News:

Printed Amstrad Addict magazine announced, check it out here!

Main Menu
avatar_Arnaud

CPCEC a new emulator from cngsoft

Started by Arnaud, 08:14, 16 March 19

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

pelrun

#300
It's probably temporary - being on no-ip means it's self-hosted so it just means his network or PC is currently down.


robcfg

Yep, there's a problem with the conversion of text to link.

Better summon @Gryzor  :D

Gryzor

Quote from: robcfg on 21:18, 21 February 23Yep, there's a problem with the conversion of text to link.

Better summon @Gryzor  :D
Damn, sorry, will take a look in the morning, trying to fix my phone right now (which I royally fucked up playing with system props)

CraigsBar

As I've been looking for this for what seems like forever I thought I might as well ask here. @cngsoft would a port of CPCEC be possible to Android. There is a distinct lack of quality cpc emulation out there for the CPC and GX4000 / Plus support even in retroarch is abysmal!

I now have an AYN Odin and the only thing it is missing is a decent way of playing GX4000 Pang! Retro arch manages about 4fps which is as you might imagine unplayable. I had hoped that I'd get the Windows builds of either CPCEC or RVM working on the Windows 11 ARM partition on the console, but they do not play nice on there :( Odd since CPCEC works on Windows 11 for Arm on my M1 Mac.  I did not test RVM in this way as I have the Mac Native version installed anyway. 
IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

SkulleateR

Quote from: CraigsBar on 01:48, 22 February 23As I've been looking for this for what seems like forever I thought I might as well ask here. @cngsoft would a port of CPCEC be possible to Android. There is a distinct lack of quality cpc emulation out there for the CPC and GX4000 / Plus support even in retroarch is abysmal!

I now have an AYN Odin and the only thing it is missing is a decent way of playing GX4000 Pang! Retro arch manages about 4fps which is as you might imagine unplayable. I had hoped that I'd get the Windows builds of either CPCEC or RVM working on the Windows 11 ARM partition on the console, but they do not play nice on there :( Odd since CPCEC works on Windows 11 for Arm on my M1 Mac.  I did not test RVM in this way as I have the Mac Native version installed anyway.

You may want to check out https://www.cpc-emu.org for your Android needs ;) Anyway, I would also love to see CPCEC running on Android and Mac for some testing :D

CraigsBar

Quote from: SkulleateR on 04:11, 22 February 23
Quote from: CraigsBar on 01:48, 22 February 23As I've been looking for this for what seems like forever I thought I might as well ask here. @cngsoft would a port of CPCEC be possible to Android. There is a distinct lack of quality cpc emulation out there for the CPC and GX4000 / Plus support even in retroarch is abysmal!

I now have an AYN Odin and the only thing it is missing is a decent way of playing GX4000 Pang! Retro arch manages about 4fps which is as you might imagine unplayable. I had hoped that I'd get the Windows builds of either CPCEC or RVM working on the Windows 11 ARM partition on the console, but they do not play nice on there :( Odd since CPCEC works on Windows 11 for Arm on my M1 Mac.  I did not test RVM in this way as I have the Mac Native version installed anyway.

You may want to check out https://www.cpc-emu.org for your Android needs ;) Anyway, I would also love to see CPCEC running on Android and Mac for some testing :D
Yeah, I've tried cpc-emu for Android. Whilst it is the best of a bad lot, it's still far from as seamless as, say Robert Broglia's c64 and msx (C64.EMU and MSX.EMU) emulators or redream, PPSSPP etc...m
IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

cngsoft

Quote from: CraigsBar on 01:48, 22 February 23As I've been looking for this for what seems like forever I thought I might as well ask here. @cngsoft would a port of CPCEC be possible to Android.
I've been busy for a while, hence my long silence and the lack of news, but I'm afraid that Android ports of CPCEC and kin will require an expert on that platform. The SDL2 version of CPCEC is the most I could do for non-Windows environments, and only because of the excellent work that SDL2 does at "wrapping" all the operations that fall beyond the scope of the C standard library.
(if you can't see the banner right now my server is currently offline)

walterg74

Hey folks, 2 dumb questions:

1) Is the keymap for CPCEC  listed anywhere, specially for the special keys? (no pun intended :) )

2) Are there any shortcuts for tape drive control? (Play/Stop/FFW, etc.) 

Thanks!

pelrun

As far as the keyboard mapping goes, this is straight from the manual (cpcec-e.txt):


QuoteThe mapping between the real keyboard and the emulated is straightforward
(alphanumeric table, control keys, numeric keypad, cursors...) with the only
particularities of DELETE for CLR and INSERT for COPY, as their functions are
equivalent but modern keyboards no longer place these keys within the
alphanumeric table.


I don't see any reference to manual control of tapes, though, probably because it's not normally needed in an emulator (auto-play using the remote signal is generally sufficient.)

walterg74

Quote from: pelrun on 14:36, 03 April 23As far as the keyboard mapping goes, this is straight from the manual (cpcec-e.txt):


QuoteThe mapping between the real keyboard and the emulated is straightforward
(alphanumeric table, control keys, numeric keypad, cursors...) with the only
particularities of DELETE for CLR and INSERT for COPY, as their functions are
equivalent but modern keyboards no longer place these keys within the
alphanumeric table.


