Portable Tatung Einstein Emulation

[wavemotion]

I put the call out on GBATemp... I'll let you know if anything turns up!

[wavemotion]

Okay, got some feedback over on gbatemp

Both said that it's possible your firmware is old enough to not detect newer homebrews. The suggestion was to install another launcher on your card - either something sophisticated like TWL++ (Twilight Menu++ which is awesome) but properly much simpler is something like HBmenu 0.7.1 (or a more recent version if it exists). HBMenu is just another .nds file but it seems to do a good job finding and launching newer homebrews. If you can get your card to load HBmenu you can probably use that to springboard into my emulators (or any modern homebrews).

It's worth a try...

[vanpeebles]

Ha, that looks really good!

[MikeDHalliday]

Right, I updated the R3/Real card software to the version in the link on GBATemp forum, and the ColecoDS emulator now runs. Whoop Whoop.

But ...

Nothing on the Einstein runs
'
I can't get Hunckback to run, i just get a blank top screen, with the keyboard on the bottom. It hasn't frozen as when I tap the keys I get a click sound.

Also tried Shark Hunter and the same thing happens again, as does Scrabble.

I guess I am still doing something wrong? Can't see what though.

[wavemotion]

Progress

So perhaps we haven't got a proper BIOS. There are three places you can place the BIOS files - I put mine in /roms/bios

This is the Eienstein BIOS I use - it must be exactly so named:

* a746eeb6 einstein.rom (Tatung Einstein)

If that fails... try loading some common Colecovision game ROM just to see if it's affecting all drivers.

Dave

[MikeDHalliday]

I see what is happening here

When i get a black screen, or the MOS screen (I have a working firmware files now) i have to press start, then it works

It boots into MOS first, then pressing start forces the .DSK file to work.

Happy days!!!

[wavemotion]

I'm glad you got it rocking, Mike!

I hope the effort was worth it

[MikeDHalliday]

Yes, is runs great.

Looking forward to mobile Albert now

[Pernod]

I have lots of 80 track Double Sided 5.25" floppy discs that I need to image, but Mame does not support this format on Einstein emulation, even when running System 80.

I take feature requests at viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5. Let me know what real hardware configuration is required to support these discs and I'll see what I can do.

[wavemotion]

ColecoDS got an update to version 9.4 this week with some improvements for the Tatung Einstein.

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

I've also curated about 150 standard 200K .dsk images that are now all auto-booting into their respective games (a continuation of the .mad. GameBase effort of 2018 but including all the latest software dumped in recent years). I don't know where to place such an archive... but if anyone is interested, drop me a PM.

95% of Einstein software is running correctly now - one game that is perplexing me and not running right: Jet Set Willy 2. This sequel runs at about 3x the proper speed. I found I had to hack the CTC timer emulation to slow it down on CTC Channel 2 by 300% to get the speed to be roughly correct. I don't know why - still trying to debug it. MAME gets it right so it's obviously something I have wrong in my emulation of the CTC chip. Other games (Lazy Jones, etc) that utilize CTC Channel 2 (cascading into Channel 3) for timing seem to be fine with my emulation so it's something unusual that my emulation is failing on.

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