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VICE update?

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xlar54

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Nov 25, 2009, 8:14:03 PM11/25/09
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Been nearly a year since VICE 2.1 was released. Just was curious if
there is a pending release coming soon :)

Dmackey828

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Nov 25, 2009, 10:09:55 PM11/25/09
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I sure hope so. When I use Vice v2.1 in Vista, If I drag the Window
BELOW the bottom of the screen, VICE Crashes. Really pissing me off.

dott.Piergiorgio

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Nov 26, 2009, 4:23:23 AM11/26/09
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Dmackey828 ha scritto:

I have a similiar problem, that is, the window appears partially below &
right the current desktop, and I have always to drag it in a more saner
place... (I use Linux/X11, BTW...)

And also there was the vexata quaestio of the keyboard mapping under
X11, but I have resolved, at least for me (I don't release the modified
.vkm until a certain obnoxious individual leaves the CBM scene....)

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

Chrom_

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Nov 26, 2009, 5:25:07 AM11/26/09
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I'm aware of a few important diffs that have been committed into the
CVS and ready for the next release (a bugfix in the ReSID engnine for
example). So the development is not stalled at all. Unfortunately I'm
not aware of any release date. Maybe for Christmas? It would be a very
welcome present.

Chrom_

On Nov 26, 10:23 am, "dott.Piergiorgio"

MagerValp

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Nov 26, 2009, 5:25:32 AM11/26/09
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On Nov 26, 2:14 am, xlar54 <scott.hut...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Been nearly a year since VICE 2.1 was released.  Just was curious if
> there is a pending release coming soon :)

Yes, people were saying on irc yesterday that 2.2 is almost done. Mac
users can test beta builds from http://www.lallafa.de/files/vice/snapshots/
but I'm not aware of anyone building betas for Windows.

Rudolf Harras

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Nov 26, 2009, 6:36:23 AM11/26/09
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MagerValp schrieb:

It would be really great if the network features was improved, I think
they haven't been changed since 1.7.

MagerValp

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Nov 26, 2009, 7:56:18 AM11/26/09
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On Nov 26, 12:36 pm, Rudolf Harras <rudi...@temporaryforwarding.com>
wrote:

> It would be really great if the network features was improved, I think
> they haven't been changed since 1.7.

I don't see any feature requests or bug reports regarding network
features:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=223021

Unless you file a report, there's no way for them to know that it
needs improving.

Rudolf Harras

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Nov 26, 2009, 1:41:35 PM11/26/09
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MagerValp schrieb:

Lol... the whole thing doesn't really work. I didn't think that anyone
really expected a serious bug report to that function which just seems
to be in an early experimental state.

MagerValp

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Nov 26, 2009, 2:20:54 PM11/26/09
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On 26 Nov, 19:41, Rudolf Harras <rudi...@temporaryforwarding.com>

wrote:
> >> It would be really great if the network features was improved, I think
> >> they haven't been changed since 1.7.
> >
> >Unless you file a report, there's no way for them to know that it
> >needs improving.
>
> Lol... the whole thing doesn't really work. I didn't think that anyone
> really expected a serious bug report to that function which just seems
> to be in an early experimental state.

Considering that it has been used to develop IP65/Netboot65, Six'
network stack, Contiki, and GuruTerm, "the whole thing doesn't really
work" is a little vague. There were some alignment issues (cs8900 uses
16-bit registers, misaligned writes were handled differently from real
hardware) that I think they fixed fixed, and WinPcap erroneously
echoes back packages sent from x64, but that's mainly a headache for
developers, not users (and we've learned to work around them).

Jonno Downes

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Nov 26, 2009, 3:29:07 PM11/26/09
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On Nov 27, 5:41 am, Rudolf Harras <rudi...@temporaryforwarding.com>
wrote:

> MagerValp schrieb:
>
> >On Nov 26, 12:36 pm, Rudolf Harras <rudi...@temporaryforwarding.com>
> >wrote:
> >> It would be really great if the network features was improved, I think
> >> they haven't been changed since 1.7.

> Lol... the whole thing doesn't really work. I didn't think that anyone


> really expected a serious bug report to that function which just seems
> to be in an early experimental state.

I have come across a few people for whom Vice networking doesn't work,
and a whole lot more for whom it does.

