Computer Cores

[summer dragon]

could also be a missing bios

[tawny egret]

That did the trick ! Thanks a lot, everything’s working now

[ebon tundra]

new version of ao486_GUS is out https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=101544#p101544

[sterile ether]

it's from 20th october ...

[robust monolith]

For flips sake, I looked as well!! 🙂

[void belfry]

Aaah, what a rare delight nowadays to browse a 90's HPAV CD under Win NT on ao486 (Disclaimer: NSFW etc Don't do it at home etc lol)

[shy imp]

damn how bad ass with that red text and SKULL gifs

[shy imp]

i enjoy the term HPAV it sounds like some sort of red air conditioning technology

[void belfry]

I didn't know about this specific compilation lol, I was actually looking for a DOS one (and most probably by another group) which I had back then on my DX/4 (iirc it had some menus/ansi graphics/nice text reader for the content, but other than that is bit of fuzzy memory)

btw, reason I am running this on NT 4 is because stability 😄 On W95 I got fed up with constant IE/Netscape crashes. NT is smooth sailing

[void belfry]

only it's not 😄

[granite umbra]

Update GUS
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=101832#p101832

[fast kraken]

thats cool, sounds like its feature complete now

[undone anvil]

Yeah NT4 is for sure the most stable way to have a win9x experience on ao486

[hollow ice]

If your windows install isn’t crashing why even retro windows? 🤡

[undone anvil]

It's a good point, ao486 overall isn't a good core for win9x gaming.

It's probably better for Windows 3.11 or DOS gaming

[copper slate]

@summer dragon throwing out a 0mhz game idea - Bad Toys 3D an FPS for Win 3.1

https://youtu.be/swYIBX-yIWk

[summer dragon]

oooh didn’t know about this one

[hollow ice]

Robby, how come you never told me about this cool game? https://www.tibosoftware.com/bad-toys.htm

[copper slate]

sorrrrrrry!

[waxen brook]

Ken's DEC Mini MiSTer build is awesome, check it if you havent seen this yet:
https://youtu.be/KLdEn2B49mk?si=zuFurKkshmPPYJWN

[hot tundra]

Omg that is great 😃

[winged void]

is Ken in this Discord?

[waxen nymph]

That is a great build!!

[void belfry]

VT52 terminal core would look just perfect on this build imho

or any Linux/Unix with green on black color scheme

[granite umbra]

Puu-san starts to work on FMR50 (another Fujitsu computer)
http://fpga8801.seesaa.net/article/518833727.html

[spice hound]

Is there any update to the apple //gs core?

[sterile ether]

@spice hound not for now but it still in dev

[spice hound]

Really???!!

That is an amazing news!!

I don't have to buy an Apple //gs then!!!

Just the fact it is not halted and still in development is the greatest news ever

[waxen nymph]

Making progress on bugs. Found a cpu test suite. Turns out the SNES cpu fails a lot of instructions that I guess SNES games don’t use. Hopefully one of these fixes will let gs/os finally boot

[granite umbra]

Maybe it is interresting to share on an issue on SNES core maybe SRG320 could help to fix somes

[lunar trellis]

Great find Alan. Yeah, would be worth raising a ticket on the SNES core for the failed tests, srg320 will likely fix them regardless if they are noticeable in the SNES or not (and maybe some of them might be somewhere obscure)

[waxen nymph]

I converted the cpu to verilog. So I need to think about the best way to handle it. I think a lot of them are failing in 6502 emulation mode - which the SNES software doesn’t use as much. Also from the test repo the test data has a few bad entries.

https://github.com/SingleStepTests/65816

[lunar trellis]

Ah nice, good working converting it.

Would still probably be good to get a ticket logged srg320 sees so he knows his core could be further improved. Could pay dividends down the road, and maybe even fix some obscure issues.

[waxen nymph]

I will definitely do that. I am going to fix a couple bugs and test. Then maybe see if I can hook the same testbench up to the vhdl version

I am rusty with my ghdl skills

[lunar trellis]

Nice one. Great to see you back devving on your computer cores. 🙂

Did you see Hubz has won another undumped RX-78 cart?

[waxen nymph]

the music one?

[lunar trellis]

This one:

https://buyee.jp/item/jdirectitems/auction/b1189306853?_=WldSMGRuTTJCU1cyS0JxeW1lcFdHWitWR3gzb0V5RWhZOXk3L2lqYkxQbz0=

[waxen nymph]

Yes - we discussed and I paid for half of that one 🙂

Now we need to get it running on the core!

[lunar trellis]

Oh wow, thanks for doing that!

[frosty cosmos]

Stunt Car Racer C128 port. Much faster than the C64 version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7kgYlKhTgo&list=RDC7kgYlKhTgo&start_radio=1

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/apolkosnik/Minimig-AGA_MiSTer/blob/030_mmu/CLAUDE.md#68030-implementation-status

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/albconde/Enterprise_Mister

[random grail]

Hi, you figured it out quickly! This is just a temporary repository with the changes to the Mister framework and Quartus 17, to try to add the Enterprise core to the official repository with the consent of its original author Kip.

[granite umbra]

Thank you 🙂

FMR50 1st release:
http://fpga8801.seesaa.net/article/518875733.html

[granite umbra]

if someone managed to build the boot.rom for FMR50 inform @lunar trellis

[lunar trellis]

Yeah, seems the files required to build the boot rom are not all easily found...

[void belfry]

00000-3cfff: Kanji font 3d000-3d7ff: Ank8 font 3d800-3ffff: Ank16 font This is the same layout as the FMT_FONT.ROM used in unz.
This part above might be doable with either making it with MAKEFONT util (http://retropc.net/ryu/xm7/index.shtml) , make it with dd under Linux or maybe using fmt_font directly (I have to check what is it composed from exactly) ?
40000-43fff: First half of FMR50 IPL 44000-47fff: Second half of FMR50 IPL
Now this is the tricky part, I could not any FM R-50 (or any other R series) IPLs dumped and shared, only programs to do it on real machines (some on above link or referenced in Takeda Toshyia's blog, where also puu-san commented http://takeda-toshiya.seesaa.net/article/395953695.html#comment)

so... who has a working FM R-50 ? 😄 @wind dew maybe ? :))

[granite umbra]

yes with dos floppies maybe with REIPL.com 😅

[lunar trellis]

This is the worry, that he has made a core for a computer only he has the dumps for and being Japanese isn't going to share them.

[void belfry]

option B: who's going soon on a trip to JP ? with some "shareware" DD floppies just happening to be in the bag ?

joking aside, those roms/bioses being still under Fujitsu copyright, slim chance to see them shared, and especially NOT by a Japanese lol

[lunar trellis]

Any idea how rare/expensive these computers are?

[fleet cave]

Computer Cores gearing up to be baited by another puu-san core

[void belfry]

not a clue, but can look on fromjapan site (I used this in the past with very nice results, including a re-capped MSX 2 instead of a "just for parts" one )

[void belfry]

https://www.fromjapan.co.jp/japan/en/auction/yahoo/input/k1206819491/

[granite umbra]

not many software (games) mostly for entreprise I think

[void belfry]

yeah, but since it could run DOS, I guess there were used for some afterhours gaming as well https://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/personal/0020.html

somehow I like this 9 kg beast 😍 fmr-30hx "transportable"

[lunar trellis]

Surprisingly cheap right now, but maybe it will shoot up

[void belfry]

yeah, saw also some fmr-70 at similar prices.. dirt cheap for a 486DX

[lunar trellis]

Long shot, but maybe @lethal condor knows someone who is interested in grabbing one of these and dumping the missing file(s) if they really aren't out in the wild

[lethal condor]

Hmmm i can't get that link to pull up for some reason, what'st the computer? FMR50?

[lethal condor]

Haven't heard of this one before interesting

[lunar trellis]

Currently 4000 yen, although may shoot up. Although maybe this PC isn't as desirable.

Weird the link doesn't load. Maybe try this:

https://www.fromjapan.co.jp/japan/en/auction/yahoo/input/k1206819491/

[waxen nymph]

Silly question - assuming we have roms, is there software somewhere?

[lunar trellis]

Good question

[woven lava]

the game often becomes installing the machine / getting it to work 😅 (for real hardware too and not just for this machine...)

[hollow ice]

Perhaps the real software are the friends we made along the way?

[void belfry]

Trashed one of my VHDs good thing I got backups to backups to my clean templated one lol. And tracked down some nsfw software I remember having around as a kid... you know, for research purposes and all

[void belfry]

https://discmaster.textfiles.com/ - this site will keep me entertained for quite some time 🙂 Best way to search for specific old software, including the ability to view/extract the file(s) you need specifically (even directly on MiSTer with wget download_link in case it is some nsfw stuff 😛 ). After work will test it from ao486 (W98 with K-Meleon browser first) and Amiga (with IBrowse i think it will work)

[void belfry]

Probably I am the first to test out Duke Screw 'Em 38D on ao486 🥳 Sry, no screenshots (nsfw)

[copper slate]

WAT lol

OMG ITS REAL

[void belfry]

yup

😄

[copper slate]

omg

too spicy

[void belfry]

too explicit ? 😄

[copper slate]

Honestly I’m being a prude lol

[void belfry]

I'm kinda tempted to propose an 18+ adult themed 0MHz sub-collection 😄 /jk

[exotic prairie]

@summer dragon make it so

[void belfry]

Interactive cd-roms area is another rabbit's hole , quite curious to test out some of them, especially from early 90's, especially for DOS/W3.1 as I expect those from W95 up to be maybe too much in terms of performance

side note, Kodak Photo ones work fine usually

I'm still searching for some compilation I remember it contained some nice interface/text reader, under DOS and contained A LOT of programming and electronics stuff (from compilers to text books/schematics and tons of sources, Pascal, C/C++ and assembler). Unfortunately I have not the foggiest idea what it was called or who produced it, but surely it wasn't something main stream commercial. And yeah, digital needle in haystack

might have been something circulated on BBSes first (and would make a lot of sense), so another reason to abuse the discmaster search engine 😄

[lunar trellis]

Still waiting on 0mhz "Emmanuel"...

[void belfry]

please... Virtual Valerie 😛

[exotic prairie]

its in amigavision and I think the c64 one

[lunar trellis]

Yeah, the Amiga one is apparently better, I am just teasing

[void belfry]

quite a number of adult games were created back then lol... probably most of them are janky, but still..

'90s were quite naughties :))

[lunar trellis]

I guess someone could do an "After Dark" collection, the games are all likely going to be quite quaint. How explicit could you really get on DOS in the early 90s?

[void belfry]

I can't post sshots, Robby's lurking around 😄

but yeah, most are simply laughable in terms of being explicitness

some might surprise you though, and I have not even looked in the direction of JP ones (probably needing DOS/V or Japanese Win/OS2. So convenient I have clean VHDs for those OSes variants lol )

[lunar trellis]

Oh, Japanese games are probably a completely different kettle of fish, I hadn't thought of that. Western releases I imagine are just silly and very tame.

[copper slate]

Oh shit you mean a screensaver collection? Great idea!

[void belfry]

you do know there are also adult themed screensavers, right ? 😄

[deft hemlock]

Hi! I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such releases of Win95 titles to the old archive, such as Fallout, Grand Theft Auto and of course, Virtual Springfield. These titles seem to improve in performance with every tweak that I find - please let me know of anything you find that will improve performance!

(At least, 0MHz styled releases)

[merry valve]

Virtual Springfield doesn't work. It still has the same bug that I encountered when I packed it. If you go into an interior and click on anything... the game will eventually bug out and you can't exit back to the street. You can however fix the music by switching to OPL3 in the mister settings.

if you want to test go into the movie theater or quickie mart and click on a bunch of stuff.

[deft hemlock]

I didn't encounter that bug when I tested it - thanks for the info!

[merry valve]

I tested it with you build. Maybe I'm not using the latest unstable? Mine is from June I think

[deft hemlock]

Oh yeah I think I (mistakenly) had the MGL shortcut pointing to "ao486_unstable" instead of "ao486" on that particular upload - but I wouldn't expect that to be the source of this issue

[deft hemlock]

Weird - I can definitely click on interior stuff without causing any bugs but I will continue my testing

[void belfry]

Can one run a telnet BBS on ao486 ? Ofc 😄 (Synchronet BBS v3.0c on NT4)

[merry valve]

Can you exit back to the street afterwards?

