ColecoDS - Improved

anotherthing · Mar 28, 2024

wavemotion said:
My friend had the TI-99/4a

I had a TI-99/4A as a kid and I loved it. The only thing that my 3DS can't do that either me or my friends had when we were kids is the Odyssey 2. We had a friend with an Intellivision, friends with Atari 2600s, two friends with ColecoVisions. Me and my best friend had Odyssey 2s. I got the TI-99/4A in the 8th grade, my best friend got a C64 a few years later. I eventually got an Amiga 500, so I went from the TI-99/4A to the Amiga 500. The Amiga 500 was the first thing I had with a disk drive. The TI-99/4a had an old tape player from the late 1960s cabled up to it. Good times.

Now we have 1.5TB microSD cards smaller than my pinky nail.

Indy13 · Mar 28, 2024

Thanks Dave !

Somewhere on a sd card in France

djnate27 · Mar 28, 2024

So many fond memories playing Dragon’s Lair and Buck Rodgers on my ADAM as a teenager. (Until my curiosity with that speedy tape drive caused me to open it up, take the tape out mid game and re-insert it…basically causing the computer to overwrite game data).

I can still remember that sad day I was moving and I threw ADAM in a dumpster cuz it no longer worked and had to chuck it all because the main unit and the printer couldn’t be separated.

Thanks for this emulator. Time to go back in time.

wavemotion · Mar 29, 2024

Indy13 said:
Somewhere on a sd card in France

Ha! Were you sleeping between 9.4j and 9.4n?!

Indy13 · Mar 29, 2024

wavemotion said:
Ha! Were you sleeping between 9.4j and 9.4n?!

I was there but like Lucky Luke you are too fast: Dave Wavemotion the man who coded faster than his shadow !

wavemotion · Mar 30, 2024

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

V9.5: 30-Mar-2024 by wavemotion-dave

ADAMnet improvement for disk/tape handling. Improved timing, improved caching and more disk/tape games should load and run correctly.
DSI gets a massive 2MB of Expansion RAM (32 banks of 64K). DS-Lite/Phat still has 128K (base 64K plus the standard 64K expansion RAM).
Adam now properly handles 320K disks and three drive bays are virtually attached (two 320K disk drives and the internal Tape drive at 256K).
Adam full keyboard now uses an LED indicator under the CAPS LOCK button to indicate status.
Adam has improved keyboard graphic with more keys added.
Adam no longer mirrors RAM as a Colecovision would.
Adam optimization provided 5% improved emulation speed which should make most everything playable even on the older DS-Lite/Phat.
Adam supports the 32K expanded ROM and running carts under Adam emulation - name your ROMs as .adm so it loads into the right place in memory.
Tatung Einstein now has two proper standard 200K disk drives.
Tatung Einstein full keyboard now uses LED indicators under the SHIFT/CTRL/GRAPH and ALPHA LOCK keys for a visual improvement.
Tatung Einstein properly handles the backspace key when using the Alpha-Numeric keyboard overlay.
2000 individual game configurations are supported - save/load states optimized and numerous tweaks under the hood.

This one is a big update. Save states and configs are changed to allow more flexibility for me into the future. Sorry.

This release started as a cleanup of the Tatung Einstein driver but got out of hand with a desire to really get the Coleco ADAM emulation up to a much higher compatibility level. I had a breakthrough in disk/ddp handling and decided to really pour on the additions for the ADAM to bring it to a nice new plateau.

I've reworked the top row of the keyboard graphic to squeeze in another key and make it a bit more authentic looking - obviously with space constraints, I've had to take some liberties with the layout to fit on the DS screen with the goal of keeping the SmartKeys somewhat centered.

