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August 2003

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12 discussions

Fluke FIDE update... Good news
by James S. Bright 06 Aug '03

06 Aug '03

Well, I was chided into doing color syntax highlighting :) That piece is nearly complete. You can turn it off if you have a slower computer, as it does have to do a lot of parsing. I've found that once the file is loaded, it's pretty fast, even on my lab computer (it only re-parses lines that you've edited). The editor will have bugs... A couple I already know about. I will release another version to correct a lot of them, but I wanted to get this week's cut out this weekend before I head to Anthony's BBQ :) At any rate, always back up your scripts before using a new version of FIDE just in case... Now the real news. Through the help of kev, John R, and another good friend of mine, the Fluke Signature Analysis routine has been successfully decoded. I've tested this out on a few ROMs, and it looks like it works for all cases, I've added in an option to allow you to read a ROM from disk, and it will auto-generate 9LC code for you. The program doesn't know the address map, although I will probably implement a very simple database of address maps in the future that will attempt to match ROM files to MAME's address map (a few problems there, but it may work for a good number of cases). Also, right now it requires that the binary file be unzipped. I'll probably deal with zips down the road. If I could find the right library, it'd probably be a snap. So, what this really means is that you can find a MAME ROM set and generate a bunch of scripts to check ROMs, even if you don't have a known good board to start with. Won't help you in all cases (if you can't find the exact same ROM set you have), but it should be pretty useful. It also will write a few "quick test" lines so that you can bypass the ROM test if you know you have a problem (like if you read in all FF FF FF FF, then you probably have a CS issue). This generated code could be used to create IF-THEN statements to help you figure out which ROM version is on your board... If you've already installed FIDE, you can just get the EXE file. If you've lost the link or would like to try it out, email me directly. --James Bright www.QuarterArcade.com Restored Arcade Games for your Home

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Archive...
by John Robertson 05 Aug '03

05 Aug '03

I have an archive of all the messages on TechToolsList, but they are in EUDORA format. Anyone here have a way of changing that to a more useful archive format that I could upload to the ftp site every now and then? My web site's host mail list program doesn't support archiving... John :-#)#

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