Time for another monthly update 
I've made some really good progress over the last month or so. Nearly all of the major components are now completed meaning that the majority of games are now running nicely.
I've made some really good progress over the last month or so. Nearly all of the major components are now completed meaning that the majority of games are now running nicely.The JIT compiler's completed although it's still a bit slow to initialise and compile the ROM. This is something I'm hoping to improve on an ongoing basis. There may well be a few bugs to iron out as well.
The prize/stake/percentage keys are now properly implementated and can be changed when loading the ROM. With this I've been able to confirm that we have £25 ROM revisions of some of the early machines like Homer's Meltdown, Beer Guide, Wipeout, Geronimo etc which is good news.
The implementation for the newer dot alpha was incorrect and has been re-written. The /SEL input line to the alpha wasn't correctly handled. It should now work properly on the newer games that use one (although odd characters may appear occasionally - these are non-standard ascii characters or controls for dimming and flashing that aren't currently handled)
One major issue did surface with the 6 reel driver board a couple of weeks ago. This has now been fixed so hopefully all the games that use one will now work correctly.
The SEC meter is finished so games that require one should boot and run correctly. I've only come across 2 Epoch machines so far that need one (Jolly Roger & Dambuster) but I'm sure there'll be a few more. Many thanks to Fevernova for all his help with this
The remaining ommisions/issues in the core are:
The serial ports and BACTA datapak implementation is still incomplete and buggy (causes freezing or boot failures on some machines)
The hopper is still incomplete and errors with a strim alarm when collecting wins of more than £1
The coin mech doesn't work properly with Extreme machines. It allows one coin to be inserted but then errors/freezes on the next coin.
A few minor issues to be fixed with the reels.
Glitches with the sound (not a show stopper for the time being)
Once these points are resolved then 99% of games should be fully playable without problems. It may be that we come across games/ROM revisions that require cctalk hoppers or note validators. This is probably more of a problem for other future techs in the emulator such as Scorion 4/5 rather than Epoch. I do have a few ideas to circumvent it without comprimising it when the time comes.
As there's still a bit of work to do I'm delaying any more testing for another week or 2. I'll start asking willing volunteers soon
New video coming soon too
