Search found 2176 matches

by stefano
Sat Nov 18, 2023 1:01 pm
Forum: MSX, SVI, TMS99x8 and Sega Master System
Topic: [SMS] Mono sprites snail trail problem
Replies: 9
Views: 6342

Re: [SMS] Mono sprites snail trail problem

I agree, I was betting on the VDP transfers concurrently with you. :). Having a real hardware to test on is always of great help, though. Do you think we can do some trial and error with Robert?
by stefano
Fri Nov 17, 2023 9:54 am
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: CPMDISK again
Replies: 8
Views: 4869

Re: CPMDISK again

Yet another weird format, the 'Amust'. Having the boot tracks formatted differently was more common on the 8" floppy drives, but when it happened on different media formats everybody had its personal way to go. There's a good probability that keeping 5 big sectors on the first track (both the s...
by stefano
Thu Nov 16, 2023 4:17 pm
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: CPMDISK again
Replies: 8
Views: 4869

Re: CPMDISK again

We now have also a 40 tracks floppy mode for the microbee. It required different space for the boot records and a different starting position in the sector skew sequence which is odd (the skew factor is always 3). Moreover both the 40 and 80 tracks images need to keep the sectors shuffled over a seq...
by stefano
Thu Nov 16, 2023 9:59 am
Forum: Misc
Topic: Future of the libraries
Replies: 32
Views: 35458

Re: Future of the libraries

> to avoid redoing everything in 2033 when I come back to re-finish them =D Don't bet on it ! :D Well, as Felipu said you can get most of the newlib benefits also in the classic library now. My personal taste goes to the classic library because I'm a mainac of portability. People wishing to squeeze ...
by stefano
Wed Nov 15, 2023 11:06 am
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: CPMDISK again
Replies: 8
Views: 4869

Re: CPMDISK again

With the new "side2_sector_numbering" option I got a valid configuration for the GNAT disk format. At the moment it is a totally lost/forgotten system, but it passes the check with ALIENC.COM on an emulated microbee
by stefano
Tue Nov 14, 2023 12:00 pm
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: CPMDISK again
Replies: 8
Views: 4869

Re: CPMDISK again

I'm pulling in a new option, side2_sector_numbering, useful to deal with those disk formats requiring a progressive sector numbering between the two disk sides. The Kaypro 4/10 double side disk format is a perfect test case (https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/kaypro-10-reinstall-disks.55186/p...
by stefano
Tue Nov 14, 2023 10:43 am
Forum: Texas Instruments Calculators
Topic: [TI83+] Multi-page application support
Replies: 1
Views: 3366

Re: [TI83+] Multi-page application support

Awesome ! Thankyou for supporting this !
I also wish to thank @HeronErin and all the people trying hard to raise our interest on the evolved TI83+ models.
by stefano
Fri Nov 10, 2023 10:14 pm
Forum: Misc
Topic: DISCiPLE snapshot bug, did any one solve it?
Replies: 5
Views: 2545

Re: DISCiPLE snapshot bug, did any one solve it?

you really should first clean the analogue section. mono tape recorder, heads (alignment..), etc. also the rubber belt could be fixed. I mentioned maketzx because it does the conversion on the fly, you immediately understand if it is loading or not. Then, probably the code you are willing to keep is...
by stefano
Fri Nov 10, 2023 9:35 am
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: CPMDISK again
Replies: 8
Views: 4869

Re: CPMDISK again

The Don Maslin archive includes the files for the GNAT System 10 computers. I used them, partially unsuccessfully to test this new method of merging the results gathered from the IMDU convert log and the ones listed in my file (data obtained from ALIENC.COM). It's not enough to build a valid disk im...
by stefano
Thu Nov 09, 2023 8:50 pm
Forum: Misc
Topic: DISCiPLE snapshot bug, did any one solve it?
Replies: 5
Views: 2545

Re: DISCiPLE snapshot bug, did any one solve it?

what I did in the past was to dump the whole tapes via wmaketzx.
The tzx itself helps remembering what was in, if something important is broken you can focus on it later using the tzx file as an index.
by stefano
Tue Nov 07, 2023 10:45 pm
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: CPMDISK again
Replies: 8
Views: 4869

CPMDISK again

While trying (once again unsuccessfully) to port a northstar emulator on Windows, I bumped into a couple of tools for the Microbee. They are were named "alien" because they were able to exchange files working on several disk formats, one of the two even addressed the MSDOS/Apricot, NorthSt...
by stefano
Mon Nov 06, 2023 9:31 pm
Forum: Other targets
Topic: C128 and SG tools
Replies: 9
Views: 11257

Re: C128 and SG tools

Interesting!
It is again a relevant quantity of functions. It's probably easier to first try replicating the exact functions by using the demonstration programs as test cases.
I haven't looked at the code yet but it should be feasible.
by stefano
Sun Nov 05, 2023 7:46 pm
Forum: Misc
Topic: differences in RST commands (?)
Replies: 18
Views: 4189

Re: differences in RST commands (?)

are you focusing on the spectrum? the Amstrad cpc is another interesting challenge

https://github.com/z88dk/z88dk/blob/a9b ... ns.asm#L29
by stefano
Sun Nov 05, 2023 7:27 pm
Forum: Misc
Topic: differences in RST commands (?)
Replies: 18
Views: 4189

Re: differences in RST commands (?)

