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0 pointscmrdporcupine2d ago0 comments

Man I spent hours and hours just last month trying to reverse engineer the original Notator/Creator dongle and get Notator to launch in emulation by patching Hatari to emulate the dongle.

Codex & Gemini & I had something almost working. That dongle was evil and crazy complex. Fairly complex CPLD that depended on system timing and in the end the emulator just can't fulfill whatever contract the software expects from the bus + the emulated dongle.

0 comments

msephton2d ago

The dongle has already been reverse engineered in the last couple of years and replicas are for sale.

cmrdporcupineOP2d ago

Yes I am aware of this, and read the HDL to understand what they did. But they are hardware only. The point is to run in emulation.

car2d ago

Is the software still attractive to use, after all those years, or why are you going to these extremes? Sounds it's somehow intimately intertwined with the dongle, if the check routines can't simply be patched.

car2d ago

Going down this rabbit hole, I realize that ST hardware for musicians is still huge. And the dongles as still working as intended, apparently.

And then this blew my mind:

https://re-falcon.com

Quite the underground scene:

https://indyclassic.org

cmrdporcupineOP2d ago

I have two Falcons here they're a compelling machine and still fun to play with.

But if I were to ask for a machine repro, a new motherboard, it would be in a different PCB form factor to get it into an ITX or m-ITX case. Because it's the cases and keyboards that go, not the machine.

1 more reply

cmrdporcupineOP2d ago

People attempted to patch the routines decades ago and it never produced a stable result.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointscmrdporcupine2d ago0 comments

Man I spent hours and hours just last month trying to reverse engineer the original Notator/Creator dongle and get Notator to launch in emulation by patching Hatari to emulate the dongle.

0 comments

msephton2d ago

The dongle has already been reverse engineered in the last couple of years and replicas are for sale.

cmrdporcupineOP2d ago

Yes I am aware of this, and read the HDL to understand what they did. But they are hardware only. The point is to run in emulation.

car2d ago

Going down this rabbit hole, I realize that ST hardware for musicians is still huge. And the dongles as still working as intended, apparently.

And then this blew my mind:

https://re-falcon.com

Quite the underground scene:

https://indyclassic.org

cmrdporcupineOP2d ago

I have two Falcons here they're a compelling machine and still fun to play with.

1 more reply

cmrdporcupineOP2d ago

People attempted to patch the routines decades ago and it never produced a stable result.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse