Arnold is back!

Devilmarkus · 14:18, 11 September 09

Hi folks!

I want to inform you, that "Arnold", the popular emulator from Kevin Thacker, is back!

As most of you already have noticed, it's website had been attacked by hackers and it's broken.

But this is history now:
http://arnold.cpc-live.com/

This is the new home of Arnold!

Also some news:
Kevin is working on a new release, so stay tuned!

His popular website "Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource" is also available here:
http://arnold.cpc-live.com/cpctech

voXfReaX · 18:01, 11 September 09

Nice work

Devilman you work a lot

I am waiting for the new Arnold version!

we speak,
vox

Gryzor · 06:13, 12 September 09

So we're all gathering slowly here, aren't we?

Good thing a new version is coming...

nurgle · 22:06, 14 September 09

As maintainer of the Linux version I received some of if in-progress-snapshots during the last years. Be prepared for a really nice update!

Hopefully I will get the time to bring the Linux version on-par in the not-to-distant future.

DevilMarkus, thanks for bringing Kevin over here!

arnoldemu · 16:13, 15 September 09

Quote from: nurgle on 22:06, 14 September 09
As maintainer of the Linux version I received some of if in-progress-snapshots during the last years. Be prepared for a really nice update!

Hopefully I will get the time to bring the Linux version on-par in the not-to-distant future.

DevilMarkus, thanks for bringing Kevin over here!

Indeed, expect lots of fixes and improvements.

z80 timings, z80 emulation, fdc emulation, crtc emulation.. all have been touched and improved.

Recently I have done lots more fdc tests so Arnold will be fixed to work correctly.

Already Arnold passes 99% of z80 flags out there (memptr included).
(I think only BIT n,(HL) needs fixing now)

nurgle · 20:24, 15 September 09

Oh, hi Kevin! I should have expected you behind this username.

Great to hear from you again. Any planned release date, so I can reserve some time for a coordinated Linux release?

arnoldemu · 09:31, 16 September 09

Quote from: nurgle on 20:24, 15 September 09
Oh, hi Kevin! I should have expected you behind this username.
Great to hear from you again. Any planned release date, so I can reserve some time for a coordinated Linux release?

No plan yet, but I will upload the latest sources to berlios when I can get my machine working again (first gfx card and cpu failed, so I got a old replacement computer, now it's power supply is failing too).

nurgle · 02:20, 17 September 09

Quote from: arnoldemu on 09:31, 16 September 09
No plan yet, but I will upload the latest sources to berlios when I can get my machine working again (first gfx card and cpu failed, so I got a old replacement computer, now it's power supply is failing too).

Bad luck.

However I like the bit about BerliOS. So do we now have a joined source repository?

Gryzor · 06:46, 17 September 09

I think I'll install a distro on VirtualPC just to run and check it out...

dlfrsilver · 20:40, 14 October 09

we need so much a good FDC emulation to support the BIG rise of dumps we have today of original games

specfreak · 23:21, 14 October 09

I thought WinAPE was catering for most of the weird disk loader finds, together with SamDisk dumps ?
Rumour has it that there's another WIP emulator that had good FCD emulation and can emulate other disk
formats ;-) I need to get back up to speed as to what is happening.

dlfrsilver · 20:30, 15 October 09

Winape doesn't

In fact, actually no emulator cope with real timing, real thing.

The emus are nowhere near to what a real CPC is. because of z80 bugs, bad timings, FDC inaccuracy etc etc...

specfreak · 21:57, 15 October 09

I know this probably wouldn't happen, but I'd love to see a collaboration with Spectrum and Amstrad emulators authors which have possibly better FDC emulation ?

My fave emulator is CPCE 1.90, but it hasn't been updated for a while. It'd be great to see a tape browser as well, helps a lot
when testing CDTs.

dlfrsilver · 22:37, 15 October 09

CPCE is my fav too, but the latest beta are not publicly available.

ukmarkh · 07:03, 31 March 10

Chaps,

As a MAC user, my only real choice in emulation of the CPC is through the emulator 'Arnold'. Now this seems to me like a real good emulator for playing games, and I have been. The problems occur when I come to play the likes of Dead on Time, Orion Prime or anything that has recently been released.

