Fluke FIDE update... Good news

Well, I was chided into doing color syntax highlighting :) That piece is
nearly complete. You can turn it off if you have a slower computer, as
it does have to do a lot of parsing. I've found that once the file is
loaded, it's pretty fast, even on my lab computer (it only re-parses
lines that you've edited). The editor will have bugs... A couple I
already know about. I will release another version to correct a lot of
them, but I wanted to get this week's cut out this weekend before I head
to Anthony's BBQ :) At any rate, always back up your scripts before
using a new version of FIDE just in case...

Now the real news. Through the help of kev, John R, and another good
friend of mine, the Fluke Signature Analysis routine has been
successfully decoded. I've tested this out on a few ROMs, and it looks
like it works for all cases, I've added in an option to allow you to
read a ROM from disk, and it will auto-generate 9LC code for you. The
program doesn't know the address map, although I will probably implement
a very simple database of address maps in the future that will attempt
to match ROM files to MAME's address map (a few problems there, but it
may work for a good number of cases). Also, right now it requires that
the binary file be unzipped. I'll probably deal with zips down the road.
If I could find the right library, it'd probably be a snap.

So, what this really means is that you can find a MAME ROM set and
generate a bunch of scripts to check ROMs, even if you don't have a
known good board to start with. Won't help you in all cases (if you
can't find the exact same ROM set you have), but it should be pretty
useful. It also will write a few "quick test" lines so that you can
bypass the ROM test if you know you have a problem (like if you read in
all FF FF FF FF, then you probably have a CS issue). This generated code
could be used to create IF-THEN statements to help you figure out which
ROM version is on your board...

If you've already installed FIDE, you can just get the EXE file. If
you've lost the link or would like to try it out, email me directly.

--James Bright
www.QuarterArcade.com
Restored Arcade Games for your Home
Received on Sat Jul 19 09:02:04 2003