mister-devel / trs-80_mister Goto Github PK

The last two releases of this core seem to fail to load the boot.rom file (which I have in GAMES/TRS-80/BOOT.ROM, However TRS-80_20200522.rbf starts and runs ok.. 20200618 and 20220309 fail with the screen filled with "@" .. this is with the most up to date MISTER version v221014 (as of Nov 1, 2022) .. Am I missing an additional ROM file or does the BOOT.ROM file need to be in a new location for the core to find it?

TRS-80_20200522.rbf
TRS-80_20200618.rbf
TRS-80_20220309.rbf

/media/fat/Games/TRS-80# ls -l
total 640
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14336 Nov 3 00:26 BOOT.ROM
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4117 Feb 15 2019 env.cas
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9924 Feb 15 2019 galaxy.cas
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6916 Apr 11 2001 haunt.cas
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 13056 Nov 26 2021 spores.cas
/media/fat/Games/TRS-80#

Possibly add caps lock As Scott Adams games need uppercase to play
it gets old having to hold the shift key

many thanx in advance

After mounting disks and running a few programs successfully, NEWDOS/80 booted OK but suddenly was not able to read the directory from either drive 0 or 1. Mounting a different disk in drive 1 did not solve the problem.

A cold boot of MiSTer, or loading of a new core then back to the TRS-80 core DID fix the issue.

About 30-50% of the time, the screen will fill with "@" signs and the system won't start (but the remainder of attempts, it will start).

I believe that the core is starting to process instructions before the boot ROM is completely loaded.

Hi
I've been adding some features to this core myself in my own branch including:

1. More accurate phosphor colours
2. Simulation of CPU to Video ram contention (black lines)
   I could do with talking to someone about how to handle working together on features since the first feature is incompatible with the latest merge. I was also looking at adding Disk support.

During this work I've been testing various games including games from Big Five and some do not work correctly. For example when Attack Force is running on the core, when you are in the main game loop (not menu) it always thinks that the down and space keys are pressed. Also Meteor mission thinks the right key is permanently pressed. Both these games were off a DSK collection and I had converted the CMD to a CAS file using CMD2CAS.EXE. This bug is something that happened betweened the last official release on the 1st of April, and the current Master branch (as of 4 days ago). The release version from the 1st of April did not have this issue, but there was a major rewrite of keyboard routine after that according to the commit history.

On debugging this issue I wrote the following simple basic program (for the TRS-80):
10 PRINT PEEK(14591)
20 GOTO 10

This code reads the address 0x38FF that will read and combine all keyboard address rows and the results are all OR'd together. Some games use this mechanism to check for a return of 0 indicating no keys are pressed before bothering to scan the address rows individually. Also, they can read multiple rows using this mechanism if they need keys from two rows, but don't care if other keys on the keyboard trigger the action (they are alternative key options for the user).

If you run the above program it should print 0 when no keys are pressed but sometimes it does not. You can force this condition by running the program, then pressing the Left Shift key and holding it down, then pressing and holding down the 8 key on the top row, then releasing the Left Shit key, then finally releasing the 8 key. When you do this, the above code will still report the * key is still held down by returning 4 (bit 2 of 0x3820 for the '*').

I was planning to try and work out what is causing this issue and fixing it in my commit, but after seeing the latest merge, I'm now concerned this core is under active development and I should be co-ordinating my work with whoever is the main contributor.

I appreciate the addition of disk support, but nearly every emulator has moved to DMK format, to such a degree it's very difficult to even find software (or working converters!) in JV1 format any longer.

Even the very basic (Microsoft) Colossal Cave adventure needs DMK because of on-disk copy protection...any hope of this format being supported?

When scrolling through items with the up/down arrow keys on the keyboard, the in-core menu sometimes flips to the main-mister menu (i.e. as though right arrow was pressed).

Workaround: longer wait time between keystrokes reduces likelihood that this occurs.

Could be a framework versioning issue, or it could be related to interaction with the PS2 keyboard driver.

At the "READY ?" prompt, the enter key needs to be pressed twice, as the first entry is suppressed. Not sure if this is a framework versioning issue or a matter of PS2 keyboard initialization.

Core was written to function either as PAL or as VGA (at double NTSC frequencies, double-scanning lines).

Should be modified for proper NTSC-like output.

Subjectively, the keyboard seems to react slowly (ie. ~100ms per keystroke, which is slower than it should be).