Gemini and others

stefano
Well known member
Posts: 2293
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:39 pm

Re: Gemini and others

Post by stefano »

The Northstar Advantage is the main reason for this port, I wanted it emulated on Windows to work on a z88dk port, but the CP/M floppy disk format must have some custom requirement I haven't got yet.
I'm able to extract files with CPMTOOLS and to create a disk image with appmake which are good for CPMTOOLS as well but fail if mounted in the emulated environment.
It is like the CP/M system is expecting a different directory structure, but if I mount a legit CP/M disk it is read properly.


The diskdefs configuration for cpmtools

Code: Select all

# Northstar Micro-Disk System MDS-A-D 350
diskdef mdsad350
   seclen 512
   blocksize 2048
   tracks 70
   maxdir 64
   boottrk 2
   sectrk 10
   skew 5
   os 2.2
end

The configuration I prepared for appmake to create a RAW file with .NSI extension

Code: Select all

// Northstar Micro-Disk System MDS-A-D 350
static disc_spec ns350_spec = {
     .name = "Northstar MDS-A-D 350",
     .disk_mode = MFM250,
     .sectors_per_track = 10,
     .tracks = 70,
     .sides = 1,
     .sector_size = 512,
     .gap3_length = 0x17,
     .filler_byte = 0xe5,
     .boottracks = 2,
     .directory_entries = 64,
     .alternate_sides = 0,
     .extent_size = 2048,
     .byte_size_extents = 1,
     .first_sector_offset = 0,
     .has_skew = 1,
     .skew_tab = { 0,5,1,6,2,7,3,8,4,9 }
};
stefano
Well known member
Posts: 2293
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:39 pm

Re: Gemini and others

Post by stefano »

Speed throttle. I'm rather sure that select() is not properly simulated in my mingw setup, Sleep(microseconds/1000) is usually the best choice, I'm going to update the package soon.
I still get rather fast emulated systems though. Perhaps it's just the CPU clock needing to be properly configured in the setup files (those cfg files are set up for 4mhz CPUs).
The hardware emulation looks overperforming, but the cursor blinking etc seems right, so I'm now enough confident on the overall port condition regarding the timers.

New version with CPU speed limited by Sleep(). It worked well on other emulators.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jUavvX ... p=drivesdk
stefano
Well known member
Posts: 2293
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:39 pm

Re: Gemini and others

Post by stefano »

I fixed my local msys64 setup (not recently updated) which I broke trying to merge in unixem.
The beaver_net protocol now builds properly, but I don't think I nailed the way to interface to the rs232 hardware on windows
Post Reply