I don't see any reference to manual control of tapes, though, probably because it's not normally needed in an emulator (auto-play using the remote signal is generally sufficient.)
Thanks!

Yeah, I realize normally not needed, just ocd and quirkyness of loving to "emulate" even those things :)

One more technical doubt just came up playing around some more:

With command line options etc, you choose which machine will be emulated. 

But if I pick a 464 for example, why does CTRL+ENTER not work and you have to enter |tape first as if it were a different model? Is this a bug?

Johnny Olsen

No - but it is not the cpc 464 rom that has the control but the Disc rom.
Removing "Disc controller" should solve the problem.


walterg74

Quote from: Johnny Olsen on 15:57, 03 April 23No - but it is not the cpc 464 rom that has the control but the Disc rom.
Removing "Disc controller" should solve the problem.



Ah ok I see. So when there is a disc controller present, that takes precedence/is the default? And I assume that is the same behaviour on a real/physical machine?


pelrun

Yes, the AMSDOS ROM always overrides the original firmware vectors on initialisation. |tape simply restores the original vectors.

If you pull that ROM out of a 6128 it'll boot up in tape mode too.

walterg74

Quote from: pelrun on 17:14, 03 April 23Yes, the AMSDOS ROM always overrides the original firmware vectors on initialisation. |tape simply restores the original vectors.

If you pull that ROM out of a 6128 it'll boot up in tape mode too.

Thanks!

"Mystery" solved... :) 

cngsoft

New year, new life. I released the first revision of "Alloy Box" few hours before 2023 ended and now I realise how badly I've neglected CPCEC and CSW2CDT.

CPCEC kept evolving under the hood despite its lack of public activity, with assorted fixes and improvements, the latest ones enabling 2MB RAM extensions and letting the first version of "Still The One" run in full shape. Gate Array and CRTC details stay elusive though, and thus "Revolog" from Logon System still fails to decrypt, while "DSC4" from the same authors detects its host.

CPCEC's siblings ZXSEC and CSFEC kept evolving too, albeit at a slower rate. CSFEC still lacks a disc drive, the single biggest obstacle before feeding full-length demos to the emulator. ZXSEC does better, but only because I chose not to go further than the Spectrum Plus 3 and the Pentagon 128K models. Meanwhile a third sibling came to be, after a conversation on digital tapes and the general lack of a fully integrated TZX (in this case, TSX) decoder within MSX emulators: MSXEC aims to fill that gap. In fact it already went further than originally planned: it emulates the MSX2 and MSX2+ ranges as well as the original MSX that almost all tapes were made for.

Tape preservation stays the purpose of CSW2CDT, but it's been developing thru alpha testing and private binaries, leading to a vicious circle of performance anxiety and avoidance thereof. So what to do now? Releasing new versions of CPCEC and CSW2CDT despite the hazy Gate Array emulation, the missing C64 disc drive, the unfinished OPLL MSX2+ sound chip...? Staying hidden and offline for yet another year perhaps?
(if you can't see the banner right now my server is currently offline)

walterg74

Quote from: cngsoft on 21:53, 01 January 24New year, new life. I released the first revision of "Alloy Box" few hours before 2023 ended and now I realise how badly I've neglected CPCEC and CSW2CDT.

CPCEC kept evolving under the hood despite its lack of public activity, with assorted fixes and improvements, the latest ones enabling 2MB RAM extensions and letting the first version of "Still The One" run in full shape. Gate Array and CRTC details stay elusive though, and thus "Revolog" from Logon System still fails to decrypt, while "DSC4" from the same authors detects its host.

CPCEC's siblings ZXSEC and CSFEC kept evolving too, albeit at a slower rate. CSFEC still lacks a disc drive, the single biggest obstacle before feeding full-length demos to the emulator. ZXSEC does better, but only because I chose not to go further than the Spectrum Plus 3 and the Pentagon 128K models. Meanwhile a third sibling came to be, after a conversation on digital tapes and the general lack of a fully integrated TZX (in this case, TSX) decoder within MSX emulators: MSXEC aims to fill that gap. In fact it already went further than originally planned: it emulates the MSX2 and MSX2+ ranges as well as the original MSX that almost all tapes were made for.

Tape preservation stays the purpose of CSW2CDT, but it's been developing thru alpha testing and private binaries, leading to a vicious circle of performance anxiety and avoidance thereof. So what to do now? Releasing new versions of CPCEC and CSW2CDT despite the hazy Gate Array emulation, the missing C64 disc drive, the unfinished OPLL MSX2+ sound chip...? Staying hidden and offline for yet another year perhaps?
So.. new releases soon?  :D

eto

Quote from: cngsoft on 21:53, 01 January 24I released the first revision of "Alloy Box" few hours before 2023 ended 
oh... nice. Where can that be found?

