A promise is a promise! Yup, as "usual", another milestone release in plus/4 emulator history: Yape is the first plus/4 emulator to show you true PAL
phase shift effects! But let's first what changes made it to this release:
PAL TV emulation (phase shift, color carrier effects)
screenshots in YUV format (of the PAL screen)
update D64 in 1551/CPU emulation
joystick setup dialog window
support for 2 PC joysticks
joystick emulation via keyboard now configurable
arbitrary load address for PRG files
skipped frames not rendered anymore
sped up double sized GDI mode
multiple breakpoints in the external monitor
illegal opcode range $9B-$9F fixed
improved SID digi sound
end of screen fixed
various bugfixes
removed $FE80 SID setup option
There aren't that many demos out there that exploit one of the innerst features of the TED chip. But
from now on when it comes to true PAL emulation Questionmark and
New FLI will come just so close
to the original as never before. The PAL emulation has basically two modes, depending on your settings: double sized window
enabled or not. When double sized is selected itt will imply a more serious CPU hit, but
will use double line buffering with shaded interleaved scanlines. Single sized mode won't
have this phemomen, so it might look less real but has far lower performance hit (actually it
can even be quicker than normal GDI/DX modes on some PCs). Please note, that the PAL
emulation uses a hardware accelerated DirectX overlay - similarly to the DVD player programs
or MS media player for that matter. Most cards however (even as old as an S3 Savage, for example)
has some sort of support for overlays... Get this cool new release from here.
Version 0.52 of YAPE released
9/10/2003
Another cool release is coming up this time. First off, here's a full lowdown of the changes that made
it to 0.52:
sound streaming engine rewritten (no more crackling)
1551/IEC fake drive emulation mode bug found (Club-Infos load again)
no more occasional lockups on invalid TV signals
serial bus update bug fixed (almost all known 1541 turbos work now!)
cycle exact cursor blink counter
improved DMA (no more glitches in Legionnaire, Xcellor 8 and Thrust at last)
TAP save dialog bug fixed (again...)
various speed optimisations
a few "Easter Egg" changes that are too insignificant to be mentioned here
Most problems with the 1541 turbo
loaders seems to be sorted out (unfortunately a few still remains), so you
are able to enjoy demos that never before on any emulator, and some of the
best actually such as: Inifinity, +4 Mania forever or Metapharstic.
Furthermore, a long standing issue with the vertical scrolling in a few
classic games has been sorted out as well so you can now fully enjoy
gems like Xcellor 8,
Thrust or
Legionnaire.
On top of all that, all sound streaming glitches has been fixed, and the emulator has been sped up
considerably, so it probably runs much better now on oldish computers (such as
a Celeron 333 for example).
Next releases will probably focus on improved disk write support, more
attractive user interface and PAL TV emulation, until then, get the recent one from here.
YAPE 0.51 out
18/9/2003
We had a cool party over at 4ever03, but life has not stopped since! After being beta for some time, a new version of Yape is ready for download treatment. Lots of bugs have been fixed and some VERY important ones, so I definitely recommend downloading this new release.
Here are the changes:
frame "sparkle" emulation
drive LED indicator on the status bar
reorganised, more informative status bar
initial write support in 1551/CPU drive emulation (D64 will not be updated, yet!)
option to enable/disable drive unit 9 (as IEC only)
border area is again 2x4 characters wide (as seen on a 1084S monitor)
occasional keyboard scan problem in 16 KB memory mode fixed
serial port emulation bug fixed
1541 drive VIA1 IRQ acknowledge bug fixed
read/write timing of some illegal opcodes fixed
illegal opcode SBX set the carry flag incorrectly
removed drive LED indicator from scroll lock LED (stability problems)
Unfortunately, there isn't more progress with drive emulation for now but maybe next time... Get your download from here.
YAPE 0.50 available
6/8/2003
This new release fixes a couple of annoying glitches, some of them had been here for quite some time, others
got "implemented" accidentally during the past months hasty pace of development.
