Tursi Posted November 7 Share Posted November 7 I have a very limited start to such a thing. It's by no means turnkey (it won't just spit out a working cartridge), and it's exceptionally limited in what it supports, but https://github.com/tursilion/xb2gpl I used it to create the MPD menu 3 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562010 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+TheBF Posted November 7 Share Posted November 7 4 minutes ago, Retrospect said: Can someone make a XB to GPL compiler that spits out a Cartridge image that'll run on stock console? Even though we've got the fantastic xb256 and compiler , an XB to GPL compiler would still be a very nice addition to what we have. Can it be done? I don't care that GPL is slower. It would still be great to have. BF's two rules of software: Anything is possible Nothing is easy 4 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562011 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted November 7 Share Posted November 7 9 minutes ago, Tursi said: I have a very limited start to such a thing. It's by no means turnkey (it won't just spit out a working cartridge), and it's exceptionally limited in what it supports, but https://github.com/tursilion/xb2gpl I used it to create the MPD menu Interesting, nice work. -- i will have to check this out more. 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562017 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted November 7 Share Posted November 7 15 minutes ago, Retrospect said: Can someone make a XB to GPL compiler that spits out a Cartridge image that'll run on stock console? Even though we've got the fantastic xb256 and compiler , an XB to GPL compiler would still be a very nice addition to what we have. Can it be done? I don't care that GPL is slower. It would still be great to have. Seems @Tursi has started something like this already, check out his post about it. For now GPL is slower, but I will be looking at making a faster interpreter in the future, there is no reason it can't be done, similar to how @speccery has coded a TI Basic one for his strangecart that is much faster, a similar device using an arm or pico could do the GPL work at much higher speeds, of course this would be best to be used on a newer 4A design like the 99/22 project, as to make it usable for existing software, it would require replacing the console roms on the 4A. of course moving everything over to 16bit bus is another way to get speed as well, totally stop using original groms, I invision a system that auto dumps a plugged in cartridge and copies it to internal ram, and then runs from there, with on more access to old slow cartridge port and slow groms, all this can be done on newer hardware designs, just one step at a time. It is also possible at least with TI Basic to run actual basic code from the GROM space, I don't think XB can do that, but alot of TI99 modules were infact written in TI Basic but the code stored in GROMs. 6 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562019 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FarmerPotato Posted November 8 Share Posted November 8 8 hours ago, Gary from OPA said: I invision a system that auto dumps a plugged in cartridge and copies it to internal ram, and then runs from there, This idea was actually kicked around during the period after the 4A was released. Don Bynum's people presented an option for a "4" console with 2K of RAM added to the 16-bit bus, which could hold some code downloaded from the module. Marketing seriously ran with this, imagining packaging for modules say "compatible with all TI-99", some new baseline 99/4B with 2K, and then advanced modules requiring a 99/8. There is a "99/4B Product Specification" draft documenting the 2K option. Well, that evaporated quickly, and the next design had another 16K DRAM in the console. The engineers' cost estimate "paid for" the extra RAM through the reduction of other logic. Semiconductor would provide Calculator division with enough PAL chips. The price war killed that. Bynum was told to roll the cost savings into the 4A and to forget the additions. I pieced together this story from memos at the DeGolyer Library, the 4B documents in whtech, and other "4B" papers from Bunyard, Wilcox, et al. 4 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562267 Share on other sites More sharing options...
apersson850 Posted November 8 Share Posted November 8 When they designed the p-system for the 99/4A they had the different memory types in mind. The PME is able to interpret p-code, which is a byte code too, from any kind of memory. It has two different versions of the core interpreter, depending on if the code is in non-incrementing memory (CPU RAM) or in auto-incrementing memory (VDP RAM or GROM). There's also a status word used to compute branch addresses correctly. 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562360 Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted November 8 Share Posted November 8 17 hours ago, Gary from OPA said: of course moving everything over to 16bit bus is another way to get speed as well, totally stop using original groms, I invision a system that auto dumps a plugged in cartridge and copies it to internal ram, and then runs from there, with on more access to old slow cartridge port and slow groms, all this can be done on newer hardware designs, just one step at a time. My FPGA designs sort of do this, they run cartridge ROMs from 16-bit wide system memory (or with icy99 in some cases from the CPUs cache memory). My FPGA designs use internal RAM also for GROM data, that area is outside the RAM which the TMS99105 or my soft TMS9900 core can see. 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562384 Share on other sites More sharing options...
