MiSTer FPGA Forum

Hi all,

Attached is another pre-release version.

Load games from text files.
Limitations: 1) There is at present a size limit of approx. 20K for the text files. All of the games that I know of are smaller than this. 2) Text file extension must be .txt, so rename files if you want them to be recognized.

Known Bugs: Reset sometimes fails to properly initialise everything, leading to failed loads from file. If this happens, reload the core. When this is fixed, I will release the core to the main repository.

Easter egg: Try "POKE 54272,1"

UART loading works too. This is barely tested.
To run Super Invaders, load it up and then change the "load from:" option to UART, so that the game can detect the baud rate. This is demonstrated in the previously linked YouTube video.

D.

I'll give it a try.
Thanks

I've followed your video and have tried a few different text files but the result is the same: What have I missed?

Hi,

Could you send me some examples of files that didn't work for you?

D.

danielb wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 6:17 am Hi,

Could you send me some examples of files that didn't work for you?

D.

Hi, the files have Unix-style "LF" line endings. They need to be changed to Windows-style CR/LF.
Also, the files have "OK" with no line number on the last line. This creates a syntax error while loading.

Thanks for testing the core.

D.

Ah I See! Need to check for carefully next time.
Thanks for that and for the work you've done

I think the "OK" at the end means that the files were saved via the UART, right?

Galactic Hitchhiker

This game is, according to this site: https://intfiction.org/t/early-british- ... ures/46425 possibly the earliest surviving British text adventure game. More details can be found here: http://8bitag.com/info/galactic.html and here: https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 073#p61073.

I downloaded the file from the stardot forum, and altered it very slightly (added padding at the end, the code is identical).

The game seems to work well on the core. To run it, select the MonUK02 monitor, and set the terminal width to 46 characters. Then reset and select "Monitor" then press L and load the file. There is a walkthrough here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA36YiR ... l=benkid77 of it being played on an emulator.

I am attaching both the game itself, and also a new pre-release version of the core. The only difference between this version and the previous one, is that I have increased the maximum text file size to well beyond the size of this file.

The original name of the file, BTW, was ghpart1. I have no idea if there was a part2...

D.

danielb wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:48 am I think the "OK" at the end means that the files were saved via the UART, right?

To be honest I don't know

danielb wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 2:30 pm Galactic Hitchhiker

This game is, according to this site: https://intfiction.org/t/early-british- ... ures/46425 possibly the earliest surviving British text adventure game. More details can be found here: http://8bitag.com/info/galactic.html and here: https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 073#p61073.

I downloaded the file from the stardot forum, and altered it very slightly (added padding at the end, the code is identical).

The game seems to work well on the core. To run it, select the MonUK02 monitor, and set the terminal width to 46 characters. Then reset and select "Monitor" then press L and load the file. There is a walkthrough here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA36YiR ... l=benkid77 of it being played on an emulator.

I am attaching both the game itself, and also a new pre-release version of the core. The only difference between this version and the previous one, is that I have increased the maximum text file size to well beyond the size of this file.

The original name of the file, BTW, was ghpart1. I have no idea if there was a part2...

D.

I've come across this I think but not tried it.
Thanks

EeDee wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 3:11 pm

danielb wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 2:30 pm Galactic Hitchhiker

This game is, according to this site: https://intfiction.org/t/early-british- ... ures/46425 possibly the earliest surviving British text adventure game. More details can be found here: http://8bitag.com/info/galactic.html and here: https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 073#p61073.

I downloaded the file from the stardot forum, and altered it very slightly (added padding at the end, the code is identical).

The game seems to work well on the core. To run it, select the MonUK02 monitor, and set the terminal width to 46 characters. Then reset and select "Monitor" then press L and load the file. There is a walkthrough here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA36YiR ... l=benkid77 of it being played on an emulator.

I am attaching both the game itself, and also a new pre-release version of the core. The only difference between this version and the previous one, is that I have increased the maximum text file size to well beyond the size of this file.

The original name of the file, BTW, was ghpart1. I have no idea if there was a part2...

D.

I've come across this I think but not tried it.
Thanks

I'd never heard of it before I stumbled upon that YouTube video, but I couldn't resist getting it working on the core

D.

