Did some work on Dexter rev3

This morning, I connected the Raspberry Pi's pin headers to a http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/sn74cbtd3384.pdf in order to make 5<->3.3V communication easy, then I routed the wires up.  I also added a pin header so that a non-Pi device can be used with Dexter as an option.

Goal To Go now confirmed working with Dexter

I have never seen this game played before.  It looks absolutely awful :)  But it works with Dexter!!

Cliff Hanger now fully playable with Dexter!

I fixed the VBI frame number injection defect and now Teo is able to play to the end of the game!

There are some minor performance problems (stuttering) but I believe these can be solved by reducing the file size of the video/audio file that Dexter is using.

This is very encouraging.  It means that MACH 3 is the only tested PR-8210 game that isn't currently working for Dexter (and this may be related to the audio volume more than anything else).

Spoilers: Teo doesn't quite beat the game, but he gets very close ;)

Remember my rant about emulator licenses?

Warren just pointed me to this link and the complaints this guy has are pretty close to my own.

Essentially, when I started on Daphne, I released it under the GPL to do a good deed to the community and hopefully to encourage some collaboration, but I was foolish enough to think that everyone on the community would Do The Right Thing and not try to profit off of my work, even if the license legally allowed for this.

My mistake.  Any future public version of Daphne will not be GPL'd which means I still have a lot of code to re-write.  Basic CPU emulators and probably game drivers will be BSD for preservation purposes (ie the research that I've done will live forever and will be free to the community), while the core rendering engine and everything else will be something that prevents strangers from profiting off my work.

VBI injection defect found

In my last post, one could see that Cliff Hanger is playable up until a certain point where it collapses.

This morning, I verified that I have a defect somewhere.  Either in the dexter code that sends the frame number to the VBI injector board, or in the VBI injection code.

I look forward to finding and fixing this defect :)

Cliff Hanger with Dexter

Matteo Marioni got some time to test Cliff Hanger with Dexter rev2 over the weekend.

Too long;Didn't Watch summary: Game works mostly correctly until after the ninja rooftops scene at which point the frame number injector appears to report the wrong number to the game, resulting in instant death.

I am hoping to debug my frame number injector code to see if there is a defect there but my board currently isn't working.  I moved all my computer hardware from one room in the house to another and may have jarred something loose in the transition.

Fast internet!

How to solder surface mount components

I am by no means an expert, but here are four (admittedly BORING!) videos showing how to solder on surface mount components.  While boring, they may be educational and helpful to someone who wants to learn :)

Cobra Command (MACH 3 hardware) successfully tested on Dexter

Matteo Marioni tested out Dexter and Cobra Command (MACH 3 hardware) and it seems to work perfectly.  This is great news.