Re: Which Sierra games can use the PC1512.DRV so they have 16colors with an Amstrad 1512 system?

Posted on 2021-07-17, 22:29

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

This update fixes 2 issues : 1. scrolling issue resolved so no more screen corruption: instead there are screen transitions that are better suited anyways for the slow PC1512 (additional changes were needed in the driver's dispatch routine to preserve the value of the DI register) 2. color issue …

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Re: Covox Sound Master Reverse Engineering / Replica

Posted on 2021-07-09, 19:21

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Judging by the contents of the AY8930's data sheet I assume that the PSG is controlled via a register pair in the IO address space, with the odd IO address mapped to the PSG's address latch and the even IO address mapped to the PSG's currently selected data register. It this assumption correct? If …

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Re: Covox Sound Master Reverse Engineering / Replica

Posted on 2021-07-06, 20:10

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Well, don't be so, you personally, in my eyes, are very low, Mr. millionaire)). Everyone's entitled to their views, I guess... Back to the card, or rather to its programming model: Judging by the contents of the AY8930's data sheet I assume that the PSG is controlled via a register pair in the IO …

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Re: Covox Sound Master Reverse Engineering / Replica

Posted on 2021-06-13, 20:30

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Has anybody recovered the relevant programming information, yet?

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Re: Newly written driver(s) for Sierra's Creative Interpreter – Starting with Plantronics ColorPlus

Posted on 2021-06-06, 15:56

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Those switches for 186 and 286 are just for the support of different instruction sets. I.e. a 186 has a more evolved instruction set over an 86, and a 286 has a more evolved instruction over and 286, and a 386 is 32bit instead of the prior 16bit processors. They could also be optimization options. …

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Re: Newly written driver(s) for Sierra's Creative Interpreter – Starting with Plantronics ColorPlus

Posted on 2021-06-05, 17:05

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

1.000.058 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.055 1.000.073 King's Quest 5 EGA 0.000.062 1.000.175 Conquests of the Longbow EGA 1.000 1.000.575 Leisure Suit Larry 1 (SCI remake) EGA 2.0 1.000.744 Space Quest 4 EGA 1.060 1.SQ1.004 Space Quest 1 (SCI remake) EGA 2.000 1.pq3.018 Police Quest 3 EGA 1.000 T.A00. …

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Re: Newly written driver(s) for Sierra's Creative Interpreter – Starting with Plantronics ColorPlus

Posted on 2021-06-04, 17:54

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Wait, what? I ran most of them in PCem with an emulated 8088, so I'm not quite buying the "286+" statement. I believe that it applies to the VGA versions, only. However it's installer doesn't like the PCPLUS.DRV file but renaming the Plantronics driver to EGA320.DRV does work! The canonical way to …

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Re: Newly written driver(s) for Sierra's Creative Interpreter – Starting with Plantronics ColorPlus

Posted on 2021-06-04, 13:05

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The List of Sierra's Creative Interpreter games does contain an entry for an EGA version of that game, but the dedicated EGA versions of VGA SCI games tend to be hard to track down. EDIT: I just rechecked and LSL1 (SCI EGA) has already been tested successfully with PCPLUS.DRV.

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Re: Newly written driver(s) for Sierra's Creative Interpreter – Starting with Plantronics ColorPlus

Posted on 2021-06-04, 11:58

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Well, off the top of my head, you could take the open source General MIDI driver from here, remove the MT-32 to GM remapping, send the output to the serial port and use an external RS-232 to MIDI adapter.

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Re: Newly written driver(s) for Sierra's Creative Interpreter – Starting with Plantronics ColorPlus

Posted on 2021-06-04, 11:17

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

There is mention that this works with LSL1 (SCI) version however I am unable to find one that it works with. The original release obviously doesn't, but the "VGA" remake spits out an error if I have the PCPlus.drv file in the directory. Says that there is text missing in the install file or …

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Re: Has Anyone Ever Seen/Heard of a DigiSpeech Plus?

