home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- -*- Outline -*-
-
- * About this file
- =================
-
- This file lists the most important user-visible changes for each
- official release of VICE. See `src/ChangeLog' for a more detailed
- list of all the changes in the code.
-
- * Changes in VICE 1.0
- =====================
-
- ** General changes
- ------------------
-
- - Attached disk images can be stored into a flip list. Changing
- disks requires just one keypress.
-
- ** C64 changes
- ---------------
-
- - Support for TAP tape images has been added.
-
- - The emulation of the processor port has been corrected.
-
- - The CIA timer emulation has been further improved.
-
- - RAM/ROM banking is done 100% accurate now.
-
- - Ocean cartridge crash fixed.
-
- - Funplay and Super Games cartridges are supported now.
-
- - Doing a snapshot with REU enabled could crash the emulator. This is
- fixed now.
-
- - Fixed huge memory leak.
-
- ** C128 changes
- ---------------
-
- - Speed up emulation.
-
- ** CBM-II changes
- -----------------
-
- - Speed up emulation.
-
- ** Drive changes
- ----------------
-
- - New 1541-II emulation.
-
- - Disk change detection has been improved.
-
- - The virtual drive emulation can be used with G64 images now.
-
- ** C1541 changes
- ----------------
-
- - New function to set the name of the disk.
-
- ** Unix changes
- ---------------
-
- - A full screen mode using XFree86 vmode extension has been added.
-
- - Support for different ROM sets has been added.
-
- - A new joystick driver that is compatible to both old and new Linux
- joystick API has been added.
-
- - Support for the 1351 mouse has been added.
-
- - The source can be compiled on IRIX using the native compiler now.
-
- ** MS-Windows changes
- ---------------------
-
- - The monitor is available now.
-
- - Added more UI elements for sound settings.
-
- - Shortcut keys have been implemented.
-
- ** Miscellaneous changes
- ------------------------
-
- - P00 and PRG files can be autostarted from the command line again.
-
- - Drive memory can be loaded/saved in the monitor now.
-
- - The monitor can read and write blocks from disk.
-
- - Attaching a non-existant image via command line does not crash the
- emulator anymore.
-
- - ROM snapshots do not save ROMs with "traps" anymore
-
-
- * Changes in VICE 0.16.1a
- =========================
-
- ** MS-DOS changes
- -----------------
-
- - The joystick support has been fixed.
-
- ** MS-Windows changes
- ---------------------
-
- - Full joystick support has been added.
-
- - There are some more UI elements for sound and drive coupling (PAL/NTSC)
- now.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE 0.16.1
- ========================
-
- ** Drive changes
- ----------------
-
- - The content of 1581 disk images is displayed correctly now.
-
- ** Unix changes
- ---------------
-
- - Fixed AIX audio header problem.
-
- - The emulator does not crash with "X Error of failed request:
- BadColor (invalid Colormap parameter)" anymore when a bad or old
- `.vicerc' file is present.
-
- ** MS-DOS changes
- -----------------
-
- - The filter of the attach dialog has been fixed to display D64, D71
- D81, G64, G41 and X64 disk image names.
-
- - Cartridge attach and snapshot write dialogs could crash emulator on
- certain DOS extender. This bug has been fixed.
-
- - The name of currently attached tape images is displayed again.
-
- ** MS-Windows changes
- ---------------------
-
- - Disk images can be attached to drives 9..11 too now.
-
- ** Miscellaneous changes
- ------------------------
-
- - Some bugs in T64 handling have been fixed. The image lister now
- displays all files, the first file found is the first in the T64
- archive (and not the second), detaching tapes works now and "LOAD
- ERROR" should be gone.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE 0.16.0
- ========================
-
- ** C64 changes
- ---------------
-
- - A couple of bugs in the emulation of 6510 CPU core, VIC-II and REU
- have been fixed.
-
- - Final Cartridge, Ocean Cartridge, Super Snapshot 4 and 16KB CRT
- image support has been added.
-
- - Display modes in Ultimax mode have been corrected.
-
- ** C128 changes
- ---------------
-
- - Some memory banking bugs have been fixed (C128 GEOS works).