Think I read somewhere that a part2 hasn't surfaced
Tried your adapted part1 and all is working. I've not yet tried anything else but will do very soon

I played it right through, following the walkthrough. Some of it is quite funny, but I imagine it would be pretty tedious without the walkthrough

D.

danielb wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 5:25 pm I played it right through, following the walkthrough. Some of it is quite funny, but I imagine it would be pretty tedious without the walkthrough

D.

Yes

EeDee wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:53 pm ...I've not yet tried anything else but will do very soon

Messed about a little and seems okay so far

Here's a hint: Super Invaders plays very nicely with a joystick if you redefine the keys. Definitely would have been considered sci-fi in 1979...

D.

danielb wrote: ↑Thu Sep 30, 2021 2:31 pm Here's a hint: Super Invaders plays very nicely with a joystick if you redefine the keys. Definitely would have been considered sci-fi in 1979...

D.

Not having been successful in remapping before (not much of a gamer so didn't try very hard) I made an effort to try out what you suggested.
I've activated rapid fire as well so now having a "blast"
In '79 I'd not yet seen a computer apart from on tv

Just an observation that when a text file has finished loading I find I have to press the space bar to get back a flashing cursor and then Return before I can List or Run ect.

Additional: Just watched one of your videos and noticed it is normal behaviour

EeDee wrote: ↑Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:41 am Just an observation that when a text file has finished loading I find I have to press the space bar to get back a flashing cursor and then Return before I can List or Run ect.

Additional: Just watch one of your videos and noticed it is normal behaviour

Yes, Writing LOAD puts it into "load mode" and it waits for you to upload your program, either via the UART or from the text file. Pressing space ends the "load mode".

This is the cause of the one remaining bug - some games autorun after loading, thus leaving "load mode" switched on. If you do a reset while these games are running, chaos ensues the next time you try to load a program from a file. This chaos can actually be worked around by actually uploading a short file, which resets everything back the way it should be, or else you can reload the core.

Since this doesn't happen when loading via the UART, I have been trying to see in which ways the signals change during a loading session, both from file and from the UART, and so far I can see no differences at all - they seem to behave in exactly the same way.

I would really like to get this bug fixed before making this version official, but it might take a while

D.

I seem to have fixed it....

Really?! Great!!

Apparently... I'll test it some more, and if I can't trip it up, I'll put another pre-release version on the forum.

D.

Thanks!

Here it is. It appears to work fine; I was unable to make it do anything really weird.

One difference is that Super Invaders will now run in File mode, but you still have to select UART and 300 baud to make it work at the correct speed. Not sure what's going on there, but I will investigate if it proves to be a problem.

D.

Thanks for the update which seems to be working fine so far

Thanks for the help in testing the core. The latest version just "went official".

Hi all,

I just pushed a new version of the core with one small change - the Load File menu option is now greyed out in UART mode.

Secondly, I have attached a new version of Galactic Hitchhiker. It turns out that the padding I added at the end of the file caused some side effects after a reset. All I really needed to do was to add a carriage return to the end of the file. The attached version appears to work perfectly and has no unwanted side effects.

D.

danielb wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 3:25 pm
Secondly, I have attached a new version of Galactic Hitchhiker. It turns out that the padding I added at the end of the file caused some side effects after a reset. All I really needed to do was to add a carriage return to the end of the file. The attached version appears to work perfectly and has no unwanted side effects.

Didn't notice that. Thanks for the update.
Are 64 columns a possibility still?

EeDee wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 5:05 pm

danielb wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 3:25 pm
Secondly, I have attached a new version of Galactic Hitchhiker. It turns out that the padding I added at the end of the file caused some side effects after a reset. All I really needed to do was to add a carriage return to the end of the file. The attached version appears to work perfectly and has no unwanted side effects.

Didn't notice that. Thanks for the update.
Are 64 columns a possibility still?

Definitely possible. The core is, I think, feature-complete for a basic UK101 (with extra memory), and it runs almost all of the games that I know of. There are a couple that require a bigger screen.

For a computer with no graphics or sound, the UK101 is quite a lot of fun...

Maybe I should add a SID chip

D.