Modifying the loader

[Jerom]

If you have to stick with 15*13 px grid, I'm fine with it. Even if some icons are not so recognizable, since there is the name in the header, it's great.
Btw the blinking square is fine enough.

[erico]

The 4x2 icon size is 19x18 pixels. The header is better to read here as you have it surrounded by black lines with a white line splitting it from the icons.

The 15x13 pixels, the text gets blurred with the icons as there is not enough space for a line split. As an interface, I think the text should be easy to read.

Anyway, both are fine to me.

[Sorunome]

uho, with 15x13 i'm running into ram issues (right now it takes up exactly 2048 bytes of ram).
So Maybe I'll switch to 19x18 only so that I have more free RAM

EDIT: With some very dark magic i managed to shrink it down to 1748 bytes while still using the 15x13 icons!
That means i have 300 bytes left to make the cursor flashing ^.^

EDIT2: eeeer, i derp, the program can be 30k of which is only 2k ram.....whatever lol
I made the flashing cursor now ^.^ I'll upload a screenie thingy once my cam recharged.

Also if I should only display games that have an INF file I could do even more speed optimizations ^.^

[Sorunome]

So, I only made one icon for this demo.



Also, for it to be able to save an EEPROM without screwing the filesystem i need rodot to build it >.<

The source is available here: https://github.com/Sorunome/Gamebuino/t ... ies/Loader

You will need the custom tinyFAT library: https://github.com/Sorunome/Gamebuino/t ... es/tinyFAT (only tinyFAT.h changed)

And the INF file creator is here: http://www.sorunome.de/makeGamebuinoINF
The name can be up to 21 chars!

[erico]

Nice pic!
Still, you see that text is harder to read, it just blends too much.

The 4x2 design goes better here visual wise, you could also have the upper grid in white, it should read even better.

I think I prefer the 4x2 one. As a proposed loader, it should look great and clean IMO.

[rodot]

I just tried to compile the loader and yes it creates empty files when it attempts to save games (compiled with Arduino 1.6.2 on windows 7). When I plug the micro SD card on the computer, Windows says that the .SAV files appear to be corrupt. Although I don't get garbage files.

I haven't looked for a solution yet, but it might be a compatibility issue with the new version of the Arduino IDE, or that we run out of RAM so random stuff get written in the buffer.

One way to use less RAM would be to use the same buffer for both the display and the micro SD card. You can change tinFAT.h from this

Code: Select all

class tinyFAT
{
public:
   _master_boot_record   MBR;
   _boot_sector      BS;
   _directory_entry   DE;
   _current_file      currFile;
   unsigned long      firstDirSector;
   byte            buffer[512];

to this

Code: Select all

class tinyFAT
{
public:
   _master_boot_record   MBR;
   _boot_sector      BS;
   _directory_entry   DE;
   unsigned long      firstDirSector;
   byte            *buffer;

Then, at the beginning of your program, you give the display buffer to the tinyFAT library :
file.buffer = gb.display.getBuffer();
But you will have to clean the buffer each time you switch between display updating/SD accessing.
I made a program which would do this but I can't find it back, I'll redo it but I don't have time right now.
Anyway we still don't know why the SAV files are getting corrupt

[jonnection]

Rodot & Sorunome

Could you please post an example where you have seen the writing files fails?

When I have time, I can check with the logic analyzer what the Gamebuino is actually telling the SD card. A logic analyzer can decode the SPI signals back to hex characters - by comparing the instructions in the source code and what is being communicated, it is possible to find the exact point of failure.

[Sorunome]

@rodot: do you still have an old version of the arduino IDE to try it out?

@Jonnection: literately every single time i tried file.writeLn no matter what it contained.

Also, maybe we should switch to a different fat library then, if this one isn't working and since we can't write \x00 ?

EDIT: also rodot, wouldn't that mean we'd need to extend the global buffer to 512 bytes, though?

[jonnection]

@Jonnection: literately every single time i tried file.writeLn no matter what it contained.

@Sorunome: at the moment, I am very busy with many things. If you just post 1 example program which you know that fails, I can stick it in the Arduino IDE, hook up the analyzer and see what happens. I do not have time to start learning TinyFAT. So it would be much easier if you just post your program - that you have tested and know doesn't work - and I will take a look at what happens. If I write the program from scratch it might be that it a) somehow it works b) will take me too much time so I won't get around to doing it.

[Sorunome]

Sorry it took so long, I was busy, too

Code: Select all

#include <tinyFAT.h> //requires the tinyFAT library. You can download it here : http://www.henningkarlsen.com/electronics/library.php?id=37
#include <avr/pgmspace.h>
#include <SPI.h>
#include <Gamebuino.h>
Gamebuino gb;
byte res;

void setup() {
  gb.begin();
  file.initFAT();
 
  gb.display.clear();
  gb.display.print(F("Deleting old file...\n"));
  gb.display.update();
  if(file.exists("test.txt")){
    file.delFile("test.txt");
  }
  file.create("test.txt");
  res=file.openFile("test.txt", FILEMODE_TEXT_WRITE);
  if(res==NO_ERROR){
    gb.display.print(F("Writing to file...\n"));
    gb.display.update();
    file.writeLn("Hello World!");
    file.closeFile();
    gb.display.print(F("Done writing to file!\n"));
    gb.display.update();
  }else{
    gb.display.print(F("Error opening file!\n"));
    gb.display.update();
  }
  while(true); // infinite pause
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:

}


It should create a file TEST.TXT with the contents "Hello World!" but it actually also creates a garbage file with the name "hello wo.rld" and test.txt is empty