[deft hemlock]

I don't really remember, I'll definitely test it some more tonight

I am happy to fix up any DOS issues or early Win95 stuff - I was still a software engineer when these things were new lol

But I have just found something that is making Fallout DOS run slow due to the audio driver - if I can fix it, it will improve the game speed a lot

[outer sun]

Question based on doing research while investigating potential of buying one of these. From what I understand the ao486 core's MMU has issues which result in executables needing to be repackaged from the common for the era DOS/4GW Memory extender to the later FOSS DOS/32 Memory extender, and there's some form of the Time to Crash bug in the current MMU which means similar to the bug infamously bug present Oblivion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qongMqNOqc&pp=0gcJCQMKAYcqIYzv All DOS software run in ao486 effectively have a hidden timer until they crash. Has work been done to address that issue?

[surreal marsh]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer/pull/172

However fixing DJGPP etc. exposed some other bugs that are still issues.

[outer sun]

Understandable, but if my understanding of how the 0Mhz collection works is programs packaged up with images, at least in short term the larger problem can be bypassed.

Time to Crash is a different issue than... versioning fiddliness while the MMU implementation is properly fixed

[outer sun]

Slightly obnoxious question. The github for ao486 lists: CPU Clock: 15MHz, 30Mhz, 56MHz, 90Mhz; Now I'm aware of the 3:1 v. 486 clock figure and thus the 90MHz is trying to imitate a 486SX33. I'm presuming 15MHz is meant to be a moderate early 90s 286 analogue ala when Wing Commander came out, 30MHz a fast 286/slow 386, and 56MHz a fast 386 analogue. Given... well there was a reason the Turbo button was thing back in the day, and in the Win 9x days you had software designed to specifically run stuff slower than it normally would to deal with those kinds of issues. From there the PCXT is of course targetting the 8088 with ability to kind of pretend to be an 80s era 286. Is that correct?

[outer sun]

Effectively found an answer to my question...

[woven lava]

hey thats my old spreadsheet 😄

yes I wondered the same as you

so I ran some benchmarks to test

it's not 100% accurate, but good enough for most games

one surprise learning from that test is that you should never turn both caches off

use PCXT if you need that level of perf

[outer sun]

Well I mean... the purpose of the cache is effectively to provide an intermediary between RAM and registers. So removing cache from something meant to have cache seems like it would just tend to cause thrashing as the front-end has to deal with behavior different from what it's really meant to be doing.

[woven lava]

the results showed it was worse than an accurate PC XT, which itself is slow 😄

I mean, there is the 90Mhz with cache off,

which is super slow AT performance

but even so, as far as I can tell the PC XT core at max speed can match it

I do think there is room for a "286" core with a VGA card though

to fill the gap between PCXT and ao486

at least one game wants a 10Mhz (or was it 12Mhz) AT-level performance, or runs too fast

[outer sun]

Well... From what I understand PCXT is targeting systems [8088/286] which normally didn't have cache, while ao486 is targeting systems that did [386DX/486SX] In turn in the case of effectively forcing Cache Misses would mean upping the clock isn't necessarily going to do that much on the issue of waiting on RAM, and potentially doing a flush and reloading the que.

It's not like the simulated core is superscalar. If it cache misses it can't do those tricks to smooth out the Cache Miss penalty, ala a Pentium.

So my expectation would be PCXT isn't thrashing, while ao486 is resulting in that behavior.

Similar but not as extreme as... the performance issues that cropped up when systems started paging with HDDs, before m.2 NVMe effectively neutralized that problem being overly noticeable.

[surreal marsh]

Hmm. https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer/pull/184 the issues revealed by the task switch fix were not a problem

[final zephyr]

Wing commander 1 and 2 run fine on. Ao486 but wing commander 3 is awful on it

[deft hemlock]

There have been discussions that the 100MHz config is stable now, but I cannot confirm this yet so I still max it out at 90

[outer sun]

To be fair Wing Commander III[DOS] was intended to run on a 486DX@50 with a Pentium being recommended https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Wing_Commander_III:_Heart_of_the_Tiger / https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Category:Wing_Commander_III:_Heart_of_the_Tiger#System_Requirements and as a Flight Sim would be using the FPU/x87 code extensively. So it's kind of surprising it would run at all on something approximating a 486SX@30

[thick pendant]

SWAG?

[woven lava]

PCXT is also cycle accurate to a real CPU (not in all modes - but at least the 2 slower speeds were measured vs. a real chip)

so all else being equal, PCXT should be preferred when the games fit

[outer sun]

Well... the primary reason the Turbo button was thing back in the day was because when we're talking the systems PCXT is targeting it tended to be designed for those systems, and would result in undesirable behavior if allowed to just run what say a 486 or Pentium was truly capable of. Hence it's really important that's sync'd up, while... After Wing Commander [1992]->Doom[1993] happens and there's a demand for more powerful processors quickly iterating from a norm of 286es to Intel's actual latest and greatest. For instance while Doom documents as 386 it really wanted a 486 to perform as intended, meaning as a rule what followed tended to be reasonably tolerant of say being run on a Pentium 200 MMX.

[void belfry]

no, wasn't this 🙁

[void belfry]

was smth like this, but a bit more fancier 😄 with hyperlinked cross-references iirc

[copper slate]

https://github.com/waldoalvarez00/MyPC 👀

[fleet cave]

my pc?

my privacy!

[woven lava]

wow! thats great news

[merry valve]

What is a MyPC?

[hollow ice]

Interesting. I didn’t realize there was an 8087 implementation

[outer sun]

https://www.jamieiles.com/80186/ here's the dev breaking down what they did, on their webpage.

[outer sun]

Having dug a little deeper on it and noting stuff in the documentation, my largely uninformed impression is the problem isn't so much that they can't figure out how to implement x87 80-bit instructions but that... In simulated silicon terms it's expensive to implement it via FPGA instead of some trick with the Bochs x86 methodology ao486 is based on. Hence even with talk towards significant optimization it's sitting at 78% utilization of the Cyclone V where this spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wHetlC0RqFnBcqzGEZI8SWi6tlHFxl_ehpaokDwg7CU/edit?gid=0#gid=0 put ao486 at 81.25% utilization and... It doesn't appear that a Soundblaster [ao486] or Adlib[PCXT] analog was implemented.

Supporting that notion... https://www.stuffedcow.net/files/henry-thesis-phd.pdf This thesis on creating a Superscalar Out of Order x86 CPU in FPGA via 28,700 ALM also involved the designer opting to not implement an actual FPU in favor of that Bochs approach despite the real CPUs with Superscalar+Out of Order started with Pentium Pro/Pentium II which had x87 and MMX implemented

[scarlet spear]

There is already an Afterdark collection by flynn

[young gust]

My dad LOVED After dark. I gotta find this and set it up. My dad passed away unexpectedly 3 months ago. He was a huge gamer and loved DOS gaming. He loved all those silly screensavers too. My brother is coming home from Japan for Thanksgiving. It'd be cool as hell to have After dark running when he's here.

[void belfry]

Search for "ao486 screensavers" on known archiving site 😉

Sorry for your loss as well 🙁

[young gust]

Thanks man. I can't even put it into words how hard it's been. Was more than just my dad, he was my absolute best friend in life, and we always would chat about what game we were playing and looking forward to

One thing my brother and I have done, is compile a list of all of his favorite games, from DOS onward, and are gonna play thru them all. He was really excited to play Little Nightmares 3, so this weekend I'm gonna start that one up

[void belfry]

Sounds great and a proper way to remember him 🙂

[cedar isle]

Sorry for your loss man. My dad passed in 2017 and he's on my mind daily! Here he was in the late 70's with a homemade halloween costume for me.

[young gust]

That's an awesome pic!

[cedar isle]

They will always be our dads, brother. Honestly, I use any chase I can to talk about him.

[young gust]

Anytime you wanna talk bout your dad just hit me up!

[granite umbra]

Towns release
http://fpga8801.seesaa.net/article/518967163.html

[lunar trellis]

If there is a new .rbf I can update the WIP DB

[woven lava]

he mentions he uses 8MB to emulate a floppy.... are they doing some kind of low-level emulation?

[lunar trellis]

Thanks, added

I will leave the old one on there for now as well

[lunar trellis]

Curious if anyone has any more luck with this one

[frosty cosmos]

This Fm-towns core doesn't load anything for me. Tried games in .d88 and .iso format (New Zealand Story).

[granite umbra]

dinosaur and brandish shows some part working or ms DOS, towns OS hangs, very little for the moment

[lunar trellis]

Does it work any better or worse than the core from last year?

[granite umbra]

i have just tested things I have on my sd but no change maybe I need to check more

but if townos still hangs maybe not many new things could work

[copper slate]

wot wot wot

[undone anvil]

FM Towns?? sweet! finally we can play the definitive version of ultima 😄

[neat lintel]

So…. Do .cci or .cue files work?

I’ve been pleading for the FM TOWNS core to become a thing man for a while now lol

[still wren]

In here for the FM TOWNS CORE!

[lunar trellis]

It doesn't sound like much has tangibly changed from the one that has been in the WIP DB for over a year now

[still wren]

No worries , I’ll skip this release and wait for the next ! It’s still awesome to know that someone is working on a core though.

[lunar trellis]

I honestly wouldn't get excited, I would be amazed if his work ever resulted in an stable and easy to use core for a non Japanese user

[neat lintel]

So theoretically the FM TOWNS core probably wouldn’t be stable to use for like another few years?

[frosty cosmos]

Booting CD games wouldn't be that hard for a non japanese person. Everything HDD related, like installing software, is a bit more challenging.

[lunar trellis]

More likely not ever. He has never delivered a stable, easy to use core. Not to knock the work he does, but the PC-88 and x68000 took a hell of a lot of work from others to be useable on MiSTer and even then there are a lot of problems. His PC-98 core hasn't advanced in years either.

[neat lintel]

well :/

[waxen brook]

Amiga/Pinball fans - we're playing Slam Tilt for the current #game-challenge. Separate boards for all 4 tables in the game. Feel free to join any/all of them.

[ebon tundra]

new version of ao486_GUS_20251118 https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=101544#p101544

[fast kraken]

i still cant believe they found space for a gus in the famously crammed ao486

its like, a gigantic soundcard not at all simple

[granite umbra]

FM-R 50 update
http://fpga8801.seesaa.net/article/519019284.html

[bitter yoke]

I still gotta give the gus core a go and see what i've been missing

Looks like only one game been uploaded to 0mhz last time I checked

[short compass]

Whoa Nukeykt RE’d the GF1? Based.

[copper slate]

Can someone post the rbf here? I can pin it.

[wet hound]

But they had to take away the soundblaster to make space for the GUS 😔

[copper slate]

Thank you very much!

[fast kraken]

oh is that how they did it? heh fair enough

i think its reasonable to switch core for something like that

[ebon tundra]

there is sb16 support in the AO486_gus core.

[thick pendant]

I remember having a SBpro and a GUS and a adaptec scsi and it was a real challenge to get all that working in one box due to limited number of IRQ/DMA

[wet hound]

Try the Mental Surgery demo by future crew which has no GUS support (soundblaster only) and you'll see you have no sound with the GUS ao486 core while there is no problem with the standard core.

[granite umbra]

I didn't test for the moment, but in the readme both are present.
https://github.com/xolod79/ao486_MiSTer?tab=readme-ov-file#gravis-ultrasound
Maybe an issue with IRQ or something else

[sterile ether]

@wet hound can you send your version of mentel demo because i can't get it to run even with normal ao486 core

[mighty barn]

It may be an issue with that demo in particular, as Soundblaster still works for me in the GUS build - just checked with Doom. By default GUS is on IRQ7 and SB on IRQ5 according to the doc, which may be different from before

[wet hound]

Yes you're right. I just tested with the latest build from the 18th of november and both cards are available now on distinct IRQ (7 for GUS and 5 for soundblaster which resolved any previous conflicts). I checked a bunch of Sounblaster games and demos and they all work 😉

[granite umbra]

Update FMR-50 with on screenshot of Windows
http://fpga8801.seesaa.net/article/519047730.html

[lunar trellis]

Any update on if the required BIOS file is obtainable?

[granite umbra]

for the moment i don't have the information regarding someone shared it

[lunar trellis]

Maybe Puu can be tempted to burn it onto CD and literally mail it to someone, as it is a bit ridiculous he is doing this and literally nobody but him can even run it.

[bitter yoke]

I have searched the internet high and low and couldn't find the bios anywhere

[lunar trellis]

It doesn't seem to be in the wild, the assumption is Puu has dumped his own machine.

[bitter yoke]

Gotta be, I jumped in some vintage computer discords and never even seen it mentioned when I searched

[void belfry]

Same here, exhausted all my search ideas/places.. So again.. anyone in JP 😄 ?

[neat lintel]

There’s a bios for the fm towns core?