Posted on 2021-05-09, 15:43

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

My informed guess would be that it uses some kind of packet-oriented protocol. What we don't really know is whether the OPL emulation is hardware-based, hardware-assisted or entirely software-based. The port interception itself is clearly V8086 based, i.e. requires a 386. Any somewhat contemporary …

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Re: Using VGA to S-Video / Composite adapter for connecting PCs to 15 kHz monitors like Commodore 1084s?

Posted on 2021-05-09, 13:54

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Btw my VGA to EURO SCART cable came from a shady vendor at the local computer market (1993?1994?). Contained dip14 chip handling sync inside Epoxy filled plug (hardware obfuscation), but I made my own copy just joining syncs together without resistors and that also worked. Could that have been an …

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Re: Using VGA to S-Video / Composite adapter for connecting PCs to 15 kHz monitors like Commodore 1084s?

Posted on 2021-05-09, 08:52

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

In DOS, most games run at 70hz and 400p. The good news is that DOS games actually only have about 200 lines of detail and are great candidates for downscaling, but that 70hz thing can definitely be a problem. There are apparently VGA cards that support 15khz natively and that might work, but I am …

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Re: Planet X3 by 8-Bit Guy nearing completion! New teaser & music

Posted on 2021-05-07, 19:46

by

by Benedikt

in Milliways

in Milliways

Just in case anyone missed it: The color translation LUT of the medium-resolution Tandy version has gotten some manual tweaks that make the conversion visually more appealing. The result looks like this: planet_x3_tandy_320x200_updated.png It can therefore now be viewed as a serious port rather than …

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Re: 5151 monitor. zig zag lines. Any idea of component to check?

Posted on 2021-05-07, 13:06

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I'm afraid that you are not going to get a lot of helpful responses to this post (or your word-wise identical post on vcfed from a couple of days ago), unless you put a little bit more effort into it and provide at least some details on the problem you are experiencing. For starters: What does it …

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Re: GLX Player the only XT player ? Check Mod Master...

Posted on 2021-05-02, 10:04

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Is it mandatory to adjust the volume to have it working ? I don't understand why it should be supported, as it is a simple volume control. If you don't specify the volume it will work with unspecified volume. The volume setting can be initialized outside the program, which is in fact how I tested …

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Re: Has Anyone Ever Seen/Heard of a DigiSpeech Plus?

Posted on 2021-05-02, 09:14

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

matze79 wrote on 2021-05-01, 22:09: Will it work in 32bit DOS4GW and other Extender Games ? i guess it must run some V86 Mode Driver. IIRC, the documentation specifically said that the emulation driver for DOS is for real mode, only, i.e. presumably uses V86 mode.

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Re: Has Anyone Ever Seen/Heard of a DigiSpeech Plus?

Posted on 2021-05-01, 19:59

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I don't see how the hardware is the hard part. The software is what is going to be capturing the DMA and the Sound Blaster and Adlib I/O addresses and then just sending those commands to the device on the parallel port. So, does this work independently of motherboard features? Like, could you use …

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Re: Has Anyone Ever Seen/Heard of a DigiSpeech Plus?

Posted on 2021-05-01, 15:26

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

As for the AC adapter, I have a European replacement adapter on order, but the delivery got delayed, so I still can't play with it. (The DS201s from eBay came with non-universal US adapters that don't take 230V.) I searched my entire apartment for spare adapters, but I couldn't find a single 9V DC …

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Re: GLX Player the only XT player ? Check Mod Master...

Posted on 2021-05-01, 09:09

by

by Benedikt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

By the way: Would you consider adding SoundJr volume control in some future version? The SoundJr DAC supports eight-level volume control. You basically just write a value to the parallel port's control port. See Re: Replicas of Covox Speech Thing, FTL Sound Adapter and SiliconSoft SoundJr for a …

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