I was recently informed of some inaccuracies with the various VDG text screens emulated in MAME. I also recently acquired an RGB2HDMI. This device is a very configurable retro computer video to HDMI device. One nice feature it has is to write the frame buffer to a PNG file.
Using this device I can capture pixel perfect pictures of my CoCos and compare them to what MAME currently produces.

First, here is the comparison between a real and MAME emulated CoCo 2.

The stem of the number ’3′ is too short in MAME.
The “E” stem is too short.
The “F” stem is too short.

Next is the CoCo 2B in normal mode.

Over all the characters need to be pushed one pixel to the right and one pixel up to properly fit in their boxes.
The ‘@’ has an extra pixel.
The ‘G’ is the wrong shape.
The ‘J’ has an extra pixel.
The pound sign has extra pixels.
The dollar sign has extra pixels.
The apostrophe is missing some pixels.
The comma is missing some pixels.
The period is missing some pixels.
The three is missing a pixel on it’s stem.
The ’6′ is the wrong shape.
The ’9′ is the wrong shape.
The colon is missing some pixels.
The semi-colon is missing some pixels.

Next is the CoCo 2B in lowercase mode.

Over all the characters need to be moved one pixel up and to the right. Except the lowercase J. It only needs to be moved one pixel to the right.
The lowercase letter g is the wrong shape.
The lowercase letter m has an extra pixel.
The lowercase letter p is the wrong shape.
The lowercase letter q is the wrong shape.
The lowercase letter t is the wrong shape.
The lowercase letter w is the wrong shape.
The lowercase letter y is the wrong shape.
The pound sign has extra pixels.
The dollar sign has extra pixels.
The apostrophe is missing some pixels.
The comma is missing some pixels.
The period is missing some pixels.
The ’3′ is missing a pixel on it’s stem.
The ’6′ is the wrong shape.
The ’9′ is the wrong shape.
The ‘@’ has an extra pixel.
The colon is missing some pixels.
The semi-colon is missing some pixels.
The ‘G’ is the wrong shape.
The ‘J’ has an extra pixel.

Next is the CoCo 3 in normal mode.

Over all, the characters need to be moved a pixel up.
The comma also needs to be moved one pixel to the right.
The number 9 has an extra pixel.

Last is the CoCo 3 in lowercase mode.

Over all the characters need to be moved one pixel up.
The lowercase letter g is the wrong shape.
The lowercase letter i is the wrong shape.
The lowercase letter j is the wrong shape.
The lowercase letter m has an extra pixel.
The lowercase letter p is the wrong shape.
The lowercase letter q is the wrong shape.
The comma need to be moved to the right one pixel.
The numeral 9 has an extra pixel.

Special thanks to Pedro Pena for a screen capture.

MAME 0.246 is the first version to contain the fixes for the above.

An interesting bug appeared on MAME Testers recently. The bug linked here is really simple. OS-9 wont boot on a copy protected disk image. The solution also was simple: properly emulate the delay between issuing a write command, and the INTRQ that happens when the write protect notch is covered.
But how long of a delay should it be? The floppy disk controller chip data sheet does not specify what is normal. I wish I had an oscilloscope to measure things like this, but I don’t. So I had to get tricky.
I wrote a Color Computer program that writes to a write protected disk on purpose. Normally after you issue the command to write to a sector, you prepare to start writing and then wait until the disk is ready. But if you know the disk write will error becuase of a write protect notch, all you really have to do is count. That is what I did, initiate write and then count forever:


    pragma 6809
    opt cd

vector_return
    stb count
    lda $ff48
    sta error
    andcc #$AF enable interrupts
    rts
    end begin


The loop will not actually count forever. When the write fails, the Floppy Disk Controller will produce an Interrupt Request signal. On the Color Computer this is tied to the Non-Maskable Interrupt line. This will stop the loop and run my NMI handler. The records the counter and status to make available to a BASIC program for further processing.

I now have two results from different Floppy Disk Controllers: 20 and 19. With a 5 cycle loop counter, this comes to a delay of about 111 microseconds. I show my work here.