[bitter yoke]

Looking for the fmr-50 bios

[neat lintel]

Ahhh

So that’s why nothing boots in that core

Or maybe I’m wrong on that

[deft hemlock]

I have published a (slightly) optimised version of GTA to the old archive, in my tests it certainly has better fps than my last effort but that isn't saying much..

details/GTADOS

Changing the VHD cluster size to 32KB seemed to have the biggest gain, which is interesting

[lunar trellis]

If you use the WIP DB and know how to use an FM Towns machine you can try use it, you will have the files you need downloaded. This FMR-50 isn't useable until the BIOS is in the wild.

[void belfry]

Was watching This Week in Retro and found this gem of a picture

[ruby charm]

Wow. Computers used to be SO interesting! I could be there throwing commands and talking for hours!

Thanks for the picture, had me looking at the specs and the programs and zooming around 😄

[void belfry]

Well, at least we have one of them as MiSTer core 😉

[waxen brook]

early windows gaming preservation hit a new milestone recently. Such a massive project, and it seems to have turned out great
https://youtu.be/OJrC5YdB6hk?si=rTLrL31dKfzNMD5l

[bitter yoke]

I'm curious how well the multiplayer stuff works

Gonna check it out later when i'm back at home

[floral obsidian]

Does this have similar input lag as console software emulators vs real hardware ?

[deft hemlock]

eXoWin9x mainly uses DOSBox-X (because it has support for variable-sized VHD images)

[floral obsidian]

and dosbox-x input doesn't feel right from what I'm seeing on google/reddit.

[waxen brook]

I have never played through the original Diablo. If multi-player works as well as the demonstration in that video, I'd like to get a group together to play through on discord here. Maybe we can make it #game-of-the-month and rekindle that, allowing ports like the ps1 version for accessibility

[waxen brook]

Lgr did a video covering it recently on his secondary channel and was surprised to see how much it felt like original hardware. Don't have measurements, but that bodes well at least. If some folks here want to get a friendly quake multi-player session going we can test what is without a doubt the best benchmark for that in the pack.

It's hard to say that would be definitive though, given the use of several different emulators throughout the library

Likely the testers & devs favored the lowest input lag options for first person shooters and other demanding twitch-response games.

https://youtu.be/FazeobVWdmM?si=uyCJrSAX0klhSpvn

This is a fun watch- much kusoge shown and I haven't heard LGR laugh this much since before his house was destroyed. The world feels like it's healing

[bitter yoke]

I've never done a full playthrough of diablo either so that'd be sweet. Quake would be cool too

[waxen brook]

Hah quake was precisely the reason I never made it all the way through Diablo. I'd be 100% down for either or both.

[deft hemlock]

I put a 0mhz style copy of Diablo on the archive for ao486

[undone anvil]

The eXo archives are so great

[deft hemlock]

It's huge for software preservation, many titles are already very rare. I have a few portable SSDs especially for eXo

[young gust]

The undertaking of these projects is absolutely amazing. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of time it takes to create these. It's not just gathering the games, he puts together magazine scans, manual scans, soundtracks, walkthroughs... It's just crazy. I absolutely love it

[proud pasture]

Not been keeping up for a while. Do the exo archives work with mister?

[bitter yoke]

Closest you'll get to Exo on Mister is the 0mhz collection

[void belfry]

This ExoWin9x got me into thinking (will do some tests next weekend) into IPX related stuff.
From what I read so far, it might be possible to also add IPX support on Linux kernel and pppd as well. So need to check later if our MiSTer Linux/ppp daemon has it and if not if I can add it, which makes me think it would be then possible to link a MiSTer running Win9x games with a PC running eXo (in a LAN ofc)
For direct serial connection, it should work actually out of the box from MiSTer side, I have no clue yet how it is done on eXo

https://tldp.org/HOWTO/IPX-HOWTO-14.html

[young gust]

explain that to me like i'm 5. What you're saying sounds cool, but i dont know what it means lol

[void belfry]

In the Dark Ages of primitive LAN/Internet connections, before TCP/IP we are using now even if we don't know about it, there was another data transport protocol for networks called IPX, mostly used by now a defunct giant called Novell.
And thus, DOS and early Win games relied on that IPX to relay game data between nodes/computers, which is nowadays a bit of an hassle to add that obsolete support for IPX on modern systems, including the Linux on our MiSTer.

Now, I dabbled a bit 2 years ago into DOS IPX stuff with iFrag/Dali/Kali, found that you can actually do multiplayer Doom between MiSTers with minimal effort (if modifying a line is effort) 😛
But that uses a TCP/IP wrapper around IPX packets, so not much of an use other than id games.

[void belfry]

5yo enough ? sry, I'm an engineer 😄

[young gust]

😂

[void belfry]

not really joking much, network one :)) hence my interest in this kind of stuff lol

[young gust]

Sounds very cool

[void belfry]

I'm probably the first to use ao486 as a packet traffic generator for debugging some tooling server, as well as POV or fractal generation and other wacky stuff 😛

because it is slow and can actually read between lines of tcpdump :)))

anyway, back to eXo topic, really curious on how they do the multiplayer part

IF it can be reproduced on MiSTer, then you can impress your friends at future LAN parties 😄

[young gust]

That would be really awesome

[weary umbra]

"Future LAN parties", now that's what I call an oxymoron. Last one I attended was 2003. or 2004.

[void belfry]

Yeah, yeah, heard about that "online multiplay"... Not much fan, i leave it to the young'uns with their fancy new toys 😄 /jk

Actually, if I think of it, my last LAN party was 5-6 years ago, me and some colleagues teamed up and used some lab switch and few laptops to play some Quake 2, Unreal Tournament, Bomberman and of Starcraft 1

That was a great weekend lol

[final zephyr]

Exo9x 1997-1999 is going to be crazy awesome

[woven lava]

I watched some of the release vid on ExoWin; he makes a good point that many games would need a 200MB+ image just for the OS,

so they optimized for that

ideally for 0Mhz we'd need something similar or the size of these older games will be large

basically: instead of every game shipping with the full OS; they have the OS as separate VHD and have a mechanism to apply changes

[sweet scarab]

That is very very cool, is their a write up for this somewhere?

[void belfry]

iFrag: #1047332497492553799 message and #1047332497492553799 message, Dali: #1047332497492553799 message and #1047332497492553799 message or just search posts from my user containing Dali, Kali or iFrag

[deft hemlock]

Yes that is true - on some of the releases I have on archive, they use a very trimmed W95 install which is between 40-60MB (with all the drivers for MiSTer). But many games benefit from W98SE and I have not published those until we have a strategy to share the OS HDD

One method is to include a "boot floppy" per game (that configures the OS HD if needed) and to ensure the boot priority is floppy disk first - that can even swap-out the "startup shortcut" for Windows

Just want something seamless and uncomplicated

The boot floppy method works OK in my tests - I can even drop a script into windows to add things to the registry and self-delete etc.

[deft hemlock]

You can follow their source code - basically they create a copy of the same Windows image every time you launch a game, the game is mounted as the D: drive and runs a VB script "per game"

That script handles registry entries/shortcuts etc

It is very tidy

But for the MiSTer we need to be even more lean - we only install DirectX if we absolutely have to, for example - so perhaps we need four or five OS images to pick from

[woven lava]

perfect world we could reuse the Exo image, but it would be too heavy for the SD card to copy it over every time we start a game

many OS images could work... with some curation to preinstall shared components

[granite umbra]

IIgs (thanks for who working on this core :))

[sterile ether]

claude works on iigs 😉

[safe quest]

That progress bar didn't fill at all for a long time. We can actually boot IIgs software now, but a lot of stuff is still missing/broken.

[waxen nymph]

You can play arkanoid because it doesn’t need the y axis working correctly on the mouse 🐁

[safe quest]

And it doesn't need the keyboard to work right.

[waxen nymph]

Stephen is the real star not Claude. He fixed the issue that had been plaguing us for 2 years

I think zany golf ⛳️ should work once we flip the y axis

[granite umbra]

Great !

[sterile ether]

battle chess iigs running

mouse y axis is flip

[safe quest]

Also the keyboard is screwed up. And the floppy drives don't work. And the hard drive shows up on multiple unit numbers. And there's still some kind of shadowing or address decoding glitch in the super-hires buffers. And sometimes you have to run the self-test for a few seconds to properly initialize the system...

[ruby charm]

Wow!!! Incredible!! The GS is legendary! 😮
These computer cores are a treasure for me, really... Computers and the CD-i (and PSX) is what has me hooked to the MiSTer these days!

[granite umbra]

On Total replay II with keyboad we can select game per letter but it hangs after

[waxen nymph]

It doesn't handle two of the same character in a row - try typing something else first

[granite umbra]

ok !

[safe quest]

It might also be that you just happened to load a game that didn't work. Because of floppy drive issues and the focus on getting ProDOS-16 stuff to boot, we haven't tested a lot of IIe software.

[granite umbra]

so Total replay may rely on floppies I see I will check again when the floppies works

[safe quest]

It doesn't, it's just that most other IIe software does, which means we can't test/debug it yet. Whereas most IIgs software doesn't care whether it's running from floppy or HDD.

[waxen nymph]

Total replay kind of works but the broken keyboard makes it a bit unusable

[granite umbra]

found IIgs working 🙂

[karmic fog]

incredible work!

very exciting stuff

[waxen nymph]

I pushed TK2000 btw - very odd computer

[exotic prairie]

nice work 🙂

Moondandy will be excited 🙂

[lunar trellis]

Great work Alan! Good to see you get that over the line. You should do a forum news post so it gets promoted in the News channel.

[waxen nymph]

I thought I did a forum post.. it has been so long I feel like I must have missed a step somewhere?

I put it on the wiki (thanks @stiff steeple )

[stiff steeple]

they added that capcha so the bot can't pull the news from the forum anymore til I find one that can evade that

[lunar trellis]

Ah, that's annoying. AI causing us problems already.

[waxen nymph]

Oh - that makes sense. It keeps thinking I am a bot. Should be easy to use AI to bypass 😜

If anyone can dig up a iigs keyboard tester app thingy that would be great.

I think there might be one on the diagnostics disk. I wonder if there is a finder one as well

[copper slate]

I am news bot, beee boop blarp

[lunar trellis]

Maybe on one of these?

https://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/apple-iigs-diagnostics.html

https://archive.org/details/apple-service-apple-iie-iic-iic-plus-iigs-diagnostic-version-4.0-1989

[waxen nymph]

I need to get the keyboard working better. I can’t type accurately enough to use that disk. I do have some keyboard fixes coming together

https://franke.ms/git/bebbo/bebbossh

One minute to connect.

[neat lintel]

@lunar trellis @bitter yoke I know this is very stupid to ask because it’s not like Puu is in this server (I wish Puu was) but is he using a whole different FPGA software or whatever? Because he provides a .qar file instead of a .rbf file everytime he makes a new post

[limpid tiger]

qar is a quartus archive which seems to include the whole project

Well, enough to recompile

I don't think RBF is part of it

[neat lintel]

Makes sense

[lunar trellis]

What I would say, is unless you have experience successfully using these actual Japanese computers, PC-98, FM Towns, then I wouldn't bother worrying about them, you aren't going to get anywhere.

[neat lintel]

why isn’t Puu publishing his work on github for everyone else to see is beyond me

[lunar trellis]

That being said, if you use the WIP DB you should be set up with all the files already to try them out

He is Japanese

[neat lintel]

Where’s the link to that

[lunar trellis]

There is a thread here in MiSTer Related

[neat lintel]

Wasn’t able to find it

[granite umbra]

Generally the RBF is part of it

[limpid tiger]

It's been a while since I looked at those

[worn wyvern]

Apple II clone in a Atari 1200xl shell?

[waxen nymph]

I think it is actually a clone of a Chinese clone of the apple ii that took out the character rom

[fast kraken]

have we actually got any exowin9x experts on? i'm trying to play it but stuff keeps launching at 48hz for no apparent reason?

possibly a dosbox expert would suffice

[gusty sluice]

I have interesting issue with Amiga/MiniMig core.
Installed OS 3.2.3, Picasso96+RTG driver.
Set resolution 1280x720x32, Work bench runs fine, however when I start some other app e.g. DirectoryOpus 4 that opens screen Amiga freezes, looks like it freezes when tries to draw text.

Anyone had similar issue and has solution? Thanks 🙂

[wet monolith]

Have you tested that configuration on a real Amiga or WinUAE?

I would first try to go down to 16-bit color mode and see it it fixes it

It could also be memory runs out. Make sure you have >16MB of fast ram

[gusty sluice]

Thanks I'll try WinUAE test because I can't do RTG on my real amiga.
I'm using MAX possible ram 384MB of fast ram.
Tried all modes and lower RTG resolutions with same freeze outcome.

[rocky sedge]

Whats the best way to contact the author of the CBM-II Core?

