DskTest v0.1.47b (release?)

[robcfg]

As of lately is moving a bit on the CPC side, but as MESS is not only a CPC emulator, progress isn't as fast as we'd like.

[Gryzor]

I think people just stick with specialised emulators, especially since most come from separate communities. I can't be arsed to see if a multi-emulator works with X platform when I already know an emulator for it. And if I don't know of one, googling "NeoMSX3+TurboGTX emulator" will give me something for sure...


Btw, the relevant support page at mess.org says it supports "Sinclar".

[breiztiger]

hi

i have just try to test my ddi-1 on my cpc6128 and when i select drive b (6) and measure spin (5) but never finish the test

have somebody test with this config ?

breiztiger

[TotO]

Try with this: RPM de Brice RIVE 

[Bryce]

Nice program, just gave it a go. Simple and text you can read (hint to Pacomix)

Bryce.

[TotO]

The download link came for the Amstrad TODAY website, witch was allowed by the author.

[pacomix]

Hi Breiztiger!


   Strange... Could you describe what exactly are you doing?


@Bryce:


   Yep but I was first

[Executioner]

Around 6 months ago, I have made a little program that can detect all the CPC emulators and display their names. (see the screenshot)

By this measure, the ability to detect an emulator shows that the emulation is not accurate enough?

That mean you have all some works to do to emulate (and not simulate) a real FDC...
Starting from M.E.S.S. will be great.

WinAPE already got a complete FDC rewrite with 2.0A16. I may do another, but not in the near future since 99.9% of known software appears to work, and the few that don't are usually because someone didn't include inter-sector data in the DSK image. The MESS code may be more accurate, but it requires significantly more emulation overhead and I can't currently justify it.

[TotO]

5 moths answer.    Thank you. 

I suppose that, while it's possible to make the difference between the real hardware and an emulator, that mean it's not accurate and a program can fail to run. (many protected programs don't on most old CPC emulators)

Now, I understand that is not an easy task to achieve...

[Executioner]

that mean it's not accurate and a program can fail to run.

Yes, but rather than totally rewrite the emulation from scratch it's usually easier to fix it to cope with those particular programs. It all depends on your starting point of course. If people today are purposely writing new programs to break emulators just to keep us on our toes, perhaps they should find something better to do with their time since most of the point (of WinAPE at least) is preserving old software and providing a development platform for CPC/Z80.

[pacomix]

Yes, but rather than totally rewrite the emulation from scratch it's usually easier to fix it to cope with those particular programs. It all depends on your starting point of course. If people today are purposely writing new programs to break emulators just to keep us on our toes, perhaps they should find something better to do with their time since most of the point (of WinAPE at least) is preserving old software and providing a development platform for CPC/Z80.

Hi! Do you plan in a future to release the source code or give the ability to write plugins? The debugging capabilities are really good but it would rock, for example, if you can communicate with the winape process and send commands like inserting breakpoints, load new symbols, snapshots, etc...
I'm developing a visual studio integration and this feature would be grand for setting breakpoints at any time from VS, building and deploying the modified source code automatically, etc...

[Executioner]

Hi! Do you plan in a future to release the source code

Not likely. It's a mix a Delphi and x86 assembler with 3rd party components so it'd be almost impossible to compile it.

or give the ability to write plugins? The debugging capabilities are really good but it would rock, for example, if you can communicate with the winape process and send commands like inserting breakpoints, load new symbols, snapshots, etc...

That's a possibility, but also a rather huge job exposing such an API and making sure those calls are thread safe. Maybe a small set of functions.

I'm developing a visual studio integration and this feature would be grand for setting breakpoints at any time from VS, building and deploying the modified source code automatically, etc...

Wow, didn't know M$ let you write your own plugins

[pacomix]

Not likely. It's a mix a Delphi and x86 assembler with 3rd party components so it'd be almost impossible to compile it.

   - I'm pretty sure its possible to have the same build environment you use.

That's a possibility, but also a rather huge job exposing such an API and making sure those calls are thread safe. Maybe a small set of functions.

   - It would be enough:
      - Insert breakpoints with all the supported parameters.
      - Re-load the symbols table or add/modify new/existent ones.
      - Reset the emulator, autoload a .dsk, load a .sna.


  - Is it really so hard? Basically it would need to listen to commands in a specific TCP port (so you don't need to mess with forks and pipes) and just call the internal functions. But well... I don't know anything about the WinAPE code so...

Wow, didn't know M$ let you write your own plugins

   - Yes! There is a quite nice API for doing so. I wrote the first integration for Vs2008 for the DS console. It's a bit messy but quite powerful once you dominate it.

[Bryce]

@pacomix

As this tool has now become a permanent installation on my test/repair system and gets used almost daily by me, is there any chance you could change the fonts of the tool to something less "Eye-cancer-inducing" ?

Thanks,
Bryce.

[pacomix]

@Bryce Haha! Yes I can. Which country flag colours do u need?

[Bryce]

A plain "Amstrad standard" yellow text on blue background would be fine.

Bryce.

[CanonMan]

A plain "Amstrad standard" yellow text on blue background would be fine.

Bryce.

Seconded!


It's a useful program, that's got me out of trouble quite a few times, but it does look hideous! Sorry!


Good old MODE 1, yellow on blue would do nicely. Or even white on blue, with hi-lighted text in red or green? (Think the same colours as Dizzy!)

[pacomix]

@Bryce Haha! I was joking

Would you agree to have a dark red background with orange font?

[Bryce]

Anything that's readable without giving me headaches is good for me

Bryce.

Edit: One other question (I know this is probably asking a lot), but would it be possible to make the program ROM based?

[pacomix]

@Bryce ROM based? I have no idea how to do it. This was just a quick and dirty tool I did for myself and talking honestly, right at the moment I have no time to invest on it. I need to look where I did put the source code since I don't remember. I think the best thing I can do is to publish the source code.

[CanonMan]

@Bryce Haha! I was joking

Would you agree to have a dark red background with orange font?

What's wrong with white or yellow on a dark blue background? Orange on red sounds like a right eyesore!

[pacomix]

@CanonMan There is nothing wrong. But I like more dark red background and orange text over it.

[Bryce]

I only suggested ROM based because when your drive is broken, disk based software isn't all that helpful if you only have one (broken) drive. If you find the source code let me know, I (or someone else most likely) could look at making a ROM from it.

Bryce.

[pacomix]

That's true! I generated a .cdt too... but I think that I never uploaded it... Definitely having it in the ROM format would be helpful but I think that it won't be more versatile than having the .cdt in a phone or real cassette. Are there really many people with a ROM interface?

[Bryce]

Maybe it could be a foreground ROM and it could be plugged in instead of ROM0 in the CPC?

Bryce.