Wow this happened a lot faster than I dreamed of!
A wiki is the way to go. That way we can add newly discovered things or fix mistakes easily.
I need to find out how to lock this bitch down so Sega16 members don't find it and add stupid information like "can't even blast process" or "can't even does what Nintendon't"
lol
Lets talk about migration strategies for Archaic Pixels. I don't know what software it was made with. I think Gravis (?) and maybe Tom have rights to that place.
There *is* useful information there.... but...
1) "Archaic Pixels" is ambiguous and nobody ever finds it unless they're told to go there
2) Nobody can edit/add/update, so that is kind of goofy.
I think we can migrate that stuff over, including all of the relevant pieces parts of the other pages.
Yeah it has good info about some of the hardware, and I guess for HuC. It's not much about assembly though. Also a lot of broken pages.
A few things I'd suggest the wiki should eventually explain (not sure in what sections everything would go though):
* Explain all registers for the built-in hardware and add-on hardware in the appropriate sections. Preferibly using official names and terms of things, like both Archaic Pixels and Charles McDonald already partly do.
* Explain all known differences between the original and revisioned HuC6280 (and HuC6260). Only thing I could find is that HuC6280A fixes some volume centering issues in the PSG.
* A list of the reset state of the PC Engine (a list is in the dev docs CPU hardware manual).
* A list of things that needs to be initialized after reset and example init code. I just initialize about all registers, except the DMA ones (since one of them triggers DMA) and some of the PSG registers, just in case.
* An explanation on how to set display resolution as well as showing what commercial games usually set it to.
* How to setup a banking system to map in necessary banks as needed.
* How to upload Background Characters to VRAM.
* How to upload Sprites to VRAM and setup VRAM-SATB DMA to update Sprites.
* How to scroll.
* How to make sound. A simple sound routine that can play sound effects or notes at a specified tempo using the TIMER interrupt or something is fine I guess. Not even Nesdev wiki has this though.
* General program structuring. How the main program loop and interrupts are setup.
* Backup RAM section. Explain the save file format and example code how to read and write to it. The only info about BRAM I've found is in the Magickit library.
* Input devices hardware info and how to read them (with example code). Pad, Mouse, Tsuushin Keyboard etc.
* Whatever we know about Memory Base 128 and Save-kun.
* Everdrive section
* HuCard ROM sizes and mapping (including how emulators handles the 384 kB ROM, and Street Fighter II' mapper).
* CD image format.
* PC Engine GT Com Cable pinout and protocol. I've found zero info about this (other than that it has standard 3.5 mm TRS stereo cable plugs).
* A Super Grafx section. I guess each section could have a Super Grafx paragraph added to it, that explains how things work for the SGX case.
Some of these are maybe more newbie turorial things than reference material I guess. Also these are mostly from a PC Engine developer's view. I guess an emulator developer would want more hardware quirk details.
Topic: Updated PCE development information page? (Read 1218 times)
