MiniMig NTSC

[Darrin]

yaqube wrote:
I'm still working on the ECS. It's almost done but there are some things to do yet (i.e. full super hires support in Denise).

I decided to try to find the reasons why some games don't work. I've already found some incompatibilities and fixed them (i.e. NZ Story scrolls fine now) but there are still some. I have an almost fully working Action Replay and some debugging stuff build into my MiniMig. I hope it will help to hunt bugs quickly. If you can report which game and in what way does not work it will be very helpful.

I'm quite busy now but expect new firmware with sourcecode in a few weeks.

I've got my Minimig on order from Amigakit.  You're doing some great work there.  I look forward to trying your ECS code out.  Cheers.   :-)

[AJCopland]

Good that you're still working on it. I realise that the licence requires you to release sourcecode as you work on it but I'd be happy as long as you release it in the end along with the excellent work that you've done on getting ECS working :-D

How much of ECS are you implementing? Everything?

Andy

[straycat]

@yaqube:

This is fantastic news, a real boost for the Minimig! I'd love to see New Zealand Story working and the Action Replay facility sounds superb. I assume you're referring to the compatability list on the Open Circuits site for games working/not working? There's brief descriptions of problems for most games , I can help with testing/describing some problems in more detail if it helps.

TheDaddy also has a rundown of some of the most popular games not working.

[Evillord68]

That´s great news. :-)

[alexh]

yaqube wrote:
@alehx: Are you working on adf write support?

I'm not doing anything right now.

ADF write support would require changes to the PIC C-code which relies on a time-limited demo of the High-tech PICC-18 commercial c-compiler.

I might try to see if it is easy to compile with a free compiler (if no-one has already done it).

Anyone know a particularly good free c-compiler for the PIC18 series? All I can find is this Student Edition Microchip C18.

[freqmax]

Seems there is a block write function. Currently fixed at 512-bytes block which means it can handle a maximum of 1 GByte  SD cards (use CMD16 to fix this).

The following functions exists in minimig1_firmware_15_07_2007/:

main.c: HandleFpgaCmd(c1,c2)
Has a command 'CMD_WRTRCK' which calls WriteTrack().

main.c: WriteTrack(drive)
Empty.

ata18.c: AtaWriteSector(lba, WriteData)
Seems to be in working order.

If the functionality is limited to modify existing (.adf) files and keep the same filesize. Then what is needed is:
 * Copy the contents of ReadTrack() function to WriteTrack(). And modify the order of datatransfer such that the dataflow goes from the FPGA to the SD-card. This should work. That way we don't have to deal with too much FAT intrisics.
 * FileWrite2() has to be created. Using a modified FileRead2() should work, AtaReadSector() -> AtaWriteSector().
 * FpgaToSector() has to be created. Using a modified order of SectorToFpga() should work.

If anyone wishes to "create floppies" then you would have to  handle the FAT16 allocations and clusters etc..

[Darrin]

freqmax wrote:
If anyone wishes to "create floppies" then you would have to  handle the FAT16 allocations and clusters etc..

I guess a easy way to get around this would be to stick your SD card in your PC and use UAE to "create a floppy" and move it to the card.

I could live with that as long as I could get to write to existing disk images for the purpose of saving games.

[straycat]

Darrin wrote:

freqmax wrote:
If anyone wishes to "create floppies" then you would have to  handle the FAT16 allocations and clusters etc..

I guess a easy way to get around this would be to stick your SD card in your PC and use UAE to "create a floppy" and move it to the card.

I could live with that as long as I could get to write to existing disk images for the purpose of saving games.

Agree 100% with Darrin. Maybe this could be a 'nice to have' addition later on.

[Kelvin]

Dont know if its going to be robust enough for the task but here is always the Boost C compiler...
http://www.sourceboost.com/

[BraindeaD]

yaqube wrote:
If you can report which game and in what way does not work it will be very helpful.

