Apple II Core

[Newsdee]

The absence of color artifacts (...) was probably a deliberate enhancement by the original author.

Yea, it is. He explains why and how he did it in the pdf.

I grew up with an Apple IIe, and I really appreciate the enhancement. It makes some games much easier to read.

It's good to have the option to switch it off, but I also wonder if it could be extended to use six pixels instead of four for even crisper text (as the author mentions in his pdf)

[ExCyber]

The absence of color artifacts (...) was probably a deliberate enhancement by the original author.

Yea, it is. He explains why and how he did it in the pdf.

The thing I'm addressing at the moment is specific to the "mixed" modes, and I didn't see anything in the PDF describing it. Prof. Edwards might have decided that it wasn't important or clever enough to explain, or even simply forgotten about it when writing the article. It's a neat optimization under the circumstances, but not exactly Earth-shattering. The difference is essentially that the core's condition for inhibiting color processing is "the current graphics byte is a text byte" rather than the original hardware's "the system is currently in text mode" (perhaps contemporary TVs only made that decision once per frame?).

(Tangent: I just saw the "profile pic" on his Columbia website and realized that I'd seen it before. He's one of Terasic's featured reviewers of the DE10-Standard board. The one with the parka and the (McChicken? Filet-O-Fish?) sandwich. )

[thorr]

The absence of color artifacts in the text part of mixed modes seems pretty straightforward and was probably a deliberate enhancement by the original author. I can't speak to the accuracy of the output, though (questionable eyes + using the scaler on a relatively old, budget TN monitor).

This is excellent! This should definitely be part of the main core as it is the way the original hardware works. Can you implement this into the core and add a menu option to switch back and forth between the two ways of viewing text? It's awesome to have perfect text when you want it, but annoying when it is your only option.

[thorr]

Update: I found two settings in my service menu that pretty much fixed the color problem (SCOL and SHUE) (Color and Hue). All my other settings were fine. I spent many hours fixing a greatly broken picture to get to where it was before with color cutoffs and many other settings, and I thought I had it all dialed in, but I guess the basic video adjustments were off. I never thought I would use an Apple II core with my own program combined with Newsdee's very helpful color references to adjust my color on my TV, but alas, I got pretty awesome colors now and it's like having a new TV! Everything is beautiful. Thanks Newsdee for the chart and others for the help. It's getting late, so I won't work on a new picture showing the comparison tonight. Maybe tomorrow...

[RedskullDC]

Hi All,

Managed to get the SDRAM code stable.

Added a 16MB Ramworks card emulation too.
(Most software will only see 8MB though).

Software to exercise the Ramworks is in the resources folder.

https://github.com/RedskullDC/Apple-II_MiSTer
(rbf file there for anyone who wants to dive in.)

---------------------

I haven't tried this out yet, but I think the framework handles the E0 byte and sets ps2_key[8] to indicate its presence.

Thanks Excyber, you're quite right, so it does!
Apple 2 keyboard code doesn't appear to use it in any way though.

Might take a look at enabling the open/close Apple keys A.K.A PB0 and PB1 before starting on disk writes.
Well past Midnight here ZZZzzz....

Regards,
Red

[akeley]

Managed to get the SDRAM code stable.

Does it mean floppy saving is possible now?

[Newsdee]

(Tangent: I just saw the "profile pic" on his Columbia website and realized that I'd seen it before. He's one of Terasic's featured reviewers of the DE10-Standard board. The one with the parka and the (McChicken? Filet-O-Fish?) sandwich. )

I wonder if he knows about MiSTer

[Newsdee]

Managed to get the SDRAM code stable.
Added a 16MB Ramworks card emulation too.
(Most software will only see 8MB though).

Wow! Well done!

Does anybody have a good tutorial of using a RAMDisk for games?
I imagine it can speedup running some of them if they access the disk frequently?