Any ideas why these games don't work under Arnold, is there a work-around in order to get them working?

Executioner · 07:18, 31 March 10

Quote from: dlfrsilver on 20:30, 15 October 09
Winape doesn't In fact, actually no emulator cope with real timing, real thing.

Not meaning to knock anyone here, I think it's a great thing that we're actually getting original versions of games rather than the crappy cracks on NVG. I'd probably have more luck getting it to work though if the DSK images I end up testing in order to improve WinAPE weren't actually corrupted. It takes ages debugging the loaders to find a sector error causes the game not to load (god knows how they seem to work more often in CPCE!)

arnoldemu · 09:27, 31 March 10

Quote from: ukmarkh on 07:03, 31 March 10
Chaps,

As a MAC user, my only real choice in emulation of the CPC is through the emulator 'Arnold'. Now this seems to me like a real good emulator for playing games, and I have been. The problems occur when I come to play the likes of Dead on Time, Orion Prime or anything that has recently been released.

Any ideas why these games don't work under Arnold, is there a work-around in order to get them working?

Hmmm.. I'll have a look.

Are you running Arnold under MacOSX?

I may be able to cross compile for Mac with my new sources.
My latest sources have loads of bug fixes and timing improvements in them so a newer mac build would be a great improvement.

arnoldemu · 09:28, 31 March 10

Quote from: dlfrsilver on 20:30, 15 October 09
Winape doesn't In fact, actually no emulator cope with real timing, real thing.

The emus are nowhere near to what a real CPC is. because of z80 bugs, bad timings, FDC inaccuracy etc etc...

I have developed more tests for fdc including timing tests so that we can fix these.

Existing z80 tests are out there for testing z80 timing (plustest) and z80 instructions (zexall).
So I hope we are getting closer.

arnoldemu · 09:29, 31 March 10

Quote from: Executioner on 07:18, 31 March 10
Not meaning to knock anyone here, I think it's a great thing that we're actually getting original versions of games rather than the crappy cracks on NVG. I'd probably have more luck getting it to work though if the DSK images I end up testing in order to improve WinAPE weren't actually corrupted. It takes ages debugging the loaders to find a sector error causes the game not to load (god knows how they seem to work more often in CPCE!)

Cesar has been actively fixing bugs in fdc and cassette emulation in CPCE so more often they will work in CPCE!
I've fixed a few things in Arnold, but to emulate some protections you have to go as far as reconstructing the track down to the MFM data level.

ukmarkh · 14:00, 31 March 10

Yep, MacOSX 10.4.11

If you can get it working I'd be eternally thankful.

Quote from: arnoldemu on 09:27, 31 March 10
Hmmm.. I'll have a look.

Are you running Arnold under MacOSX?

I may be able to cross compile for Mac with my new sources.
My latest sources have loads of bug fixes and timing improvements in them so a newer mac build would be a great improvement.

nurgle · 15:43, 31 March 10

Hi Kev,

whats the status of your latest sources? Do they build on Linux? Currently I have zero time to work on the Linux port, but that may change next month, so it would be nice to have something current to work on.

arnoldemu · 15:48, 31 March 10

Quote from: nurgle on 15:43, 31 March 10
Hi Kev,

whats the status of your latest sources? Do they build on Linux? Currently I have zero time to work on the Linux port, but that may change next month, so it would be nice to have something current to work on.

No they probably don't build on linux.
I still plan to try and compile them to work with linux so that you don't have to fight that part at least

Executioner · 01:10, 01 April 10

Quote from: arnoldemu on 09:29, 31 March 10
but to emulate some protections you have to go as far as reconstructing the track down to the MFM data level.

WinAPE had a lot of work done (total FDC rewrite) last year, and it goes most of the way down to the MFM data level. Unfortunately, there isn't enough information stored in a DSK image for that to be of much use, but we now have methods of storing inter-sector data and multiple copies, which covers most protection schemes.

News:

Arnold is back!