Release pandrpcemu beta (Acorn RISC-PC)

[hideki]

Hihi

This is an emulator for the Acorn RISC-PC machines, I've modified it slightly so it has a monitortype for the pandora LCD (800x480)


Included is the open source RISC-OS 5 ROM and the (also open) standard disk setup which will be unpacked into .../pandora/appdata/pandrpcemu/hostfs/ the first time you run it, note that this takes a couple of minutes and there will be no indication on screen (although the SD light will be flickering), this only happens on the first run obviously.


Suggestions are welcome.


If you own a RISC-PC, A7000 or similar machine you can use RISC OS 3.6 although you will have to replace the boot sequence in hostfs, I'd recommend getting it from http://acorn.riscos.com/riscos/releases/UniBoot/ and using !SparkFS (included) to unpack it to a subdirectory, then replace the rom in ROMs with your RISC OS 3.60 rom and move the subdirectory you unpacked uniboot into (using the pandora terminal or midnight commander, not riscos) so it appears as the standard hostfs folder


You will also want to copy the file in !Boot/Resources/Configure/Monitors/Pandora/ to the same place in your Uniboot setup so you can select the Pandora 800x480 LCD monitortype and the 800x480 video mode.


In order to bring up the on-screen menu within the emulator (for mounting floppy images, changing the ram, network setup, exiting the emulator etc.) press CTRL+End (Game B button)


Enjoy!


Download it from: Here


Note: Sound doesn't work as yet, this may not be my fault, it looks like an issue with RO5 itself, I'm working on it


In fact that was a problem with RO5, RO3.6 works with audio just fine, however it does not work correctly with the strongarm, set to the 610 for 3.6 and strongarm for 5.17... If using 3.6 you'll probably notice it doesn't execute the boot sequence on the first boot, no idea why that is but if you reset the emulator using the on-screen menu it will work correctly on the second boot, as will games (had elite running on it)


Despite the above if you have a copy of RISC-OS 3.6 you should probably use it as it's much faster than 5 and games tend to run on it (most are broken on 5.17 althogh apps, compilers etc. work fine)


This isn't yet finished, please avoid uploading it to any archives until I have a final non-beta version.


Okay, since the only problems are now comfirmed to be ROM related, we'll call it finished, upload it or w/e if you wish...


Sources etc.:


Emulator source: http://www.marutan.net/rpcemuspoon/#downloads (you will need to make a small change to vidc20.c so it starts fullscreen, line 12)


ROM image: http://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/other-zipfiles (You want the IOMD image near the bottom)


Boot sequence: http://www.riscosopen.org/zipfiles/misc/HardDisc4.tar.bz2?1306342943


ROM source code is also available at the http://www.openriscos.org site but can't currently be built without a commercial compiler (and consists of too many packages to list individually here).


Ah yes, forgot to mention, it depends on liballegro which is an arse to build.

 

[(naw)mcx]

Awesome, my friend was just talking about getting RISC-OS running the pandora, I'll need to show him this

 

[TitanUranus]

Over the years I've tried most things. I've even owned at one point 34 different types of computer system, but this is completely new to me. For once I really know absolutely nothing about it (will have a peek at wikipedia shortly) but I can tell you I love trying new things and this looks very interesting. I always get excited when I see another OS, and there can never be too many different systems to play solitare on.


Though I haven't tried it yet I'd really like to say thanks, and please keep up the good work!

 

[Nintendo]

Oooh~ Oooh~ Thank you!

 

[hideki]

Hihi


Actually the Pandora is capable of booting RISC OS 5 natively however it won't run the games due to compatibility issues (I'm getting very very tired of seeing "Application is not 32 bit compatible", heh)


Unfortunately it needs A: Pay software (IE: the compiler etc.) and B: an A7000 or RPC system in order to actually build the native ROM for the Pandora so this is a means to an end really.


Of course for games this will be your only option but the setup you see now is more or less the same as what you'll get on Pandora when it's finished, it'll just be about 100 times the speed, haha.


