• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Area 5150 for IBM PC 4.77MHz

Honestly, it is unexpected that MicroRAM Rev 1.2 crashes or freezes irregularly not only in XT-IDE, but also in Area 5150. Even the 5150 Rev.A (16KB-64KB, Rev.0 04/24/81) motherboard I have is cumbersome, but after a temporary replacement with Rev.2 10/27/82 BIOS for testing, SW2's RAM I need to change the setting from 544KB to 640KB. It wasn't just one, both did such a tedious job. MicroRAM Rev 1.2 continued to cause problems even after testing on two 5160 motherboards, so it was forced to test on two 5150 motherboards. there wasn't FYI, I also tested MicroRAM Rev 1.2 with two instead of one. In Rev 1.0, which I purchased several years ago, and Rev 1.1, which I purchased several months ago, nothing happened. There were no problems. If it had collided with the Area 5150, I would have thought it was a compatibility problem, but It crashed even in XT-IDE, so I was able to confirm that it wasn't an issue with the Area 5150.
 
Rather than making it like some people like WINIMAGE, I made it to fit the practical skills even if it takes a little more time to enjoy the taste of the practical skills.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

One thing the Area 5150 lacks is the need to expand the RAM to 640KB as mentioned above, which is impossible in the early IBM PC 5150 unless the BIOS is changed
reenigne already said the demo will work regardless of BIOS support for 640K.

those who have IBM PC 5150 / 5160 / 5170 are not many people who have 640KB as a percentage of the total
Where are you getting the stats on this?
 
If that's such an easy conclusion, there's no reason to post here on the forum. Rev 1.2 was not purchased 2 at the same time, but was purchased 1 at a cycle of almost 1 month, and unfortunately, the same symptoms were found, but it is not a problem that can be solved by simply replacing it. It is a pointless act until the fundamental problem is solved.
 
It is a pointless act until the fundamental problem is solved.

Why do you think any of your troubles with this memory card belong in this thread? Your RAM card being unreliable has nothing to do with software, other than it’s likely that this demo is exercising the defective RAM more than other software you’ve ran on it. Again, either the card or your computer is broken (or both are borderline in some way that prevents them from behaving together) and there’s nothing about this that’s Area5150’s fault.
 
Wow, great work! Much respect to all involved. Will definitely have to give this a go!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but will this run properly on a V20 equipped IBM? Or would that cause some sort of timing issue or something? If so, I’ll have to pop the original 8088 back in my XT before giving it a go. Not a big deal.

Either way, what an incredible demo!
 
Anybody tried this demo on Monotech NuXT v2 machine?
Is it worth buying NuXT for this and similar demos and projects?

Or my Ultimate MiSTer shall do the job, once it's PC cores are updated?
 
Real XT class hardware is pretty cheap. I’m not anti-emulator or anything, and I definitely have nothing against modern hardware like the nuxt, but that’s VGA, so it wouldn’t be that useful for these demos right out of the box.

Maybe if someone integrated tubetime’s graphics gremlin instead of a vga chip it might be closer. But I think I read even it struggles with some of the demos.
 
Real XT class hardware is pretty cheap. I’m not anti-emulator or anything, and I definitely have nothing against modern hardware like the nuxt, but that’s VGA, so it wouldn’t be that useful for these demos right out of the box.

Maybe if someone integrated tubetime’s graphics gremlin instead of a vga chip it might be closer. But I think I read even it struggles with some of the demos.
I feel the same and decided not to comment. I feel the demo is meant for legacy hardware.. New hardware and especially emulators should be dealt with in a separate thread in regards to this demo.
 
Here's something we were going to include with the release, but forgot about it: a ROM font comparison test.

The "ANSI-from-Hell" graphics rely on the contents of IBM's character ROM - many non-IBM CGA boards have the exact same 8x8 font as the original, but that's not always the case. To find out without having to dump and compare, you can use the tool at https://github.com/viler-int10h/CGA-font-compare.

If it shows you a 100% stable display (left), your ROM font is identical to IBM's, so Area 5150 can look as intended. If the font doesn't match, you'll get animated/flashing characters (right):

compare.gif
 
Last edited:
Looking at those two images reminds me of my modded CGA that I can switch between slim and regular character sets. It's instantaneous just like that animated GIF.
 
Nice! The test tool does it instantaneously on the hardware as well. Although of course it cannot switch fonts in software, so it alternates between text and graphics mode, to display the original IBM font using the latter.

(That mod does remind me of something for the "Fantasy CGA redesign" thread however...)
 
I did something similar as an alternative to dumping CGA font ROMs - you draw the font and then check it against the built-in text-mode font by flipping between a graphics-mode rendition of your font and the same pattern in text mode. I didn't try to do anything in hardware to stabilise the picture, just used the BIOS mode set, so the result can be flickery.
 
Is there any chance you, guys, will post some write ups about the technical details, as it was made with 8088 Mph? That would be so great...! Thanks!
 
The new Marty PC v.0.1.3 emulator runs the demo almost flawlessly:
Much better than MAME.
Which means that pixel perfect 5150 emulation is almost done.
 
Yep - MartyPC is a remarkable achievement. I wrote a little post mentioning a few things it can do that other emulators can't (it ain't just demos).

I'm not sure why that youtube channel now has *two* different videos of 8088 MPH running in RGBI color, which is obviously wrong (...in addition to two other videos using composite). When you finally have an emulator capable of doing it justice, why continue to misrepresent it? 🤷
 
Yep - MartyPC is a remarkable achievement. I wrote a little post mentioning a few things it can do that other emulators can't (it ain't just demos).

I'm not sure why that youtube channel now has *two* different videos of 8088 MPH running in RGBI color, which is obviously wrong (...in addition to two other videos using composite). When you finally have an emulator capable of doing it justice, why continue to misrepresent it? 🤷
MartyPC developer noticed some parts of the 8088 MPH demo not showing in my videos, so I recorded several new videos, trying to reproduce the bug. I found how to show the bug again, hence new uploaded video and now he is working on fixing it.

I am emulator developer myself, and I have reported and then got fixed many bugs in MAME, so I was glad to help in development of new emulator as well.
 
Back
Top