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PlayCity aka CTC-AY (MX4) for August !!!

Started by TotO, 13:29, 07 July 14

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SyX

@TFM: My friend, i have liked a lot your idea of puting the software supporting the board. But for giving better visibility, i have made its own page (linked from the board page of course), take a look and everybody of course to:
Software Supporting PlayCity - CPCWiki

And it would be great, if you could put there for what is using Cyber Chicken the board ;)

I hope that in one year from now, we see more entries in that page :)

CraigsBar

So bypassing the 15 likes test.


Do I get this correctly.. The PlayCity allows my 6128plus to have a theoretical 9 channels of sound and a noise generator? and all of this will be magically played though the stereo speakers built into the monitor? and making this another MotherX4 expansion is such a nice touch.


Leaving all the other raster stuff aside I just HAVE to get me one of those.


I have just played the retail Cyber Chicken in the Java CPC with the 9 channel sound emulation, that is AWESOME!


Nice work to all involved, I will DEFINATELY be buying one of these, can I put my name on a shortlist/pre-order already ;)


Craig
IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

steve

I am not sure but I think the CPC cannot display screens in banked ram, they must be copied to the "real" screen ram inside the console, if this is correct, would it be possible to make a DMA circuit to copy the data faster than the Z80 could do it?

TotO

@CraigsBar : No, the PLUS monitor will not out the 6ch stereo sound from the PlayCity, because the signal come from the Pin 1 Mono audio.
@steve : The CPC will need a blitter to do properly the task using DMA... And known when it will be free to write the GA memory w/o conflict.
"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

ralferoo

Quote from: CraigsBar on 21:17, 10 July 14
Do I get this correctly.. The PlayCity allows my 6128plus to have a theoretical 9 channels of sound and a noise generator?
3 noise channels, one per chip.

McKlain

Quote from: ralferoo on 10:11, 11 July 14
3 noise channels, one per chip.


We can finally have realistic synthesis of sea waves on the cpc ;D

CraigsBar

#81
Quote from: McKlain on 10:19, 11 July 14

We can finally have realistic synthesis of sea waves on the cpc ;D
stereo sea waves.... I cannot wait

What we need is a playcity rendition of Bobby Goldsboro - summer (the first time) including the beach noises in the intro. Tee hee hee.

IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

Bryce

So who's going to patch Beachhead to make it more realistic? :)

Bryce.

CraigsBar

Quote from: Bryce on 11:05, 11 July 14
So who's going to patch Beachhead to make it more realistic? :)

Bryce.

Or Outrun so the music is not provided on an audio cassette?
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MacDeath


McKlain

Now you can have music with drums AND ocean waves  8)

Hicks

One more time, congratulations to TotO & SyX. Mother X4, Mini Booster, X-MEM, Play-City... You release in less than two years what CPC users ask since 15 years, so thank you very much for that!

Can you give us the list of the bits (from A0 to A15) that you are decoding to adress the Play-City? It can be useful in order to avoid to send some datas on the card involuntarily when we use optimised port adressing (cf. problem with X-MEM when we select a bank with #7E, #7C, #7A, #78).

Do you know if there is already some projects who planned to use the card?

TotO

#87
Thank you Hicks. (et ce n'est pas fini)

About X-MEM, I have updated the getstart.txt file to specify that A8 is decoded to allow up to 1MB RAM if needed in the future.
I expect a cpcwiki page dedicated to it in some weeks, time to finish boards first. I'm going to update the I/O Port Summary page.
%0xxx xxx1 xxxx xxxx

About PlayCity, a dedicated page is available here: PlayCity - CPCWiki
The ports (decoded bits) are already listed here: I/O Port Summary - CPCWiki
%1111 100A 1000 BBCC

A= audio chip address line (register/data)
BB= decoded bits to allow 4 devices (3 used)
CC= ctc chip address lines (4 channels)

- CTC channels #F880, 81, 82, 83 (device 0)
- Audio right #F884, #F984 (device 1)
- Audio left #F888, #F988 (device 2)
- Soft reset #F8FF (extra decoding)

Sure, projects are planed... (some are started, some in stand by, and others probably waiting to remove fingers from the ass hole)
But, the releases are the eternal question. 

