Corrupt CDTV ROM?

[Steve]

What's the deal with this CDTV ROM anyway. It's never worked for me and even when I try the latest version of WinUAE I still get the same damn error message:

"Kickstart checksum incorrect. You probably have a corrupted ROM image"

Is this really a problem with my CDTV ROM or a problem with WinUAE? Has anyone else managed to get it working?

[RetroMan]

What you have is the Extended CDTV Rom so it belong into the extended rom file (like the cd32 extended rom does) ! At the Kickrom you have to load in a normal Kick 1.3 ;)

But don´t bother to try that out since no CDTV CD will boot right now ..... boot your CDTV CD´s with CD³² config !

[Steve]

Thanks RetroMan that's got it working... almost. Is it supposed to look this red?

Anyway as a small reward here is a webpage that talks about CDTV games that never were. :)


Dungeon Master (FTL): FTL president Wayne Holder reports the developer largely completed the CDTV conversion of this seminal dungeon crawl, only to be stymied by the inability to obtain reliable info from CBM on saving games to memory cards.
Darn it!!

http://www.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/ar502_Sections/feature1.html

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by Steve
Thanks RetroMan that's got it working... almost. Is it supposed to look this red?
Just a little bug ;) pess fire and after the CD Player Menu appeared press ESC and voila ...... correct colors :D

[Steve]

You're right again. :D
That's got it. Cheers. :)

[andreas]

Yes, but that should be properly fixed someday.
A real CDTV instantly shows all colors at this screen. Toni?

[Toni Wilen]

Yes, but that should be properly fixed someday.

CDTV ROM doesn't find CDTV's CDROM controller -> show red screen to inform the user that something is very badly wrong...

I'll "fix" this if someone sends me CDTV's DMAC specs (dma controller, same chip is used in A570 too)

[jmmijo]

Id did a Google search and only came up with some acronym info and some parts lists. A few pages with info on the CDTV unit itself of course, no specs on the DMAC :(

Is there any way to NOP/JMP around this code or do you really need to emulate it? I'm thinking you could bypass this check altogether but hey, I'm just an old hack from way back so I'm sure you know what needs to be done :D

[Toni Wilen]

Of course it is needed. CDTV emulation without working CDROM emulation is quite useless :)

[jmmijo]

So really you are wanting to emulate everything on the CDTV then and that you can't write code on the PC side of things to do this as emulated Amiga side couldn't see this external driver?

I guess I was thinking that you could use the PC hardware to read an actual CDTV formatted disk in your PC CD-Reader, but I guess that would not work :(

[Toni Wilen]

I guess I was thinking that you could use the PC hardware to read an actual CDTV formatted disk in your PC CD-Reader, but I guess that would not work

Of course this work (CD32 emulation does this) but it isn't possible without CDTV's CDROM interface hardware emulation.

You need CDTV CDROM controller emulation because it is the only way to "listen" to CDTV's CDROM commands and then translate them to regular CDROM commands and return status codes/data back and have 100% compatibility.

Of course it is also possible to emulate cdtv.device (just like uaescsi.device or bsdsocket.library) but this is incompatible with hardware banging programs and it isn't very compatible.

I only know CDTV seems to use some kind of old SCSI-style interface or similar and DMAC is located at 0xe90000...

CD32 was "quite" easy to understand because it uses very simple and stupid CDROM controller interface. (CD32 is clearly build as cheaply as possible)

[andreas]

Toni,

I think I've found something for you! :)

http://www.cdtv.org.uk/cdtv-technical.html

This might help.

[jmmijo]

I found this page as well but couldn't find specs on the DMAC itself but perhaps Toni could get more info from this page then I can.

@Toni, it makes more sense now that you explained it to me, there does seem to be some resemblance to the SCSI controller on the A3000 as well as some of the CDTV pages seem to indicate this, but then again who knows. However you did mention the A570 controller which appears to be identical but alas I couldn't find any info on it either :(

[Toni Wilen]

I found this page ages ago... Address space listing helped me to emulate CDTV's battery backed RAM.

I have searched with google and groups.google.com with every possible word that have something to do with CDTV without success :(

[jmmijo]

Toni, would having an actual CDTV unit help you out or is it just needing the specs to the CD controller?

[Toni Wilen]

would having an actual CDTV unit help you out

Unfortunately it won't help much.. But of course I am interested in buying cheap CDTV and CD32 unit..

