Pro tip for anyone thinking of installing MESS

mediamogul

@SpudsMcToole said in Pro tip for anyone thinking of installing MESS:

The only tiny problem left with the BBC is that because Tab is a key on the BBC keyboard, MESS doesn't recognise it for accessing the menu

You might try something like:

input_map[key_tab] keyboard[0,tab]
input_map[ui_configure] keyboard[0,lalt] keyboard[0,tab] or keyboard[0,ralt] keyboard[0,tab]

In theory that would allow the BBC environment to use the 'Tab' key as its own, while the config menu would be invoked by either 'LeftAlt+Tab' or 'RightAlt+Tab'.

SpudsMcToole

@mediamogul Hmm, nope. Adding those lines has no discernible effect - pressing either Alt with Tab just acts like a normal BBC tab.

A Former User

I would like to thank mediamogul. Those Astrocade instructions worked perferct.
Just one thing to add to the advmess.rc, this for joystick support.
Scroll down to these lines and make sure they look like so.

input_map[p1_up] auto
input_map[p1_down] auto
input_map[p1_left] auto
input_map[p1_right] auto
input_map[p1_button1] auto
input_map[p1_button2] auto
input_map[p1_button3] auto
input_map[p1_button4] auto
input_map[p1_button5] auto
input_map[p1_button6] auto
input_map[p1_button7] auto
input_map[p1_button8] auto
input_map[p1_button9] auto
input_map[p1_button10] auto
input_map[p1_start] auto
input_map[p1_select] auto

That should work for whatever controller you are using for player 1.
One thing that I noticed was that the actual emulation wasn't very good. Lots of flickering, and often garbled sprites can be seen ,on some games, at the top of the screen. The sound was also a bit crackly, popping, and other weird sounds. I used the same Advmess as the original instruction, so perhaps a newer version has many fixes.
Off to try BBC emulation, and a few other systems.

mediamogul

@SpudsMcToole said in Pro tip for anyone thinking of installing MESS:

Alt with Tab just acts like a normal BBC tab.

Ha! Well, that was me assuming that 'Alt' wasn't used in the BBC environment, but if it is, it would just put you back at square one. I've run into this before with other emulated computer systems that map the majority of the keyboard. While there might be a more elegant solution out there, I ended up mapping keys for emulator functions that weren't used in the emulated environment. Normally, I'd say to open up the options menu to discover which keys aren't already being used, but in your case you can't open up the options menu to check. If your physical keyboard has media controls, I doubt they would be in use here. For example, you might try using:

input_map[ui_configure] keyboard[0,playpause]

@John_RM_70

That should work for whatever controller you are using for player 1.

Those are indeed likely to be the sanest default settings. One word of warning however, is that when set to 'auto', AdvanceMAME/MESS will grab whatever controller is assigned by the OS as js0 and js1 for players one and two respectively and so on down the line. Seeing as how this assignment often varies between sessions, it can create issues with setups that require the player controls to remain constant.

SpudsMcToole

@mediamogul said in Pro tip for anyone thinking of installing MESS:

@SpudsMcToole said in Pro tip for anyone thinking of installing MESS:

Alt with Tab just acts like a normal BBC tab.

Ha! Well, that was me assuming that 'Alt' wasn't used in the BBC environment, but if it is, it would just put you back at square one. I've run into this before with other computer systems that map the majority of the keyboard. While there might be a more elegant solution out there, I ended up mapping keys for emulator functions that weren't used in the emulation environment. Normally, I'd say to open up the options menu to discover which keys aren't already being used, but in your case you can't open up the options menu to check. If your physical keyboard has media controls, I doubt they would be in use. For example, you might try using:
input_map[ui_configure] keyboard[0,playpause]

Sadly my keyboard is a basic one with nothing like that. But the BBC doesn't have an Alt key, so goodness knows what's going on.

https://acorn.huininga.nl/pub/software/BeebEm/BeebEm-4.14.68000-20160619/Help/keyboard.jpg

I've tried everything I can think of in terms of editing the RC file manually, both trying to get the menus up and trying to hardcode the joystick to keys, especially around these lines:

input_map[p1_up] joystick_digital[0079_0006_3,0,0,0] or keyboard[0,up]
input_map[p1_down] joystick_digital[0079_0006_3,0,0,1] or keyboard[0,down]
input_map[p1_left] joystick_digital[0079_0006_3,0,1,1] or keyboard[0,left]
input_map[p1_right] joystick_digital[0079_0006_3,0,1,0] or keyboard[0,right]
input_map[p1_start] joystick_button[0079_0006_3,7] or keyboard[0,1]
input_map[p1_select] joystick_button[0079_0006_3,7] or keyboard[0,5]

but nothing has any effect. I know people HAVE managed to get the MESS menu up in the BBC emulator, but Lord knows how they did it.

mediamogul

@SpudsMcToole said in Pro tip for anyone thinking of installing MESS:

BBC doesn't have an Alt key, so goodness knows what's going on.