-
- ** VIC20 changes
- ----------------
-
- - RS232 interface has been added.
-
- ** CBM-II changes
- -----------------
-
- - A new Commodore 610 (aka CBM-II) emulator has been added.
-
- ** Drive changes
- ----------------
-
- - Drive 9 can be emulated at hardware level.
-
- - The 1571, 1581 and 2031 disk drives are emulated.
-
- - Moved drive ROM images into a separate directory.
-
- - Emulation of drives has been sped up consuming less host CPU power.
-
- ** SID changes
- --------------
-
- - Dag Lem's enhanched reSID engine is now part of VICE.
-
- - A bug in the random number generator has been fixed.
-
- ** Unix changes
- ---------------
-
- - The "Custom" joystick mapping is now compatible with the German
- keyboard layout, and possibly other non-US layouts.
-
- - Non-default screen depths should really work on X11 now.
-
- - Generation of core dumps can be controlled from command line.
-
- - Smart attaching lynx and zipcode images works correctly now.
-
- ** MS-DOS changes
- -----------------
-
- - The menu system now uses a CBM-lookalike character set borrowed from
- Star Commander.
-
- - You can now browse disk images both with the graphics and business
- CBM character sets, and you can autostart any file on a disk image.
-
- - A file descriptor leak has been fixed.
-
- ** C1541 changes
- ----------------
-
- - C1541 has been restructured; the batch mode syntax has changed, and
- some commands take different parameters.
-
- - You can create D71 and D81 disk images now.
-
- - Lynx and zipcode support has been improved.
-
- ** Miscellaneous changes
- ------------------------
-
- - It is now possible to save the emulator's state into a file, and
- load it back at any time.
-
- - A new logging system has been added.
-
- - The Monitor now handles zero page watch points triggered by memory
- wrap-around too.
-
- - Two new palette entries have been added.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE 0.15.0
- ========================
-
- ** C64 changes
- --------------
-
- - A couple of little but annoying bugs in the VIC-II emulation have
- been fixed.
-
- - CIAs have been sped up considerably in those cases where several
- consecutive underflows happen.
-
- - Cartridge support has been added.
-
- - "4064" and "SX" are now valid ROM patch IDs (the same as "100" and
- "67" respectively).
-
- ** C128 changes
- ---------------
-
- - YES! The one and only free C128 emulator (x128) is back into
- operation! No VDC, though. No, don't ask us to implement it
- because we are not going to. But of course contributions are
- (still) welcome.
-
- ** VIC20 changes
- ----------------
-
- - The VIA emulation is now cycle-exact.
-
- - Autostart is now implemented and works as in the C64 emulator.
-
- - Tape support has been added.
-
- - Cartridge support has been added.
-
- - The memory configurations can be added at runtime.
-
- - The RESTORE key works correctly now.
-
- ** PET changes
- --------------
-
- - The VIA emulation is now cycle-exact.
-
- - Autostart is now implemented and works as in the C64 emulator.
-
- - Tape support has been added.
-
- - Several PET models have been added. Moreover, the model type can be
- changed at runtime, without leaving the emulator.
-
- ** 1541 changes
- ---------------
-
- - The VIA emulation is now cycle-exact.
-
- - Support for 40-track disk images has been added.
-
- - Support for a new GCR-encoded ("G64") disk format has been added.
-
- - It is now possible to completely disable the idle trap.
-
- - Some little but possibly dangerous bugs have been fixed.
-
- ** Monitor changes
- ------------------
-
- - The old monitor has been replaced by a completely new one, written
- by Daniel Sladic. Although it is still under construction, it also
- allows access to the CPU in the 1541 drive, and features watchpoints
- and breakpoints.
-
- ** Unix changes
- ---------------
-
- - Sound and joystick is now supported on NetBSD too (courtesy of
- Krister Walfridsson <cato@df.lth.se>).
-
- - Support for multiple keyboard layouts and joystick mappings has been
- added. A "positional" layout for US keyboards is provided. On the
- C64, VIC20 and C128 emulators, Ctrl is now mapped to Tab; the
- Commodore key is now mapped to left Ctrl.
