that places the Geneve in Text mode 2.

 

I do not recall if the 9958 has mouse support.  If it does, and if you have a mouse, then there would be a good program I can point you towards to test all the video modes.  If you don't have a Geneve mouse and had a way to

[RickyDean]

On 1/8/2024 at 12:45 PM, 9640News said:

I do not recall if the 9958 has mouse support.  If it does, and if you have a mouse, then there would be a good program I can point you towards to test all the video modes.  If you don't have a Geneve mouse and had a way to

I do not think the 9958 has mouse support, if I remember the conversion information to use a 9958 in place of a 9938, but earlier in this thread I mentioned the possibilty of converting to 9938 mode on the Tang and @retrocanada76 stated that the mouse and lightpen were analog and not supported on the Tang. So I don't know if this could happen?

 

The original Tang programming was just Matthew Spletts F18A firmware being placed into a Tang 9k, then the Logo screen was changed to keep Matthew happy. I don't know if the firmware was changed by retrocanada76 to bring it up to a 9958 level or if he used some other programming to accomplish that, I do know by a google search there are several aternative fpga programs out there for the 9938/58 chips. It may be that mouse support could be added if needed at least to the 9938 version, I don't know.

Edited January 15 by RickyDean
spelling, added content

[retrocanada76]

the 9958 uses the ese-msx3 FPGA code. Has nothing to do with f18a.

 

the 9958 has no Light Pen or Mouse support, they don't seem to have been used on MSX2 anyway.

 

 

 

 

[RickyDean]

On 1/8/2024 at 12:45 PM, 9640News said:

 

The video port addresses are managed by CRU call with MDOS or GPL modes. The Geneve source code for the V2 eprom is at BeeryMiller/Boot-Eprom at Version-2.00 (github.com)  

 

The only thing that comes to mind is maybe there is a video register setting on the 9958 not consistent with the 9938. The 9938 does have settings for the type of VRAM and maybe things are setup differently for what you are using????

 

One thing you might try after booting to the MDOS prompt is to type MODE 60.  This puts the VDP into Graphics mode 6. There is also MODE 40 which places the Geneve in Text mode 1 and MODE 80 that places the Geneve in Text mode 2.

 

I do not recall if the 9958 has mouse support.  If it does, and if you have a mouse, then there would be a good program I can point you towards to test all the video modes.  If you don't have a Geneve mouse and had a way to

Beery, I do have my Geneve mouse, though it doesn't function on the Tang Geneve, although the left button does pull up the color menu in Myart, it does on my PFM+ machine. I can use it to test a Pal Jed that was made of the non turbo Geneve video Pal, before release.

[+9640News]

@RickyDean

 

One of the 3 buttons on the Geneve mouse is not tied to the VDP chip.  I'm guessing that is the button that is responding in MyArt.

 

Are you using an original Geneve mouse?

[RickyDean]

29 minutes ago, 9640News said:

Are you using an original Geneve mouse?

Yes

Edited January 19 by RickyDean
spelling

[+9640News]

@arcadeshopper

 

I don't know why, but this thread is not showing up on the recently posted list of topics.  To my knowledge, I have not told the website to ignore this topic.  The only reason I know something was posted here was that I had a notice about a reply to one of my posts.

 

If I did hit the Ignore topic, is there any way to unignore the topic?   

 

Oh, I just figured it out.  Somehow, I got to this topic from another link and it is not in the TI-99/4A topics, rather the Classic Computing forum.

[RickyDean]

@retrocanada76 Is this the code that deals with the size of the vram that the tangs sees. in the vram.v file? Does this one mean that it is only 64k and not 128k? I'm wanting to increase the size to the full 192k that the Geneve or the TI can use, if the TI is setup as a TI Image Maker from OPA- https://garyopa.com/ti-image-maker/

module ram64k(
    input clk,
    input we,
    input re,
    input [15:0] addr,
    input [7:0] din,
    output [7:0] dout
);

    reg [7:0] mem_r[0:65535];
    reg [7:0] dout_r;

[retrocanada76]

On 1/21/2024 at 10:23 AM, RickyDean said:

@retrocanada76 Is this the code that deals with the size of the vram that the tangs sees. in the vram.v file? Does this one mean that it is only 64k and not 128k? I'm wanting to increase the size to the full 192k that the Geneve or the TI can use, if the TI is setup as a TI Image Maker from OPA- https://garyopa.com/ti-image-maker/

module ram64k(
    input clk,
    input we,
    input re,
    input [15:0] addr,
    input [7:0] din,
    output [7:0] dout
);

    reg [7:0] mem_r[0:65535];
    reg [7:0] dout_r;

no this is old code. The ram is taken form the integrated SDRAM and is 128Kb. I don't know if the eseMSX VDP has support for the extra 64K bank. Anyway for an MSX is useless I never seen anything that uses it as the access is not trivial.

