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Post by spiff on Oct 17, 2008 8:40:54 GMT -5
What about using the dtvmkfs/DTVFSEdit PRG feature for the Hummer ZIPs? With PRG support in image programs I do not see much reason to stick with the dtvpacked format. With PRGs in ZIPs users can use the repository easily just for putting programs on SD cards for their SD2IECs/1541-IIIs even if they don't intend to reflash their Hummer. I still recommend to put index.txt in the ZIPs for people who indeed use a DTV kernal on the Hummer. Good point. In fact I had been thinking about converting the repository to PRG-format (in the Zips). I know that I originally stated that this would help ensure the dtv-patched versions do not end up in regular C64 archives. But I guess this is not really a concern; there are plenty of DTV programs distributed as PRGs, so whether the repository does it one way or another does not matter much. I have also had a few people ask me how to get the programs on their DTV without putting them in the flash. This is a good reason for having just plain PRG's in the archive zips. And the original reason for not embedding dtvpack in dtvmkfs was to use the format Hideki used in his tool. But as I have previously said, I haven't heard about anyone still using this tool, so I guess support for it can be dropped now. 1570: I know you suggested using the PRGs instead of DTV a long time ago. At that point I had my reasons (as stated above), but apparently these are no longer valid, so I admit to have changed my mind. Keeping the support for the dtvpacked format still allows a little extra possibilities, such as having stored prgs (dtvpack -0). I also have support for RAW files, with the only difference being that the directory listing I generate has the file size calculated for dtvpacked files (so it shows the block count in uncompressed size).
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Post by David Murray on Oct 17, 2008 12:53:36 GMT -5
Good point. AFAIK ExpertSetup is the only one who ever did Hummer Userport Joystick patches. Actually, if you look at my archive, you'll find that Ian Colquhoun, Hannu Nuotio, and JTWinters also contributed patched games. I also tried my hand at it with minor success, but never could quite get them working. See archive here: galaxy22.dyndns.org/dtv/hummer/games/index.htmlI know of at least 10 people who made this hack, but I imagine there are a lot more than that out there who never emailed me or posted about it. I have to admit I don't fully understand what you are talking about here. My Hummer has the same kernel that came with the DTV Version 2 sold in Europe, except that I hand-modified the values for setting the color and refresh-rate. That is the same kernel I've had sitting on my website for download for years now and I imagine most of the people who have hacked Hummer units used the same kernel. I welcome any suggestions regarding the Hummer userport games archive, but I don't really see a reason to update it unless someone has a use for it. And if there are people who have a [/quote] Well, my only line of thinking for adding it is that my website doesn't get as much traffic as it used to. This could be just because the DTV is out of production and the hype around it has died down in general. But there are also lots of other websites out there, where at the time mine was just about the only one. So it would be good to have the games duplicated somewhere else, especially in case something happens and my website disappears.
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Post by 1570 on Oct 17, 2008 16:41:32 GMT -5
My Hummer has the same kernel that came with the DTV Version 2 sold in Europe Sure? Does your Hummer still run the original Hummer game? Can you send a complete ROM image to me? The Hummer kernal I know definitely differs from the DTV2 kernal. Most notably it uses a slightly different file compression scheme and directory structure, see picobay.com/dtv_wiki/index.php?title=Hummer_Kernal_disassembly.
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Post by gmoon on Oct 17, 2008 17:02:16 GMT -5
The Hummer kernal I know definitely differs from the DTV2 kernal. Most notably it uses a slightly different file compression scheme and directory structure, see ...... AFAIK, most (if not all) Hummer re-flashes use the slightly modified V2 kernal David mentions. It fixes the Hummer BASIC save bug, which I believe has never been definitively chased down....
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Post by spiff on Oct 17, 2008 18:01:33 GMT -5
Updating the hummer archive using PRGs instead of DTV-compression should be easy, especially at this point where only 3 games are in the archive. If at some point an implementation of the compression/decompression is done, I would be happy to put it in dtvmkfs. But I don't have the patience to implement it myself, even though I guess it could be tested with VicePlus. The question is, if people flashed anything besides the kernel, what tools have been used. Has anybody actually put games in the flash? I started out with the DTV games archive, and threw in the Hummer Userport Joystick archive as well. I will still gladly host the files, but I would love other people to contribute to the maintenance. For instance, as I already stated, the main reason I did not update the Hummer archive was the lack of a way to test, and also making screenshots. If people are happy without screen shots, I have no problem without them (but I do like the fact that they are in the DTV-section of the repository). Perhaps if I get that upload feature implemented, I could easier let other people help me out In any case there does not seem to be a reason for dtv-packing the files in the Hummer repository. But does anyone have standpoints on getting rid of the dtv-packing in the DTV-fixed repository?
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Post by 1570 on Oct 17, 2008 18:15:09 GMT -5
Concerning Hummer compression/decompression, Nojoopa implemented this in C, and I implemented it for testing in DTVFSEdit. However, I chose not to support this in DTVFSEdit as the Hummer flash dir structure differs, too. Storing of start addresses is not possible there as the respective bytes are used for some compression offset. In order not to confuse users completely, it's probably best just to recomment reflashing the Hummer with a modified DTV2 kernal as David et al seem to be doing already. The Hummer game won't start then anymore but who cares. Perhaps somebody even fixes it to run with the DTV compression scheme. But does anyone have standpoints on getting rid of the dtv-packing in the DTV-fixed repository? The reasons to get rid of it there are the same as for the Hummer archive. Almost all onefilers can be run from IEC, too ( all onefilers if one uses the bigfile load patch from kernalpatcher SVN). BTW I just updated DTVFSEdit to use PETSCII URLEncoding and writing PRGs to Spiff ZIPs.