-
- - The emulators and c1541 now use the real, full-featured GNU readline
- library if found. Use `./configure --without-readline' for the old
- behavior.
-
- - RS232 and printer support has been added.
-
- - The XDebugger has died (R.I.P.).
-
- ** MS-DOS changes
- -----------------
-
- - Support for two "hardware" joysticks has been added.
-
- - The emulated drive LED has been moved to the CapsLock LED; the
- ScrollLock LED is turned on when "warp" (maximum speed) mode is
- enabled.
-
- - The menu system has been made a bit more usable. It is now possible
- to open a submenu directly from the emulator screen by pressing Alt
- and the corresponding hotkey.
-
- - An Allegro-based sound driver has been implemented. It replaces the
- old MIDAS driver in binary distributions because of licensing
- incompatibilities.
-
- - The video driver can now use triple buffering for much smoother
- animations (don't use it under Windows).
-
- - 1351 mouse emulation has been implemented. Make sure a working
- mouse driver is installed.
-
- - It is now possible to use up to two "real" joysticks and to
- configure the keyboard settings for both emulated joysticks. As a
- result, it is now possible for two people to play together with two
- "real" joysticks or just with the keyboard.
-
- - A bug that could corrupt the file descriptor table has been fixed.
-
- - The file selector is now much faster when running under plain
- MS-DOS, as it uses `findfirst()'/`findnext()' instead of DJGPP's
- Unix-like `opendir()'/`stat()' calls.
-
- ** Miscellaneous changes
- ------------------------
-
- - The file system can be accessed from any drive now, and complete
- support for P00 files has been implemented.
-
- - A major cleanup of the code has been done (this is what took most of
- the time between 0.14.2 and 0.15.0). Porting and adding features or
- emulators is now much easier.
-
- - "On the fly" Lynx and Zipcode support has been added (use with care,
- though).
-
- - A couple of bugs in the fast serial emulation have been fixed
- (courtesy of Peter Andrew Felvegi <petschy@derceto.sch.bme.hu>).
-
- - Sound output can now be oversampled up to 8 times.
-
- - The `Directory' resource is now a list of paths. The separator is
- `;' on MS-DOS and `:' on Unix.
-
- - Serial traps can be enabled/disabled at runtime.
-
- - Palette files have been introduced.
-
- - Support for Dag Lem's new reSID SID emulation engine has been added.
-
- - Automake is now being used.
-
- - Color palettes are now completely configurable via system files.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE 0.14.2
- ========================
-
- ** C64 changes
- --------------
-
- - A few VIC-II and CIA timing bugs have been fixed.
-
- - The "sprite crunch" effect should now be emulated properly.
-
- - Changes to $3FFF/$39FF in the video bank in the middle of one raster
- line do not affect the whole line anymore.
-
- - Color of forced $FF DMA characters is now correct.
-
- - The SpeedDOS parallel cable is now emulated.
-
- - More accurate SID filter parameters when the sampling frequency is
- different from 44.1 KHz.
-
- - The `TapeName' resource has been removed.
-
- ** VIC20 changes
- ----------------
-
- - An annoying bug that prevented BASIC from working has been fixed;
-
- - True 1541 emulation works again.
-
- - The `TapeName' resource has been removed.
-
- ** PET changes
- --------------
-
- - Emulation of joysticks connected to the user port has been added.
-
- ** Unix changes
- ---------------
-
- - The "change working directory" command displays the current working
- directory as default.
-
- - A new status bar on the bottom of the emulation window displays the
- current speed and frame rate, and the status (i.e. LED + R/W head
- position) of the disk drive when the true 1541 emulation is turned
- on.
-
- ** MS-DOS changes
- -----------------
-
- - A bug that caused sprites to appear near the screen when the
- 640x480 resolution was used has been fixed.
-
- ** Miscellaneous changes
- ------------------------
-
- - A little timing error in the 6510 RMW instructions using absolute
- indexed addressing has been corrected.