RXB Posted November 8 Share Posted November 8 (edited) I had started a XB to GPL compiler but that was before FinalGROM so it was pretty clunky. Of course this was over 12 years ago: This forced me to change to just making more ROMs for XB to speed up XB with more assembly, vs slow GPL. Edited November 8 by RXB 3 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562480 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted November 8 Share Posted November 8 22 hours ago, Retrospect said: Can someone make a XB to GPL compiler that spits out a Cartridge image that'll run on stock console? Even though we've got the fantastic xb256 and compiler , an XB to GPL compiler would still be a very nice addition to what we have. Can it be done? I don't care that GPL is slower. It would still be great to have. You are right that the result might run more slowly than it would in Assembly, but the resulting cartridge image would also run flawlessly on V2.2 consoles and could even combine with a huge amount of bank-switched ROM in the cartridge space with no need to lob stuff into the 32K space at all. . .that's actually a nice use case. 3 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562486 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted November 8 Share Posted November 8 7 minutes ago, Ksarul said: You are right that the result might run more slowly than it would in Assembly, but the resulting cartridge image would also run flawlessly on V2.2 consoles and could even combine with a huge amount of bank-switched ROM in the cartridge space with no need to lob stuff into the 32K space at all. . .that's actually a nice use case. would be great for those that are skilled in XB programming and want to write bigger programs and releasing it in physical format on ubergrom cartridges, giving them a large amount of space on the GROM side as ubergrom supports more than one bank of grom as well. 3 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562489 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted November 9 Author Share Posted November 9 Hi, I need a little push to get going. d:\classic99_vm\gpl\mydisks\DSK2>d:\xdt99\xga99.py -c gahello.gpl -o hello.bin d:\classic99_vm\gpl\mydisks\DSK2>dir Volume in drive D is phyd Volume Serial Number is 9223-F008 Directory of d:\classic99_vm\gpl\mydisks\DSK2 11/09/2024 08:49 AM <DIR> . 11/09/2024 08:49 AM <DIR> .. 10/31/2024 07:33 AM 2,304 gahello.gpl 11/09/2024 08:34 AM 1,297 gahello.rpk 11/09/2024 08:49 AM 1,297 hello.bin 3 File(s) 4,898 bytes 2 Dir(s) 2,555,081,924,608 bytes free When I open Classic99, and load a user cartridge, the emulator reset, but I don't get a cartridge on the menu. Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Thanks. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562803 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted November 9 Share Posted November 9 (edited) 24 minutes ago, dhe said: Hi, I need a little push to get going. d:\classic99_vm\gpl\mydisks\DSK2>d:\xdt99\xga99.py -c gahello.gpl -o hello.bin d:\classic99_vm\gpl\mydisks\DSK2>dir Volume in drive D is phyd Volume Serial Number is 9223-F008 Directory of d:\classic99_vm\gpl\mydisks\DSK2 11/09/2024 08:49 AM <DIR> . 11/09/2024 08:49 AM <DIR> .. 10/31/2024 07:33 AM 2,304 gahello.gpl 11/09/2024 08:34 AM 1,297 gahello.rpk 11/09/2024 08:49 AM 1,297 hello.bin 3 File(s) 4,898 bytes 2 Dir(s) 2,555,081,924,608 bytes free When I open Classic99, and load a user cartridge, the emulator reset, but I don't get a cartridge on the menu. Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Thanks. The example you are using has no cartridge header. Try the same but with this example file instead from the GitHub: examples/gacart.gpl Then it should appear in classic99 as a cartridge. Edited November 9 by Gary from OPA Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562811 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted November 9 Author Share Posted November 9 D:\classic99_vm\gpl\mydisks\DSK2>d:\xdt99\xga99.py -c gacart.gpl -o hello.bin 11/09/2024 10:58 AM <DIR> . 11/09/2024 10:58 AM <DIR> .. 10/31/2024 07:33 AM 1,971 gacart.gpl 11/09/2024 10:55 AM 1,261 gacart.rpk 11/09/2024 10:58 AM 1,261 hello.bin Classic99 version QI399.072 Still doesn't work, no options chosen - fresh from the current zip file off of Tursi's website. As per usual, Classic99's debugger is very helpful, but I just can't get there. 