XeNoMoRPH

Quote from: eto on 00:14, 02 January 24
Quote from: cngsoft on 21:53, 01 January 24I released the first revision of "Alloy Box" few hours before 2023 ended
oh... nice. Where can that be found?
cngsoft.no-ip.org/alloybox.htm
your amstrad news source in spanish language : https://auamstrad.es

eto


XeNoMoRPH

It is his own server that he has at home, which happens that sometimes he is not online.
your amstrad news source in spanish language : https://auamstrad.es

cngsoft

Quote from: eto on 09:17, 02 January 24
Quote from: XeNoMoRPH on 07:21, 02 January 24cngsoft.no-ip.org/alloybox.htm
does not work for me
This is indeed one of the things I must address. Running my own bedroom webserver was funny during the first years; not so much nowadays, particularly since the computer's fan got too noisy at night. Perhaps I should move all my softwares to Github or something alike for once at all.
Quote from: walterg74 on 23:47, 01 January 24So.. new releases soon?  :D
Yes, exactly! I still await the answers from a couple of fellows regarding tape conversion though.
(if you can't see the banner right now my server is currently offline)

cngsoft

Btw, now I notice that Xenomorph's link was wrong to begin with -- it leads to https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum///cngsoft.no-ip.org/alloybox.htm :-( The right address is http://cngsoft.no-ip.org/alloybox.htm
(if you can't see the banner right now my server is currently offline)

walterg74




Is it correct that last version to download is from August 2022 ?

cngsoft

Quote from: walterg74 on 23:43, 19 February 24Is it correct that last version to download is from August 2022 ?
It was correct until yesterday, because here's the new release at last:



20240224 -- twenty-fourth public release. MSXEC is a new MSX emulator supporting the first three generations (1983 MSX, 1985 MSX2 and 1988 MSX2+), their Western Digital-based disc drives and some few additional devices (such as the Konami SCC-051649 sound chip and the JIS 128/256K external ROMs) although the emulation is less developed in some fields than others (VDP timings are inaccurate: Logon System's intro "IO" shows artifacts in the 3D scrollers and the final screen; the MSX-MUSIC interface is minimal, barely able to play notes). Fixed bugs in the Z80 (such as bad inner timings in EX HL,(SP) and EX IX,(SP) detected by Kio's "Z80 Test Programm"), the CRTC (VSYNC loss in the dancing bobs of "PhX" on CRTC4, misaligned HSYNC in Longshot's RV.BAS), the ULA ("snow" in 128K models can leak from different banks than VRAM), the VIC-II ("Super Stock Car" switched the video display off when it shouldn't) and the SID (L-Man's "Amazing Discoveries" failed to play samples; "Mazemania" got weak random values from ports 27 and 28). Added 1088K and 2112K RAM modes to CPCEC (the first version of "Still the One" needed 1024K to run) and REU/GeoRAM RAM extensions (up to 512K) to CSFEC. Code cleanup in several modules, turning repeated paragraphs into several "goto" pointing to a single paragraph and merging several lists into a single table. Streamlined video and audio filters, the former removing the "Half scanlines" video mode and adding two new options: "Microwave static" that adds randomised noise to the image and "Narrow X-Blending" that softens the effect of the X-blending option. CSFEC now has an explicit "Play tape" option instead of autoplay: some titles rely on the user pressing TAPE and STOP on the tape deck ("Super Space Invaders"). Snapshots in CSFEC and MSXEC are optionally compressed with a quick implementation of Emmanuel Marty's LZSA2 method. The user can set whether the screenshots are BMP (default) or QOI files. Removed the Spanish documentation due to lack of readers.



I also released the first open-source version of the tape conversion suite CSW2CDT, plus minor updates for the musical tracker CHIPNSFX and the Z80 assembler UZ80:

* CSW2CDT: - 20240224 - first public release. The list of double-hyphen encodings is "amstrad", "alkatraz", "bleepload1", "bleepload2", "carsoncity", "cassys", "ehservices", "frankbruno", "gremlin1", "gremlin2", "hexagon", "kansas", "keytone", "maubeuge", "microkey", "operasoft", "poliload", "puffyssaga", "ricochet", "spectrum", "specvar0", "specvar1", "specvar2", "speedlock0", "speedlock1", "speedlock2", "speedlock3", "speedlock4", "speedlock5", "speedlock6", "speedlock7", "unilode" and "zydroload".
* CHIPNSFX: - 20240224 -- minor patch improving non-Win32 compatibility ('realpath' behaves differently in Alpine Linux because it's built upon MUSL instead of GLIBC) and adding a new size optimisation from Jean-Marie. Added COCOATM0-1.CHP.
* UZ80: - 20240224 -- minor patch removing several warnings and reducing the version string to the date alone; the time had been meaningless for a very long while.


As usual, the new files are in my not very stable website... I really need to start migrating stuff to Github in the near future.
(if you can't see the banner right now my server is currently offline)

Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod