The continuing nightmare of the NEC PC-xx0x series
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@Folly Woohoo! Investigating now.
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I was somehow able to use a mame .d88 floppy and load the game from cass and save it to a floppy image.
I used the disk "3by4".
It will autoboot and by pressing ctrl+c in QUASY88 I could delete the 3by4.ipl file.
After pressing ctrl+c, I could use the commands :
files (list the files)
kill"3by4.ipl" (delete the file on disk)
cload"WARS" (load the file from tape"
save"3by4.ipl" (save the file WARS as 3by4.ipl on disk)Sadly it's very hard to find some basic commands I looked some up from MSX.
Anyway, after reset it autobooted the Galaxy WARS game.
It was also possible now to boot it in lr-quasi88, though I could not controll with <>, again key issues here.
Then I tried in mame but it didn't load.
I hoped to convert it again to a .wav cass file, no dice yet. -
@Folly Interesting. I can't even install standalone quasi88 on my Pi4, it's marked in red in RetroPie-Setup :(
I tried the Windows version but Ctrl-C did nothing, couldn't get any commandline access.
Did you try controlling it with the numpad keys rather than the normal cursors?
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@JimmyFromTheBay said in The continuing nightmare of the NEC PC-xx0x series:
@Folly Interesting. I can't even install standalone quasi88 on my Pi4, it's marked in red in RetroPie-Setup :(
It's disabled because the pi4 will not display correctly in full screen.
Though it's very handy for testing and file access like we discuss in this thread.You have to remove the "! kms" flag in the module-script, then you can install it.
Make sure you don't put kanji roms inside BIOS/pc88 to make sure the menu is in english.
Removing-fulland adding-doubleto the loader can be bit of a fix for the small screen issue.I tried the Windows version but Ctrl-C did nothing, couldn't get any commandline access.
You can try it again in the linux version.
Did you try controlling it with the numpad keys rather than the normal cursors?
For this game you have to use the "
</," and the ">/." keys. (so key "," and key ".".I did a next try to put it to a disk image.
Somehow when you don't startup with a disk, that has already something on it, the DISK BASIC isn't executed and therefor you can't add or read files.
Booting with a blank disk doesn't work either.Took an existing disk again, did ctrl+c, killed all files on disk,cloaded WARS and saved it to the disk as wars.
Loading in lr-mess/mame-pc8001-flop1 didn't work.
Loading in lr-mess/mame-pc8801-flop1 did work now and I can play the game.
Loading in QUASI88 using pc8801 bios did also work now and I can play the game there too.Still no success saving it to a wav file in mame.
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@Folly said in The continuing nightmare of the NEC PC-xx0x series:
Took an existing disk again, did ctrl+c, killed all files on disk,cloaded WARS and saved it to the disk as wars.
It's really annoying this forum is so prissy about sharing files :(
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Indeed, always a bit problematic but that's the way it is. somehow it's understandable otherwise perhaps RetroPie didn't exist anymore.
You can find disks inmame-sl, for example pc8001_flop.
I think I have the same cassette file fromNeo_Kobe_NEC_PC-8001_2016-02-25.
Google is your friend.If you want to send me an email, look into my user info.
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@Folly said in The continuing nightmare of the NEC PC-xx0x series:
If you want to send me an email, look into my user info.
Sadly email addresses are only visible to you.
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I tried to send an email but I get an error :
The following address failed:
SMTP error from remote server for RCPT TO command, host: user is over quotaYou probably have used all your space on the email server and maybe you need to clean it up.
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@Folly Gah, stupid Apple.
Done now, please try again if you would be so kind :)
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looks good now.
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Can you do the same trick with moon[at ?
Moonpat is a machine language game.
It can be started in QUASI88 standalone with N-BASIC as bios.
commands are :
mon
*LOnly, it start directly after that.
Can't push it to a disk yet because of not having the knowledge of all commands.
Perhaps in the future.In lr-quasi88 it seems it only can detect disks, so no go here !
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@Folly Oh man, this is so tantalising! Quasi88 in Windows does nothing for me - after I type L I just get a flashing asterisk cursor, then a new line with a flashing asterisk cursor and an L, forever.
In lr-quasi88 it's the same except I don't get the second *L line.
And I can't get mame-pc8801-cass to run at all, even though mame-pc8801-flop1 works for Galaxy Wars.
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@Folly Brilliant, ta! That got it working in Windows, now to see if I can get anywhere on the Pi4.
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I have found a java tool for converting cmt to wav files.
It's called pcm8001.
I have also found a java tool for converting wav back to cmt files.
It' called cmt8001.You can find them here :
http://upd780c1.g1.xrea.com/pc-8001/index.htmlTried a wav on lr-mess-pc8001-cass, sadly, could not get it working.
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Can you do a summarize in you first post of our discoveries ?
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@Folly said in The continuing nightmare of the NEC PC-xx0x series:
I have found a java tool for converting cmt to wav files.
It's called pcm8001.
I have also found a java tool for converting wav back to cmt files.
It' called cmt8001.You can find them here :
http://upd780c1.g1.xrea.com/pc-8001/index.htmlBlimey, I have NO idea what to do with that. It just brings up some kind of Java commandline window that tells me to type "OK" and then closes when I do...
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@Folly said in The continuing nightmare of the NEC PC-xx0x series:
Can you do a summarize in you first post of our discoveries ?
I'm not really very sure of what they are :D
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we still don't know why ES_SYSTEMS.CFG thinks .N80 files are supported, they don't seem to be in reality.
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you did SOMETHING very clever to convert the Galaxy Wars .CMT file into a .D88 file that mame-pc8801 can read, but I'm not really sure what it was or how it could be reproduced, and it doesn't seem to work with machine-code files anyway, which I imagine most games are.
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I discovered, and then somehow lost, the ability to type quotemarks in lr-quasi88, but they don't actually help with tape loading so it doesn't matter.
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so far we haven't found a way to get Noon Patrol working on Pi (which is my main goal TBH), although it works on the Windows version of Quasi88. (I've contacted the author to ask if he might upload it as a .D88 file instead, but no answer as yet.)
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you've found a file that converts .CMT files into .WAVs, but I have no clue how it works and it doesn't seem to produce runnable files in any case.
Is that a fair summary of where we are? :D
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Yea, nice summary, looks like we did not get far. haha ;-)
I think we have to keep on digging.
I found an quasi88 for sdl2 and have succeeded to compile it on debian 11 on x86_64.
Will try that on the RPI4 too, and hope I will get it fullscreen.
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