Hi all,
some games I've tested and not working:

Game ->       Works ->    Fail   
-----------------------------------------
Agony ->       no ->    Doesn't load (maybe an ECS game?)   
Alcatraz ->    no ->    Freezes in infogrames screen
Cannon Fodder 2 ->    no ->    black screen   
Cannon Fodder 1 ->    no ->    black screen   
Chaos engine ->    no ->    black screen   
Lotus3 ->    no ->    black screen   
Powerdrift ->    no ->    Freezes before it starts   
Power drive ->    no ->    black screen      
Super cars ->    no ->    Doesn't load, black screen with blue flashing    
Sensible soccer ->    no ->    black screen    
Walker    ->    no ->    red screen (same in very old versions of WinUAE)

Alien Breed ->    yes ->    player's sprite not visible
megaPhoenix ->    yes ->    player's sprite not visible
Plague ->       yes ->    player's sprite not visible

Risky woods ->    yes ->    player's sprite always jumping
Hostages ->    yes ->    player dies automatically (same in winUAE)

Hope it can help in ECS implementation and bug hunting.

Regards.

[straycat]

re: BraindeaD's list above:

I've tested two of these myself -

Sensible Soccer 1.0 works on the Minimig. You can see some faint verticle lines down the match screen but I'm not sure if this is because I'm using yaqube's amended firmware on an LCD monitor. I haven't had the opportunity to try this on a CRT monitor yet. Sensible Soccer v1.1 and Sensible World of Soccer do not load at all.

I've tried Cannon Fodder too. Intro sequence loads fine but it fails on loading the main game.

[thulsadoom]

First, I want to thank all people around the Minimig project. Mine is about to arrive home in a couple of days. And, let me tell you, it is what I wanted: no more floppy hassle, no video output problems, pc keyboard and mouse... if you are into A500 playing, this is a great solution. I am an old school Amiga fan, so... OCS RULEZ!  :-D

I want to thank people that are developing and evolving this great project. If you need testing or whatever, count on me.

See ya!

PD: Sorry if my english sounds weird

[TheDaddy]

Hi,

I haven't followed the minimig progress lately...

What is the story with the compatibility, with games that don't want to work like:

Superfrog
Agony
Cannon Fodder 2
Cannon Fodder 1
Chaos engine 1&2
Lotus3
Super cars
SWOS 96/-97
Walker
Alien Breed
Project X
Gods
Superskidmarks
Lionheart
Desert Strike
Zool
Paperboy
Fire and Ice

These are classic games and should be sorted out together with writing to the sd-card...

Is anyone working on improving the compatibility?

Do we know why (the reasons) these games don't work and do you think it can be sorted out?

Let's raise a bounty for the person who can do this, I am prepared to give a bit of money if that helps speeding up the solution.

Thanks :-)

[Darrin]

TheDaddy wrote:

What is the story with the compatibility, with games that don't want to work like:

Cannon Fodder 1

I just played a couple of levels of Cannon Fodder 1 on my Minimig.  Are there any other problems apart from having to keep reinserting disk #1?

[amigadave]

yaqube wrote:
I'm still working on the ECS. It's almost done but there are some things to do yet (i.e. full super hires support in Denise).

I decided to try to find the reasons why some games don't work. I've already found some incompatibilities and fixed them (i.e. NZ Story scrolls fine now) but there are still some. I have an almost fully working Action Replay and some debugging stuff build into my MiniMig. I hope it will help to hunt bugs quickly. If you can report which game and in what way does not work it will be very helpful.

I'm quite busy now but expect new firmware with sourcecode in a few weeks.

@alehx: Are you working on adf write support?

Any progress on ECS?  Also, is anyone else working on NTSC for the MiniMig?  I know that interest is shifting to the NatAmi, but the MiniMig is still a good project and should not be abandoned.

[Darrin]

amigadave wrote:

I know that interest is shifting to the NatAmi, but the MiniMig is still a good project and should not be abandoned.

Plus the Minimig is actually here.  :-)

One thing that I'm learning is that if we can't have a hard drive emulation soon then can we have 2 floppy drives emulated please?  The Minimig has its own version of "disk swapper's wrist".   :-D