EDIT:
I'm definitively bored by the forum text parser...
"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

Gryzor

Quote from: MacDeath on 12:45, 11 July 14
a new challenger appears :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=19pdg9JAX80
8)


Off-topic, but wow, had never heard of this... excellent presentation!

Ast

Some tests after.....


Is it normal that PlayCity's volume seems low ?
How can i stop all Playcity's action ?




Buy this extra card, for sure !
_____________________

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All friends are welcome !

SyX

Quote from: Ast on 20:54, 28 July 14
Is it normal that PlayCity's volume seems low ?
Are you talking about using the CPC internal speaker or using an external one?

Quote from: Ast on 20:54, 28 July 14
How can i stop all Playcity's action ?
What exactly do you want to stop? Sounds or timer interrupts?

Ast

I'm speaking about internal cpc plus speakers.... the sound is really low..... not in the same level as using internal ay...


I do many test as running demo cpc plus, but it's really strange coz the music seems buggy. So i hope, it's because Playcity is running when cpc plus is on.......
Is it possible to disconnect the playcity when a cpc plus demo using the PRI is running ?


Thanks for your answer.
_____________________

Ast/iMP4CT. "By the power of Grayskull, i've the power"

http://amstradplus.forumforever.com/index.php
http://impdos.wikidot.com/
http://impdraw.wikidot.com/

All friends are welcome !

TotO

The CTC-AY dev board use the same audio mixing as done into the CPC with AY.
Looking on Internet, most peoples does the same too... And I don't really take care that was low.
But, I will make some extra tests about that. Thank you.
"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

SyX

#93
Quote from: Ast on 21:37, 28 July 14I do many test as running demo cpc plus, but it's really strange coz the music seems buggy. So i hope, it's because Playcity is running when cpc plus is on.......
Is it possible to disconnect the playcity when a cpc plus demo using the PRI is running ?
That is strange, the CPC+ Programable Raster Interrupt is not related at all with the CTC and if a program has not accessed to the CTC or the YMZs , they should not disturb the CPC at all.

Is this a general thing happening with every program in your CPC+ or only happens with certain programs that we could test?

Ast

i tried two cpc plus demo :


intro by roudoudou and my cpc plus dentro..... That's all...
_____________________

Ast/iMP4CT. "By the power of Grayskull, i've the power"

http://amstradplus.forumforever.com/index.php
http://impdos.wikidot.com/
http://impdraw.wikidot.com/

All friends are welcome !

arnoldemu

Quote from: SyX on 22:09, 28 July 14
That is strange, the CPC+ Programable Raster Interrupt is not related at all with the CTC and if a program has not accessed to the CTC or the YMZs , they should not disturb the CPC at all.

Is this a general thing happening with every program in your CPC+ or only happens with certain programs that we could test?
Interesting, perhaps the PlayCity is affecting the bus and putting a vector on the bus?
My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

TotO

#96
The PlayCity vector interrupts not work on PLUS, because they are in conflict with the internal "CTC" embedded into its ASIC.
PLUS programmers have to use PLUS features for that, by detecting properly the target computer.

On CPC, the GA is not identifiable, that made IM2 interrupt unpredictables and buggy.
On a PLUS, the GA look to be set as device $00.

When plugged, the PlayCity set the GA as device $00 on the bus.
That make IM2 now usable on CPC and the board not crashing the PLUS.

May be, some Plus Demo use ports or vectors interrupt that have side effects if the board is plugged.
"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

TotO

#97
Just received some PCB and parts for the firsts orders!  ;D

[attachimg=1]
"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

CraigsBar

Wow. Now we just wait for the shop to reopen to order right?
IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

TotO

"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

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