[jmmijo]

I'll keep my eyes open for the specs to the CDTV dmac and SCSI controller. Hopefully it's out there :)

As for cheap CDTV/CD32 units, yes, I'd like to find them too, here in the states they just want too much for them :(

[Galaxy]

I stumbled apon this: Nicolas Welte's Hardware Projects, which has a 2MB RAM expansion for the A570. The author seems to know abit about CDTV hardware - he may be worth contacting.

http://people.freenet.de/x1541/hardware/a570ram.html

[mark_k]

Might having a disassembly of the CDTV extended ROM help add support for the CDTV into WinUAE? I have a fair amount of experience using ReSource...

Also, the page given in Galaxy's post above mentions that the A2091 SCSI controller also uses the same DMAC chip. I think A2091 schematics are available in the service manual, so that plus disassembling the A2091 ROM could provide further info.

-- M

[Toni Wilen]

Might having a disassembly of the CDTV extended ROM help add support for the CDTV into WinUAE? I have a fair amount of experience using ReSource...

Of course, this is partly how CD32 support was done but I don't want to do it again because it was very time consuming and boring...


Also, the page given in Galaxy's post above mentions that the A2091 SCSI controller also uses the same DMAC chip. I think A2091 schematics are available in the service manual, so that plus disassembling the A2091 ROM could provide further info.


I already have CDTV schematics and it doesn't really help much. All magic is inside the custom chips..

DMAC programming specs would explain everything (I hope) but it seems there wasn't any public specs (except possible non-leaked CBM internal documentation?)

[amiga]

Toni, I'm afraid you'll have to consume your time and get bored again

[thomas]

If the A2091 chip really is the same, you could ask Ralf Babel. He wrote the Guru ROM, so he must know how to control the chip.

[amiga]

@Toni
You can have a look at Akiko-adapted WinUAE version that emulates CDTV fully (and CD32). Here is the source:
http://www.softwarefailure.de/binary/WinUAECD32_Source.zip

I think the source complies to GPL.

[Toni Wilen]

You can have a look at Akiko-adapted WinUAE version that emulates CDTV fully (and CD32

Isn't that the so-called emulator that patches games to run on non-CD32/CDTV Amigas (something like CD32/CDTV "WHDLoad") and the only source change is simple cd audio support?

[amiga]

yes. It makes use of special patches in order to run some games, at least so it is stated in the website.
Anyway I thought u could be interested in how it emulates the audio cd for the CDTV.

[StevenJGore]

Has anybody tried contacting Carl Sassenrath, creator of the CDTV?
His website (http://www.sassenrath.com/) has contact information.
Perhaps he might be able to help, or have copies of the required specs/documentation.

[mark_k]

[QUOTE=Toni Wilen]Of course, this is partly how CD32 support was done but I don't want to do it again because it was very time consuming and boring...

If someone wants to upload the CDTV ROM to The Zone, I can disassemble it using ReSource.

-- M

[bippym]

Roms are not allowed in the Zone due to copyright (more-so than adf's)

[mark_k]

Here's another long shot...

If the Amiga 3000 DMAC is similar to or (software) backward compatible in some way to the A590/2091/CDTV DMAC, there may be some relevant info in the A3000+ specification document at
http://www.thule.no/haynie/research/a3000p/docs/a3000p.pdf
(pages 22-24 of the PDF file)

It mentions registers at $DD0004, $DD0008, $DD000C etc.

-- M

[mark_k]

Here's another long shot...

If the Amiga 3000 DMAC is similar to or (software) backward compatible in some way to the A590/2091/CDTV DMAC, there may be some relevant info in the A3000+ specification document at
http://www.thule.no/haynie/research/a3000p/docs/a3000p.pdf
(pages 22-24 of the PDF file)

It mentions registers at $DD0004, $DD0008, $DD000C etc.

-- MI have begun disassembling the CDTV ROM. The DMAC registers appear near $E90000 (as Toni mentioned), and appear to be byte-wide.

Can anyone send me, or point me to any other known technical info on the CDTV? I don't want to "reinvent the wheel" (i.e. waste time) with my disassembly, and knowing which hardware is at which addresses will make it easier.


-- M

[Toni Wilen]

There is something in expansion.c but as I said, DMAC register specification does not exists. (because it was never meant to be directly accessed, same with CD32 CDROM controller)

[Borg_Number_One]

Has anybody tried contacting Carl Sassenrath, creator of the CDTV?
His website has contact information.
Perhaps he might be able to help, or have copies of the required specs/documentation.

...done.

Dear Carl Sassenrath,

I am mooooore than interested in Amiga, CDTV, Amiga/CDTV-Emulation etc...

