Coco 2 + Mantra Alice + Dragon 32/64

[Moondandy]

Just starting a thread as Pierco and Alan are working on a Coco 2 core, and also looking at the various clones and cousins - including the French Mantra Alice and (hopefully) the Dragon 32/64. Although there are non official cores for some of these (Coco behind a paywall I think) these would be going into Main when done.

https://twitter.com/pcornier
https://github.com/pcornier/AliceMC10_MiSTer

Exciting stuff!

[dshadoff]

I like the idea of an open-source core.
I never used a Coco3, but I know there were some incompatibilities, so I like the idea of starting with Coco1/2.

[ron]

Hi there:
Alansx is working on CoCo2 core: https://github.com/alanswx/CoCo2_MiSTer
It works and just only load roms by the moment...

R Taylor is working on RealCoco3 and RealDragon. Both are available on the net.

[GeekChef44]

Love my COCO2..! The first computer I ever bought....amazing fun reason to not go to parties in high school....ugh.

Still have it though and the Floppy disk too.

[Moondandy]

That's the Tandy MC-10 / Alice 4K core live

viewtopic.php?t=147&p=12799#p12799

[Newsdee]

That's the Tandy MC-10 / Alice 4K core live

Does it work with HDMI yet? I can't get it to work with either my regular HDMI monitor or my capture card.

[dshadoff]

It works on my HDMI monitor, but the video section does indeed still need some work.

I wouldn't expect it to work on any other type of monitor just yet; the original setup was for a line doubler through VGA (to run computer monitors), but it's driving some odd frequencies at present.

We're currently looking at bringing it back into normal TV-type frequencies, so that RGB output would be able to drive TV-type monitors, and so the scaler can apply all the filters.

Shouldn't be too long.

[ron]

I have been testing pcornier's Matra Alice - MC10 core and it rocks. It has a couple of awesome things in OSD that will surprise you-
It loads fine and seems to work as expected. Great work.

I also synthesized AlanSX CoCo2's core and most of ROMs works fine with full audio video. If Alansx implements loading for audio and 64KB of ram, adapting it to be a Dragon shouldn't take more than a while ..., what's also a great work.

Congrats anyway for the effort. Thanks a lot.

[Newsdee]

My VGA Monitor doesn't like it either... It's outputting 118hz vertically...

That aside, if I understand correctly this is the Alice 4k only right?
And not the Alice 32 that had a slightly different video chip?

(mostly asking for game compatibility - I'll dig in French archives for them)

Edit: one difference of the Alice32 was a different video chip.
If it helps, I've found these technical docs about it: https://www.goto10.fr/minitel/specifications/ef9345.pdf

If I'm not mistaken, one feature of this chip is that it allowed video mixing from a composite source...
it would be funny if it could be made to work with a MiSTer (not that useful of course)

[danielb]

Hello,

Thanks very much for the new core. I'd never heard of this computer till today, so it's very interesting.

Is it supposed to be able to run machine code games like this Pacman game?

http://chazbeenhad.tripod.com/files/Pac-Man-MC10.zip

I find that it appears to load (using CLOADM) but running it (with EXEC) gives a blank green screen.

I have likewise had no success running the Space Assault game from the same site. I have managed to run a basic game, again from the same site.

I am a total noob with this system, so I am very likely doing something wrong or misunderstanding something...

Thanks again,

Daniel

[tontonkaloun]

Some games don't work for the moment, like pacman

[NML32]

Some games don't work for the moment, like pacman

Per the Readme on Github, this might be why.

To do
Many games/programs already work, however, there's currently a bug in the video module that prevents some games from changing the display mode. Other MiSTer contributors and I are working on the problem right now.

[danielb]

OK. Looks like there's my answer.

D.

[Newsdee]

I only knew the Alice by name, so I started taking a deep look into it.
Tried the latest core update (Nov 10th) with a bunch of games.

Impressions / Comments

• I find the core much nicer to use than DCAlice (one of the main emulators)
• It was easy to convert a folder of .k7 files to .c10 using the python script provided
• The tape stream and sound is a very nice touch, but it only works with CLOAD? (not CLOADM)
• Video is still a problem, VGA barely works (constant message pops up complaining about sync)
• HDMI doesn't seem to work at all
• Is it possible to give the core Alice90 compatibility somehow?

