Another wishlist

[Zup]

Because everybody is making their own suggestions, I'd like to add my wishlist. I hope ther won't be too much repeated items...

Documentation synced with the release. The docs included are not up to date. Some examples:
- The docs states that ibmat BIOS files are at111585.0 and at111585.1, when they are 62x0820.u27 and 62x0821.u47.
- Some BIOS (like IBM VGA are not included).
- Europc needs only one BIOS file, not two.

Include CRCs, md5 or SHA1 values of valid BIOS on the docs. At least one of them. IBM VGA BIOS used in PCem is different of that used in MAME/MESS... any computer using the latter won't boot. Having some means of cheking BIOS would help.

Setting monitor type. I mean something like Mono/CGA/EGA/VGA... and the ability to use monochrome palettes (to emulate white, amber and green phosphour), so anyone could emulate a 286/VGA/White Phosphour setup.

Offering a "default" type in some configurations. So some machines can be reverted to their factory defaults (i.e.: on a Schneider EuroPC, you can choose a VGA video card and a 8086/16 Mhz CPU... using the "Default" would means CGA in the video card selection and 8086/9.54 on the CPU speed).

Use bus type to limit some selections. On PCem world, seems that you could couple a Trident 9440CXi with a Voodoo on that Schneider EuroPC. That means using VLB and PCI cards on a ISA system. Keeping some information about bus type of the machines and bus compatibility of the cards (i.e.: some ISA16 cards can work on ISA8 systems) would give more "logical" choices to mount your own emulated PC. Also, most XT didn't had much bus speed choice... I guess Slow VLB/PCI setting has not sense on an ISA computer.

And some bug reporting (based on PCem 10.1 build from this page)...
- It seems that most Amstrad PCs won't let you choose a video card. They had some ISA buses (even the PC200), so (at least in theory) you could connect a VGA card.
- When the video card selection is grayed, the "Configure button" is active. If you had a 486 selected with a TVGA9440 and you select the PS1, you can't select which VGA to use but you can select if you want 1 or 2 Mb on it. I guess it won't work, but it's confusing.
- The floppy type selection doesn't work. It seems that I only can connect 360 or 1.2Mb drives. Does anyone else have this problem?

[leilei]

I think the monitor type could be handled with pixel shaders, having stuff processed to a "signal" shader, even doing the out-of-range responses by shader. and that's not counting the whole crt postprocessing stuff
It can't simply end at just making the screen green. I remember lots of green-only monitors being really flickery, ghosty and glowy


As for your floppy problem, does the BIOS settings' floppy drives mirror your emulator's? I have no issue using 1.2mb, 360kb and 1.44mb disks with a configured AMI386.

[Zup]

I was thinking about other things when I wrote about the monitor, but not ghosting. Some things I thought:
- If a mono monitor is connected, convert colours to shades of grey, amber or green. I think it would be easy.
- Relating monitor and video card. A PC1512 could have been connected to CGA mono and colour monitors, but not VGA. Also, some cards behave differently when connected to different monitors (I had a Trident 9440 that sometimes "locked" into monochrome mode). That won't be easy because...
- The communications between monitors and cards could be emulated. That means VGA monitors exposing their ranges of frequencies (and the VGA BIOS capturing that data) so some OS can adjust their modes. It seems very complicated and not so useful... not for a wishlist.

Ghosting would be very difficult to implement, even using shaders, because not all monitors had the same amount of ghosting and it would need to be tuned for every user. Also, some mono monitors (late VGA monitors) had no ghosting... or at least I don't remember it. It would be as easy as emulating interlaced displays.

About the floppy problem, I had not much time and I've not fully tested it. The 3.5 inch settings don't appear on the configuration menu, but I have to test if:
- 1.44Mb drives can be configured on BIOS and work.
- Writing the values (what values? 0 is 360Kb, but what other values can define the floppies? I need to check the sources) directly on pcem.cfg makes it appear con the menu.
- Building PCem from the sources and recheck it.

[SarahWalker]

About the floppy problem, I had not much time and I've not fully tested it. The 3.5 inch settings don't appear on the configuration menu,

It does. The first option is '5.25" 360k / 3.5"' - ie 360k 5.25" or 3.5". PCem v10.x only has special behaviour for 5.25" 1.2MB drives, every other drive type is handled the same, hence there's only one option.

[Alegend45]

phosphour

*sings* That's not how you spell it!

[Zup]

phosphour

*sings* That's not how you spell it!

Sorry! I'm not from UK / USA / Australia / Any other english speaking country. Be aware of gross spelling and grammar mistakes.