Old Computer Appreciation Thread

AdamBeGood

How is it going, both?

I've started playing Snatcher Sega CD on my little RetroFlag Pi Zero, so there is still some retro gaming going on!

When I do get time to play, it's mainly modern stuff at the moment though.

Zering

@adambegood I'm doing okay, just finding it hard to find the time or the motivation to play at the moment, although I'm sure it will inevitably return.
How far are you in Snatcher CD? I remember really enjoying the first half of the game.

Folly

@adambegood

I doing ok too, I had very busy months with work, I now have a little more time to play with some stuff again. I Recently bought a few rpi microcontroller pico's and made a little micropython program to log temperature that is stored on the pico itself that can be extracted for charts later on.
Someone already ran a bbc micro emulator on the pico, curious if he's going to share his idea.
Also got this free psx game from here (a legal download) :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/10918/where-to-legally-acquire-content-to-play-on-retropie/300
Looks really nice, but I still have to figure out how it works.

AdamBeGood

@folly Temperature record sounds interesting, it's fun what these little guys can do!
PSX game also looks good.

I didn't realise the Marathon trilogy (by the same guys who did Halo) was freeware, I installed that on my PC the other day. Apparently can be done on a Pi also - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Marathon/

Folly

@adambegood

Installed marathon on the rpi.
Good suggestion.
Looks great !

Zering

@folly I played through the first one last year, the second one annoyed me though.
The AlephOne engine should also support the homebred Marathon games but I'm not sure that this functionality is available for the Pi, Macintosh emulation might be the only option there.

Folly

@zering

Good to know that the first one is nice to play.

I think, if we have the homebrew files they should be playable.

A year ago I did something similar with quake engine.
In the exodos collection there are about 6 games that can run on the quake engine.

Folly

@AdamBeGood @zering

Installed "Marathon Evil" by hand, and this works !

You can download the' Community-made Scenarios" from the website.

Make sure you already installed alephone.

Extract the one you want in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/alephone .
Files will come into :
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/alephone/Marathon EVIL

(adding another is basically the same)

Create a file "Aleph One Engine - MarathonEVIL.sh"

#!/bin/bash
"/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh" 0 _PORT_ "marathonevil" ""

Make this file executable with the command from the correct directory, with :

chmod +x "Aleph One Engine - Marathon EVIL.sh"

Create a directory with emulators.cfg /opt/retropie/configs/ports/marathonevil/emulators.cfg containing :

alephonevil = "'/opt/retropie/ports/alephone/bin/alephone' '/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/alephone/Marathon EVIL/'"
default = "alephonevil"

It should be quite easy to make ports scripts for this.

Zering

@folly I'd tried doing exactly that, it didn't work. I must have done something wrong.
Well done for your great work, as always! You're a true asset to this community.

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly I'd tried doing exactly that, it didn't work. I must have done something wrong.
Well done for your great work, as always! You're a true asset to this community.

Ok, perhaps I made a mistake.
I will have a look at it later on.

Zering

@folly No you misunderstand me, I tried this months ago, it didn't work then hence what I said about making a mistake.
I'm sure your method works.

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly No you misunderstand me, I tried this months ago, it didn't work then hence what I said about making a mistake.
I'm sure your method works.

Ok thanks !

Indeed I misunderstood then, I was thinking you were talking in the present.

btw, I added some information, the start-script has to be executable otherwise it will not run. Perhaps you made that same mistake, back then ;-) .

Zering

@folly Yup, that is exactly what I didn't do.

I'm only an expert on playing with computers sadly ^^

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly Yup, that is exactly what I didn't do.

I'm only an expert on playing with computers sadly ^^

You know, you're also a true asset to this community.
Everybody has it's strong points. ^^

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly I played through the first one last year, the second one annoyed me though.
The AlephOne engine should also support the homebred Marathon games but I'm not sure that this functionality is available for the Pi, Macintosh emulation might be the only option there.

Annoyed you in what way? I haven't played any of them yet, just wondered.

Zering

@Folly Haha thanks for saying that, I suppose you're right, although it's hard to compare to the amount of great stuff that you figure out!

@adambegood The Marathon games are hard, they play much like Doom but you can only save and restore health at specific points which are very rare and scattered in levels so labyrinthine you feel like you're playing Wizardry 1. The first one is fairly well balanced, but the second one is insulting in that regard. There's also no music in the second one, which makes it fairly dry.
On the other hand they are fascinating games, somewhere between Doom and System Shock, and I'd say they were probably an influence for Half-Life.

Edit : I've updated the first post to cover @Folly's find with Marathon, and I've updated the DOS section with a method to launch games from ES using .sh and .conf files.

Likewise, if you guys are interested in 'free' games on the Pi, I'd suggest you install uqm, a source port of Star Control II that takes the best of both the PC and 3DO versions and allows you to customize it entirely. The game comes loaded with the module. Great stuff.

Folly

@zering

Nice job, adding al the information.
It's really a goldmine ! ^^

I read that you inplemented the text "sudo terminal".
As far as I can see it, all the files for marathon community editions can be created as the user pi .
It seems there is no need to create them as root and use the "sudo" command or the "sudo terminal".
For making the .sh file executable, you can do that too as the user pi.
So you can remove the word "sudo", as for as I know.

Zering

@folly but you do need to get into the terminal to make the .sh file executable don't you?

Folly

@zering

Yes indeed, you have to do that, but just as the user pi.
So you can just say open the "terminal" instead of open the "sudo terminal".
So it should look like this, in the terminal :

pi@raspberrypi:~ $

"sudo" is always used in front of a command if you want to do things as root user (administrator).

If you say open the "sudo terminal", you open the "sudo terminal" with the command "su".
Then it looks like this after the login :

root@raspberrypi:~ $

Then you don't have to use the "sudo" command in front of the commands.
All the commands are then executed as super user / root.

Perhaps a bit difficult, do you understand ?

Zering

@folly Not difficult at all, you've explained it well. I understand.

I'll edit now.