RE: Christmas Present
Oops, it's not in the CSS FAQ, it's in the Ramsoft DISCiPLE/+D Technical Guide -- http://www.ramsoft.bbk.org/tech/mgt_tech.txt -- Stuart Brady Oh yes, thank you very much. I read the Ramsoft's manual. Now I know how complicated that snapshot files are. They even use directory entry (tracks 0-3) to store snapshot data! Oh, I wish they have used .Z80 format instead. :-) I will try to make a converter snap--z80. Another interesting point is that in my Sam manual there isn't any message, even a short sentence, describing how to make snapshots with the Samco's/MGT's original emulator. I remember that it was a real mystery. :-) And it is now desribed in Ramsoft's +D manual - I see that Sam Coupe original Spectrum emulator behaves identically to the +D hardware. I would like to know where this was actually documented for Sam users 15 years ago, when it was important for us. I knew nothing those times, was it my personal fault? /--- Aley
RE: Christmas Present
spconv? I think already have it somewhere. I probably frogot... :-) /-- Aley -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Frode Tenneboe Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 12:00 PM To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject: RE: Christmas Present On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:40:57 +0100 Aley Keprt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oops, it's not in the CSS FAQ, it's in the Ramsoft DISCiPLE/+D Technical Guide -- http://www.ramsoft.bbk.org/tech/mgt_tech.txt -- Stuart Brady Oh yes, thank you very much. I read the Ramsoft's manual. Now I know how complicated that snapshot files are. They even use directory entry (tracks 0-3) to store snapshot data! Oh, I wish they have used .Z80 format instead. :-) I will try to make a converter snap--z80. Henk de Groot did that 13 years ago. Look for spconv. -Frode -- ^ Frode Tennebø | email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ^ | Ericsson AS | Isebakkeveien 49 | | N-1788 Halden | Phone: +47 45 24 99 39| | with Standard.Disclaimer; use Standard.Disclaimer;|
RE: Christmas Present
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:40:57 +0100 Aley Keprt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oops, it's not in the CSS FAQ, it's in the Ramsoft DISCiPLE/+D Technical Guide -- http://www.ramsoft.bbk.org/tech/mgt_tech.txt -- Stuart Brady Oh yes, thank you very much. I read the Ramsoft's manual. Now I know how complicated that snapshot files are. They even use directory entry (tracks 0-3) to store snapshot data! Oh, I wish they have used .Z80 format instead. :-) I will try to make a converter snap--z80. Henk de Groot did that 13 years ago. Look for spconv. -Frode -- ^ Frode Tennebø | email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ^ | Ericsson AS | Isebakkeveien 49 | | N-1788 Halden | Phone: +47 45 24 99 39| | with Standard.Disclaimer; use Standard.Disclaimer;|
Re: Christmas Present
On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 01:33:25AM +, Stuart Brady wrote: BTW, does anyone know the format used for the messenger snapshots? It really ought to be in the CSS FAQ. (Unless it's the +D format, in which case it's already there.) As far as I know, a Messenger snapshot is a 64K file containing a complete memory dump (including ROM). The contents of the registers are stored in a 22-byte block which ends at 0x3d00 (um, so that'd be 0x3cea starting address) in the same format as the register block of a Sam/+D SNAP file (where the register block is stored starting at byte 220 of the directory entry). Which seems to mean that they are in the order: IY IX DE' BC' HL' AF' DE BC HL Ir SP Ir is actually a spare byte followed by the contents of the I register. The R register, interrupt flag, value of AF and the execution address (PC) are all popped off the stack once the snapshot is loaded. imc
RE: Christmas Present
That's very nice. I have never seen the Mesenger (except on adv. materials...). How much was it? ...but I unintentionally did the similar thing without buying the Messanger. As soon as I saw that there is no ZX ROM at Sam, I took my ZX Spectrum+, and typed SAVEromcode 0,16384, then loaded this file to Sam BEFORE starting the MGT/Samco's emulator. This way I was able to run much more Spectrum games. :-) It's very simple, the only remaining problems was(/is) the tape loaders. Even the cracked games sometimes failed to load due to a incompatible loader. If we had problems, we either got a version with properly cracked-removed loader, or did a D80 snapshot, and saved that snapshot back to tape, what made a tape version loadable to Sam's emulator. (Those times, D80 was our local most popular disk drive for Spectrum, while +D was a hugely overpriced top-edge hardware which I've never seen anywhere in our country - former Czechoslovakia.) /--- Aley -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ian Collier Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 11:16 AM To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject: Re: Christmas Present