MMBExplorer released!

[derek]

Hi,

I downloaded the Git Hub Master file and read the documentation, loaded the Fast Light Toolkit in Ubuntu 20.04 and compiled the MMBExplorer source code.

The compiled execcutable loaded all the MMB files I have.

I like the command line facilities, which make the management of MMB files alot easier than a GUI approach.

Well done, excellent piece of software.

[Richard Hallas]

Thank you for your kind words!

I'm actually super happy about my program being useful

Cheers,
Rob

Likewise, thank you for writing this, from another appreciative Mac user who's fed up with Windows-only utilities.

[robcfg]

You're welcome!

[Papalapa]

That's great, good job!

I was wondering if it would be possible to load more than one image disk at the same time. For example, to load 100 .SSD files starting by the slot 0.

This can be useful if do you only want to test several images on the Acorn Electron because actually to do this is necessary to load each file one by one.

[sweh]

That's great, good job!

I was wondering if it would be possible to load more than one image disk at the same time. For example, to load 100 .SSD files starting by the slot 0.

This can be useful if do you only want to test several images on the Acorn Electron because actually to do this is necessary to load each file one by one.

With my perl utilities ( https://sweh.spuddy.org/Beeb/mmb_utils.html ) you could do it in a simple script. Something like:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

rm -f BEEB.MMB
beeb dblank_mmb
let i=0
for a in *.ssd
do
  beeb dput_ssd $i $a
  let a=a+1
done

That should work on Linux, Mac and even WIndows with Cygwin bash

[robcfg]

That's great, good job!

I was wondering if it would be possible to load more than one image disk at the same time. For example, to load 100 .SSD files starting by the slot 0.

This can be useful if do you only want to test several images on the Acorn Electron because actually to do this is necessary to load each file one by one.

Which version of MMBExplorer are you using?

At least the latest one can do it. Just drag the files from the file explorer on your OS to slot 0 and let the magic happen!

Please tell me if it doesn't work for you.

[Papalapa]

That's great, good job!

I was wondering if it would be possible to load more than one image disk at the same time. For example, to load 100 .SSD files starting by the slot 0.

This can be useful if do you only want to test several images on the Acorn Electron because actually to do this is necessary to load each file one by one.

Which version of MMBExplorer are you using?

At least the latest one can do it. Just drag the files from the file explorer on your OS to slot 0 and let the magic happen!

Please tell me if it doesn't work for you.

Great, it works!!

I use v1.2 (77ec0e2) the last one I think. Usually I don't use drag&drop but in this case it saves a lot of time.

Thank you

[robcfg]

Please update to 1.21, as I made a silly mistake that can make disk images unusable due to bad encoding of the start sector

[Papalapa]

Please update to 1.21, as I made a silly mistake that can make disk images unusable due to bad encoding of the start sector

I downloaded the 1.2.1 right now

[MrReturn]

Hi Rob,

Like you, I was underwhelmed by the available tools available to edit MMB files and thought "let me try if I could do better".

Having created my own initial version and trying to find a good place to share it with the community I found your thread and realised that I wasn't the only one with this idea and that somebody already created a similar tool. I feel a bit bad about introducing another MMB editor, but I feel that they can co-exist and that we can hopefully learn from each others views and effort. Perhaps we can eventually integrate the ideas from both projects into a single tool.

If there is some interest in "my" version of the tool it might be best to create a new thread for "my" version, but for now I would like to use this thread to announce its existence and go from there.

Having gone through the process myself I can appreciate the effort that you already must have put into it and the support that you have shown already! I especially like that you made it multi-platform, although I did have some trouble creating a Windows build for your version which required tweaking some config and project files.

I created my version using C# (Visual Studio), so it is Windows only I'm afraid (apologies for the Unix and Mac users). It is fully functional, but the User Interface needs some polish. I did however manage to include a file viewer (hex viewer, tokenized BASIC or (incomplete) 6502 assembly) for the files on a disk and am especially proud of the MMB menu editor that can be written to any of the slots in the MMB file. The Menu editor has taken by far the most effort as I could not find any documentation about the database file format used and took a lot of trial and error (unless someone will tell me that this has already been done before me ).