You surely know "WinUAE" is the best Amiga-Emulator.
It can emulate (nearly) each Amiga and so it emulates chipsets: AGA, ECS, OCS, Paula; processors: 68k, 68010, 68020(+FPU), 68EC020(+FPU), 68040 and so on.
WinUAE uses kickrom images to emulate the kickrom in WinUAE itselfs.
WinUAE is able to emulate Extended rom to enable CD32-Emulation too.

CDTV and the software in the extended CDTV-Rom(image/file) can be started but there is a really huge Problem:
The CDTV's DMAC (dma controller, same chip is used in A570 too) cannot be emulated, because there are no specs.
->CDTV-Games on real CD or CD-Emulator/Virtual-CD do not boot in WinUAE.

So it would be more than great if you could help or send me specs about CDTV's Hardware, espacially the DMAC.

I hope this...
http://mitglied.lycos.de/borgnumberone/misc/amiga/cdtv/cdtv_loop_red.gif

...will never appear again.
(Or in case of compatibility reasons there maybe will be a switch to de/activate the DMAC so that the nice red screen can still be viewed....to remember good old WinUAE Times in future :) )

If Carl Sassenrath will send "us" the specs and WinUAE-Master: Toni adds CDTV-DMAC-support to WinUAE then "we" will see this as standard animation:
http://mitglied.lycos.de/borgnumberone/misc/amiga/cdtv/cdtv_loop.gif
or the game starts directly.

Animated gifs sucks, they are too slow...even if highest framerate while building the gif-animation was used. :)

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Animated gifs sucks, they are too slow...even if highest framerate while building the gif-animation was used.
Yeah, and it's even more annoying to wait for ~500 KB to be loaded. Don't get me wrong but I hate to see useless images... :rolleyes

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

(Sky)-DSL or T1 and you do not need to wait...
Too expensive and not available here... ;)

[RetroMan]

These pics are useless and also posted at the beginning of this thread, so no need for them here slowing things down !!! I removed the IMG Tag and made a URL instead, so everyone interested can look at it but isn´t forced to see it !!!

Over and out !!!

[RetroMan]

Thanks goes to WindowsKiller which informed RetroMan. :)
:confused He hasn´t, why should he ? I look in every single thread once I´m logged in and even I´m on DSL, these GIF animations slow things down and for THIS thread, they are useless and are not needed to be displayed everytime a user opens the thread !!

[andreas]

Can anyone send me, or point me to any other known technical info on the CDTV? I don't want to "reinvent the wheel" (i.e. waste time) with my disassembly, and knowing which hardware is at which addresses will make it easier.
Search the comp.sys.amiga.* Usenet groups (http://groups.google.com).

A good start would be here (http://www.google.com/groups?as_q=cdtv&safe=off&ie=UTF-8&as_ugroup=comp.sys.amiga.programmer&lr=&num=30&hl=en) in comp.sys.amiga.programmer.


Currently, you must become a registered Amiga CDTV developer to
get the CDTV docs. Commercial ($450) program members who submit
CDTV-specific product profiles or plans can currently receive the
CDTV docs for free. Certified ($75) program members who submit
CDTV-specific product profiles or plans may purchase the CDTV
docs for an additional $75.

To qualify for the Certified program, you must be developing a
salable product for the Amiga. To qualify for the Commercial
program, you must have existing commercial products on some
platform.

Now, what could that mean?
Someone of either the old Commodore staff or some former Amiga developer might still have these docs!
I could even *think* of someone who does.

[Toni Wilen]

Search the comp.sys.amiga.* Usenet groups (http://groups.google.com).

I have. I repeat: THERE IS NO CD ROM CONTROLLER HARDWARE DOCUMENTATION.

CDTV or CD32 CDROM was always accessed via cdtv.device or cd.device (except some CD32 games that use Rob Northern's custom loader, I think), there was no need to directly access the CDROM hardware (and it was against Commodore's programming guidelines)

[Borg_Number_One]

1.)450$...he he he... :laughing that are much less than peanuts for me.
Where to buy the stuff?

2.)I asked around four further different persons which could have knowledges about the CDTV stuff....let's wait for the answer. :)
cdtv[at-nospam]used-boat.co.uk
http://p202.ezboard.com/bamigacd32
http://zimmers.net/cbmpics/
http://amiga.emugaming.com

3.)
Maybe could this help?
CDTV Specs and more (http://mitglied.lycos.de/borgnumberone/misc/winuae/cdtv/main.html)
(Will be deleted if WinUAEMaster: Toni Wilen says "Does not help.")

[Borg_Number_One]

http://zimmers.net/cbmpics/ Answer received, but without good news.