On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 01:33:25AM +, Stuart Brady wrote: BTW, does anyone know the format used for the messenger snapshots? It really ought to be in the CSS FAQ. (Unless it's the +D format, in which case it's already there.) As far as I know, a Messenger snapshot is a 64K file containing a complete memory dump (including ROM). The contents of the registers are stored in a 22-byte block which ends at 0x3d00 (um, so that'd be 0x3cea starting address) in the same format as the register block of a Sam/+D SNAP file (where the register block is stored starting at byte 220 of the directory entry). Which seems to mean that they are in the order: IY IX DE' BC' HL' AF' DE BC HL Ir SP Ir is actually a spare byte followed by the contents of the I register. The R register, interrupt flag, value of AF and the execution address (PC) are all popped off the stack once the snapshot is loaded. imc
RE: Christmas Present
Oh, I know it's called Messenger, but my fingers write what they wish, not what I wish... Sorry. :-) /--- Aley -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Aley Keprt Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 1:36 PM To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject: RE: Christmas Present That's very nice. I have never seen the Mesenger (except on adv. materials...). How much was it? ...but I unintentionally did the similar thing without buying the Messanger. As soon as I saw that there is no ZX ROM at Sam, I took my ZX Spectrum+, and typed SAVEromcode 0,16384, then loaded this file to Sam BEFORE starting the MGT/Samco's emulator. This way I was able to run much more Spectrum games. :-) It's very simple, the only remaining problems was(/is) the tape loaders. Even the cracked games sometimes failed to load due to a incompatible loader. If we had problems, we either got a version with properly cracked-removed loader, or did a D80 snapshot, and saved that snapshot back to tape, what made a tape version loadable to Sam's emulator. (Those times, D80 was our local most popular disk drive for Spectrum, while +D was a hugely overpriced top-edge hardware which I've never seen anywhere in our country - former Czechoslovakia.) /--- Aley -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ian Collier Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 11:16 AM To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject: Re: Christmas Present On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 01:33:25AM +, Stuart Brady wrote: BTW, does anyone know the format used for the messenger snapshots? It really ought to be in the CSS FAQ. (Unless it's the +D format, in which case it's already there.) As far as I know, a Messenger snapshot is a 64K file containing a complete memory dump (including ROM). The contents of the registers are stored in a 22-byte block which ends at 0x3d00 (um, so that'd be 0x3cea starting address) in the same format as the register block of a Sam/+D SNAP file (where the register block is stored starting at byte 220 of the directory entry). Which seems to mean that they are in the order: IY IX DE' BC' HL' AF' DE BC HL Ir SP Ir is actually a spare byte followed by the contents of the I register. The R register, interrupt flag, value of AF and the execution address (PC) are all popped off the stack once the snapshot is loaded. imc
Re: Christmas Present
On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 01:36:17PM +0100, Aley Keprt wrote: ...but I unintentionally did the similar thing without buying the Messanger. As soon as I saw that there is no ZX ROM at Sam, I took my ZX Spectrum+, and typed SAVEromcode 0,16384, then loaded this file to Sam BEFORE starting the MGT/Samco's emulator. This way I was able to run much more Spectrum games. :-) I didn't know you could run the MGT emulator without the Spectrum ROM, actually. What do you gain from running the emulator, if you don't have the ROM? Hmm... I don't remember any snapshots from the MGT emulator -- maybe we didn't know how to save them, either. :-) -- Stuart Brady
RE: Christmas Present
Stuart Brady wrote: On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 01:36:17PM +0100, Aley Keprt wrote: ...but I unintentionally did the similar thing without buying the Messanger. As soon as I saw that there is no ZX ROM at Sam, I took my ZX Spectrum+, and typed SAVEromcode 0,16384, then loaded this file to Sam BEFORE starting the MGT/Samco's emulator. This way I was able to run much more Spectrum games. :-) I didn't know you could run the MGT emulator without the Spectrum ROM, actually. What do you gain from running the emulator, if you don't have the ROM? MGT produced an almost-compatible ROM which (since it wasn't Sinclair code) they were allowed to distribute. It ran some (not many) Spectrum games. It also had NMI code, which the Spectrum ROM had to be modified to add (I started working on this to implement my own multi-page emulator, but gave up when I got Lerm SamTape (?)). Geoff __ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email __
