Print

[madmab]

Just a small little update.

I added the preset controller stuff to the "game options" menu, as well as the ability to display what disks are loaded in drive 1 and 2.  I'll eventually probably do 3 and 4 as well but I'm keeping it simple for now.

The cart select screen now only displays applicable cart entries.  Those that are the same size as the file in question as well as filtering out computer/5200 depending on what system is currently selected.  Cart (none) is always in the list because it works with the Atari800 .CART files.

I got the multidisk statesave stuff straightened out except for when it needs to unzip disks from a .zip file.  Hopefully I'll get that one ironed out.  The other big issue is that relax and samba files are renamed (if larger than 42 characters and using incompatible character) and dumped to the X: drive.  So the savestate filenames do not reflect the source.  Not sure how I'm gonna get around that one.  

Load Disk now works like it is supposed to.

I plugged in some code to "autodetect" the media type from the 2.0.0 core.  Have not tried it yet, though.

That's about it for now.

[madmab]

Created some cheat codes and rumble settings for a few atari games in Atarixlbox.

Gyruss -  Unlimited live for both players.  Double shots for both players.
Donkey Kong - Unlimited live for both players.  Controller rumbles when kong stomps on the ground.
Pacman - Unlimited lives for both players.  Controller rumbles when pac dies or eats a ghost.

Ms. Pacman - Unlimited lives for both players.  Ms Pac seems to have a couple "quirks". One it only seems to use one byte to store lives.  It assumes that both players have the same number of lives.  Hence if player one gets an extra player, two gets one as well.  Odd.  Plus the byte used to store the level does not correspond with the fruit value.  So when the game hits the baby pack levels the fruit value never increasess.  In fact the fruit is not random like in the arcade.

Wasted several hours farting around with the sound core from different versions of Atari800 and even Aplus but the same sound quirks seem to be there.  Not really sure why.  So I may have to re-enable the option to pick old pokey for playing games like Berzerk for the speech.

Still not quite sure if those NTSC colors are right.  Guess I'll have to drag out my 130xe sometime.

Automount of disks works properly when the disks are in ZIP files now.  Only disadvantage is Samba/Relax users are out of luck.  At the very least I may be able to post a "warning" that the drives are not properly mounted and give the user the option to select them.  The autodetect media option works great.  I'll probably have a releasable version sometime next year.  Christmas is too close for me to really finish it up just now.

Actually there may be a way around the samba issue, but I have to look at the code a little more.

Things I wanna do..  Enable configuration uploads.  I want to add support for up to four drives, should be easy.  Rotate disks option.  I cannot seem to find the keyboard transparency option anywhere.  Did I forget where it is, or is it disabled?

Oh and seems our understanding of some of the 5200 controller buttons are mapped was incorrect.  It's only noticeable with Parker Brothers Games.  "F" acts as START, not "4" and the right arrow key acts as "*".  I guess I better double check the other keys like "#" etc.  I'm thinking of mapping "Warm Reboot" to one of the keys.  Any suggestions?

[madmab]

Just a minor update.  Since I didn't really get any of my bigger plans accomplished I did compile some minor changes I made and got them working.  Here they are..

The emu now copies the predef controller files from the emu directory into the default saves directory if they are not already there.

The "Game Options" menu to display what files are "loaded" shows drives 1 thru 4.  Plus I added a rotate disks option.  Just press the A button when viewing the loaded disks.  I'll eventually link this to rotate_disks in the controller setup.

Added in some of the extra functionality in winuaex to the virtual keyboard. Can't seem to dig up the doc on these but essentially you get the following functionality. White button toggles shift key. Y button toggles ctrl key. Start presses enter and back backspaces. Cursor can be moved with the analog stick.

Seems the capslock key is not mapped properly.  Not sure how to fix this.

I was hoping I would luck out and find some budding graphic artist to help me out with modifying the default skin.  But I'm not having any luck and the Atari 5200/8-bits seem to be unloved.

So I gave it a go and at least did one thing.  I changed the default xbe load screen to the Xbox X morphing into the Atari Fuji and the word X-port changing into ATARI.  Check it out.  Just click on the image below to see the animation.  The linked gif is preliminary work.  The actual result is slightly different.    Unfortunately the xbox front end doesn't support startup sound files so I couldn't use another idea.  Maybe later....

[madmab]

I have a question for X-port.  I want to enable configuration uploads/downlods for the emulator so that I can make a ton available for people.  It looks like someone at xbox-scene would have to create the directory needed to store this information.  (atari800).

How would I go about this, if possible?

[XPort]

QUOTE(madmab @ Jan 2 2008, 10:28 PM)

I have a question for X-port.  I want to enable configuration uploads/downlods for the emulator so that I can make a ton available for people.  It looks like someone at xbox-scene would have to create the directory needed to store this information.  (atari800).

How would I go about this, if possible?

I've updated the PHP on my site such that if the dir doesn't exist, it will create it.  Try it now and let me know.

