ADFFS 2.59 released

ADFFS 2.59 is now available from the JASPP site, which enables around 200 games to run on the Iyonix, Raspberry Pi and newer machines. ARMv7 and AArch32 based hardware are now fully supported, enabling games to run on Pi2 and Pi3.

This is the first stable release in three years, with over 10,000 hours of development since the last stable release!

To coincide with this release, the following games are now available to download and work on the Pi:

F10640 Blaston (1991) (Eterna)
F10195 Cartoon Line part one (1991) (Eterna)
F10132 Empire Soccer ’94 (1995) (Empire Software)
F10267 Oh, No! More Lemmings (1992) (Krisalis Software)

And the following games have been released for RISC OS 3.x based machines:

F10059 Bug Hunter & Moondash (1990) (Minerva)
F10596 Oh, No! More Lemmings [RPC version] (2001) (R-Comp Interactive)
F10597 Populous [RPC version] (2001) (R-Comp Interactive)

Yeah!
(but server is dead)

I believe the issue is (or was last night) further up in the Internet chain, as downloads are in double digits…it’s certainly not due to heavy load!

The second I announced the release, I noticed some sites weren’t reachable (this site being one) and said to my son “Great, just as I publicly release it, the Internet starts having issues!”

but server is dead

It was, but it is now back on the case.

For what it’s worth, I was able to download it ~4 hours after the announcement post. Unfortunately I couldn’t get much further as apparently it needs a high vector ROM.

apparently it needs a high vector ROM

The requirements section on the download page details which build date of RISC OS is required. Currently it’s 5.23 Jun 9th 2016 or newer on Iyonix onward.

If you’re running RC14, or a Low Vector build of 5.23, the last version that worked with Low Vectors was 2.50 beta from June 2015.

Hi Jon! I don’t know about the technicalities as far as ADFFS is concerned, but requiring high vectors rules out a lot of people who choose not to run those builds due to software compatibility issues (which is what would cause them to run ADFFS in the first place). If it is practical to support low-vectors, it would benefit hundreds+ of potential users.

@ Andrew,
What is wrong with people having two cards, one high vector and the other low?

A 32GB class 10 card can be bought for less than 10gbp these days.

Running the high vector card for modern stuff and the low vector for stuff not yet upgraded.

Regards Ron.

If it is practical to support low-vectors, it would benefit hundreds+ of potential users.

The check for High Vectors can be commented out in !Run, but this hasn’t been tested and some known working games will fail. You will however need to be running an OS build of Jun 9th 2016 or newer, as there’s been various bug fixes and extensions added to RISCOS that ADFFS relies on.

The check for High Vectors can be commented out in !Run

Isn’t there a Sysinfo call that will tell you high or low?

FWIW I use a low vector build 99.9% of the time as I want to chase bugs in my own software, not elsewhere. :-)

Isn’t there a Sysinfo call that will tell you high or low?

OS_PlatformFeatures 32 which is what it uses.

I’m using a modern ROM (from September) but with low vectors. I’ll try commenting out the check in !Run and see what I can get working; thanks :)

I think Ron has it nailed.

What is the harm in a dedicated card, and therefore different OS ROM and Boot etc? If you are playing games, you won’t be multi-tasking. And maybe it’s just me, but I am not sure I would trust my ‘normal’ file system contents to some odds and sods of circa. 1987 code which assumes it is running on an A310! Let alone all the magic ADFFS gets up to to complete the illusion!

What is the harm in a dedicated card, and therefore different OS ROM and Boot etc?

It is a very inconvenient setup if you want to have your applications also on the card (i.e. you need to apply updates always on both cards). And even more inconvenient if you can’t easily access the boot card (typical for “big box” solutions like BIK, PIK, ARMini(X), ARMX6).

Hopefully, Adrian will be able to update Aemulor to run on high vector/zpp builds. I think this is currently the main issue.