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Midway (Williams) Y unit (Z unit and T unit) Discussion, Serial Numbers etc

Asure said:
NBA Hangtime contains a "newload2 folder" here:

https://github.com/historicalsource/nba-hangtime/tree/main/NEWLOAD2

Note the documentation in the HLP file.

This one parsed carn.lod for me using load2 carn /X but complains it cannot find some images in ORCFIN2.IMG which i don't get.
Maybe the LOD is wrong or needs to be adjusted.

LOAD20.exe errors for me

After doing this:

load2.exe carn /e /di /fi /t=c:\tmp /x
load2.exe carn2 /a /e /di /fi /t=c:\tmp /x
load2.exe roboy /a /e /di /fi /t=c:\tmp /x

Output tbl/asm stuff magically appears at c:\tmp :)

- mutex.tbl
- mentor.tbl
- flatface.tbl
- galagas.tbl
- cobra.tbl

These appear to be empty files with .data and nothing more.
Code: 
1xtab .DATA

Hope this helps :)

Edit: Dosbox 0.74 and 64MB set in the conf file, works for me and no extended ram error messages.
Click to expand...

thanks for this, that document is vey useful. the .lod files in smashtv makes a lot more sense now!
 
Something else to add in to the mix of yunit stuff. I am attempting to make an new replacement ic for the U53 rom control ic. It appears to be game specific, or at least a few for different games. I am hoping to make something with a modern ic and maybe some selection options for different games.

I created an Arduino based program and dirty setup to extract the data from the smash tv one. Now I'm creating a new chip that will output this data on request.

IMG_6305.JPG
IMG_6324.JPG
 
Thats's pretty cool! I have too little time for efforts like this, but i have a similar need for the custom "UF5" on T-Unit, i want to play NBA Jam TE.
So yeah this is an offer, i have a non-TE UF5 and need the TE version, anyone want to trade UF5 chips? :) (also need a RAM for T-Unit,

I took a longer look at the Total Carnage source as i couldn't seem to catch any sleep last night.
I wanted to know what we have here in regards of versions, and what state the code was in.
I was a bit pessimistic as say NBA Jam/TE/Hangtime/WWF is sloppy and relies on a preasm too which we do not have. (like the older loadimg.)

- The code is clean, no sloppy code labels that are doubled up.
- There's 3.0 proto main roms included in the code drop.
- There's an unknown GFX romset included which has a partial match to LA1. But does not match with Proto 3.0 (Tested in Mame)
- Proto 3.0 as such has some GFX errors :(
- The exact gfx roms to this 3.0 build are missing. (not LA1 like all the other protos)
- TEMP.ASM holds some security details
- TOTAL CARNAGE - LA1 REVISION 3/13/92 in the main tree. (audit.asm)
- Backup seems to hold an older version, not sure if it builds. "TOTAL CARNAGE REVISION 1.00" the date in audit.asm states ".Last mod - 9/6/91 18:56"

By sloppy labels, i mean they have multiple definitions of say #ok and #nok in the source code, and many labels are non-descriptive.
There's none of this in Total Carnage, so with some finesse and enough free time it should build. It would also be fun to build the 1.0 thats in backup, as this predates any of the known proto dumps out there. (v 1.0 01/25/92 is earliest.)

I also took a quick look at Smash TV and although missing some toolset (srec.exe to make roms etc.) this contains rev 5.0 and 8.0 (in BAK) and pre-built IRW files, BDB etc in IMAGES. So although missing tools and instructions, with what we know from Total Carnage, building SmashTV becomes a lot easier.
 
Making steady progress on the smash tv build now. Got the .lod file to make the image table files. I think I;m about 6 files off a full compile now, moving forward slowly!!

The dos emulation in windows xp doesn't seem to support the old extended memory settings , at least not on sp3, so I used dosbox to build these. Seems to work ok. The output from load2 is listing a load of missing images from within the .img files its looking at though, so don't know if this is significant yet. There are 4 different lod files to in the smash tv build all looks sillier with only minor changes.

See pics below on progress

IMG_6348.JPG
IMG_6349.JPG
IMG_6353.JPG
 
I worked out something with these v1 .lod files which explains why I was getting a lot of image not found errors.

It seems that the syntax for the image definitions is different with v1. I think they changed how the stcol option is specified. (from a + to a : ) So I modified my /lod files to see and now I don't get errors about missing files any longer.

See below for pics

IMG_6363.JPG
IMG_6362.JPG
 
More progress on the smash tv build. I managed to create all the OBJ files and moved onto the GSPLNK part. At first I was getting an error about 'no table string' in file TVMTR. Turned out this was because

line 55 .SECT SHIT

needed to be

line 55 .SECT "SHIT"

So no idea how this built before. failed in GSPLNK v2 and v6. After this was fixed I was able to generate the ROBO.OUT file .

Next had to write some new LRN files as there were none. So created some new ones based on what I saw in Narc, Trog and total carnage and got some ROMs files made. (Still not sure of the base address offset value yet.)

IMG_6399.JPG


However the roms don't actually work in mame or real hardware so I must have done something wrong. Need to investigate more. The build process was not easy to say the least, but another step closer.
 
I took some more time, but i can't even build ndsp1.asm w/o ENDM error (even if i fix that to .ENDM in the end..), can you share your mods or put it somewhere where i can contribute?
( I must have missed this stuff somewhere before as i had similar issues with NARC but i cannot recall how i solved it. Lol. I cannot even build a single OBJ, all missing .ENDM directive.)
 
