C65 BASIC Graphics demos don't work about c65gs

[andrzejsliwa]

hi @gardners, I'm observing your efforts about mega65, I wonder how I can help you to make it live?

[gardners]

Hello,
There is plenty of stuff to be done. The question is what your skills and interests are. VHDL or 6502 coding? Porting compilers? Documentation? Something more related to the financial side of things?

Paul.

[gardners]

... also a related thing that would be handy is to analyse games and programs that don't work on the MEGA65 to find out why, so that we can target the problem areas. Bonus points for finding out why Impossible Mission doesn't run, and fixing the MEGA65 so that it runs.

[pmprog]

Hi,

I'm interested in VHDL (though I wouldn't say I had any skills in that area... yet). I also replied here
http://mega65.net/mega65-wants-you

Do you have an idea how far away the actual MEGA65 hardware is?
I found a Nexys4 board on Digikey (link below) but it was pretty expensive, so I kind of want to be sure whether it's the right kit (though ideally, I'd prefer an actual MEGA65 ;-) )
http://www.digikey.co.uk/product-search/en?newproducts=0&keywords=NEXYS4+DDR&v=

Regards,
Marq

[gardners]

Message from Detlef below.

Hi Marq,

this is indeed the right board. We are still developing on this board as our mainboard is not
done yet. The case is done and we are working on the keyboard. Looking at the whole package I'd
say we have reached about 80% of the final machine. What have you done before, what are your
main skills and how could you possibly contribute? :)

best
Detlef

Message from me now :)

By all means start learning VHDL, but it will take you a little while, in all likelihood.

In the meantime, if you are willing to help diagnose problems that are stopping various games from working, that would be really, really helpful, since at the end of the day, if it can't run games people want to play, it won't be very useful!

Paul.

[pmprog]

Thanks for the reply.

That board only contains 1 USB port, are you using that for the keyboard? How are you connecting joysticks? or are you using some of those switches?

I mostly write games and other software, used a variety of languages. Also wrote a simplistic assembly-language style language with compiler and debugger (https://github.com/pmprog/pmScript)

I am interested in learning FPGAs, but my foray into the TurboChameleon hasn't exactly taken off to a great start (I can compile and run other peoples projects, but none of mine seem to boot, but I'm not really sure why). Alternatively, I could look at some Mega65 specific software (whether it be on the Mega65, or just for the Mega65, like a cross-compiler)

A main dampener though, is that I don't have a lot of free time any more, which is annoying, but a fact of reality. So, in all honesty (there's no point in beating about the bush), I'm not exactly sure how much I can actually contribute, but if I can, I will try my best

Marq

[gardners]

Hello,

Yes, we typically use the USB port for a keyboard. For joysticks (and optionally a real C64 or C65 keyboard) we have a widget board that we have made that can be used. I am not sure if we are planning to make any more of those.

VHDL is a bit of a black art, and can be quite "interesting" to debug.

Given your time constraints and background, I think trying to debug games and find out why they don't currently work, would be a really useful job. It comes in nice discrete pieces, i.e., each game, and it doesn't matter in the short-term whether you have much time or not.

In terms of debugging, when you power the Nexys4 board running the MEGA65 core from the USB port of a computer, it presents a serial debugger interface which acts a lot like a C64 machine code monitor, and allows you to set breakpoints, and to single-step code. This should hopefully be enough to debug games and track down where they go astray. I'd suggest starting with Impossible Mission, partly because I really want it working on the MEGA65, and partly because it gets stuck at a very consistent point, and it is probably something fairly simple that is broken -- it could be our incomplete CIA implementation, for example. But the more documentation we have on games and where they are broken, the more strategic we can be at fixing the underlying defects in the MEGA65 design.

[pmprog]

Can the keyboard emulate a joystick? Just thinking it might be difficult to debug games if I can't actually control the games.

Out of curiousity, will the serial debug interface be accessible on the final MEGA65?
I wonder if that board will fit inside my Amiga 600 case (though I still need to try and work out if I can adapt the keyboard into USB using a Teensy)

[gardners]

Hello,

On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 5:29 PM, Marq Watkin [email protected]
wrote:

Can the keyboard emulate a joystick? Just thinking it might be difficult
to debug games if I can't actually control the games.

Yes, the keypad emulates both joysticks using different keys. Some
experimentation will be required to figure out which key does what.

