MAME: How to ... ?

[dominicbeesley]

Thanks Nigel,

Here's the one I'm using (possibly not the current canonical one but I want to stick with this version for comparison with existing dumps).

Thanks for looking at this - good to have a Ninja emulator writer on call!

D

[Pernod]

Here's the one I'm using (possibly not the current canonical one but I want to stick with this version for comparison with existing dumps).

How does this look?

I really need to re-implement the ULA as a separate device, used by both Electron and Communicator. I did a lot of work on the Electron a couple of years ago which never got back ported to the Communicator.

[dominicbeesley]

That looks perfect, thanks Nigel. I'm writing up a 65816 BASIC thread now, I'll include this for comparison....looks like Communicator BASIC is pretty slow!

[Pernod]

That looks perfect, thanks Nigel. I'm writing up a 65816 BASIC thread now, I'll include this for comparison....looks like Communicator BASIC is pretty slow!

Presume you know that MAME also supports the ReCo6502 with a 65816, configurable between 3.15MHz and 14.7MHz?

[dominicbeesley]

No I didn't. I'll try and get a look at that. Thanks

I made my own 816 tube board a few years ago maybe one day I'll try porting that to MAME to get my eye in

D

[Deleted User 13004]

Hello!

Newbie first post ...

I've recently started using mame to emulate a Master 128 (bbcm) and was wondering if it's possible to put 2 ROMs into one cartridge on the command line, as I believe was possible on the original hardware?

Thanks
James

[Pernod]

I've recently started using mame to emulate a Master 128 (bbcm) and was wondering if it's possible to put 2 ROMs into one cartridge on the command line, as I believe was possible on the original hardware?

The command line options -cart1 -cart2 will only accept a single file. It should accept a 32K file if you concatenate them.

Multiple ROMs in a single cartridge need to be defined in hash/bbcm_cart.xml, see https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/ma ... m_cart.xml, so that MAME knows what's actually in the cartridge.

[Deleted User 13004]

The command line options -cart1 -cart2 will only accept a single file. It should accept a 32K file if you concatenate them.

It did - thank you!

[thebabycub]

Hi Pernod.

Newbie here to the forums but long time lurker.

Am I right in thinking you are involved with the MAME project for BBC matters?

I noticed that in MAME 0.229 theres a bbc rom file appeared called bbc_tube_16032.zip I believe this might be a misnamed file resulting from a typo and is really an update to bbc_tube_32016?

If you aren't the correct person to talk to would you know where in the MAME project I should direct this?

Thanks.

[Pernod]

I noticed that in MAME 0.229 theres a bbc rom file appeared called bbc_tube_16032.zip I believe this might be a misnamed file resulting from a typo and is really an update to bbc_tube_32016?

Yep, you got the right person.

It is not a typo, in 0.229 a new 16032 tube device was added, basically an earlier version of the 32016 but running at 8MHz instead of 6MHz. It requires earlier versions of the ROMs that actually report 16032.

[thebabycub]

Thanks for your reply.

Always nice to see new co-processors be added. I've never come across this one on my internet BBC travels.

[Pernod]

Always nice to see new co-processors be added. I've never come across this one on my internet BBC travels.

There's one currently for sale at https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/rare-16032-s ... 890.l49292 If anyone here buys it then I'd be interested in seeing which ROMS are installed.

[thebabycub]

I've been playing in b-em with it's 6809 emulation and see cms6809 is in the mame roms. Is it useable yet? I havent been able to find any model that shows it inthe tube options.

[Pernod]

I've been playing in b-em with it's 6809 emulation and see cms6809 is in the mame roms. Is it useable yet? I havent been able to find any model that shows it inthe tube options.

It should be fully working in 0.229 and available to select from bbcb. There's some floppy images to use with it at viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13539, you'll need to convert the images from HFE to IMD to use them.

[thebabycub]

Aha! I have just found that the official mame0229b_64bit.exe download is missing mame64.exe and mame64.sym.

As I always run the 64bit binary, even latter after installing the 0.229 update I was still running 0.228.

I had a go at converting the HFE discs using the HFE FloppyEmulator software but mame did not like the IMD produced.

[Pernod]

Aha! I have just found that the official mame0229b_64bit.exe download is missing mame64.exe and mame64.sym.

As I always run the 64bit binary, even latter after installing the 0.229 update I was still running 0.228.

I had a go at converting the HFE discs using the HFE FloppyEmulator software but mame did not like the IMD produced.

The 64bit binary is now mame.exe, the 64 suffix has been dropped, it's mentioned in the release notes.

Don't remember having any trouble with IMD, it was DIASFLEX that I converted.

[thebabycub]

Woops, didn't read that!

Mounting the HFE directly in MAME works!

[Deleted User 13004]

Hello! I'm have a disc/file problem with mame, which I start up with:

Code: Select all

./mame64 bbcm -window -flop1 search.ssd

The DFS disc image has a BASIC program and a datafile. If I LOAD"BASPROG" and then SAVE"BASPRG2" all appears OK.

*VERIFY0 is happy, *CAT and *EX show the files I expect.

