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Posts posted by Tursi
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Would you be willing to add my fastboot header for carts? I had it at JS2, but since that's down...
It has just 2 blocks to decrypt instead of 10 so starts in 1 second instead of 5. I also had a tool to replace the boot header on any ROM image with it. (It was originally one block, but that's not compatible with the JagCD).
Downside of it is that it doesn't verify the entire cartridge, but, neither does the common universal header, so I figured that might be okay.
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That's very cool
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I was actually looking at this problem myself while playing with the GDB stub.
At any rate, 2 won't even work for the 68k, because after MEMCON1 is written, there's no ROM at address 0 so no vector available (and it's unclear to me whether you can read the BIOS ROM again without changing MEMCON1 even if you get the right address...? It didn't look like it in the debugger (because it's 8 bits wide).)
Solution 1 is curious, didn't know that one. (Of course as Zero mentioned, not useful here anyway.) Also worth noting that 3 doesn't reset the 68k, only the hardware attached to the 68k's reset line.
Regarding the risk of writing the OPL from the 68k... I found the OP could lock up in some bad address cases, but I never had it happen just writing from the 68k, so I'm not sure if it only happens if it's allowed to scribble through memory for a longer time or if it's just really, really rare.
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Are you sure you aren't just running into trouble with the speed of printing?
I would first try measuring for a full second before output (or even just half a second), and see whether that makes any difference.
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In theory, it should work.
In practice, the system and the cartridges were not designed to be hot-plugged like this, so there's a risk it would damage the cartridge and/or the console (which is why I did not mention it).
Interestingly, the fact that some cartridge pins are longer than others is a good hint hot-plugging was considered at some point. But since the Jaguar shuts down if there's no cartridge inserted, and there's no documentation on this, it's better to be safe than sorry.
The software would also have to switch out the CD BIOS in order to see the cartridge ROM, I believe. Otherwise you'll just get a dump of the CD BIOS.
Though for one reason or another, hot swap doesn't seem safe on the Jag, but my experience was due to power issues. I wonder if it'd be different through the CD unit - especially whether it powers down its cartridge port when it's not mapped in?
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No that's what I meant, I didn't realise there was an option to spit one out... although it would be nice if it would print them one symbol per line.
Just add -m to your linker flags, IIRC. (Check aln docs if that doesn't work). I think that only dumps it to the console, I seem to have captured the console output to file (with >) when I needed to review it.
You could probably use a perl script to quickly break it into multiple lines, if you needed that, though.
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Have you tried generating a map file and looking at where your objects and data structures are actually being placed, just to be sure?
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Skunkboards are behind due to parts issues, but we have a promised delivery date for them. GOAT should be updating on that shortly - please don't quote me on it, but I figured since you are making long term plans you should know.
As for the friendliness, you can definately find it, but just be aware that the Jag community tends to sometimes be a little cliquish and volatile. Just stay honest and keep a thick skin, and it can work pretty well for you! I've been fortunate enough to avoid most of the messes over the years.
I hope you'll stick around and have fun with it - the Jag is an unusual machine but it can be quite rewarding.
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If you have any skill with a soldering iron, you could install a BJL ROM and build a cable to do uploads to the real Jag. Doing this will not prevent the Skunkboard from working when it's released, and gets you going on hardware quicker. (You do have to be willing to open the Jag and solder into it, as well as burn or beg an EPROM and cut a trace on the existing ROM).
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Yeah. I found I do have source code to the '97 version, which covers at least the basics of 4 bit protocol.
While changing the protocol to be more reliable is trivial, it's the fact that it's already established which makes it useful. So, no big deal. I dropped the project today (although I did get the switch working -- that part is also bizarre - sending 2 bits at a time starting with bit 1 (instead of bit 0)). I just moved on and picked up an old XP PC for my needs.
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Made some progress last night. My original theory was that the protocol was not strictly synchronous as documented, but included undocumented timeouts. That seems to be confirmed, I can now get the Jag to switch into receiver mode. But it's still not taking the program properly. Unfortunately I don't have a working BJL setup or I would just sniff the lines to get the correct timing.
Thanks for your reply at least, Zero. Seems like nobody understands the protocol. The more I learn about it, the less I like it. There's not much wrong with the cable (some electrical glitching the way they did it, at least on my Jag, but not critical), but the implementation feels quite arbitrary (at least by looking at the client source code).
Due to the fact that the protocol seems not to be truly synchronous, my USB->BJL chain can not work.. latency on the PC and the USB bus is always going to kill it. I verified this experimentally by moving the handshake fully to the uC, only once it was there and the timing was tuned way down did the Jag start switching into receiver mode.