-
- - Much improved 1541 emulation: most custom write routines should now
- work.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE 0.14.1
- ========================
-
- ** C64 changes
- --------------
-
- - A nasty CIA-related bug has been fixed.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE 0.14.0
- ========================
-
- ** 6502/6510 changes
- --------------------
-
- - Several mostly timing-related 6510 bugs have been fixed (thanks to
- Andreas Boose's test suites).
-
- ** C64 changes
- --------------
-
- - Better SID (audio chip) emulation. Now filters are emulated and
- waveforms are more accurate. (Many thanks go to Michael Schwendt,
- author of SIDplay, for helping out with this and for providing the
- filter code and the SID wave tables.)
-
- - Some CIA bugs have been fixed (big thanks to Andreas Boose for
- reporting them).
-
- - The IEC bus recalculation has been made slightly faster (but you
- will probably not notice this, also because the true 1541
- compatibility improvements have made the emulation a bit slower).
-
- - Some VIC-II bugs have been fixed (more big thanks to Andreas for his
- invaluable test suite).
-
- - Disk/tape images can be "autostarted" from the command-line (with
- the new `-autostart' option) or at runtime (i.e. you can attach the
- image and let the emulator run and execute the first program on it
- for you). This also works with `P00' and raw CBM binary files.
-
- ** VIC20 changes
- ----------------
-
- - Fixed a small resizing-related bug.
-
- ** PET changes
- --------------
-
- - Improved/fixed keyboards on X11.
-
- - New `PetModel', `VideoWidth' and `KeyboardType' resources.
-
- - Added support for 2001, 4032B and 8096 PETs.
-
- - Better CRTC emulation: R01 (line width) and R12 (control register)
- are honoured now.
-
- ** Unix changes
- ---------------
-
- - Dispatching of Xt events fixed (there was a very stupid bug that
- caused event loops to do busy waits--argh!).
-
- - Made WindowMaker-compliant (x64, xvic and xpet can now be docked).
- Now, could anybody please contribute cool NeXTish truecolor icons?
- :-)
-
- - Better handling of window resizing.
-
- - `configure' now uses Xaw3d only if `--with-xaw3d' is specified on
- the command line.
-
- - The pop-up menus now work also if NumLock or CapsLock are activated.
-
- - A private colormap is automatically used (even if `-install' has not
- been specified on the command line) if the emulator cannot allocate
- all the colors at startup.
-
- - Increased portability: now compiles successfully on SunOS 4.x.
-
- - Improved automatic frame skipping algorithm; it now gives a higher
- average frame rate.
-
- - Different, possibly more usable, menu layout.
-
- ** MS-DOS changes
- -----------------
-
- - The contents of disk and tape images can be inspected before
- attaching them.
-
- ** Miscellaneous changes
- ------------------------
-
- - The 1541 emulation is now more accurate (disk rotation is taken into
- account, but hardware formatting still does not work although we are
- not far from it).
-
- - Safer handling for 1541 ROMs: a checksum is calculated, and turning
- full 1541 emulation on when no ROM is available does not make the
- emulator crash anymore.
-
- - BZIP v2 support has been added (from Andreas Boose).
-
- - Read-only support for various archiving formats (`.tar.gz', `.zip',
- `.lzh', `.zoo') has been added.
-
- - The character ROMs are no longer built-in.
-
- - Removed `.doc' extension from certain files in the documentation, as
- it confused HTML browsers.
-
- - Useless Makefile target that caused problems with newer versions of
- GNU make removed.
-
- - C1541 can now create disk images from Zipcoded files (`zcreate'),
- import Lynx archives (`unlynx') and execute DOS or UNIX commands
- (`system'). (`unlynx' and `system' have been contributed by Ricardo
- Ferreira.)
-
- - Wrapping around $FFFF in monitor commands works now (beware: not for
- all of them, yet!).
-
- - New, more usable, version of the `recomment' utility.
-
- - Support for Simple DirectMedia Layer has been added.
-
- - Character generator ROMs are not built-in anymore.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE 0.13.0
- ========================
-
- - Improved (now cycle-exact!) VIC-II emulation (big thanks go to
- Andreas Boose for helping me to improve it).
-
- - More accurate 6510 emulation (emulates extra unused read accesses).
-
- - Lower memory requirements.