[XPort]

Not sure why the directory creation is not working, but I've manually created that atari800 directory for now.

[madmab]

Just another update since I've been kinda quiet lately.  Most of my attention has been focused on updating the core to 2.03.  Hence the first change!

Most of the core source code has been upped to 2.03 with the following exceptions.  Pokey - created problems with Beef Drop demo will update if I can fix it.  Pokey_old and Pokey_new code.  Currently I'm using the ones that came with A800winplus.  I have like three different sound core setups so it's a matter of deciding which one I want.

Seems the capslock key was not mapped properly.  Fixed it, now we can type in lower case!  Keep in mind on the Atari caps works in reverse.  Pressing capslock will put you in lower case, unlocking capslock puts you back in upper case.  

Since the black button is not used on the virtual keyboard I went ahead and mapped it to the capslock key.

Turned on code for upload/downloading configurations to website.  Thanks to x-port for creating a directory for atarixlbox.

Apparently the emu does not "unload" a cartridge, or cassette when switching games thus creating weird behavior. (like atari basic being unusable).  Fixed that.  I didn't notice these issues until I started upgrading the core but now that I'm done, they may be gone now that I'm done.

Changed the palette code again, now using some routines created by Kr0tki.

Fooling around and put some quick and dirty code in to support the 5200 analog stick.  This does create some other issues (like where to map the numpad keys).  The analog stick is only read when in 5200 mode.  Centipede plays pretty ok, Missile Command is near impossible to control.

Put in option/code to allow swapping of joystick in port 1 and 2.  Supports a total of two games!!  

Reactivated the rewind code.  I temporarily disable it while I upgraded the core so I would not have to worry about dealing with it.  

To do.... add in the ability to turn on/off player/missile/playfield collisions (for cheating).

[RMM]

Thanks for keeping everyone informed on your progress.  The auto media detect is a great addition.  There are a couple of emulators where this would be very useful so its good to see you're trying to implement it.   Looking forward to the release.

[madmab]

Hey xport.  I'm still having problems uploading configuration files.  It just gives me an error.  I know it works cause I've changed the platform_name to other systems and it works fine on those.

Well except for the PSX directory which I suspect is full.  

Thanks

[XPort]

What error?

[madmab]

Error during upload - aborting.

I don't get that error if I change the platform_name to something like DOS.

[XPort]

This is turning into an involved issue and I really don't know if/when I'll be able to assist.  The configurations don't have to be uploaded to xport.xbox-scene.com, however.  If you have access to a public-facing webserver, you can set something up yourself and simply default to that instead.  If/when the problem with xport.xbox-scene.com is fixed, the setting for that can be changed.  (The website where configuration files are stored is a configurable option inside the emulators.)

[XPort]

If you were going to do that anyway, then I would suggest an internal database.  One of the things that I would have liked to have added to emulators like this (especially WinUAEX and PCSXBox ) is an autoconfig based on the unique ID for each game.  I just didn't have the time.  For Amiga, I know there is (or used to be - I haven't checked in a long time) an online database for optimal WinUAE settings for just about every game.  There are also TOSEC databases with CRC mappings for just about every disk image.  It would just be a matter of joining the lists by the game name to arrive at a CRC -> configuration mapping so that the emulator could calculate the CRC on the fly and then autoconfigure the games.  Maybe similar resources are available online for the Atari.

[XPort]

QUOTE(madmab @ Jan 20 2008, 08:59 AM)

Funny you should say that cause I've been leaning heavily towards some CRC32 based system.  Just have not decided how to go about it just yet.

You wouldn't happen to know of any code out there that will calculate the CRC of a file do you?  I kinda ending up hacking two different pieces of code together to do it.  Not sure if it is gonna work though.  The CRC32 code in atari800win did not produce CRC's that match the usual numbers.

It's a pretty big change but I'm slowly piecing some stuff together.

There's lots of stuff out there for CRC calculation.  Not all of it is going to arrive at the same results, however, so trying to match it to a pre-existing set of CRC numbers without having the code for how those CRCs were generated may not work.  Here is one example:

http://www.nicemice..../source/crc32.c

It would probably be easier/faster to just calculate them yourself with your own code if you have a complete (and well-named) TOSEC collection.  

[madmab]

Got another question if you don't mind answering, or at least pointing me in the right direction.

I noticed a visual anomaly that I cannot quite figure out.  It's kinda hard to explain, but if you boot up in something with a gr.0 screen (like basic, memo pad, or one of the Atari Dos's).  Look at the very first line of display (blue line).  It displays part of it and then the rest of that scanline is black.

If I go into game options, configure, video options (or whatver it is), and select on of the options that actually updates the screen (like soften screen, flicker fixer, etc) and then go back into the emulation the screen will then display correctly.

Looking at the code it looks like the stuff that is executed in above menu's is executed by loadkeys().  Best I can tell it looks fine.  So I'm a little baffled as to why the display is not initializing correctly.  It's a teeny thing, it does affect other titles in different ways though.

Thanks..