[RedskullDC]

Hi Breiztiger,

perhaps a bug

https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=75630

this doesn't restart correctly after one run, have scramble caracters at buttom

run well in core 21.10.18

Tested with the latest build, working now that SDRAM is stable.

Regards,
Red

[RedskullDC]

Hi All,

I've added the Open/Closed Apple Key functionality to the Left/Right ALT keys respectively.

Also changed the Shift-3 key from '£' to '#' .
(That's a temporary fix, as there should be a switch to select either)

Pic showing the RamWorks card in action:

RW-16MB.jpg (3.39 MiB) Viewed 19806 times

Another pic showing the Self-test routine running:

self-test.jpg (3.61 MiB) Viewed 19806 times

(Hold down Left and right ALT keys, then press the reset button)

I don't have a real //e at the moment to check, but I don't remember seeing text at the bottom of the self-test screen?

Perhaps a soft-switch is not being correctly set by the reset.

Enjoy.
Red

https://github.com/RedskullDC/Apple-II_MiSTer

[RedskullDC]

Hi Akeley,

Managed to get the SDRAM code stable.

Does it mean floppy saving is possible now?

Not quite yet.
Next on the list.

Regards,
Red

[thorr]

Hi All,

I've added the Open/Closed Apple Key functionality to the Left/Right ALT keys respectively.

Also changed the Shift-3 key from '£' to '#' .
(That's a temporary fix, as there should be a switch to select either)

Pic showing the RamWorks card in action:

Another pic showing the Self-test routine running:

(Hold down Left and right ALT keys, then press the reset button)

I don't have a real //e at the moment to check, but I don't remember seeing text at the bottom of the self-test screen?

Perhaps a soft-switch is not being correctly set by the reset.

Enjoy.
Red

https://github.com/RedskullDC/Apple-II_MiSTer

Awesome! I don't have a chance to try it quite yet, but is there a keyboard key for Reset? If not, can you please add one? F1 would be my pick since it is near the location of Reset on an Apple II.

[breiztiger]

hi

sorry but with your last core a get that at boot on hdmi output

20211116_181933-screen.png (242 Bytes) Viewed 21062 times

is it normal ?

ps : i only have 32mo is it ok ?

[RedskullDC]

hi

sorry but with your last core a get that at boot on hdmi output
20211116_181933-screen.png
is it normal ?

ps : i only have 32mo is it ok ?

I set the code to only use 32MB, so that it would be compatible with all the SDRAM expansions.
I have a 128MB card, but it (theoretically) should work fine with the 32MB card.

Can I trouble you to run the memtest core in the utility directory?
Let me know what the maximum clock speed you are able to achieve is?

I may have to dial back the clock speed going to the SDRAMs a little .

Cheers,
Red

[RedskullDC]

Hi Breiztiger, et al.

ps : i only have 32mo is it ok ?

I've reduced the SDRAM clock.

Can you try the latest RBF?

Regards,
Red
https://github.com/RedskullDC/Apple-II_ ... r/releases

[breiztiger]

with memory test for 5 min result 160 without error

same with last build

[RedskullDC]

with memory test for 5 min result 160 without error
same with last build

OK, so no problem with the memory.

Does the core work for you apart from the graphics issue?

What params are you using for HDMI output in your .INI file?
(I have mine set at 1920x1080 so it translates well to a 4K monitor).

Cheers,
Red

[cathrynmataga]

Oh, this is odd for me. with 211117, If I boot this prodos 2.5 version 8 with the core as the first floppy, then I select basic system, then I press catalog a few times, it eventually does something weird at some point. Either it fails to load, or the catalog fails. I can go back to the old core with no reset and it works fine.

I was able to boot some hard disk games with your core without problems. I think floppy related?

https://prodos8.com/releases/prodos-25/

For me, HDMI is fine. I set min/max resolution to 1080p and refresh to 60hz. (Since this matches my actual screen.)

[Newsdee]

Does the core work for you apart from the graphics issue?

