#### Back to index | # Info for cgenie

#### EACA Colour Genie 2000

Cassette Usage:
From within the emulation you can use SYSTEM or CLOAD commands to read images:
SYSTEM supports 6 character filenames.
CLOAD loads a file named BASIC(N).CAS, where (N) is the character you supplied
(e.g., CLOAD"M" loads BASICM.CAS)
CLOAD is for BASIC type tapes only. It should work if you have a BASIC *.cas file.
File "names" in that case are _one_ character in length (inside the emulation). In your
roms/cgenie folder the names will be basicA.cas, basicB.cas and so on. If you CSAVE"A you'll
see a file basicA.cas later and you can CLOAD"A it again.
To load a binary image there was a different command: SYSTEM
You'll see a prompt looking like this:
*?
and there you can enter a name of up to six (wow!) characters.
*?chop16 [ENTER]
This will start loading a file named chop16.cas if it is in your rompath. If you don't have
it... well, wait and see (nothing ;) If you have it, you'll see two stars (**) in the upper
right corner. The right one will twinkle after every couple of bytes loaded, every 254 I
think.
After several minutes you'll see the prompt again
*?
now type / (slash) and ENTER and the program will be started at it's defined run address. If
a program does not have a run address, you could also specify /[decimal value] to run from a
specific value...

Diskette Usage:
When the emulation starts, tap [ENTER] and also confirm the following
MEM SIZE?
with [ENTER].
After that you're in BASIC (DISK BASIC, to be exact, unless you disable cgdos.rom via the
dip switches).
Now you can use the DISK BASIC extensions to issue commands. Most important
CMD"I[disk#]
Display inventory, disk# is optional and can be from 0 to 3
You can use CMD"I0" to "CMDI3" to get an inventory of drive 0 to 3.
Use CMD"S FILENAME/CMD" to start a binary executable or use LOAD"FILENAME/BAS" to load a basic
program.
CMD"Sname/cmd will start a binary file name/cmd from any disk
CMD"Limage/bin:3 will load image/bin from disk 3
To start a game, eg. paint/cmd, type
cmd"s paint/cmd
You can omit the blank between cmd"s and the filename.
To ease things you could also enable my DOS lookalike frontend ;) It's contained in
newe000.rom (2,772 bytes; CRC 953491a7) but not enabled by default. If you enable it
you can type HELP (hehe ;) and DIR and simply give a name to execute a binary file.
The optional newe000.rom is loaded if the corresponding "dip switch" is set from within the
driver itself. There is no need to specify this rom on the commandline.

Miscellaneous Usage Notes:
Under the "Options" menu, accessible by hitting TAB, there are three settings:
"Floppy Disc Drives" - enable or disable floppy disc controller.
"DOS ROM C000-DFFF" - enable 8K DOS ROM or make it RAM.
"EXT ROM E000-EFFF" - enable 4K Extension ROM or make it RAM.

Known issues:
Startup with CAS or CMD images does not always work. Use the BASIC SYSTEM or CLOAD commands
to read cassette image files, or use the Colour Genie DOS ROM with floppy disc images to run
programs. The driver does not yet emulate the printer port mode for AY-3-8910. Right now it
always uses the AY-3-8910 ports for joystick emulation.
Requires full keyboard emulation. At startup, full keyboard emulation mode is enabled by
default. Whilst in full keyboard emulation mode, some key associated functionality may be
disabled (like the ESC key for EXIT). The keyboard emulation mode is toggled using the
scroll_lock key.
The Colour Genie driver should run most of the known programs out there. It supports the
Motorola 6845 CRT controller with text and graphics modes (LGR and FGR), the AY-3-8910
sound chip with three audio channels and noise and the WD 179x floppy disc controller with up
to four virtual floppy disc drives contained in image files.
The keyboard is relatively close to the original layout; see "Keys (This Machine)" in the
TAB/Options menu.
Emulation of dual Colour Genie joysticks with keypads is also supported.

History and Trivia:
The Colour Genie is the successor of the Genie 1, Genie 2 and Genie 3. It is not possible
to mix characters and graphics because text and graphic memories are not mixed. There was
a little level display located above the keyboard which allows to set the recording
level of the tape recorder to avoid failure when writing onto a tape.

created on Thu Aug 16 22:55:01 2001