7800 Dev Program...again...

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Eckhard,

 

Does the 7800ctrl program not work in Windows 2000?

 

I just switched me whole setup at home to this last week. When I tried to dump some of the roms now I keep getting timeouts. But I have checked all the resources, etc and nothing conflicts. But I cannot get the program to function in the command box under Win2K.

 

Any luck with this?

[Eckhard Stolberg]

Sorry, I don't know. I don't use Windows 2000 and don't know anyone who uses 7800CTRL with it either. If all connections are alright and the 7800 is working properly then it must be a problem with the parallel port. The timeout error occurs when 7800CTRL can't get a proper response from the 7800. Maybe you just need to specifically allow printer port access for DOS programs under Win2K? Or if you switched to a completely new computer, it might be good to check the different printer port settings in the BIOS.

Maybe the current setting is causing some problems with the 7800?

 

BTW, If you want an answer from me personally, it would be better if you contacted me via email instead of via this board.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[liquid_sky]

I have access to a win2000 machine, if youd like me to test it out I can, but Im not sure exactly when I can get access to it.. its sorta a router config terminal tho... but I can mess around with it next time the network is down, s there are 2 routers that control the flow of the same data I can just config the other one to handle the loads of LAB-A and LAB-B and then try it out.

 

well that was a ramble and a half eh?

[+-^CrossBow^-]

That was my assumption as well. I hadn't even tried to use it under win2k yet so I didn't really know.

 

But yes, once again the HAL is doing its job and not allowing access to the hardware. I suppose I need to find some VMware stuff to handle this now...ugh.

[+rdemming]

Windows NT & Windows 2000 do not allow access to hardware for normal user programs. Everthing must go through Windows device drivers. So I don't think it will be possible to use the DOS version under Windows NT/2000. Probably you have to write a special NT/2000 version that uses a device driver.

 

Regards,

Robert

[+-^CrossBow^-]

okay...played with the program some more in Win2k since Mitch was able to get it running with out any probs.

 

Here is where I am currently.

 

I can get the transfers to start...but they always stop and then timeout. This appears to only be happening with Activision and Absolute carts right now. Anyway, the program will timeout in one of 3 places...either when only 41-43 pages have been transfered, 60-65 pages, and if it gets past that...then it will always stop at 105 pages.

 

So..any ideas why it would work only up until that point?

Again, I do have the DevOS ver. 1 in my 7800 and do not have easy access to get ver. 2.0 put in.

 

I may however have AlanD from the rgvc irc group getting me a copy of the DevOS 2.

[Eckhard Stolberg]

Do you mean that Activision games are the only ones that you can get to transfer any data at all, or are Activision games the only ones that cause timeout problems? What about smaller games with only 4K or so? And what about smaller 7800 games that don't use bankswitching?

 

If you use a cable with badly shielded wires, like from an old joystick cable, I think there could be problems with overspeaking when the transfer direction changes quickly a couple of times, as it happens when 7800CTRL tells the 7800 to switch banks on a game. Were you able to transfer the games in question with your old setup?

 

BTW, did you just change your OS, or did you buy a whole new computer?

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Eckhard,

 

I just changed out the OS..and yes I was able to dump Xenophobe, Rampage, and several others without any issues at all with my current cable etc.

 

I was able to get Dig Dug (64pages worth) to dump just fine.

 

But again when I try to dump somthing larger than that...It will Time out randomly either at 40+pages, 60+ pages, or right at the 105+page mark.

 

so..again, any ideas?

[Eckhard Stolberg]

Sorry, I still don't fully understand the problem. What you are saying is that with your old OS you were able to dump all the 2600 and 7800 games you ever tried, but now that you are using Win2K, you can still dump all 2600 games and very small 7800 games fine, but all 7800 games that are larger than 16K would time-out? Is that correct?

 

Maybe it's some Win2K system interrupt or your printer driver that is interfering. Did you set the priority for your command line prompt to the highest possible level?