(Incidentally, the current native beagle/pandora ROM (which has nothing to do with me) will actually boot on Pandora but does not recognise the keyboard, nubs, touchscreen, sd, nand, audio or wifi so it's a touch limited, it does however support USB so it's a case of hub, keyboard, mouse, usb flash stick and off you go, lol, still, think I can do better given time :>)


It also has the best BASIC ever written for a computer (complete with ARM assembler), if you want to try that, hit F12 at the desktop, turn on caps lock then type BASIC (which will appear as *BASIC), you'll drop into the interpreter then, it's an upgraded form of the basic used on the very popular BBC Computers but the assembler is pretty nice, it's the same one I learnt 6502 on, just ARM, so if you were writing perhaps a bootloader or something it might be of some use.)


You can find an online manual for the basic here: http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcwin/manual/index.html (that's actually for BBC Basic for windows but that's based on BBC Basic V which is what we're running here)

Oooh~ Oooh~ Thank you!

You know, it's bloody disconcerting seeing that name when I made a few PIC dongles for people in september, lol, however you are very welcome ;p

 

[Jenseits]

Tried it out. Great stuff!


One problem though:


I mount a disk image. Am able to open it. But when launching something i get "Disk Drive is empty".


Or for example if i copy contents from a mounted disk image, some files get copied and the there are files when the message "Disk Drive is Empty" appears.


Tried all differen sorts of roms (bought from risc os ltd) bur didnt work (tested mainly 3.60).


Regards!

 

[hideki]

Tried it out. Great stuff!


One problem though:


I mount a disk image. Am able to open it. But when launching something i get "Disk Drive is empty".


Or for example if i copy contents from a mounted disk image, some files get copied and the there are files when the message "Disk Drive is Empty" appears.


Tried all differen sorts of roms (bought from risc os ltd) bur didnt work (tested mainly 3.60).


Regards!

Hi


3.6 definitely works, I've used it


You do have to change the CPU type to get it to boot though...


Note that audio does work in 3.6, I'm not sure about the floppy issue, I'd not actually tried accessing those but see if the problem still exists with 3.6 and a CPU type that's supported..


I can't unfortunately test anything atm as my pandora is sat in germany.

 

[Jenseits]

I tried 3.6 with Arm610 / Arm710 settings.


I can open a floppy disk image but when running a programm from it (or when coyping contents to a ramdisk) it frequently informs me "disk drive is empty".


I hope you get your Pandora back as soon as possible and it would be great if you then would have a look.


Regards!


Martin

 

[moxie]

Hideki, this is a machine/system that I have absolutely no idea about how it works and what to use it for. That is exciting but also a bit daunting. Just a proposition: You seem to know this system (being not-English, I've never even seen one). Why not write a quick article about it? Kinda "Acorn Risc 101" (in the style of racketboy or something like that) - What kind of machine it is, how it works in normal operation, what its position was at its time (Am I right in guessing that this was somehow Acorns stake against the Amiga/Atari ST?), what would be the outstanding/famous games or applications for it (Elite? Virus?), possibly a few links to web sites?


This is something I miss for quite a lot of the more obscure systems that lurk in the pandora emulator-section. It could be a serial on the pandorapress blogg, possibly?


(No, not that you should have to write about all of them, but you could start the series off)

 

[Exophase]

Hideki, this is a machine/system that I have absolutely no idea about how it works and what to use it for. That is exciting but also a bit daunting. Just a proposition: You seem to know this system (being not-English, I've never even seen one). Why not write a quick article about it? Kinda "Acorn Risc 101" (in the style of racketboy or something like that) - What kind of machine it is, how it works in normal operation, what its position was at its time (Am I right in guessing that this was somehow Acorns stake against the Amiga/Atari ST?), what would be the outstanding/famous games or applications for it (Elite? Virus?), possibly a few links to web sites?


