Apple II Core

[badvision]

Joystick is weird on the Apple // series. It is 100% analogue, and uses a timing-dependent read routine to read how long a capacitor takes to go to zero after pulsing it with a charge. (this is discussed in Jim Sather's book, among other places) -- anyway another factor in analog joystick support is that many games have some kind of manual or automatic calibration. Manual = Data east games like Bruce Lee ask you to put the joystick in different configurations and press a button. Automatic = either makes a naive assumption that < 64 = left, > 192 = right and 64-192 = center and then adjusts this based on the joystick being centered when the game starts. Meaning if joystick is not actually plugged in or enabled at the time the game starts then auto-calibration will be wrong and the game will act weirdly. I don't know of many games that auto-calibrate -- many of them just make a basic assumption about the ranges of expected values.

One way to test the joystick behavior is to run a simple program like:
10 print pdl(0),pdl(1): goto 10

This will let you see the range of values while the joystick is moved around. If all you see is 255 then that's why your character just moves right.

[Newsdee]

10 print pdl(0),pdl(1): goto 10

This will let you see the range of values while the joystick is moved around. If all you see is 255 then that's why your character just moves right.

This, exactly. Apple II joysticks have physical knobs to help center them, and the core seems to be sligthtly off center by default. This can cause some controllers tk not work at all as you can't hit all directions. Wonder if the core could be tweaked to compensate...

[rcade]

It would be nice to be able to load different ROM sets into this core. For example, original Apple II integer ROMs, clone ROMs, Apple IIc ROMs, etc.

Since it was recently modified to load video ROMs, this couldn't be that big of a stretch?

[riblad_om]

If anybody wants to play Wizardry 1, then I can recommend using the latest recompiled version (Apr 9th 2023):
https://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/

I'm am attempting to play this, but I can't seem to get characters to survive a reboot. I don't know if I'm missing something because I don't really know how Wizardry or the Apple II function, or if it's a technical issue.

In both 3.0 and the 40 column version I can make a new character at the Training Grounds and add them to party at the Tavern, but they are gone after reboot. I thought maybe I needed to drop them off at the Tavern by Removing them and attempted to Recover them, but no dice.

After some attempts I read through the thread and used the dsk2nib utility to convert the dsks to nibs, but the result was that the system hung when attempting to *ROSTER at the Training Grounds after creating my character. I then rebooted and attempted to Add my character at the Tavern which once again resulted in the core hanging.

Anyone know what I need to do here?

[rhester72]

@riblad_om Are you using the unpublished core that actually saves NIBs? The 'official' one doesn't AFAIK.

[riblad_om]

@riblad_om Are you using the unpublished core that actually saves NIBs? The 'official' one doesn't AFAIK.

I wasn't, hadn't occurred to me those improvements wouldn't be implemented to the main core yet. Grabbed what I'm assuming is the latest rbf from the previous page.

There's an improvement in that created characters are persistent between boots, but the core is still locking up when I use the *ROSTER command at the Training Grounds or when I try to Add characters at the Tavern.

[Newsdee]

There's an improvement in that created characters are persistent between boots, but the core is still locking up when I use the *ROSTER command at the Training Grounds or when I try to Add characters at the Tavern.

You might need to disable the write protect option, I've experienced lock ups on other games when the core was trying to write.

But for Wizardry, I suggest using the PRODOS version instead.
Just get the 800K .po image from that page and rename it to .hdv - then you can mount it as a hard disk in the core and reset.

That version works nicely without any disk swaps, I can save characters and bring up the *ROSTER without issues.

[riblad_om]

There's an improvement in that created characters are persistent between boots, but the core is still locking up when I use the *ROSTER command at the Training Grounds or when I try to Add characters at the Tavern.

You might need to disable the write protect option, I've experienced lock ups on other games when the core was trying to write.

But for Wizardry, I suggest using the PRODOS version instead.
Just get the 800K .po image from that page and rename it to .hdv - then you can mount it as a hard disk in the core and reset.

That version works nicely without any disk swaps, I can save characters and bring up the *ROSTER without issues.

Thanks! That definitely seems to make the game potentially playable, although I'm attempting to work out if there is a discrepancy between when the game writes to disk and when the core writes to disk.

From what I can tell, characters normally should only be considered Out and need to be Recovered if you reboot while in the Maze? However, this happens to me when I reboot in Town. This can be prevented by going to the Edge of town and Leaving the game.

After every reboot, the Party is empty and characters need to be Added from the Tavern.

Anyone know if that's all standard Wizardry behavior?

[Newsdee]

After every reboot, the Party is empty and characters need to be Added from the Tavern.
Anyone know if that's all standard Wizardry behavior?

I'm not sure but I think it happened to me on the Apple II in general.
They are not "out", i.e. you don't have to run the recovery tool to get them.

[Stinky]

This core is really great now, since the floppy write fix it seems complete and I really rate the 4am replay images. Many thanks to all contributors!

[rhester72]

@Stinky The floppy write change never made it into the public release, did it?

[Stinky]

@Stinky The floppy write change never made it into the public release, did it?

It did and works well enough.

[virtuali]

Hi,

anybody knows how to make dual Mocking board working in Ultima V ? I can only make it work with a single Mocking board in Slot 4, any other board, in any slots, doesn't work. I'm using core version Apple-II_20231211.rbf

[thorr]

Hi,

anybody knows how to make dual Mocking board working in Ultima V ? I can only make it work with a single Mocking board in Slot 4, any other board, in any slots, doesn't work. I'm using core version Apple-II_20231211.rbf

It's not available in the core (yet). I have requested it previously on this forum though. I just added a request on github. Also mouse support is missing.