[wet monolith]

Apparently Dopus opens its own screen unless configured to use workbench, so could be a picasso driver issue that breaks when that happens. If you go back to any non RTG screen mode and open Dopus go to Settings-Environment set "Open on Workbench Screen" and save the config. Now go back to RTG and see if it works.

[gusty sluice]

Thank you all, I have found what is Directory Opus RTG issue.
Problem was some old Directory Opus 4 that doesn't play well with RTG and freezes...
One from Aminet works fine:
https://aminet.net/package/util/dopus/DOpus416JRbin

I had RTG issue with ASM-One also, latest version:
http://www.theflamearrows.info/ftp/asmonev149-RC2.lha

It turns out that ASM-One works with:

• 8bit color
• 32bit color
  But it doesn't with:
• 16bit color
• 24bit color
  Hope it helps someone else ...

[thick pendant]

maybe pm on the forum

or maybe contact @small ore here

[rocky sedge]

thx - i'll try

[copper slate]

Don’t go chasing waterfalls while testing this new build out

[wet hound]

It does the job though 😉... This demo always displayed ugly black duplicate shadows in many sequences and they're now completely gone and everything is clean. Cannot complain, any improvement to that core is good to have imho 😁

[burnt pelican]

You've got me wondering how the '030 core is doing now...

[terse totem]

This one?
https://github.com/apolkosnik/Minimig-AGA_MiSTer/tree/030_mmu ?

[terse totem]

It gets detected as 030, the mmu is not yet properly detected, but the registers and at least some of the mmu instructions are working (tested with VATestProgram)

I got to figure out what makes AIBB lock up the system on AIBB's launch

[random onyx]

I assume computer cores are harder to setup?

I want to play police quest 1 for dos. How do I go about this?

https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/Games/game_pq1.php

[bitter yoke]

There are some templates on the archive to use that make setting up a game easier

[burnt pelican]

Thank you! I've remembered to bookmark the page this time!

[thick pendant]

That one would be best under the PCXT core because of the 3-voice PCJr sound . The 1992 VGA remake would be best on ao486 core

[hollow estuary]

Search for "0mhz police quest archive.org'

[granite umbra]

Space Ace IIGS 🙂

[ruby charm]

That's on the core?? 😮

[granite umbra]

yes !

[sterile ether]

Last commit for iigs break some part … wait for a new commit

[waxen nymph]

I think selftest2 has a good commit now - let me know if it is still broken.

i tried to fix the line that you see in space ace on the left, and the border on the right. plus the double disk problem in gs/os

[meager mural]

Thank you so much for all of ypur ongoing work on this core!

[granite umbra]

Thanks Alan 👍

[granite umbra]

EXO IIgs pack proposed games installed with PRODOS

[woven lava]

so great to see progress on the IIgs! thanks Alan!

[waxen nymph]

What does this mean? I want to get a second hard drive hooked up so we can play the wita game pack

[granite umbra]

The exo IIgs pack contains games already package with PRODOS so just need to rename gamefile.po to hdv and they boot on the core.

all games i have tested on this pack boot

[bitter yoke]

https://itch.io/jam/dosember-game-jam/entries

[ruby charm]

Whoa!! Is the core so advanced already?? With the INCREDIBLE synth sound the IIgs had and all??

[short finch]

No sound for me, at least.

But the games boot.

[granite umbra]

no sound for the moment.

[copper slate]

** 𝐃𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐞 **

WIP Core Downloader - [LINK]
-# ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎↳ follow instructions in link to automate downloading all work-in-progress cores

Manual Install:

• AliceMC10 - [LINK]
• Amstrad - [LINK]
• ao486 - [LINK] or with GUS [LINK]
• Apple-II - [LINK]
• Apple-IIGS - [LINK]
• C64 - [LINK]
• FMTowns - [LINK]

• MacPlus - [LINK]
• Minimig (Amiga) - [LINK]
• MSX1 - [LINK]
• PC88 - [LINK]
• PCFX - [LINK]
• Ti994a - [LINK]
• VIC-20 - [LINK]
• X68000 - [LINK]

(Last Updated - Apr. 28th, 2026)

hell yeah I found it

[safe quest]

It's still not 100%, but I've hooked up the ES5503 now that I've fixed all the bugs that were obvious to me.

[lunar trellis]

Am a bit confused, is the IIGS core a separate core from the current Apple II core, or is the current core being enhanced to be a IIGS?

[safe quest]

It's a separate core.

[lunar trellis]

Is the pinned link correct? It downloads a file directly

Do you have a link to the GS repo?

[safe quest]

This is a link to the current WIP branch: https://github.com/pcornier/iigs_simulation/tree/selftest2

I didn't see a pinned link for IIgs, but I didn't think we were uploading a .rbf anywhere yet.

[lunar trellis]

Ah, of course, was started by Pierco that's why I couldn't find it

Many thanks

Was/is the RTC Alan did for the II+ able to be ported over to this core?

[safe quest]

There is some (buggy I think) RTC code in there, no idea how much of it came from the IIe core as IIgs has its own onboard RTC.

[waxen nymph]

i wrote a prodos test and it seemed to read the clock - but gs/os and a2desktop don't seem to.. need to debug it some more

[neat lintel]

Our friend was mentioning something about the “floppy controller” for the TOWNS core, but he lost me. Anyone knows what this person is talking about?

[copper slate]

Yeah, not available publicly so no pin.

[safe quest]

IMO things are probably still moving too fast for that to be helpful. But we've made a lot of progress in the past couple of weeks.

[copper slate]

That’s awesome.

Also I won’t pin unless y’all are comfortable with it.

You call the shots, I’m just here to help.

[hollow ice]

Robby sure is o-pin-ioniated

[lunar trellis]

Great to see you guys making such rapid progress on this core, is going to be an exciting one for people to play with when it is ready.

[granite umbra]

Space Ace has sound 🙂

and better graphics for Apple II games

[waxen nymph]

Exciting. I am still off a few pixels on the apple ii graphics and one self test seems totally broken. But I think it is much better

[granite umbra]

It is quite better for Total Replay and I think "L'appel de Cthulhu" is correct now

[neat lintel]

@granite umbra @lunar trellis would you two happen to know what that person was talking about in the screenshot I sent regarding the floppy controller for the TOWNS core?

[granite umbra]

You have this message if the floppy used TownOS 2.1.
Puu-san said TownOS is not supported at the moment

Towns core is early WIP.

[neat lintel]

Ohhh got it, that makes sense with that message at the bottom of the screen. Thanks! @granite umbra

[neat lintel]

I’m gonna say with a hunch that by mid 2026, we will have a working TOWNS core!!

[shrewd gull]

https://tenor.com/view/lebron-james-smirk-hidden-smile-gif-11420347

[neat lintel]

https://tenor.com/view/best-wishes-cross-your-fingers-crossing-fingers-crypto-fingers-crossed-gif-9555301355775999569

@granite umbra do you have the link to Puu-san’s home website page

[granite umbra]

here : #1047332497492553799 message

[neat lintel]

Thank you!!

[round token]

I was planning to play some lemming multiplayer tommorow but had issues getting the 2 player mouse recognised. Using the search i reached this......so assuming amiga 2 player lemming on mister is (currently) just not possible? i guess i could try it on AO486....

[terse totem]

Good luck

[round token]

Will need more than luck, pc version is sp only 🥲

[copper slate]

pins updated

[vestal goblet]

Great! I had the damndest time with TI99 core a few weeks ago

[granite umbra]

For information, it is already present on last release

the unstable seems lock for two days

[lunar trellis]

If you use the BIOS DB then you should be good to go on the TI99 core if you wanted to load up the core and play some games. Great QOL update from Flandango.

[vestal goblet]

I'll give it a shot sometime over the weekend 😄

TI99 was the first real computer we had, and what I really learned to first program on. I have a physical one re-capped with some key software and manuals, and it is a nostalgia slingshot to hear some of the educational title games beeps and bloops

BurgerTime was one of my absolute favorites on that platform, and it is pretty remarkable how well it looks/plays

[thick pendant]

I had the Timex Sinclair 1000 (basically a ZX81) and a TI99/4a prior to the C= 64 but I don't really consider those to be real computers...

especially the Timex 🙂

[rocky sedge]

The Timex 1000 has double the RAM and is way more useable without expansion so

[latent heath]

Good morning everyone! Posting as a new user, got my de-10 board last week and finding the whole thing fantastic.
So, part of the reasons me getting a mister is to try to connect it to the front plate of the altair-duino, and passing the signals to the emulated Altair 8800 core. before investing too much time into figuring out it wont work, would anyone have insights on getting this to run? Idea would be to pass the signals through the arduino to the mister over GPIO, and then adapting the core to read from the free gpio. Is something like this achievable?

Thanks!

[waxen nymph]

how many pins do you need? maybe use the SNAC port? or you could possibly do it with software and send data to/fro the arduino via serial or ethernet

[latent heath]

Thanks for the tips! Regarding pins, not yet sure. But I think the SNAC might be good to look at, I get power the arduino that way

[fallow topaz]

Maybe useful for the Apple IIc efforts: https://github.com/jotego/jtcores/commit/9938a1fa894ed0add2a72435019936251631944e

[waxen nymph]

Interesting. I wonder why he needed a 6502. I haven’t tried to validate the 6502s just the 65816. I think our 65816 is pretty correct.

[rocky sedge]

the 6502 CPU is rather limited - has nearly no registers (registers are in-menory in the zeropage) - i'd better wish to have a Z80 with a real 16-bit ALU

[waxen nymph]

There are many 6502s - I was just wondering why he wrote his own.

[rocky sedge]

the 6502 (and its variants) were mainly one: cheap.

my first own computer had a 6509. the first computer i came in touch a Z80 (ZX81)

[ruby charm]

Do you mean the 65816 core used in the IIgs core? 😄

[waxen nymph]

Yes - we started with the SNES 65C816 converted it to verilog -- and then recently we found a data set of tests and then went in and fixed a lot of the 6502 compatibility mode that probably isn't used on SNES games.. and some interrupt problems.

[rocky sedge]

How to get in contact with the CBM-II Core Developer? There is a issue open (even in git) which he cannot reproduce but several people have.

https://github.com/eriks5/CBM-II_MiSTer/issues/4

[fallow topaz]

He wrote on X that the "C" (CMOS) variant has some particularities that none of the available cores fully supported

[limpid tiger]

65C02 has some notable differences and I don't know if it's adequately been addressed in the existing 6502 core(s). Not sure why he felt the need to his won though.

[waxen nymph]

We have an enhanced iie so we definitely have a core that claims to handle 65C02. It is completely possible they would fail a validation test. I was surprised how bad the 65C816 was considering the SNES seems so good.

[safe quest]

IIRC there are also multiple variants of 65C02 (Rockwell, Synertek, WDC) that don't all support the same instructions.

[limpid tiger]

Yeah, "in theory", 65C02 was supposed to just be a CMOS reimplementation of the 6502, but they cleaned up some weird behaviours and added a few instructions.

[woven lava]

I thought T65 was already a good implementation

but maybe that's only 6502 and not a full 65C02?

[limpid tiger]

right

I think there's also a change in the behaviour of the undocumented instructions.

But some of the 6502-specific things like "branch across a memory page takes an extra cycle" (i.e. from $20FC to $2101) were likely fixed

[thick pendant]

If the Z80 is that much better than the 6502 then why was the 6502 used for both the T-800 and Bender robots?

[rocky sedge]

you need to read the whole sentence

the original z80 has a 4 bit alu (very slow) and cost 3 times a 6502

[meager mural]

I just want to say, as someone who grew up on Apple II computers after my Coleco Adam died, THANK YOU so much for all of your hard work on the IIgs core.

As the Right Honourable Leslie Nielsen, O.C., said, "I just want to tell you both good luck, we're all counting on you." 😎

[waxen nymph]

The flash of nostalgia I am getting booting all these old games.. I guess this turns out to be my sweet spot. I still hate this computer. Joystick works now. Lots more bugs to fix. I think Thexder is playable

[ruby charm]

Do you mean joystick is working now on the IIgs core?? Was it moving down autonomously before? That happens in MAME too! What was the fix? It'd like to tell the MAME guys...

[waxen nymph]

I didn’t see it moving down. That could be because of what value is center. I probably am not reporting center correctly. The issue I had was doing math off of phi2 which is variable instead of a fixed clock. So it only working in slow mode. Hence all the test programs in dos or a2desktoo worked but iigs games like guantlet and thexder didn’t

[ruby charm]

Ah, I see! Very different problem in MAME IIgs emulation then.. Thanks for the explanation! 🙂

[waxen nymph]

Try adjusting the joystick so 128 is the center in mame.

[ruby charm]

What can we expect with this build? Full sound and games working? Anything special to bear in mind for testing? 🙂

[ruby charm]

Do you mean centering it on the MAME menus?