RE: Christmas Present
Quoting Aley Keprt [EMAIL PROTECTED]: That's very nice. I have never seen the Mesenger (except on adv. materials...). How much was it? Speaking of the Messenger, I just won one on eBay (along with a very, very dirty SAM and a pile of software) http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=5157322243ssPageName=ADME:B:EOAB:UK:6 There's a couple of things I want to get my hands on, including Grubbing For Gold and Oh No More Lemmings, neither of which I originally had and would like to finally see... Gavin
Re: Christmas Present
On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 02:51:05PM +, Gavin Smith wrote: Speaking of the Messenger, I just won one on eBay (along with a very, very dirty SAM and a pile of software) http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=5157322243ssPageName=ADME:B:EOAB:UK:6 Congrats! I wonder how much a Messenger on its own is worth? I had the older Messenger in a black case. I'm not sure whether it came with the NMI card (which didn't need a case)... Was it only the early SAMs that had broken NMI buttons? There's a couple of things I want to get my hands on, including Grubbing For Gold and Oh No More Lemmings, neither of which I originally had and would like to finally see... Hmm. I never bought Lemmings for the SAM... I had a look at it not so long ago, but I think I prefer the Spectrum version, since it's much faster. I'm guessing that was unavoidable on the SAM, though. :-( OTOH, I had a look at SPLAT! on the Spectrum, and definitely prefer the SAM version. Same goes for Pipe Mania and Defenders of the Earth. I'm still unsure WRT Manic Miner. I prefer the gameplay on the Spectrum, but I like the music, graphics, and of course the extra levels on the SAM. Oh well -- I guess we can't have everything. :-) -- Stuart Brady
RE: Where can I get latest SimCoupe?
Aley Keprt wrote: Where can I get latest SimCoupe, I've just updated the 0.90 beta on my personal site: http://www.simonowen.com/sam/simcoupe/ The Win32 version should be in reasonable shape at the moment, with almost all features now exposed in the UI. Things like auto booting, DOS booting and save prompts are on the Drives tab in the options. I've moved a bunch of stuff around and simplified dialogs where possible, hopefully without removing anything too essential for the majority of users. Printing support is currently unavailable as I'm moving it into the common code to give print-to-file in all versions, with Win32 printer support returning shortly after that. The latest source code in on the same page, but I've not built any extra binary versions yet. The code should compile fine for DOS/Linux/OS X, etc. but there are a few user-interface bits that need finishing before it'll be worth more builds. I've added some but not all of the new options to the built-in GUI, and the Import and Export dialogs still need changing to match the new Win32 versions (which allow external memory to be used, as well as arithmetic expressions for all values). I've also been working on thumb-board / external-keyboard support for the Pocket PC version, but still have one Windows annoyance to work around. *sighs* If I've removed something you can't do without, or you run into any problems (quite possible!), or you need anything explaining, please mail me. or some other utility that could create empty SAD image? You should probably check with the SAD format creator. Oh, wait... Well, I only wanted to create an empty disk image with 15 tracks (150KB of zeros). I tried to use my personal simcoupe (I don't remember where I got it, it's version 0.90 beta 4), but it's new disk dialog always crashes, The original 0.81a had a crash problem in New Disk on some machines, but that should long have been fixed by the 0.90 betas. Rather ironcially, the latest beta now only gives a few fixed geometry choices for new disks, so you won't be able to use that either! The in-progress SamDisk will let you create most image formats, and I'll make sure it covers any _real-world_ SAD disk too. Here's a 15-track SAD2 image anyway: http://obo.homeip.net/15tracks.sad I was at sourceforge, the CVS sources in ZIP there are more than 2 years old. I'm not quite sure where you were looking on SourceForge, but grabbing directly from CVS will give you the latest files (up to 24 hours behind check-ins, depending on their server updates). Some of the files will be quite old (including the ReadMe files), but if you look into any of the source sub-directories you'll see much more recent activity. I was at NVG, there is only version from year 1999! I don't think anyone's actively updating the copy on NVG - it seems to be more to archive old versions? I was at simcoupe.org, it's pretty the same... That's a fair point - I should really be doing these beta version updates on there. There's always just one more thing that's still unfinished/broken... and my last feature freeze kinda thawed. A cynic would say If SimCoupe existed, it would be the best sam coupe emulator, but it actually doesn't [exist]. :-D Si