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562854 Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted November 9 Share Posted November 9 How will Classic99, know to load it as a GROM Vs. ROM... Try hellog.bin Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562866 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted November 9 Share Posted November 9 50 minutes ago, dhe said: D:\classic99_vm\gpl\mydisks\DSK2>d:\xdt99\xga99.py -c gacart.gpl -o hello.bin 11/09/2024 10:58 AM <DIR> . 11/09/2024 10:58 AM <DIR> .. 10/31/2024 07:33 AM 1,971 gacart.gpl 11/09/2024 10:55 AM 1,261 gacart.rpk 11/09/2024 10:58 AM 1,261 hello.bin Classic99 version QI399.072 Still doesn't work, no options chosen - fresh from the current zip file off of Tursi's website. As per usual, Classic99's debugger is very helpful, but I just can't get there. Like the other poster says try renaming it helloG.bin as classic99 can't figure out the type. 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562875 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted November 9 Author Share Posted November 9 Nope, still not the right mojo. 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562925 Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted November 9 Share Posted November 9 3 hours ago, Gary from OPA said: Like the other poster says... That's ...Mr. Other Poster. P.S. TYIA. 1 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562929 Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted November 9 Share Posted November 9 1 hour ago, dhe said: Nope, still not the right mojo. Admittedly, the name should come-up in the Master Selection List, either way. 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562931 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted November 9 Share Posted November 9 Rename the file to end in .zip then extract the files, and rename the GACART.bin to GACARTG.bin 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562940 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted November 9 Author Share Posted November 9 @ralphb @Tursi Having a bit of a trouble with xga99 and Classic99. I'm trying to use the following syntax: xga99.py -s gacart.gpl -o gacartG.bin -B When I load as a user cartridge option gacartG.bin, I get: If, otoh, if I do: d:\xdt99\xga99.py -c -s gacart.gpl I get: gacart.rpk and I change this to a zip, and extract, I get a gcart.bin, renaming this file to gcartG.bin and then using load user cart gcartG.bin you get: Is there a less cumbersome way of doing this? 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562964 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted November 9 Share Posted November 9 31 minutes ago, dhe said: Is there a less cumbersome way of doing this? You could load the rpk in https://js99er.net 🙂. 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562983 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dhe Posted November 9 Author Share Posted November 9 ok - with Gary's help. d:\xdt99\xga99.py gacart.gpl -o gacart2G.bin -G 24576 3 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5562988 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted November 9 Share Posted November 9 43 minutes ago, Asmusr said: You could load the rpk in https://js99er.net 🙂. Oi! 5 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5563001 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted November 10 Share Posted November 10 3 hours ago, dhe said: ok - with Gary's help. d:\xdt99\xga99.py gacart.gpl -o gacart2G.bin -G 24576 Yeah. Strange thing is with -cart option it makes a rpk with the binary inside perfect. But if you want it for finalgrom99 or classic99 you need to tell it the grom starting address and even tho the document says you can do --grom 3 or --grom 6000 it doesn't work you need to specify the starting address in decimal on the command line not in hexadecimal. So for >6000 you use 24576 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5563071 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted November 10 Share Posted November 10 Ah, I see. Sabotage! 😠 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/374846-the-gpl-thread/page/2/#findComment-5563443 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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