-
- - Complete MS-DOS port.
-
- - Several CIA fixes.
-
- - The VIC-I chip now emulates the reverse mode.
-
- - Loading from tape handles the memory pointers correctly.
-
- - Joystick emulation in the VIC20 emulator.
-
- - Slightly better source code organization.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE-0.12.1
- ========================
-
- - The CIAs have been rewritten and are now more compatible and much
- faster (most of the games that ran much more slowly than usual with
- 0.12.0 should now run at normal speed).
-
- - VIC-II screen updates are now a little faster and also eat less
- memory.
-
- - Disk images can now be attached in read-only mode.
-
- - Gzip-compressed disk and tape images can be attached directly,
- without uncompressing them.
-
- - The hardware-level 1541 emulation now supports writing to the disk
- through the VIAs, so that write patches to the drive ROM are not
- needed any longer. [please notice that this might not work with
- everything, as the emulation is not 100% exact]
-
- - VICE can now be compiled also with the standard (0.8.0) joystick
- module (without digital joystick support, obviously).
-
- - A little bug related to the right Shift key has been solved
- (courtesy of Bernhard Schwall).
-
- - The numeric keypad can now be used to emulate diagonal directions
- too.
-
- - The Linux audio driver also works on 8-bit sound cards.
-
- - When a CPU jam happens (illegal opcode), the user can now choose
- between entering the monitor, enabling the XDebugger or resetting the
- machine.
-
- - Implemented the new `skip' button in the XDebugger.
-
- - Some little annoying bugs in the SID emulation have been fixed and
- combined pulse/sawtooth and pulse/triangle waveforms have been
- implemented.
-
- - The automatic refresh rate setting works better when sound is
- enabled.
-
- - The adaptive playback speed in the sound driver can now be disabled.
-
- - Sound can now be turned off automatically when buffer overruns
- happen, and is automatically turned on again after a specified
- interval.
-
- - AIX audio support has been implemented (courtesy of Chris Sharp
- (sharpc@hursley.ibm.com)).
-
- - The sprite collision interrupts are more correctly triggered.
-
- - A bad bug related to the sprite expansion register has been fixed.
-
- - The video cache now handles sprite-background collisions correctly.
-
- - A nasty bug that could cause VICE to hang has been fixed.
-
- - Attaching floppy images to drive 9 or 10 no longer makes them appear
- in drive 8 when full 1541 emulation is enabled.
-
- - Solved some problems with systems that do not have regexp.h (at
- least we hope so).
-
- - GNU make is no longer needed to compile the PET and VIC20 emulators.
-
- - The documentation has been updated.
-
- - The `tounix' and `toiso' utilities have been added.
-
- - The problem that made VICE die with an `alarm clock' signal on very
- slow or overloaded machines should now be gone.
-
- - The file selector no longer dies if you type `~' with no `/' in the
- directory field.
-
- - The file selector now has a "contents" button with which you can see
- the contents of a disk or tape image before attaching it.
-
- - The X11 video driver automatically disables usage of the MITSHM
- extensions if they are not supported by the X11 server (even if the
- `mitshm' resource is non-zero).
-
- - Some annoying REU-related bugs have been fixed.
-
- - The MS-DOS version uses the Scroll Lock LED to emulate the drive LED.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE-0.12.0
- ========================
-
- Well, almost 90% of the emulation code has been rewritten (that's why
- it took so long to have this release out), so it would be quite long
- to list everything here. Anyway, here are the most important new
- features:
-
- - New 6510 emulation, which is much faster and has (hopefully) correct
- memory fetch timings and exact emulation for all the opcodes.
-
- - Completely rewritten video emulations, now much faster and more
- versatile: the window size can be doubled at run-time and the video
- cache can be disabled when not necessary.
-
- - (Much) better VIC-II (C64 video chip) emulation, mostly rewritten
- from scratch: it can now handle most $D011 tricks such as VSP
- (Creatures and Mayhem in Monsterland work) and FLI; [yes, the silly
- sprite priority problems are gone]
-
- - (Slightly) better VIC-I (VIC20 video chip) emulation (still
- incomplete).