You should be able to get my version at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G-iNxG ... sp=sharing.

Keep up the good work and I would like to hear your opinions.

[hoglet]

If there is some interest in "my" version of the tool it might be best to create a new thread for "my" version, but for now I would like to use this thread to announce its existence and go from there.

Please, please, do start a new thread for this.

Otherwise it will get very confusing very quickly!

Dave

[MrReturn]

Please, please, do start a new thread for this.

Otherwise it will get very confusing very quickly!

Dave

I will do that, my apologies.

@Rob, keep up the good work!

[robcfg]

Thanks!

I'll give you some feedback in your thread.

[Becky]

I have been trying to compile MMBEexplorer on linux (Mint 20) and get the following error:

In file included from /home/thegang/retrotools/mmbexplorer/src/MMBExplorer.cpp:5:
/home/thegang/retrotools/mmbexplorer/src/MMBE_Gui.h:168:5: error: ‘Fl_Box’ does not name a type; did you mean ‘fl_box’?
168 | Fl_Box* mFilenameBox = nullptr;
| ^~~~~~
| fl_box
make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/MMBExplorer.dir/build.make:63: CMakeFiles/MMBExplorer.dir/src/MMBExplorer.cpp.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:105: CMakeFiles/MMBExplorer.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:84: all] Error 2

Am I missing a dependency?

Cheers.

[lurkio]

Am I missing a dependency?

Maybe "FLTK"?:

https://github.com/robcfg/retrotools/tr ... compile-it

[Becky]

Am I missing a dependency?

Maybe "FLTK"?:

I installed that as part of the instructions. It appears to be fine and runs when I tried it.

[robcfg]

Hi Becky,

Which version of Mint 20 are you using? Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce?

Which compiler?

And, how did you install FLTK? Compiled from source, using apt or any other package manager?

May I ask also which version of FLTK did you install?

Sorry for the bunch of questions, but they are necessary for me to replicate your problem and find a solution.

[Becky]

Hi Becky,

Which version of Mint 20 are you using? Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce?

Which compiler?

And, how did you install FLTK? Compiled from source, using apt or any other package manager?

May I ask also which version of FLTK did you install?

Sorry for the bunch of questions, but they are necessary for me to replicate your problem and find a solution.

Using LXDE with linux Mint 20 (Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce also installed)

gcc 9.3.0

fltk version 1.4.0 cloned from github compiled, installed

Cheers.

Edit: Spelling.

[robcfg]

You can just add:

Code: Select all

#include <FL/Fl_Box.H>

At the beginning of MMBE_Gui.h for it to compile.

Please tell me if that works for you.

[Becky]

Please tell me if that works for you.

It got as far as linking this time:-

[100%] Linking CXX executable MMBExplorer
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/local/lib/libfltk.a(Fl_X11_Window_Driver.o): undefined reference to symbol 'dlsym@@GLIBC_2.2.5'
/usr/bin/ld: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2: error adding symbols: DSO missing from command line
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/MMBExplorer.dir/build.make:178: MMBExplorer] Error 1
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:105: CMakeFiles/MMBExplorer.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:84: all] Error 2

[robcfg]

I manage to get the same error using FLTK 1.4.0, which is still in development.

FLTK 1.3.5 works fine on Mint 20 though.

[Becky]

I manage to get the same error using FLTK 1.4.0, which is still in development.

FLTK 1.3.5 works fine on Mint 20 though.

Thanks Rob. I'll give that a try tomorrow.

[Becky]

I manage to get the same error using FLTK 1.4.0, which is still in development.

FLTK 1.3.5 works fine on Mint 20 though.

