MiSTer FPGA Forum

There sre also ports to MiSTer to other boards (eg DE0). The problem with all of these is they lack HDMI, sometimes have less LEs, and the forks always lag behind.

Also, isnt VGA backwards compatible with EGA? I do not know much about Hercules In general yes; there's some edge cases that only EGA cards can do, e.g.: https://www.os2museum.com/wp/fantasyland-on-vga/ I'm not sure it makes sense to add VGA to the PCXT core though as it will need porting it to an 8-bit bus. Using it for a "PCAT" core (w...

spark2k06 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 20, 2022 5:57 am also the character patterns are displayed correctly in the 640x225 text mode that Tandy uses at startup:

By the way, this also fixed an issue I had with DOS text whereby it was adding a blank line at the end of each character (in Tandy mode).
DOS looks much better as a result!

I uploaded it there https://github.com/jsmolina/simple-menu-dos-launcher Can I make a small request? Could you add keyboard shortcuts such as these? Left/Right arrow keys for PageUp/PageDown Home (go to beginning), End (last item on list), PgUp, PgDown Type a letter -> go to the first item with that letter It would really help with larger lists.

Having both, I can understand the convenience of only using one forum.

But if a topic comes up that involves both (e.g.a comparison) it can always be discussed in the section for the core being talked about...

I've had a caseless MiSTer running inside an arcade cabinet without a fan for days without issues.
In my experience heat only becomes a problem on big cores such as Minimig or ao486.

Would useful to document what some of those do as a starting point, and the time they take to load. FREESP accelerates the calculation of free space, which is useful to have: https://github.com/ChartreuseK/FREESP/blob/main/README LFN seems to be commented out? The RAMDrive, if I understand these files correctly, is used to copy Norton Utilities to ...

This would be nice to have... also if we could use a USB controller as MIDI input as well (such as the AKAI MPK mini)

thorr wrote: ↑Thu Nov 17, 2022 5:20 am If the mode provided by dmckean is correct, then theoretically, the core should be outputting those timings, at least for CGA. I don't know if it is or not. We probably want the composite mode timings.

I feel that the overall horizontal and vertical setings are right but the pixel clock might be slightly off. So it throws off the display sync.

I don't know what it is, but there is something off with the video timing of the core even at 31khz. I usually run it on an old Eizo 19" VGA monitor, using vga_scaler=1 in MiSTer.ini so the video is forced to 1280x1024. Quite often the lower parr of the screen becomes shifted (usually after a resolution change), and I have to use the monitor's...

Homemade Daemonbites are the cost of an extension cable and an arduino. If you want to go commercial its expensive. For digital controls (eg arcade stick) I can recommend the "XinmoTek" boards from AliExpress. They have very good latency and are cheap. Here is one (xm-10): https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32877578231.html There is also sing...

I want a _ObscureComputer folder

I fired up my MiST today! I'm very grateful to all developers that keep it updated. MiST is an example of what you get with a homebrew board. In fact it could be assembled just with SMD soldering (no BGA chip). But it is not open hardware, and the Cyclone III is getting rarer, which limits future supply. Edit: There is a MiST clone that is cheaper ...

This is a great tool to make custom collections. It has some customizations for ao486 courtesy of Flynnsbit: https://github.com/Voljega/ExoDOSConverter I'm experimenting with it to see if I can make some handy packs (e.g. Tandy games, Composite games, etc). Since we can save the "selection" files, those can be shared without any copyright...

kitune-san wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 1:31 pm I experimented with 25MHz clock and CGA did not work well, MDA works.
I will prepare a test version with a reduced clock.

EDIT:
I gave up because the CGA did not work properly even after lowering the frequency to 20MHz.

Thanks for trying! 14Mhz is already fast enough for an XT..!

jordi wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 11:10 am In any case both cores are far less accurate than this one. Kitune, MCL and Spark did a very great job.

Absolutely! PCXT is on a class of its own now

There is also this working on MiST: https://github.com/gyurco/Next186

I wouldn't discourage anyone from attempting an 80286 core but it doesn't have a huge game library. I'd like to see a list of any games that won't fit either the PCXT or the ao486 cores. It will probably be a very small list and we might find workarounds to make the games work in existing cores. Somebody mentioned The Lion King not working well wi...

For the same reason, I wonder if a 286 core makes sense at all, given that ao486 covers basically all of the needs that a 286 is capable of. ao486 is finicky to downclock... so even with the PCXT core, there is a small niche for a 286 or 386 that can run between 15Mhz to 33Mhz. Edit: its not just about Mhz speed too, some games would run better wi...

spark2k06 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 8:31 am I recommend using 86Box or PCEm to create the HD images for use in the PCXT core, as this ensures correct CHS values:

How about adding a blank pre-formatted HD image to the repo (maybe 20 or 40MB) without any data,
so users can easily load a floppy and install their own OS?

Malor wrote: ↑Sun Nov 06, 2022 9:12 pm Don't miss that any, but of course I do like to show off that I remember that crap.

This is the place to talk about that crap

It's best to set MiSTer to the screen resolution, so all the upscaling is handled by it. The problem is not so much workload but the fact you end up with pixels that can't be displayed in non integer upscaling, which can cause clearly uneven lines or shimmering when scrolling. That being said, MiSTer has very good interpolation filters that can mak...

AmintaMister wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 7:50 pm In general, is it possibile to run a 512MB HD image with Compaq Dos 3.31 in this core without issues? I've noticed some random issues like no correct label for disk C...

Have you tried makng a snaller disk to see if it works? Maybe the problem is with that Compaq Dos.

Would it be possible to wire the FDD drive light to one of MiSTer's LEDs ?

I tried Alleycat (180k booter floppy) just now;
it booted fine both with Tandy and XT modes (micro8088), but note that I also have the ide_xtl.rom loaded.

Given that Minimig comes from a different FPGA, I'd say that studying that implementation is a better idea than focusing on ao486's. Minimig relies heavily on the FPGA board's "firmware" for disk access, same as MiSTer. One difference is that (like MiST) it's coded in C and runs on a dedicated MCU, whereas for MiSTer it was ported to be ...

Does the core support a Num Lock key? (if we want to switch \ to 7 etc)

Nevermind, I figured it out: I had to load the XTIDE bios in BIOS options!
(under EC00 BIOS)

Is something special required to get the HDD to work with Tandy?

It doesn't seem to recognize the disk. Perhaps I'm missing a BIOS file?

But that requires Long file name Fat32, isn't it? I'm not sure if the bin in the shareware pack includes those latest changes, sill it is probably the best reference on the the INI file that exists. So going through the INI file, it seems like we need to remove the TURBO options so only the "slow" one remains? # TURBO=Full - 486; $A100 #...