I suspect that the biggest source of angst and confusion is the
dependancy that Vice networking has on pcap, which in turn has
dependancies on support for the underlying NIC drivers. For example,
VICE needs to receive ethernet packets containing the MAC address of
the emulated cs8900a, not the MAC address of the real (hardware) NIC
that connects to the LAN. But not all ethernet NICs & drivers support
that functionality. In particular, most wifi NICs dont. So if you try
and use VICE network emulation over wifi, it will often silently fail.

This situation could certainly be better documented. If I was less
lazy, I would do so.

I suspect that in order to make the ethernet emulation less dependant
on proper 'promiscuous mode' support in the underlying hardware, VICE
would need to do something like VMWare workstation seems to, i.e. have
software on the 'host' side that looks to the guest OS as a router. so
it becomes the destination of all traffic exiting the guest os, and is
able to NAT packets, then send them out whatever physical interface is
appropriate using the MAC address of that physical interface.

Spiro Trikaliotis

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Nov 29, 2009, 12:10:49 PM11/29/09
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Hello,

MagerValp wrote:

Also note that I wrote the whole networking stuff without actually
owning any CS8900a device. Thus, all I had was the data sheet of the
device. As it is not complete, it is a problem to be implemented
correctly. Furthermore, there are aspects of the device that are not
implemented at all. The reason is simple: As I do not have such a
device, I cannot even test most things.

Leif Bloomquist once told me about some person (I don't remember who)
who might know more about the problems. I contacted him via IRC and
e-mail, but never got any answer.


Thus, if anyone wants improvements, send us (the VICE team) appropriate
bug reports. Oh, and a CS8900a networking card would be nice, too. ;)

MV: I do not remember anyone fixing anything about misaligned writes.
Can you elaborate on the problem? What was the expected behaviour, and
how does VICE actually behave?

Regards,
Spiro.

--
Spiro R. Trikaliotis http://opencbm.sf.net/
http://www.trikaliotis.net/ http://www.viceteam.org/

Spiro Trikaliotis

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Nov 29, 2009, 12:06:40 PM11/29/09
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Hello Jonno,

Jonno Downes wrote:

> On Nov 27, 5:41ᅵam, Rudolf Harras <rudi...@temporaryforwarding.com>
> wrote:

> I suspect that the biggest source of angst and confusion is the
> dependancy that Vice networking has on pcap, which in turn has
> dependancies on support for the underlying NIC drivers. For example,
> VICE needs to receive ethernet packets containing the MAC address of
> the emulated cs8900a, not the MAC address of the real (hardware) NIC
> that connects to the LAN. But not all ethernet NICs & drivers support
> that functionality. In particular, most wifi NICs dont. So if you try
> and use VICE network emulation over wifi, it will often silently fail.

Thank you for the problem explanation. I heard about problems with WLAN
adapters, but not one person I contacted answered me what the problem
was. This is the first time I got some valuable information on this.

> I suspect that in order to make the ethernet emulation less dependant
> on proper 'promiscuous mode' support in the underlying hardware, VICE
> would need to do something like VMWare workstation seems to, i.e. have
> software on the 'host' side that looks to the guest OS as a router. so
> it becomes the destination of all traffic exiting the guest os, and is
> able to NAT packets, then send them out whatever physical interface is
> appropriate using the MAC address of that physical interface.

Well, unfortunately, VMWare uses drivers for this. I do not think it is
possible otherwise.

Although I could write them, these would not work on Vista or Win7 64
bit versions, because I cannot afford some hundred dollar per year to
sign the driver.

Spiro Trikaliotis

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Nov 29, 2009, 12:03:40 PM11/29/09
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Hello MV,

MagerValp wrote:

> On Nov 26, 2:14ᅵam, xlar54 <scott.hut...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, people were saying on irc yesterday that 2.2 is almost done. Mac
> users can test beta builds from http://www.lallafa.de/files/vice/snapshots/
> but I'm not aware of anyone building betas for Windows.

Official beta:

http://www.trikaliotis.net/Download/vice/WinVICE-2.1.20-x86.zip

There is even a detached signature available:

http://www.trikaliotis.net/Download/vice/WinVICE-2.1.20-x86.zip.sig

MagerValp

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Nov 29, 2009, 4:01:57 PM11/29/09
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On 29 Nov, 18:10, Spiro Trikaliotis

<usenet-200...@spiro.trikaliotis.net> wrote:
> MV: I do not remember anyone fixing anything about misaligned writes.
> Can you elaborate on the problem? What was the expected behaviour, and
> how does VICE actually behave?

