Dosbox For Dingoo A320

[slaanesh]

I've got an initial working version of DOSBox for the Dingoo A320.
Once I saw the splash screen come on the A320 I was quite happy. Then I realized there's still a little bit of work to do.
I've enabled the MIPS dynarec, I hope it works as we should be able to get some pretty decent speed out of it (based on the nice performance of the PSP version).
Because of the lack of keyboard, everything will have to be run from configuration files. I'll see if I can leverage something off the GP2X port. Maybe the on-screen keyboard as well.

 

[euleberlin]

What a nice surprise on the late evening! :lol:

 

[quadomatic]

This just made my day

...and with that, I will slumber

 

[elinscheid]

Thanks Slaanesh! I can't wait to see a pic of it running.

 

[Pickle]

I've got an initial working version of DOSBox for the Dingoo A320.

Im curious, did you do anything to account for the larger resolutions (for example the terminal is 640x400)?

 

[slaanesh]

Well that is indeed the first problem.
I assume that nobody wants to use the terminal really anyway?
I could whip up a half size scaler pretty easily.

The PSP version got around this by cunningly bundling a freeware DOS launcher program with DOSBox. The first thing you see when you open PSP DOSbox is a launcher.
I think this is a very clever way of getting around the problem.
The other thing the PSP version did nicely was custom configuration files associated with executables. These would load key mappers on loading the selected DOS program. I found this approach to be quite nice. So i will look into it.

 

[Pickle]

Well that is indeed the first problem.
I assume that nobody wants to use the terminal really anyway?
I could whip up a half size scaler pretty easily.

The PSP version got around this by cunningly bundling a freeware DOS launcher program with DOSBox. The first thing you see when you open PSP DOSbox is a launcher.
I think this is a very clever way of getting around the problem.
The other thing the PSP version did nicely was custom configuration files associated with executables. These would load key mappers on loading the selected DOS program. I found this approach to be quite nice. So i will look into it.

ok didnt bother with scaling on the wiz version either, just added code to keep it within 320x240. I figured anything that used something larger wouldnt run good anyway.

 

[quadomatic]

pickle, just curious, but did you get a Dingoo?

 

[Pickle]

pickle, just curious, but did you get a Dingoo?

nope

 

[quadomatic]

pickle, just curious, but did you get a Dingoo?

nope

I see. I hope you get one in the future!

 

[Pickle]

pickle, just curious, but did you get a Dingoo?

nope

I see. I hope you get one in the future!

Thanks, but I probably wouldn't use it. My time with the gp2x and wiz is shrinking since I have a cased pandora.
Plus i dont think i could handle developing on yet another handheld.

 

[Eltaron]

Seems that we will need new rootfs and kernel to run dosbox, is not it?
First, dosbox requires SDL to be compited with SDL_cdrom support. But current rootfs version has been compiled without it
Second, dosbox is too big and does not fit in the memory, so swap should be turned on. But swap support is missing in actual kernel
Anyway, all this is not a big deal if we can play DOS games

 

[Pickle]

Seems that we will need new rootfs and kernel to run dosbox, is not it?
First, dosbox requires SDL to be compited with SDL_cdrom support. But current rootfs version has been compiled without it
Second, dosbox is too big and does not fit in the memory, so swap should be turned on. But swap support is missing in actual kernel
Anyway, all this is not a big deal if we can play DOS games

Slaanesh already has it running, why would you need kernel/system changes?
SDL Cdrom support would only be for a physical disc and appears to only play tracks (I dont think ive really seen anything use it). To be honest I dont think dosbox uses SDL for cdrom support, you look at the source and they are using ioctl's.
You dont want to turn to on on swap just to have the TLB support, most everything you can run at a normal playable speed wont need it. Ive not seen and issues on the gp2x/wiz because of this change.

