Hi there!!!
0.3 version is really a good release: rom basic OK, copyiipc have timing problems.
About bios:
-)super bios 3 does work: it's enough to compile it ( a binary is not supplied, but compilation is extremally simple also for me.... 😉 )
-)iBM BIOS: I hope you wanna support newbies like me: on the ibm_bios_link you gave there are 3 zip files, and each of them have more file .bin, I think it's necessary perform a simple operation like:
copy /b f000.bin + f800.bin xt2.rom
but It is better you give us a better indication.......
Thanks for the moment......

Sure thing. I have updated the documentation page on the website. It depends on where you obtain your IBM PC BIOS roms. Sometimes they come in 2 chips so you will need to add this to your config file:

BIOSLOWUP=bios/BIOS_5160_09MAY86_U19_62X0819_68X4370_27256_F000.BIN,bios/BIOS_5160_09MAY86_U18_59X7268_62X0890_27256_F800.BIN

Sometimes the BIOS EEPROMs are in an even/odd configuration so you have to use

BIOSEVENODD=...

I plan to add support for this inside the GUI to make it easier to use.

Jungle Hunt boots until the title screen but freezes in CAPE before the game screen is displayed. I'm not sure if that is the cause, but the game changes the palette mid-screen, and fumbles with the CGA's light pen registers to time the location at which the palette changes.

NewRisingSun wrote:

Jungle Hunt boots until the title screen but freezes in CAPE before the game screen is displayed. I'm not sure if that is the cause, but the game changes the palette mid-screen, and fumbles with the CGA's light pen registers to time the location at which the palette changes.

Thank you for the report. Timing in CGA should work correctly. I will try to reproduce the problem locally.

I used to play Jungle Hunt on Apple II 😀

EDIT: I see it hang at game start, after I press F1. I'll debug the issue.

Thank you for bug report again. I fixed the problem, the game is now playable. It was indeed related to lightpen. The game uses the clear/preset light pen position to track screen position and do timing with it. I was not dealing with that properly.

^ That looks as if the alternate palette intended for the status bar is now being used for the entire screen.

It's interesting to know that they actually used the light pen registers to time the effect. In DOSBox the affected area 'drifts' up and down depending on the CPU cycles value; perhaps that could be fixed more easily than I'd suspected.

It's worth pointing out that the split is sometimes off on a real PC/XT as well, requiring multiple presses of the F1 key until it was at the proper position. Great Hierophant had a YouTube video showing that, named "My IBM PC 5150 - Demonstration of Games and the Capabilities of CGA", but he seems to have deleted it.

I do not recall in that original video whether I had my hard drive interface, the ADP-50L, installed in my IBM PC 5150. Presumably I did, but I deleted it because I was dissatisfied with the quality. Now I have tested the PC Booter version of Jungle Hunt in both my IBM PC and IBM PC/XT and the split is unnoticeable. NewRisingSun suggested that the hard drive interface was disabling interrupts for too long a time, allowing timer ticks to pass when the game is trying to determine when to do the split.

Version 0.4 has been released (I've updated the first post). The major changes in this version are the addition of 286 support (using same cycle based emulation system as for other processors). A redesigned GUI and support for a few IBM machines have been added to this release.

Did you say you can do cycle accurate task switch? Why, yes I can! With BIU reads/writes and execution in correct order. Extremely sexy!

For the upcoming releases I will be concentrating on bug fixes, timing and cycle accuracy and overall stability/usability issues.

I do not have any plan for the short term to add 386 support until I get a better and more accurate 286 and below emulation. Although I am considering EGA support as there are quite a few games that run decent on a 286 @ 16Mhz with an EGA.

Performance is also an issue since I cannot really go above 16-20Mhz on a modern fast CPU. So I will need to work on that too.

Hi, I was looking for some 8088 hardware to test my programs on, but the price of those machine is crazy these days, so I will have to fall back to emulation. Your CAPE emulator seems like a potentially very good fit - that's an impressive project!

Two questions:
- Do you have any plans to emulate an Ethernet card? I'd love to see CAPE running networking software,
- Your emulator allows to emulate CGA or MDA... but could it emulate both (at the same time)? This would be greatly useful for debugging programs in "dual head" mode.

mateusz.viste wrote:

Hi, I was looking for some 8088 hardware to test my programs on, but the price of those machine is crazy these days, so I will have to fall back to emulation. Your CAPE emulator seems like a potentially very good fit - that's an impressive project!

Two questions:
- Do you have any plans to emulate an Ethernet card? I'd love to see CAPE running networking software,

Sure. Right now I am finishing my PCJr cycle based emulation. That will give me the entire original IBM lineup (PC, XT, PCJr, XT-286 and AT)
After that I will work on an Ethernet card.

mateusz.viste wrote:

- Your emulator allows to emulate CGA or MDA... but could it emulate both (at the same time)? This would be greatly useful for debugging programs in "dual head" mode.

I will put that on the todo list. Should not be hard to add. I just need to find some test programs. Right now I also support EGA. And given that EGA+MDA combo was useful back in the day that should be an useful feature to add. And I am not sure what other emulators do support dual head.

dumb question...but compared to stuff like PCem and 86box, is this more accurate...or less accurate?

Danfun64 wrote:

dumb question...but compared to stuff like PCem and 86box, is this more accurate...or less accurate?

It is more accurate due to architecture however it supports a lot less than PCEm does. Also PCEm has a few years of bug scrubbing which I am missing.

Version 0.6 released!

You can grab it here: https://sites.google.com/site/capex86/

Source-code as well as binaries for Win64, Linux and OSX are available.

I figured I do it now as I am re-writing the graphics adapter emulation to emulate the cards the same I emulate the rest of the PC (processor, bus, cycle, etc). My goal is to get CGA snow 😀 Also by next release I should have PCJr fully working.

For this release new things are Hercules and EGA support as well as multi-adapter/multi-monitor support. Note, Hercules support is not cycle accurate but I needed it so I can test some multi-adapter stuff.

For some reason the download says not available.