27 replies to this topic

[Seven]

If you've done Z80 assembly, you should find C quite easy. There's not a great deal to it. Syntactically, you can pick it up in a few days.

[kensplace2]

the five days was not a "deadline" for replying, it was due to you saying you would know if it was feasible within 5 days.........

And as you seem to be unable to provide any details in either the forum, or in pm, then I stand by my original theory, that this is odd... 2 weeks to do what would have taken the person that actually made the machine longer to do??

If you have some miracle answer, shed some light, but until you do, I remain a sceptic, as it sounds to good to be true.

Could be for real, but if thats the case, you would not be hiding behind no i wont communicate crap that you are coming out with.....

[Seven]

Wow, You really are a treat, aren't you.

And saying '2 weeks to do what would have taken the person that actually made the machine longer to do??' absolutely proves my point. Is your basic estimation as to how long an emulation will take based on how long you think it took to design a system, and then adding to that!? :-)

(out of interest, so that someone can learn something, it's development is hard to gauge as it is actually derived from another video product (the precursor to Epoch Video) which you can still find out in the wild. It came to Maygay about 95% complete but still had some problems that needed ironing out)

As for 'miracle answer' - ASK YOUR QUESTION! Your personal response about 'no i wont communicate crap' (sic) is untrue. I have answered all the questions I have been asked. You are saying 'keep telling me things in PM until I decide to believe you' - but I don't care what you believe, as you're not a credible person to be able to understand in any case.


I'll quote what I did in your other quite negative post on the other forum:


"I've answered all this before, so I'll sing the same tune to you once again - ask me any specific question and I'll answer it, I've already answered enough questions to show I know what I'm talking about which everyone seems to understand except you, if you don't understand that already then I don't know what I can say to make you understand, I don't understand why it needs to be in PM where it benefits no one other than you, and I don't feel the need to prove to you in particular anyway as by the very nature of what you're saying, there's no point in doing so as you're not going to be useful to the masterclass anyway.

The analogy is of being sat in a physical class which has already started, and there's a window cleaner outside shouting 'Nope! Can't be done! You haven't told me privately how do do this so there's no way it'll work!'.

What you're trying to do (and that appears right now to be a failed attempt to antagonise me) seems to be quite pointless. The masterclass is already going ahead, the only thing that'll slow it is if no one can carry along with it.

So why not have a coke and a smile and STFU and just watch the show? You saying you don't believe me or whatever isn't going to stop it happening - and is that really what you want? What exactly do you hope to achieve? Or do you want me to say 'Oh yeah, you got me! Your argument sure is compelling! I better stop now then!' then everyone will be.. er, happy?

This is the last time you'll get a response from me on thi subject as I've already said what I've said above a few times now. Unless, you have a specific question that is useful to the masterclass and I'll answer it."

[khards]

Here is the epoch patent, it gets good around page 33, and it gives you enough info to make an emu.

Attached Files

•  epoch.zip   2.96MB   39 downloads

[Seven]

Interesting - thanks for that.

I think some of the information placed in this document was more along the lines of 'we could do...' more than they did do.

It's important to point out that there's nothing in the design that protects it from reverse SOFTWARE engineering - only hardware reverse engineering. But, through software, you can find out how the hardware works...

I notice references to the real time clock PIC. I don't think this was used in the UK - or if it was, fairly rarely.

[Jack Pot]

So, does this mean we're on the next step to bring on an Epoch emulator?
Roll on Funny Money!!

Amen to that!

[kensplace2]

[quote]Wow, You really are a treat, aren't you.[/quote]
No Im just a person that posts here regular, asking questions, you on the other hand come from nowhere, and claim to be a super expert, who can perform seemingly super human tasks.


[quote]And saying '2 weeks to do what would have taken the person that actually made the machine longer to do??' absolutely proves my point. Is your basic estimation as to how long an emulation will take based on how long you think it took to design a system, and then adding to that!? :-)[/quote]

No, I am basing my doubts, on a lifetime of experience in software, and many years as a electronics buff. Add to that the common sense factor, that it usually does take less time for someone in full possession of all facts to make something, than it does for someone to reverse engineer something......
Then there is the added fact you are trying to teach this at the same time...
Teaching slows things down.

[quote](out of interest, so that someone can learn something, it's development is hard to gauge as it is actually derived from another video product (the precursor to Epoch Video) which you can still find out in the wild. It came to Maygay about 95% complete but still had some problems that needed ironing out)
[/quote]
Beside the point, at the end of the day, there is a lot of work to reverse engineer there, and it would take even someone with the full tools and facts at least that long to come up with even a overview of how to write something from scratch....



[quote]As for 'miracle answer' - ASK YOUR QUESTION! Your personal response about 'no i wont communicate crap' (sic) is untrue. I have answered all the questions I have been asked. You are saying 'keep telling me things in PM until I decide to believe you' - but I don't care what you believe, as you're not a credible person to be able to understand in any case.
[/quote]

I think you would know what the answer was, if you had it.... And why am I not credible? Pray tell us your experience in this area? Let us know what your experience is...... If you can say I am not credible, then lets see your credentials. All I asked for was clarification as to how you could do what you claim....


