Old Computer Appreciation Thread

Folly

@dmmarti said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

From this post and all the info provided within it….I’ve now started expanding to other old computer systems as well.

After hearing about the success with Retroarch translate, I’m hoping that it works good on them too.

Here’s a few I’ve started getting setup to begin experimenting with.

Elektronika BK-0010
Hector HRX
Mikrosha
Vector-06C

I can’t read Russian….but some of the games look pretty fun!

I'm all ears !
Curious if this works too.

Keep us posted !

Zering

@folly So what change did you make to Otoko Dama?
That sounds like an incredible discovery! The possibilities are huge. Could it be possible to use that to get around some of those roms that just won't run, ie. Refight and its music mode or multidisc X1 games?

The computers dmmarti mentioned should all work within mess,I think they're on the list of systems I was planning on adding to my rig.

Folly

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly So what change did you make to Otoko Dama?

So the changes I made, to get music working, can now be shared.
(if the sum of the originals, we have, are the same)

That sounds like an incredible discovery! The possibilities are huge. Could it be possible to use that to get around some of those roms that just won't run, ie. Refight and its music mode or multidisc X1 games?

Indeed, incredible. ;-)
And if more people can make patches we save time.

The computers dmmarti mentioned should all work within mess,I think they're on the list of systems I was planning on adding to my rig.

Curious, if he gets it working with translation.

AdamBeGood

@folly said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@Zering @AdamBeGood

Today, I discovered something amazing again !

Earlier we patched MSX roms with an IPS patch.
Back then I found 2 open source programs for patching.

Today I tried the second patch program (it works too) :
https://github.com/kylon/Lipx
(has also a link to the IPS format specifications)

What so nice is about this version, it can create patches !
IPS format seems not only MSX specific.

So I tested if I could make an IPS patch for the "Otoko_dama.hdm" of "x68000"
Made the patch from the original and modified file :
./lipx.py -c Otoko_dama_original.hdm Otoko_dama_modified.hdm Otoko_dama.ips
Then I patched the original with the IPS patch back to the modified one :
./lipx.py -ab Otoko_dama_original.hdm Otoko_dama.ips Otoko_dama_for_others.hdm
It worked ;-)

So now it's possible to share fixes (if the checksums of the original files are the same).
IPS patch was only 11,7kb.

So it just modifies the autoexec.bat as we did? That is very clever!

Zering

@Folly Why is this sort of stuff not more widely known?

Folly

@adambegood said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

So it just modifies the autoexec.bat as we did? That is very clever!

Indeed.
1 person does the real editing.
Then this person makes a patch that can be shared so others don't have to edit the autoexec.bat but just apply the patch.

AdamBeGood

@folly said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

So it just modifies the autoexec.bat as we did? That is very clever!

Indeed.
1 person does the real editing.
Then this person makes a patch that can be shared so others don't have to edit the autoexec.bat but just apply the patch.

Does Zering's Otoko work yet? Send him the patch!

Folly

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@Folly Why is this sort of stuff not more widely known?

Actually I don't know.
But sometimes you have to be a creative thinker to apply a solution to an other similar problem.
Das Aha erlebnis.

Folly

@adambegood said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

So it just modifies the autoexec.bat as we did? That is very clever!

Indeed.
1 person does the real editing.
Then this person makes a patch that can be shared so others don't have to edit the autoexec.bat but just apply the patch.

Does Zering's Otoko work yet? Send him the patch!

We can try this evening.
Have to do some thing now.

Zering

@folly That'd be great actually, as my Otoko Dama still doesn't work.
I followed your steps exactly but I think maybe there's something I don't understand.

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly That'd be great actually, as my Otoko Dama still doesn't work.
I followed your steps exactly but I think maybe there's something I don't understand.

If you didn't have a PC and mess about with DOS, I can imagine it being a lot weirder than it was for me.

Zering

@adambegood Yup, DOS is a foreign language to me.

I know how to launch games on dosbox and that's about it and even then if there's a CD or a complex install involved I'm at a loss.

Folly

@Zering

I made a seperate repository.
For now this was the easiest way to share the file :
(EDIT : repository name is changed)
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share
(the md5sum of the original file( of ...ByGhost.....) is in the filename)
Get :
https://github.com/kylon/Lipx

Unzip both
Place all files in 1 directory
Check your md5sum.
(lipx.py should already be executable)
Do (assuming you do this on the pi) :

./lipx.py

You get examples on how to use the command.
(don't forget to use "./" in front of the command )

Good luck.

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood Yup, DOS is a foreign language to me.

I know how to launch games on dosbox and that's about it and even then if there's a CD or a complex install involved I'm at a loss.

I've got that stuff down on DOSBox now I think so feel free to shout.

dmmarti

I've did some preliminary testing against those older Russian computers using Retroarch with MESS core.

Happy to report that yes, the Retroarch translate works on them too!

Now I just have to formally get the systems installed onto my Pi build and add all of the theme media, etc. Then I can load a few more games again and play.

Zering

@Folly I'll look into this after I've had some sleep, thanks! I'm not sure I understand it all but I'll shout if I have any questions!

@AdamBeGood I may take you up on that, it seems like it's always the DOS games that intrigue me the most that I can't get to run!

Folly

@dmmarti said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

I've did some preliminary testing against those older Russian computers using Retroarch with MESS core.

Happy to report that yes, the Retroarch translate works on them too!

Isn't it amazing !

Now I just have to formally get the systems installed onto my Pi build and add all of the theme media, etc. Then I can load a few more games again and play.

Can you make an "Old Russian Computer Appreciation Thread" that we can join ?
(EDIT @Zering converts this thread to an "Old Computer Appreciation Thread" if we all agree !)

Zering

@folly Maybe we should just convert this thread into 'Old Computer Appreciation ' ^^

Folly

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly Maybe we should just convert this thread into 'Old Computer Appreciation ' ^^

Thats ok.

Folly

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

Could it be possible to use that to get around some of those roms that just won't run, ie. Refight and its music mode or multidisc X1 games?

Refight (PC8800) :
Tried to solve this. I used Quasi88 for editing.
This game works in Quasi88 but not in lr-quasi88.
At boot the computer automatically runs the "IPL" basic file at boot.
I think it's a sort of "autoexec.bas" from what we know from MSX.
This file checks on model and speed etc. Seems that lr-quasi88 is missing something.
Tried to fool the computer by removing lines. but that did not work.

multidisc X1 games with lr-x1 :
Tried .m3u, did not work.
Tried .cmd, works but only fdd0 is inserted, fdd1 is not inserted.
This core is quite old and there are no docs, so I think thats why it's not working.
(https://github.com/r-type/xmil-libretro)
Nice to know the, parly working, .cmd file looks like this :

x1 "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x1/Xanadu Scenario II (Disk D).d88" "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x1/Xanadu Scenario II (Disk C - User disk).d88"

(manually inserting second disk in fdd1 works in the gui "F11")

So, no fix, no IPS, for now.