Newbie trying to get the AO486 core to work

Shim
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Newbie trying to get the AO486 core to work

Unread post by Shim »

Hello! I'm new to the MiSTer but thus far love it. I'm having trouble with getting some of the cores running however and suspect it's very much an issue of me. Pardon my ignorance. :)

Right now I'm trying to get the AO486 core running and am not seeing anything boot or happen...just a blank screen.

I was trying to follow the guide at https://www.jamesfmackenzie.com/2021/02 ... ick-start/

I have the following files placed in /media/fat/games/ao486:
ao486_dir.png
ao486_dir.png (15 KiB) Viewed 1962 times
The rom files I downloaded from https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_M ... eases/bios and they were transferred via FTP. I have tried copying the ROM files both with an 'auto' setting in my FTP client as well as forcing it to binary.

My settings appear as follows on the core menu:
ao486_core.png
ao486_core.png (50.29 KiB) Viewed 1962 times
I had to adjust this. I purchased a pre-configured MiSTer from MiSTER Addons and there were existing virtual drives. I removed them from the configuration on this screen (not the MiSTer itself), and selected the DOS.vhd that I had created per the guide above. I get the blank screen regardless of what has been selected for the IDE devices or floppy...I've tried selecting them and saving, and I've tried to see if I leave them all empty if I'd see the BIOS angry that it had nothing to boot from but nope, nothing.

When I select 'Reset and apply HDD' nothing happens. I see no messages, errors, or anything. Just a black screen.

I am new and don't fully understand the interaction with all of the file types, but I do have an rbf file for the core:
ao486_rbf.png
ao486_rbf.png (20.62 KiB) Viewed 1962 times
I see a lot of threads about loading disks and the like into the core but haven't seen anything about the core itself not loading. Am I doing something wrong here, and has somebody run into this before?

Thanks much. :)
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Chris23235
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Re: Newbie trying to get the AO486 core to work

Unread post by Chris23235 »

Your Bios Roms have the wrong filesize.
Correct size:
boot0.rom 65536 bytes
boot1.rom 32738 bytes

Your core rbf is outdated, the latest version is ao486_20210329. Run the update script to get the latest version. Don't update manually as it is very likely that your whole MiSTer system is outdated and the latest core version needs a newer version of the MiSTer Main.
Shim
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Joined: Thu May 13, 2021 7:56 pm
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Re: Newbie trying to get the AO486 core to work

Unread post by Shim »

Thanks very much Chris, that was 100% it, and you're correct that the entire system was outdated. Great eye on the file sizes! Not sure how I managed to screw up the download of the roms but given they're both the same size I likely downloaded page information rather than the rom itself.

Happily installing DOS 6.22 now.

Thank you!!!
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