Anyone fancy trying to fix Synthia II?

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Paulee_Alex_Bow

Wow, rude.

That’s not what’s happened here at all. I asked for help, mark_k sorted it out in the very second reply, and I got the program working by running Aegis Sonix first. I thanked him. Other people have now got it running too, and are enjoying the program…so I’m not the only benefactor here

Behind the scenes, I did get access to the zone, and I did download your piece of software. I’ll probably put it in the same folder as Synthia II, or I’ll just load Sonix first each time, I’m not sure. I didn’t realise I was being held at gun point for a response ¯\_(?)_/¯

And then I started talking about other stuff with JOTD, again, didn’t realise that this was a punishable offence. There seems to be some invisible eggshells I’m stepping on, and if that’s the case, I’d rather not have the help, if it comes with stressful conditions ¯\_(?)_/¯

I'm not rude at all, I've no idea how you determined that from such a small response, maybe don't assume?

It's just good manners that if you specifically ask for help and people offer help, just follow that up with whether the help given was useful or not, if it was, great, if it wasn't, then there's more to do, no-one can know that unless you communicate that.

Or am I being unreasonable here?

EAB has some very knowledgeable people with regards Amiga, and are happy to give their time freely, keep that in mind when the only "payment" is YOUR communication.

[Paulee_Alex_Bow]

Originally Posted by tolkien

I dont see any stressfull to say "oh, thanks Galahad for that program and the time to try to help me". But hey, perhaps its only me.

The other factor in all of this is I was going to thank everyone involved in my video about Synthia II, which will be out in a couple of days, just editing it.

Now it feels like a sad thing happened, rather than a nice community vibe.

[Paulee_Alex_Bow]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I'm not rude at all, I've no idea how you determined that from such a small response, maybe don't assume?

It's just good manners that if you specifically ask for help and people offer help, just follow that up with whether the help given was useful or not, if it was, great, if it wasn't, then there's more to do, no-one can know that unless you communicate that.

Or am I being unreasonable here?

EAB has some very knowledgeable people with regards Amiga, and are happy to give their time freely, keep that in mind when the only "payment" is YOUR communication.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree ¯\_(?)_/¯
Maybe it’s just one of those things in life, where you occasionally meet people who you can’t understand.

I give hours and hours of my time to people in the community, a little here, but mainly on Facebook groups and messenger, sharing the info and skills on the subjects I know well, music production, upgrades, getting different things to configure and run, all sorts…and I’ve never sent a message like the one I received today.

The message implied/suggested I (the person who asked for help) was ungrateful, poor at communication, poor at timekeeping/making a timely response, and basically didn’t care about anyone.

And that’s not true at all.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Paulee_Alex_Bow

We’ll just have to agree to disagree ¯\_(?)_/¯
Maybe it’s just one of those things in life, where you occasionally meet people who you can’t understand.

I give hours and hours of my time to people in the community, a little here, but mainly on Facebook groups and messenger, sharing the info and skills on the subjects I know well, music production, upgrades, getting different things to configure and run, all sorts…and I’ve never sent a message like the one I received today.

The message implied/suggested I (the person who asked for help) was ungrateful, poor at communication, poor at timekeeping/making a timely response, and basically didn’t care about anyone.

And that’s not true at all.

There is nothing to "agree to disagree" on,

I understand people fine, if they goto one website to ask for help, they don't goto another website to communicate with a video as to whether the help worked or not, they goto the website that gave them the help.

That's what people do.

My post previous to this its clear you skim read it.

EAB is a welcoming place with knowledgeable people who are happy to help, the only "payment" they need to know is their help achieved its aim or if there is more to be done, because no-one wants to be giving out duff advice.

Your final paragraph is such a leap in strawmanning, it's hard to comprehend that you posted it with a straight face.

Believe me when I say, if I wanted to convey all those things.....I'd just outright say it, I dont do fluffy meandering

All I asked for was communication, there was zero need for it to devolve into this nonsense.

You can't agree to disagree about communication.

I will bow out of this thread now, this was never the point of me responding in the first place

Sigh

[Paulee_Alex_Bow]

So anyhow, I’ve put the working version of Synthia II in the zone.

Just make sure the audio.device is open as per mark_k’s post

https://eab.abime.net/zone/synthia_i...d1_paradox.adf

Saving does not work, and I suspect this was a demo version that was hacked to be fully functional, so you’ll have to render out the audio. But that’s not too tricky via winuae.

If you want the SMUS Synthia player, then the version off the demo disk seems to work best, just copy over the extra files to wherever you’ve installed Synthia II.

https://ftp2.grandis.nu/turran/FTP/TOSEC/Applications/Commodore%20Amiga%20-%20Applications%20-%20[ADF]/Synthia%20II%20(demo)%20(1990)(The%20Other%20Guys)[WB].zip

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Paulee_Alex_Bow

And then here’s v II of Soundtracker which had the special AM/FM commands but are very crash happy haha.

https://ftp.untergrund.net/users/hit...tracker_II.zip

Oh, also v1, which is quite similar:

https://ftp.untergrund.net/users/hit...dtracker_I.zip

I looked at "Soundtracker v1". The problem is related to the keyboard-handling code. Basically, it replaces the system level 2 interrupt vector with this code:

OurLevel2IntRoutine
	MOVEM.L	D0/D1/A0/A1/A5/A6,-(SP)
	LEA	(_custom).L,A0
	MOVE.W	(intenar,A0),D0
	BTST	#INTB_INTEN,D0
	BEQ.B	lbC001E86