However, when I exit and restart MAME, BASIC tells me BASPRG2 is a "Bad program" when I LOAD it, and *DUMP BASPRG2 shows a file of FFs. Though *. and *INFO show the file is apparently there and *VERIFY is still happy.

There's plenty of free space on the disc image. Indeed, I can just save: 10 REM TEST and the same corruption happens.

Any thoughts as to what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks
James

[Pernod]

However, when I exit and restart MAME, BASIC tells me BASPRG2 is a "Bad program" when I LOAD it, and *DUMP BASPRG2 shows a file of FFs. Though *. and *INFO show the file is apparently there and *VERIFY is still happy.

This has been reported before, but I've not been able to determine the cause.

I believe the issue is somewhere in the floppy sub-system, which I generally don't touch, and not something specific to the BBC emulation. There were some recent updates to this so can you confirm there are still issues in the 0.230 release?

The actual floppy image is only saved when the disc is unmounted, which is why you see the issue after restarting MAME, or if you unmount and remount the same image. Have you also tried ADF's or is the issue with SSD's only?

[Deleted User 13004]

Sadly, 0.230 seems to be still broken.

[vanekp]

I am sure MAME has been broken for a very long time with writing to disc's.

[MarkMoxon]

Hi Pernod.

Apologies in advance if this is me doing something wrong... but does the BBC Micro version of Elite run properly on MAME? I'm having problems getting it working - it looks like this for me:

I'm running the latest version of MAME (0.231), I've deployed the BBC ROMs from here, and tried loading various versions of Elite (such as this one from bbcmicro.co.uk, for example), but the screen is corrupted in the same way in all of them. The game is actually running and responds to key presses, but the screen is clearly not happy.

Is this a known problem? It's happening even if I start mame with:

Code: Select all

mame bbcb

so I'm not sure how much simpler I can make it! I've tried a handful of other Beeb games and they all seem OK, but Elite is definitely not happy.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Or is Elite on MAME a known problem?

Mark

[Pernod]

Hi Pernod.

Apologies in advance if this is me doing something wrong... but does the BBC Micro version of Elite run properly on MAME? I'm having problems getting it working - it looks like this for me:

No, the 6845 emulation and video handling in general need a serious re-write to get this working. Many other games are affected too, especially anything by Tricky.

[MarkMoxon]

Hi Pernod.

Apologies in advance if this is me doing something wrong... but does the BBC Micro version of Elite run properly on MAME? I'm having problems getting it working - it looks like this for me:

No, the 6845 emulation and video handling in general need a serious re-write to get this working. Many other games are affected too, especially anything by Tricky.

Ah! Fair enough. Thanks for the speedy response, much appreciated.

Mark

[ChrisB]

I'm trying to get the AP6 expansion running but I seem to be missing a file

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mame electron -exp ap6 -window
ap6v133t.rom NOT FOUND (tried in electron_ap6 electron)

I have the ROM package from Arcadian and can start with other electron configurations. Can someone please point me at the right file and where to put it within MAME?

[Pernod]

I'm trying to get the AP6 expansion running but I seem to be missing a file

Code: Select all

mame electron -exp ap6 -window
ap6v133t.rom NOT FOUND (tried in electron_ap6 electron)

I have the ROM package from Arcadian and can start with other electron configurations. Can someone please point me at the right file and where to put it within MAME?

The ROM package needs an update, here's what you need. Just place in your mame/roms folder.

[johnpg]

Hi,

Thank you all for the extremely useful information regarding how to run MAME. I have been using MAME for a few months with no problems but having recently updated to the most recent version, released a week ago, 0.236, I seem to be getting the following error message when trying to run a BBC B game, downloaded from bbcmicro.co.uk:

Fatal error: Device 5.25" quad density floppy drive load failed: Incompatible image format or corrupted data

The command line I am using is:

Code: Select all

mame.exe bbcb -flop1 Disc002-Arcadians.ssd

I seem to be getting a similar error message for every SSD game I try. I have gone back to version 0.235 of MAME and I don't seem to be getting the error so I am wondering if something has changed in MAME in version 0.236? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Many thanks in advance,

John.

[Pernod]

I seem to be getting a similar error message for every SSD game I try. I have gone back to version 0.235 of MAME and I don't seem to be getting the error so I am wondering if something has changed in MAME in version 0.236? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Well that's annoying, someone else recently refactored file handling and seems to have broken floppy loading. I'll have to investigate.

[johnpg]

Hi Nigel,

Many thanks for your quick reply. Yes that does sound annoying, hopefully your investigations don't reveal too much work involved. Thank you also for all the hard work you have put into the Acorn elements of MAME, it is very much appreciated.

John.

[Tomkun]

Hello

In Elkulator it is possible to load both DFS and ADFS disks and switch modes by typing *DISK.

Is it possible to get this same functionality in MAME? When I use the software lists for the Electron, a great many disks will not load with the default settings, I think because they are DFS. When I type *DISK in MAME, I get a "no directory" error.

I assume that this is a BIOS issue? I read in another thread that there is a BIOS for the plus3 that can use both ADFS and DFS, but what is it and can it be used in MAME? Is that how it is done in Elkulator?

Sorry for so many questions!

Tom