Emulation

Apr 13 2012

ADTPro 1.2.1 Released

David Schmidt has released an update to the ADTPro disk imaging package.  ADTPro allows users to convert Apple ][ and Apple /// disks to digital images for use with emulators.  According to the press release on CSA2, "This release has a couple of snazzy things that folks won't need to see very often:

The bare-metal bootstrapper works in about 1/3 the time it did before.  It now shifts the serial hardware into high gear to transmit the bulk of  the code in binary rather than via text on the screen.  Much the same way as Blurry's Apple Game Server.

There's a video of Speediboot(tm) in action here:
http://youtu.be/1xworYThmMI

The OSX version of the sever has an "installer" whereby the user drags the ADTPro folder to the Applications folder.  Much the same way as lots of OSX installers, like Mozilla.

http://adtpro.sourceforge.net

1.2.1 - April 12, 2012

New functionality:

* Serial now bootstraps from bare metal in 1/3 the time it used    to take with Speediboot(tm) technology

* [Server] Mac OSX has a prettier “installer” via the DMG – just   drag/drop the ADTPro folder to Applications

Bug fixes:

* [Server] Improve serial error recovery for two different   scenarios: 1, by waiting (much) longer before timing out to  allow for problemtatic/errorful block reads, and 2, flushing
   the serial port after things like checksum errors“

By admin • Apple III, Apple ][, Apps, Disk Imaging, Emulation, Software, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Mar 5 2012

Booting from IDE drive when there are SATA drives

This is a generic sort of article… I have only tried it on one type of machine but this advice may prove useful in other situations.

As regular readers know, I volunteer at an educational non-profit organisation every Friday as a systems administrator.One of the privileges is I get to borrow a computer every so often for one of my projects. In this case I had a computer I was using as a file server (using FreeNAS v7.x). Since I had it for over three years I figured it was time to get something a little newer. A client returned a Dell GX 270 because he no longer needed it. I asked and was granted permission to replace the older machine with this one.

At first I only had two hard drives to work with. The first was the hard drive from the old computer and the second was the drive from the new one. I was able to boot from the old drive with no problem. Adding in the new drive so it would be accessed over my LAN was also easy. I had a third drive. It was a 500GB SATA drive. I had everything but the power adapter so it took a few days to connect.

The SATA drive was one I had in my Linux box before the motherboard died. It still had all the information as well as the master boot record intact. Once it was added into the 270 it wanted to take over. Like Macs there is an option which allows the user to select which drive to boot from. For a file server that’s not an acceptable solution. In this case it didn’t work very well either. The boot process was hung for 15 minutes…

After a bit of research on the net I found the solution was to boot from a rescue CD/DVD and toggle the bootable flag on the first partition on the hard drive to off. From that point things worked fine. I don’t know if the hard drive works or not since it was only yesterday I added it to the machine. Assuming there are no hardware problems I should be able to do a bunch of neat things like create virtual machines which are stored on  the LAN, set up a private iTunes server, and back up the Mini I am using at the moment…

By BlankMike • Disk Images, Disk Storage, Emulation, File Utilities, Freeware, Hardware, Public Domain, Software, Virtual Servers • 0

Feb 21 2012

FlightGear Version 2.6.0 Released

The latest version of the open source FlightGear flight simulator has been released.   Version 2.6.0 includes a number of improvements primarily in the handling of AI type aircraft, making load times faster as well as the CPU cost per AI aircraft much lower.

FlightGear Version 2.6.0 is available for free download and is available for all of the Major computing platforms.  You can download the version for your machine from the FlightGear Website at:

http://www.flightgear.org

For information about the other features that have been improved in version 2.6.0, check out the release notification at:

http://www.flightgear.org/news/flightgear-v2-6-0-released/

By admin • Apple Computing, Apps, Emulation, Flight, Freeware, Macintosh, Software • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Feb 12 2012

AppleCommander 1.3.5.10 Released

AppleCommander, the Java based disk image tool by Dr. John B. Matthews has been updated.  Version 1.3.5.10 was released this morning on Dr. Matthews’ webpage.  AppleCommander allows you to open Apple ][ disk images and view their content down to the individual files.  You can also use AppleCommander to import and export files from the disk images, as well as to convert disk images from one type to another.

The current release features changes made by David Schmidt.  They include the ability to place Pascal Text files onto DOS ordered (.do) disks.  AppleCommander comes in several flavors including a Mac based Universal Application and is a free download:

  • AppleCommander-version-ac.jar: a command-line Apple II disk image tool.
  • AppleCommander-version-mac.zip: a universal Mac application.
  • AppleCommander-version-src.zip: the AppleCommander source code.
  • AppleCommander-version-web.zip: the AppleCommander web pages and javadoc.
  • AppleCommander-version.jar: The AppleCommander jar (requires SWT).

You can download the programs as well as the AppleCommander command line guide from:

http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews/applecommander

 

By admin • Apple ][, Apps, Disk Images, Disk Imaging, Disk Managers, Emulation, Software, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Feb 12 2012

Apple ][ Game Server and Disk Server Now Available in Mobile form

 

Egan Ford, creator and curator of the Apple ][ Game Server and the Apple ][  Disk Server has created mobile versions of the website.  This allows those users with iPhones to use the iOS based device to load their Apple ][ computer with games or disks directly from the Internet.