Working games with CLOAD + RUN

• ColorMind [game, masterind]
• Exercises de Calcul [edu, maths]
• Mur de Briques [game, breakout]
• Pendu [game, hangman]
• Road Race [game, racing]
• Sous Maric [game, uboat]

Working with CLOADM + EXEC (fail with "FM Error" if you use CLOAD)

• Flagon Bird
• Lost World Pinball

Fails to load, I/O Error

• Annexion
• Ecologie Alice
• Galaxion
• Pillage Cosmique
• Plan de Vol
• Tank

Loads but crashes at run

• Crocky (OM Error in 6)
• Galixian (SN Error in 30)
• Monopolistic (Crashed after typing RUN)
• Pac-Man (blank screen after EXEC)

Loads but crashes after start

• Decouvrez alice (Stops working)
• Kangourou (freezes at start "je charge le programme")
• Sphinx d'Or (missing tape side 2?)
• Lire vite et bien [edu, reading] (waits for "OK" to show up)

[dshadoff]

When you ran this, did you have the 16K expansion on or off ?
'Off' is the default setting, but from what I understand, many things wouldn't run on a 4K machine.

There's a lot of work going on with video right now, so please be patient... but HDMI incompatibility may be something unique to your monitor, as it is working for all of the people working on the development.

Since Alan's CoCo2 has the video chip (and output) in common with Alice, they both need this fix, and are working together on it.

[breiztiger]

Hi
For me, i must set vsync_adjust=0 in [aliceMC10] ini section for that core to have hdmi to work

[NML32]

The tape loading sound level seems much better now on the Alice MC10.
Thank you.

[Newsdee]

'Off' is the default setting, but from what I understand, many things wouldn't run on a 4K machine.

Yep, I had it on since I was hoping to have compatibility with the Alice 32 library.

I will try vsync_adjust=0, hopefully that fixes the HDMI!

[LeftEmpty]

The core works here on a 15khz pretty common CRT screen: I have set

Code: Select all

[AliceMC10]
vga_scaler=1
video_mode=320,8,32,24,240,4,3,16,6048
vscale_mode=0

and my vsync_mode is set to 0 as well.

[Newsdee]

Thanks! vsync_adjust did the trick

I noticed some keyboard issues too:
- What is the key mapping for left/back arrow? I don't seem to be able to correct on the same line
- Left shift doesn't seem to be working

By looking at the code, it seems it was commenting out... I guess there was some kind of bug in the keyboard handler?

Anyway, keep up the good work! Exploring this core with a lot of interest

[Newsdee]

Oh - I also notice the orange color is coming up as yellow.

[Pierco]

Fails to load, I/O Error
Annexion
Ecologie Alice
Galaxion
Pillage Cosmique
Plan de Vol
Tank

It seems to be a problem with the conversion tool. The first block of 8 bytes of the k7 files is inconsistent. I need to modify the script so it checks first if the first bytes should be ignored or not.

Maybe something like:

k72c10.py:

Code: Select all

...
with open(file, 'rb') as k7:
    ba.extend(leader)
    sign = k7.read(3)
    if sign != b'\x55\x3c\x00':
        k7.seek(8)
        sign = k7.read(3)
    ba.extend(sign)
    length = k7.read(1)
    ...

Can anyone test it?

[LeftEmpty]

I get a 0 byte file as output now.
But something is probably wrong on my end from the very start: I always got syntax error on the print commands (which I deleted), and in this new script or the precedent one, I was getting

Code: Select all

TypeError: cannot concatenate 'str' and 'int' objects

Previous one outputed properly sized c10 files though.

Disclaimer: I don't know a single thing about python.

But to get back on the topic of testing, indeed, all the failing to load images had been converted ones so far for me.

[Pierco]

Thank you for testing! I will test on my side tomorrow and will update the script on the repository: https://pastebin.com/vmm6mRmi

[LeftEmpty]

Aw, I was stupid! I was using Python 2 instead of 3. Now your script works perfectly.
Sadly, I still got an IO Error on the two tapes I tried.

[ron]

Today's WIP from git is wonderful.
Dragon 32 working and 64 on the way.
Loading tapes from OSD as well.

I like this core. Very nice work, thkx to alanswx and pcornier. Amazing.

[Higgy]

Cool. I would like to test Dragon loading.
I have a CASdunio that I used with my Dragon64 for loading tapes.

Where was Dragon Core? Or is it a selection within Alice Core?
Thanks

[alanswx]

Take a look at the new CoCo2 and Dragon32 core. Not sure why the Dragon 64 doesn't work. Any help with that would be appreciated. Just run the updater.

[ron]

CoCo2 and Dragon32 works fine.
CoCo2 TAP Loading works well, Dragon32 some tapes still refuses lo load correctly.
Dragon64 keyboard does not work.
Reset is weird, doesn't matter if you reset with ALT-CTRL-ALTGRAPH, seems to work.

coco-01-00.jpg (79.91 KiB) Viewed 23689 times

dragon01-02.jpg (62.79 KiB) Viewed 23689 times

And loagind some Dragon tapes.

d32manic.jpg (57.46 KiB) Viewed 23689 times

d32chess.jpg (100.2 KiB) Viewed 23689 times

Congrats, I have been following the implementation and I like it a lot.
You're really close, what about disk controller ?

[alanswx]

You're really close, what about disk controller ?

There are some parts and pieces for the disk controller. We need to work on that.