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RE: Novato - a macOS emulator compatible with the Microbee 32IC - fathertedcrilly - 14-06-2026

Kind of fixed the issue with the weird background

Still needs more investigation though

I did get Space Invaders to load though

Once(!) keyboard and sound are working,  I'll be able to play my first game on the emulator

[Image: IQSyM8zj0iz4SY6Zo-ct-FCOAakh2B6BvffYCzunxQzP1UM]


Thanks
Tony

RE: Novato - a macOS emulator compatible with the Microbee 32IC - ChickenMan - 14-06-2026

Wow looking great Smile Well done.

RE: Novato - a macOS emulator compatible with the Microbee 32IC - MbeeTech - 14-06-2026

Nice Tony. Good job.

RE: Novato - a macOS emulator compatible with the Microbee 32IC - fathertedcrilly - 29-07-2026

Things have been a bit quiet on the Novato front as I have been embracing the joyful nightmare of moving house.

Not much in the way of major advances :
  • Refactoring of dissembler code
  • Bug fix for emulator reset
  • Bug fix for emulator status LED
  • Introduction of quick load functionality

Quick load will pull a binary file off disk and execute at 0x900

[Image: IQS4Se-nOvr5R4swP1EDhcK_AV1_uGe_rwumsejt57BjkOQ]

As these files were pulled off the CIAB Arcade 1 disk, some of the games are versions that expect a disk boot rom present and fail ( such as Asteroids ).
Others have some subtle PCG and colour issues in 80x24 mode.

Next step is to put in a timing code to correctly clock the 6545 counters.

This will allow

  1. Keyboard emulation
  2. Winding the processor speed back to 3.375mhz
  3. Sound generation
  4. Tape loading

Sample slideshow of games that load:
https://youtu.be/LMnOtjD2BeY

Source and binary available from https://github.com/fatherdougalmaguire/Novato

Thanks
Tony

RE: Novato - a macOS emulator compatible with the Microbee 32IC - ChickenMan - 29-07-2026

The games where the bottom 1/2 of the screen is colour distorted, like Frogger, in the Menu on the disk you may note I do a HIRES2 command before it loads as that seams to fix the problem. Otherwise looking great Smile

RE: Novato - a macOS emulator compatible with the Microbee 32IC - fathertedcrilly - 30-07-2026

(29-07-2026, 09:21 PM)ChickenMan Wrote: The games where the bottom 1/2 of the screen is colour distorted, like Frogger, in the Menu on the disk you may note I do a HIRES2 command before it loads as that seams to fix the problem.  Otherwise looking great Smile

The Frogger colour artefacts don't concern me too much ( though I still need to track where BASIC is filling colour RAM with rubbish )

Kilopede is a slightly more concerning issue

The shader should cope with 64x32 with no issues.  So I'm unsure why the display is shifted down and displaying incorrect characters.

Might be a subtle data race issue in the snapshot code

Thanks
Tony