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CPC Dandanator Mini 1.3 - WIP

Started by XeNoMoRPH, 20:58, 17 March 18

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Dandare

#100

After the waiting period for the people in the reserve list to claim a dandanator CPC, there are six units that go to the people on the waiting list.:

- Cyril61 (RW)
- DaviXD (RW)
- Turb (VdR)
- evas2 (VdR)
- Vakapp (RW)
- Muack (amstrad.es)



Total: 6 units


Now, anyone on the waiting list can claim one unit


Please, contact me in advance and make your PayPal payment and send your shipping address. I'll be shipping these units after the Holidays.

zhulien

I am wondering... what would be the effort to make this work on a Sega SC3000H?

Dandare

Quote from: zhulien on 14:12, 24 December 18
I am wondering... what would be the effort to make this work on a Sega SC3000H?
While some parts maybe reused, it's a completely different project.
I never owned a SC3000H, but doesn't it have a cartridge port?

robcfg

Yes, it has a cartridge port  ;D

zhulien

#104
The SC3000 is very MSX-like. It's an almost-MSX or an almost-Colecovision.


from the awesome SMSPower website:


http://www.smspower.org/maxim/Documents/Pinouts


I believe from a hardware expansion point of view, it is likely easy to adapt between it and CPC - maybe even with the MSX adapter... SC3000 also uses 3" discs that copy fine on CPC with discology6.

Dandare

Quote from: zhulien on 12:00, 27 December 18
I believe from a hardware expansion point of view, it is likely easy to adapt between it and CPC - maybe even with the MSX adapter... SC3000 also uses 3" discs that copy fine on CPC with discology6.


I'm afraid it's not that easy.


For starters, the CPLD is synchronised with the wait cycles of the CPC, a world apart of those of the MSX or alike, furthermore, the mapping heavily relies on RAMDIS and ROMDIS signals, not likely to be present on the SC3000. Also FollowromE signal is hardware connected to RomRead signal from the CPC and hardcoded to respond on A14=A15, very unlikely to be MSX Compliant....


And that's only the reconfigurable part (CPLD), the cartridge has a 3,5kb packed Z80 asm code that interacts directly with the CPC hardware. It would need to be rewritten. The PC/Mac Java Part implements a CPC464 and CPC6128 embedded emulator that would also need to be rewritten.


These are only some of the things that would need to be changed to make this work on an MSX-like computer, so you can see it's a completely different project.




Audronic

@Dandare


The CPC Dandators arrived in good condition.  Thanks
All working well.


A small question :- Has anybody made a label ( Or template ) that I can put on the Box
That I could print out.


Ps Is there a Test program in the CPC version like The ZX Version ?


Thanks Ray

Procrastinators Unite,
If it Ain't Broke PLEASE Don't Fix it.
I keep telling you I am Not Pedantic.
As I Live " Down Under " I Take my Gravity Tablets and Wear my Magnetic Boots to Keep me from Falling off.

Gryzor

Yessss mine arrived yesterday as well! Too bad I currently don't have a CPC available to play with it but I will remedy that soon :)


I was wondering about the label, too, btw.


Thanks so much for your efforts and for the unit, @Dandare !

Dandare

Hi,
There are no labels AFAIK, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone makes them soon as they did before with the ZX. I'll keep an eye on it.


About the test program, there is a basic test by McLeod that gets installed once you use the standard menu (update your games from the Java tool). There is also one in the making by Llopis, I'm helping him with the CPC initialisation and Dandanator routines. There is no estimated delivery time so far, though.


Audronic

@Dandare


Thanks, I will have a look at the update procedure.


Ray
Procrastinators Unite,
If it Ain't Broke PLEASE Don't Fix it.
I keep telling you I am Not Pedantic.
As I Live " Down Under " I Take my Gravity Tablets and Wear my Magnetic Boots to Keep me from Falling off.

Audronic

@Dandare


Thanks again for the CPC Dandanator.
I am using it as a piece of test equipment.
When I plug the Dandanator in I get some Music GOOD


I have a sound fault on a CPC 464 and its good to have Instant Music to trace where the sound had gone.


Thanks Again.  Ray
Procrastinators Unite,
If it Ain't Broke PLEASE Don't Fix it.
I keep telling you I am Not Pedantic.
As I Live " Down Under " I Take my Gravity Tablets and Wear my Magnetic Boots to Keep me from Falling off.

Dandare

New small batch of CPC Dandanators available in late January-Early February.


