BBC Micro / Acorn Electron Emu

Lister of Smeg

@folly
after much searching and testing I found this version https://github.com/hoglet67/b-em/tree/263d2d44e53e593d1f51c0be9b9f404447fb33a3 to be the best overall (speech in repton3 as good as the beeb got and the arcadians tune as good as my original upload here)
here is the precompiled binary https://www104.zippyshare.com/v/QoyhNZAp/file.html

given the number of forks and commits available, I see no hope of finding the exact files I had

after a bit more testing i'm starting to think this version is a little better than the one I was originally using

have a play and see what you think is for the best :)

Folly

@lister-of-smeg

Nice, I will have a look later this day.

The hoglet67 fork if the same as this tree from the original master branch :
( Edit : tested : quite good :-) )
https://github.com/stardot/b-em/tree/263d2d44e53e593d1f51c0be9b9f404447fb33a3

I think this is a nice starting point.
I think we should take it from the master branch.

I think this is the last one of the latest with allegro4, we should try this one too :
( Edit : tested : not so good :-( )
https://github.com/stardot/b-em/tree/fc8f15f42f134cb35591587b7aafda9fcebffed8

Lister of Smeg

@folly
hi,
just tried the last allegro 4 version and the audio is not right (startup beeps stutter / speech synthesis is off)
good call on taking from the master branch - have a play with the last one I suggested, I think it might just hit the sweet spot for speed and sound

Folly

@lister-of-smeg said in BBC Micro / Acorn Electron Emu:

@folly
hi,
just tried the last allegro 4 version and the audio is not right (startup beeps stutter / speech synthesis is off)
good call on taking from the master branch - have a play with the last one I suggested, I think it might just hit the sweet spot for speed and sound

I think so too, had the same experience as you.

Lister of Smeg

@folly
slightly off topic but I just found out that the Archimedes emulator 'Arculator' has been given a linux port (haven't tried it yet - I think i'll need buster) the windows version is nice tho
https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18223
I'm liking the idea of bringing all the acorns back to pi :p

Folly

@lister-of-smeg

Nice !

Folly

@lister-of-smeg

I have a working module-script, basically.
I have to tweak this to get it better and pre-setting stuff in b-em.cfg.

Video modes in combination with not setting borders is still somewhat an issue.

And do we want to use more machines and make separate module-scripts for them?
Then I should give each machine it's own emulator directory an it's b-em.cfg.
( I have to think about that )

Basically, it works pretty good on the RPI3 !

Lister of Smeg

@folly
'And do we want to use more machines and make separate module-scripts for them?'
good question
99% of games will run with the 'BBC B w/8271 FDC' model
with only 1% of games needing the 'Master 128', personally i'm ok with just changing the model in the f11 gui as and when required (on my pi whichever model was used last is the one that opens next time) then <shift-break(f12)> to boot the discs
however,
I grew up with acorn machines and know the commands to change to tape/disc/rom as needed
Personally I would just start with a single config and see what the feedback is from users not familiar with the hardware?

Folly

@lister-of-smeg

Come to think of it.

I can do the machine setting into the command-line.
So we can choose 'BBC B w/8271 FDC' or 'Master 128'.
Then we can add more in the future if needed.
With this "solution" , they will use the same b-em.cfg !

I will experiment with it a bit.

Lister of Smeg

@folly
sounds good
looking forward to testing :)

Folly

@lister-of-smeg

I have added the initial module-script on github.
The emulator seems to be quite similar to the elkulator one.
Seems I am going through somewhat the same process.

The emulator runs with xinit in the matchbox as a "window".
For now I added the matchbox hotkeys "ctrl+c" to be able to exit the emulator.

You should use the same resolution settings as you did with elkulator.
I tested this also on my TV, and I have the same screen cut-off problem.

You have to know that this version is the base and perhaps far from perfect.
If we have some time to work on it then I think we can improve this.

Here you can find it :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/tree/main/00-scriptmodules-00/emulators

Download itwith this command to the RetroPie-Setup :

wget -nv -O /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/emulators/b-em-allegro4.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/main/00-scriptmodules-00/emulators/b-em-allegro4.sh

Btw, I removed the flags from elkulator module-script as it turned out I turned it off for RPI3.
Don't know if you have the latest version.
But with this version I added fullscreen and exit with esc in the C code.

Lister of Smeg

@folly
i'm struggling a bit with the usage - no rp flags for retropie-setup & when I directly run the script I get this
pi@retropie:~/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/emulators $ ./b-em-allegro4.sh
./b-em-allegro4.sh: line 7: syntax error near unexpected token newline' ./b-em-allegro4.sh: line 7: <!DOCTYPE html>'

am I doing something wrong?
nevermind - me being dumb running now

Folly

@lister-of-smeg

Indeed you can't execute it "standalone".
Paste the script inside /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/emulators.
Run RetroPie-Setup, that should work.

Lister of Smeg

@folly
NICE!
I had to add bbcallegro4 = "XINIT:/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em %ROM%
to emulators.cfg and change to cea=17 from runcommand
I like that the gui is fully visible now :D
tested on buster btw

Folly

@lister-of-smeg said in BBC Micro / Acorn Electron Emu:

@folly
NICE!
I had to add bbcallegro4 = "XINIT:/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em %ROM%
to emulators.cfg and change to cea=17 from runcommand
I like that the gui is fully visible now :D

I did try that line too (bbcallegro4 = "XINIT:/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em %ROM%)

But then I have no keyboard control if I don't use the "Desktop".
Does this work on your side ?

How do you run RetroPie ?

Lister of Smeg

@folly
I just used the gamepad to launch & play arcadians from the retropie front end
i've just installed again on my stretch image - i'll try again just using keyboard

on stretch i'm getting kicked back to the game selection screen when selecting bbcb or master as the default emulator
it seems the b-em binary was missing from /opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4 (?weird?) when I manually added it everything works as expected
it's nice to be able to exit with ctrl+c
I think the best thing I should do here is install a fresh buster image and start testing from there?

Folly

@lister-of-smeg

Can you see in your last log in /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/logs ?
Perhaps there is a clue on why the binary isn't there.

Lister of Smeg

@folly
I couldn't see any obvious errors but my stretch image is old and i've abused it with tinkering

I'm currently updating my buster image via retropie setup
give me an hour for the updates to complete (which i should have done in the first place) and i'll test again

apart from the binary not being copied across (which is probably more to do with my setup rather than your script) everything seems good
the only 'quirk', as compared to installing other emulators, is setting cea=17 to get fullscreen

Lister of Smeg

@folly

sorry this is taking longer than expected - updating buster killed my audio and I haven't found the correct solution yet
however, the installation script runs smoothly and seems to work as expected
exits cleanly with ctrl+c
keyboard input works
not sure about audio yet but I don't think there will be a problem

nice work :D

Folly

@lister-of-smeg

Sounds good :-)

Take your time, no problem !