[quote]I'll quote what I did in your other quite negative post on the other forum:


"I've answered all this before, so I'll sing the same tune to you once again - ask me any specific question and I'll answer it, I've already answered enough questions to show I know what I'm talking about which everyone seems to understand except you, if you don't understand that already then I don't know what I can say to make you understand, I don't understand why it needs to be in PM where it benefits no one other than you, and I don't feel the need to prove to you in particular anyway as by the very nature of what you're saying, there's no point in doing so as you're not going to be useful to the masterclass anyway.
[quote]

Really? OK, tell the world, who you have in this masterclass, which according to you is underway, and we will all come back in a few weeks.
If you dont understand why certain things need to be via pm, then I dont understand why you just dont publish the masterclass online...


[quote]The analogy is of being sat in a physical class which has already started, and there's a window cleaner outside shouting 'Nope! Can't be done! You haven't told me privately how do do this so there's no way it'll work!'.
[/quote]

Or maybe its more like the window cleaner interupting the class and saying hey you have got the whole concept of physics wrong, no I wont tell you why, at least not in private, or come to that matter, in public......

[quote]What you're trying to do (and that appears right now to be a failed attempt to antagonise me) seems to be quite pointless. The masterclass is already going ahead, the only thing that'll slow it is if no one can carry along with it.
[/quote]

No I just have doubts, based on experience.
The last thing this scene needs, is someone (and I have met many people with mad claims) who cant produce what they claim, and who also brings attention to the scene from ALL manufacturers.


[quote]So why not have a coke and a smile and STFU and just watch the show? You saying you don't believe me or whatever isn't going to stop it happening - and is that really what you want? What exactly do you hope to achieve? Or do you want me to say 'Oh yeah, you got me! Your argument sure is compelling! I better stop now then!' then everyone will be.. er, happy?
[/quote]

Hey if you dont like someone speaking there mind, move to china, or russia, this is a FREE country.

[quote]This is the last time you'll get a response from me on thi subject as I've already said what I've said above a few times now. Unless, you have a specific question that is useful to the masterclass and I'll answer it."
[/quote]

Specific questions?
How will you cope with the fact that every game on many platforms has a different pic program? How will you determine all the memory addresses, functions, parameters etc in the timescale given?
How will you do all this without breaking the law?
How can you do something that even coded from scratch, would take longer to do...
What about the other custom chips, you need to do figure out what they do, then how, and when, and why, that takes time..... Specific enough?

Nothing personal, just asking.
You claim to be able to do it so you wont have any problem if you can do it, you can ignore me, and produce the goods, or come forward and let people know this is not a waste of peoples time. Remember, if you screw this up, all you have done is draw attention to the scene from manu's, for no reason.

Also, how does the scene not know you are not a manu in disguise? You have not exactly told us anything about yourself, your history, etc.

If you pull it off, then I will salute you, and be impressed, but at the same time, if its pulled of in the time frames you suggest I would only believe it if you did MPU5 instead, as it suggests to me you already have inside info on epoch....(or access to the ICE kit)

[Seven]

Okay, the beginning part was rambling so I skipped over most of that because I'm not going to engage in petty arguing anymore - but you got to some specific questions! Thank goodness. Well, here are some answers:


> How will you cope with the fact that every game on many platforms has a different pic program?

It doesn't matter at all. As I have already said, the PIC arranges for the ASIC to be 'unlocked' and to take the processor out of reset. We're emulating a system in the state where this has already happened.

> How will you determine all the memory addresses, functions, parameters etc in the timescale given?

With 2-3 good people, this is achievable, I have based it on the work of myself and others working on drivers for MAME, etc, of similar complexity. What is your criteria for believing it is not?

> How will you do all this without breaking the law?

Absolutely what laws do you think could be broken? I'm teaching a technique whereby people entirely unrelated to the original hardware can ascertain how this works for themselves. This is also why I won't just 'write an emulator and give it to you' - no one benefits, no one can then use the techniques to work on something else, etc.

> How can you do something that even coded from scratch, would take longer to do...

Because we're not coding it from scratch? The processor is almost completely there. The YMZ280B is emulated.

>What about the other custom chips, you need to do figure out what they do, then how, and when, and why, that takes time.....

WHat other custom chips? The only thing left is the ASIC. There is actually a small ASIC on some of the peripheral boards but as it comes to pass, people will see that it's a glue device and by it's nature makes things actually easier for the entire emulation.

> Specific enough?

I was hoping for better ones to be honest - and pretty much all of these have already been answered already, and openly. It would have wasted time asking those in PM. I've had to overanswer a few just to give some more information and make this in any way worthwhile.

PLEASE read the threads before asking any more questions and make sure they haven't already been answered. And yes, you can whine all you like, but when it'll annoy me is when it puts off potentially useful people. the biggest problem we're going to face is that we don't have the right people to do it. If you're such a great programmer, why not join in? There are already things you can do. Then you'll see for yourself. And I won't even stoop to saying 'prove how good you are' first. Anyone is welcome to join in, if they aren't so good, they're not going to get mocked. A keen interest in something can fuel great things - I can't believe there's been so much negativity surrounding this when at the very worst it'll do you no harm at all.

As for 'attracting interest' - I'm doing nothing wrong, though I have wondered recently why I am bothering with so much negativity behind it, and I can see why others have been put off, I really can.

As for the tech - it was agreed we'd start with that first. I've said this many, many times now - we've already started now as well. If everything turns out right, as I've also said many times before, the same people could embark on MPU5 themselves. I'll still hang around to give direction if people get stuck.

Anyway, I'm not going to engage in this anymore, as I've already repeated myself several times now. If you have any more questions, ask them -especially if they are contructive and useful.