Out of curiousity, will the serial debug interface be accessible on the
final MEGA65?

Unsure at this stage. If we can keep it, we will.

I wonder if that board will fit inside my Amiga 600 case (though I still
need to try and work out if I can adapt the keyboard into USB using a
Teensy)

I don't really know. If it is as big as a C65 case, then probably, but the
ports won't line up. We intend to get proper injection-moulded C65-like
cases made.

Paul.

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#44 (comment)

[pmprog]

Yes, the keypad emulates both joysticks using different keys. Some experimentation will be required to figure out which key does what

Sounds good

I don't really know. If it is as big as a C65 case, then probably, but the ports won't line up. We intend to get proper injection-moulded C65-like cases made.

Yeah, I'd much prefer just buy a MEGA65 than try and faff around with dev boards in all honesty. I bought my Teensy ages ago, and have never actually touched it 😢 (I was trying to make a game controller using it, emulating keyboard and 3D printing a case; another project wafting in the ether)

[gardners]

Understood. However, in the meantime, dev boards are the only option for us
to get it all working.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 9:16 PM, Marq Watkin [email protected]
wrote:

Yes, the keypad emulates both joysticks using different keys. Some
experimentation will be required to figure out which key does what
Sounds good

I don't really know. If it is as big as a C65 case, then probably, but the
ports won't line up. We intend to get proper injection-moulded C65-like
cases made.
Yeah, I'd much prefer just buy a MEGA65 than try and faff around with dev
boards in all honesty. I bought my Teensy ages ago, and have never actually
touched it [image: 😢](I was trying to make a game controller using
it, emulating keyboard and 3D printing a case; another project wafting in
the ether)

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#44 (comment)

[pmprog]

Yeah, I totally understand that. I'm still considering the dev board anyway. As I said, it'd be nice to get into FPGA. I don't know what the dev tools are like compared to the Altera one I've used though, but no harm in finding out I guess.

[pmprog]

Ordered the devboard, so I'll try and get up and running soon. When I do some tests, would you prefer me to link to the GameBase64 or CSDB page for the exact image I'm using?

[gardners]

Hello,

Link to whereever you found it, I guess. If the exact same is on both, then
both is probably good. If you have thoughts on a online database or similar
that we can use to keep track of the status of each game, that would be
great.

Paul.

On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 5:13 PM, Marq Watkin [email protected]
wrote:

Ordered the devboard, so I'll try and get up and running soon. When I do
some tests, would you prefer me to link to the GameBase64 or CSDB page for
the exact image I'm using?

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#44 (comment)

[pmprog]

We can just use the wiki feature on Github, I can fork and send pull requests as I go through tests

[gardners]

Sounds like a plan. Make it so.

On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 7:17 PM, Marq Watkin [email protected]
wrote:

We can just use the wiki feature on Github, I can fork and send pull
requests as I go through tests

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#44 (comment)

[pmprog]

Well, the courier is inept at delivering, so not sure when I'll get the board, but forked the project and started the wiki outline

[gardners]

Ok

On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 9:53 PM, Marq Watkin [email protected]
wrote:

Well, the courier is inept at delivering, so not sure when I'll get the
board, but forked the project and started the wiki outline

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#44 (comment)

[gurcei]

Hi there guys,

I'm seeing mention of a wiki relating to this project, but I am unable to view it presently.

Initially, I thought it might be due to browsing the site without actually having logged in.

So I made an account on github, re-visited this project-page, and then saw a "wiki" tab up the top.

But even if I click it now, it still doesn't seem to appear (it just re-directs me back to the main url of the project in github).

Just wondering if this is due to very tight read-access permissions on the wiki presently? Do I have to be a member of the project to see it? Was this as intended? If so, any chance I'd be able to be given access to the wiki?

I'd like to contribute to the project in my free-time, weekends. My current/active skillset is mainly c, java and wikis/documentation, but I have dabbled with 6502 assembly and vhdl in the past (and am keen on getting better acquainted with my childhood sweetheart, the c64 and its more new-age sibling ;))

Well, for now, I'll content myself with cloning the source here, having a read, and learning some of the ropes, bit by bit.

[pmprog]

The Wiki I started is visible on https://github.com/pmprog/c65gs/wiki but as I still haven't had any time to get the Nexys4 board out of the box, there's a woeful lack of any information, so I never sent the pull request for it...

