FM Towns Core

[Zagg3r]

Is the .qar file for the Mister?
Where does it have to be placed?

[limi]

It’s for Quartus, the HDL tool used for FPGA development.

[EeDee]

Here is the .rbf (20230303)

release-TOWNS.rbf

(3.64 MiB) Downloaded 402 times

[Zagg3r]

With this .rbf I'm getting only a black screen...
I've tried placing the boot.rom in the / and in the _Computer dirs, is there something else needed?

[Flandango]

boot.rom in games/TOWNS

[Fpg-lee]

Hi, is the necessary boot.rom known by another file name in a FM Towns file dump?
I don't seem to be able to find boot.rom connected to FMTowns when searching.

Lastly, what functionality does this early RBF have as of today?

Thanks.

[jca]

When Puu released the original version this is what he said:
For the BIOS ROM image, create a TOWNS directory on the SD card and save it as boot.rom.
Concatenate the ROM image in the following order from the top of the file.
1.DOS(512kB)
2.DIC(512kB)
3.FNT(256kB)
4.F20(512kB)
5.SYS(256kB)
total 2MB.
NVRAM (SRAM) will evaporate when the core is reloaded, so set it each time.

[Fpg-lee]

When Puu released the original version this is what he said:
For the BIOS ROM image, create a TOWNS directory on the SD card and save it as boot.rom.
Concatenate the ROM image in the following order from the top of the file.
1.DOS(512kB)
2.DIC(512kB)
3.FNT(256kB)
4.F20(512kB)
5.SYS(256kB)
total 2MB.
NVRAM (SRAM) will evaporate when the core is reloaded, so set it each time.

Create and Save a boot.rom folder containing above files inside a TOWNS folder? then put TOWNS folder inside of Games directory?
Something like that?

[jca]

The folder name on the PC side does not matter. Create a TOWNS folder in games if you don't have it and copy the boot.rom you created in that folder.

[Retro-Nerd]

At that point there isn't much to test anyway. Puu had some success with booting the Towns DOS, but no games or applications.

[Fpg-lee]

The folder name on the PC side does not matter. Create a TOWNS folder in games if you don't have it and copy the boot.rom you created in that folder.

When you say create boot.rom do you mean merely create a boot.rom folder (with aforementioned files inside Games/TOWNS?)
Not, create a boot.rom single file, from somehow merging the files inside of a boot.rom file container?

Last reply, sorry to be so verbose.

[jca]

First you have to find the files I mentioned above, usually a zip file or 7z file which contains them for example [BIOS] FM Towns [ROM] [Set 1].7z.
Once unzipped you will get several files like:
fmt_dic.rom
fmt_dos.rom
fmt_f20.rom
fmt_fnt.rom
fmt_sys.rom

To create the bios.rom:
copy /b fmt_dos.rom+fmt_dic.rom+fmt_fnt.rom+fmt_f20.rom+fmt_sys.rom bios.rom

[Flandango]

I used fmtownsa.zip from the mame rom set to get the fmt_* files...and while I didn't do any indepth testing/playing around with the core, it does boot and searches for floppy/harddrive...which I haven't gotten that far yet....other events keep taking me away...

[jca]

I did not try the new version of the core but with the old one I did not go very far as I was unable to find D88 images, only strange extensions which I have no idea what they are. I will try again one of these days.

[Retro-Nerd]

Archive.org has some D88 images. But nothing i could start properly. So...

[SIDKidd]

Hmm, I don't get any bootscreen. Any help would be really appreciated . Got the BIOS files from the repack.

Anyway, this release showed up today on Discord.

[Retro-Nerd]

You have to copy all files into one boot.rom

viewtopic.php?p=62676#p62676

[SIDKidd]

You have to copy all files into one boot.rom

viewtopic.php?p=62676#p62676

I dunno why I chose to the name the file bios.rom
Thanks for the extra hint!

[cyo.the.vile]

Archive.org has some D88 images. But nothing i could start properly. So...

There are a lot of people here that dont understand how this computer works so let me explain something.

Software for this computer was released like this:
-CD with files containing main game executable
-CD with FD required that contained the main game executable
-CD with FD that was a save floppy with the main game executable on CD. In many instances the save floppy is required for normal operation. So while technically it isnt a boot floppy, it should be treated just as important.
-FD or multiple FD with the first disk containing the main game executable.

FM Towns doesnt have an operating system. The puppy screen (his name is Bernard btw) is an IPL that scans all drives for an operating system. It keeps cycling all drives until it can find something to boot.

Your D88 images you found wont start because likely the core still has trouble starting and running TownsOS. Some FD games can load and seem playable though. FMR games run stable. What games didnt boot?

[Retro-Nerd]

It would be probably easier if you could tell us which games already run on disk. There aren't many floppy disk only based games in D88 image format out there, unless there are better sources i don't know of.

[bonna79]

Hello lads
I have a problem, after creating the folder, inserting the core and putting the boot file, fmtowns starts but after a count, I think of the ram, a message appears in Japanese, which translated tells me,: an illegal interruption has occurred.
What does bad boot file mean? Thank you

[cyo.the.vile]

It would be probably easier if you could tell us which games already run on disk. There aren't many floppy disk only based games in D88 image format out there, unless there are better sources i don't know of.

We dont even have all of the games dumped for FM Towns. I cant give an accurate list. But you are correct; most games on towns were CD based.
The Mame softlist is currently the most accurate list of dumped towns software.

[puu]

New RTL was released.
http://fpga8801.seesaa.net/article/502956059.html

[hippie131]

adding the rbf from the most recent qar file from the link puu provided (240409)

[Goran]

Thank you for realisizing this in advance. I will wait patiently to that day