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That's just the version that I burned into my Jag years ago.
I have a working serial->parallel adapter (which I then use through USB->serial), but it's not working against BJL (which is what I made it for), and the signals from the Jaguar are NOT responding in the way that the documentation says that they should. I wanted to look at the code and see why that is, and then maybe I can make some special cases for it.
Since parallel ports are becoming very rare, this seemed like a good thing. But if the author isn't going to allow people to work with the protocol, maybe it's better to let it die and use something else.
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Anyone have the actual source for the BJL ROM version (specifically 1.05.01 on mine). I have a couple of loose source codes but they look incomplete and don't match the behaviour I am seeing. Specifically I am seeing the Jaguar pulsing the busy line when I hold strobe low, rather than waiting for me to release Strobe. I want to see if that is in the software or if there is something else going on.
Unfortunately I don't have a parallel port anymore so I can't compare to a real BJL setup. But if someone has one and an analyzer, I would also appreciate a sniff of the initial handshake and a byte or two so I can see what should be going on. My adapter is not giving me the results that I expect to see.
Thanks!
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Hehe, I knew I better pop in today, because somehow you guys always remember, even if all I've done in the year is been grumpy.
Thank you! I like the pic, Zero
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That's sounding pretty realistic now, good stuff!
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Ah, no, no, don't worry, you'll win for sure. I can't see the end of my CURRENT project list, let alone things added to the end of it.
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Yeah, sorry. I get annoyed when I'm "reminded" to do something that is blindingly to me anyway. It's like being reminded by your parents to clean your room two minutes after you've already started - now instead of having done the right thing by your own merits, it's only because you were told to.
Yeah, I'm weird that way.
In the future I'll just steal quietly instead of speaking up.
It interests me a bit because with this resolution, a direct port of the Cool Herders Dreamcast version suddenly looks a lot more feasible... still a few technical hurles to overcome, some minor and some major, but it's interesting to see.
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It's a good thing you reminded me. I'm well known for taking people's work without credit.
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Just to add to this, I tried with my NTSC Jag and a MadCatz LCD display - image is rock-solid and seems properly centered - I can see both edges and only lose a tiny bit off the top. It looks fantastic. I think I might steal this code.
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Raiden fails on Skunkboard because it never sets the VI register, so vertical interrupts are never generated. Skunkboard sets the register to maximum value to ensure unexpected interrupts are not generated. When it's set, Raiden works just fine.
This is probably the case with some homebrew that fails too.
(editted) I have rolled back the change in the v3 BIOS.. setting the VI register in the Skunkboard startup breaks compatibility with many homebrews that used to work (not completely clear why, probably due to a pending interrupt firing as soon as its enabled). So titles with this problem need to be fixed in the title itself.
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I'm pretty sure it is, I was going to fix it myself but it's in a packed file in the ROM and I lost the will to live while looking at it
hehe. I took a quick look today, and I don't think I agree. There seems to be some sort of dependency on the Jaguar BIOS.
If you run it up in Virtual Jaguar, it will boot if the Jag BIOS runs, but hang on a black screen if you jump directly to it. No Skunkboard involved here. I added debug to the EEPROM system and Raiden doesn't touch the EEPROM before the Atari title screen comes up. Since the EEPROM emulation is available in both cases and the debug suggests the game doesn't access it before the first screen, I don't think that's the cause of the incompatibility with Skunkboard. There's something that the BIOS sets that the game is relying on. I'll see if I can figure it out, it might explain some of the BJL apps that fail on Skunkboard too...
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Thanks, SH3.
Nobody else has commented on my AA avatar, certainly nobody has complained at AA or it would have been mentioned. I've taken quite a lot more serious beatings from Gorf in PM & on sites where I have no account to defend myself compared to a pun in an avatar. I do have serious concerns about the things he says & the people he uses as his source of information but as a gesture of good faith to you personally I'll remove it asap and do my best to give that kind of stuff the elbow.Yeah, but dude, Gorf is all but removed from the community these days. The icon was mentioned by others in chat, that much I know, since it made me take a closer look and realize that it was actually a NEW icon with the new board in it. Thanks for making the good gesture and changing it, though. I think that's just a good move for the community concept, and gives me hope that one day there will be one.
Cyrano - are you sure it's the lack of an eeprom that breaks Raiden? All official carts are supposed to be able to tolerate the failure of the eeprom. I do seem to remember some discussion of Raiden having issues but I never actually had time to investigate it in depth. If you did some research to prove it I might be able to use your research to look at the issue.
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Thanks for the replies, even the ones that are a little angry.
