Re: MPU-401, General MIDI and WaveBlaster programming

Posted on 2018-07-16, 17:06

by

by thp

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'll try that. I think I remember reading somewhere that the 0x331 port isn't used in UART except for resetting it to Intelligent Mode, but I guess that only applies to writing, not reading then. Will fix this and retry with real hardware, thanks so far!

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MPU-401, General MIDI and WaveBlaster programming

Posted on 2018-07-16, 15:50

by

by thp

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I've recently added support for MPU-401 to my game-in-development ( Vogons thread ), but it does not work properly on real hardware, so I thought I'd post here in the audio forum with some programming-related questions. I followed Programming the MPU-401 and the MIDI Specification as reference for …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-16, 15:24

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Cool, thanks for the video! Also, I'm going to implement the gameplay / levelling up things still, but the music thing kept me busy a bit longer than expected, so here's an interim build and some development news. So, I got a new MIDI-based gameplay tune from Tim (samoff.com) and started working on …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-12, 08:51

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Cool, thanks for testing :) I've now also got some MIDI soundtrack for the game, I'll try to adapt it to OPL-2 soon and maybe also a MIDI output option, or is that overkill? And if I get to it, maybe also implement the other suggestion from here to add some level progression, slower change of …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-08, 11:22

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pretty cool software - well done. How long did it take you to develop it? I really like the intro screen. Not really into soundcards and their features - are ESS 1868/SB Live!/ALS1x0 good for testing regarding OPL2? Could take me a while but I will try running it one of these "Industrial" Epson …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-07, 20:30

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

..and one more build with the in-game background redraw logic a bit optimised (only draw "in between" areas, not the whole screen, which then gets overdrawn anyway by the playfield + score/instruction boxes) and an extra block pattern as bonus, compiled for older machines (8086/8088 compatible).

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-07, 11:13

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Cool that it started working now :) As for the OPL-2 chiptune, that'd be a good idea to improve upon my ad-hoc "music" ;) Anyone knows somebody who would be up for it? I'll think about adding EGA or CGA support, but maybe creating a totally different game (or a really stripped down version) for …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-06, 15:05

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I found a bug that might cause the crashes (wrongly sized palette table, was overwriting 96 bytes of memory somewhere where it shouldn't have). Fixed builds attached (r16 for 386+ and r17 for 8088/8086), I've also not packed the executables this time in case there are incompatibilities with the …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-05, 22:14

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't know anything about your code, but I would assume that it waits for some state or event that doesn't occur on the systems I tested it on (at least not in pure DOS) and that causes the game to get stuck at the black screen. Thanks for testing! Sounds weird, especially the "unknown" opcode …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-05, 22:03

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What video modes are supported? My IBM 5150 (8088 with a 286 upgrade card) would probably like this game, but I can only run CGA or EGA games on that system. Right now it only supports VGA mode 13h, due to the linear addressing mode being a bit easier to grasp for me (still). Planar EGA (and once …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-05, 21:49

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Question: what 386 features does it use? Would a 286 or 8088 port be hard? If there's interest (and somebody willing to test) i can try working on a 8088/8086 compatible build After removing the long integer usage (which might lead to problems with timekeeping, as the code doesn't yet properly deal …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-05, 21:29

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Question: what 386 features does it use? Would a 286 or 8088 port be hard? If you only need around 64 KiB RAM, protected mode should not be the issue... so what other features do you use? 32 bit moves? Maybe a 16 bit port might be possible... So I'm using Borland C++ 3.1 and I'm building without …

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Re: New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-05, 21:20

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How did I do? ;) 7495 is quite a good score :) I played the game on my 486 (well pushing it, Cyrix 5x86 120Mhz with register enhancements) and it played without any noticeable lag. The game felt responsive is probably the best way to put it. Thanks for testing and the "proof photo" 8) Nice to see …

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New game: Loonies 8192 (386+, VGA, OPL-2)

Posted on 2018-07-05, 16:33

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This week I've extended my quick DOS port of a Lumines-like puzzle game and the result is Loonies 8192 , a 16-bit (386+), VGA and OPL-2 game coming in at only 8 KiB (executable size, that is -- it should only need 64 KiB of RAM). I've been developing it mostly in DOSBox, and at least on my machine, …

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LuminDOS: Lumines Clone for DOS/PC Speaker

Posted on 2018-06-18, 19:00

by

by thp

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Here's a little 1-hour DOS game hack: LuminDOS, a Lumines Clone for MS-DOS, using text mode + PC Speaker sound: https://thp.itch.io/lumindos Use DOSBox or a real PC (>= 80386). In DOSBox, you might need to up your CPU cycles (Ctrl+F12). This is a super quick implementation and not optimized in any …

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Re: Mounted a Voodoo2 sideways where it didn't fit on the board

Posted on 2017-07-07, 08:13

by

by thp

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Looking good, nxt up is sli? Hehe, I thought about that, but I mostly did this because I already had the Voodoo2 (it's the original one I used in the 90ies), if I were to buy a new card, I'd probably go for a Voodoo3 in the AGP slot instead of an additional Voodoo2. SLI cable + 2x PCI extension …

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Mounted a Voodoo2 sideways where it didn't fit on the board

Posted on 2017-07-05, 11:54

by

by thp

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I've ordered a Super Socket 7 mainboard off eBay a few months ago, which I wanted to outfit with my Voodoo2 card for some retro gaming. When I received it and assembled the machine, I found out that there was a problem: "behind" the PCI sockets was the CPU and its cooler, preventing me from …

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Super Socket 7 build - audio and video card choices

Posted on 2017-05-25, 18:50

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I've bought a Super Socket 7 board off eBay with an AMD K6-2 500 MHz and 64 MB of RAM and awaiting its arrival. It has 1x AGP, 3x PCI and 3x ISA. I'll probably be putting it in an AT case, replacing my 486 board and now have a choice of graphics and sound cards that I already have. Primary 2D/3D …

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Re: External CMOS Battery on Soyo 4S A2/A5

Posted on 2015-10-09, 14:51

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok, I removed the battery from the board - it still boots (yay!). What's recommended to clean the residue corrosion on the board, or should I just leave it as-is, now that the battery is removed? Also, any suggestions on where to get an external battery pack (eBay search terms would be helpful - …

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External CMOS Battery on Soyo 4S A2/A5

Posted on 2015-10-09, 13:43

by

by thp

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a Soyo 4S A2/A5 486 mainboard, and its CMOS/BIOS battery is dead (everything still works if I reconfigure the BIOS settings every time I disconnect power, but it's tedious). The mainboard has an external battery connector (4-pin), the internal battery shows signs of oxidation(?) -- see …

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