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Asure said:
I took some more time, but i can't even build ndsp1.asm w/o ENDM error (even if i fix that to .ENDM in the end..), can you share your mods or put it somewhere where i can contribute?
( I must have missed this stuff somewhere before as i had similar issues with NARC but i cannot recall how i solved it. Lol. I cannot even build a single OBJ, all missing .ENDM directive.)
Click to expand...
Yes I will add a fork to the original upload soon on GitHub no problem.

The issue with ENDM is within the includes, in the case of ndsp1.asm the issue is in MPOC.EQU. It needs changing to #ENDM

If you use the fixer.py from the later narc build it helps, but that does need work to. Maybe wait til I upload my forked repro?
 
1679913147942.png


I should not do these things at night after a busy day.
Noticed the fixer didn't fix my stuff, as it was missing out on the EQU files.
(I know i'm still missing the table files that i explain to build but never built myself properly haha.)

Edit: Making some good headway in duplicating what you did so far, lots of duplicate REF/DEF fixes atm..
Notes
gal.asm got mangled MOVI >7FFFFFFFF,A5 -> MOVI 7FFFFFFFFh,A5
*.asm older GSPA didn't care about duplicate ref/def?

1679918837471.png


After fixing up all asm ref/def stuff, i am still stuck at the linking step for now. Maybe i made some mistakes, i used only one LOD file...etc.
 
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Asure said:
1679913147942.png


I should not do these things at night after a busy day.
Noticed the fixer didn't fix my stuff, as it was missing out on the EQU files.
(I know i'm still missing the table files that i explain to build but never built myself properly haha.)

Edit: Making some good headway in duplicating what you did so far, lots of duplicate REF/DEF fixes atm..
Notes
gal.asm got mangled MOVI >7FFFFFFFF,A5 -> MOVI 7FFFFFFFFh,A5
*.asm older GSPA didn't care about duplicate ref/def?

1679918837471.png


After fixing up all asm ref/def stuff, i am still stuck at the linking step for now. Maybe i made some mistakes, i used only one LOD file...etc.
Click to expand...

That problem above I believe is because you need to amend the .lod file (as I was explaining earlier) so you don't miss image info. The '+' in the file has to be changed to a ':' when they are including the stcol option

The only ref/def issue I saw (with v6 GSPA) was to do with STATUS. Out of interest, what did you do here?
 
mypinballs said:
That problem above I believe is because you need to amend the .lod file (as I was explaining earlier) so you don't miss image info. The '+' in the file has to be changed to a ':' when they are including the stcol option

The only ref/def issue I saw (with v6 GSPA) was to do with STATUS. Out of interest, what did you do here?
Click to expand...
I did that with the LOD files, but fixer might have reset some things as i keep restarting to ensure nothing breaks, bullet-proof it so to say.
Many of the files from smashtv indeed had the STATUS duplicated so i fixed that in this style
Code: 
;    .REF    RINGS,STATUS,CLNPAL
    .REF    RINGS,CLNPAL

Re LOD files, i didn't add all of them, as this would also yield duplicates, so i started with 'just' robo.lod to see what would happen. (i did fix the + / : issue, need to recheck.)

Edit: Recheck confirms that i broke the LOD again after fixer copied the old one back.. lol

I guess i am doing something wrong here.

Code: 
---> P1SG9T3:LINK8
---> P1SG9T2A:LINK7
---> P1SG9T3A:LINK8

I do not understand the "when they are including the stcol option" :(
 
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Asure said:
I did that with the LOD files, but fixer might have reset some things as i keep restarting to ensure nothing breaks, bullet-proof it so to say.
Many of the files from smashtv indeed had the STATUS duplicated so i fixed that in this style
Code: 
;    .REF    RINGS,STATUS,CLNPAL
    .REF    RINGS,CLNPAL

Re LOD files, i didn't add all of them, as this would also yield duplicates, so i started with 'just' robo.lod to see what would happen. (i did fix the + / : issue, need to recheck.)

Edit: Recheck confirms that i broke the LOD again after fixer copied the old one back.. lol :)
Click to expand...
I only used robo.lod so far. If you have issue still I can send you my table files etc directly. I was trying to work out what the differences between the others were. Something possibly to do with the first line maybe and the IROM addresses? Come to think of it my robo.cmd file is probably not matching this address. (If they are supposed to!!)
 
I was going to do the same and try to figure out why the black screen and no running game, i have a hunch ROBOY is set for Y-Unit perhaps.
I'll send you a PM and we'll go from there.
 
My thought with the ref/def issues was the STATUS must be a reserved word or something. I changed everything to STATUS2 and the files built ok. My thought on def and ref was that a def is the actual define in whatever file. ROBOATT (attract mode) for STATUS in this case then all the other files use a ref to access that record.

Also looking at the .CMD file. I think it needs work because it includes a reference for ROM2 like total carnage but the rom size for smash tv is 1mb not 2mb like total carnage. trog is 1mb rom size and the CMD file looks abit different. I will experiment.
 
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These older games do not print "ROM CHIPS BAD - PRESS ANY BUTTON TO CONTINUE", the proto did the same, pressing 1P start made it run for me.. :)
 
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The build I have crashes after the test screen finishes. It tries to show the version screen but there is no text. On mame it exits with a 'segmentation Fault:11'

I am going to try a different lod files and see what happens

One other thing , did you have any problems with the PALL.asm file. This is the only file that has warnings in it or errors in v6.
 
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