First, it's the bickering in general that annoys me, I'm not accusing people of flaming the skunkboard (although the jab about EEPROMs, whichever thread that was in, was annoying. I'm not aware of any title that fails to run for lack of EEPROM so that's not exactly a compatibility issue). I've already gotten apologies from viMaster, SH3, for his lashing out in the thread, and I've already asked Dan to back down a bit too. You guys are not the only ones I wrote to yesterday.
There's simply a lot of condescending comments, unnecessary off-topic cheerleading, all the crap that we used to see in the bad old days, and I was trying to keep it out of there. You can make a subtle attack that's too borderline for an outsider to recognize, and then say "What? I didn't say anything!", but that's just childish. I'm too busy to deal with it, so I was trying to stop BOTH sides before it escalated. I don't know Sauron's relationship to you guys, but he's up there, too, I just assumed that he was a cheerleader and not a member, so I didn't mention him here.
As for the stuff posted at Yaronet - there's nothing to sort out. That was how many years ago? I doubt I could even find it now - but there was plenty of sneering about the Skunkboard being a piracy device (until someone pointed out it can't dump cartridges when it resides in the cartridge slot), and plenty of jeering about how the shit was going to hit the fan as soon as people started trying to use it to play Battlesphere. And lots, and lots of complaining because I was "one of them" (a JS2 user) and that's why I wasn't getting in trouble for making it in the first place. This was after the first release announcement, so it was ages ago.
When I came onto the scene, you guys didn't know me, but neither did "they" (and the us-vs-them mentality has always annoyed me). I literally spent months negotiating the release behind the scenes, and THAT is why I didn't get in trouble for making Skunkboard in the first place.
You guys know what the damned block list is - /I'm/ just not allowed to SAY. So it really pisses me off to see it turned into another copy of the same damned argument that the community keeps dragging up. "Stop telling me not to copy games!". In this case nobody was even arguing the other side! You guys didn't cause all of it, but some of you did participate. And Tyrant, it's not all about you - you addressed the parts I meant for you and the parts that confuse you do so because they were not. I was satisfied with your apology yesterday (I have not gone back yet today, so I hope it hasn't derailed further - I left your post as the last one because it seemed the best place to pause.)
SH3, you said some things that specifically set viMaster off. He apologized to me after my post, but while I understand your response, had his barb gone un-replied to, that would have been the end of it. As for finger pointing, I have gone and pointed my finger at everyone I felt was involved, but I don't have a private way to get to you guys (you are free to delete these posts when we are done if you'd rather not keep them public, and they are kind of in the wrong thread.).
Cyrano, you are trying to be funny, and I appreciate that, but the fact is that when you slip a barb in with the compliment, no matter how small, it taints the whole thing. You get someone mad and the compliment is meaningless. Choose your words carefully and if you are sincere, separate the sincerity from any of the political games. It's really easy in English to change the tone of a message by accident in text. I know I screw it up all the time.
Let me add that none of you here have been on my bad list in the past. I haven't had a problem with you guys in past releases, except for annoyance that some people associated with Jagware feel to need to put subtle attacks in too many of their things (SH3 - your user logo at AA is a clear slap in the face at Gorf or whoever else was doing that dumb POWA thing - that's the sort of thing I am talking about. He's not even there to see it but you carry on the little battle anyway). It makes it look like you are looking for a fight. To be fair, I also see people from other camps doing this from time to time, and that also annoys me. When it happens around my work, I try to put a stop to it (and elsewhere I just don't read it at all, usually).
At any rate, you know my stance, and I appreciate hearing your side of it. I'll go back to AA and do my best to ignore any further issues in that thread, except another call for peace if need be. I'd appreciate if everyone would help by showing restraint themselves.
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Ah, that's sooner than I expected.
Anyway, any chance you guys can call off the hounds? I've been really careful about not flooding your announcement thread at AtariAge with crap or dragging in people looking to flamewar, why is there so much Jagware BS in the Skunkboard thread there? Particularly SH3, and I don't know if Tyrant is a part of your group or not, but it's getting old.
I don't believe I've ever spoken a bad word about Jagware in any public forum, despite the number of bad things said about me by certain of your members at forums such as Yaronet, so this treatment is particularly perplexing.
The only reasonable thought I had is the timing between our announcement and yours. I'm sorry that the timing worked out as such, but since there's not much communication about secret projects, you can't expect the rest of the world to come to a halt just because you make an announcement. If you wanted to let me know even two months ago then it would have been early enough to stop things. It takes more time to arrange things when there's a middleman added.
On the plus side, this is definately the last Skunkboard run, so you guys can own the community again for a while. The parts to build them are just getting too difficult to find and we aren't really enthused about redesigning it.
Useful files, tools and links for Jaguar development
in Development
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makefastboot.zip