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State of MAME gridcomp emulation.

tschak909

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2018
Messages
120
Location
Denton, TX USA
Thus far, the most stable mame driver for compass is the grid1101.

It can boot CCOS 3.1.0 just fine, and run most of the user applications.

However, because it only has 256K, it can't run GRiDDevelop or the compilers. I really need this.

The grid1139 driver looks great, but is missing the bottom 24 pixels or so of the display :(

grid1129 will boot, but errors while dealing with the bubble memory.

sigh..

-Thom
 
Thus far, the most stable mame driver for compass is the grid1101.

It can boot CCOS 3.1.0 just fine, and run most of the user applications.

However, because it only has 256K, it can't run GRiDDevelop or the compilers. I really need this.

The grid1139 driver looks great, but is missing the bottom 24 pixels or so of the display :(

grid1129 will boot, but errors while dealing with the bubble memory.

sigh..

-Thom


As far as I know @usernameak is researching 1139 ROM dump and trying to figure out how works 512x256 screen stuff.

Can you show command line arguments for MAME when compiling gridcomp?
Is it possible to get 1129 ROM dump from alternative source (best source: take ROM ICs out from 1129 and read yourselft) because publically available files from yahoo group are not reliable. There could be possiblity that someone messed with ROM dump names and incorrectly published on yahoo group.
 
The only system that has functional bubble memory access, is grid1101.

This causes problems all over the GRiD OS as you try to use functions, e.g. Usage.

But it also prevents GRiDDevelop from functioning properly, and more than a few of the later GRiD programs to fail to start.

This is getting _very_ frustrating, especially as I am trying VERY hard to put together content demonstrating the system, and everybody with Compasses just seem content to prostrate themselves before them and do absolutely nothing with them, but hey, they won't fuckin' sell them, or let them be borrowed for a good cause will they?

-Thom
 
Pretty much the only thing I can stably run in MAME, is GRiDWrite, as GRiDPlan, GRiDManager, and other programs refuse to run.
-Thom
 
@usernameak did you test GRiDPLAN or GRiDPLOT? It looks like the lack of 8087 is causing these programs to fail _very_ hard.

Also, for some reason, bubble memory initialization on the 1129/1139 is trying to initialize pages past 1536.

-Thom
 
I have to abort this particular endeavor (of trying to demonstrate CCOS), because the MAME emulation is far too broken to show anything beyond the executive.

(and as a side rant) I do not understand why people will announce that they are working on things, and keep them close to their chest.

This is a small community of people, and others can probably help with code. We have Github, Gitlab, SourceForge, and other public code repositories, put your stuff up there, so that we can all hack on it.

-Thom
 
If you have identified problems with any MAME emulation the most appropriate route is to sign up for an account at https://mametesters.org/ and provide comprehensive details there as to how to reproduce the problem. Constructive comments are more likely to be addressed.
 
I've already been filing bug reports with mamedev, but there is only one person working on it, and he frequents here.
-Thom
 
@tschak909 you are welcome to improve and fix problems. Remember that both me and @usernameak don't have any physical GRiD Computer (No compass series and no GRiDcase series). We know one youtuber who own broken physical Compass 1139. From time to time wee bombard him and ask for small reaserch on mainboard with beeping multimeter. All informations about Compaas harware is obtained from Internet by reading old scanned documents, IC datasheets, mainboard pictures, ROM (BIOS is for PC) dissassembly and chatting. This is really slow process. It is mirracle that @usernameak made emulator who can boot real CCOS.
 
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