[deftmega]

Hi,

thank you for your help! It is highly appreciated. If you send me an email address I could
use for google docs, I will share the latest doc on how to set up the MEGA65 using the
Nexys board. You can copy/paste it for a start if you like :)

One more thing: The machine is called MEGA65 since we (MEGA) got involved and we all avoid the
old name "c65gs". I don't know if it is possible to rename it in Github...

best
Deft

am Montag, 20. Juni 2016 um 07:52 schrieben Sie:

The Wiki I started is visible on https://github.com/pmprog/c65gs/wiki but as I still haven't had any time to get the Nexys4 board out of the box, there's a woeful lack of any information, so I never sent the pull request for it...
—
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Detlef Hastik
mailto:[email protected]

[pmprog]

Ah, that "Welcome to the c65gs wiki!" was automatically added when I created the wiki (based upon the github's project name), I just forgot to remove it when adding my content

You can use the email address devhead [at] pmprog.co.uk; It'd be nice to finally try it out, although that said, I don't think I have a monitor that supports the MEGA65's resolution.

[gurcei]

Hi guys, just to fill you in the backstory of why I brought this topic up here and cross-reference it.

I initially started asking about wikifying info on this project on the mega65.net forum here:

http://mega65.net/mega65-wiki

At the time, I had a weekend to spare, so thought I'd make a mock-up example of what a wiki could look like, temporarily at this location (you're welcome to change it to wherever you like, or scrap it, no worries):

http://gurce.net/mega65

Later on, I did some further reading on github and noticed a github wiki mentioned here, so that's why I wanted to learn more about it.

Yeah, I'm not fussed over where it's housed, or which flavour of wiki, as long as the wiki has a reasonable set of formatting functions.

Well, for now, I'll keep padding out the draft wiki at gurce.net/mega65 until you suggest otherwise.

PS. Anyone can edit the wiki there (it's a plain freeware dokuwiki install), just register, login and edit away.

[deftmega]

Hi,

very good approach, I totally like it. Please keep asking us for infos (let's connect on
tox / skype / irc?) so the content of our brains will be available for everyone :D

best
Deft

am Montag, 20. Juni 2016 um 12:59 schrieben Sie:

Hi guys, just to fill you in the backstory of why I brought this topic up here and cross-reference it.
I initially starting asking about wikifying info on this project on the mega65.net forum here:
http://mega65.net/mega65-wiki
At the time, I had a weekend to spare, so thought I'd make a mock-up example of what a wiki could look like, temporarily at this location (you're welcome to change it to wherever you like, or scrap it, no worries):
http://gurce.net/mega65
Later on, I did some further reading on github and noticed a github wiki mentioned here, so that's why I wanted to learn more about it.
Yeah, I'm not fussed over where it's housed, or which flavour of wiki, as long as the wiki has a reasonable set of formatting functions.
Well, for now, I'll keep padding out the draft wiki at gurce.net/mega65 until you suggest otherwise.
PS. Anyone can edit the wiki there (it's a plain freeware dokuwiki install), just register, login and edit away.
—
You are receiving this because you commented.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Detlef Hastik
mailto:[email protected]

[gurcei]

Hiya Deft,

Sure no probs, I tried installing tox, it gave me a tox id of: B0F6496AE68B660094FE7C0B27DED11303A9A6E4F263FB7819E50E1CB5B76C6349CF3EDE7245

I haven't touched irc in ages, but if needbe, if that's a preferred approach, I'll try get re-acquainted with it :)

Regards,
Gurce

[pmprog]

My Tox account is
E9487F8E5D4F162FED834F291127A17EA8B5572DC6C06B5E48744BEEF3A9772E030ACD16D452
Or via: [email protected]

[deftmega]

Hi Gurce,

I am currently at work, will try to tox you tonight :)

best
Deft

am Montag, 20. Juni 2016 um 13:54 schrieben Sie:

Hiya Deft,
Sure no probs, I tried installing tox, it gave me a tox id of: B0F6496AE68B660094FE7C0B27DED11303A9A6E4F263FB7819E50E1CB5B76C6349CF3EDE7245
I haven't touched irc in ages, but if needbe, if that's a preferred approach, I'll try get re-acquainted with it :)
Regards,
Gurce
—
You are receiving this because you commented.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Detlef Hastik
mailto:[email protected]

[deftmega]

Hi,

will try to tox you tonight - currently I am at work.

best
Deft

am Montag, 20. Juni 2016 um 15:33 schrieben Sie:

My Tox account is
E9487F8E5D4F162FED834F291127A17EA8B5572DC6C06B5E48744BEEF3A9772E030ACD16D452
Or via: [email protected]
—
You are receiving this because you commented.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Detlef Hastik
mailto:[email protected]

[gurcei]

No probs man :) FYI, my timezone is Sydney, Australia (GMT+10). You're in Germany? (GMT+2?)