[RickyDean]

5 minutes ago, retrocanada76 said:

no this is old code. The ram is taken form the integrated SDRAM and is 128Kb. I don't know if the eseMSX VDP has support for the extra 64K bank. Anyway for an MSX is useless I never seen anything that uses it as the access is not trivial.

Okay, I'm wanting to try to upgrade my video memory on the tang to same I have on the VDP on the Geneve, so I'll continue looking at the code. I have some code skill in C#, Javascript and a couple of others, but have never worked with fpga code. I believe the Swan issue is due to where the Tang and Geneve comunicate in the address space. Trying to see if the code can be shifted to start earlier in the Geneve boot sequence to show the Swan on certain eproms, and menu selections on others as listed in prior messages here. Thanks. The tang does run well on the Geneve and all graphics modes seem to work good.

[retrocanada76]

10 minutes ago, RickyDean said:

Okay, I'm wanting to try to upgrade my video memory on the tang to same I have on the VDP on the Geneve, so I'll continue looking at the code. I have some code skill in C#, Javascript and a couple of others, but have never worked with fpga code. I believe the Swan issue is due to where the Tang and Geneve comunicate in the address space. Trying to see if the code can be shifted to start earlier in the Geneve boot sequence to show the Swan on certain eproms, and menu selections on others as listed in prior messages here. Thanks. The tang does run well on the Geneve and all graphics modes seem to work good.

FGPA is not like any other computer language. You need to understand that it runs in parallel and how the signals interact each other, that's the most difficult part to grasp. It's an electronic description language not a computer programming one.

Edited January 23 by retrocanada76

[RickyDean]

16 hours ago, retrocanada76 said:

FGPA is not like any other computer language. You need to understand that it runs in parallel and how the signals interact each other, that's the most difficult part to grasp. It's an electronic description language not a computer programming one.

Well here are some pics of the Geneve with a Tang attached. 

 

[fabrizio]

On 7/13/2023 at 9:45 AM, retrocanada76 said:

@Duewester i am trying this and i am getting a good audio.

Hi, I tried this solution which uses the trimmer and a 10 uf capacitor, in fact the volume has improved, but it is still low. Has the fw been changed?

[ti99user]

On 7/14/2023 at 11:59 PM, Duewester said:

 

 

@retrocanada76. I've buttoned up this project for a little bit.

I have managed to squeeze the Tn-VDP with version 9918 V2 on it into the Ti-99/4a case and connect it up to the TV with a bulkhead connection.

Every once in a while the TV will report something about Version not supported. Cycling the TV power and then turning on the Ti will clear it up. 

There is still some background hiss and it changes depending on the TV I have hooked up. This particular TV doesn't appear to have left and right balance and sounds better than the LG with stereo output. The LG sounds best with left or right but not balanced.

I have not messed with your new setup for the MCP3202. I'm guessing these are the same setup with added channel squeezed in.

For now, this is my Audio Setup

For now though I'mma gonna leave be what is working and try to figure out what all this has cost me 🙂

I hope the video plays for you.

Hello,

 

Do you have some pictures how you managed it to put it into the TI99/4A?

 

Did you put both boards into the TI99/4A or only the socket board?

Is the Tang Nano 9k inside the TI99/4A?

 

Thnx.

 

ti99user

[+acadiel]

Hey, @retrocanada76!  Have a question for you.  I'm trying a V3 I believe in my TI-99/4 https://forums.atariage.com/topic/369039-finalgrom-4-patch-here-it-is/ - and I get corruption with CPUCLK and GROMCLK jumped, and with just GROMCLK jumped, the system doesn't start.  See that thread above.  The /4 normally came with a TMS9918, but the TMS9918A works fine, as does the F18A.  Have any thoughts as to what I might be able to change?  Probably the first person to test a /4.  Thanks!