[waxen nymph]

This doesn’t actually support 2mg. Needs to be hdv

[waxen nymph]

I don’t know how to adjust the joystick for mame. But if you can center it properly it might fix the drift. Load a2desktop joystick control panel and see if it is centered

Games I think work: thexder, zany golf, arkanoid 2

[ruby charm]

Yay! Thanks! 🙂

[tulip atlas]

The ao486 core seems to save some kind of absolute path in the config. I select a vhd on SD Card in games/ao486/test.vhd (on /media/fat) and save settings. I then turn the MiSTer off, connect a HDD which has the same .vhd in games/ao486/test.vhd (on /media/usb0/), but now the core cannot find the vhd. I have to manually re-select it and save settings again.

[fresh stream]

Found something special in my work's e-waste bin today.

I am in North America, I have no idea how this got here.

[sterile ether]

@waxen nymph this build support .po

[limpid tiger]

That is very non-North American. Although if you're in Canada, we were a bit more aligned with the UK back then than we are now.

Still.... at a company ? Odd

[lunar trellis]

Damn, yesterday someone here finds an N64 and hundreds of dollars of games in a dumpster, and today someone finds a Jupiter Ace in a work bin? Madness. Do people know realise people actively hunt down old hardware and they can be valuable?

I hate to think how much decent older hardware is still being destroyed today. Literally one man's trash is another's treasure.

[spice hound]

Is there any new update or new version of zx spectrum next core?

[ruby charm]

Doesn't the MacPlus core use fx68k instead of TG68??

[granite umbra]

it uses fx68k for 68000 but TG68 for 68010 and 6820 like Amiga Core

[ruby charm]

Ah! I see, many thanks for clearing that up for me 😄

[karmic fog]

i'm going to try and test the bug again shortly today

it's quite a nasty one, so hopefully this fixes it

if you use TG68K 68010 or 68020 options in the core in conjuction with an SE rom, your .vhd will corrupt itself on the first reboot

i'm not actually sure what having the 010 or 020 instructions does for any software. the actual clock speed is a separate toggle in the core so it doesn't make things faster necessarily

there are a few pieces of software that want 020, i think it might only be useful for that

some of that stuff you can use software to tell it you have an 020 and it'll work

i guess i'll be able to test it more robustly if this fixes the .vhd corrupting issue

the SE rom is nice because the SCSI implementation on Mac Plus hardware is kind of dogshit lol

i haven't really benchmarked this on the core but presumably it benefits similarly to hardware from the vastly better SCSI implementation in the SE rom

[random grail]

No , the last version run nearly all games , there are only a issue with next point . Do you think there's anything to add?

[spice hound]

Nope. If it reached perfection that it is all.

[safe quest]

I replaced 2MG with PO in the conf string, because 2MG wasn't actually working on MiSTer (needs support in Main to skip the header). I assume only PO images from 512-byte media (800K floppy, HDD) will work.

[valid dune]

I can get the system disks booting, can anyone get games like Space Ace working on it?

[granite umbra]

only games with prodos working for the moment.
Exo IIgs pack have games with prodos and Space Ace of this set works on the core

[valid dune]

Thank you.

[valid dune]

Any hints on where to find it?

[granite umbra]

Sorry i couldn't share a link ...

but if you search first three word on my previous comment on google you normally find it

[valid dune]

I did do the search found an 8gb torrent that hat .bat file for exodos but could not find more.

then i found a wiki page

[granite umbra]

on the pack you have games with po extension

and with the core they could be loaded

[valid dune]

I have managed to find the system disks with .po and htey work fine. I found another Apple II .po file that works, The Space Ace ,po files need a prodos file to work. but when i search for IIgs Exo Pack, I just can't seem to find it. Are you able to send me snapshot of what the download page looks like.

Found it.... had to use ducducgo......

[valid dune]

Thank you so much for taking the time to help 😀

[granite umbra]

Great !

[waxen nymph]

I am trying to get the floppy working. Also we will need 2 or 4 hard drive images to make all of this easier. I think we know how to do it. (Maybe)

[lost nest]

First image

[hollow ice]

What am I looking at here? Is that your new Indy core? 😉

[granite umbra]

MO5/6

[woven lava]

MO5 ... we had a bunch of those networked to an old IBM PC at a French school

we'd often ignore then and run North & South on the PC with Hercules graphics 😅

[void belfry]

got my attention on "networked" 😄 I had no idea this existed lol

[wet hound]

Hehe même expérience pour moi du temps de l'école primaire. Ce bon vieux nano-réseau avec les terminaux MO5 et le PC goupil au milieu de la salle 😄.

[woven lava]

I'm trying to remember what games I played on MO5

I mostly remember two,

a footbal manager kind of thing (very simplified), and some kind of maze game with a helicopter

the helicopter one was wrtiten in BASIC, and I remember I managed to modify it to get infinite lives

I think it was "FOX" ?

[short finch]

https://tenor.com/view/french-gif-6246718

My sole memory of the machine was some Space Invaders clone from Infogrames.

[woven lava]

that name sounds like it was specifically chosen to pass as an "educational" title🤣

[woven lava]

oui

[granite umbra]

IIgs

[waxen nymph]

i think there are a bunch of playable games right now

[granite umbra]

yes 😉

thanks 🙂

[waxen nymph]

i just hooked up a second drive (tried to do 4, but that is harder)

I haven't tested out of simulation, but that would allow us to try WITA

I am hoping Claude can get the floppy working 🙂

The mouse not making it to the bottom of the screen, and the arkanoid paddle bug are irritating.. not sure how to fix those. But i did fix a bunch of graphics bugs yesterday, but they didn't seem to "fix a lot of issues" they just seemed to fix the ones I was working on. Task Force is still really screwed up.

4th and inches is fixed

GBA basketball splash is fixed, but seems to hang

[granite umbra]

I tried also Gauntlet but still black screen after user selection

[granite umbra]

Dragon's Lair III is more straigh foward with 2HDD no need to swap now 🙂

4 HDD is used for which cases ?

The Immortal works now it goes in game

but the character move alone goes down the screen if we don't move him with the gamepad

[waxen nymph]

The WITA disk set wants 8 I think

[waxen nymph]

The WITA doesn't seem happy. I wonder why.

[meager mural]

Tbank you for all that you are doing to make this core a reality.

[waxen nymph]

We are making good progress. Little things, now it boots to the bouncing apples, and reset gets me to a basic prompt.

[meager mural]

"I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you back there." Sir Leslie Nielsen, O.C., in Airplane!

[bitter yoke]

Checking out the IIgs core, I have no idea what I'm doing because I have 0 experience with it but looks like Great Western Shootout is working somewhat

[safe quest]

IIgs is pretty odd in general; I think Alan had real experience decades ago, but for me it's like diving into an alternate timeline where Apple II became "the" consumer standard instead of IBM PC. That's also not helped by the fact that the current core is running everything from a hard drive controller card adapted from AppleWin (which doesn't emulate IIgs), instead of running things from a realistic IIgs floppy. That being said, we're working on it.

[bitter yoke]

Looks like its going alright so far. I'll be very interested in checking out more of the game catalogue as the core progresses

[meager mural]

By the 1990s, if not earlier, many truly serious IIgs installed a SCSI HDD in Slot 7.

Running something like HyperStudio from floppies can become very cumbersome. An HDD helps with stuff like that.

And today, software collections like Total Replay and Wizard Replay run as 32 MB HDD images.

[waxen nymph]

I don’t think the hard drive situation is as bad as Stephen makes it out to be. So far one disk (Gate) won’t boot because it is hardcoded for the floppy. Otherwise I havent seen anything that complains about our iie hard drive. We can improve it later

[waxen nymph]

I don’t remember seeing this game back in the day.

[shut oak]

Oh, awesome!!
The new Computer cores (X68K, Ao486, TI994a, etc.) don't display on my CRT, but the IIGS core does! I'm pretty pleased about that

[wise drum]

Any RBF release with sound, yet? Happy to test

[worthy zealot]

I have had AO486 work on my CRT with the VGA output, but I think I had to do something in the settings, that stopped it from being the direct output, but some resized output in some way. So I think it always ended up being a specific resolution and the core would then be upscaled to that whatever its native resolution was.

[shut oak]

I'd love to use VGA output on my CRT, but unfortunately the display gets squashed and there's these glitchy horizontal bars on top of the screen

[shut oak]

Mmhm! Seems all well! Though I do wish there was a way to adjust the position of the screen as it seems to be cut off by a lot of overscan

[sterile ether]

@shut oak try this version

a bit better

[proud crest]

The //gs has a ton of overscan top/bottom (25 rows?), and 7 cycles left, 6 cycles right of overscan.

[shut oak]

This version seems to not let me open up the OSD, even with the button on the Mister itself. It just jumps to "Check startup device!"

[sterile ether]

work on my two mister ?!?

check startup device is normal run on real iigs without hdd

[shut oak]

How do I check that?

[sterile ether]

???

just rebuild with last commit

[shut oak]

No luck, the menu still doesn't open

[shut oak]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/643861834096705614/1451314460366209095/20251218_204428.mp4?ex=6945b96b&is=694467eb&hm=dd04a2b53ab432556f5cf08a1de30e8604be9808ff3e816329287256fb7246d9&

[meager mural]

BTW, in order to play many Apple II and //gs games, an analogue joystick is necessary. The Apple II and //gs joystick port did not have digital position inputs; it read analogue joystick positions as if one axis was analogue paddle 0 and the other axis was analogue paddle 1. Each axis returned a value between 0 and 255.

Some Apple II and //gs games can work with digital inputs, but many cannot.

A side benefit of tbe joystick essentially functioning as a pair of paddles was that the joystick had two fire buttons: the fire button for paddle 0 and the other fire button for paddle 1.

[bitter yoke]

That's an interesting tidbit of info to know, I'd not have known that was the case

I guess it's hard not to assume that wasn't the case for something from that era

[meager mural]

Many aspects of the Apple II result from cumulatively adding on to the original 1977 design without ever starting over from scratch, in order to preserve total backwards compatibility.

In 1977, paddles for playing Pong programs (like Wozniak's Little Brick Out) were the most useful game interface. Several years later, when joysticks became the norm, Apple designed its joysticks to use the existing paddle interface. If they had started over from scratch, perhaps they would have done a digital stick. But everything was grafted on to the 1977 design. Same reason that the Apple //e, released in 1983, continued to have cassette ports for I/O until it was discontinued in 1993, and never had a floppy disk controller built onto the board. The original 1977 Apple II had cassette ports, and the Disk ][ floppy drive & controller did not come out until 1978, so it was all grafted onto the original 1977 design.

(The 1984 IIc and 1986 IIgs finally eliminated the cassette I/O ports and built the floppy controller onto the motherboard. But the //e remained in production for longer than both.)

The //e, like all Apple II models, could use floppy disks, but only with a Disk ][ controller card (practically always installed in Slot 6). Only the IIc and IIgs had the floppy controller built onto the motherboard (and hard-assigned to Slot 6).

Because cassette I/O was built onto the motherboard in 1977, calling cassette routines never requires reference to any slots. All floppy routines always require reference to slots.

[waxen nymph]

not on mister. Mister translates back and forth - so this shouldn't be a problem. Which is one of the reasons we love mister.

[meager mural]

Do you mean that pressing a directional button on a digital gamepad in the //e core will gradually increase the analogue position aa perceived/read by the core?

[waxen nymph]

I forget how it works. I kind of think left is one value. Right another. Center a third.

And the digital maps similarly to a left button

[lost nest]

Original Apple ][ paddles didn't even have a proper connector, the cable was directly plugged into a DIL16 socket on the motherboard.

[safe quest]

Do many games actually use analog input? I didn't have an Apple II back in the day, but I did have a PC with a game port joystick (also analog position, slightly different implementation), and it seemed like practically all games just treated it the same as the arrow keys. I'm sure it's important for stuff like flight simulators.

[meager mural]

Depends on the program. Little Brick Out and Arkanoid probably won't work with a digital controller, even with the Mister core fix. Some games, like Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego, will have constant menu scrolling problems without having a proper analogue number value on the vertical axis.

Where it really comes into play is in programs that use the 0-255 axis values to do things, like positioning a character or a gun along a play field.

Ultimately? I'm going to get a modern flightstick and use that with the Apple //e and IIgs cores. A modern spinner works great with Little Brick Out and Arkanoid, or with other games that only expect a single paddle input. The analogue joystick is really necessary for programs that specifically anticipate two analogue axes or two paddles.

But I will admit that playing Chrono Warrior with an NES pad has been a lot of fun. 😀

[ruby charm]

@meager mural Do you happen to know if the fact that the IIgs being designed for analog joystick could be related to auto-movement in games when emulating the IIgs in MAME? For example, California Games menu has selection mark moving itself down constantly.

