Rom Hunter mkII

Hero (651)

29-06-2019, 17:56

I own Rom Hunter mkII that I didn't even try until recently. I dumped whatever I could and uploaded them together with various materials here. PIN: romtotape
One point of interest is this cart probably has internal 256KB RAM for copying. Can anybody shed light how it works? I personally never managed to let it recognize another cart in slot 2... I know better rom suckers and am not interested in this stuff for real, but just asking. The Generation-MSX page shows the PCB which might be another clue.

Can any emulator emulate the "rom inserted after MSX booted up" status so that I can test this cart? All emus I know automatically reboot after swapping the rom.

By Manuel

Ascended (19691)

29-06-2019, 18:06

openMSX can, but the osd menu will also auto reset, so use console or catapult.

By Takamichi

Hero (651)

29-06-2019, 18:07

Thx, I will try it later.

By Takamichi

Hero (651)

29-06-2019, 18:56

I was making one mistake. Since rom hunter boots earlier than another cart in slot 2, I don't need the insertion-after-boot feature.
However another problem. Pushing [5] QUIT causes the openMSX to display

Cannot execute a BASIC ROM.

No cartridge found.

This version of C-BIOS can only start cartridges.
Please restart your MSX (emulator) with a cartridge inserted.

On real MSX and other emu, choosing [5] causes Rom Hunter to shut down and either BASIC or the other cartridge boots.
Whatever, my results so far;
(1) Real MSX (A1GT); [2] ROM -> TAPE, then [2]; a 1/2 second of flash, returns to initial screen.
(2) openMSX; exactly same with (1). I don't know how to insert blank tape image.
(3) WebMSX; inserted new blank tape image, [2] ROM -> TAPE, then [2]; MSX seems to be doing something, then returns to the initial menu.

I uploaded the tape image made by (3) out of Zanac Ex rom in slot 2 here PIN: aleste Can anybody guess how to use it?
Edit: Article from old computer magazine says the 256KB RAM of the rom hunter resides &H8000 till &HBFFF. Edit again: I looked into the tape image and noticed it's almost identical to the original Zanac Ex rom except the first 32 bytes so I deleted those bytes and tried to run as a .rom, but it did not work :(

By Manuel

Ascended (19691)

29-06-2019, 19:19

You're running into this: https://openmsx.org/manual/faq.html#c-bios

By Takamichi

Hero (651)

29-06-2019, 20:03

The page says C-BIOS "does not support disk or tape usage."... okay in this case useless for me, I might try adding actual MSX roms later.

By Manuel

Ascended (19691)

29-06-2019, 23:00

Takamichi wrote:

The page says C-BIOS "does not support disk or tape usage."... okay in this case useless for me, I might try adding actual MSX roms later.

I recommend that, then you'll get the most out of openMSX.

By Takamichi

Hero (651)

30-06-2019, 07:36

I so far downloaded first archive that shows up googling "turboR rom set" but having trouble with even after throwing them in share/systemroms folder. Installing openMSX is not my primary objective here, I'll take my time later.

By Manuel

Ascended (19691)

30-06-2019, 09:33

http://www.msxarchive.nl/pub/msx/emulator/openMSX contains an interesting zip file.

By rderooy

Paladin (686)

30-06-2019, 11:02

Also, if your trying to emulate saving to tape you don't want to use a Turbo R, since the Turbo R lacks tape support. Any other MSX generation would be fine.

In addition, if your emulating this ROM Hunter Cartridge, the emulator would need to know that it also contains RAM, as it also needs to emulate that. Just running the ROM will not be enough.

By OeiOeiVogeltje

Paragon (1439)

30-06-2019, 11:05

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