MagicEngine

[Cyclone3d]

O.k., here is my question.

Would it be at all possible to make a front-end for the TG-16 or Turbo Duo so I could put ROMs on a CD and play them on my actual TG-16 system?

This would be way-cool as it is very hard to find a lot of these Hu-Cards that are easily available as ROMs.

[dmichel]

This is possible, but it's a difficult task, most ROMs can't be loaded at once in the Duo RAM because of the limited amount available (only 256KB of RAM) and also the RAM and ROM address space is not the same so you would have to re-map ROM addresses to execute from RAM... definitely not an easy task.
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David Michel

[Cyclone3d]

The Arcade Card Pro adds 4MB of RAM, right (or is it 2MB)? That's plenty to completely load any ROM into RAM if I am thinking correctly.

I haven't programmed at all with the TG-16, but if it is possible to do this it would be really cool. And I would start if I had any chance whatsoever of succeding.

[dmichel]

Yes, the Arcard Card has some extra RAM (2MB), but that's not the same kind of RAM, it doesn't work like regular RAM, it can be used to store/retrieve data but not to run programs, in all cases you are stuck with the 256KB of Duo RAM. I think it's possible to split a 1MB game into several piece to execute in only 256KB, but that can't be done automaticaly, it must be done by hand and on a game by game basis... like I said it's not impossible but it's a lot of work and require some basic ASM and PCE hardware knownledge.
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David Michel

[David Shadoff]

I have seen an ISO going around which does exactly this, but only for a few games. Here's how it seems to work:
- games which usually run in memory banks $00->$1F are relocated(*) to run in memory banks $68->$87 instead. This would be the hard part.
- a menu was written to list several games
- the altered games would need to live as blocks of data on the data track
- a boot loader of some sort was written to load games into *ALL* SCD RAM, so this boot loader would probably have to live in scratch RAM during the load operation
- reset MMR registers, interrupt vectors...
- load and run the game

(*)to relocate:
All "TAM" (transfer accumulator to MMR register) would need to be reviewed. If 'A' is between $00 and $1F at the time of "TAM", then the assignment which set 'A' would need to be changed to add $68. If it is $F8 (scratch RAM), or $F7 (Backup RAM), or $FF (hardware), it should not be altered.

In many cases, we see a 'LDA #n' ("load accumulator with immediate data") followed immediately by 'TAM #r', and these types of access should be easy to catch - but if there is some gap between these instructions, or if the accumulator is loaded from an array or something, it could get very difficult.

I think it would be kind of cool technically to do this, because some games have hacked or translated versions - and it would be nice to play them on the real hardware. At least the games 2 megabits and smaller.

[Cyclone3d]

Do you know where I can get a copy of it?

I would also like the source code if it is floating around...

Oh yeah, Thanks for the info.

[Cyclone3d]

I know I should prolly work on actually making a front-end that works with the 2Mbit cartridges first, but would it be possible to load the ROM data completely into the Arcade Card (if detected), so the system could do the "split game into multiples 256k parts" thing, so it would load faster than if it had to load it from the CD part by part?

Rmember, I have never programmed for the TG-16 at all yet, so I am basically just swinging in the dark, hoping to hit (find) something that would make it possible to play ANY ROM on the original hardware.

(I am in College and my major is Computer Science, so I really need to do as much programming as possible)

[dmichel]

Yes, the Arcade Card can be used, but it won't help to split and patches the games, this has to be done by hand; or with the help of an automated 're-mapper', and the ROM doesn't necessarily have to be splitted in 256KB chunks, it's more complex than that (and it's specific to each game), the easier is to split the game on a level basis (ie. a chunk for level 1, another one for level 2, etc...), but to do that you will need to disassemble some part of the game and understand how it works to be able to split it.
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David Michel

[KungFuJoe]

what about putting roms on a cd to run on magicengine, that would make things much easier as to not having to download roms ever again if your HD crashes.

[KungFuJoe]

what about putting roms on a cd to run on magicengine, that would make things much easier as to not having to download roms ever again if your HD crashes.

[Cyclone3d]

Actually, I pretty much already have done that. (Have a cD with ROMs on it that is)

But, playing games on an Emulator just isn't the same as playing them on the actual system.

[blue berry]

Does this help?
Ok to do this you'll need three isos and the second track iso from the
american Gate of Thunder 4in1 pack. This track conatains the menu for
selecting the game and Bomberman. Thus every game you make this way
will have Bomberman on it. Here's a diagram of what you should have before
you burn the game.

You MUST burn these with VOB's Instant CD Wizard

To add an audio track right click the virtual disc and select new track
then insert it as a wav audio file.

To insert the data simply do the same and select track from a physical
image and insert the iso.


track 1: audio.wav
track 2: bomberman_menu_from_got.iso
track 3: audio.wav
track 4: parodius.iso
track 5: audio.wav
track 6: imagefight2.iso
track 7: audio.wav
track 8: audio.wav
track 9: audio.wav
track10: audio.wav
track11: audio.wav
track12: audio.wav
track13: audio.wav
track14: audio.wav
track15: audio.wav
track16: audio.wav
track17: audio.wav
track18: audio.wav
track19: audio.wav
track20: audio.wav
track21: audio.wav
track22: download2.iso

Now burn the disc Track at once (default) and you'll have a disc
that will work in your duo.

Note that the menu will still say Gate of thunder ,Bonk or Bonk's
revenge but it will load the game that corresponds to the track
number of the now non existent GOT or bonk game.

You can access the Bomberman game by pressing up right down left
then button II at the menu screen.

NO YOU CANNOT REMOVE BOMBERMAN!! (this contains the menu)


Please note that not all games will work like this but most will.

[Cyclone3d]

Hehe, I never thought of doing that... Starting to make more sense now.

Hmmm... I wonder if it would be possible to edit the track 2 .iso to have more selections for the other tracks on the cd.

Since the necessary code is already there, it should be possible to "reverse engineer" if you will. I will see if my little brother the "mad programmer" will help since I have just started learning how to program.

Seems like a really demented task like he loves to accomplish.

[Cyclone3d]

I saw in another post that TG-16 stuff was most likely written in assembly.

Would it be possible to use a dissasembler in order to get the code I need from the Gate of Thunder CD? (The dissasemblers I have seen in the past usually didn't work too well).

Anybody know of a really good dissasembler that could do this?

Would maybe a C dissasembler work (so then I could use MagicKit or HUc)?

[SchmuckofNI]

Some ambitious programmer should start on this project. I would if I had the needed knowledge to start but I am just a poor college student with too much paperwork to do..