-
- - New SID emulator by Teemu Rantanen, with support for Linux, FreeBSD,
- Solaris and HP-UX (not all of these are stable, though).
-
- - New CIA emulation with correct timing.
-
- - Faster interrupt handling.
-
- - Xaw-based GUI with popup menus and interactive file selector from
- the Free Widget Foundation.
-
- - Hardware-based 1541 disk-drive emulation, that works with many
- custom loading routines.
-
- - New resource handling that allows saving and loading of settings.
-
- - MS-DOS port (no sound yet, UI almost non-existent).
-
- - Better T64 handling (still buggy).
-
- - Removed C128 emulator and RAM tester (sorry, we had no time to work
- at them).
-
- - Much better Linux joystick support, that works with digital and
- analog joysticks with auto-calibration (courtesy of Bernhard Kuhn
- <kuhn@eikon.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de>); [it should compile out of the
- box now]
-
- - Support for all possible VIC20 memory configurations on the command
- line (courtesy of Alexander Lehmann <alex@mathematik.th-darmstadt.de>).
-
- - Added `extract' command to c1541 (courtesy of Gerhard Wesp
- <gwesp@cosy.sbg.ac.at>).
-
- - Added configure script for easier configuration and installation.
-
- - Overall better source code organization, that should make porting
- much easier; [volunteers, you are welcome!]
-
- - Better keyboard handling (reverse polling is correct now).
-
- - The REU works.
-
- - Several other bugs fixes and improvements we have lost track of.
-
-
- * Changes in VICE-0.11.0
- ========================
-
- - The CPU in x64, xvic and xpet is now 2 times faster on average; :->
-
- - The VIC-II steals the correct number of cycles for bad lines and
- sprites, and correctly fetches the video RAM, so that FLD and other
- effects involving bad lines are now emulated correctly.
-
- - The interrupt handling and the CIA/VIA emulations have been almost
- completely rewritten, thus dramatically increasing compatibility and
- reliability.
-
- - The VIC-II sprite-sprite and sprite-background collision register
- emulation is (much) faster.
-
- - The Read-Modify-Write bug of the CPU is correctly emulated when
- accessing the VIC-II register $D011.
-
- - D64 and T64 can be directly attached (T64 in x64 and x128 only).
-
- - A bad bug in the handling of the I/O registers of the 6510 has been
- fixed.
-
- - The ADC and SBC decimal mode has been fixed.
-
- - Various bugs in the 1541 error channel emulation have been fixed.
-
- - The 1541 emulator and the standalone c1541 program support the Rx:
- (Rename) command and the Sx: (Scratch, delete) command now handles
- wildcards correctly.
-
- - The infamous keyboard problem which caused key events to be lost
- when refresh was > 1 has been fixed.
-
- - A IEEE-488 interface emulator has been introduced (emulates the
- original Commodore one) in x64, x128 and xvic.
-
- - The xdebugger functionality has been improved (this part is still in
- the experimental stage, though).
-
- - The `-8' and `-9' options allow to attach diskimages as drive #9 too.
-
- - The Unix FS driver (Unit 11) has been improved, so that it supports
- the command/error channel and wildcards properly; moreover, new
- FS-specific commands (mkdir, rmdir, chdir) and errors (`permission
- denied' and `directory not empty') have been added.
-
- - The VDC emulation in x128 supports variable character and screen
- size and bitmap mode as well (monochrome only and still under
- development).
-
- - Some minor bugs in the VDC emulator have been fixed.
-
- - The MMU implementation in x128 is much more complete, with true (not
- hard-coded) shared RAM and memory configuration support.
-
- - A nasty bug which caused x128 to crash when changing speed and
- enabling/disabling the video emulators at runtime has been fixed.
-
- - The Linux joystick has been fixed (it did not work at all in 0.10.0).
-
- - The monitor `set' command no longer accepts ambiguous variable names.
-
- - A new `hjoyport' variable/resource allows the user to choose the port
- for the hardware joystick (Linux only).
-
- - Sun64 is no longer supported (if you need it, download x64-0.3.1).
-
- - One thousand other little bugs have been fixed.
-
-