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source for alternate Colece BIOS


marc.hull

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Hi marc.hull,

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

The Old Computer has one: http://www.theoldcomputer.com/Libarary%27s...mes_summary.htm

 

There's one out there that I haven't found yet, which allows you to skip the intro screen with the push of the fire button. I've got one at home that I made that changes the ~10 second delay to a manageable ~2.5 second delay, which is what I'll likely be using for any future modifications. I'll try to remember to find it tonight.

 

edit: oops, sorry, it looks like you're looking for chips, not files.

 

Thanks,

5-11under

Edited by 5-11under
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Are u looking for one chip with both, with a way to toggle between them, or one EPROM with the original, and one EPROM with the "Intro Skip"?

 

 

One EPROM with two images to toggle. And BTW... I need the IC not the files.

 

Thanks

Instructions for this can be found at:

 

http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?PHPS...g11301#msg11301

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There is actually no reason to have the standard BIOS and the "Intro Skip" BIOS on one IC in the ColecoVision that I can understand. The "Intro Skip" feature, for the "Intro Skip" BIOS, is only activated if you press one of either of the controllers' left fire buttons (yellow button on a SAC). So if you have the "Intro Skip" BIOS installed, simply don't press one of these buttons, and the title screen will appear as normal for it's 12 seconds. If you want to skip the title screen, then you press the button. The "Intro Skip/Asteroids ROM" BIOS for the Atari 7800 is the opposite, wherein if the "Intro Skip" BIOS is installed the title screen will never appear, but like I said on the ColecoVision, the title screen will appear as long as you don't press a button. I've never experienced a cartridge game, that won't play properly with the "Intro Skip" BIOS myself. If you still want this this IC, I could sell you one if you're interested.

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There is actually no reason to have the standard BIOS and the "Intro Skip" BIOS on one IC in the ColecoVision that I can understand. The "Intro Skip" feature, for the "Intro Skip" BIOS, is only activated if you press one of either of the controllers' left fire buttons (yellow button on a SAC). So if you have the "Intro Skip" BIOS installed, simply don't press one of these buttons, and the title screen will appear as normal for it's 12 seconds. If you want to skip the title screen, then you press the button. The "Intro Skip/Asteroids ROM" BIOS for the Atari 7800 is the opposite, wherein if the "Intro Skip" BIOS is installed the title screen will never appear, but like I said on the ColecoVision, the title screen will appear as long as you don't press a button. I've never experienced a cartridge game, that won't play properly with the "Intro Skip" BIOS myself. If you still want this this IC, I could sell you one if you're interested.

Is the "No title delay" BIOS that is freely available on the internet the same as the "Intro Skip" BIOS you use in your mods? If I use the "No title delay" BIOS in BlueMSX the title screen isn't displayed at all, whether I press a fire button or not. However, I have one of your modded CVs and indeed the title screen skip isn't activated unless a fire button is pressed - a very nice feature. In 5-11under's post in this thread he mentions that he has not been able to find a copy of the "Intro Skip" BIOS.

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The "Intro Skip" BIOS I use in my modded consoles, is indeed the one that is freely available usually just about anywhere ColecoVision ROMS are available on the inter-web. I've used it in probably more than 60 consoles, and the title screen always appears, and only "SKIPS" if one of the buttons is pressed.

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There is actually no reason to have the standard BIOS and the "Intro Skip" BIOS on one IC in the ColecoVision that I can understand. The "Intro Skip" feature, for the "Intro Skip" BIOS, is only activated if you press one of either of the controllers' left fire buttons (yellow button on a SAC). So if you have the "Intro Skip" BIOS installed, simply don't press one of these buttons, and the title screen will appear as normal for it's 12 seconds. If you want to skip the title screen, then you press the button. The "Intro Skip/Asteroids ROM" BIOS for the Atari 7800 is the opposite, wherein if the "Intro Skip" BIOS is installed the title screen will never appear, but like I said on the ColecoVision, the title screen will appear as long as you don't press a button. I've never experienced a cartridge game, that won't play properly with the "Intro Skip" BIOS myself. If you still want this this IC, I could sell you one if you're interested.

 

Thank you. I am interested! Send me the facts via PM .

 

Marc

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The "Intro Skip" BIOS I use in my modded consoles, is indeed the one that is freely available usually just about anywhere ColecoVision ROMS are available on the inter-web. I've used it in probably more than 60 consoles, and the title screen always appears, and only "SKIPS" if one of the buttons is pressed.

Weird - the only one I can find on the internet is appended with the name "no title delay" and in blueMSX this skips straight past the title screen without a button being pressed.