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Post by David Murray on Oct 17, 2008 21:42:57 GMT -5
Sure? Does your Hummer still run the original Hummer game? Can you send a complete ROM image to me? The Hummer kernal I know definitely differs from the DTV2 kernal. Yes. Just for clarification, since nobody could figure out the saving bug in the hummer kernel, I got fed up and asked somebody to send me the V2 kernel. That is the kernel I modified for the color settings on startup and used in my hummer and on my website. You are correct, once the kernel is flashed, it trashes the existing file system and the original Hummer game (which nobody misses) And I'd venture to say that 99% of the hacked hummers out there are using that kernel.
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Post by 1570 on Oct 18, 2008 5:02:36 GMT -5
Just for clarification, since nobody could figure out the saving bug in the hummer kernel, I got fed up and asked somebody to send me the V2 kernel. That is the kernel I modified for the color settings on startup and used in my hummer and on my website. You are correct, once the kernel is flashed, it trashes the existing file system and the original Hummer game Actually the filesystem is not trashed but the DTV2 kernal can't read it anymore. For example, it you start a Hummer softkernal, it will be accessible again. I recommend you clarify this on your web page (while you say the filesystem will be useless with the new kernal, it's not clear why - you should mention it's a slightly modified DTV2 kernal which uses a different filesystem layout). BTW doesn't the Hummer provide some Userport-based built-in transfer system? That will be gone, too, of you replace the kernal. Not that this matters much with DTVTrans available . spiff: Note there are also some Hummer games in the DTV Hacking Wiki: picobay.com/dtv_wiki/index.php?title=Userport_Patched_Games
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Post by gmoon on Oct 18, 2008 8:01:57 GMT -5
BTW doesn't the Hummer provide some Userport-based built-in transfer system? That will be gone, too, of you replace the kernal. Not that this matters much with DTVTrans available . Adrian Gonzalez gave us some info on DTVLOAD, but never followed through with the PC-side code or source. It uses a lot of hardware lines (10), and I lost interested in writing a replacement, especially with the other options.
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Post by David Murray on Oct 18, 2008 11:10:45 GMT -5
And combined with the fact that VICE now supports much DTV hardware, I'd rather do my development work with that.
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Post by spiff on Oct 18, 2008 18:06:21 GMT -5
Yes. Just for clarification, since nobody could figure out the saving bug in the hummer kernel, I got fed up and asked somebody to send me the V2 kernel. That is the kernel I modified for the color settings on startup and used in my hummer and on my website. You are correct, once the kernel is flashed, it trashes the existing file system and the original Hummer game (which nobody misses) And I'd venture to say that 99% of the hacked hummers out there are using that kernel. OK, I think I got it now. What you are saying is that if people flash their kernel, they have a DTV-compatible file system (because they have a slightly modified DTV kernel). Does this also mean that there are no tools for creating a Hummer file system? Although I have patched a couple of DTV kernels (and never had any problem doing so), I have stopped doing that, because I just use a soft-kernel called INTRO. My soft kernel is modified to load a different program. So basically I get the updated kernel, but without the need to write the first 64kB of flash. I like this especially with an automated transfer system, because I am pretty sure I will not risk bricking the DTV. Are there people who do not want to change the kernel on their Hummers? In any case, if using dtvmkfs or DTVFSEdit for the hummer, I suppose it should work with the patched kernel. But still, there are other reasons for not using the dtv-packed files in the archive, now that we have support for PRGs directly.
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Post by spiff on Oct 19, 2008 14:54:32 GMT -5
Coming back to the original topic of this thread, i have managed to get the RSS-feed in a working state. I wonder if this means there is no longer a reason to post new releases here If you go to symlink.dk/nostalgia/dtv/fixed/, you can subscribe. This is not a direct link to the feed, because that will probably change when I set up a new feed for the Hummer User Port games. Try it out and tell me if you like it, or if there are things that should be changed. I think it works allright (tested in Sage), but I do not have much experience of using RSS, let alone writing it. Now I just need to finish up a few things with searching and formatting, and the new repository will go live. Then I no longer have to maintain parallel databases (new system and RSS uses a different database schema).
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Post by 1570 on Oct 26, 2008 17:40:17 GMT -5
New games again: - Triple Tournament
- Save New York
...both from the "small but good two player games" dept. (posting here additional to the RSS feed since the "these are interesting two player games" information isn't contained in the feed)
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Post by spiff on Oct 27, 2008 3:07:18 GMT -5
New games again: - Triple Tournament
- Save New York
...both from the "small but good two player games" dept. (posting here additional to the RSS feed since the "these are interesting two player games" information isn't contained in the feed) Oh, I spent so many hours playing Save New York. Excellent game, both in one and two player mode. Maybe the repository database should have a flag indicating one/two players. But for an unpatched DTV, there is a big difference if two-player mode requires two joysticks (like Save New York).
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Post by nojoopa on Oct 27, 2008 7:44:51 GMT -5
Maybe the repository database should have a flag indicating one/two players. But for an unpatched DTV, there is a big difference if two-player mode requires two joysticks (like Save New York). This should cover most cases: - 2 player (flag)
- 3..n player (flag)
- multiplayer controls: same joystick, 2nd joystick, keyboard (all separate flags)
Other notes: - Flags for "Flash only" and ".PRG, but >202 blocks" would be useful
- Adding short descriptions to the RSS feed would be nice
- RSS feed shows version 1 of M.U.L.E. while the repository has v2 (although it still has the title screenshot from v1)
- Boulder Dash DTV seems to be the 101% version while the latest version is "final"
Keep up the good work!
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