Author Topic: We need a hero...  (Read 1181 times)

ginoscope

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Re: We need a hero...
« Reply #15 on: November 13, 2015, 06:05:01 AM »
I had to look up what this device was.

All I can say is it looks amazing but very limited in it's current form. It only works with a small hand full of games correct?

You cannot even really begin to fill up what this unit has with those games alone. Am I correct in this assumption?

Something like this makes me wish I got into programming at some point in my life... I think it is a great idea Nullity.

I think the way it works is you need those certain games to access the memory managers.  But say I was playing Exile and it was saved to my duo I think I can backup the entire memory to the MB128.  That's how I understood it but I don't currently own a MB128.

ccovell

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Re: We need a hero...
« Reply #16 on: November 13, 2015, 07:43:34 AM »
I'm currently working on memory base 128 management. I still to figure out one thing or too.

I think I'll let Mooz finish up his MB128 manager.  Emerald Dragon's manager program is wrapped too tightly around the system card (and writable RAM in the program area) that it's not an easy job to make a ROM-only version of it.

Pokun

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Re: We need a hero...
« Reply #17 on: November 27, 2015, 07:35:29 AM »
I had to look up what this device was.

All I can say is it looks amazing but very limited in it's current form. It only works with a small hand full of games correct?

You cannot even really begin to fill up what this unit has with those games alone. Am I correct in this assumption?

Something like this makes me wish I got into programming at some point in my life... I think it is a great idea Nullity.

I think the way it works is you need those certain games to access the memory managers.  But say I was playing Exile and it was saved to my duo I think I can backup the entire memory to the MB128.  That's how I understood it but I don't currently own a MB128.

I don't know whether or not the games that support mb128 actually save directly to it... but they do have a management program that lets you copy 2kb "banks" to and from the device.  The duo only holds 2kb of save data, so this in effect gives you 64 "full duo" backups.

Like a massive tennokoe.
Yep, some MB128 games can only save their own data directly to the MB128/Save-kun but other games like Private Eyedol can copy the whole 2 kB BRAM contents to it like you said. There's no manager that can copy individual files though.

I'm awaiting Mooz' upcoming manager!

MooZ

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Re: We need a hero...
« Reply #18 on: November 29, 2015, 05:05:05 AM »
First draft of the technical doc mb128.txt

As for the manager... erm... I'll need to grab a TED v2 for the extra RAM.

elmer

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Re: We need a hero...
« Reply #19 on: November 29, 2015, 06:58:20 AM »
As for the manager... erm... I'll need to grab a TED v2 for the extra RAM.

Erm ...  #-o

Thanks for documenting the MB128, I've had one for a while and wondered how-on-earth it worked.  :)

Really sorry to hear that you'll need extra RAM, though.

Once you jump over to being TED2-specific, doesn't it just make much more sense to write to the SD card?

MooZ

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Re: We need a hero...
« Reply #20 on: November 29, 2015, 07:24:27 AM »
I should have said why I need extra RAM.
The extra RAM is only needed if some kind of editor is needed and because I'm lazy :p

Otherwise it's perfectly feasable but you'll need to juggle.

elmer

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Re: We need a hero...
« Reply #21 on: November 30, 2015, 06:43:52 AM »
The extra RAM is only needed if some kind of editor is needed and because I'm lazy :p

Hahaha ... makes sense!  :wink:

BTW ... thanks for all your hard work in writing the low-level TED1 SD card routines in assembly language.

I've been using your code as the basis for a TED2 version, but it's been a bit frustrating so far, because it looks like KRIKzz changed a couple of things (particularly how the accelerated-read works).

I'm running around in the dark without any background knowledge of how the SPI-mode access is supposed to work ... but I'm sure that I'll get there eventually.

MooZ

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Re: We need a hero...
« Reply #22 on: November 30, 2015, 09:01:18 PM »
Thanks :)
SD card SPI interface is a pain in the harp in general (multiple sector write in particular).
Did you manage to get single sector read working?

elmer

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Re: We need a hero...
« Reply #23 on: December 01, 2015, 03:47:37 AM »
Did you manage to get single sector read working?

Nope. It executes, but I'm not convinced that the data is correct. And something in the flow is broken because a 2nd single sector read fails.

It's probably something as simple as the new "accelerated-read" swallowing one-byte-more or one-byte-less than it used to on the TED1, but I've not had the time to experiment.