[Coco] Becker Port patch and win32 build for MESS 0.152s

[Richard Goedeken]

Hi Bill,

The design of MAME/MESS is such that it makes it hard for you to swap in/out
custom roms.  I'm sure this is on purpose; they want to validate the ROM
images and prevent people from running bad dumps.  Wouldn't it be possible to
use the '-cart' option to load the rom as though it were a cartridge?  I never
even thought about using a patched ROM, I just loaded the HDB-DOS image via
RS-DOS using the HDBDW3BC.BIN file in a DSK image in the emulated floppy drive.

But if you want to make new MESS systems which start up with a patched ROM and
don't mind building from source, you can edit the last 2 tables in
src/mess/drivers/coco3.c and/or coco12.c to define new ROM sets with the
correct hashes for the HDB-DOS roms, and define new machines (coco3hdb?) to
run with these ROMs.  You will also have to add the new machine names to
src/mess/mess.lst, and a new MACHINE_CONFIG_DERIVED declaration just above the
ROM_START table.

As for building MESS, the easiest thing would be to just try and build it with
your current mingw setup, and if you get any problems at all just download the
pre-built MinGW set that they have on the "mess building" page that I sent
before, and use this one instead.  It can live in a separate place on your
drive and shouldn't conflict with your current install.

Richard

On 03/24/2014 08:58 PM, Bill Pierce wrote:
> 
> Richard, I've gotten Mess to run Coco3h (6309) with the Becker port....... 
> BUT... The HDBDOS rom has to be renamed to "disk11.rom" and zipped with
> "coco3.rom" to "cocoh.zip" (and the others for Coco 1&2). Then you run into
> the CRC not matching the expected disk11.rom. I used a hex editor to change
> the crc for disk11.rom in mess to the hdbdos crc and got it to run with
> an"incorrect rom but "ok" to ccontinue" prompt. I only got as far as hdbdos
> because all my Nitros9 boots are for real Cocos, Vcc, or XRoar. I think
> Mess requires a different version of the "emudsk.dr" in the Nitros9 boot to
> be ale to read the internal VHD (not DW4). I should be able to boot a
> standard becker disk from the repo though....
> 
> Yep, just checked a repo becker disk and it boots Nitros9 just fine, though
> it did "reboot" itself on first boot. I think this is something to do with
> the new NOS9 build as Vcc does the same thing. I even ran Ultimuse3 and
> played a song through DW4 Midi. Works perfect :-D
> 
> I haven't checked the other emulations yet, just the Coco 3 6309 (coco3h)
> as that's was the boot I had handy. I'll try the others later, maybe
> tomorrow, or tonight if I decide to fix another pot of coffee :-)
> 
> So there is the matter of how to make Mess not check the CRC of the Coco
> roms. This would allow one to change from standard DECB rom to HDBDOS rom
> when needed. Then we could even use custom, experimental roms as well. A
> lot of "playing" is being done to the roms lately by various programmers.
> Mess's debugger would be handy in new rom developement if this feature were
> disabled.
> 
> Now to get the proper emudsk driver for reading Mess's dual VHDs as well.
> That allows 6 VHDs total in a Nitros9 setup. 4 in DW4 and 2 in Mess PLUS
> the 4 floppies.
> 
> All in all... GREAT JOB!!!. Now to work out the fine details :-)
> 
> 
> Bill Pierce "Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens
> 
> 
> My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3 
> https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/ Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80
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>