TechTools Archives: RE: [techtoolslist] Work in progress, opinio

From: Martin White <martin_at_guddler.com>
Date: Tue Sep 16 2003 - 06:30:12 EDT

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<DIV>I was
strongly considering doing this myself (being a programmer too!), but as with
everything with me, thoughts and reality rarely get matched up! - Oh, and my
knowledge of 9010 scripting is very limited having only just started on it
all.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>However, the problem you talk about here (if i understood correctly) of
which driver a Pacman on Galaxian hardware would be found in, i thought was a
non-problem.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I had
envisaged the program having a UI (or James integrating it into FIDE?), whereby
the user selects the driver from a list. Then the code interrogates the last
section of the driver to present the user with a choice of games available in
that driver. From this same section, the code then knows which definitions
within that driver the game uses.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If the
user doesn't know which driver a game resides in then a simple search tool could
be provided using grep or jgrep (both of which i have free versions under
Windows - least i think they're free!), which itself greps the final section of
each of the driver files in the drivers directory - obviously defined in the
options section. A code method to do the searching would be easy enough if using
an external program is not desired.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Least
that's what i had envisioned.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>A lot
of the pattern matching required to do this sort of thing is pretty simple
within .NET, and it isn't rocket science within VC6 (or VB6 / VJ6) - don't know
about non-MS tools as i have all MS tools here due to my
job.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Anyway, just a couple of thoughts, and yes, to answer the original
question, i obviously do think it's a good idea. It doesn't really matter if the
info isn't 100% accurate, at least it saves a whole bunch of typing, and just
leaves you with editing instead :O)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Martin.</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
 <DIV></DIV>
 <DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left>-----Original Message----- From:
 owner-techtoolslist@www.flippers.com
 [mailto:owner-techtoolslist@www.flippers.com] On Behalf Of James
 Bright Sent: 16 September 2003 03:44 To:
 techtoolslist@www.flippers.com Subject: RE: [techtoolslist] Work in
 progress, opinions... </DIV>
 <DIV class=Section1>
  
 Awesome…
 
  
 I have a little bit
 of work to match up the MAME ROM files to my existing data structures. The
 ontology of this is actually rather complicated. For example, how is “Pac-Man
 (Galaxian hardware)” classified? It will probably be matched to the Pac-Man
 game entry because of the name, but it’s more appropriately matched to the
 Galaxian entry because of hardware…
  
 And yes, as soon as
 I get comfortable with TL/1, it will have an option to save as a TL/1 test
 stub.
  
 JB
 <DIV>
 --James
 Bright www.QuarterArcade.com Restored Arcade Games for
 your Home </DIV>
 <DIV
 style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 4pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: blue 1.5pt solid; PADDING-TOP: 0in; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none">
 -----Original
 Message----- From:
 owner-techtoolslist@www.flippers.com
 [mailto:owner-techtoolslist@www.flippers.com] On Behalf Of David Shoemaker Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 10:28
 PM To:
 techtoolslist@www.flippers.com Subject: Re: [techtoolslist] Work in
 progress, opinions...
  
 <DIV>
 I like it, (though I will want the
 same utility function for the 9100 :)</DIV>
 <DIV>
  </DIV>
 <DIV>
  </DIV>
 <DIV>
 And yes the 9100 keyboard wedge is
 getting close.  I spent a wasted week trying to get a software uart to
 work so I could use the small sexy 8 pin parts for this.  Yes I know
 EVERYONE told me to just use the 20 pin part with the uart built in.  But
 I am stubborn, plus I didn't have the 20 pin parts on
 hand.</DIV>
 <DIV>
  </DIV>
 <DIV>
 I have parts on order for the 20
 pin.  Once I get them (later this week I expect) it's some code tweaking
 and bread boarding to finish it up.</DIV>
 <DIV>
  </DIV>
 <DIV>
 Then I will probably just release
 the works to the list, while I would really like to get a pcb made for it I
 haven't got the first idea how to start that process.  And this thing is
 going to be dead simple to build on protoboard I
think.</DIV>
 <DIV>
  </DIV>
 <DIV>
 David</DIV>
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 <DIV>
 ----- Original Message -----
 </DIV>
 <DIV style="font-color: black">
 From: <A
 title=james@quarterarcade.com href="mailto:james@quarterarcade.com">James
 Bright</A> </DIV>
 <DIV>
 To: <A
 title=techtoolslist@flippers.com
 href="mailto:techtoolslist@flippers.com">techtoolslist@flippers.com</A>
 </DIV>
 <DIV>
 Sent: Monday,
 September 15, 2003 6:33 PM</DIV>
 <DIV>
 Subject:
 [techtoolslist] Work in progress, opinions...</DIV>
 <DIV>
  </DIV>
  
 Well, I’m not really working on
 boards or 9010A scripts right now because I know the 9100A keyboard
 converter is near complete (or at least I hope! :)  So I’ve been
 playing around with something that kev and John were talking about a while
 ago.
  
 I’ve been hacking around the
 MAME code, and I’ve got it to the point where I can walk through the data
 structures and pull out information like ROM files and addresses, and read
 & write addresses. What I am thinking of building is a simple “pre-code”
 generator that will help you build a 9010A script based on this simple
 memory map. It would build the map for any of the supported MAME games (even
 if the game isn’t working; that is not what is important). It could also
 link you directly to the MAME source code for quick reference. Just
 wondering if people would find this helpful or useful. Although it would be
 a first pass, here are possible pitfalls:
  
 * ROM banking is frequently
 “hacked” in MAME (see Qix.c)
 * read/write addresses in
 software are not always read/write in hardware
 * I have no good way to insert
 the actual 9010A signatures right now because I would need to have all of
 the MAME ROMs (I don’t) and my programs don’t yet unzip the
 ROMs
 * I don’t know exactly how
 precise or accurate the memory map is in MAME
 * I almost guarantee mismatches
 between reality and the MAME driver :) Not that the programmers didn’t do a
 good job, but just that the software emulation might not match the actual
 hardware
  
 But… the good would be that you
 have something to start with given a game that you’ve never worked on (the
 memory map is usually where I start). I would also be able to add in other
 hardware information to my database (CPU, # CPUs, type, etc.) and provide a
 cross reference to other games.
  
 Does this reference material
 sound helpful? John, is this sort of what you’d had
 envisioned?
 --James
 Bright www.QuarterArcade.com Restored Arcade Games for your Home
 
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Received on Tue Sep 16 09:21:31 2003

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RE: [techtoolslist] Work in progress, opinions...