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Doubledown, it looks like you're using a different BIOS than the popular intro skip BIOS out there (the one I linked above). I've got only a crappy hex editor here, but the only difference I'm seeing between the regular BIOS and the popular intro skip BIOS is a section with an "I" (plus an accent), followed by an "h" and a "19" replaced by a "0", "0", "0". I'm guessing the call to the ~10 second delay is merely cut for the popular intro skip BIOS.

 

As an alternative, attached is the BIOS I'll be using for any future work I do. It has a 2-3 second delay, instead of ~10 seconds. Long enough to have a peek at the game title, etc., but not too long that you're waiting for what seems forever. There is no option to skip the BIOS with the press of a fire button in this version. What I've done is change the outside delay loop from 17h to 05h (location 0x196A, I think).

 

Thanks,

5-11under

 

edit: made things a bit more clear.

COLECO_SHORT_DELAY.zip

Edited by 5-11under
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Doubledown, it looks like you're using a different BIOS than the popular intro skip BIOS out there (the one I linked above). I've got only a crappy hex editor here, but the only difference I'm seeing between the regular BIOS and the popular intro skip BIOS is a section with an "I" (plus an accent), followed by an "h" and a "19" replaced by a "0", "0", "0". I'm guessing the call to the ~10 second delay is merely cut for the popular intro skip BIOS.

 

As an alternative, attached is the BIOS I'll be using for any future work I do. It has a 2-3 second delay, instead of ~10 seconds. Long enough to have a peek at the game title, etc., but not too long that you're waiting for what seems forever. There is no option to skip the BIOS with the press of a fire button in this version. What I've done is change the outside delay loop from 17h to 05h (location 0x196A, I think).

 

Thanks,

5-11under

 

edit: made things a bit more clear.

 

If I am understanding you right 5-11under. This file would be burned on a eprom chip, Original BIOS IC would be removed and the eprom would be put in it's place?

 

I love the idea of a 2-3 second delay with no fire button skip feature. I had read somewhere that a delay was needed for some games to load properly. Does your 2-3 second delay allow for all games to load properly... or have I got some misinformation about games not loading with a delay skip?

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That's correct Todd, but if you are replacing the original 24 pin PROM, with a modern 28 pin EPROM, you also have to add two jumpers, and cut two traces on the underside of the board.

 

As far as the "Intro Skip" BIOS, like I said it was one that I found online years ago, and it displays the title screen as the original BIOS does, unless a button is pressed; and using this BIOS, I have never found a game that won't load properly with the "Intro Skip" BIOS. The only "issue" that I've ever really seen, is with the Diagnostic Program for the ColecoVision. Any console with the "Intro Skip" BIOS will fail on the ROM test portion of the Diagnostic Cartridge's test, but it will still pass through and run the rest of the tests.

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Doubledown, it looks like you're using a different BIOS than the popular intro skip BIOS out there (the one I linked above). I've got only a crappy hex editor here, but the only difference I'm seeing between the regular BIOS and the popular intro skip BIOS is a section with an "I" (plus an accent), followed by an "h" and a "19" replaced by a "0", "0", "0". I'm guessing the call to the ~10 second delay is merely cut for the popular intro skip BIOS.

 

As an alternative, attached is the BIOS I'll be using for any future work I do. It has a 2-3 second delay, instead of ~10 seconds. Long enough to have a peek at the game title, etc., but not too long that you're waiting for what seems forever. There is no option to skip the BIOS with the press of a fire button in this version. What I've done is change the outside delay loop from 17h to 05h (location 0x196A, I think).

 

Thanks,

5-11under

 

edit: made things a bit more clear.

 

If I am understanding you right 5-11under. This file would be burned on a eprom chip, Original BIOS IC would be removed and the eprom would be put in it's place?

 

I love the idea of a 2-3 second delay with no fire button skip feature. I had read somewhere that a delay was needed for some games to load properly. Does your 2-3 second delay allow for all games to load properly... or have I got some misinformation about games not loading with a delay skip?

 

Hi Yurkie,

 

The 2-3 second delay shouldn't have any adverse effect to any games. Looking at the BIOS code, a game could conceivably call the delay, but I'm almost 100% sure there aren't any.

 

Thanks,

5-11under

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So I was programming this "Combo" BIOS for marc.hull, and I discovered something interesting. Most people in this thread are saying that the "No Title Delay" BIOS, instantally skips the title screen, while I'm saying that it will display as normal unless you press a button. So I programmed the chip with the "Original" BIOS, and the "No Title Delay" BIOS making the "Combo" BIOS file and checked it out, and the title does skip instantally. So then I checked what I use as my "Intro Skip" BIOS for my mods off of my other computer and it in fact is different. The "No Title Delay" BIOS does in fact instantally skip the title screen all together, no two ways about it. My "Intro Skip" BIOS will act like the "Original" BIOS, plus gives you the ability to skip the title screen only if you press one of the buttons. I tried programming the "Combo" BIOS with the "Original" BIOS, and my "Intro Skip" BIOS and it won't work for some reason. So where I ever got my "Intro Skip" BIOS from is beyond me, but it definately is different and far superior than the "No Title Delay" BIOS.