It's 11:50pm Monday here (i'm about to zzz), and it's 3:50pm there.

I'm guessing it might be difficult to pick a good time on a workday when we're both awake! :D

Ah well, if weekdays prove to be problematic, no worries, we can try on a weekend

[gardners]

@gurcei most of the team are in Germany, except for me: I'm in Adelaide.

[deftmega]

ok good :)

Paul is in Australia too btw, maybe you can catch him if you like. He is on tox too..

best
Deft

am Montag, 20. Juni 2016 um 15:55 schrieben Sie:

No probs man :) FYI, my timezone is Sydney, Australia (GMT+10). You're in Germany? (GMT+1?)
It's 11:50pm Monday here (i'm about to zzz), and it's 3:50pm there.
I'm guessing it might be difficult to pick a good time on a workday when we're both awake! :D 
Ah well, if weekdays prove to be problematic, no worries, we can try on a weekend
—
You are receiving this because you commented.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Detlef Hastik
mailto:[email protected]

[gurcei]

@gardners Ah, that being the case, would it be alright pinging you on tox sometime suitable to you? Or if time is pressing for you, no worries. Even an occasional small post on this forum thread can help me out incrementally, I'd be happy with that:

http://mega65.net/build-errors#nnf_new-form

Right now, I'm sorting out my build issues there, and letting each build error educate me on what I'm missing. I'm happy to go about it incrementally like this and figure it out, document the journey as I go, but if you've got any pointers or tips you want to share, they'd be muchly appreciated too :)

[gurcei]

@pmprog Heya Marq, after re-reading this thread, I noticed you mentioned you still had your Nexys board in the box and were stumped for docs. I found Ralph's doc (and Deft's refinements) were really good on this matter and worth a read. I've wiki-fied their efforts here:

http://gurce.net/mega65/doku.php?id=mega65_prerelease_starter_s_manual

Those steps there can at least get you in a position to upload the bitstream onto your dev-board and enjoy and tinker with the mega65 in its current state.

You're welcome to ping me on tox if any of the steps there stump you. I'll add you up on tox now.

[gardners]

Hello,

Yes, of course poke me on Tox as you wish. I'm currently up at Arkaroola
on a field trip, so won't be about much until next week. Deft can get you
my tox ID.

Paul.

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 9:23 PM, gurcei [email protected] wrote:

@gardners https://github.com/gardners Ah, that being the case, would it
be alright pinging you on tox sometime suitable to you? Or if time is
pressing for you, no worries. Even an occasional small post on this forum
thread can help me out incrementally, I'd be happy with that:

http://mega65.net/build-errors#nnf_new-form

Right now, I'm sorting out my build issues there, and letting each build
error educate me on what I'm missing. I'm happy to go about it
incrementally like this and figure it out, document the journey as I go,
but if you've got any pointers or tips you want to share, they'd be muchly
appreciated too :)

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
#44 (comment), or mute
the thread
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe/AAonTzi5fCxVAAoas7vA-PO6CirqMqcWks5qN9DKgaJpZM4GRMMa
.

[gurcei]

No probs, enjoy Arkaroola (I had to google it :D). @deftmega Hiya Deft, would it be ok to get Paul's tox ID from you? While we're at it, can I get your Tox ID too? Cheers :)

Gurce

[gurcei]

Hi guys, hope your week went well.