[meager mural]

Yes! That is precisely the same problem that occurs with auto-scrolling the action menu in Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego.

The program is looking for a range of analog values that it would consider "centered" along the vertical axis, and the default value offered by the FPGA core or software emulator does not fit within that range. If you use an analog controller, you could properly return a value within that "centered" range.

Apple II joysticks and Apple II-compatible CH joysticks could be adjusted very finely with knobs on either the bottom (Apple) or top (CH) of the base for situations like that.

[ruby charm]

So I guess in MAME it's impossible to get California Games running correctly in that case? No knobs to adjust...

[meager mural]

I don't know. I generally use a real IIgs and a real //e at home. On the road, I emulate a //e with AppleWin.

Is the game that you want to play a specifically 16-bit game that absolutely requires a IIgs to run? Or is it an 8-bit game that could just as easily run on a //e?

[ruby charm]

It's California Games. There's an 8bit version, but the IIgs version is awesome with regards to audio and graphics!

[meager mural]

The MAME folks really ought to provide a way to do analogue input for the IIgs core.

[golden garnet]

Hello, Valis II does not work for me on the x68000 core, what can I do?

[shut oak]

Can anyone confirm if the menu is unoperable in the recent IIGS core? I've deleted all the HDV files so nothing could possibly be detected, yet the menu still becomes impossible to open

[wise drum]

I am able to open the menu with normal keyboard F12

However, it only shows the menu on HDMI output. It does not show up on the 15KHz output. That's probably what you're seeing.

[waxen nymph]

Oh interesting. I moved my 15khz monitor to the pi. I should move it back 😀

[woven lava]

the other thing about Apple II analogue controls is that the "throw" of the joysticks were larger than the modern PS-style controllers

and there was no deadzone (at least it didn't seem like it)

I'd like a modern equivalent, though the best I could find was a USB adapter for my old sticks

[lunar trellis]

You seem this one @waxen nymph ? Not a machine I am familiar with

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=9769

https://github.com/glennswest/vax

[waxen nymph]

No.. interesting. I never used a vax but I would like to learn. No time now iigs or bust

[lunar trellis]

Hah, definitely don't want you to see distracted from that. Worth keeping an eye on this Vax repo, seems like the guy is actively working on it, maybe can be ported over when he is done

[waxen nymph]

my 15khz monitor shows the menu btw

[hollow ice]

Would love a vax, can use that cpu to do an xterm as well

[granite umbra]

https://www.patreon.com/posts/tms7000-146249188

[shut oak]

Weird. The original IIGS build worked, but the screen-adjusted one doesn't. I wonder what broke in between those changes

For context I use this
https://ultimatemister.com/product/mister-hdmi-scart-direct-video/

[waxen nymph]

The screen is too tall. I need to fix it.

[shut oak]

Ohh is that why?

[waxen nymph]

Hopefully that is the problem. I need to look at the video info and figure out why in simulation it looks right but on the fpga it has an extra 30 pixels or so

Last version there was no border on the bottom. Now the bottom border looks good but the top is doubled or something

[shut oak]

I dunno if it'll be useful, but my TV is a PAL TV, but it can run NTSC 60Hz displays just fine

[waxen nymph]

I have been “fixing” one bug and breaking something else. I am adding to my regression tests.

[shut oak]

You're doin' good! Just don't overwork yourself, okay?

[waxen nymph]

@safe quest is cranking too.

[wise drum]

You using IO board 15KHz or using directvideo? I would bet it works on direct.

[waxen nymph]

I/O board vga (kind of an old I/O board, i have it one of my oldest misters, i did upgrade the ram in it though)

[wise drum]

strange then... I verified the 12/10 has menu on both video out, but 12/18 only on HDMI. At least the builds I got from this channel.

Audio is distorted, but there. Graphics go nuts on games like Arkanoid if I boot from the "whatistheiigs" hdv images, but from the floppy versions (old 2mg converted to PO) it runs OK.

So "how" they get run matters.

[waxen nymph]

i can't get the whatistheiigs stuff working - i am not sure why. that is why i put a second hard drive in

the 2mg's just need the header taken off and renamed hdv

steven is working on fixing the video size and I just fixed another LC RDROM issue - worth rebuild, now total replay 2, and reset (ctrl-F11) to the basic prompt should work

the mouse is funky (try lassoing on gs/os and you will see the cursor doesn't go to the bottom but the lasso does), and the arkanoid paddle is drawn funny in Arkanoid I, but works well in Arkanoid II. Gauntlet and GBA basketball are broken still.

[wise drum]

I was able to boot my whatistheiigs images. I had "converted" them to hdv a while back probably just with CiderPress for use on real IIgs with prodos card. Probably they are really just unadorned PO

[waxen nymph]

i can boot 2 of them - and a few games start but most crash

[wise drum]

Yes it's much less reliable than running disk images.

For 2mg converted to PO, DOTC asks me to insert the "master disk".

I guess it was not completely cracked, or it just knows it's not a real 3.5 disk

[granite umbra]

Ctrl+F11 go to basic prompt with last commit !

[wise drum]

Actually, I think it's on slot 7, not 5, is why it does that. It's mounting as a hard disk

[waxen nymph]

oh.. that makes sense. so i need to get the boot po to work on 5. Gate won't run because it is hardcoded to 5 as well. good catch

https://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/gba-championship-basketball.html

looks like the cracked version works..

i wonder how many "slot 5" issues we have

i have been struggling with the 5.25" floppy, maybe i need to move to 3.5" and try to get that working before 5.25"

[wise drum]

for 800k floppy images mounted as PO, those need to be slot 5 not 7.

[waxen nymph]

i know, it is a hack because i don't have floppy support

[wise drum]

who knows how much of the floppy controller (IWM) chip you will have to simulate

[waxen nymph]

you have to start with the realization that I am amazed anything is drawing on the screen at all :-0

[wise drum]

It's great work!

[waxen nymph]

does anyone know of a game with SHRG in 320x200 mode?

[granite umbra]

this emulator uses SHRG mode
https://bobbi.epizy.com/?i=1
It is prodos
Applecorn v0.52-beta release - on 800KB ProDOS floppy disk image.

https://pixelatedarcade.com/platform-video-resolutions/apple-iigs-320-x-200-16-colors

[waxen nymph]

Try the video now

[waxen nymph]

I put the IIgs latest build up in the test builds channel if you want to try it. Still super buggy, but not a bad first release. Ignore the floppies - they aren't hooked up.

Fun games to play that work well: any sierra title, Arkanoid / Arkanoid II, Zany Golf, and more

[granite umbra]

[granite umbra]

Space Ace have just grabble sounds not voice is recognizable.

[safe quest]

Something went wrong with some of the recent sound changes. It might just be clipping because we tried to boost the ES5503 volume.

[spice hound]

wait

there is an apple iigs core already for misterfpga??!

when did that happen? Where can I download it?

[copper slate]

You can only download it if you’re pure of heart

Or if you can click a link, either option works

[spice hound]

WOW!!!
THAT IS HOT

HOT

hot

-- wipes mouth --

A buggy apple iigs core - grin -

I am getting this still though heheh:

[copper slate]

TMI

[spice hound]

hehehhehehehehhehehehe

[copper slate]

lol

[spice hound]

Yeah..- rubs the back of my head - I should...lower the info status heheh

[copper slate]

Nah man you do you do, I’m just being an idiot

[spice hound]

heheh - hugs -

I have a confession, even if the apple //gs core is perfected...I am still getting that machine.

that machine is an ART...AAAAAAAAAARRRTTTTTTTTT

[waxen nymph]

The iigs is such a terrible machine. I have always hated it. But wow did I get such a nostalgia rush playing the games again.

[meager mural]

Because interest in the Apple IIgs is running very high in this Discord at the moment, I just want to let folks know that the Apple II convention, "KansasFest," takes place every July. In 2026, it will be held in Springfield, Illinois. However, if you are interested but cannot travel, you can watch the presentations on YouTube.

I attended a couple of years ago, and it was a great time.

[meager mural]

Oh no! I love the IIgs! When I was growing up, the IIgs was the really advanced machine! I first learned HyperStudio on the IIgs, before I ever learned HyperCard on the Mac.

[waxen nymph]

I think my problem is that I didn’t have compilers or real software tools. When I got my used SE I got think pascal and the inside Mac books. Then ife got better

[meager mural]

When my Coleco Adam died, I couldn't find a replacement, so I started looking for a used Apple II because Coleco SmartBASIC was a copy of Applesoft BASIC. I really, really wanted a used IIgs, but I settled for a used //e. But I had always wanted a IIgs. I finally got one almost 20 years later. Today, I have more of them than I can count LOL...

[meager mural]

There are wonderful development tools for both the 8-bit Apple II series and the 16-bit Apple IIgs. And they are very well-documented, too.

[spice hound]

You are wrong. Apple iigs is an amazing machine. The best apple ii line in human history. I prefer IT AND I BELIEVE IT IS EVEN MORE SUPERIOR THAN THE MAC 68k

I would rather have HAD ALL THE APPLICATIONS AND GAMES ON MAC 68K to be on apple //gs

[meager mural]

This past spring, Arnold Greenberg, the former CEO of Coleco during the ColecoVision, Adam, and Cabbage Patch Kids era, passed away. I drove to his wake (technically a shiva) to thank the family for all of the fun that Coleco gave so many of us back then. I assumed that I would be one of many, but they said I was the only one who came because of the video games or the Adam. I was very glad that I made the trip.

[safe quest]

I think IIgs was in a really weird position where in some ways it was nicer than Mac when it first came out (color, sound synthesizer, ADB, backward compatibility), but the architecture basically doomed it to eventually being irrelevant (especially the way graphics was wedged into the Mega II RAM and limited to 200 lines).

[spice hound]

What I want is resources: books, youtube and live chat with developers for apple iigs system 6.0 applications and game development

I have this high to make applications and games for system 6.x on apple iigs for some unknown reason

[meager mural]

Join the KansasFest Discord. Folks there will easily be able to help you with anything Apple II related.

[spice hound]

can I have the serve link to click join

I want to join it

please

[waxen nymph]

Claude has been pretty good at writing assembly to test things

I could use that discord link too please

[spice hound]

I want to learn coding for system 6.x on apple iigs

I only want to code for apple iigs system 6 and all my application and game requires system 6.0.x to run

Oooooo - shivers - I am getting hot thinking about it..ooff - fans face - it is getting warm here..oof

-- closes eyes -- I am picturing new 2025 applications coming in droves for apple iigs system 6.0.x and lots of games too

-- grin --

[hollow ice]

Makes sense, iigs convention is kansasfest, held in Illinois

[safe quest]

I think it's for the Apple II family in general. But yeah, that was a little funny to see.

[spice hound]

Funny, I still don't have a discord link though

[hollow estuary]

https://www.kansasfest.org/slack/

[meager mural]

KansasFest was held in Kansas City for about 30 years. In 2024, they relocated to Springfield, Illinois. But 30 years had entrenched the identity of the convention, so the name stuck.

[meager mural]

Yes, KFest is for the entire Apple II family, including (but not limited to) the IIgs.

I just tried to post the link to the KansasFest Discord server, but it looks like that's not permitted here. You can find the link by going to https://www.kansasfest.org/slack/ and using the Discord link, not the Slack link.

[modest scroll]

Hey, we block Discord links because they're used by spammers and scammers constantly, but always happy to post a link if it's appropriate. 🙂

https://discord.gg/49s6wRetBc

Here you go 😄

[meager mural]

Thank you!

To anyone who joins the KansasFest Discord, you may want to start in tbe #dorm-lobby channel. That's the general-purpose discussion room, named after the lobby of the dorm building where KFest attendees congregate before presentations and events occur in the exhibit lecture hall.

[copper slate]

Two new computer cores, very cool:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/IQ151_MiSTer

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PMD85_MiSTer

nevermind, PMD85 was already there, just got fixed

[frosty cosmos]

When do we get the Robby 5000 II? I really need that core.

[spice hound]

Right after Apple IIgs core is perfected

that is priority #1

[shut oak]

How does one convert a 2mg file? I used Ciderpress to convert Wolfenstein 3D into a HDV and PO file, but it always seems to crash upon launching

[safe quest]

The game probably just doesn't work. The core still has some pretty significant bugs.

[shut oak]

Ahh yeah, true. I guess the core was already so good looking that I actually almost forgot it's still a heavy alpha haha

[safe quest]

It's been making pretty good progress; a month ago we couldn't boot much other than Total Replay / Pitch Dark, which aren't really IIgs software. But there's still a lot of work to get it into a release-worthy state.