	MOVE.W	(intreqr,A0),D0
	BTST	#INTB_PORTS,D0
	BEQ.B	lbC001E86

	MOVE.B	(_ciaa+ciasdr).L,D0

	MOVEQ	#23,D1
lbC001E30	MOVE.B	#$40,(_ciaa+ciacra).L
	DBRA	D1,lbC001E30

	ROR.B	#1,D0
	NOT.B	D0
	BTST	#7,D0
	BNE.B	lbC001E80

	MOVE.B	(lbB002997).L,(lbB002996).L
	MOVE.B	D0,(lbB002997).L
	CMPI.B	#$60,(lbB002996).L
	BEQ.W	lbC001E80

	CMPI.B	#$61,(lbB002996).L
	BEQ.W	lbC001E78

	CLR.B	(lbB002996).L
	BRA.W	lbC001E80

lbC001E78	MOVE.B	#$60,(lbB002996).L
lbC001E80	MOVE.W	#INTF_PORTS,(intreq,A0)

lbC001E86	MOVEM.L	(SP)+,D0/D1/A0/A1/A5/A6
	MOVE.B	#0,(_ciaa+ciacra).L
	JMP	($FC0CA6).L	;??? !!!

The JMP at the ends jumps back into (what I assume is) the middle of the Kickstart 1.2 ROM level 2 interrupt handling code.

It would be fairly simple to just patch the program, changing $FC0CA6 to whatever the Kickstart 1.3 ROM equivalent is, to get it working on a 1.3 machine. Not sure if the same could be done for Kickstart 2.0. A proper fix might be possible, I might take a look some time.

[Paulee_Alex_Bow]

Originally Posted by mark_k

I looked at "Soundtracker v1". The problem is related to the keyboard-handling code. Basically, it replaces the system level 2 interrupt vector with this code:

OurLevel2IntRoutine
	MOVEM.L	D0/D1/A0/A1/A5/A6,-(SP)
	LEA	(_custom).L,A0
	MOVE.W	(intenar,A0),D0
	BTST	#INTB_INTEN,D0
	BEQ.B	lbC001E86

	MOVE.W	(intreqr,A0),D0
	BTST	#INTB_PORTS,D0
	BEQ.B	lbC001E86

	MOVE.B	(_ciaa+ciasdr).L,D0

	MOVEQ	#23,D1
lbC001E30	MOVE.B	#$40,(_ciaa+ciacra).L
	DBRA	D1,lbC001E30

	ROR.B	#1,D0
	NOT.B	D0
	BTST	#7,D0
	BNE.B	lbC001E80

	MOVE.B	(lbB002997).L,(lbB002996).L
	MOVE.B	D0,(lbB002997).L
	CMPI.B	#$60,(lbB002996).L
	BEQ.W	lbC001E80

	CMPI.B	#$61,(lbB002996).L
	BEQ.W	lbC001E78

	CLR.B	(lbB002996).L
	BRA.W	lbC001E80

lbC001E78	MOVE.B	#$60,(lbB002996).L
lbC001E80	MOVE.W	#INTF_PORTS,(intreq,A0)

lbC001E86	MOVEM.L	(SP)+,D0/D1/A0/A1/A5/A6
	MOVE.B	#0,(_ciaa+ciacra).L
	JMP	($FC0CA6).L	;??? !!!

The JMP at the ends jumps back into (what I assume is) the middle of the Kickstart 1.2 ROM level 2 interrupt handling code.

It would be fairly simple to just patch the program, changing $FC0CA6 to whatever the Kickstart 1.3 ROM equivalent is, to get it working on a 1.3 machine. Not sure if the same could be done for Kickstart 2.0. A proper fix might be possible, I might take a look some time.

Thanks for looking at this. 1.3 would be better I guess, as then relokick or WHDLOAD generic 1.3 could be a possibility. Yeah sure take a look at it sometime if you enjoy tinkering with this stuff

[mark_k]

Just patching the absolute address requires Kickstart 1.3 in ROM (Relokick no good), but could still be worth doing if you wanted to e.g. play with it on a real 1.3 A500.

The equivalent jump address for the Kickstart 1.3 ROM is $FC0CE2.

Generally, load the executable into a binary file editor, search for 4EF9 00FC 0CA6, change the A6 to E2 then save the modified file.


The Soundtracker_II executable you linked has been butchered by crunching with Bytekiller. That removes all the relocation information, and it unpacks to a specific fixed memory address, probably without allocating the memory first. Maybe there is an uncrunched version of it somewhere??? Because you can't use that in a system-legal way.

[Paulee_Alex_Bow]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Just patching the absolute address requires Kickstart 1.3 in ROM (Relokick no good), but could still be worth doing if you wanted to e.g. play with it on a real 1.3 A500.

The equivalent jump address for the Kickstart 1.3 ROM is $FC0CE2.

Generally, load the executable into a binary file editor, search for 4EF9 00FC 0CA6, change the A6 to E2 then save the modified file.


The Soundtracker_II executable you linked has been butchered by crunching with Bytekiller. That removes all the relocation information, and it unpacks to a specific fixed memory address, probably without allocating the memory first. Maybe there is an uncrunched version of it somewhere??? Because you can't use that in a system-legal way.

There probably is, it’s on many many disks. I’ll have a look at some point. I think it’d be fun for the Amiga musician community to get hold of this.

Could I ask for a recommendation on a binary editor. I have a couple of assemblers and a hex editor.

[mark_k]

I like Hex.

[Paulee_Alex_Bow]

Originally Posted by mark_k

I like Hex.

[ Show youtube player ]

Video done, thanks again!

[squidbass]

Great Video Paulee - well done. I like your Varta track too.