Sure, any patch for improvement or fix is welcome !

Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any issue/question with the internal HxC API / buffers.

I have no plans to add a GUI. For me it's just not high on the need-to-have list. Also, there's portability and dependency issues. I try to keep the dependencies to a minimum.



The TC format is proprietary and only partially reverse engineered. This is why it's marked as experimental. For regular images the conversion usually works quite well but things like weak bits, variable data rates and data over the index are not handled.

The TC output in psi predates the pri file format and utility. Nowadays it would be better to use the pri utility to convert PSI images to PRI or TC.

How about a mount command inside the emulator akin to DOSBox at least?

There is a executable - pcemsg.com which can mount diskimage inside PCE.

Try this inside PCE running MS-DOS to mount disk2.psi to drive B :

C:\>pcemsg id 1

C:\> pcemsg insert disk2.psi

However, PCE can't mount two or more diskimages at the same time like DOSBox.

For more information, the file messages.txt in PCE's DOC folder may help.

@coolhaken,

Thanks! Didn't know about it.

I have seen that, of course.
But that's just a plain list of the games with key-disk copy protection: it does not tell what kind of protection each of those game has, what disk dump formats are available for them and what emulators do they work with!


Yes, that's a pity... Can't run copy-protected milti-disks games there.


Well, the PRI utility works fine for me converting TD0 to TC, thanks!
However, the PSI ulitity does not do its job right on vice versa: the TC->TD0 conversion does not work with copy-protected disks. Like with KBI protection involving sectors that span across the index signal. Is it per any chance possible to fix that?

@hampa,

One more question: does PSI actually support weak/strong/fuzzy bits? You may have answered it before, but I can't recall it.

There's the pcemsg.com utility already described. I'm about to commit a new pcemnt.com utility that will simplify this a bit.

TC to PSI (or TD0) conversion should also be done with pri. This should work well in general. Like I said before, weak bits and data over the index are not supported for TC images, because I don't know how these are stored in a TC image. Any information about that would be welcome.

It does. Every sector in a PSI image can have a weak bit mask to indicate which bits are weak.

When converting a PRI image with weak bits to PSI using the pri utility, these weak bit masks should be set automatically.

I don't see the problem. If you fall back to the monitor prompt, you can change as many disk images as you like before continuing.

That's true. But DOSBox's method (press hotkey to swap diskimages) is more convenient.

And in some host machine use SDL (I tried WinXP), things typed in monitor prompt will
also be sent to the emulator. This might be a bug and usually pother me.

Like the case : https://imgur.com/DBldNjg.png

Ok, I've tried pcemsg.com and I just keep getting error, error, error. Nothing else. Does this involve some tweaks in pce-ibmpc.cfg too?

What exactly have you tried? The correct command is something like this

$ pcemsg disk.id 0
$ pcemsg disk.insert myimage.img

The first command sets the drive number. This is remembered, so often this command is not necessary. The second command inserts the disk.

In older versions, the syntax was different:

$ pcemsg disk.insert 0:myimage.img

No.

Ok, that worked. I previously tried the syntax provided by coolhaken, but he must've got it wrong or it's obsolete. I also had an older version, which is what you have on your download page, so I had to get a newer one from the snapshots.

To clarify, I am using the latest version. (20191006)
The syntax I provided is not obsolete but the newest and the most streamlined.
The keyword "disk." can be omitted.

Ok, thank you.

Ah, that works, thanks a lot!
However, only from DOS prompt. How to change the disk, when a game is already running?


Well, it seems that I never saw that 'Monitor' Probably because I launch PCE via pce-ibmpc.bat. I only get a black window that launches alongside the PCE window and is named as 'C:\Windows\system\cmd.exe'. I see the cursor blinking there, but I can't type anything at the prompt.
A GUI would be much better indeed

While the game is running the command CTRL+` will fall user back to the monitor. You will know this as the blinking cursor will now have a hyphen prompt before it. Then you will be able to type commands.

For example, I used PCE to test my copy of Space Quest II (v2.0a).

I prefer to mount images through the monitor so the monitor commands would look like this:

-m insert c:\pce\disk01.psi
-g

(-g returns user to emulator)

Once the game prompts for disk 2 I fall back to monitor and type:

-m eject 0
-m insert c:\pce\disk02.ima
-g

Once returned to emulator it will recognize disk 2.

I like this command to quit the emulator from the monitor:

-q

It is also important to note that PCE can modify the disk image upon ejection much like when installing some copy protected titles to the hard drive, high scores, etc. In this case the message "disk 0: writing back fdc image" may appear. I recommend assigning read-only property to disk images before using eject command.

Thanks! Did not know that That 'monitor' / second window thing looks rather complex and unusual for me, after DOSBox.

Do you know how to switch the main PCE emulator window to fullscreen?
And somehow I do not get the correct ratio when making screenshots: I get 640x200 PPM instead of 640x400...


Sure, but the game I currently try to test in PCE with TD0/TC ('Forteresse') needs writing to the disk and won't run on read-only disks.