Here's the list of changes:
new README file (at last!)
support for density select in true drive emulation
drive LED on the PC keyboard scroll lock indicator
shadowing 1541 ROM between $8000-$BFFF
no more reattach of D64 files is necessary, when switching between the 1541 and 1551 true drive emulation modes
added one final long pulse when saving in TAP format: wholewave TAP now produces a fully reloadable image
fixed cycle timing of a few CPU read calls, most of the remaining raster glitches are gone
fixed the 0x8F (SAX) opcode, it set the Z and N flags accidentally
no more truncation in sound frequency conversion, interference sounds much better
PC joystick is usable again (got broken in last release)
SID setup dialog initialisation bug
minor optimisation in sound rendering
miscellaneous bugfixes
As more and more bugs and glitches got sorted out and the emulator itself
now implements ~99% of the typical hardware setup, I feel a 1.0 version of YAPE is
approaching and will be probably released during this year, yet. Note, that
this does not really have any special meaning only that I consider YAPE feature-complete
and stable enough. There are still a lot of bugs left to be fixed
but I hope they will be found eventually (some of them are really difficult to spot,
let alone have fixed...). Find this actual version on the download page.
YAPE 0.49 is here
10/7/2003
Another important release. This time I've incorporated true 1551 drive emulation. For those who don't know: this is a cool little drive designed especially for the 264 series. The emulation is quite complete, so you can run another bunch of programs that never before, including but not limited to: GEOS, Corruption, Centauri Alliance, Fish! etc... Here's a full lowdown of the changes:
CPU level 1551 drive emulation (certain turbos also work)
disk setup dialog window
full(ish) write support in 1551/IEC drive emulation mode
customizable header and disk ID when creating new D64 images
A very important release for the demofreaks: all known FLI-modes are supposed to work properly, and also the ones that worked already have much better quality. There are a lot of changes in the DMA code; it was completely rewritten actually. Here is the full list of what's been changed/added:
drag'n'drop support (drag a file over the emulator window)
P00 image support (works like PRG files)
completely rewritten DMA code (almost all known FLI effects are supported)
fixed another bug in the 256KB emulation
fixed TAP data length when recording
various bugfixes
You'll see that a couple of old games also runs better now (like Paperboy, Bounder or Terra Nova). Find the new release on the download page.
YAPE 0.47: a fixup release
24/5/2003
This one is basically a fixup as I managed to mess up a few things in the previous release. Good news is that now even more disk turbos will work. Supported games now include: Bard's Tale, Battle Chess, Drol, Karateka, Tass Times etc... The only real new feature is actually the initial D64 write support in 1551 mode. Note: you can't save or scratch files as of yet, but low-level disk write access should work. Here what's been changed:
initial D64 write support in 1551 mode
create empty D64
formatting (HEADER command)
B-W/B-A/B-F : block write, allocate and free commands implemented
fixed 256 KB RAM expansion emulation
fixed a sound bug introduced in 0.46
more accurate byte ready signal in 1541 mode (even more disk turbos work!)
fixed a potential crash in the 1541 emulation
fixed a crash when creating a TAP
Not all planned features made it to this release, as I wanted to add a command line option to start programs with a SYS code instead of RUN. Also I still could not find the bug in the exact drive motor emulation, so that feature is still disabled. Once found, that will probably let the rest of the disk turbos work, too. Maybe the next release... Find the new Yape here as usual.
YAPE 0.46 runs disk turbos!
13/5/2003
Yape has become a first timer again: it's the very first Commodore 264 family emulator that can deal with disk turbos! Note that not all turbos will work for now, but I'm on improving it further. Support for disk turbos makes it possible playing games and watching demos never seen before on any of the plus/4 emulators, like this excellent demo called Silence from Steve and Unreal or Amiga Mania from EDC. Games that run include: Goonies, Battery II, Flight Simulator 2, Hollywood Poker Pro etc... But let's see what's new:
lotsa disk turbos work! you can now run a heap of programs that never before!