I no problems switching to the earlier version of FLTK, in fact I learned about 'make uninstall' along the way. Alas I'm still not able to build MMBExplorer. The error appears the same. Perhaps something else on my system is causing a problem:-

thegang@MrMinty:~/retrotools/mmbexplorer/build$ make
[ 0%] Built target getscmversion
Scanning dependencies of target MMBExplorer
[ 14%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/MMBExplorer.dir/src/MMBE_Commands.cpp.o
[ 28%] Linking CXX executable MMBExplorer
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/local/lib/libfltk.a(Fl_Native_File_Chooser.o): undefined reference to symbol 'dlsym@@GLIBC_2.2.5'
/usr/bin/ld: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2: error adding symbols: DSO missing from command line
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/MMBExplorer.dir/build.make:178: MMBExplorer] Error 1
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:105: CMakeFiles/MMBExplorer.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:84: all] Error 2

Bummer, I was so sure it would have worked this time!

[robcfg]

It looks like it's still trying to link with the 1.4 libraries.

Please do a make clean, and generate the build files again with cmake.

Other way to install the libraries is using 'apt install libfltk1.3-dev'. I think there's an option to force an override of any previous installation.

[richardtoohey]

I've got Mint 20, too, and thought I'd jump on and give it a quick go. But I"m stuck on an even earlier step!

I'm missing something very obvious, think I'm missing a git step but not sure what ...

1) Clone this repository (git clone https://github.com/robcfg/retrotools.git)
2) Open a terminal to the folder where you cloned the repository and navigate to the mmbexplorer/build folder.
3) Type cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release .. This will generate a Makefile on MacOS and Linux platforms, and a Visual Studio solution on Windows.

Done, done, and done ... but I get:

Code: Select all

richard@richard-HP-EliteBook-8470p:~/mmb/retrotools/mmbexplorer/build$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
CMake Warning:
  No source or binary directory provided.  Both will be assumed to be the
  same as the current working directory, but note that this warning will
  become a fatal error in future CMake releases.


CMake Error: The source directory "/home/richard/mmb/retrotools/mmbexplorer/build" does not appear to contain CMakeLists.txt.
Specify --help for usage, or press the help button on the CMake GUI.

I'm assuming it's because there's nothing much in mmbexplorer/build:

Code: Select all

richard@richard-HP-EliteBook-8470p:~/mmb/retrotools/mmbexplorer/build$ ls -l
total 4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 richard richard 89 Dec  8 20:09 readme.txt
richard@richard-HP-EliteBook-8470p:~/mmb/retrotools/mmbexplorer/build$ cat readme.txt 
This is a dummy file to allow the build folder to be created when pulling the repository.

So I think I've got to put something (what? from where? how?) into mmbexplorer/build? I'll download the zip from github and unzip?

[richardtoohey]

Ah, think I missed the vital ".." as in parent directory part of the CMake command ...

EDIT: and with that I got further.

I installed fltk1.3 using the GUI Admin->Synaptic Package Manager, searching for fltk, and choosing the libfltk1.3-dev option (that auto-suggests a few others).

Then the CMake command worked (once I followed the instructions!)

Only extra step was that I needed a cd .. before the final "make" command would work.

Then ./MMBExplorer works (Mint 20, Cinnamon).

[Becky]

Then the CMake command worked (once I followed the instructions!)

Only extra step was that I needed a cd .. before the final "make" command would work.

Then ./MMBExplorer works (Mint 20, Cinnamon).

Well done, but changing directory did not help me, I'm still struggling. *Scratches head*

[robcfg]

Hi Becky,

This is what I did to get it working again:

- Go to the fltk 1.4 source folder and type 'sudo make uninstall'
- Then install fltk 1.3 with: 'apt install libfltk1.3-dev"
- Go to the retrotools/mmbexplorer folder and delete the build folder: 'rm -fr build'
- Create the build folder again: 'mkdir build'
- Enter it: 'cd build'
- Generate the makefile: 'cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release .."
- Run make.

I did that on my mint 20 virtual machine and worked.

Give it and try and tell us if that worked for you.

Cheers,
Rob

[Becky]

Give it and try and tell us if that worked for you.

Cheers,
Rob

It worked! Thank you

[robcfg]

You’re welcome!

I’m glad you managed to get it working.

Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any other problem with it or if you find a bug.

Cheers,
Rob