Well, the bug was in my code (IP65), and when I fixed it it works
correctly both in VICE and on the real thing. My memory is a bit
foggy, but I think the end result was that packets were skewed a bit.
I can't remember if the bug was visible in VICE, on the RR-Net, or
both - either way I'd consider the bug minor. The only real bug is
sent packages being echoed back, causing a little extra overhead (to
drop the packages) when you run on VICE.

MagerValp

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Nov 29, 2009, 4:05:10 PM11/29/09
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On 29 Nov, 18:03, Spiro Trikaliotis
<usenet-200...@spiro.trikaliotis.net> wrote:
> MagerValp wrote:
> > Mac
> > users can test beta builds fromhttp://www.lallafa.de/files/vice/snapshots/

> > but I'm not aware of anyone building betas for Windows.
>
> Official beta:
>
>  http://www.trikaliotis.net/Download/vice/WinVICE-2.1.20-x86.zip

Cool. It'd be nice if you added an index page, or allowed dir
listings, so we could pick up builds as needed. Me, I sold my last
Windows box yesterday, and I'm now exclusively using Macs :)

Leif Bloomquist

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Nov 29, 2009, 4:32:21 PM11/29/09
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"Spiro Trikaliotis" <usenet...@spiro.trikaliotis.net> wrote in message
news:slrnhh5aop.k81...@news.trikaliotis.net...

> Leif Bloomquist once told me about some person (I don't remember who)
> who might know more about the problems. I contacted him via IRC and
> e-mail, but never got any answer.

I can't even remember who it was either, but I can make a couple of guesses.
Do you want me to follow up further?


> Thus, if anyone wants improvements, send us (the VICE team) appropriate
> bug reports. Oh, and a CS8900a networking card would be nice, too. ;)

They are not hard to obtain! The 64NIC+ is available here:

http://www.c4expo.org/1498/

Also, a good place to ask about technical details is on retrohackers:

http://retrohackers.com/forum/index.php

Regards,
Leif


iAN CooG

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Nov 29, 2009, 5:20:33 PM11/29/09
to
Spiro Trikaliotis <usenet...@spiro.trikaliotis.net> wrote:

> http://www.trikaliotis.net/Download/vice/WinVICE-2.1.20-x86.zip

Also remember to make FFMPEG dlls used by new version available on site. =)

--
-=[]=--- iAN CooG/HVSC & C64Intros ---=[]=-
C= is better than C++


Rudolf Harras

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Nov 29, 2009, 5:29:45 PM11/29/09
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Spiro Trikaliotis schrieb:

>Also note that I wrote the whole networking stuff without actually
>owning any CS8900a device.

Uh, I don't know about that CS8900 thing, I just remembered that I once
tried Vice with the network function but it did not really work smooth.
I think I had once better results with CCS64 and Kaillera.

However, I still prefer Vice and like it very much. I think nowadays a
network function is not much worth if there is not a central server
where you can find opponents online. So, a really gread feature would be
if there is a central server where you can have opponents waiting for
you listenend like:

Name Game Players
Blabla Archon 1/2
Hugo World Games 3/8

This would be great. :-D But is it realistic?

Golan Klinger

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Nov 29, 2009, 7:30:40 PM11/29/09
to
Spiro Trikaliotis wrote:

> Thus, if anyone wants improvements, send us (the VICE team) appropriate
> bug reports. Oh, and a CS8900a networking card would be nice, too. ;)

Forgive my asking for a clarification but I'm a little confused by the
smiley. Would the donation of a CS8900a-based networking device be of use
to you? If so, that could be arranged easily.

--
Golan Klinger
Dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.

Spiro Trikaliotis

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Nov 30, 2009, 3:04:53 PM11/30/09
to
Hello Rudolf,

Rudolf Harras wrote:

> Spiro Trikaliotis schrieb:
>
>>Also note that I wrote the whole networking stuff without actually
>>owning any CS8900a device.
>
> Uh, I don't know about that CS8900 thing, I just remembered that I once
> tried Vice with the network function but it did not really work smooth.
> I think I had once better results with CCS64 and Kaillera.