Still, it may be using the 'Alt' key as a stand-in for some other key. If you could find one key that isn't being used, you should be able to access the menu. Below is a list of all the available options.

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z, n0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0_pad, 1_pad, 2_pad, 3_pad, 4_pad, 5_pad, 6_pad, 7_pad, 8_pad, 9_pad, f1, f2, f3, f4, f5, f6, f7, f8, f9, f10, f11, f12, esc, backquote, minus, equals, backspace, tab, openbrace, closebrace, enter, semicolon, quote, backslash, less, comma, period, slash, space, insert, del, home, end, pgup, pgdn, left, right, up, down, slash_pad, asterisk_pad, minus_pad, plus_pad, period_pad, enter_pad, prtscr, pause, lshift, rshift, lcontrol, rcontrol, lalt, ralt, lwin, rwin, menu, scrlock, numlock, capslock, stop, again, props, undo, front, copy, open, paste, find, cut, help, calc, setup, sleep, wakeup, file, sendfile, deletefile, xfer, prog1, prog2, www, msdos, coffee, direction, cyclewindows, mail, bookmarks, computer, back, forward, closecd, ejectcd, ejectclosecd, nextsong, playpause, previoussong, stopcd, record, rewind, phone, iso, config, homepage, refresh, exit, move, edit, scrollup, scrolldown, leftparen_pad, rightparen_pad, intl1, intl2, intl3, intl4, intl5, intl6, intl7, intl8, intl9, lang1, lang2, lang3, lang4, lang5, lang6, lang7, lang8, lang9, playcd, pausecd, prog3, prog4, suspend, close, brightnessdown, brightnessup, macro, mute, volumedown, volumeup, power, compose, f13, f14, f15, f16, f17, f18, f19, f20, f21, f22, f23, f24

EDIT: Anyone know what the 'coffee' key is?

A Former User

Got it working great.
Followed Spud11's post, and partly mediamogul's astrocade posts.
Just fired up Planetoid, looks good.
Tried a few bbc disk commands, and they too worked - *cat, *!boot , etc....
It's 2am here, so off to bed. Tomorrow, I will test a real BBC Master, alongside the Pi, and post some screens from the same games.
Whats weird is that my BBC Master has a Pi Zero inside it, running as a co-pro, along with usb and a CF HD. Amazing what people are doing with the Pi, even adding it to it's big old granddad, the BBC.

mediamogul

@John_RM_70 said in Pro tip for anyone thinking of installing MESS:

Tomorrow, I will test a real BBC Master, alongside the Pi, and post some screens from the same games.

Very nice! I look forward to seeing how it holds up.

SpudsMcToole

@mediamogul said in Pro tip for anyone thinking of installing MESS:

@SpudsMcToole said in Pro tip for anyone thinking of installing MESS:

BBC doesn't have an Alt key, so goodness knows what's going on.

Still, it may be using the 'Alt' key as a stand-in for some other key. If you could find one key that isn't being used, you should be able to access the menu. Below is a list of all the available options.

Gah. My best bet out of this lot was probably "lwin", but that does nothing either.

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I booted the emulator up and tried every key at the command prompt, and the only one that had no discernible effect on either the BBC or MESS was F12, but that was no good either. How in the heck are people getting the menus up?

A Former User

Here are 2 wholly un-scientific images from a real BBC Master, and a Raspberry Pi 3b+ running Advmess.

The hardware
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/924/jgjFDN.png
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/922/xNrlqc.png

Just 2 images, for now.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/923/6qkdSb.png
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/921/qKm7Jx.png

Can't get images working, so only links for now. The first image under "Just 2 images, for now.", is the BBC Master.
You can see the Pi isn't running in the correct aspect ratio. But overall, it's not bad for composite. The Master is RGB Scart.

mediamogul

@John_RM_70

Very nice. When I got into retro emulation years ago, I made a decision to focus my attention on North American games only, mainly due to there being more titles there alone than I could ever play in a lifetime. However, I've constantly found that the European computer systems are just too hard to ignore. Some of the most original game concepts I've ever seen originate there and the hobbyist spirit is arguably stronger than any other area of gaming.

The first stretch of free time I can find, I plan to start exploring these games and their history more deeply. My first brush has been looking at rivalry between Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry, which led me to the BBC docu-drama 'Micro Men', but I can't help but think that production was a bit embellished for entertainment, similarly to the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates television docu-drama, 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' as seen in the trailer below.

A Former User

You should also give the Amstrad CPC, a go. Great games, and when programmed properly they were often very colourful games that looked best across all the 8-bit computers. I got the Pi Amstrad emulator working, and it looks and runs great. Again, I own the real thing, but I can't use the same TV as the Pi, since the Amstrad came with it's own 14" monitor. So a comparison isn't apples to apples. But it's close.

That Micro Men docu, was good. But, like you said, a few liberties were taken when it came to Sir Clive. I believe he was portrayed a bit too nicely, probably for TV. Some people from that era have said he has often a bit of a bastard, and wanted things completed yesterday.