Colour Genie (EG2000) Computer Core Released

[JasonA]

Thanks to AlanSWX for the conversion, and also Flandango for the CAS support via OSD.

The Colour Genie was released in 1982. It was an attractive machine, with a solid full-stroke keyboard and 16K BASIC in ROM. As well as the 63-key typewriter keyboard and powerful BASIC, it featured the trusty Z-80, running at 2.2 MHz, 16k-32k of RAM, 3 channels of sound, 8 colours (4 for text), 40 columns x 24 rows for text (initially) and 160 x 102 pixels for graphics.

Ports which included RS-232, Joysticks (2), light pen, RGB and audio.

[akeley]

Nice to see this niche machine added to MiSTer's core collection. Thanks to everyone involved.

I've acquired one of them not long ago, but had quite a hard time finding any info or advice on how to load games from a tape deck. Eventually found this site, which is probably the most comprehensive Colour Genie link collection out there (game collections, manuals, etc).

https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/sy ... -genie.htm

[GreyAreaUK]

Hmmm...I've just run update_all and I'm not seeing it.Am I being a bit hasty?

Edit: yes. I've just re-run it, and there it is

[fierman]

I have one of these as well. But with no software around, I never really used it. I will definitely revisit this machine now with the core available. Many thanks!

[juandyzz]

Do you have sound when loading tapes?????

[Flandango]

There is an option for tape volume...Mute, Low and High

[juandyzz]

That's the problem , if I press enter or space it doesn't change .

[Flandango]

Yup, you're right. Found the issue and will let Jason know so he can push up a new release.

[JasonA]

Fixed and released. Thanks

[fierman]

I could not get a joystick to work btw, but I assume the problem is with me

[Flandango]

It currently doesn't have joystick support.
Unlike most other systems of that era, they didn't have dedicated Joystick ports but instead used the parallel port to attach two analog controllers, each with a keypad.
Was there much software for it that supported joysticks? I just can't seem to find information on what games supported joysticks. Everything I came across, such as videos, seem to be using the keyboard to play the game.

[fierman]

It currently doesn't have joystick support.
Unlike most other systems of that era, they didn't have dedicated Joystick ports but instead used the parallel port to attach two analog controllers, each with a keypad.
Was there much software for it that supported joysticks? I just can't seem to find information on what games supported joysticks. Everything I came across, such as videos, seem to be using the keyboard to play the game.

Games like Skramble and Kong ask the player for joystick or keyboard inputs, and since I can map joystick inputs in the core menu I assumed joystick was supported. Hence

[Texemosis]

hey, when I load and play a cassette, i'm not getting the following prompt to press / and start the game. *edit* ah nevermind. I can load up those games using CLOAD and RUN. I wonder why using the SYSTEM command in Githubs instructions isn't doing the trick.

[Flandango]

So there are three types of files saved on tape. Basic, which you load with CLOAD and then RUN them, System files (think of EXE/COM files) that you have to be in "SYSTEM" to load them and then they either auto execute or you start them with / and enter. The third is just plain ol data files that is not typically "loaded" but instead read in by an application.
I tried to auto identify "System" tapes so once you load/mount a CAS file and you see the new option to "Paste Filename"...that is a System tape and requires you to be in SYSTEM....once in system, you can click on that new option and will attempt to paste in the filename as found on the tape.
If you don't see that option...chances are it's a Basic game/file and you load it with CLOAD.

[Flandango]

For those who are going through the CAS files found in MAME, I extracted the information from the mame software list and created a simple text file cheat sheet.
Not all programs/games on the tapes may work (ex printer-related programs) and the list is nothing special or formatted in a pretty way but should hopefully be readable and useful to some who are interested....

[pgimeno]

There's a TOSEC collection in archive.org; does it contain the same software as in MAME?

[Flandango]

Not exactly sure. A quick look seemed that most, if not all of the tapes found in the TOSEC archive are in MAME. Of course mame used different names for their CAS files.

[fierman]

Just noticed that joystick support was added. Thanks!!

[EeDee]

Thank you @jasona, @flandango and @alanswx for your work on this core. I like it. Especially @flandango's CAS support.
It makes me, a novice, wonder why a standard cassette device for reading from and writing to cas files cannot be 'written' and incorporated into any computer core that may require cassette files e.g. ZX81, Jupiter Ace etc.
What are the hurdles?

[Flandango]

Glad you are enjoying the core @EeDee!
First, when it comes to CAS, not all CAS files from different systems are the same.

When a system records to tape, it takes the data it wants to record and encodes it bit by bit into an analog signal that can be recorded to tape.
They also use special identifiers such as headers to identify things like beginning of tape, start of a file/program, type of file...so on and so forth.

Since there was no standard way of recording to tape, every system did it their own way.
These recordings, when digitized into WAV files take up way too much space so folks have written software to extract the important information from these recordings and store them in various types of files (CAS, TAP....).

There is also data, that is usually common on a particular device, that is not included in the CAS file, because it just needlessly takes up space, like for example in the EG2000, there is 256 bytes of sync data which is used for the system to sync up with the audio coming in. This sync data, is left out of the CAS file, but the application/emulator will recreate it on it's own as it's needed.

To use these CAS/TAP/etc files, software was then written to either convert it back to a WAV file to play back to the original system, or simply have the emulator read the file and process it, filling in the excluded data and converting each BIT back into a signal the system is expecting.

So just like an emulator has to process each system's CAS/TAP file differently, same thing goes for FPGA.

Hopefully my rambling makes SOME sense and answers your question.

[EeDee]

Absolutely it does @flandango. Thanks for taking the time to explain it.