VICE and VICEplus Leopard fix

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Unfortunately, the new MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard) does not run the release binaries of VICE 1.22 and VICEplus 1.0 anymore.

Some debugging revealed three issues:

  • The X11.app startup has greatly simplified and does not need open-x11 (which by the way does not exist any more) to determine a valid DISPLAY value. Now MacOS X already defines a valid DISPLAY that automatically launches the X11 server. This needed a minor modification to the VICE launch scripts.
  • A really nasty bug in the CoreAudio sound driver now crashes the application. The bug existed for a long time but was never discovered since previous versions of MacOS X simply tolerated the wrong API call. Now Leopard is more picky and simply crashes. A small fix in the audio driver fixes this problem.
  • Finally, Apple updated the autoconf build tools and thus the build files needed minor modifications. Additionally, /bin/sh now seems to point to a real sh and since some scripts require /bin/bash they need to be changed to call the right shell.

I fixed these issues and now VICE and VICEplus run on Leopard, too. The fix is already applied to the current development versions of both branches.

For your convenience I also recompiled the current version with the patch applied:

dtv2ser+usb Prototype

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Currently, the dtv2ser device provides a RS232 interface and you need an external usb2serial converter to connect it to a modern host computer. So why not directly include the usb2serial conversion on the dtv2ser board. I found the FT232R chip that fullfills that task and is not too expensive (and also Reichelt my local parts dealer has it available 😉

Have a look at my dtv2ser+usb prototype that will be presented in release 0.2 of dtv2ser…

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KeyboardTwister for my DTV

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The DTV supports a PS/2 keyboard for an emulation of the original Commodore 64 keyboard. The PS/2 key mapping is hard-coded to a US keyboard layout. If you use a national (here: german) keyboard you have to translate the mapping manually.. Either by remembering the correct mapping or by painting new key caps…

Shadowolf on Forum64 presented a very nice solution: The KeyboardTwister. This small tinyAVR based HW Mod sits between the PS/2 connector of the DTV and the PS/2 keyboard and translates the keymapping.

Have a look at my KeyboardTwister gallery…


The KeyboardTwister connected to my DTV

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dtvtrans + mac -> dtv2ser

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dtv2ser prototype
Macs don’t have Parallel Ports. That’s no problem for using nowaday devices but its a real disadvantage if you like to hack hardware and need to access ports or like to work on toggle-bits level with any kind of homebrew hardware.

I had a look at the cool DTV transfer tool called dtvtrans written by TLR. There you build a parallel to joystick port cable and then you can transfer memory blocks directly from and to the DTV’s RAM or ROM. This is ultra handy for development and fast testing…

But without a parport on my Mac, what to do?
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Finally flashed my SST-DTV

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For a long time only the DTV versions with an Atmel Flash ROM can be flashed (You need this to store your own games or custom software). For the newer DTVs with SST Flash there was no software solution known to flash this ROM, too. Actually, a software only solution will never work… You need a small hardware fix – discovered by tixiv from Forum64 – to make everything work…
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XU1541 for my Mac

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I had the parts lying around for a few weeks now, but yesterday I found the time to solder everything together: the XU1541 created by Till Harbaum. Its a USB-to-IEC bus converter device that allows to connect modern hardware with retro CBM devices like a 1541 floppy. As you might have guessed already, I wanted to check out if it works with my Mac, too…

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Added a MMC2IEC to my DTV64

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Easter time is project time 😉 I spent the free days with working on some of my C64 hardware projects… This time I added a SD-Card based virtual 1541 Floppy emulator to my DTV mod. I integrated Lars’s MMC2IEC Project that implements this HW floppy with an Atmel ATmega32 microcontroller and just a few more parts (available for a few bucks).

Here is how I built it and how to use the Mac as a development system for the AVR controller…
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