This is something I miss for quite a lot of the more obscure systems that lurk in the pandora emulator-section. It could be a serial on the pandorapress blogg, possibly?


(No, not that you should have to write about all of them, but you could start the series off)

RISC-PC was the successor to Archimedes, the machine that the ARM CPU was originally designed for. Read any history of ARM and you'll get some background into Archimedes. ARM actually originally stood for "Acorn RISC Machine"


RISC-PC and A7000 was the furthest you'd see ARM on the desktop, although I imagine that'll change more. RISC-PC ended up supporting all the way up to StrongARM. I wonder what the performance of this emulator is like, and if it would benefit at all from a dynarec..

 

[hideki]

Peformance?


Compared to what I'm not sure -.o;


It's faster than my A3020, probably not as fast as a RISC PC/A7000, lol


Should have an A7000 here at some point so I can work on the native ROM (which requires not only a compiler etc. that costs real money but also a fairly well specified Acorn machine to run it on!), although the person supposed to be sending it has failed to do so for nearly a year now...


In any case, I've had Elite running on it with Risc OS 3.60, it's fine, you just have to select an earlier CPU that isn't a StrongARM.

 

[Jenseits]

In any case, I've had Elite running on it with Risc OS 3.60, it's fine, you just have to select an earlier CPU that isn't a StrongARM.

That's what i would like to do. But it couldn't read my Elite.adf


How did you "install" elite? Would love to get this running!

 

[trevj]

Don't forget that RO5 is available natively. The possibility also exists of some backward compatibility for the Risc PC and Archimedes.

 

[Jenseits]

Yes. But i can't get floppy drives to show up under riscos5.


Tried "configure floppies 2" but it did nothing (even after restarting).


This is propably off-topic but any help would be much appreciated

 

[hideki]

Don't forget that RO5 is available natively. The possibility also exists of some backward compatibility for the Risc PC and Archimedes.

Available natively if you don't mind plugging in a usb2 hub, flash stick, keyboard and mouse and not having access to sd, nand, wifi


I ported this for a reason, if nothing else it makes available a platform for actually building the native roms and working on them as it requires not only a 50 quid compiler but an A7000 or later to run it on!

 

[trevj]

Available natively if you don't mind plugging in a usb2 hub, flash stick, keyboard and mouse and not having access to sd, nand, wifi

Sorry, I missed your mention of this above. An SD filing system's being worked on (primarily for the Raspberry Pi, but it should be adaptable for the Pandora too). I'm sure that kb/mouse support will be added once the Pandora is more widely available. As for the wi-fi, that's a fair comment as I don't think that's going anywhere yet with RO!

I ported this for a reason, if nothing else it makes available a platform for actually building the native roms and working on them as it requires not only a 50 quid compiler but an A7000 or later to run it on!

You're right about buying the compiler. However, it should run on the Pandora under RO - the issue is with the installer, which isn't compatible. Anyway, when my Pandora arrives, I'll certainly be having a look at pandrpcemu.


It's also worth noting that the older boot sequences/disc images are available at the Acorn legacy FTP Site.

 

[jabz]

Will this run Lander / Zarch?

 

[jabz]

I got RiscOS 3.6 to boot. But I get the following error.


When I try mount a game ADF image such as Lander.adf or Elite.adf and access the floppy drive I get "disk drive is empty" error. Same as Martin.


Does it have anything to do with the above error?


How can I copy the ADF's to the Harddrive/HostFS and access it from there?

 

[trevj]

It may be worth trying ADFFS.

 

[jabz]

So I can extract the ADF image with ADFFS, and I copy the resultant directory to the Acorn HostFS folder?


I have some games that are not ADF files, after unzipping, the folder names are as such !Chuckie (game is Chuckie Egg).. I copied it to the HostFS folder in Appdata folder. When booted into Risc OS 3.6, double click the !Chukie icon, a text editor window opens with the info that this is a executable file etc.. How do i actually launch the game?