Hi all, I'm glad to report that a small batch of 10 CPC Dandanators will be available for delivery soon.


If you are interested, please contact me (PM)  for getting the details to proceed with the payment and sending of your postal address



TotO

Quote from: deepfb on 12:34, 22 December 18
We had a meeting in Madrid last weekend: Syx came from Brasil and 6128 from León to show us a new game they are developing, and Dandare gave out the Dandanator among the users that came to cpcmaníaco's home to pick their unit.
Sadly, I was not able to came for only 1 day. I hope you have fun with SyX, Rafa and others!
"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

LambdaMikel

Quote from: Dandare on 11:20, 04 January 19
New small batch of CPC Dandanators available in late January-Early February.


Hi all, I'm glad to report that a small batch of 10 CPC Dandanators will be available for delivery soon.


If you are interested, please contact me (PM)  for getting the details to proceed with the payment and sending of your postal address


Done! Thanks for making this great piece of hardware!! Looking forward to it.   :)

Dandare

Quote from: Dandare on 11:20, 04 January 19
New small batch of CPC Dandanators available in late January-Early February.


Hi all, I'm glad to report that a small batch of 10 CPC Dandanators will be available for delivery soon.


If you are interested, please contact me (PM)  for getting the details to proceed with the payment and sending of your postal address


5 remaining. Thank you all.

Rennert

Quote from: Dandare on 20:01, 04 January 19

5 remaining. Thank you all.
OK I will buy a board[emoji6]
...KC Compact

Sebastian Blanco

What the board have to do to sword of ianna ?, the game can be load from tape or floppy theres a especial version also in cartrige ?.

deepfb

Sword of Ianna is a game for ZX Spectrum that was realeased on ZX's Dandanator. I have seen some graphics of the game converted to CPC, but the author was not part of Retroworks team, and I don't know of any "real" project aimed to make a CPC version of it.

kawickboy

I tried it on msx2 too, excellent game.

Dandare

Hi, I'm sad to report that there is a slight problem with the board with the standard 6128 when booting to Basic.


Unfortunately, the only fix is to reprogram the CPLD of the cartridge, and that's something that requires a CPLD programmer.
This problem only becomes visible in a small number of 6128's. Others, while still having the issue, it doesn't cause usage problems, but it has to be corrected anyway.


This does not affect 464 and the plus series, but it also affects 664's.
The problem arises when the CPC is trying to initialize and/or use the AMSDOS rom.


So I strongly suggest that you don't boot into basic with the cartridge plugged in until you have the chance to reprogram the CPLD.
The new code will be up in www.dandare.es in a few days.


I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. This would normally have been a confined problem easily solved in future batchs, but the first batch is 178 units and none of my 6128 had any symptoms.


Please try and find someone near you that can reprogram a Xilinx xc9572xl CPLD (the one in the cartridge).

GUNHED

What is the nature of the problem? Is is because the ROM 7 can't be replaced in some CPCs?


Maybe we can make a "test" to check if one personal CPC has the problem or not, this would decrease the number of chips to be reprogrammed.  :)
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

Dandare

Quote from: GUNHED on 17:07, 12 January 19
What is the nature of the problem? Is is because the ROM 7 can't be replaced in some CPCs?


Maybe we can make a "test" to check if one personal CPC has the problem or not, this would decrease the number of chips to be reprogrammed.  :)


No matter the problem produces visible effects or not, it is still there.


The source is the way the cartridge drives the Romdis signal, alternating between 1 and 0 instead of the correct 1 and Z.
When this happens, and due to the way 6128s implement romdis, the AMSDOS rom tries to disable the internal Firmware rom but it can't, causing collisions.


I'm afraid if you plan to use the cartridge from basic or alongside AMSDOS, it should get reprogrammed.
I'm very sorry for the inconvenience.


Dandare

Yo can now get the fixed JED file (for programming the CPLD) from the downloads section of www.dandare.es

Dandare

Good news,


Thanks to mad3001 and overCLK, we've now been able to reprogram the Dandanator CPLD using only an arduino nano (€2.0 aprox.) hardware.
We've used a lot of info and resources from different Internet pages in the process, and adapted them a bit.


In the following days/weeks, we'll be integrating this upgrade into the Romset Generator, so you would just need to plugin your Arduino nano, connect it to the CPC Dandanator Board and press a button. Then your cartridge CPLD will be upgraded.


I'll keep you posted..

GUNHED

That's a great idea!!! If it works then please post us a link where to get the hardware and the connection cable.  :)
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

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