In settings you can change the speed of the AdamNet drive handling. The default is FAST - but if you want a somewhat more authentic experience, you can choose SLOW or SLOWER - neither of which is quite as slow as an original Coleco disk (or tape) drive ... but you'll get longer loading (with sound effects!) and more visible time on loading screens and maybe that's your jam. Me? I'm old enough now that I don't want to waste too much of my remaining life-force waiting for things to load

I hope you guys enjoy it! Do let me know if you use the emulator - I'm well over 500 development hours into this now and feedback is hugely appreciated.

wavemotion · Apr 8, 2024

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

V9.6: 08-Apr-2024 by wavemotion-dave

Removed DrZ80 core - the high quality CZ80 core is all that remains.
Complete overhaul of the Adam handlers to clean and refine - jettisoned conversion to FIAD in favor of simple raw sector dumps.
Fix for games like Best of Broderbund (dsk and ddp) now load properly.

Finally getting to the point where the AdamNet and disk/ddp handling is working smoothly with some of the holdout games now loading and running properly.

I've also jettisoned the entire DrZ80 core which was faster than the CZ80 core but did not have the same high-level of compatibility. I've made enough improvements over the years to gain the speed needed that we can run everything under the new higher-accuracy Z80 core. DrZ80 served me well - but like many things in life, it's time to move on. That also freed up about 40K of precious DS resources for future expansion.

wavemotion · Apr 16, 2024

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

V9.7: 16-Apr-2024 by wavemotion-dave

Fixed Colecovision RAM mirrors such that Boulderdash runs properly.
The Heist now forces RAM to clear (all zeros) as it is known to be picky about contents of RAM on power up.
Fix EEPROM sequential reads so Activision PCB games like Jewel Panic work correctly.
Added the Wildcard and Print buttons on the virtual ADAM keyboard. All ADAM virtual keys should now be present.
Added new configuration options to select the Colecovision mode to run in - you can force ADAM emulation, force PCB types, and set EEPROM sizes, etc.
New global option to force ADAM mode, SGM can be Disabled, and BIOS auto-patch for 'Fast BIOS' to force the 15 second wait down to 3 seconds.
Minor cleanup and optimizations to the Adam core.

Some users were operating with non-original BIOS to cut down on the 15 seconds of COLECOVISION banner time... and some of these BIOS files were a bit too drastic in their modifications and caused some compatibility problems. I strongly recommend you use the original Colecovision BIOS with a CRC32 of 3aa93ef3 - to that end, I've added a global option that will patch a single byte (in memory - leaving your original BIOS pristine) to drive the 15 seconds of banner display down to about 3 seconds. Slow enough that you get the nostalgic feels of the game loading but fast enough that you get on with your gameplay quickly.

Lastly - someone asked me recently what am I going to do when I get to the release after 9.9... of course I'll simply go to 10.0 - because, as it turns out, there are lots of numbers in the universe.

wavemotion · Tuesday at 12:19 PM

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

V9.8: 23-Apr-2024 by wavemotion-dave

Cleanup of MSX BIOS handling - we now support the Panasonic CF-2700 directly. See MSX BIOS section for details.
MSX status line now shows RAM (based on machine chosen) on the status line (was previously showing ROM size which no other machine in ColecoDS did).
MSX Caps Lock now has LED indicator on the virtual keyboard.
Added ROM/CAS/DSK size and CRC32 on the main screen after choosing a game.
Numerous fixes for Save/Load states especially for the MSX and Einstein.
Improved memory handling to free up some DS resources for future expansion.

There were a lot of changes "under the hood" on this one. Hopefully I didn't break anything

xxlvrrxx · Tuesday at 10:13 PM

Hi! I've been reading what you've done for the DSi and emulation and I think it's awesome. I need to try the ColecoDS!

Also, I want to ask you if, based on your experience, can see if it's viable a virtual boy emulator for the DSi. There's already one for the 3DS so the question came to my mind

wavemotion · Wednesday at 12:05 PM

xxlvrrxx said:
Also, I want to ask you if, based on your experience, can see if it's viable a virtual boy emulator for the DSi. There's already one for the 3DS so the question came to my mind

The Virtual Boy is a 32-bit processor running at 20MHz so it would be a tall task for sure on the DSi or lower... the 3DS has the horsepower to pull it off.

xxlvrrxx · Thursday at 1:39 PM

Oh i get it!

eosia · Thursday at 1:52 PM

That's such a good looking DSi.

ColecoDS - Improved

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