I'm having issues with the new core as well - they were particularly noticeable in Hard Hat Mack level 2

I managed to take a screenshot of some of it (the dots), but there was more than that happening randomly:

• Dots and lines appear in random places
• Randomly died instantly once
• Some sprites started to glitch (e.g. the "stamp press" on the right had its pole drawn vertically all across the screen)

This is with 128MB of RAM, using an output resolution of 1720x1440

20211118_114707-screen_bugs.png (2.7 KiB) Viewed 20819 times

[Newsdee]

This is with 128MB of RAM, using an output resolution of 1720x1440

I've ran memtest, and I can only go up to 138Mhz

I'm also using the latest core bulld (Nov 17th)

[AmintaMister]

Hi Akeley,

Managed to get the SDRAM code stable.

Does it mean floppy saving is possible now?

Not quite yet.
Next on the list.

Regards,
Red

It would be FANTASTIC for the adventure games!

[Newsdee]

This thread went quiet ... I hope it's just lack of time rather than a major blocker...

[RedskullDC]

Hi Newsdee, et al.

This thread went quiet ... I hope it's just lack of time rather than a major blocker...

Just lack of time at the moment.
I work in transport, December/XMAS is our busiest time of the year.

Been home for exactly 4 hours in the last 3 weeks

Will get back to it soon...

Cheers,
Red

[Newsdee]

Just lack of time at the moment.

No worries, glad it's still on track

[aenoxi]

Hi Red,

Just lack of time at the moment.
I work in transport, December/XMAS is our busiest time of the year.

Been home for exactly 4 hours in the last 3 weeks

Will get back to it soon...

I hope you managed to get some rest after Christmas! Thank you for all of your hard work on the core. I am reliving some long-forgotten memories via the Mister

I had one question: is it possible to auto-mount an HDV hard disk image when the core starts? I'd really love to have the Mister boot up into the Total Replay image. Right now you have to go to the menu, select mount hdv and choose the file and then go back into the menu and cold reset - which is a bit of a challange for my kids.

I know you can auto-mount a floppy and boot into that automatically by renaming the floppy file boot.rom, but this doesn't seem to work for HDVhard disk images...

Wishing you a restful, happy and prosperous 2022!

[nemopapa]

For someone who wants to use US keyboard based on 20220219 build.

[akeley]

It's great to hear about Apple IIGS core in the works, but I really hope somebody can tackle floppy write in this one at some point too. Without it, a large chunk of the important titles from its library is useless, and in general a computer without a save ability is a sad puppy.

And it's been a few months since we heard from @RedskullDC...hope they're ok.

[AmintaMister]

It's great to hear about Apple IIGS core in the works, but I really hope somebody can tackle floppy write in this one at some point too. Without it, a large chunk of the important titles from its library is useless, and in general a computer without a save ability is a sad puppy.

And it's been a few months since we heard from @RedskullDC...hope they're ok.

I agree. The historical preservation of Apple II is enormously diminished without the floppy writing function.

[Newsdee]

Here is a test build by alanswx that I've been testing recently,
adding a second floppy drive and the ability to save disks in .nib format to the SD card!

I was able to play Adventure Construction Set and Ultima II with it so far.

It needs disks to be in .nib to write back to them. This is an acceptable trade-off since this is not a copy-protected format anyway; and it also helps keep your files tidy on your SD card e.g. all saves in a separate folder. I would also recommend preparing save disks in AppleWin first since it formats and copies data much faster than MiSTer (which operates at original speed).

To help using the Apple II core with this I started making an archive of .nib save disks ready for use.
For example, I added four "save slots" for Ultima II by making a player disk and duplicating it before creating a character.
What are your favorite games and which save files would you like to see added to this archive?


Files:

Apple-II_disk_write_20220415.rbf

(3.43 MiB) Downloaded 403 times

Saves (Player Disks).zip

(359.24 KiB) Downloaded 415 times

[Newsdee]

I've created a github page to house the .nib disks, this will make it easier to add your own (by pull request):
https://github.com/Newsdee/apple2saves