DS994a - A Texas Instruments Emulator for the DS/DSi

wavemotion · Feb 13, 2023

I do my best, Indy

Version 1.1 got released...

V1.1: 14-Feb-2023 by wavemotion-dave

New compile with GCC 9.4.0 and latest DEVKITPRO and libnds 1.8.0
Improved DSK writes for greater consistency and safety
Reverted to -O2 compilation optimizations for greater stability
Improved TI keyboard graphic - more legible and cleaner look
Minor cleanups as time permitted.

wavemotion · Feb 20, 2023

Version 1.2 is released: https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/DS994a

V1.2: 20-Feb-2023 by wavemotion-dave

Speech samples added for Parsec, Alpiner and Moonmine. It's not perfect but does bring back the feels of those games with speech!
Added additional TI keys that can be mapped to the DS.
Minor cleanups as time permitted.

The first of the speech module support! The speech module was one of the semminal bits of add-on equipment for the TI99/4a and they were practically giving them away. Lots of first-party titles support them... the most popular among them was Parsec and Alpiner.

I've added speech support for the 3 games I played as a kid - they are done using WAV sample playback so they run nice and smooth even on the older DS hardware. I compressed the shit out of them to fit them into the binary... but it's still a pretty good rendition of the speech module from bygone days.

CrashMidnick · Feb 21, 2023

Alpiner : oh no ! ouch ! "yaks" ! no ! :rofl2:

Go under a tree or a snake and keep pressing up, very funny !

Works great on the older hardware. Thanks Dave.

wavemotion · Feb 21, 2023

CrashMidnick said:
Alpiner : oh no ! ouch ! "yaks" ! no !
Go under a tree or a snake and keep pressing up, very funny !

Works great on the older hardware. Thanks Dave.

You’re quite welcome. Honestly Alpiner without speech is a mediocre game. With speech it’s a mediocre game with really funny and sarcastic lines and that makes a world of difference. We laughed pretty hard as kids on that one.

wavemotion · Feb 24, 2023

Version 1.3 is released: https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/DS994a

V1.3: 24-Feb-2023 by wavemotion-dave

More speech samples added. Parsec, Alpiner and Moonmine have all speech phrases included. Star Trek and Bigfoot have partial speech included.
Improved memory usage to gain back a bit more resources for future expansion.
Minor cleanups as time permitted.

If you haven't played Bigfoot yet, you should! It's a TI99 exclusive and a really great game. I've added some of the speech samples to enhance gameplay.

Since Bigfoot is an MBX cart, after picking it from the ROM loading menu, you will have to go into Game Options and change the Cart Type to 'MBX with RAM' or else the game won't run. It's worth the effort!

CrashMidnick · Mar 1, 2023

New features in V1.4 are awesome. The new KB is beautiful (love the TI key to access the menu) and the dark theme reflects perfectly the computer. Thanks Dave

wavemotion · Mar 2, 2023

Yeah, the new vintage TI keyboard graphics look great. I was fortunate that someone who had some skills in producing these was a fan of the TI and my emulator. I couldn't do this level of detail - you've seen my keyboards in the past: functional but nothing great to look at!

For those that haven't seen it, here is one of the new TI looking keyboard layouts:

nitrozz · Mar 2, 2023

how to load and run dsk game without bin file

wavemotion · Mar 2, 2023

DSK files don't run by themselves... you always need a CART of some kind. In the case of Tunnels of Doom, you need the Tunnels of Doom cart inserted and then the .DSK file contains the adventures.

The README on the github site has instructions on how to load Tunnels of Doom (it has it's own section).

wavemotion · Mar 29, 2023

Version 1.5 is released: https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/DS994a

V1.5: 29-Mar-2023 by wavemotion-dave

Fixed minor cosmetic glitches with menu handling and ROM file selection.
DSi now supports up to 2048K (2MB) banked ROMs (the older DS still supports 512K).
Other minor cleanups as time permitted.

This is asymptotically approaching "done". A few bugs fixed. A bit of polish on the UI. The DSi and above will support silly-large bank-switched ROMs of which there are virtually none... but it's good for future-proofing the emulator long after I've faded into the shadows from whence I came.

Tebra · Apr 4, 2023

Hello,
Very nice emulator. Thanks for your work.
I try to run « the attack » on my N2DS. After loading the rom and press key « 2 » to start the game nothing happens. Any help about that?

wavemotion · Apr 5, 2023

Tebra said:
Hello,
Very nice emulator. Thanks for your work.
I try to run « the attack » on my N2DS. After loading the rom and press key « 2 » to start the game nothing happens. Any help about that?

I had no problems here running it just now. I’m using a standard AttackG.rom from whtech and no issues. I suspect a bad rom dump - try finding another.

Tebra · Apr 5, 2023

wavemotion said:
I had no problems here running it just now. I’m using a standard AttackG.rom from whtech and no issues. I suspect a bad rom dump - try finding another.

Yes, it works with another dump. Thanks

nitrozz · Apr 19, 2023

playing around with editor/assembler II running some extended basic game or E/A option 5 loader and guess! they work some time slower but they run. Thank’s @wavemotion Go on with this Excellent work

nitrozz · Apr 21, 2023

it’s possible to include XB in emulator ?

wavemotion · Apr 21, 2023

nitrozz said:
it’s possible to include XB in emulator ?

Extended BASIC (and, really, all of the newer homebrew advanced BASIC carts) should run fine in ds994a. I run XB often to launch various disk-based games.

nitrozz · Apr 22, 2023

wavemotion · Feb 16, 2024

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/DS994a

V1.7: 16-Feb-2024 by wavemotion-dave

Integrated the updated SN sound core for more robust sound.
Fixed audio squeals and other odd noises in a few games (e.g. Borzork, Mission Destruct, etc).
Fixed RAM mirrors so more games play correctly - DSi defaults to RAM Mirrors ENABLED.
Fixed SAMS 16-bit memory read access so programs like SAMSTEST4 detect the memory.
New classic floppy disk read/write sounds (can be disabled in Global Settings).
Added new diagonal DPAD configuration to aid a few of the Q-Bert like games.
Added new options for 90% (slower than normal) and up to 150% (faster than normal) emulation.
Added the ability to auto-mount disks based on the filename. See File Types Supported in the readme for details.
Lots of minor cleanups and tweaks at time permitted.

A ton of changes in this one... see the readme for details!

CrashMidnick · Feb 16, 2024

You're on fire ! Thanks mate. :nds:

wavemotion · Feb 17, 2024

CrashMidnick said:
You're on fire ! Thanks mate.

Thanks Crash... you're always in that group that thumbs everything I post and the appreciation is much appreciated!

There is one other change in this build that I am hesitant to mention as it's not totally clean:

The emulator will not just look for .bin (the traditional extension for TI-99/4a games) but also .994 as a special way of identifying a game as a TI-99/4a game. This is for possible future use by TWL++ should @RocketRobz and crew want to support launching TI-99 games (this is the only emulator I've worked on that I think isn't directly supported by TWL++). The problem is that TI-99 files come in multiple parts... _c, _d, _g and so it's not ideal for launching via a menu. I need to think more about how to handle this cleanly.

Edit: found a nice speedup in the VDP rendering that should help DS-Lite/Phat users... checked that in as 1.7a just now.

DS994a - A Texas Instruments Emulator for the DS/DSi

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