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Fairchild Channel F



The Fairchild Channel F (short for "Channel Fun") was the first videogame system to use a microprocessor and game cartridges. It was first released in 1976 with a price of $169.95 and was discontinued in 1983.


Emulators: lr-fbneo, lr-freechaf

Emulator Rom Folder Extension BIOS Controller Config
lr-FreeChaf channelf .bin .chf sl31253.bin, sl31254.bin, sl90025.bin /opt/retropie/configs/channelf/retroarch.cfg
lr-FBNeo channelf .zip .7z channelf.zip /opt/retropie/configs/channelf/retroarch.cfg

Roms

Place your ChannelF ROMs in:

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/channelf

NOTE: lr-fbneo expects the game roms to be in .zip/.7z archives named in a similar fashion to arcade romsets, so the filenames of the roms is important. Use a romset validation/building program like Clrmamepro or RomCenter to have the correct filenames, with the FBNeo ChannelF DAT file file and a No-Intro ChannelF ROM collection to get the correct ROMset.

More info is provided here.

BIOS

Pleace your BIOS files in

/home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS

lr-fbneo requires a channelf.zip file. It can also be copied in a fbneo sub-folder under the main BIOS folder.

Filename Description MD5
channelf.zip ChannelF BIOS 2f2f8de3827ae1faf2495e497ca95232

lr-freechaf uses the following files

Filename Description MD5
sl31253.bin ChannelF BIOS (PSU 1) ac9804d4c0e9d07e33472e3726ed15c3
sl31254.bin ChannelF BIOS (PSU 2) da98f4bb3242ab80d76629021bb27585
sl90025.bin ChannelF II BIOS (PSU 1) (optional) 95d339631d867c8f1d15a5f2ec26069d

If the ChannelF II BIOS is included, it will be used instead of sl31253.bin file. All games are compatible with both.

Controls

Both emulators utilise RetroArch configurations.

FreeChaf

Access to the console buttons is provided via an overlay. Pressing 'start' on either controller will display the console buttons. You can select a button by moving left and right and press the button with any of the face buttons (A, B, X, Y). Pressing 'start' a second time will hide the overlay.

  • Console Overlay - allows the user to view and select console buttons.
  • Controller Swap - Controller Swap swaps the player 1 and player 2 controllers.
FreeChaF Function Retropad
Forward D-Pad Up, Left-Analog Up
Backward D-Pad Down, Left-Analog Down
Rotate Left Y, L, Right-Analog Left
Rotate Right A, R, Right-Analog Right
Pull Up X, Right-Analog Up
Push Down B, Right-Analog Down
Show/Hide Console Overlay Start
Controller Swap Select