Welcome to Dingux-TI99
Original Author of TI99/Sim
Marc Rousseau (see http://www.mrousseau.org/programs/ti99sim/)
Author of the Gp2x, PSP and Dingoo port versions
Ludovic.Jacomme also known as Zx-81 (see http://zx81.zx81.free.fr)
-
INTRODUCTION
TI99Sim is a very good emulator of Texas instruments TI99 home computer running on Windows and Unix. The emulator faithfully imitates the TI99/4 model (see http://www.mrousseau.org/programs/ti99sim/)
Dingux-Ti99 is a port on Dingoo of the version 0.1.0 of TI99Sim.
This package is under GPL Copyright, read COPYING file for more information about it.
-
INSTALLATION
Unzip the zip file, and copy the content of the directory game to your SD card.
Put your cartridge files on "cartridge" sub-directory.
For any comments or questions on this version, please visit http://zx81.zx81.free.fr or http://www.gp32x.com/
-
CONTROL
In the TI99 emulator window, there are three different mapping (standard, left trigger, and right Trigger mappings). You can toggle between while playing inside the emulator using the two Dingoo trigger keys.
-------------------------------------
Dingoo TI99 (standard)
Y 2
A ENTER
X 1
B Joystick Fire
Up Up
Down Down
Left Left
Right Right
-------------------------------------
Dingoo TI99 (left trigger)
Y Space
A ENTER
X 3
B Joystick Fire
Up Up
Down Down
Left Left
Right Right
-------------------------------------
Dingoo TI99 (right trigger)
Y Space
A ENTER
X 4
B Joystick Fire
Up Up
Down Down
Left Left
Right Right
Press Start/Menu to enter in emulator main menu. Press Select open/close the On-Screen keyboard
In the main menu
X Go Up directory B Valid A Valid Y Go Back to the emulator window
The On-Screen Keyboard of "Danzel" and "Jeff Chen"
Use digital pad to choose one of the 9 squares, and use X, Y, A, B to choose one of the 4 letters of the highlighted square.
Use LTrigger and RTrigger to see other 9 squares figures.
-
LOADING CARTRIDGE FILES
If you want to load cartridge image in your emulator, you have to put your cartridge file (with .zip, or .ctg file extension) on your Dingoo SD card in the 'cartridge' directory.
Then, while inside the emulator, just press Menu to enter in the emulator main menu, and then using the file selector choose one cartridge file to load in your emulator. Back to the emulator window, the cartridge should stard automatically.
You can use the virtual keyboard in the file requester menu to choose the first letter of the game you search (it might be useful when you have tons of games in the same folder). Entering several time the same letter let you choose sequentially files beginning with the given letter. You can use the Run key of the virtual keyboard to launch the cartridge.
You may use the Trigger key to swap between the two virtual keyboard panels (numbers & letters)
-
LOADING KEY MAPPING FILES
For given games, the default keyboard mapping between Dingoo Keys and TI99 keys, is not suitable, and the game can't be played on Dingux-TI99.
To overcome the issue, you can write your own mapping file. Using notepad for example you can edit a file with the .kbd extension and put it in the kbd directory.
For the exact syntax of those mapping files, have a look on sample files already presents in the kbd directory (default.kbd etc ...).
After writting such keyboard mapping file, you can load them using the main menu inside the emulator.
If the keyboard filename is the same as the cartridge file (.ctg) then when you load this tape file, the corresponding keyboard file is automatically loaded !
You can now use the Keyboard menu and edit, load and save your keyboard mapping files inside the emulator. The Save option save the .kbd file in the kbd directory using the "Game Name" as filename. The game name is displayed on the right corner in the emulator menu.
- CHEAT CODE (.CHT)
You can use cheat codes with Dingux-Ti99 You can add your own cheat codes in the cheat.txt file and then import them in the cheat menu.
All cheat codes you have specified for a game can be save in a CHT file in 'cht' folder. Those cheat codes would then be automatically loaded when you start the game.
The CHT file format is the following :
Enable, Address, Value, Comment
1,36f,3,Cheat comment
Using the Cheat menu you can search for modified bytes in RAM between current time and the last time you saved the RAM. It might be very usefull to find "poke" address by yourself, monitoring for example life numbers.
To find a new "poke address" you can proceed as follow :
Let's say you're playing Moon patrol and you want to find the memory address where "number lives" is stored.
. Start a new game in moon patrol . Enter in the cheat menu. . Choose Save Ram to save initial state of the memory. . Specify the number of lives you want to find in "Scan Old Value" field. (for Moon patrol the initial lives number is 4) . Go back to the game and loose a life. . Enter in the cheat menu. . Specify the number of lives you want to find in "Scan New Value" field. (for Moon Patrol the lives number is now 3) . In Add Cheat you may have several matching Addresses (for Moon Patrol you have only one) . Specify the Poke value you want and add new cheats with this address / value. . Try them one by one to identify what is the good one, while restarting new games and see if the life number is 4 or 6. You will see that the good address is 83A2. You can delete all others.
The cheat is now activated in the cheat list and you can save it using the "Save cheat" menu.
Let's enjoy Moon Patrol with infinite life !!
- COMMENTS
You can write your own comments for games using the "Comment" menu. The first line of your comments would then be displayed in the file requester menu while selecting the given file name (rom, keyboard, settings).
- SETTINGS
You can modify several settings value in the settings menu of this emulator. The following parameters are available :
Sound enable : enable or disable the sound
Speed limiter : limit the speed to a given fps value
Skip frame : to skip frame and increase emulator speed
Display fps : display real time fps value
Render mode : many render modes are available with different geometry that should covered all games requirements
Clock frequency : Clock frequency, by default the value is set to 200Mhz, and should be enough for most of all games.
- JOYSTICK SETTINGS
You can modify several joystick settings value in the settings menu of this emulator. The following parameters are available :
Swap Analog/Cursor : swap key mapping between analog pad and digital pad
Auto fire period : auto fire period
Auto fire mode : auto fire mode active or not
- COMPILATION
It has been developped under Linux FC9 using gcc with DINGUX SDK. All tests have been done using a Dingoo with Dingux installed To rebuild the homebrew run the Makefile in the src archive.
Enjoy,
Zx