 

[Eltaron]

you look at the source and they are using ioctl's.

man, I have compiled dosbox few days ago
and i just wrote about issues I have faced with
if you just take latest src, build it and run, it will fail after start without any error messages
it's because of dosbox binary size is 18 megabytes and dingoo have not enough memory to load this ELF
I recompiled kernel with CONFIG_SWAP enabled and added 100mb swap loopback device
after this dosbox fails with an error like "SDL not installed or not compiled with cdrom support"
It really uses cdrom support for cdrom emulation. I wanted to go deeper this weekend and recompile SDL with SDL_cdrom.
But that's great that Slaanesh already made a port so I can work on something else

 

[Pickle]

you look at the source and they are using ioctl's.

man, I have compiled dosbox few days ago
and i just wrote about issues I have faced with
if you just take latest src, build it and run, it will fail after start without any error messages
it's because of dosbox binary size is 18 megabytes and dingoo have not enough memory to load this ELF
I recompiled kernel with CONFIG_SWAP enabled and added 100mb swap loopback device
after this dosbox fails with an error like "SDL not installed or not compiled with cdrom support"
It really uses cdrom support for cdrom emulation. I wanted to go deeper this weekend and recompile SDL with SDL_cdrom.
But that's great that Slaanesh already made a port so I can work on something else

18 meg :-O Is that a static build?

 

[Eltaron]

18 meg :-O Is that a static build?

no, no, just not stripped
If it will be much smaller after strip then memory and swap is not a problem anymore. I did not tried, I ran dosbox under gdb, so stripping was unsuitable

 

[slaanesh]

I have been playing around with the PSP version of DOSBox to see how that works and what makes it good.

What I like in particular is that it has a modified command interface that adds some extra shell commands.
These are useful as you can then create a .BAT file to launch your game.
SYSOPT and INPUTMAP are new commands that let you set the system clock and map controls.
Handy hey?

ie.

gauntlet.bat

config -set "dosbox machine=cga"
config -set "sdl output=overlay"
config -set "sdl fullresolution=320x200"
@ECHO OFF
SYSOPT clock 222
INPUTMAP up up
INPUTMAP left left
INPUTMAP right right
INPUTMAP down down
INPUTMAP triangle space
INPUTMAP square space
INPUTMAP cross enter
INPUTMAP circle enter
INPUTMAP start enter
INPUTMAP select esc
INPUTMAP ltrigger 1
INPUTMAP rtrigger 2
INPUTMAP exec gauntlet

Mind you I haven't had much time lately and I still haven't even tried *running* anything yet. I'll try today and see how it goes.

EDIT:
Alright well it works - I've test run the first DOS program and it starts and runs. So that's good!
Tried my first game. Gauntlet II for the PC. Nice and simple and I know it works on just about everything other version of DOSBOX I tried. And it works for the A320. Nice! Now need to start making some adjustments.

 

[zear_]

Alright well it works - I've test run the first DOS program and it starts and runs. So that's good!
Tried my first game. Gauntlet II for the PC. Nice and simple and I know it works on just about everything other version of DOSBOX I tried. And it works for the A320. Nice! Now need to start making some adjustments.

That's some great news!
Any chance for a non-official test beta?
I don't mind using scripts, or telnet to launch the games.

Edit:
Oh, and I forgot to mention - Ben Nanonote, which is almost perfectly binary compatible with the Dingoo, has a full qwerty keyboard. Would be nice if I could test your dosbox port on that device as well

 

[Mortys]

Alright well it works - I've test run the first DOS program and it starts and runs. So that's good!
Tried my first game. Gauntlet II for the PC. Nice and simple and I know it works on just about everything other version of DOSBOX I tried. And it works for the A320. Nice! Now need to start making some adjustments.

That's some great news!
Any chance for a non-official test beta?
I don't mind using scripts, or telnet to launch the games.

Edit:
Oh, and I forgot to mention - Ben Nanonote, which is almost perfectly binary compatible with the Dingoo, has a full qwerty keyboard. Would be nice if I could test your dosbox port on that device as well

Hi zear
I've just get a look at the Nanote and that could be such a machine for Dosbox, ScummnVM and other PC port (not the emus because of the keys I suppose) but can you tell me more on the compatibility of the machine with the dingux app and do you know if they're a wa to run an appli like openoffice ?

 

[slaanesh]

Where can I get a Ben Nanonote from?
I'm in Australia. I bought my A320 from Deal Extreme.
If I can get one I'll make sure there's good support for Ben Nanonote.

I've changed a few things with DOSBox and I'm getting some nice display now. It was defaulting to 32-bit pixel depth display previously and giving me funny results.
Gauntlet II looks pretty.
I'll try Xenon 2 next.

Also got to test the dyna-rec as that's essential. Currently using the simple/normal core.