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[Transversion]

#91

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Games / WIP Transversion

Last post by Typhon - 22:50, 22 April 24

Evening all,
 
Some screenshots of a new project: Transversion: a port to the CPC of the 1983 Solar-Fox/Gridrunner game originally for the Speccy. I'm using the lovely CPCTelera library, and I hope to have it completed in a few weeks, and I'll be including a few of the graphical tweaks from the awesome versions by Denis Grachev, (Sector and Sector:Invasion) which were released a few years ago, also for the Spectrum. Will work on any CPC, and full source code will be available. Stay tuned to this thread for more details!

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#92

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Amstrad CPC hardware / Re: VGA through rpi pico - How...

Last post by gregg - 22:21, 22 April 24

This is an interesting project, but probably useless if the converter is too academic with the video signal.
Most demos would not be rendered properly when hsync/vsync timings are not correct (on purpose or by programming mistake).
CTM totally accepts that, but not oscc, which make it useless. It would be sad your product suffers of the same issue

I am sure I am never going to match what exactly CTM can display or even get close to it or even to any CRT monitor. My goal is to have something close to what you can get from a scandoubler, but with the total cost of a couple dollars, much smaller size, but working only with Amstrad and skip support for all the features that other scandoublers have. I would not support interlace, other resolutions and timings than amstrad one, or no other palettes. And even if it will be useless I am doing it first of all to learn stuff, so for me it is a win-win situation

#93

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Amstrad CPC hardware / Re: External Gotek disc missin...

Last post by robertix - 22:17, 22 April 24

Thanks a lot. You're so right. My CPC is a german 6128 ... not plus I wasn't aware that the 6128 and the 6128 plus have a different pinlayout 🙈 But what is the exact layout? Pinning translation between different connectors (CPC-PL-9, Centronics 36pin, Floppy connector 34pin) ? ? ?

#94

Amstrad CPC hardware / Re: VGA through rpi pico - How...

Last post by krusty_benediction - 22:13, 22 April 24

This is an interesting project, but probably useless if the converter is too academic with the video signal.
Most demos would not be rendered properly when hsync/vsync timings are not correct (on purpose or by programming mistake).
CTM totally accepts that, but not oscc, which make it useless. It would be sad your product suffers of the same issue

#95

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Amstrad CPC hardware / Re: VGA through rpi pico - How...

Last post by gregg - 21:57, 22 April 24

I suspect the black lines are just part of VSYNC and never actually visible. As to which ones are visible, that's probably impossible to say because it'll be slightly different depending on the adjustment settings on the monitor. Picking the middle-ish bunch to give roughly even border top and bottom is probably the right approach.

Thanks. I will do it this way. I will get 200 lines from main screen + 28 from each border.
But if I manage to get over that 256 lines limitation and be able to use 256+32=288 lines then I would have both borders + even 2 spare lines. That would make a lot of sense if it is doable. I need to try.

#96

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Amstrad CPC hardware / Re: VGA through rpi pico - How...

Last post by andycadley - 21:53, 22 April 24

I suspect the black lines are just part of VSYNC and never actually visible. As to which ones are visible, that's probably impossible to say because it'll be slightly different depending on the adjustment settings on the monitor. Picking the middle-ish bunch to give roughly even border top and bottom is probably the right approach.

#97

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Amstrad CPC hardware / Re: VGA through rpi pico - How...

Last post by gregg - 21:20, 22 April 24

CPC has V-synch freq ..... 50,080(128205) Hz sorry.

Pinball Dream has ~280 line  sorry.

Yep. I know it is a bit over 50hz. I took it into account when reading input. And no need to be sorry

Thanks for all the examples, but do you know the answer to my original question? For example in Pinball Dreams, which 280 lines are those? That is the most important for me to find how many lines and which of them I need to read. For example if this time it is the whole bottom border and a part of top one, and in other game using 280 lines it will be the whole top border and a part of bottom one, then I can't use 280 lines but I need more. What about those 10 black lines that I see above top border? Does any game use it? Is it visible on original monitor?
I can think about some other trick with dmas to have maybe not 256 lines but 288 (256+32), but I need to know if it makes any sense. If instead of 10% games causing troubles it will be 9% then I think it is not worth doing.
Also if it will look like I need to use every single input line and find solution for that, I don't want to have monitor filled with a lot of stuff that is rarely used, leaving actual screen area much smaller.

Fortunately it is much simpler in horizontal direction. There is just 800 columns between hsync signals so I just copy all of them.

And thanks for all the examples, I did not expect there are so many exception.

#98

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Technical support - Hardware related / Re: CPC 6128 - white screen, b...

Last post by mmldrm - 20:55, 22 April 24

After I short IORQ and READY, then turn on the CPC, pin20 of Z80 is 0 (well, 0.14v so I guess 'low' is correct).

Should I continue to short IORQ and READY? Or stop?

I removed IORQ->READY and added the RED connection. But voltage was 5v.

I expect you will say I must keep IORQ->READY so the Z80 remains stopped, while I do RED connect and measurements. But I wanted to confirm.

#99

Amstrad CPC hardware / Re: VGA through rpi pico - How...

Last post by McArti0 - 20:31, 22 April 24

CPC has V-synch freq ..... 50,080(128205) Hz sorry.

Pinball Dream has ~280 line  sorry.

[CPMDSK01.IMG]

#100

Applications (CPC and CPC-related) / Re: HDCPM - boot and run CP/M ...

Last post by d_kef - 20:29, 22 April 24

HDCPM v1.11 is here!

The new features are:

• You can mount up to 100 different .IMG files and up to 4 Partitions to the 4 available mount points. As a consequence, CP/M (virtual) hard disks are now treated as removable. Use the new utility MOUNT.COM to list your available hard disks and mount them. So you can make your library of up to about 800MB of programs and data in mountable image files.
• RTC.COM now supports the NOVA interface.
• A couple of bugs were fixed.

As always, you can download the new release at the HDCPM wiki page.
There you can also find a new .IMG containing many .EMS system files to try.

d_kef would it be possible for you to update the version of the CP/M disk images ZIP on the HDCPM wiki page to include this version of CPMDSK01.IMG, so my 464 bretheren will suffer no more? 

That's also been included.

d_kef