I may have misunderstood your case, but isn't it the same also with the zx microdrive, opus discovery and others?
by stefano
Tue Oct 31, 2023 12:21 pm
Forum: Misc
Topic: differences in RST commands (?)
Replies: 18
Views: 4189

Re: differences in RST commands (?)

The FP calculator is so slow. Perhaps it was used in extended BASIC or compiler implementations, BASIC extensions, like extra commands, assembly written USR functions to fit into DEF FN declarations, etc. I think decoding the RST28 was often present in zx spectrum disassemblers, I remember "zoo...
by stefano
Mon Oct 30, 2023 10:02 pm
Forum: Misc
Topic: differences in RST commands (?)
Replies: 18
Views: 4189

Re: differences in RST commands (?)

> Page 102 of this document

wow, and I even knew it ! it's too long I left the TI calculator behind.
by stefano
Mon Oct 30, 2023 9:59 pm
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: Deflate algorithm and unzip tools
Replies: 2
Views: 1768

Re: Deflate algorithm and unzip tools

very interesting, thank you for pointing it out, I'll surely try to compare them!
by stefano
Sun Oct 29, 2023 9:42 am
Forum: Misc
Topic: differences in RST commands (?)
Replies: 18
Views: 4189

Re: differences in RST commands (?)

cborn, what I wanted to say is that youwould hardly cover all the tricks the programmers used in their code. The Microsoft Basic, in example, uses an RST (where possible, on other targets it is a CALL) to do the syntax checking, by putting the required symbol just after the call. If the symbol doesn...
by stefano
Sat Oct 28, 2023 10:09 pm
Forum: Misc
Topic: differences in RST commands (?)
Replies: 18
Views: 4189

Re: differences in RST commands (?)

There's yet another answer I can give (after searching it online) : https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/24899/why-does-cp-m-use-call-0005h-for-its-syscalls probably the CP/M BDOS entry was place at address 0005 to avoid conflicts with an EXISTING RST mechanism on computers already exi...
by stefano
Sat Oct 28, 2023 9:23 pm
Forum: Misc
Topic: differences in RST commands (?)
Replies: 18
Views: 4189

Re: differences in RST commands (?)

well, let me try to clarify a little bit. First of all, you should know that the RST calls (close relatives of the INT entries on the Intel x86 CPUs) can be considered simply as a trick to save memory, using an RST entry in place of the more used CALLs in your program. A Z80 often will have a ROM on...
by stefano
Fri Oct 27, 2023 10:38 pm
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: Deflate algorithm and unzip tools
Replies: 2
Views: 1768

Deflate algorithm and unzip tools

On September 2020 Martin ..someone implemented the deflate algorithm for the z80 basing on a Hitech C source for the Amiga. This allowed an incredible improvement of the famous unzip tool for CP/M originally written in 1991: now it works with the modern zip archives too. https://github.com/agn453/UN...
by stefano
Fri Oct 20, 2023 6:45 pm
Forum: Texas Instruments Calculators
Topic: [TI-83 Plus] How do I compile the code?
Replies: 3
Views: 4467

Re: [TI-83 Plus] How do I compile the code?

we have finally news on this topic! EDIT: appmake is now creating TI83 Plus applications in the "right" format, a.k.a. the format expected by the recent tools and emulators, like Wabbitemu. I kept an option on appmake, "-Cz--oldfmt", to restore the ancient, probably wrong, way to...
by stefano
Tue Oct 17, 2023 10:24 am
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: FileIO and User areas
Replies: 7
Views: 2027

Re: FileIO and User areas

Yes, I chose to stick the prefix to deal with the user number on top of the original BDS C parser to leave the rest of the code untouched.
I was so surprised that it was fitting with almost no changes that I was treating it like a magic item.
by stefano
Mon Oct 16, 2023 3:20 pm
Forum: CP/M, FLOS and OS related
Topic: FileIO and User areas
Replies: 7
Views: 2027

Re: FileIO and User areas

It probably depends on the asm implementation of parsefcb (in parsefcb.c).

Please try specifying a filename including the user number on top, it should be something like:

0/a:file.txt

Apologies for the mess, it looked like a brillant idea, long time ago..
by stefano
Thu Oct 12, 2023 5:17 pm
Forum: Sinclair ZX
Topic: ZXMATH library buggy
Replies: 2
Views: 1598

Re: ZXMATH library buggy

On the ZXROM side, fmax() and fmin() are now fixed. I also added less common functions like cbrt(), hypoth(), exp2()...
The overall support is still poor but slightly better.