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[+-^CrossBow^-]

You got the problem nailed..that is exactly what is happening.

 

I do have the priority set at the highest level but it hasn't changed the conditions at all.

 

I am able to dump all the 2600 games that I have tried without a problem. I can dump small 7800 cart also. But yet..basically anything over the size of say...Dig Dug on the 7800 will timeout...but not in the same place.

 

As for printer driver issues...that would be the driver that Win2K installs...I do have a real printer, but it is USB. I thought about the interupt issue, but that doesn't explain why it will ALWAYS stop at page 105 while transfering. That is if it even makes it that far.

 

I really can't understand what would cause this since under WinME I had not problems at all with it.

 

Oh well, Perhaps I will figure it out someday. For now I just may resort to actually booting off a Dos disk and handling it that way. Should work I didn't convert to NTFS so Dos should be able to read the drive still.

 

We'll see.

[Albert]

Okay, I am now trying to dump 2600 carts with a 7800 using the 7800ctrl program and I too am having problems. First, I couldn't get the program to run without printing "Timeout" before receiving any data on an older laptop using both serial and parallel ports (my new laptop doesn't have a serial port and I didnt' realize until reading the docs carefully that it also works with a parallel port.. D'oh!) This machine is running Windows 98.

 

After realing I could use the parallel port, I fired up my newer laptop which has Windows 2000 installed. I then opened up a command prompt and started transferring Asteroids. After about five attempts I was finally able to get it to transfer Asteroids, and then I realized it was automatically trying to send it as a 32K 7800 game!!

 

So I set it to download a 264K (2600 4K) and since that's much smaller it worked on the first try. However, I can't *upload* games to the 7800 to make sure the binary was transferred to my computer correctly. I don't know if this has anything to do with my parallel port being in ECP mode. I also need to try making a DOS boot disk and seeing if that works (unfortunately my HD is formatted in NTFS, so I'll have to save directly to floppy).

 

When I downloaded Megamania using the -tTEST option, it automatically detected it as a 2K cart. I assume that's right, although I better double-check. I wasn't able to upload Megamania, either, it just times out.

 

Anyone else have luck getting this to work under Windows 2K? I need this for CGE this weekend and I'm leaving tomorrow for Vegas.

 

Thanks,

 

..Al

[Eckhard Stolberg]

Actually the cart reader ONLY works on the parallel port. If you were able to connect the 7800 to the serial port, you probably build the wrong cable. I'm using Win95 and my parallel port is set as "simple parallel port SPP" or something similar, in case this matters.

 

Since I have had complaints about timeouts that turned out to be misunderstandings about the procedure, let's make sure that you do everything in the right order.

 

1. Plug the game cartridge into the 7800 console and make sure it's seated properly.

 

2. Turn on the 7800 console.

 

3. Push the RESET switch on the 7800 to set in in transfer mode. (Better practice that with the 7800 connected to a TV set, so that you can see if the onscreen menu goes away as it shoud. On some consoles the RESET key is so worn out that it might not register each pressing.)

 

4. Start the PC transfer program with a command line like:

 

7800ctrl -tTEST game.bin

 

If everything works correctly, the 7800 should now autodetect the bankswitching type and transfer the ROM data to the file GAME.BIN. Under some circumstances the autodetection might fail. In these cases you can override the detection with the -t command line switch. BTW, Asteroids 2600 is an 8K game (26F8) and Megamania is a 4K game (264K).

 

The best way to test the resulting binary is with an emulator like z26, as the 7800 RAM cart doesn't support any of the 2600 bankswitching formats. OK, if you'd take your Cuttle Cart, that would probably be even better. If you want to try to transfer the ROM to the 7800 RAM cart, you must make sure that it is plugged in properly and that the transfer routine has been started on the 7800 before you start the PC transfer program. Otherwise you will get timeouts with no data transferred at all, as you desribed.

 

If the transfer starts but times out somewhere in between, then there is a problem with your setup, though.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[Dutchman2000]

Albert-

 

Have you tried using a DOS boot disk?