CCS64 with Kaillera? It seems we are speaking about different things,
then.

I meant the emulation of "The Final Ethernet" / "Retro Replay" (and
other devices like NET64) for the C64. That is, the (emulated) C64 can
access the network. You can browse the internet, write mails are be on
IRC.

If I understand you correctly, you mean the option to play with other
people via network, right? In this case, I am sorry: I totally
misunderstood you. And anyone who mentioned the CS8900 misunderstood
you, too.

Spiro Trikaliotis

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Nov 30, 2009, 3:06:51 PM11/30/09
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Hello MV,

MagerValp wrote:

> On 29 Nov, 18:10, Spiro Trikaliotis wrote:

> The only real bug is
> sent packages being echoed back, causing a little extra overhead (to
> drop the packages) when you run on VICE.

Well, if the real CS8900a does not do it, it is a bug. Note, however,
that a networking application should be able to cope with this, as you
cannot rely no-one doing some playback of frames. Thus, if VICE behaves
wrongly here, it is just to make you aware that you have to consider
this. ;)

I will put it on my TODO, though.

Spiro Trikaliotis

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Nov 30, 2009, 3:02:53 PM11/30/09
to
Hello Golan,

Golan Klinger wrote:

> Spiro Trikaliotis wrote:
>
>> Thus, if anyone wants improvements, send us (the VICE team) appropriate
>> bug reports. Oh, and a CS8900a networking card would be nice, too. ;)
>
> Forgive my asking for a clarification but I'm a little confused by the
> smiley. Would the donation of a CS8900a-based networking device be of use
> to you? If so, that could be arranged easily.

Well, yes. However, much more important than having such a device would
be to have people report issues they have with the emulation. If I only
have a CS8900a based networking device, but I do not know what problems
people are encountering, it is much harder to make the emulation more
stable.

Rudolf Harras

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Dec 5, 2009, 7:01:34 PM12/5/09
to
Spiro Trikaliotis schrieb:

>If I understand you correctly, you mean the option to play with other
>people via network, right?

Yes this is what I ment and it is long ago that I tried it last time but
it seemed to be very very experimental to me and I also think I didn't
read about any improvements in the changelog.

MagerValp

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Dec 6, 2009, 5:08:40 AM12/6/09
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On 6 Dec, 01:01, Rudolf Harras <rudi...@temporaryforwarding.com>
wrote:

I've only tried it a couple of times, but it seems to work fine. What
doesn't work for you?

Rick Balkins

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Dec 8, 2009, 2:33:56 AM12/8/09
to
I'm not at this time willing to committ my RR-NET but we could possibly as a
community help you guys get an RR+RR-NET and possibly one of those 64NIC+
and stuff to be able to test and make even work better with VICE and the
improvement of such.

"Spiro Trikaliotis" <usenet...@spiro.trikaliotis.net> wrote in message
news:slrnhh5aop.k81...@news.trikaliotis.net...

Rick Balkins

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Dec 8, 2009, 2:35:49 AM12/8/09
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Good question, is this something to do with the way the OS plays things we
have a number of PC with NIC cards. It would be interesting to say the
least.

"Spiro Trikaliotis" <usenet...@spiro.trikaliotis.net> wrote in message

news:slrnhh89er.cki...@news.trikaliotis.net...

Rick Balkins

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Dec 8, 2009, 2:51:10 AM12/8/09
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Yeah, I have had interesting IP address number issues before. Especially
when I was running IRC like XChat and running Contiki in VICE on the
Internet at the same time. I managed this before and it was interesting to
say the least.

My memory may not be serving me correctly but I think the matter I had -
(been too long to be sure)
The trick of appearing as two different IP addresses over the internet (one
via VICE ) and one via say another application all over the same computer.
It has been a little while back so I have to go over what I had done
exactly.

"Jonno Downes" <jonn...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:793cd0fa-4bea-478a...@z3g2000prd.googlegroups.com...

Rudolf Harras

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Dec 12, 2009, 7:20:26 AM12/12/09
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MagerValp schrieb:

>I've only tried it a couple of times, but it seems to work fine. What
>doesn't work for you?

I'll try it again by chance as far as I remember it was really laggy and
inaccurate.

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