[waxen nymph]

I tried getting wolfenstein running a few ways. It eventually loads and the video doesn’t work. A bunch of games want to be launched from slot 5 but we fake make them hard drive images. And that is why they don’t boot. (Gate, wolfenstein)

When I put wolfenstein in drive 2 and booted gs/os I got further but the graphics are bad.

[shut oak]

I'm not too sure where to find IIGS archives, considering most of them are in the 2mg format. I wonder why the core doesn't work with that format anyhow

[safe quest]

As far as I know, there isn't really a good way to support it in the core because the header is not the same size as the sectors. The plan is to eventually add support code for it in Main.

[waxen nymph]

We will get 2mg support working. Just have Gemini make a script to remove the 2mg header.

You are in bleeding edge core use right now. Nothing friendly about it.

I will need to add dsk and 2mg to mister main and get it pushed.. that is going to take some doing. But first we need to get the floppies working

And we probably need to rename the core.

[granite umbra]

Great with last commit, the paddle of Arkanoid is correctly shown 😁

Alien Mind doesn't hang anymore before the titlte screen ^^

[short finch]

I was waiting for this one, great, great!

[safe quest]

I think the Arkanoid thing was incorrect vblank IRQ timing (it's weird because it doesn't correspond to the actual vblank timing, but apparently that's just how it works), but I changed it at the same time as the other vertical timing stuff so I'm not 100% sure.

[meager mural]

You guys are all doing amszing work. Thank you for all of your efforts on this!

[granite umbra]

Some issues with the joystick on Alien Mind

[safe quest]

The joystick interface on the Apple II family is a little odd. It can be affected by the CPU speed differences. Not sure if that's our issue on some games or if it's something in the implementation of the joystick hardware itself.

[granite umbra]

I see also on The Immortal the character go down the screen if we don't move the joystick, on Alien Mind I couldn't go down with the joystick

[safe quest]

And on Apple IIgs, CPU speed is pretty variable depending on what is happening at any given time (shadowed writes, Mega II RAM access, I/O access, DRAM refresh).

[meager mural]

In the firmware system menu, you can set the CPU speed to either the native IIgs 2.8 mHz or the 8-bit Apple II-compatible 1.0 mHz. That is to enable users to play games written for the 8-bit Apple II series.

[safe quest]

What I mean is that it's not as simple as "2.8 MHz". That speed only happens when running ROM routines that don't do I/O. In real-world software different cycles take different amounts of time. And our timing is almost certainly not fully accurate right now.

It also doesn't help that there don't seem to be agreed-upon "correct" values for Apple II joysticks. IIRC some of them were even adjustable, either to compensate for component tolerance/drift or because games didn't all have the same expectations.

[safe quest]

The joystick values look mostly reasonable to me in AppleSoft, although a tiny bit off (center is reading as 131, 131 and the minimum value on both axes is 1 rather than 0).

That really only proves that our implementation is compatible with the ROM routine. Some games probably have their own custom joystick reading routines.

[waxen nymph]

The joystick was broken in fast mode. I thought I fixed that. It is probably still broken.

[neat lintel]

I’ll be posting Puu’s new articles here

For towns core updates

The question is…

What controller to use with the FM TOWNS core 🤔

Any suggestions?

@granite umbra @lunar trellis

[granite umbra]

It is a computer.
So it will depends of the game.
Some use just keyboard or mouse or default controller or specific controller...

[neat lintel]

honestly I know it came out in 1993

But it would be nice if someone released a modern adapter to plug in usb controllers, I know you can use a Saturn pad on the real console, but still

Welp I’m probably just gonna use an arcade stick

I mostly play shoot em ups/beat em ups anyway

[granite umbra]

For exemple on X68000 if you want to play After Burner, the default controller doesn't work on game.
You need to use a mouse or a specific controller.
Dshadoff implement this controller on X68000 core and you need to select it on the osd to map it with your controller

[neat lintel]

Can you even use USB arcade guns on the mister btw for gun games?

[copper slate]

I use the GunCon 2 and it works great

Lots of people here have the newer higher end light guns and they work well too

[meager mural]

The processor slowed down when accessing peripherals that required the old 1.0 mHz timing. The TransWarp accelerator card for the 8-bit Apple II series also slowed down when accessing peripherals, and had DIP switches to set in order for the card to know which slot controllers needed 1.0 mHz.

Even for the built-in cassette I/O on the //e, I need to use PEEK/POKE calls to slow down my TransWarp card in order for it to be able to hear cassette I/O data.

I know that Alan is not a fan of the cassette I/O, but I would love to see the //e core get real cassette I/O (like the C64 core has!) so that I could load programs via analogue audio with a 3.5mm jack.

There is an amazing archive of Apple II games in audio format online, for loading via the cassette I/O ports: https://asciiexpress.net/gameserver/

[safe quest]

Part of what makes it complicated is that almost all I/O on the system is at the 1 MHz Mega II speed, as are shadowed write cycles. But the CPU cycle doesn't just get stretched to 1 MHz, it's also synchronizing with the Mega II clock, so it's not a fixed period (at least for the first slow cycle in a series of them).

Also I guess we already had a thread for IIgs discussion that I either forgot about or never saw, maybe some of the discussion should move there: #1269857027077705729

[neat lintel]

What are some gun games that are your favorites?

[copper slate]

The whole PS1 light-gin library pretty much

[neat lintel]

you got it! I’ll check it out 🙌🏽🙏🏾

@granite umbra @lunar trellis something I’ve been thinking about, I wonder with the boot.rom and the current .RBF file for the TOWNS core, I really hope it’s not the same TOWNS OS that runs for Retroarch

Because not every game works on that OS, well at least booting through Retroarch

It’s hard to even run Asuka 120% on through any emulation software, even CaptainYS’s Tsugaru emulator so I really wonder how Puu’s core will do whenever it’s stable for use

[granite umbra]

There is more than one Towns computers with hardware differences so software could behave differently on each of them.

[hollow ice]

Yeah, many of the early games don’t like the processor upgrade?

[silk prism]

Anyone fancy to run this on the PDP-11 core :)? https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/unix-v4-recovered-from-randomly-found-tape-at-university-of-utah-only-known-copy-of-first-os-version-with-kernel-and-core-utilities-written-in-c

[hollow ice]

Don’t think the pdp-11 ever made it to official. There were some “discussions” on the forum and the person doing the work washed their hands of it.

[fleet cave]

yeah, it would never have been 'official', the licensing issues were too much

[chilly rain]

Asking for a friend, do any of the TouHou games work on the PC-98 core?

[chilly rain]

Also holy crap these were apparently all were made by one person, that's impressive as hell. The entire series.

[lunar trellis]

If you use the WIP DB you have all the files to try use the core, although one of these situations where if you don't have experience with an actual PC-98 then... Best of luck to you

[burnt glade]

Hello everyone, I am trying to run the SparcStation core from the Mister-FPGA forums, but I am just getting a black screen. I'm new to Mister-FPGA so I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong perhaps.
I have a QMTech model with a VGA CRT monitor connected running at 1024x768@60

[safe quest]

I haven't tried, but I doubt it. I'm under the impression that Touhou was in the 486/Pentium era, i.e. very firmly in the "9821" series as opposed to "9801" (and also the generalization of that whole timeline as "PC-98" is allegedly not how Japanese fans think about it).

[hollow estuary]

How long did you wait for it? I just fired it up on my MiSTer (also a QMTech) and after a few minutes OpenBIOS finally fired up. FWIW I'm connected to a HDMI monitor though (albeit at 1024x768 as well)

[burnt glade]

ah, ill have to wait a bit and see. ill try it tomorrow, thank you =)

[burnt glade]

It works! Thank you =)

takes maybe 30-45 seconds to load openbios

[ruby charm]

Has somebody tried the PCXT core over DirectVideo?
For me, it works in text mode but fails in the CGA graphic modes used by games...
For example, in Alley Cat I get this...

[summer dragon]

I really need to try PCXT again…I had a VHD a while back that I could never get to work

[dreamy comet]

Talking about PCXT: I wonder if the following work can lead to an even closer XT emulation:

https://nand2mario.github.io/posts/2025/z8086/

[safe quest]

I thought that microcode was still under copyright, but apparently it might not be due to it still being under the old rules and second-source chips not having a copyright notice (?).

[granite umbra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Minimig-AGA_MiSTer/pull/206

[hollow ice]

Copper and ham fixes?

[reef gale]

Is it possible to setup a printer in ao486? Perhaps using an RPI as a bridge protocol?

[waxen nymph]

print shop!!! We need to make a printer emulator inside the linux side of MiSTer

[void belfry]

You can try with a network one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=essroo7FwiM)

[meager mural]

Does 3.5mm audio-in work for loading tapes on the C64 or Speccy cores?

(I am working with @waxen nymph to try to diagnose the problem with audio I/O on the Apple //e core, and we want to know whether it is working on other computer cores.)

[hollow ice]

I can’t say I’ve ever tried.

[hollow estuary]

Its supposed to work at least with the C64 core. I've attempted it in the past but its been ages. I remember having problems but I think it was my crappy soldering to blame. I have a vague recollection of it working at least once and the novelty of loading a game extremely slowly from tape wore off and I never did it again.

[waxen nymph]

I can't get it to work reliably on any of the cores.

[hollow estuary]

I'll see if I can try and get it connected back up this weekend

[reef gale]

Wonder if there's some way to use a Pi as a bridge

[void belfry]

Don't think so. Maybe (a huge one) an old serial printer via the I/O port (with some adapter i would imagine) can be connected, otherwise a networked one is still your best bet.

Now that I'm thinking, C64 also can print via user i/o port 😄 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-g8Mt_xXnU

@modest skiff played with such things, see some more whacky stuff on his channel 🙂

[tame kettle]

dos or w95 for the ao486 core?

[void belfry]

https://tenor.com/view/the-road-to-el-dorado-both-both-is-good-gif-8304204

plus Nt 4.0, W3.1, W98, QNX, OS/2, Minix, Slackware, Debian, NetBSd and so on 🙂

but yeah, for gaming DOS is best suited. For W9x/others YMMV

[copper slate]

While you’re absolutely right of course, I’ve been amazing at the 0mhz pack for the games that do run well in 3.1 and 95

[void belfry]

NT is quite good on some cases as well

[mighty barn]

FYI I just tested it ok on ZX Spectrum core @waxen nymph

[waxen nymph]

Can you test the Apple II core? @meager mural has a link for tapes

[meager mural]

All of these audio recordings (or at least the dozens of them that I have tested) work perfectly on a physical Apple //e, so @Trifle can use any of them to test the //e audio I/O functionality:

https://asciiexpress.net/gameserver/mobile.html

(I recommend Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Mario Bros., but any of the titles are lots of fun.)

DM me if you're unfamiliar with the //e and need a hand getting to the prompt in which to type LOAD before playing the audio. (Essentially, press CONTROL+F2 when you see the boot marquee "Apple //e" at the top of the screen. That reproduces a CONTROL+RESET on the original //e. After pressing and releasing CONTROL+F2, you will hear a beep and a BASIC ] prompt will appear at the bottom of the screen. Type LOAD, press ENTER, and play the audio for the game.)

[copper slate]

had to split the [Download Core](#1047332497492553799 message) pin into two posts, but its been updated with the latest PCFX build

[lost nest]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrG1cMiemwI

WIP Thomson TO / MO

[waxen nymph]

@lost nest congrats, this looks amazing!!

[copper slate]

lol MiSTer MOTO is a great name

[hollow ice]

Hello moto?

[granite umbra]

[woven lava]

looking forward to playing FOX again

[copper slate]

So what’s better, the Commodore 64 MiSTer core or the new C64 Ultimate (which is also FPGA)?

[frosty cosmos]

They are both very good The Ultimate 64/Commodore Ultimate has some more features generally.

[ruby charm]

On the C64 core, I was playing the Wonder Land XIII demo (https://csdb.dk/release/?id=151275) and I noticed that it stays forever at the "Flip disc" scene forever even if you insert the second side disc image on the core menu.
I load the demo by simply load "*",8, so my guess is that it should work.
Does it work correctly on the core for you guys?

[mighty barn]

Success using v241226 - did you or @waxen nymph need a specific unstable tested?

[waxen nymph]

Thank you!

[frosty cosmos]

I can confirm that. The disc change isn't detected properly. Works fine on my Ultimate 64 (Elite 1 board) though.

[meager mural]

Fantastic, thank you! Can you try with Mario Bros. and advise? Also, are you using a mono cable or a stereo cable? I am able to get the loader operational, but it ends with "ERROR" and a system monitor * prompt every time.

[mighty barn]

Yes, Mario Bros worked.