Just a reminder of my ToxID:
B0F6496AE68B660094FE7C0B27DED11303A9A6E4F263FB7819E50E1CB5B76C6349CF3EDE7245

@deftmega Hopefully, you'll be able to pass across your and Paul's ToxIDs to me when you get a chance, so I can ping you over the weekend with all sorts of pesky questions :D (I'm sure you'll enjoy that, me annoying you on your weekend, hehehehe :D)

[deftmega]

Hi Gurcei,

sorry for the delay, I sent a request a few hours ago ;)

best
Deft

am Freitag, 24. Juni 2016 um 09:24 schrieben Sie:

Hi guys, hope your week went well.
Just a reminder of my ToxID:
B0F6496AE68B660094FE7C0B27DED11303A9A6E4F263FB7819E50E1CB5B76C6349CF3EDE7245
@deftmega Hopefully, you'll be able to pass across your and Paul's ToxIDs to me when you get a chance, so I can ping you over the weekend with all sorts of pesky questions :D (I'm sure you'll enjoy that, me annoying you on your weekend, hehehehe :D)
—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Detlef Hastik
mailto:[email protected]

[gardners]

My short ID for Tox is S34UJ2DD

On Sun, Jul 3, 2016 at 7:40 AM, deftmega [email protected] wrote:

Hi Gurcei,

sorry for the delay, I sent a request a few hours ago ;)

best
Deft

am Freitag, 24. Juni 2016 um 09:24 schrieben Sie:

Hi guys, hope your week went well.
Just a reminder of my ToxID:

B0F6496AE68B660094FE7C0B27DED11303A9A6E4F263FB7819E50E1CB5B76C6349CF3EDE7245
@deftmega Hopefully, you'll be able to pass across your and Paul's ToxIDs
to me when you get a chance, so I can ping you over the weekend with all
sorts of pesky questions :D (I'm sure you'll enjoy that, me annoying you on
your weekend, hehehehe :D)
—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Detlef Hastik
mailto:[email protected]

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
#44 (comment), or mute
the thread
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe/AAonT-dNpsmu651sE5I6QZGKVhK7MdGXks5qRuHWgaJpZM4GRMMa
.

[gurcei]

Hi guys, I opened my utox client on the mac, I couldn't see deft's invite as yet. I also wasn't able to add Paul's short ID either, it complains that "Error: Invalid Tox ID" :(

[gurcei]

Not sure if it's some limitation with my utox client (perhaps it needed to be running when deft added me in order for me to see the invite?) Oh well, I'll log into the irc #mega channel too, just in-case it is my utox client's fault.

[gurcei]

Just in-case it helps, I tried installing the qtox client, to see if it works any better. It still can't add short IDs there either though (so can't add Paul). It also lists friend requests there, and currently, it's showing up as empty (so can't see Deft's request).

[deftmega]

Hey,

probably we both need to be online to make it work. I'll try to be ;)

cheers
deft

am Sonntag, 3. Juli 2016 um 01:42 schrieben Sie:

Just in-case it helps, I tried installing the qtox client, to see if it works any better. It still can't add short IDs there either though (so can't add Paul). It also lists friend requests there, and currently, it's showing up as empty (so can't see Deft's request).
—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Detlef Hastik [MEGA Museum of Electronic Games & Art]
mailto:[email protected]

[gurcei]

Whew, I finally saw your invite Deft, and I accepted! I get the impression that with Tox, both sides need to be online at the same time to see each other's invites, and perhaps even also to see each other's messages. Ie, I don't think there's any central server that stores invites or messages while you're offline and then forwards them to you when you log in.

Eg. This morning, I accepted Deft's invite and messaged him, but I have a gut feeling that since he was offline, his side saw neither the accepted invite, nor my message? :)

Well, to get around this limitation, I thought I'd better install "Antox" on my android phone, so at the very least, it will stay connected online 24/7, and less chance of missing an invite or a message.

[deftmega]

Heya,

yes I saw some text from you and that it worked. That's a good start :)

Unofortunately my time is less than short atm so it might take a few
days until we finally catch each other. But don't worry, we'll get it
done. There still is good old email! You can reach me any time via
deft#m-e-g-a.org . Replace the # with something familiar ;D

best
Deft

am Montag, 4. Juli 2016 um 11:42 schrieben Sie:

Whew, I finally saw your invite Deft, and I accepted! I get the impression that with Tox, both sides need to be online at the same time to see each other's invites, and perhaps even also to see each other's messages. Ie, I don't think there's any central server that stores invites or messages while you're offline and then forwards them to you when you log in.
Eg. This morning, I accepted Deft's invite and messaged him, but I have a gut feeling that since he was offline, his side saw neither the accepted invite, nor my message? :)
Well, to get around this limitation, I thought I'd better install "Antox" on my android phone, so at the very least, it will stay connected online 24/7, and less chance of missing an invite or a message.
—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Detlef Hastik
mailto:[email protected]