The mobile version of the Apple ][ Game Server is at:

http://asciiexpress.net/gameserver/mobile.html

The Apple ][ Disk Server mobile version  is currently being built and will be available soon. now available and ready for use:

http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/mobile.html

By admin • Apple ][, arcade, Disk Images, Disk Imaging, Emulation, Games, Software, Virtual Servers • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Feb 12 2012

Virtual ][ Version 6.5 Released

Gerard Puter has released an update of his popular Virtual ][ shareware Apple ][ Emulator for the Mac.   Virtual ][ is a complete Apple ][ emulator with features such as print to pdf and visual configuration menus with accurate card images.

In the new version, gerard has included the following changes:

  • Fixed an issue where the Mockingboard card could halt the virtual machine (this happened, for example, in Ultima IV).
  • Corrected an issue in the "floating bus" screen rendering, thereby improving compatibility.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause stray pixels on the emulated screen when switching from 80-column text to low-resolution graphics.
  • Improved screen rendering perfomance by using Apple's Grand Central Dispatch technology.

You can download the Virtual ][ emulator from the Virtual ][ website at:

http://www.virtualii.com/

By admin • Apple ][, Apps, Emulation, Emulators, Software, Updates, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

Feb 8 2012

New Build of JACE Apple ][ Emulator Posted

Brendan Robert has uploaded a new version of his JACE Apple ][ Emulator to the JACE Sourceforge page.   This release is meant to address some issues that were introduced in early versions.  Brendan Robert posted the following notes about the release on the Comp.sys.apple2 newsgroup earlier today:

"1) Concurrent modification exceptions have been eradicated when you apply settings changes.  These used to kill the emulation when you used the config screen to tweak settings or change disks.  I am very happy to say it works correctly as it was intended to work from the get go.  You can even switch to the ][DB debugger rom in mid-session without a crash!  Also supported are changing out card assignments, though some software only detects on start so you might have to use a three-fingered salute anyway.

2) Frame generation is now cycle-perfect, so split screen modes work as expected

3) Other video generation controls are provided, so it is possible to slow down the scanner, or change where HBL is generated from.  This seems rather silly, but for some reason it is the only way to get certain things (floating bus rainbow example) to work for now (default settings are compatible)

4) It is also possible to beautifully render the money munchers title, just set the HBL x/y offsets to 0 and set the scan interval to 3.  I'm not sure why, but this is the only way I could get it to stop flickering madly, though I know it is not **correct** at all."

You can download the latest build as well as the test cases from the JACE Apple ][ emulator source page at:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/java-ace/

By admin • Apple ][, Emulation, Emulators, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Feb 5 2012

Apple ][ Lemonade now available in Lower Case

Brendon Robert has re-worked the Apple ][ classic, Lemonade so that "It is no longer yelling".  Lemonade was one of the original Apple ][ games included on cassette tape with the 1977 version of the original Apple ][ computer.  The original program was written all in capital letters as the Apple ][ originally did not have lower case.

Lemonade is a game which is meant to teach fundamental marketing to elementary aged school children.  The basic idea is that the kids run a Lemonade Stand, deciding how much lemonade to make, how many advertising signs to make and how much to charge per glass of lemonade.  The weather, construction and other factors dictate how well sales go and how much is made in profits for the day.

The BASIC listing of the game is available on the posting in Comp.sys.Apple2 Usenet posting at:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.apple2/browse_thread/thread/8e2a9d36b8e9b4de#

You can also download a ready for emulator disk image from:

http://www.callapple.org/files/LemonadeStandLC.dsk

By admin • Apple ][, Disk Imaging, Emulation, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , ,

Feb 5 2012

Apple ][ Disk Server Updated with Virtual Apple Database

Egan ford has added the entire Apple ][ collection from Virtual Apple's website to the Apple ][ Disk Server.   The Apple Disk Server version 0.991 now has over 1500 disks that are ready to go on your Apple ][.

This update was made possible by a contribution of a partial section of the Virtual Apple ][ database by Bill Martens.  You can access the Apple ][ disk server at:

http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/

By admin • Apple ][, Disk Imaging, Emulation, Virtual Servers • 0 • Tags: , ,

Jan 31 2012

Mouse Emulation added to JACE Apple ][ Emulator

JACE or Java Apple Computer Emulator has been updated once again by Brendon Robert.  The latest version of the emulator has mouse emulation implemented.   According to the release on CSA2, ”

  • Only “clamping” style mouse emulation is supported well, and it is supported VERY well.  It scales the mouse coordinates to the physical mouse, so it works seamlessly with the OS mouse too!
  • Interrupts and polling both implemented — polling seems to work pretty well at least.  Interrupts should work also, but I can’t tell if I’ve encountered something that uses interrupts or not…  :->
  • Resetting the mouse pointer to read relative mouse movement isn’t really implemented and could have unknown results.  I’m not sure what the effect of this would be but again, it’s a matter of finding something that uses the mouse that way.

While the implementation is still early, it does work with a number of mouse enhanced Apple ][ products.  It will not however, work with Dazzle Draw or Airheart.  Brendon is looking for help in the issue of the Resetting the Mouse Pointer as well as any insight into what could be happening with Dazzle Draw and Airheart.  You can download the emulator from the JACE page on Sourceforge at:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/java-ace/

To reach Brendon, you can check the CSA2 groups on Google and contact user BLuRry.

By admin • Apple ][, Emulation, Emulators, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , ,

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