So for this test I’m using:
*The “LOFI” entry in the “]”_Loader section for titles on that site you linked

*A lightning to headphone jack converter on a phone to play the audio.

*A mono audio cable (a ZX Spectrum Ear/Mic cable) to connect to the MiSTer

Here’s the waveform in the ADC test core - I dropped the volume on the phone down one press as max looked like it might be clipping

BTW when I tried the HIFI version of Mario I got an error at the end - same with msPac

[meager mural]

Thank you. Sounds like I need to try the LOFI WAVs.

[robust monolith]

WL 13 works fine here, using the 64 core build from 28th August 2025. Recognises the 2nd, and 3rd disk fine. Just watched it to the end.

[frosty cosmos]

Ah could be. I tried the one from 14.10.

[rocky sedge]

Is there a cray-1 core planned in the nead future?

[robust monolith]

@frosty cosmos that's the last stable release I believe, trying the unstable release from the 10th December 2025, and it's also okay, so not sure what's going on there! 🙂

[frosty cosmos]

Confirmed. Wonderland 13 works fine with the August stable release.

[robust monolith]

Good to watch it again, been a bit quiet on the full demo releases lately.

[reef gale]

I wonder what the most exotic OS people got running in ao486

[robust monolith]

@void belfry is your man, he's got all sorts running on it!

[void belfry]

Snowdrop OS 🙂 https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=8035

or from Linux/Unix based ones , QNX (full list here #1047332497492553799 message)

[ruby charm]

So it works for you guys with both latest stable and latest unstable versions of the core?

[robust monolith]

Yes

[ruby charm]

The disc side flip? How? Do you load it in some special way?

[robust monolith]

Nope, just select it and mount it. The demo then detects it, and loads.

[frosty cosmos]

I don't think that the December 10th is the latest C64 core. I seems like just a little adaption for an older core (dated 2022) that Taki wanted for his Mister PI/SuperStation.

14.10.2025 is (as far i see it) the latest unstable. And this one has the disc change detection issue. August stable is fine.

[ruby charm]

@frosty cosmos This is the one I am using RN:
https://github.com/MiSTer-unstable-nightlies/C64_MiSTer/releases/download/unstable-builds/C64_unstable_20251210_00f1d7.rbf
...and disc flip does not work there, no matter what.
Maybe that Taki guy put some strange code for his frankenstein of a console-like setup that has broken disk change detection?

[robust monolith]

No idea, I'm using a De-10.

[ruby charm]

Same here.

[frosty cosmos]

Just use the latest stable you get via update_all.script.

[robust monolith]

Ah. Something weird going on here, and I've no idea what. I'm just using the standard core, not changed any options or anything, I think!

[ruby charm]

Yep, that works, but it seems to me that there has been a regression and it must be documented.

Reported it as a possible regression:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/C64_MiSTer/issues/198

[granite umbra]

For PCXT (split Tandy1000 to his own core)
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=103525#p103525

[lunar trellis]

Makes sense to split them out. Do we need a new BIOS added to the DB? Names.txt will need an addition and an extra tty2oled image.

[ebon tundra]

demo worked for me after i load the system rom c1581 in the unstable.

[ruby charm]

The demo works, what does not work is the disc flip at the end of side 1

[neat lintel]

I’m waiting for Puu’s first article of 2026.. @lunar trellis @granite umbra

[lunar trellis]

I would check the gap between his more recent posts and the ones before, I may be wrong but it felt like he would do like one a year

[meager mural]

Thank you! It's working for me now! I needed to use the LOFI versions rather than the HIFI versions. (Odd, because the HIFI versions work fine with my real //e, but that's okay--it now works!) 😀

[gusty sluice]

Hope this is right place to post, if somebody is interested here is converter for AGS 3.0 to MiSTer working version.
https://github.com/gljubojevic/AGStoMiSTer

PRs are welcome if can be better and more compatible. Understandable not all content is working since MiSTer is just A1200 in essence but all content is included because it might work at some point in time.. hope authors don't mind making converter.

[dark yarrow]

can anyone identify this DOS game?

[void belfry]

Not a clue, but I'll go for Satanic Pinball Deluxe ?

[dark yarrow]

that should exist if it doesn't

[void belfry]

probablly it doesn't exist lol, though i been wrong before.. though it is a nice video game name...

[exotic prairie]

looks like devil's crush, but I don't think that came to PC

[dark yarrow]

that was my initial thought as well, but neigh

Tsumera\創世彈珠台 (LiNGO, 1996)

found it.

[void belfry]

90's were crazy lol..

[dark yarrow]

good old google reverse image search

sorry to bother everyone lol I should've tried that first

[void belfry]

now the real q: does it run on ao486 😄

[dark yarrow]

welp i will try

[void belfry]

so it is a satanic pinball deluxe after all 😄

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rarEZ5Lukls

[dark yarrow]

"A fantasy-horror themed pinball game from China, similar to Naxat Soft's Dragon's Fury. The story involves an evil wizard defeating and trapping two good ones after an epic battle."

two good what? ...balls??

[void belfry]

I dig it, still watching the vid lolz

for a pinball game, seems decent thb but story ? wtf lol 😄

oh, boss level , intriguing game lol

[dark yarrow]

love it

[void belfry]

NT 4.0

[mossy compass]

Huh, was there a NT 1.0-3.0?

[void belfry]

check this: #1047332497492553799 message

[mossy compass]

What about KolibriOS?

IIRC that's the one that runs off a floppy but has a GUI and several sample programs

[void belfry]

nope, no dice , it is for pentium

[mossy compass]

Aww, yeah, I recall it needed a good cpu

Actually, is there anything that isn't just a novelty but would actually be useful as a very basic pc? Can it even do any sort of network connectivity?

[void belfry]

a very old one it was for 486 , but with FPU iirc, and didn't had much luck getting it to work even after some recompilinf etc

[void belfry]

you have ppp, and actually I have a real life use for it as a traffic generator for a friend to test its IDS/IPS

[mossy compass]

I am also guessing that you can't use usb devices to talk to the guest os on the core, even if you loaded a usb dos driver?

[void belfry]

no

anyway, since we were talking OSes, also OS/2 (with some caveats on some versions https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=1615), DR-DOS (several versions tested), DOS/V as well run on the core

[void belfry]

or just write fpga code in Quartus II on NT 4 (just a thought...)

[mossy compass]

Program the mister on the mister...

[void belfry]

not quite, that Quartus version is for earlier fpga boards, but still that would be a feat in itself lol

I just ran the software lol

Still would be a nice inception case, eh ?

[mossy compass]

Yeah, though I guess technically computers are used to develop computer operating systems and BIOS, but still, a FPGA device running software to develop on itself would be funny

[void belfry]

not on itself, but lower ones i don't see why not @mossy compass

[short finch]

I'm testing Rastan on the Apple II GS core from today, some remaining graphical issues on the health bar, otherwise the game works pretty well.

[safe quest]

I've also noticed that there's still a small glitch in the paddle in Arkanoid. Honestly I kind of half-assed the fix to the video timing, so it might be that. But I did that because I haven't found a reference as to what the vertical timing of the IIgs signal actually is. Alan also suspects that the CPU timing is a bit off.

[mossy compass]

? paddle controllers existed for the apple ii?

[limpid tiger]

It could also be that the CPU clock is the correct frequency, but the DRAM refresh circuitry (and associated memory access wait states during refresh) aren't being simulated properly

That could affect it by a couple of percentage points

[woven lava]

somebody please make a 0Mhz pack if this run on ao486

I love the Crush series

Alien Crush, Devil's Crush, and the less known Jaki Crush

this seems like a love letter to those

[lunar trellis]

Are 0hmz still being made? Not heard much about the project for awhile

[coral coral]

The creator of the project passed away, sadly

[young gust]

🙁

There's been uploads of new games though fairly recently.

I'm sure more will come

[coral coral]

Yeah, limi is still around as maintainer

[woven lava]

oh.. I saw some unnoficial packs but not sure who contributed them

[copper slate]

Yes, it’s all unofficial moving forward.

The unofficial packs dwarf the original official release by like 10 to 1.

[exotic prairie]

I’m pretty sure the folks responsible for the unofficial packs are working on a new release.

Or at least there has been talk about it

[copper slate]

Oh that’s nice. The contributors have done incredible work.

[young gust]

The 486 core has been the coolest surprise for me when I got the Mister. I didn't even know it had anything like that.

[robust monolith]

I heard that a good while ago, not heard anything since.

[robust monolith]

Think that's probably due to Emu-Bastard sadly leaving us, be slowing them down, plus like real we all have etc.

[thick pendant]

nice speakers, i got the same ones in black )

[hollow ice]

@void belfry you’ll have to keep an eye on this- https://github.com/Kelsidavis/System7

[woven lava]

I got into FPGAs (MiST first) wanting a reproduction Apple II and C64... it's been a great 12+ years seeing a lot of growth and new people

[woven lava]

would this allow running Mac System 6/7 software on it? or would that require more lower-level support of some features?

[waxen nymph]

ok i don't know what to think of this project. wow. and why?

[woven lava]

the dev must really like the OS, I guess

[waxen nymph]

I am kind of confused.. so you run os/7 on pi or x86 and you still need to emulate the 68k apps. you can then run macpaint. but the o/s is native. I guess you can fix bugs in it? it runs full speed maybe? but an emulator is fast.hmm.

[hollow ice]

Yeah, not sure the purpose, but it looks pretty claudish so I assume someone is just having fun with ai

[wheat folio]

Maybe they figured 68K emulation was more mature than System 7 emulation so they decided to um … do whatever they did?

[reef gale]

So people have floated the idea of a Doom core. What if instead of that, there could be some sort of RISC fantasy computer core designed with ease of porting apps?

[mossy compass]

Can't the ao486 core already run Doom just fine?

[short compass]

Only Fast Doom runs well from what I remember.

[reef gale]

It could be used as a target for multiple things. Maybe GemRB could be ported to this hypothetical core

[mossy compass]

What would the core even be based on? Doom is software that runs on other platforms. That would be like having a Sonic the Hedgehog core

[reef gale]

I'd say maybe RISC-V or ARM? The main point isn't to be accurate to a real CPU, but to be a kind of "virtual" CPU that decompilations/sourceports could target

[mossy compass]

I don't see the point when we have several platforms on mister already that run doom. The DE10 already has an ARM CPU, why recreate another on the FPGA? The whole point of the FPGA is to try to accurately replicate other hardware, not just make up a platform just to run Doom on which we can already do in several different ways, including directly on the DE10's existing ARM CPU

[reef gale]

It's not about Doom itself. Really just, any sort of sourceport or decompilation project could target this

[mossy compass]

Again, why create a fake system to then target instead of just targeting the many existing cores or even the existing ARM cpu itself? That's a lot of work for not much benefit. Nobody is going to care to create software for this made-up core when they could create software for an existing core that can also work in software emulators and real hardware

[reef gale]

I suppose you're right. I was mostly thinking about this theoretical because I heard someone implemented the Java Virtual Machine in an FPGA

[lunar trellis]

I think there is already a version of Doom that runs on the ARM, isn't there?

[lunar trellis]

https://github.com/bbond007/MiSTer_PrBoom-Plus

[void belfry]

the best Doom is Doom running on itself (#1047332497492553799 message) 😄

[hollow ice]

one day I am going to get back to looking at hard drive support and get the real best doom running (doom on nextstep)

[hollow ice]

granted, I might give @fleet cave an aneurysm if I touch more of the mister main code thanks to working around Sorg's idiosyncrasies

[fleet cave]

you're gonna drown in 60k ide spec documents well before that happens

[hollow ice]

oh, I did that long ago

I still think the issue is switching away from int19h handling…what is odd is it looks like the ide handler gets requests for data and it responds with legitimate data, but that response is never captured

[fleet cave]

I never got to the point where I looked at much of the ide code in the actual core, I just sort of took it on faith it didn't screw with the incoming registers/data

[hollow ice]

I didn’t look at the core either, just main….I can trace data flowing back and forth for a while until the os (in this case both netbsd and openstep 4.2) just no longer seem to be able to see the response anymore

I had started to look at the source of the driver that we use for nt support to see if it is doing some sort of shim to still allow the requests to flow through the bios, but that is around the time I got busy again

[hollow ice]

speaking of openstep, I am only now finding out about openstep for solaris… @void belfry this may be fun to try on the sparcstation core https://simson.net/clips/1997/97.SunExpert.OpenStep.pdf

[fleet cave]

yeah, grabulosaure's original post about it on the forums contained links to images, including a nextstep one

[hollow ice]

yeah, I knew that it could run the solaris version of nextstep, but that is different:

that looks like windowmaker for solaris, but it apparently can also run next applications?

so basically you still run solaris 2.5, but openstep on top