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So I was programming this "Combo" BIOS for marc.hull, and I discovered something interesting. Most people in this thread are saying that the "No Title Delay" BIOS, instantally skips the title screen, while I'm saying that it will display as normal unless you press a button. So I programmed the chip with the "Original" BIOS, and the "No Title Delay" BIOS making the "Combo" BIOS file and checked it out, and the title does skip instantally. So then I checked what I use as my "Intro Skip" BIOS for my mods off of my other computer and it in fact is different. The "No Title Delay" BIOS does in fact instantally skip the title screen all together, no two ways about it. My "Intro Skip" BIOS will act like the "Original" BIOS, plus gives you the ability to skip the title screen only if you press one of the buttons. I tried programming the "Combo" BIOS with the "Original" BIOS, and my "Intro Skip" BIOS and it won't work for some reason. So where I ever got my "Intro Skip" BIOS from is beyond me, but it definately is different and far superior than the "No Title Delay" BIOS.

Would you be willing to share your "Intro Skip" BIOS? I'm keen to know if it will work in blueMSX - plus I really would like to use it in a CV I am working on at the moment.

 

Interestingly, the UK PAL CV's didn't have the 10s delay. I grew up in the UK and bought a PAL CV back in '83 - the title delay was only a few seconds - probably much closer to 5-11under's BIOS mod. It wasn't until I moved to Canada that I experienced the 10s delay on an NTSC machine and instantly hated it.

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As an alternative, attached is the BIOS I'll be using for any future work I do. It has a 2-3 second delay, instead of ~10 seconds. Long enough to have a peek at the game title, etc., but not too long that you're waiting for what seems forever. There is no option to skip the BIOS with the press of a fire button in this version. What I've done is change the outside delay loop from 17h to 05h (location 0x196A, I think).

 

Thanks,

5-11under

 

edit: made things a bit more clear.

You may have already seen this but just in case - Bruce Tomlin has added comments to the CV BIOS code - thought you might find it useful:

 

http://xi6.com/code/coleco/coleco29.asm

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As an alternative, attached is the BIOS I'll be using for any future work I do. It has a 2-3 second delay, instead of ~10 seconds. Long enough to have a peek at the game title, etc., but not too long that you're waiting for what seems forever. There is no option to skip the BIOS with the press of a fire button in this version. What I've done is change the outside delay loop from 17h to 05h (location 0x196A, I think).

 

Thanks,

5-11under

 

edit: made things a bit more clear.

You may have already seen this but just in case - Bruce Tomlin has added comments to the CV BIOS code - thought you might find it useful:

 

http://xi6.com/code/coleco/coleco29.asm

 

Are the addresses mentioned at the beginning of this URL , code that must be present in the BIOS in order for games to load? This is way to technical for me to understand for the most part.

 

I did however think that 5-11under, doubledown and a few of you other tech savy guys would enjoy having this URL as a .pdf I just called the .pdf markers, you can change the file name if desired. If you guys ever need a .pdf created send me an IM.

Markers.pdf

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  • 1 month later...

I'll post the "Intro Skip" BIOS that I use, but its on my vintage PC and it'll be a few days.

Well I was checking out some of my CV files today and I came across an archived web page by Jay Tilton that I found some time ago providing very useful info on the CV controllers. My curiosity picked up and so I went back to the full archive of the pages and found one titled "ColecoVision EPROM BIOS Conversion". Lo and behold this page has the very BIOS that doubledown uses that skips the title screen with a simple press of the fire button. As well as being available from the archived website I have uploaded the rom file here for your enjoyment.

ColecoVision BIOS (1982) h3 (fire button skip intro).bin

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  • 9 years later...

Doubledown, it looks like you're using a different BIOS than the popular intro skip BIOS out there (the one I linked above). I've got only a crappy hex editor here, but the only difference I'm seeing between the regular BIOS and the popular intro skip BIOS is a section with an "I" (plus an accent), followed by an "h" and a "19" replaced by a "0", "0", "0". I'm guessing the call to the ~10 second delay is merely cut for the popular intro skip BIOS.

 

As an alternative, attached is the BIOS I'll be using for any future work I do. It has a 2-3 second delay, instead of ~10 seconds. Long enough to have a peek at the game title, etc., but not too long that you're waiting for what seems forever. There is no option to skip the BIOS with the press of a fire button in this version. What I've done is change the outside delay loop from 17h to 05h (location 0x196A, I think).

 

Thanks,

5-11under

 

edit: made things a bit more clear.

This is awesome to have and I'm going to use it in my Mega Sg. Thank you!

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