08796: m5 , m5p: Carts that require 36K RAM does not start.

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
08796	Media Support	Critical (emulation)	Always	Nov 26, 2023, 13:29	Nov 28, 2023, 21:52

Tester	Blindpk	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To		Resolution	Open	OS	Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
Status [?]	Confirmed			Driver	sord/m5.cpp
Version	0.260	Fixed in Version		Build
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	08796: m5 , m5p: Carts that require 36K RAM does not start.
Description	Sord M5 carts that require 36K RAM, e.g. Tank Battalion and Guttang Guttong, does not start at all, while carts that does not have this requirement, like Pooyan, does run fine. There are a few DIP switches that, as far as I understand the description, should be able to fix this by adding RAM, but they do not seem to change anything, whatever the configuration. On the original hardware (the European version) all carts worked without changing any settings or similar, the caveat being that it was nearly 30 years ago I used the system. I also know that this worked in MESS and also in MAME itself some years ago, but I can't really say when. Sorry if I'm missing something extremely obvious here.
Steps To Reproduce
Additional Information
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version	0.227
Affected Sets / Systems	m5 , m5p

Attached Files

No.21867 Robbbert Senior Tester Nov 28, 2023, 11:25 edited on: Nov 28, 2023, 21:45	The source has all the bank switching and memory handling commented out, yet the driver is marked as working. The usage for tankbtl says 36k RAM is needed, yet there's no way to implement it. Apparently a real machine would have used a 32k RAM expansion, but MAME doesn't implement it as a slot device. There's some "DIP switches" (which appear to be a machine configuration instead), but all the code to make them work is commented out. There's a -ram xx command-line argument, but it does nothing. It should produce an error, but it's just ignored.
No.21869 Robbbert Senior Tester Nov 28, 2023, 21:49	Further investigation shows that the memory handling etc was commented out by AJR back on 2020-12-03, and so breaking the 36k games. https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/a5ae1c2148de63ea0d5e7dc217672308ce5fcc6b

No.21867

Robbbert

Senior Tester

Nov 28, 2023, 11:25

edited on: Nov 28, 2023, 21:45

The source has all the bank switching and memory handling commented out, yet the driver is marked as working.

The usage for tankbtl says 36k RAM is needed, yet there's no way to implement it. Apparently a real machine would have used a 32k RAM expansion, but MAME doesn't implement it as a slot device.

There's some "DIP switches" (which appear to be a machine configuration instead), but all the code to make them work is commented out.

There's a -ram xx command-line argument, but it does nothing. It should produce an error, but it's just ignored.

No.21869

Robbbert

Senior Tester

Nov 28, 2023, 21:49

Further investigation shows that the memory handling etc was commented out by AJR back on 2020-12-03, and so breaking the 36k games.

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/a5ae1c2148de63ea0d5e7dc217672308ce5fcc6b