debug/disassemble/view drive CPU and memory in external monitor (use the command 'w' to switch)
dumping disassembly to external file in the monitor
paste text to the keyboard buffer from the clipboard (ALT+V)
preliminary drive motor emulation (will be necessary getting the rest of the disk turbos to work)
drive LED implemented
using real samples for white noise (courtesy of Levente)
implemented a high pass filter on sound output (courtesy of Levente)
menubar in the external monitor
context menu (right mouse click)
more accurate drive head movement emulation
synched the 1541 drive to be exactly 1 MHz (both the CPU and the VIA's)
oscillator frequency reload registers are now sampled on each rasterline
sound oscillators do not stop when corresponding channel outputs are disabled
I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to Levente Hársfalvi, who helped a lot getting the TED sound emulation better: sampled the white noise output of the TED, wrote the high pass filter and basically reverse engineered almost the complete sound output of the TED chip. Still is not everything clear or got implemented, but because of the milestone of getting the disk turbos work and the fact that I'm going to have precious little time in the upcoming few weeks, I've decided that a new release was just due anyway. Also I hope this release will motivate some people to join Lavina's C16 compo. Find the new release at the usual place.
YAPE 0.45 is ready!
30/4/2003
A new version is out with a few features and fixes that will be of great interest for the demo freaks. For the first time in plus/4 emulator history, you are able to watch most of the FLI (flexible line interleave, a special multicoloured graphic mode) effects. Here's a list of what's been changed:
option to attach D64 files either as drive 8 or 9
preliminary FLI support
use volume table based on oscilloscope measurements
VIA chip of 1541 drive now sets the IRQ flag properly
fixed reading from zero-lap (Winter Events TAP works again)
fixed the DC output of high frequencies (TLC digiconverter sounds much better now!)
fixed a newly introduced bug of BRK during stop cycles
some small optimisations
I hope you'll enjoy this new release that can be downloaded from here.
YAPE 0.44 is out!
27/3/2003
A new version is out with a lot of changes under the hood, but also quite some visible/audible ones:
cycle exact IRQ sequence (at last)
added option to patch the disk load vector
writable $FF1A/$FF1B (character position reload) registers
improved emulation of internal TED counters
corrected sound base frequency
partial rewrite of TED sound rendering
quick track/sector and PC indicator for 1541 drive added
Since disk turbos don't work yet, I added an option that patches the KERNAL load vector to keep using the ROM routines. It won't help however in cases where programs were not relying on the load vector (the majority does not seem to). Also, with the rewrite of another part of the sound rendering you may now experience the most "authentic" TED-sound so far. Download the new version here.
New host, update your bookmarks! YAPE 0.43 is released!
9/2/2003
Happy New Year Everyone! For me it was not a good start, as I had to look up a new host. Since KeepItRetro was about to close by the end of January I had to look for another server, and a fellow emulator author was kind enough to provide me space and a nice subdomain name (yape.homeserver.hu). For convenience please use yape.plus4.net for bookmarking as the other address may change in the future. Also, cheers to James C, who made a backup of my website for the transition period. Seeing many folks' current disappointment with the quality of the 1551 drive emulation, I've finally decided to do something on this front. There's also a lot been done under the hood, but those changes are not really visible, except for the speedup. Here's what's changed:
about 10% speed improvement
T64 file support (through 1551 drive emulation)
preliminary TIA 6523 emulation
reworked & improved 1551 drive emulation
tape emulation now works under 1541 emulation either
added 300% as selectable speed
miscellaneous bugfixes
The 1551 emulation has been almost completely rewritten and enhanced, so that in future versions it will be relatively easy to add CPU level 1551 emulation. Although, this DOS-level emulation is also fairly complete, it lacks support for commands for write operations (you could however write to a file when using a folder as a drive, just like in the older versions of Yape) and a couple of other DOS-commands like B-E and M-E that require CPU-level drive emulation. Note, that almost all disk turbos use this latter command, so don't expect them to work for now. Programs that DO work however include the full available range of Infocom adventures and a heap of other disk-based programs, magazines previously only working with true 1541 drive emulation. You can download the new version here. As ever, feel free to send me your bug reports and problems!
Should you have comments, suggestions on the page, just mail
me.
A new version is out with a few features and fixes that will be of great interest for the demo freaks. For the first time in plus/4 emulator history, you are able to watch most of the FLI (flexible line interleave, a special multicoloured graphic mode) effects. Here's a list of what's been changed: