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@dmcnaugh dmcnaugh released this 10 Jun 05:50
v1.12.0
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THESE PACKAGES MAY NOT BE UPLOADED OR HOSTED ANYWHERE ELSE.​

Release Notes

If you are upgrading from a firmware release older than v1.10.0 then please upgrade to v1.10.0 first referring to the v1.10.0 release notes carefully with respect to updating the µSD card image.

This is a minor release that:

  • Focuses on stability and performance improvements
  • Fixes bugs
  • Enables disk images to be renamed in the LIB: window on the Desktop UI

Firmware updates:

  • Update Firmware Build Version to v1.12.0
  • Updated build environment to Espressif IDF v4.4.4
    • providing significant improvements in:
      • memory utilisation
      • speed and performance
      • network stack performance & stability
      • webserver and websocket server performance & stability
    • anecdotally:
      • peak simulated CPU speed has been observed to be as high as 5.9MHz (when set to unlimited)
      • improved response from the front panel LEDs
      • speed of Dazzler demos such as gdemo.com and kscope.com are now noticeably smoother and faster
        • even when rendering on both the Desktop UI and the S-132 hardware Dazzler simultaneously
  • Fixed a bug that could cause a reboot if the VIO ROM was not loaded and the IMSAI was in PWR.OFF state
  • When operating with Wi-Fi in AP mode the DNS server task is stopped early to prevent DDoS from both Windows and macOS
    • both Windows and macOS launch significant and unnecessary DNS requests towards the ESP32 when in AP mode
    • this was overwhelming the ESP32, degrading network performance or causing the ESP32 to reboot
    • the DNS server task is now stopped when the httpd webserver responds to the first GET file request
    • it will only be restarted on the next reboot of the ESP32
    • this is usually sufficient for the DNS server to perform its role and provide the IP address of the ESP32 to a single connected client

Desktop UI updates:

  • Update GUI Version to webfrontend-v1.13.4
  • Fixed a font scaling issue in Chrome (and Edge) that effected the correct display of window title bars
    • this was only noticeable if you changed the default font size for the browser
    • thanks to @GrantMeStrength for pointing this out
  • Attempted to fix the anchoring of windows to icons when first opened
    • improved but not always accurate
  • Rename of disk images in LIB: now works as expected (same as for TAPE:)
    • double-click the text of a disk image name and edit in-place
    • can be aborted with Escape key (<ESC>)
    • you cannot rename a disk image that is currently mounted
  • Fixed the name of the Cromemco D+7A IO manual in MAN:
    • previously contained a special/non-printable character that should have been a <sp> (Space)

Disk image updates:

  • Disk images for the IMSAI8080 and Cromemco Z-1 are unchanged

The bundle is made of three parts:

  • The FIRMWARE for the ESP32-PICO-KIT
  • The IMAGE for the microSD card
  • An update.bin file for updating the desktop GUI

FIRMWARE

The FIRMWARE package is a ZIP file containing 7 files

COPYRIGHT.txt
FLASHING.md
bootloader.bin        24KB
cromemcosim_esp32.bin 919KB 
partition-table.bin  3KB 
imsaisim_esp32.bin    926KB 
ota_data_initial.bin  8KB

You only need the imsaisim_esp32.bin file from the FIRMWARE bundle to run the IMSAI8080 machine.
You only need the cromemcosim_esp32.bin file from the FIRMWARE bundle to run the Cromemco Z-1 machine

You can switch between machines by 'updating' to the firmware of the other machine by a drag-and-drop of the appropriate *.bin file to the SYS: device icon on the desktop, see Upload (flash) the firmware to the ESP32

Instructions for flashing the firmware to an existing system are included in the Updating Software guide

The FLASHING.md file contains instructions for flashing the firmware to a new ESP32-PICO-KIT

IMAGE

The IMAGE package is a ZIP file of the complete contents of the microSD card and can simply be unzipped onto a newly formatted (FAT32) microSD card with a capacity of 128MB or greater.

If upgrading from a release of the IMSAI8080esp firmware prior to v1.10.0 then please upgrade to v1.10.0 first referring to the v1.10.0 release notes carefully with respect to updating the µSD card image.

If you only need to update the Desktop UI from v1.13.x to v1.13.4

  • Download the attached update.bin file to your PC
  • Drag-and-drop the update.bin file from your PC to the SYS: icon on the Desktop UI of your IMSAI8080esp or Cromemco Z-1
  • Reboot the ESP32 (reset or power-cycle) and the update will be installed on the µSD during the boot process

Known Issues

  1. There is no UI for changing hard disk images, the required image must be set using the environment variable(s) HARDDISK in the boot.conf file and then the ESP32 hard reset to reload the environment.
  2. The boot.conf file can't include a # in PASSWORD. The occurrence of # at any point on any line indicates the start of a comment.
  3. A race condition can occur when the 'AT' Modem is used as the CP/M console device CON:. This will cause a buffer overflow and the IMSAI8080esp will reboot. To avoid this race condition, always use the new AT&A1 "daemon" (silent) mode
  4. In the HAL there is currently no fall through implemented for carrier detect, but this is not currently a problem as only MODEM implements carrier detect.
  5. Sending to PTP: appends to the end of the tape and can cause an endless-loop if both reading (PTR:) and punching (PTP:) simultaneously.

Contributors

GrantMeStrength
Assets 5
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